Bill Bodden's Blog - Posts Tagged "rant"
The Ethics of Cheating
A while back I received issue #8 of Andrew Hooper's excellent fanzine FLAG, in which he opined about the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in sports, specifically in Baseball. Being something of a baseball fan I took interest in what Andy has to say on the topic: I don't always agree with Andy, but his writing always captures my full attention, and inspires no small amount of admiration for his work.
What got me started down this path was thinking about local baseball player Ryan Braun, who spent a fair amount of time over the last few years dodging charges that he was using banned performance enhancing drugs to boost his physical capacity during the long, 162-game Major League Baseball season. That he used banned substances is no longer in question: the question still in my mind is, why do PEDs attract so much attention? At the very least the coverage brought to this issue is one-sided: at worst, it is dreadful hypocrisy. Braun has richly earned the contempt heaped upon him these days, not so much for breaking the rules but the underhanded way he (and his legal team) did their best to destroy the career of a man charged with analyzing Braun's blood sample. It's not that he did use banned substances, in my opinion, it's that he lied about it and took others down with him instead of owning up to the mistake.
Cheating is part of baseball; it is an institutionalized cat and mouse game between opposing teams, who hope to get away with things when the umpires aren't watching. How many players would argue a call that was decided in their favor? Not one. They shut up and take the gift for what it is, rather than fess up that they were out, or missed the tag. That's cheating, be we ignore that miraculously, perhaps because it is passive acceptance of the umpire's authority. To actively seek out an edge on one's own is forbidden, in all likelihood not for any danger to the player -- there are far too many cases of management allowing players to continue to play under hazardous conditions for that argument to hold any water -- but rather because Baseball has no control over that kind of activity, and baseball is nothing if not a giant merry-go-round full of control freaks.
Case in point: Gaylord Perry, a Hall of Fame pitcher for a variety of professional baseball teams has been acknowledged - by everyone but the man himself -- as a practitioner of an illegal pitch called the spitball. Spit has been replaced for a number of decades by any number of slippery substances -- creams, gels, and lotions -- all available over-the-counter from any drugstore in the United States, and many viscous enough to be smeared somewhere in the body and stay there for several hours. In essence, the substance on the ball causes differing levels of air resistance on different sides, causing the ball to act in an atypical and unpredictable manner. It may also slip out of the pitcher's hands a little when thrown, removing much of the natural spin a thrown ball tends to have, again causing erratic motion. It gives the pitcher a slight edge over a batter. Mr. Perry has been given a pass on his activity, mostly because nothing was ever proven. However, the acknowledgement with a wink and a nod of his flaunting the regulations of the sport are in sharp contrast with the zero-tolerance policies of performance-enhancing drugs. Gaylord Perry is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, largely because of his longevity in the sport.
Another example: in 1996, young fan Jeffrey Maier reached over the outfield fence in Yankee Stadium in New York and caught a ball in play. The ball was ruled a home run despite the fact that it was clearly a textbook case of fan interference, which would have nullified the play. Video replay leaves no room for doubt as to what happened. The call on the field was left to stand, and the Yankees won the game. Mr. Maier was heralded as a hero in New York, and was feted by the Yankees, celebrating his efforts on their behalf.
How can anyone look at cheating in the same light after such blatantly two-faced responses?
Further, baseball suffered from crippling strikes in 1981, 1985, and 1990, the last of which resulted in the owners locking out striking players and hiring replacements to field new teams, flying in the face of their own legal contracts, not to mention jousting with several aspects of employment law. Fans had deserted the sport in droves after that, crying how the purity of the game had been sullied. That ridiculous hyperbole aside, love of baseball was rekindled in many formerly passionate fans in 1998 when two sluggers held a wild race for the home-run hitting championship that year. Baseball has done its level best to forget about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa since then, despite the fact that they may well have saved the institution of baseball from a slow, lingering death, or at least years of mediocrity and irrelevance.
