Sunday, May 19, 2013
Weiner: The Supreme Court Judge and the Curt Flood Case reenactment
(www.examiner.com)
Shades of Hairspray!...“It was a time of tradition, a time of values, and a time…to shake things up.”
Read More...For a journalist, chance encounters at a restaurant or a hair salon can become a major opportunity for advancing a story and in some instances the journalist is in the right place at the right time because he was with his wife. I had a very chance encounter with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Saturday afternoon in lower Manhattan because my wife happened to have an appointment at a ...
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I'm no fan of Curt Schilling's politics for the most part, but I find this unfair. When was Schilling ever previously asked about gay rights and equality, to the point where he felt compelled to offer a public opinion? (Maybe it has come up before; who knows.) He wasn't a closet sharia-law advocate trying to get on the local school board; he was a ballplayer. His take on gay rights (or any other issue, really) isn't any more meaningful or valuable than yours or mine
Why wouldn't he have gotten asked? It's been a major issue in baseball for over a decade and he was one of the stars of the game. If his opinion hasn't been reported publicly before now it is in all probability because he did not give his opinion publicly.
Quick trip to Craigslist can fix that.
Can you demonstrate that he was, in fact, asked? Because if not, this whole thing seems silly.
So if women have access to men's locker rooms during shower time, why don't men have access to womens'?
He didn't need to be asked anything to get a public audience for virtually anything he wanted to talk about.
Has it been a "major issue" in baseball? Every now and then there's a two-day story on the issue, I suppose, and we hear about Billy Bean or Glenn Burke (RIP) sometimes, but it's hardly been a dominating issue at the level of, say, steroids or the Hall of Fame or Derek Jeter's contracts.
It's been a major issue in society at large, of course, with the big story being how dramatically the national sentiment has moved in favor of gay equality -- and perhaps Schilling is one of those people who's seen the light in recent years. I wouldn't chide him for not speaking out before -- unless he was asked about it and hid under the bed.
AFAIK, because no one has access to women's lockerrooms. If female reporters were allowed into women's lockerrooms, so too would their male counterparts. But female sports teams and leagues determined that the lockerrooms would be off limits to reporters, and thus everyone is kept out.
MLB, the NFL, NBA and NHL could make the same determination, but for various reasons have determined it's not a fight they want to engage in. Thus, everyone's allowed in.
There's nothing unfair about either of these.
Really, is that your final answer? And you've written that with a straight face?
The same group of naked women? Every day?
I think its crazy that reporters have access to men's lockerrooms. Why is that? Don't most teams have a media room?
I can't wait to take my wife out on Valentine's Day to a nice intimate night at the YMCA locker room.
WTF does that mean? There's absolutely nothing wrong here. Sports teams and leagues set the rules governing access. As long as the rules governing access are equal to both male and female reporters covering that sport, then there's nothing to complain about. The rules aren't based on who gets to be seen naked, but that the working conditions are the same for everyone covering that particular event.
I don't think pro golf or tennis writers get inside the men's lockerrooms at those tournaments. And I know all major college basketball teams don't allow reporters inside the lockerrooms. Are they somehow in violation of something?
How about you and the guys going to a YWCA locker room?
At my health and exercise club, there are separate dress out and locker facilities for men and women. The shower/whirlpool/steam/sauna are separate for men and women. Why is that? Is that justifiable is this new unisex/genderless world?
Yes it is silly to assume that this was the first time Curt Schilling was ever asked this question.
It isn't about just reporters and athletes, though.
Um, yeah,. I dated and lived with the same woman for over 6 years and never passed on an opportunity to see her naked.
I think its crazy that reporters have access to men's lockerrooms. Why is that? Don't most teams have a media room?
Because non-playing writers got something out of being in the same room as their Greek and Roman god-heroes.
"I am a Republican, and thus totally evil and stuff. However, hating me makes Primates feel good about themselves, so there's that."
OK, so you actually have no idea.
It's not remotely silly to assume this. And since you want to condemn him for not responding sooner, the burden's on you to demonstrate that he was, in fact, asked.
This would apply if Len Dykstra or Darren Daulton had come out while playing, but they didn't, so it doesn't. I think it's amusing that the same crowd that felt free to demonize Torii Hunter for being out of touch with "societal norms" is castigating Curt Schilling for going with those same norms. If anyone reading this was alive in 1996, where the f**k were you in supporting the gay people in your life? I hope you all were walking around with PDA to support them even though it might have meant that some people might think that you were *gasp* gay. I was also amused at how quickly Barack Obama was accepted by liberals after his poll and fundraising-driven metamorphosis....er evolution. I guess for liberals the rule is "if you're a liberal you can be as bigoted as you want, but if you're a Republican you're scum even when you say something we supposedly agree with although we only started agreeing with it when it suited us". Do I have that right?
