Sigh.
I was also a little annoyed with the constant "run with the big dogs" mantra and then noting that Boisie State didn't have to run trick plays to win. Well, they did at the end. Trick play after trick play. But they won. Fair and square.
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In other news, I decided to turn on comment moderation. It is really aimed at the troll, so please, please keep them coming. Perhaps he will go away. I am tired of it, and I know from my emails and conversations that others are tired of it too. Time to move on. I don't really want to censor things and won't based on content. But enough.
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While this is not moving on exactly, one more on the Saddam debacle. Baghdad Burning calls it a lynching, as I noted in the comments. I don't know about that, especially given the historical nature of lynching in this country. But it sure looks like a calculated and choreographed event, calculated to incite sectarian problems, rather than to defuse them. She also notes that Maliki chose to have the election during a religious holiday.
Josh Marshall has been pretty good on this one. I will end this post with his thoughts on the entire event.
Plenty of people deserve to die. And Saddam Hussein ranked very high on that list. And there was more than a little poetic justice in the way Saddam met his end.
But if justice were simply a matter of bad men meeting bad ends, then Iraq today would be awash in justice.
Vengeance isn't justice. Vengeance is part of justice. But only a part. I understand the need for vengeance. I appreciate and I've felt it -- for wrongs to myself, to my loved ones, probably most of all to groups I identify myself with. But I've always thought there was something cowardly and insecure about people who get too vicariously involved in other people's righteous desire for vengeance. And that is how I would class a lot of the folks I see today getting all jonesed up about Saddam's hanging when they probably didn't even know the first thing about the guy's record until a few years ago. Perhaps it is excessive to note that a lot of the same folks now endorse flattening the same people Saddam was butchering fifteen or twenty-five years ago.
5 comments:
The Fiesta Bowl was an amazing game, truly one for the ages. Boise State played their hearts out, but I am not sure the whole David vs. Goliath thing was ever really fair to either team. They were an undefeated team and ranked in the top ten in most polls. Fox themselves had them listed as the no. 9 team in the nation, so it's not as if it was the Sooners lined up against Norman High. If anything, I think the lack of general respect for the WAC might have had Boise State ranked too low. Either way, it was a hell of a game. Those trick plays were downright cool if such a thing can be said by an OU fan.
In other news, I am sad to see moderation turned on. There has been a disappointing lack of respect in the content and tone of many comments lately, which is regrettable. I trust the moderator will be fair and hope that this decision will not discourage those who might have a dissenting opinion from commenting. Here I am referring to self-censorship rather than the refusal to post comments.
Might I suggest that Streaksblog develop a set of expectations for comments? For example, Streaksblog might expect those with an opinion to express it clearly. Comments that carry a tone of 'I believe thus and such and here's why' are more conducive to promoting a genuine exchange of ideas than the 'you're wrong' or 'you're wrong because.'
Similarly, ideas expressed as absolutes are conversation stoppers. I appreciate sincere, passionate opinions and beliefs, but I hope that those who hold them might help me to understand what and why rather than simply restating them repeatedly.
I appreciate those who disagree with me yet have enough respect for me as a fellow human being to take the time to help me to understand where they are coming from. I promise to do the same. If we still disagree, at least we will understand why and will better understand points of agreement as well as points where we differ.
This is a long post but represents things I have been thinking about for some time. Maybe I'm running the risk fo Streak telling me to get my own blog . . .
Streak,
I am glad you have taken this step. Many times I have wanted to engage in discussion, and I probably comment more than I should, but the inanity of late has been counterproductive, not to mention just downright aggravating.
I am genuinely grateful to you and your readership for the dialogue, even when we disagree. I hope I have achieved some kind of "respectable commenter" status.
Again, thanks. Streak's Blog is a fun blog.
Tony
Hah, Tony, I stole your line for my blog header. :)
I finally realized that I really struggled to just ignore the troll. Part of that is my history with people on the web. In most cases, I have been able to strike some accomodation with people I disagreed with. We could find some common ground. So, it was hard for me to simply disengage from the troll, and I finally figured out I had to cut him off. Had he emailed me, I wouldn't mind talking about things, but he only operates in, well, you all know.
I hope I don't have to have moderation on very long. We shall see.
Just got an attempted comment from the troll. in typical bullshit fashion, he said he would abide by my wishes, but then went on his usual rant about thinking that we were open minded and didn't mind having people disagree with us.
What a tool.
there's a tradition on another blog I read that trollish comments are met with recipes. It seemed to work well, as it denied the troll the attention he/she wanted, and the regular folks got some really great recipes out of it.... how about those chicken enchiladas?
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