72 thoughts on “April 28, 2015: Fiddlin’”

        1. Now I'm thinking of the Tamlins.
          httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo4svHZfnG4

          Maybe you'd prefer Nina? SelectShow
          Or Randy's original? SelectShow

  2. My son is going on a Mission Trip to Haiti in June. Being a poor college student, he's struggling to pay for the trip so like any good Millennial, he's established a Go Fund Me site. Here's the link.

    http://www.gofundme.com/t9s7nmg

    Actually this probably helps me more than him, because what ever amount he's short I'm sure I'll probably have to fill the gap.

  4. Is anyone else amazed at the sheer number of black people killed by cops stories? The city of Baltimore has paid out in 100 cases of excessive force suits in the last three years or so. 100! I think there might be a problem there.

    1. Amazed is a good way of putting it. I wish it surprised me.

      'Spoiler' SelectShow

      1. if we were in a bar I would tell yall about dr. Chop's experience teaching at a HBCU, and her student's struggles with institutional racism, but we're not so I'll keep to myself.

          1. Same. I have lots and lots to say on this topic, but my commentary is best left to other forums.

        2. I'm in a bar!

          But on a more serious note, The Shield is looking more and more like a documentary these days. (At least the first season.)

    2. I'm amazed* that it's taken this long for excessive use of force stories to actually gain traction in the national consciousness. I wonder if that'd be the case if not for the recurring protests, riots & violence over the past year or two.

      'Spoiler' SelectShow

      1. As for the OMG the rioting, I seem to remember lots of stories of college students rioting when their various teams won (or lost!). Also, don't forget that the Penn State students rioted when Joe Paterno was fired.

        Those were big deals. All we're talking about here is the apparent murder of people by representatives of the state.

      2. But I have friends who tell me the only reason we're hearing anything about these excessive use of force events is because of the race of the victims. So obviously this all just started very recently.

          1. also apropos, I saw this on my FB feed this morning:

            Mobtown U.S.A.: Baltimore

            A curious handbill circulated in Baltimore during September 1835. This "EARNEST AND DIRECT APPEAL" chastised city residents "who vainly claim to be considered Orderly." Indeed, an afternoon stroll through town revealed shocking scenes of lawbreaking and moral apathy: merchants and storekeepers blocked sidewalks with crates and boxes, housekeepers dumped kitchen waste in the streets, and dog owners allowed their canines to bark all night at the expense of neighbors’ sleep. When upright citizens perpetrated or tolerated such behavior, outright anarchy could not be far behind. "To obtain that admiration which is due to the Monumental and Picturesque City," the handbill’s author concluded, "nothing is wanting but more attention to–ORDER."

            A month earlier, the ruins of Baltimore’s finest homes were smoldering, an armed militia patrolled city streets, and a dozen men had been shot in three nights of rioting. Obstructed sidewalks and barking dogs were the least of Baltimore’s problems! As out-of-place as September’s handbill might seem, its author saw an obvious connection between littering and rioting: why would the "ignorant" respect the law if their social superiors flaunted it with impunity? Prohibiting men from riding their horses too rapidly along city streets and prohibiting the dispossessed from looting the homes of the rich–these were parts of the same project, a project common to the fastest growing cities of the early republic. Places like Baltimore strove to create bourgeois tranquility but faced deeper social disorder that no municipal traffic regulation could alleviate. Baltimore might gain the admiration of other cities for its refined public spaces and orderly streets, but it was just as likely that Baltimore would earn scorn as Mobtown.

        2. I would think, with this government sanctioned excessive force that the NRA would be advocating a response by those aggrieved that involved taking up arms against the government as part of their 2nd Amendment rights. Right? They must be advocating that the black community take the fight to the cops with firearms, right?

    4. What I don't understand is not the violence or racism but the sheer stupidity. If you're a white cop, you have to know that anything you do is going to be closely examined, especially if it involves a person of a different color. Are these cops just completely in a glass bubble? Do their superiors not know what is going on in this country and/or not tell their cops, hey, let's be smart out there, we're under a microscope right now. It's like getting caught doing PEDs in baseball now. Just remarkably stupid.

