You're smarter, funnier, and more accomplished than me. Give me my mildly funny racist joke, will you?Ummmmmmm, guys?
Besides, you should hear me try to speak Korean. I'd let you make fun of my accent.
You're smarter, funnier, and more accomplished than me. Give me my mildly funny racist joke, will you?Ummmmmmm, guys?
The NFL is trying to keep those toes out of the water, apparently:You have some politicians dipping their toes in the water.
PFT is now mentioning that angle:The Times piece left out Exponent when making the tobacco connections. It's quite interesting.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/03/25/new-york-times-responds-to-nfls-response-to-new-york-times/To summarize, the New York Times cobbled together an article nearly 3,000 words long that criticized the NFL for flawed concussion research from 1996 through 2001 and that pointed out superficial connections between pro football and Big Tobacco (leaving out, curiously, the fact that the supposed smoking-gun scientific expert from #Deflategate once opined that second-hand smoke doesn’t cause cancer), and the NFL issued not one but two lengthy statements taking issue with specific aspects of the Times article
http://www.wsj.com/articles/nfl-runs-ads-in-new-york-times-concussions-story-to-counter-it-1458936048When the New York Times published a detailed investigative report on Thursday calling into question the National Football League’s research on concussions, the league responded with a 2,500-word rebuttal.
On Friday the league upped the ante, running ads on the Times’ website, including the very article that caused the firestorm.
The Times’ online sports section, even non-football stories, featured numerous ads from the NFL highlighting the changes the league has taken to improve player safety as a debate rages over the medical effects of concussions.
The banner ads could be seen early Friday across the top of stories, with a larger half-page ad on the right side. (See the screenshots embedded in this article.) By mid-afternoon on Friday, Wall Street Journal reporters could no longer find the ads on the site. A Times spokeswoman said the ads were still in circulation, however.
A spokesman for the NFL said the league bought the ads because it wanted to present information directly to readers, rather than have it filtered through the Times’ editorial staff. The league contends that it was transparent about the limitations of the data used in the research the Times cited.
“We wanted readers to have all the information about all the work that we’ve done to improve the safety of the game,” said NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy. “We were concerned that our message was being mishandled by the Times.”
Mr. McCarthy said this was the first time the NFL has purchased display ads to counter such a story. He said the NFL also paid to promote its message on Facebook and Twitter.
This is an essentially an argument that the ends (of this journalism) justify the (duplicitous and illogical) means.Guilt by association. I mean, sometimes it is just easier to compare X to Y in an unfavorable way to get people to see that X is bad.
...
So...the Times linking one band of KNOWN evil fuckfaces (Big Tobacco) to another (the NFL) helps establish the NFL as evil fuckfaces with the average fan.
This place is WAY more aware of brain injury stuff than most every other fan forum in the world. I've researched this. It is KNOWN.
But weak connection or not...this linkage between evil organizations helps the Times (and all of us desperate for this issue to get more attention) shed more light on a subject that is mostly hidden or brushed aside.
This is better. He'll look even worse, like Eugene Robinson, once this continues to blow up.are the people who are rewarding Goodell with this award living under a rock? How are they not aware of everything going on with the NFL and concussions?
John Oliver?This is an essentially an argument that the ends (of this journalism) justify the (duplicitous and illogical) means.
The abyss is gazing back into you a bit, I'd say. If Stephen Colbert can effectively explain to America why Snowden mattered, I'm willing to bet there is a gifted enough communicator out there that they can make the public understand CTE enough to care. Maybe Will Smith wasn't that communicator, but I'd wager someone's out there who could.
He could but he doesn't have nearly enough of an audience. He's a niche within a niche. Unfortunately.John Oliver?
No. Oliver covered the Snowden thing. I'm just correcting the mistake.He could but he doesn't have nearly enough of an audience. He's a niche within a niche. Unfortunately.
Ah. Gotcha.No. Oliver covered the Snowden thing. I'm just correcting the mistake.
This reminds me of when Donald Sterling was due to receive an NAACP award like a week after his scandal broke.are the people who are rewarding Goodell with this award living under a rock? How are they not aware of everything going on with the NFL and concussions?
This is a link to the 2016 Symposium the JSMP is putting on April 2nd. I presume that would be where Goodell gets the award.This is a joke right?
Justin Barney @JustinBarneyTU 49m49 minutes ago
NFL commish Roger Goodell will be honored next week in Jacksonville with the JSMP Leadership in Sports Health, Safety & Research Award.
There are numerous other sports commissioners who are more deserving of that honor...
-- snip --
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/02/16/19297/ford-spent-40-million-reshape-asbestos-scienceIn 2001, toxicologist Dennis Paustenbach got a phone call from a lawyer for Ford Motor Company.
