JSngry

There's also an increasingly international pool of young talent in baseball, more so than the NBA, where players are almost always pro "at home" before coming here, definitely much more so than the NFL, which these days is about as "native" a sport to "American soil" as there is. And also the most stuck in a rut (just my opinion).

Just to add - my son played baseball as a kid, and I helped coach. I don't think it's a coincidence that he carries forward a love of the game and an active interest in it.

At Smooth Jazz concerts? Seriously, I've noticed the same thing, but in all honesty, the notion that baseball is mostly for middle-aged upper-middle class white folk has been lingering in the air for the last 10-15 years or so. It's not unlike jazz in that regard. But to ask the question a little more - where are the African-American players? Seems to me that most of the "players of color" (a terrible, yet generally understood, phrase) these days are Latino. MLB has that RBI program, but how long will it be before that really takes root, if it ever does? There may or may not be a connection, but I think that for some people (especially around here, where football & basketball are favored by all demographics) , the language/cultural difference is a big factor as far as feeling "connected" to the players. I even heard one sports talk-show host a few years back bemoaning how hardly any local African-American youth were playing baseball these days, making the point that if you want a career in sports, your career as a non-superstar is more likely to be longer and more profitable in baseball than in any other sport, b/c the player's union has ensured that the players get a better taste than in any other sport. The caller feedback was almost unanimous - Little League costs too much money for equipment, it's too hot in the summer, the city doesn't keep up the ball fields, and the schools spend all their athletic budgets on football and basketball, because they're easier to do at that level. A few souls even charged that white folk own baseball, so it's only natural that they're keeping the young black folk out now that the big money's rolling in. To look at the issue of diversity from another angle, though, I'm hearing significantly more Spanish - and other languages - being spoken in the stands at The Ballpark than there was 10 years ago. So if we define "diversity" in strictly "white/black" terms, that's kinda..."last century". It's still a valid point to examine, I think, the overall diversity of the contemporary MLB fanbase, but there's more than one way to answer it. America is no longer just a "white/black" society. Anything but. That train's done left the station and ain't comin' back. Bottom line for me - the more people you get playing baseball as youth, the more people will get attached to it. Just look at soccer. Hell, my son - and most of his friends - watches more soccer than he does baseball, and he loves baseball.

I ask because my daughter had a Dell laptop about 5-6 years ago that went through 3-4 hard drives in about that many years. Some we could recover, some not. But the experience soured me on Dell laptops in general (that and how their heat dissipation is really...primitive(?) and how the solder on her power cord connection kept coming undone...they finally had to sent somebody to the house at their expense to make/get it right!). Now, years later, I've got one issued to me by work, and the heat dissipation on it is really...primitive. The thing just exhales giant ejaculations of heat out the side every 10 minutes or so. Other laptops I've encountered don't do that, at least nowhere near that dramatically. Heat is not your friend, ya' know? I love me some Dell desktops, but their laptops? I don't know.....

Vol. 1, eh?

I was Morse-ing.

.. - .----. ... / .- .-.. .-.. / --. --- --- -.. .-.-.-

Finally found out what GRT stood for. Been wondering for years. I thought it would be more...impressive.

Quickdraw McGraw Jon Gnagy A Gnarly Dude

Perhaps the BAMM stores near you are more remainder outlets, but I worked at one from 04-05 and I wouldn't say they were remainder stores, 20-30% of the inventory was maybe??? Not near the "variety and Depth" as Borders used to say, of Borders. You wouldn't find untranslated French, Labor studies, or Urban planning at BAMM... of course Borders may have dropped those sections years ago, I don't know... Could be. Every one I've been in has had a huge remainder section (and a good selection of periodicals!), and a not-as-big selection of new items. Not unlike many Hastings stores' CD selections in that regard. I also find BAM stores mostly (only?) in smaller cities, so maybe the more urban stores take a different tact?