      1. People is people. They make mistakes. They get angry. They act rashly. They test the limits of what they can get away with. They don't like being told what they can't do. They don't like breaking their long-ingrained habits.

        This is to say nothing of systemic issues that contribute.

        1. Agreed. I think what would go a long way would be oversight without conflict of interest that everyone could trust. Right now it's pretty much handled in-house, and no one, regardless of race, can depend on justice being served in that situation.

          1. Unfortunately, oversight without conflict of interest is pretty much impossible.

            One would like to think that the courts can fulfill that role, but we have a lot of evidence to suggest that judges are people too, and that judges and prosecutors often have cozy relationships.

            The best examples we have of effective oversight tend to be ones where the evidence is presented openly and there are motivated third parties willing to bear the costs of doing the scrutiny, be that a free press (selling copy) or opposing organized interests. Unfortunately, "opposing organized interests" typically means "politics."

            1. I won't say anything more here about my job, but I will express gratitude that I work in a county that quickly and openly embraced cameras on law enforcement, and any anomaly in recordings is getting plenty of scrutiny. Of course, I try not to forget that people is people, and transparency and recordings alone aren't sufficient.

              1. Do anomalies included police turning off the camera, forgetting to turn it on, or it coincidentally malfunctioning?

                1. I probably shouldn't comment with any specificity on-site (if you want more info, feel free to drop me a line), but I'll just say that absence of video is scrutinized.

      2. 100 payouts on excessive force in three years and no one is being held accountable in the force. Explain to me what the motivation is for these guys to change anything. Business as usual. Keep cracking heads. No one cares. You will be taken care of.

  6. Thanks for the CoCs these last couple of days, gang. I've been sick as hell and attempting to work through it anyway, and by 9pm when I usually put these together, I've been asleep.

    2. I never world have guessed as I was reading today's CoC from top to bottom that I would snort at the end.

  8. Thanks to a few bad apples, part of the Superior Hiking Trail has to re-routed.

    http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/04/28/superior-hiking-trail

    File under my lament: Just don't be a dick.

    This is a beautiful section of the Superior Hiking trail and a popular area. I am sure 98 percent of the hikers are respectful, but those 2 percent have to ruin it for everyone.

    I'm not a hunter and don't care to be, but it is legal, has efficacy in herd management, and has a long tradition in human culture. I just don't get why some people would act in a manner as described the landowner in this picture.

    1. Some people are self-righteous idiots.

      I hunt and hike and know folks in both camps who believe the other side's activities (and views) relating to the outdoors are unworthy of consideration, let alone basic respect.

        1. When I'm successful at hunting, I feed the birds.
          Offal to the crows (and ravens?). Pieces of tallow for the woodpeckers.

  9. So, KLub now being ruled out for the duration. Not very surprising. But this analysis was pretty interesting.

    A funny thing happened amid all that rancor, though: the Cavs ranked fourth in the NBA in offensive efficiency this season, scoring an average of 107.7 points per 100 possessions, and they were five full points-per-100 better in the 2,500-plus minutes that Love was on the floor (109.5-per-100) than in the 1,400-plus minutes when he wasn't available (104.5-per-100), according to NBA.com's stat tool.

    Cleveland's six most frequently used five-man units during the regular season featured Love, with five outscoring the opposition by rates ranging from respectable (+3 points-per-100 for Love-LeBron-Kyrie Irving-Shawn Marion-Anderson Varejao; +3.2-per-100 for Love-Kyrie-Smith-Iman Shumpert-Tristan Thompson) to rampaging (+19.3-per-100 for the Love-LeBron-Kyrie-Smith-Timofey Mozgov starting five, +28.2-per-100 for the small-ball Love-LeBron-Irving-Marion-Thompson lineup).