The lawyer, Darrell Grams, explained that Ford had been losing lawsuits filed by former auto mechanics alleging asbestos in brakes had given them mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer virtually always tied to asbestos exposure. Grams asked Paustenbach, then a vice president with the consulting firm Exponent, if he had any interest in studying the disease’s possible association with brake work. A meeting cemented the deal.
Paustenbach, a prolific author of scientific papers who’d worked with Grams on Dow Corning’s defense against silicone breast-implant illness claims, had barely looked at asbestos to that point. “I really started to get serious about studying asbestos after I met Mr. Grams, that’s for sure,” Paustenbach testified in a sworn deposition in June 2015. Before that, he said, the topic “wasn’t that interesting to me.”
Thus began a relationship that, according to recent depositions, has enriched Exponent by $18.2 million and brought another $21 million to Cardno ChemRisk, a similar firm Paustenbach founded in 1985, left and restarted in 2003. All told, testimony shows, Ford has spent nearly $40 million funding journal articles and expert testimony concluding there is no evidence brake mechanics are at increased risk of developing mesothelioma. This finding, repeated countless times in courtrooms and law offices over the past 15 years, is an attempt at scientific misdirection aimed at extricating Ford from lawsuits, critics say.
“They’ve published a lot, but they’ve really produced no new science,” said John Dement, a professor in Duke University’s Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
[...]
Ya, no they haven't. Which is the point. Broken bones and even concussions? Sure. But not fucking early onset dementia and crippling depression.Werder: Excellent work, Tom. And you're right. But players have long known the dangerous realities of their risky profession
Well, if you put it that way, who am I to leepuse.You're smarter, funnier, and more accomplished than me. Give me my mildly funny racist joke, will you?
Besides, you should hear me try to speak Korean. I'd let you make fun of my accent.
"Find your f****** humanity."
Right. Joe Montana (or even Namath)v. Jim McMahon. Or Jim Otto v. Mike Webster.Ya, no they haven't. Which is the point. Broken bones and even concussions? Sure. But not fucking early onset dementia and crippling depression.
That's like saying in 1995 that it doesn't matter that the tobacco industry kept their findings on cancer secret, because smokers have long known that it makes you cough and turns your teeth yellow.
Eh, I am unmoved and unimpressed by "better than" arguments. The NYT is a news organization that needs readers, not a public institution that needs an unimpeachable reputation - no matter what they like to pretend. They can pretend to be better than (for example) the National Enquirer, but they are not, and I refuse to hold them to a different standard because a certain slice of the populace has bought their bullshit.This is exactly what the NYT is doing. And it's beneath them (or at least it's beneath what they put on airs of being).
I disagree that it helps the cause. Big Tobacco was sui generis -- selling a legal product that is more addictive than heroin and kills 400,000 Americans a year due to its intended use. Comparing pretty much anything to that is the hallmark of an unserious argument. The public intuitively knows this. So does the NFL, and they pounced. And now the public debate will focus on the merits of the analogy rather than the science, and what the NFL may have done to obstruct or cover it up.
No, not even close. First, I am dubious of any "but what about the (journalism) ethics?" argument on general principles and I am especially dubious in cases where there is some apocalyptic end-point prophetcized - like we didn't pass an end-point on journalistic ethics a long time ago, in a scandal, far, far away.This is an essentially an argument that the ends (of this journalism) justify the (duplicitous and illogical) means.
The abyss is gazing back into you a bit, I'd say. If Stephen Colbert can effectively explain to America why Snowden mattered, I'm willing to bet there is a gifted enough communicator out there that they can make the public understand CTE enough to care. Maybe Will Smith wasn't that communicator, but I'd wager someone's out there who could.
So it's like asbestos more than tobacco. Neither is really very inspirational.This really does feel a little different from tobacco to me. The game plan is the same, and the techniques are the same. But the cover-up to me seems more about avoiding liability for the past than specifically intended to deny the victims of information that could cause them to make a different decision.
Thank you sharing this. This is beautifully written and a thoughtful perspective. What you could do is try to publish this as an op-ed in the NYT.I believe there are some players who would have made a different decision -- especially those who now are unwell. ...
To me, this is about us. I know it the truth...
We are killing the players we root for. I am. I should cancel my Sunday Ticket, stop watching, and not play fantasy football. I fear I won't be a leader on this. I want to be. We'll see. I expect I'll simply wait for a critical mass to develop and then follow it, but at least the Curran piece has caused me to make a new resolution. I'm done criticizing the NFL on this, until I can look in the mirror.