No! Putting aside the implied argument that a county prosecutor's office should never be expected to be able to competently compete with "big money" lawyer "just because", it's one thing to be outplayed by a superior opponent (and enough of those should serve as learning experiences...), quite another to just be some weaselly bullshitters hiding behind the law's budget and using it as an excuse to perpetrate and perpetuate their piss-poor perceptions of the people they're supposed to be serving. The inertia of trifleness is mathematically guaranteed to succeed: the path of least resistance + the laws of gravity = s(o)(a)me typical sadass bullshit guaranteed to remain, only moreso. But that's no excuse for excusing it. No! I never made that implication. Of course the county prosecutor's job is to do the best they can, but they have a much tougher job than the defense attorney's, who only have to create reasonable doubt. They don't have to prove anything one way or the other. Big money attracts better caliber of lawyers, so I think in many cases things are skewed in the defense's favor from the git-go. Especially since their job isn't as tough, generally. I think a lot of lawyers start with county/district attorney's offices, to establish their courtroom experience, then move to the other side of the fence to generate their nest egg. So what is the implication here? That money may not buy justice, but it greatly skews the odds in favor of a favorable outcome? No argument there, same old same old, but - how much of that is because so/too prosecutors' offices are predicated on the principal of looking for cheap and easy convictions instead of carefully accumulating and presenting enough facts to convict? Or going for an easy conviction instead of an honest one? Eliminating institutional cultures of prejudice, cynicism, and/or sloth would go a long way towards eliminating whatever performance disparities might exist because of salary disparities. Or are we all going to pretend that such cultures do not exist, while the parade of wrongly-convicted and wrongly-exonerated continues on, leaving giant heaps of judicial dung on our streets for us "innocents" to try to walk around? That's too much to settle for, especially since the street sweepers are on strike! Instead of a bunch of bug-eyed maniacs screaming BABY KILLER at any camera that will look at them, how about screaming DUMB FUCKS at every prosecutor's office who just half-asses it and then botches a case as a result? Money can't buy character, but it sure as hell can stifle it.

MJQ MFQ P.D.Q. Bach

Gummo Marx Karl Marx Richard Marx

No! Putting aside the implied argument that a county prosecutor's office should never be expected to be able to competently compete with "big money" lawyer "just because", it's one thing to be outplayed by a superior opponent (and enough of those should serve as learning experiences...), quite another to just be some weaselly bullshitters hiding behind the law's budget and using it as an excuse to perpetrate and perpetuate their piss-poor perceptions of the people they're supposed to be serving. The inertia of trifleness is mathematically guaranteed to succeed: the path of least resistance + the laws of gravity = s(o)(a)me typical sadass bullshit guaranteed to remain, only moreso. But that's no excuse for excusing it. No!

Morley Safer Nick Danger Will Robinson

The people's side gets paid a whole lot less than the defense attorneys. I think the prosecutors do about as well as they're capable of, unfortunately. No. Intentionally flaunting or otherwise disregarding the rules, be it in training or in execution, is never doing as well as anybody is capable of unless they have a fundamental learning or mental disorder. You either care enough to do your job right or you don't. If all lawyers were created equal I might agree with that. No. Part of caring enough to do your job right is to prepare for a lawyer who is doing their job by doing your job better than they do theirs. Fucking around with the truth just because you suspect/know that your adversary is doing the same is simply trying to combat bad with worse. Combating bad with worse is the national disease these days, it seems. And it works. But only up to a point. Sooner or later, the day of reckoning comes.

An enforcement & prosecutorial structure that doesn't care enough to present as airtight of a case as they can is one that is either arrogant, corrupt, inept, or some sick combination thereof. Either way, if such a structure is allowed to become institutionalized (and look around, it very often has), innocent people get convicted, guilty people go free, justice becomes a mockery of itself, respect for it - and the laws it engages - is lost, and, really, why not? Clown good guys vs clown bad guys is still clown v. clown. Clown in, clown out. At some point, responsibility must be taken instead of hurling blame and making excuses.

The people's side gets paid a whole lot less than the defense attorneys. I think the prosecutors do about as well as they're capable of, unfortunately. No. Intentionally flaunting or otherwise disregarding the rules, be it in training or in execution, is never doing as well as anybody is capable of unless they have a fundamental learning or mental disorder. You either care enough to do your job right or you don't.

Books-A-Million is no Borders, mostly a remainder outlet, but if they take the real estate and hire some of the people, it's not a total loss, although still, probably, a net one. But you know...as e-books grow in popularity, there will be fewer remainders to sell, so that's not along-term solution, is it...

Bite the ass of all the sloppy-ass prosecutors and police departments across the country who make it too damn easy to get cases legitimately dismissed because of their triflin' adherence to basic, standard, established, and sound procedures. If you're too dumb and/or arrogant to learn the rules and respect/follow them, get the hell outta Dodge, dig? People everywhere want to bitch about "lenient" courts and all that, but hell, if the "people's" side did their job tightened up like they ought to, there's be a helluva lot fewer "technicalities" to throw open for discussion.

Well, that sucks. Worst-case scenario for real... How old was this thing, anyway?