Your Moral And Intellectual Superiors

Media 40 Comments

I can’t be the only one who’s somewhat mystified by the media’s framing of the death of Kobe Bryant as the loss of a cultural icon. A newsworthy tragedy — of course. A major sports story, absolutely. But day after day of “People are sad, Film at 11” masquerading as news is a little out of hand. Or maybe the networks are just pandering to a temporary ratings bump from sports fans.

40 Replies to “Your Moral And Intellectual Superiors”

  1. Is this why the girls don’t want us talking sports and cars and junk at work?

    I understand he really had turned his life around in the past few years… good for him.

  4. You are underestimating Bryant’s cultural reach. He is not only a NBA legend and basketball icon but he was a major celebrity and personality throughout the sports world and beyond. In a city devoted to fame and fame seekers he was the biggest man on campus.
    It’s also notable that though he accomplished great things he wasn’t a particularly good man for a long time and he spent the back-half of his career and his retirement trying to redeem himself.

      1. From what I understand, that may well be true. At least he was proud to be an American and be on the American Olympic team. And I understand what turned his life around was he became a devout Catholic.
        I would not necessarily claim that the above have anything to do with the crash. No sir.

          1. Among people who deal with youth, a certain fraction succumb to pedophilia (or perhaps that was why some choose to go into those professions), humans being all fallible.
            But there is statistical proof that such fractions are smaller among Catholic clergy than teachers, scout leaders, coaches, and youth counselors. You may as well call all anyone who supports schools, scouting, youth teams, or youth centers “pedophile supporters.”
            Most of the incidents among Catholic clergy happened because of relaxed standards for admission to seminaries, and false impression by some applicants, as to what the Church is all about, as a consequence of Vatican II. Many seminarians believed more in socialist theology than God, or sin. The sizable contingent of homosexuals among them, after they became priests, had the inclination and the opportunity, but not the moral constraint.
            They were not true Catholics, and Pope Benedict had some success in returning the seminaries to their true purpose, and weeding out miscreants among the clergy. Alas, I am afraid our current antipope is heading in the opposite direction.

  5. One of the oddest, and most revolting cultural phenomenon I have ever witnessed is the SHRINE to Michael Jackson perpetually erected on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Every time I’m in that neighborhood … there is a shrine erected over Jackson’s Star, and a crowd of people weeping and taking multiple selfies and photos. The deification of celebrities is the oddest thing I’ve ever observed in our culture.

    And now, the same … over the top … shrines are being built to Kobe Bryant. A basketball player. Sorry. I just don’t get it. However, I DO know that basketball is not played on a “field”.

    1. I also know that Kobe Bryant never had anything to do with the Knicks. Never.
      I can understand perhaps L.A.’s reaction, since he spent his whole career with the Lakers, but not the rest of the basketball world. ESPN has featured a Kobe article front and center every day. Anyway, he had his share of feuds with different Laker centers, and even L.A.’s opinion on his career with the Lakers is by no means unanimous.
      To drastically change the subject, I have just completed a rather quixotic task, writing a synopsis of the American revolution in one of the standard Sung dynasty poetic formats. How well do your Chinese neighbors know Chinese? Perhaps it would serve as an insight into Americana.

      1. My closest Chinese neighbor is named Ying Compestine who penned what has become a middle school textbook … “Revolution is not a Dinner Party” … wherein she describes how Mao’s cultural revolution stripped her own two parents of their medical degrees and medical practices and gave them “humble” menial jobs working for The People’s Republic. I suspect she might appreciate your work.

        And yeah … Shak and Kobe never quite got-along too well. A 5-man rotation only has room for a single GIANT ego.