If we take the question on its face, isn't the answer a combination of:
1. All male players.
2. Locker rooms.
3. The silly machoism that exists in the way athletes are taught, how they should interact with their teammates, how they are portrayed to the public, how the media/fans/public see them.
4. The silly way sports are presented and covered and taught and coached, as tests of manliness and will and character and toughness, with notions of protecting one's teammates, and the idea that these are not athletic competitions but are actually battles in a war. (Thus, the terms "warrior" and the like, complete with winners and losers and chokers and clutch players.)
These are portrayed as contests of manliness. So there is no room in that construct for gay players. The media covers these as battles between Men, the coaches and managers preach that to their players, the players buy in... and then everyone acts dumbfounded at the idea that gay players might not feel welcome.
Bottom line: Until the culture is changed, the problem of gay players not feeling welcome will persist.
If Schilling had come out in 1996 in favor of gay rights, McCoy's response would instead be "look at him, stealing the spotlight, trying to inflate his reputation by being all activist. What a turd."
Yeah, guy's obviously a bigot.
"Locker rooms" in current ballparks are basically media rooms. They contain an open area and "lockers" for each player (more just demarcated areas where one can hang clothes than true lockers). Reporters can stand around and/or find the players they want to talk to. But there are all kinds of areas behind the scenes that are not open to the media. It is possible for a player who doesn't want to talk (and isn't expected to that night) to get dressed totally away from the media and leave the stadium without ever going to the "locker room."
Well, he's not wrong.
If you feel that way, then you might want to stop posting 5-10 times in every Schilling thread defending whatever he said this week. I agree with you that in this particular case that Schilling should not be taking any crap, however. I am completely with Schilling on this issue, and I actually find some aspects of Schilling's persona admirable.
And what I meant was that even with a dedicated OTP thread drawing thousands of posts a month, Repoz is still finding stuff like this. I sometimes muse about the ultimate Repoz thread:
"Obama, A-Rod, Malkmus all use taser on Schilling at Gay Gun Owners teachers' union meeting held in Catholic Church while watching Star Wars movies after testing positive for hGH"
and as for schilling
i think he did the right thing BACK THEN not saying anything about having a gay teammate - seeing especially as how the media would go crazy trying to find out WHO and that guy might could still be playing and not want to be outed.
i think it is GREAT that he's saying - i played with gay guys and it wasn't a problem then and not a problem now. what is the big deal?
i'm just sorry he didn't say - some people just need to grow the eff up. and it is great to hear that BITGOD guys on a team knew who the gay guys were/are and it wasn't a problem .i can think of a few guys i bet were gay that curt played with. played BASEBALL with.
as for male reporters in a females' locker room - let's put it this way. if we were twice the size and twice as strong as males, it wouldn't be a problem. most of us are frightened if we're naked and strange males are staring at us. as for looking at a bunch of naked males, well, if it was after the game all i can say is DISGUSTING!!!!! and stinky!!!!! before the game? well, there really IS such a thing as too much penis...
Part of the problem is the stereotype that gay men aren't "manly."
If I only had a nickel for every time I've heard that.
Oh, God, if I only had a nickel. Just one nickel.
Drat, I'm just going to have to live with that burden.
Burden's on me? What a delightful place this is.
In 1996 I was stuck in a small hatchback out in the boonies of Massachusetts with an overweight gay man who had severe flatulence while it was pouring freezing rain to the point where we had to suffer all these problems overnight while a flash flood hit us. Oh and since he was my next door neighbor in the dorm I got to listen to him break his bed one night as he was ####### his partner and help him and his partner extract themselves from that tangled mess. So I think I can safely say I did a lot in support of gay people back in 1996.
I think you need to find a sense of humor.
Yeah, guy's obviously a bigot.
Who is accusing him of that? What team was Curt on in 2011?
My wife said the same thing after going to the Folsom Street Fair (feel free to Google... NSFW).
Also, I think its great Curt feels strongly enough about this issue to talk about it multiple times. I can also see why he dint talk about it as a player for multiple reasons... its hard to be an activist for a very controvesial subject as a player... very few have tried sucessfully.
Found it.
How much money would Jordan need to have, to speak out, I wonder?
People are, by and large, moral cowards. I'm not excusing Schilling (and I'm not going to look into the issue enough to know whether he needs excusing), but he would be no different in this than the great mass of people.
You were somehow going to say, 'Heh, you so ugly on BTF we trick people into looking at your face, then whoop it up'?
A good part of the discrepancy is definitional, or as I like to call it, the "How much dick did you suck" question. Exclusive homosexuality is a different bar to hurdle than the various landmarks on the bisexuality curve.
Something like that. I can honestly say though, that Albright looks exactly like she does in her photos unlike many female celebs.
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