Rabble!  Rabble!

...I think bloggers are more willing to "get along" than journalists/columnists.  If you're good at your job, bloggers won't attack you.  Granted, everybody's got a different definition of "good at your job", but let's just say that almost every single blogger in the world will admit that there are good journalists and bad journalists.  A vast majority of journalists who have offered an opinion have said that all blogs suck.  There are the Kornheisers of the world who acknowledge the obvious--there are great blogs and terrible blogs--but...well...let's just say that Buzz Bissinger probably got a lot of congratulatory phone calls from his peers after the show.

Rabble!

Actually, Posnanski nails this one.  And being that he is both a journalist AND something of a blogger, I'd say his opinion should carry a bit more weight.

It looked to me like Buzz had decided to prepare for his appearance by not eating red meat for several days. You know a conversation might not go Lincoln-Douglas when one of the debaters breaks out the "I really think you’re full of sh.." line like 22 seconds into it. That was Buzz. He then went into a rather curious rant about the great old writer W.C. Heinz, who died recently. I wasn’t sure exactly where that was supposed to go ... but I’ll get back to that in a minute.

Then, it looked to me like Buzz and Costas — who, I have mentioned here before, is one of my heroes — teamed up on Will, who apparently without his knowledge had been named the official representative of "all crazy lunatics who post nasty comments on the Internet." It reminded me of the time the comedian Bobby Slayton was on a talk show about prejudice — because I guess he makes fun of ethnic groups in his act. He was on there with various professional haters, I mean, the A Team of talk show hate, a Neo Nazi, Mister Klan Guy, a Black Panther (are there still Black Panthers?), Darth Vader, Anton Chigurth, Kramer, whatever. And about halfway through the show, Slayton suddenly realized that he had been penciled into the haters lineup, you know, hitting third behind the guy from the Klan. And he was like, "Whoa! Whoa! I’m on the WRONG TEAM."

Will was being given the fun task as defender of the nastiest and most absurd comments written by anonymous strangers on the Internet. Buzz did read part of an article about mainstream media vs. blogs that was written on Deadspin — I originally thought the section was from a comment, but I was confusing this with Costas reading a Deadspin comment later. The section read out loud was about Rich Garces’ man-boobs. I’ve since gone back and read it — it was written to make a point about how Bill James did not need to go into the locker room (and see Garces’ chest) to write baseball. It was rude and pretty funny, actually, and there was a point to it, though I’m never really in favor of ripping man boobs for all the obvious reasons. Anyway Buzz hated it so much he read it out loud on national TV so it could reach a larger audience.

I really thought Will went in there to have a real discussion about real things. He really did seem eager to do this. Instead the conversation mostly involved Will covering up while Buzz screamed and swore and screamed and swore and and screamed at him for lowering the level of discourse in America.

"I think blogs are dedicated to cruelty," Buzz said just before he started screaming and swearing at Will, and this is so weird because I was actually thinking for a long time about calling this blog "Dedicated To Cruelty" or DTC (you know, for the kids). Come on. Is journalism dedicated to lies because a couple of pretty famous writers made up stories? Are books dedicated to murderous anti-semitism because Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf?" Is music dedicated to demeaning women because Flo-Rida sang "Low?" How are you going to judge blogs and the Internet because some anonymous jerk on a message board or in a comment section decides to tell poo-poo jokes about Tony LaRussa?

Anyway, it was emotional, and I get that. Sure, there are a lot of objectionable things happening in sports journalism today. There are a lot of strange things happening. This causes a lot of anger and fear and disgust, and absolutely I get that. Still, because of the emotion I think the whole point was missed, and the point is this: What are we even ARGUING about? Blogs aren’t going anywhere. Comments aren’t going anywhere. The Internet isn’t going anywhere. Stupid people aren’t going anywhere. Angry people aren’t going anywhere. And, for that matter, funny people, talented people, brilliant people, they’re not GOING AWAY just because some people don’t like technology and have gone all Barry Corbin on us.**

**Remember in War Games, at the end, when it looked like the danger was over, and then Joshua the computer decided to find the launch codes. They went to Barry Corbin, the general, to tell him and he said, "Well just unplug the damn thing!" I suggest that whenever someone starts ranting about the Internet and blogs and people writing in their mother’s basements, we say that he’s "Corbinating."

In some background rabble, guess with whom the New York Times, the print bastion of mainstream media, seems to side?

MGoBlog should be more sarcastic about our opinions more often.

http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/...

Hits received a nice little spike today.

South Carolina and Texas rabble.

http://www.bruinsnation.com/story/20...