        1. Well, here it is. You can copy and paste into a Word file for her.

          美國立國史 （滿江紅詞）

          民主意識初喚醒。如火之熱。
          致英皇。獨立宣言。二國分裂。
          康閣一槍天下知。雷維單騎敵情洩。
          到約鎮英軍被圍困。暴政跌。
          憑忠魂。灑熱血。由散州。聯邦結。
          立憲章。證實美國特別。
          三院聯繫獨裁防。十項修訂民權列。
          為民立國以法治國。永不滅。

          註：康閣 Concord
          雷維 Paul Revere約鎮 Yorktown
          都是美國人所共知之典故

          1. ° ☆  * Thank you!
            * °☆*  Happy New Year!
            ☆°

            OB My neighbour was born in Hong Kong.
            I’ll send this to her.

          2. Nancy,
            You are welcome. Let me know what she thinks. Of course it won’t quite have the same meaning, you are both Canadians, not Americans. Heck, we fought you in 1812, and your titular supreme ruler is still Her Royal Majesty.
            Cheers.

          3. Yes, I think she might like that it, as you say, is in
            “the standard Sung dynasty poetic format.”

            She is very Canadian but enjoys both cultures. Her hubby might like this too.

            Will get back to you.
            Later,
            Nancy

    2. There is a heart shaped vacuum God created in our souls just to love Him, and Him only, but we are trying to fill with useless things, like celebrities and such is what’s happening…

  6. He was the last person to take up the torch from Michael Jordan. He failed to live up to the image that spawned the slogan “I wanna be like Mike,” but he came closer than any other person did the last 20 years.

    Let’s just say his death brings up what we have sensed, that sports are at the end of an era. Gone are the days where superstars like Michael Jordan would play hard on both sides of court, offense and defense, because he cared more about winning as a team then personal glory and his own stats. Jordan achieved greatness individually and as a team player, all while maintaining a clean image any parent was eager to hold up as a role model to their children.

    This mentality that we all work together as a unit for the glory of the team is what made basketball great. Everyone watched it, more than any other sport, it united Americans. Sports in this era were a means to achieve personal excellence and help young people develop moral character.

    Kolbe’s death is sad. It’s a sad reminder that this type of athlete is gone, that era where sports represented our best is gone.

    The current era is made up of petulant babies who care more about money than anything else. Total sell outs who only care about themselves and are generally bad people. See Lebron James, that is what we are left with. Ratings have declined, it isn’t fun to watch spoiled rich brats who are angry and petulant fight on the court, all while being to lazy to play hard for four quarters. Basketball, a game invented by Americans and enjoyed for over a century, no longer unites Americans.

    Kobe’s passing is a reminder of this slow, steady, cultural and societal decline. This is why we are so sad, even if the idiots in the media are too stupid to know it.

    1. “Basketball, a game invented by Americans and enjoyed for over a century, no longer unites Americans.”

      “Dr. James Naismith was a Canadian physical education instructor who invented the game of basketball in 1891 while working at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.”

      “The current era is made up of petulant babies who care more about money than anything else. Total sell outs who only care about themselves and are generally bad people.”

      https://www.nhl.com/news/laila-anderson-gets-blues-stanley-cup-championship-ring/c-309639578

      1. He immigrated to America, hence the sport being invented in Massachusetts, USA.

        My comment about petulant brats was directed towards our current batch of NBA players. We are talking about the death of one of the last respectable NBA players after all. The NHL has nothing to do with it.

        Basketball was the most watched sport for decades in the US. It really did unite us, especially at a time when baseball was on the decline. Hockey will never have that kind of influence on American culture.

        (I say this as a hockey fan, I grew up near the Canadian border and hockey is the most popular sport in my small rural home state)

        1. “Hockey will never have that kind of influence on American culture.”

          …well, most US cities don’t have outdoor rinks, let along frozen ponds to skate on is a good reason.

          But agreed, I don’t watch pro sports, any kind, even hockey, due to the Alice Cooper disease…million dollar babies.

