KnowItAll wrote:sj, I am somewhat wowed that you went to the trouble to dig this up just to try to make some point re another thread.
Dug up? It was from less than two months ago, and in terms of recency of last post, which is how these threads are sorted on the main page coming into each room, it was like the fifth one on the list before I added my post this morning — this wasn't something I had to click through twenty pages and five years' worth of posts to find. Yeah, I dug this up all right — the same way you "dug up" the spoon in plain view from your kitchen drawer this morning to stir your coffee. And in terms of making points, you're the one who started this whole JT discussion, three days after the fact, because hey, I guess you had a point to make, too. A pretty invalid one as it turns out, but a point nonetheless, I suppose.
first, I don't hate JT. Had no opinion or feeling about him whatsoever before this incident.
Fine, but it only makes your stance doubly perplexing. Because if you really
did have an axe to grind with him, then I could kind of see you putting aside your self-professed distaste for the media to lash out at him. But by your own admission this is not the case. So it does present this rather awkward inconsistency on your part. An inconsistency whereby how, for one story you focus on the media's role in its presentation, yet you completely ignore it in the presentation of another story. An inconsistency for which you have yet to offer any convincing resolution.
second, my judgement of JT re this incident in no way expresses any different opinion about the media in general.
You COMPLETELY missed my point. Two months ago you *beeotch* about how you felt the media misrepresented Schneider's first game as a Devil against the Canucks. Now this week you go on some rant based on something the media presented to you, but you inexplicably make no such similar attempt this time to consider how the media framed it. To the contrary, when this point was brought to your attention within mere hours, you deliberately
refused to consider it.
Unless the media actually faked the video, they are a non factor in my judgement of what I saw and heard.
Who said anything about fakery? Did you watch the 14-second video I attached to my last post? Does it not illuminate for you how easily the media can run a three-second sound bite without any context and have its message completely misrepresented? Did you not draw the same conclusion from the half-dozen image macros I posted in your thread — that half the message is not the full message? And this has been my main point from word one throughout this entire discussion.
Here's another example. Let's say I recorded a friend of yours saying, "This CFL totally sucks! Can't we just use a regular light bulb?" From the context provided by the second sentence — you did read the second sentence, right? — it's clear he's talking about compact fluorescent lamps, not the Canadian Football League. But what if I were to chop off that second sentence and play back to you only the first bit? If your current stance against JT is anything to go by, you'd probably throw a childish tantrum and declare your now former friend on your *poop* list for life. Then when I offer to let you find out the rest of what he said, you'd stamp your feet, close your eyes, cover your ears and start singing "LA LA LA LA LA LA". Then after calming down from ten minutes of this, you'd be all, no way, I heard what he said, "CFL sucks", no way he can climb down from such a direct insult, blah, blah, blah. Presto — just like that, a friendship ended over a silly misunderstanding worthy of a Three's Company script.
the way you are dogging me about this seems to indicate that JT is some sort of personal hero of yours.
I'm not dogging you specifically. I'm dogging your bullsh**. This is what we do around here. When we disagree with someone, we say so and (here's the crucial part) we back it up with reasons why. If you've got a problem with this, then I respectfully and humbly suggest you stop posting bullsh**.
As for JT he means nothing to me one way or the other. This is solely about the facts. Facts that you have repeatedly, deliberately, willfully ignored. Likely because you have painted yourself into a corner with your knee-jerk overreaction. One that I have so singularly exposed as having no merit, that you are left with no face-saving option. So you choose to ignore the evidence against your stance in the hope that if you just keep repeating your outrage it'll eventually stick. Well, I have news for you: your outrage is coated in teflon and it ain't stickin' to anything.
The fact is, you have presented little to no factual ammunition in this debate. If there were a pie chart made up to show the share of facts presented by each of us, it wouldn't even look like a pie chart. It would just look like my pie.
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