Nah, I save my best shit for SOSH. The Times gets my rough drafts.Thank you sharing this. This is beautifully written and a thoughtful perspective. What you could do is try to publish this as an op-ed in the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/site/editorial/op-ed/op-ed.html
It's completely over dramatic. I think this is like tobacco in the 70's, in that people "knew" it was bad for them, while the science continued to back this up over time. It's not news that pro football players live shorter lives. That's literally been known for a decade. Who is surprised by this CTE, concussion, or dementia news? I feel like these were known quantities.Nah, I save my best shit for SOSH. The Times gets my rough drafts.
Thanks. I just re-read it, and it's a bit overly dramatic, but, screw it, it's what I felt when I wrote it. I'm really trying to talk myself into walking the walk. We'll see. Having it out there gives me some accountability maybe.
You are far from the first, or only, person to express this idea. So this is not a personal attack on you.The end of the Brady-Belichick era seems like a sensible, if hugely self-serving, compromise boycott point.
Let me play devil's advocate. Imagine a promoter who promises inner city kids $5 million to play a game of Russian roulette. He sells tickets to cover his outlay. I think we all agree that the promoter is a bad guy. Are the spectators?The players, making the decision to play the game for a variety of reasons, including fame and wealth, are killing the players.
Except that a prompt call to the cops would effect the relatively immediate release of the captives; while the decision to enjoy the next bbq would constitute a but-for cause of their continued imprisonment.It is the equivalent of liking your neighbor, who makes great BBQ, but waiting to tell the cops he's got a bunch of captives chained up in his basement because "I don't want to miss out on the next backyard barbeque."
C'mon, give these folks a break. It's more fun to be sanctimonious than to admit you're a fair weather fan.You are far from the first, or only, person to express this idea. So this is not a personal attack on you.
But holy fuck, this is the worst. Either it is bad enough to walk away OR it is not, and waiting until it is personally adventageous...is some string of invectives and ad hominems I'd like to unleash but will instead just summarize as "shitty human behavior".
It is the equivalent of liking your neighbor, who makes great BBQ, but waiting to tell the cops he's got a bunch of captives chained up in his basement because "I don't want to miss out on the next backyard barbeque."
I mean... jesus, people. If you think the NFL is actively giving people brain damage for your enjoyment and you'll only stop enjoying it AFTER you can't enjoy the wins on Sunday - you're a pretty terrible person.
Now... to be perfectly clear, I have written an article entitled "killing themselves for our enjoyment". I make my living these days because of football. So, I not only occupy a glass room in a glass house, but I do so at a level that makes those I am criticizing seem like paragons of virtue by comparison. So, I'm not saying I'm better than you are.
But waiting till the Brady-Belichick gracy train ends and then deciding to take a stand makes you... something not good. In a totally different way from me, who profits off of the ongoing brain damage directly.
It is at least honest, so I'm putting you and maufman in the "good" column for different reasons.For what it's worth, I don't care they're giving themselves concussions.
Is that better or worse then the people were talking about here?
Just wait until Belichick the Younger takes over and the gravy train never derails.But waiting till the Brady-Belichick gracy train ends and then deciding to take a stand makes you... something not good. In a totally different way from me, who profits off of the ongoing brain damage directly.
Gonna heat quarters with a lighter and then throw them to the homeless tonight. More the merrier if you're free.LOL. This is not a personal attack but holy fuck this shitty human behavior of yours is the worst and you're a pretty terrible person. But I'm bad too!
Happy Easter.
I also don't care. And I think Soxfan's post was ridiculous. I am not even sure where he was going with that. So if someone puts a fake line in the sand of when they are going to stop watching, that's horrible, but you make your living on football and you're somehow *not* horrible? I don't get it.For what it's worth, I don't care they're giving themselves concussions.
Is that better or worse then the people were talking about here?
Yeah, I mean, I wish had the ability to be compassionate for people I don't know, I just...don't. I have a serious lack of empathy, and it's a trait I wish I had.It is at least honest, so I'm putting you and maufman in the "good" column for different reasons.
I mean, I've also decided I can live with myself for enjoying a sport in which 89% of the people playing are likely to end up brain damaged. I gotta do certain stuff to assuage my conscience, and I do so knowing I'm a hypocrite and a jerk, but it works for me.
Like I said, at least you're honest about not giving a shit.
It's more than just compassion or empathy. At least the point I'm trying to make is. The question is whether you're actually part of the cause, or at least a significant part.Yeah, I mean, I wish had the ability to be compassionate for people I don't know, I just...don't. I have a serious lack of empathy, and it's a trait I wish I had.
I know I should feel bad, but...I like football.