The clincher of this home run contest, in which mark McGwire shattered the previous record of 61 home runs in a season by hitting 70, and Sosa, close on his heels, had 66, is that both were allegedly using performance-enhancing drugs -- steriods of some sort -- during the season. A case can be made that the baseball authorities knew -- or at least had a strong suspicion -- about the drug use of these two players in particular, but did nothing because the turnstiles were spinning like a roulette wheel. McGwire's previous high total for Home runs was 58 in 1997; Sosa had never hit more than 40 in a season before. We may never know for certain how much Baseball officials knew, and when, but the fact remains that the performances of these two players, and the mammoth home runs they hit, put paying butts in the seats of any ballpark they visited.
Here's how I see it: professional athletes are paid millions of dollars to win. Not to compete -- to WIN. There's a big difference there, and a hell of a lot of pressure. With millions of dollars in salary on the line, I'm pretty sure I would be using PEDs if I were in the position of a Ryan Braun or a Sammy Sosa. Those who argue for the purity of the game - especially sportswriters -- need to get a grip on their fantasies. Baseball -- as with all professional sports -- is first and foremost a business. Players are paid the kind of money they are because the owners will pay it, and frankly, those high-priced ballplayers so many fans complain about are the reason we go to games -- to watch them play a child's game with poetry and abandon, allowing us to abandon our own concerns for a time. Rather than banning such substances, we should be spending time making sure they are safe and as free as possible from side effects.
Hooper sums it up particularly well in FLAG #8:
"... The day is on the horizon when players will take sanctioned hormones and supplements specified by owners and their own union in collective bargaining. The campaign against steroid use is having a very measurable effect on the game – batting averages and home run rates are both going down. For now, everyone is willing to characterize the issue in moral terms, when it is really a purely medical and scientific issue – how can humans develop and perform their best, with only the most benign effects on their immediate and long-term health? How can they play contact sports without becoming crippled vegetables later in life? No finger-wagging from bilious old sportswriters should be allowed to slow that search."
To find more of Andrew Hooper's writing, check out website efanzines.com for more fanzinescovering a dizzying array of subjects. I highly recommend Chunga, which Hooper co-edits. There's lots of other good stuff there by fantastic writers, so be sure to spend some time poking around.
What got me started down this path was thinking about local baseball player Ryan Braun, who spent a fair amount of time over the last few years dodging charges that he was using banned performance enhancing drugs to boost his physical capacity during the long, 162-game Major League Baseball season. That he used banned substances is no longer in question: the question still in my mind is, why do PEDs attract so much attention? At the very least the coverage brought to this issue is one-sided: at worst, it is dreadful hypocrisy. Braun has richly earned the contempt heaped upon him these days, not so much for breaking the rules but the underhanded way he (and his legal team) did their best to destroy the career of a man charged with analyzing Braun's blood sample. It's not that he did use banned substances, in my opinion, it's that he lied about it and took others down with him instead of owning up to the mistake.
Cheating is part of baseball; it is an institutionalized cat and mouse game between opposing teams, who hope to get away with things when the umpires aren't watching. How many players would argue a call that was decided in their favor? Not one. They shut up and take the gift for what it is, rather than fess up that they were out, or missed the tag. That's cheating, be we ignore that miraculously, perhaps because it is passive acceptance of the umpire's authority. To actively seek out an edge on one's own is forbidden, in all likelihood not for any danger to the player -- there are far too many cases of management allowing players to continue to play under hazardous conditions for that argument to hold any water -- but rather because Baseball has no control over that kind of activity, and baseball is nothing if not a giant merry-go-round full of control freaks.