    Even if he himself didn't always seem comfortable with his role in the offense and wasn't always confidently stepping into and knocking down the shots he did get, the sheer threat of the 6-foot-10 bomber created more room for James and Irving to operate in the half-court, helping grease the skids for dribble penetration that created all those tasty dump-offs for Mozgov dunks or kickouts for wide-open catch-and-shoot 3-pointers by J.R. His presence mattered, a trend that continued in the postseason, as Cleveland torched the Celtics to the tune of 120.5 points-per-100 with Love on the court in Round 1, compared to just 97.2 points-per-100 when he sat.

    No Cleveland group without Love logged more than 75 minutes this season. The one that did — the starting lineup with reserve power forward Thompson in Love's place — got outscored by seven points in those 75 minutes, producing points at a top-10-caliber clip (105.7 points-per-100) but hemorrhaging them on the other end (114.5-per-100, leagues below the worst full-season defensive efficiency marks in the NBA this season).

    Thompson's lack of shooting prowess allows opponents to plug the lane, making it more difficult for even excellent board-crashers like he and Mozgov to pull down offensive rebounds, while the lack of space and the removal of another capable playmaker helped create a spike in turnovers and opponents' points off them. Your standard small-sample-size caveats apply here, but it's worth noting that there's a reason why the Love starting lineup got 400 more minutes than this one — it worked better, and made more sense.

    1. For the NFL, the costs of losing the tax break are minimal, an estimated $109 million over the next decade. There are benefits, too, including the end of federal disclosure requirements that put Goodell’s salary and some other league information in the public domain.

      Heh. So, being a non-profit has become too much of a distraction to the NFL media machine?

      1. The secrets the NFL wants to keep >/= $109 million over the next decade. Yeah... that's not surprising.

        1. Well, when you add that to the financially debilitating settlement they reached regarding concussions-- (wait, it was only for how much? over how many years? oh, wow.)

          Nevermind.

  11. Cedar Rapids and Quad Cities have played a ten-inning scoreless tie. They're going to the eleventh right now.

  12. NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs: 2nd Round Schedule:

    C3 vs. W1 TIME (ET) vs. NETWORKS
    Friday May 1 9:30 p.m. Minnesota at Chicago NBCSN Sportsnet TVA Sports
    Sunday May 3 8:30 p.m. Minnesota at Chicago NBCSN CBC SN360 TVA Sports
    Tuesday May 5 8 p.m. Chicago at Minnesota NBCSN CBC TVA Sports
    Thursday May 7 9:30 p.m. Chicago at Minnesota NBCSN Sportsnet TVA Sports
    *Saturday May 9 TBD Minnesota at Chicago TVA Sports
    *Monday May 11 TBD Chicago at Minnesota TVA Sports
    *Wednesday May 13 TBD Minnesota at Chicago TVA Sports

    * - if necessary
    TBD - To be determined

    1. It's because the [sr] wasn't really intended for generic tables so it doesn't look great.

      1. At least you live in one of the host cities - shouldn't be tough to find a place to watch...

          2. Sorry...I missed the point. I've just come to accept that content isn't free, especially not the things I really want.

            My wife wanted good cable for her maternity leave and we haven't rescinded the upgrade since her return to work. Otherwise, I'd be railing against the situation too (and looking for local bars with good beers & cable).

            1. so, apropos of this thread, here is video of the ONLY NHL game I've ever attended in person. SECORD SUCKS!

    1. I love Minnesota, it's the best Damn state in the union, make no mistake. I desperately want to move back.

      But seriously, it Joe Mauer left to go to the Yankees, I'd cheer the shit it of him.

  14. Holy shitty Photoshops, Batman!

    So this is a poster from a movie staring Captain America and Tom Brady's baby momma. I couldn't find it in English, but it's called "Play It Cool".

  15. "I just wanna go, 'hhhhhaaaahhhhh*'. It's so quiet here, I just want to go, 'hhhhhaaaaaaahhhhhh*'"

    -Vin Scully, tonight at the tail end of a Bumgardner/Kershaw pitchers' duel.

    *That sound you make breath really hard out of your wide open mouth to simulate crowd noise

Comments are closed.