Bowl Games For Everybody

Why are there so many bowls? Today's big match-up includes Rutgers at 9-3 and Virginia Tech at 6-6. Six and Six? Are we rewarding mediocrity? Aren't there enough teams with winning records to fill out the roster for all these bowls. There are three bowls on TV today and five more tomorrow.

I'm thinking of promoting a bowl for winless teams. That way one of those two teams will get a victory. The loser would still get a participant certificate. Better yet, if they tie, we could leave it that way. That way nobody loses (or wins). We could call it the Kissing Your Sister Bowl.

Rutgers and VT are competing in the Russell Athletic Bowl .

Autism and Sandy Hook

I landed in front to of the TV just as Access Hollywood promised to reveal the mysterious disease that gripped Adam Lanza and by implication cause him to shoot 27 people.

I thought to myself...this is outrageous. How is Access Hollywood qualified to report on Aspergers and Autism? Their lurid headline is spreading misconceptions about people with autism. Then I realized a lot people believe this stuff.

The careless reporting is an extension what others from more reputable news organizations have reported. Curtis Brainard has a thoughtful piece in the Columbia Journalism Review about the damage being done by careless reporting and, how some reporters are trying to counter the misperceptions being spread by some news organizations.

Lanza, autism, and violence

Critics try to stem media conjecture after Newtown shooting

The link between autism and becoming a mass murderer is far-fetched. As Brainard points out:

New York’s Poughkeepsie Journal, whose offices are an hour’s drive from Newtown, contacted experts at the Anderson Center for Autism in neighboring Staatsburg, who threw cold water on hype surrounding the shooting.
“That’s such a far-fetched connection,” Sudi Kash, Anderson’s director of clinical studies,told reporter Nina Schutzman. “With Asperger’s, there might be social interaction or communication difficulties, to varying degrees of severity. But this?”

If you remember Columbine, the press speculated about all sorts of things about the shooters. They were loners. They were bullied. They hated jocks. All false. I found this in Daily Beast.

"Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold—who, of course, took their own lives before anyone could interrogate them—were not outcasts, loners or Goths. They were not targeting jocks or blacks, or seeking revenge for a long-running feud with the “Trenchcoat Mafia.” They did not plan their attack for Hitler’s birthday (a last-minute ammunition problem delayed them for a day)."

Investigators say it will be months before we know the reasons behind the shootings, if at all. Like Columbine, we may never really know. All this speculation driven by the 24 hour news cycle will not change that and, the speculation will do more harm than good.

Pew Survey on Gun Ownership

Maybe it's just me. I think that horrific incidents like the mass killings at Virginia Tech, in Aurora, Colorado and in Newtown, Connecticut would change public attitudes concerning gun ownership. It's too soon to know what effect the killing of 20 young school children will have on this debate. Pew's research, Public Attitudes toward Gun Control, says the trend since 1993 suggests that Americans think it is more important to protect the right to own guns than it is to control gun ownership.

• In 1993 57% thought there should be more control over ownership. 34% thought it was ,more important to protect the right of Americans to own arms.

• At the end of July, 2012 47% thought there should be more control over ownership. 46% thought it was more important to protect the right of Americans to own arms.

Pew also points out that the public became more divided on this issue after Barack Obama was first elected President in 2008. The issue may be influenced by partisanship.  According to the the survey:

"The partisan gap in attitudes about gun control has widened considerably in recent years. In July, following the shootings in Colorado, 71% of Republicans said it was more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns while just 26% said it was more important to control gun ownership. Among Democrats, opinion was roughly the reverse: 72% said it was more important to control gun ownership while 21% prioritized gun rights. Independents were divided:50% said it was more important to protect gun rights; 43% said gun control was more important."

Partisanship should not jeopardize the safety of our children.