        2. Deb & Canucked. Rev. Dr. Naismith was born in Almonte, Ont., of Scottish heritage; he was an ordained minister and a medical doctor when he accepted a job teaching physical education at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Mass. It was there that he was asked to come up with an indoor activity to keep the athletes active during the winter months. At the time he was performing his duties there, he was a Canadian. In his words in 1925, when he became a citizen of the U.S. at age 63, his allegiance was to Great Britain. Hence, the game of basketball was invented by a Canadian with deep Scottish roots. Where did he invent it? In Springfield, Mass. Where did he get the idea? From a childhood game he played in Lanark County, Ontario.

          1. Who embraced the game across all fifty states? Americans. It’s an American game, even if you want to claim it because the person who invented it in America and later became an American maintained pride in his Scottish roots. As an Irish American, I understand living in America while still having pride in your ancestry. Most Americans are the same way, and a lot of us are immigrants. To us his situation is pretty typically American.

      1. He was an immigrant to the US from Canada. He spent the rest of his life in the US.
        The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located
        in Springfield, Massachusetts, where Naismith first nailed a peach basket on a wall.

  7. Notice how those same twits accuse normals of racism at every turn. When in fact, in their world, blacks all look alike.

  9. The reason media are hyping Kobe so much, is two fold,
    1) impeachment TV rating aren’t the boom they were expecting, particularly the first half, when Democrats were making their case.
    2) being able to focus on Kobe, and push PDJ Trump’s defense from the impeachment charges to the back burner, or off the air or leading the News broadcasts all together.
    Just look at what the little back water radio station CJME/CKOM have been doing, Last week when the Dems were presenting their impeachment case it lead the news every half hour, they played sound bites critical of Trump, and commentary speaking about how right the Democrats are. This week, now that Trump is being defended, there are no sound bites of his defense, they aren’t playing any commentary about the defense Ken Starr or Allen Dershowitz (the legendary liberal Harvard professor who is defending Trump) are putting forth, in balance to what the Dems said.
    –
    The media lie again to us,,, by omission.

  11. “my god. I don’t even follow sports and i’m not this bad”
    Some of the things you see and hear in the media today are beyond pathetic.
    For example a guy was babbling away yesterday on the radio and it was apparent he didn’t know the difference between the words residence and residency. Today so many of the people working in words every day and giving the public the ‘words’ are more or less illiterate or perhaps more charitably, have dangerously limited ability when it comes down to the use of the English language.

  13. All Kobe All The Time.
    I guess the media party could not organize another school shooting,so this great “tragedy” allows them to ignore the Book exposing the blatant corruption of the Democrats and how better to accidentally not cover the destruction of Impeachment being laid on in the Senate.
    Lying by omission is an art; “Look Squirrel”.

  14. Color is spelled colour in Britain. I would assume Bryant must be spelled “James” across the pond.

  15. I do not follow sports.
    I do not read, listen to or watch MSM.
    I do not know who Kobe is.
    This person has no impact on my family’s life in any way.
    It is however unfortunate as is any accidental death.

  16. When I heard the first reports of the incident, It was written to read that only Kobe and his daughter aboard. So, the b-ball player was a pilot? No mention of other casualties. Some time later it was announced that there were other casualties. Oh, I guess their deaths were not worth mentioning while the media was fawning and crying over a superstar(their word, not mine) who died an untimely death. Sad for the deaths over a girl’s basketball game, but totally expected in our f*cked up world.

  18. Yes, after a couple days, its bordering on the CMON NOW attitude, towards the 99.99999% of the population of shallow thinkers.

    Kobe Bryant was the present day Michael Jordan. Yes, this is a significant event. He wasn’t my hero, far from it.

    But to compare, if it was Wayne Gretzky, two years after he retired……yeah, I can kind of relate.

    The last significant players to die that I can remember, in their prime and the BEST at their positions, were Thurman Munson and Roberto Clemente, in 74 and 70. Its difficult to relate, and social media means its 24/7 in your face news.

  19. My daughter mentioned Kobe Bryant’s crash to me. I asked, “Is he a baseball player.” I wasn’t kidding. Back in the day I used to love watching junior high school girls in pointy bras playing basketball but grown men, not so much.

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