Jenkins tweet folo... GD issues an apology

I'd like to see Billy Clyde run over a bunch of Canucks.

 

He'd get stuffed. ;D

 

Imagine the things we cannot have anymore due to political correctness. Forget about Monty Python. John Cleese would be apologizing for his ministry of silly walks skit because it made fun of the handicapped.

 

In my TV sports days, when I was 24, I saw Kyle Lohse crap the bed in the playoffs for the Twins. I went out and said, that night on TV, "you can't spell Lohse without L-O-S-E". Thought it was a great line.

Within five minutes, I felt like a d-b and I always made sure to carry that pain with me when trying to come up with a clever line.

 

Jenkins, Bud Shrake an those types came of age while a "white-only" umbrella was still largely propped up over the organized sports they covered.
And I'm in no way calling them racists, so don't go there.
It's just that we are all products of the "world" we grew up in.
Just as Red Smith, Grantland Rice and others from other eras grew up in their own cocoons, each with their specific trappings.

 

Those episodes still air.

What has "political correctness" done to hurt SNL? Or the Daily Show? Or the Colbert Report? Or the Onion? Or Deadspin? Or the Comedy Central Roasts? Or Bill Maher? Or Dave Chappelle? Or Chris Rock? Or Judd Apatow? Or South Park? Or Adult Swim? Or Superbad? Or Knocked Up? Or Ricky Gervais? Or Eddie Izzard? Or Russell Brand? Or the 1000 other shows and performers and movies conveniently forgotten whenever someone wants to complain about how "political correctness" has somehow limited comedy.

C'mon.

 

Things were more fun before everyone decided they needed to Tweet.

 

It was much easier for folks to make fun of others with impunity when it was just a few like-minded friends here and there. The Internet has made it a much smaller world.

Is Twitter's 15 minutes up yet?

 

Tweets are only relevant if they are read. Minding my own business is not going to be a problem.

I'm still fully unclear on what the fuck people think interests others about their most mundane daily tasks. Going to a workshop, baking cookies for hubby, changing Junior's diapers or worried about the quarterly earnings reports? Keep it to yourself.

 

Not using Twitter is a perfectly valid decision, but I'll tell you what I follow on twitter:

1. Comedians, who find funny stuff to say all the time
2. Friends, the ones I follow usually post links to stories that are of interest, kind of like SportsJournalists.com
3. Newspaper, news sites, media outlets, which post breaking news
4. The Onion
5. Organizations, things like NASA, charities, church groups, etc., that I have interest in
6. School SIDs, for updates on what's going on with my alma mater
And
7. Sports reporters/columnists, who take the opportunity to talk real-time about what's going on in games or events they are covering as well as breaking news there and linking to their coverage.

That's the stuff that I as a non-reporter use it for. If you don't have any interest in doing it, that's fine, but to dismiss Twitter out of hand is missing the big picture at this point. It may waste away down the line as something else becomes hot, but it's pretty important now. A story I saw today described the shape of a graph of Twitter's unique visitors as a "hockey stick" in terms of its rapid increase.

If you're a reporter covering anything above a college team, you're pissing away your future.

 

I'm glad your friends are so consistently fascinating. The Tweets I've seen have been more along the lines of, "Out of bread, headed to Kroger" and "Picking up Maddy at dance class." Comedians? No desire to read their first drafts. I'll wait until they test the material on someone else. Breaking news? For every bit of relevant breaking news that's delivered on Twitter, there are 99 dead ends. Honestly, I can wait until it expands beyond 240 characters. I'd rather have a reporter working than the story than trying to get away to provide one-sentence gulps of something that may turn out to be not earth-shattering.

I'm sure Twitter is a valuable resource. So are cell phones. And both are being overused simply because they're available.