Case in point: Gaylord Perry, a Hall of Fame pitcher for a variety of professional baseball teams has been acknowledged - by everyone but the man himself -- as a practitioner of an illegal pitch called the spitball. Spit has been replaced for a number of decades by any number of slippery substances -- creams, gels, and lotions -- all available over-the-counter from any drugstore in the United States, and many viscous enough to be smeared somewhere in the body and stay there for several hours. In essence, the substance on the ball causes differing levels of air resistance on different sides, causing the ball to act in an atypical and unpredictable manner. It may also slip out of the pitcher's hands a little when thrown, removing much of the natural spin a thrown ball tends to have, again causing erratic motion. It gives the pitcher a slight edge over a batter. Mr. Perry has been given a pass on his activity, mostly because nothing was ever proven. However, the acknowledgement with a wink and a nod of his flaunting the regulations of the sport are in sharp contrast with the zero-tolerance policies of performance-enhancing drugs. Gaylord Perry is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, largely because of his longevity in the sport.
Another example: in 1996, young fan Jeffrey Maier reached over the outfield fence in Yankee Stadium in New York and caught a ball in play. The ball was ruled a home run despite the fact that it was clearly a textbook case of fan interference, which would have nullified the play. Video replay leaves no room for doubt as to what happened. The call on the field was left to stand, and the Yankees won the game. Mr. Maier was heralded as a hero in New York, and was feted by the Yankees, celebrating his efforts on their behalf.
How can anyone look at cheating in the same light after such blatantly two-faced responses?
Further, baseball suffered from crippling strikes in 1981, 1985, and 1990, the last of which resulted in the owners locking out striking players and hiring replacements to field new teams, flying in the face of their own legal contracts, not to mention jousting with several aspects of employment law. Fans had deserted the sport in droves after that, crying how the purity of the game had been sullied. That ridiculous hyperbole aside, love of baseball was rekindled in many formerly passionate fans in 1998 when two sluggers held a wild race for the home-run hitting championship that year. Baseball has done its level best to forget about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa since then, despite the fact that they may well have saved the institution of baseball from a slow, lingering death, or at least years of mediocrity and irrelevance.
The clincher of this home run contest, in which mark McGwire shattered the previous record of 61 home runs in a season by hitting 70, and Sosa, close on his heels, had 66, is that both were allegedly using performance-enhancing drugs -- steriods of some sort -- during the season. A case can be made that the baseball authorities knew -- or at least had a strong suspicion -- about the drug use of these two players in particular, but did nothing because the turnstiles were spinning like a roulette wheel. McGwire's previous high total for Home runs was 58 in 1997; Sosa had never hit more than 40 in a season before. We may never know for certain how much Baseball officials knew, and when, but the fact remains that the performances of these two players, and the mammoth home runs they hit, put paying butts in the seats of any ballpark they visited.
Here's how I see it: professional athletes are paid millions of dollars to win. Not to compete -- to WIN. There's a big difference there, and a hell of a lot of pressure. With millions of dollars in salary on the line, I'm pretty sure I would be using PEDs if I were in the position of a Ryan Braun or a Sammy Sosa. Those who argue for the purity of the game - especially sportswriters -- need to get a grip on their fantasies. Baseball -- as with all professional sports -- is first and foremost a business. Players are paid the kind of money they are because the owners will pay it, and frankly, those high-priced ballplayers so many fans complain about are the reason we go to games -- to watch them play a child's game with poetry and abandon, allowing us to abandon our own concerns for a time. Rather than banning such substances, we should be spending time making sure they are safe and as free as possible from side effects.
Hooper sums it up particularly well in FLAG #8:
"... The day is on the horizon when players will take sanctioned hormones and supplements specified by owners and their own union in collective bargaining. The campaign against steroid use is having a very measurable effect on the game – batting averages and home run rates are both going down. For now, everyone is willing to characterize the issue in moral terms, when it is really a purely medical and scientific issue – how can humans develop and perform their best, with only the most benign effects on their immediate and long-term health? How can they play contact sports without becoming crippled vegetables later in life? No finger-wagging from bilious old sportswriters should be allowed to slow that search."
To find more of Andrew Hooper's writing, check out website efanzines.com for more fanzinescovering a dizzying array of subjects. I highly recommend Chunga, which Hooper co-edits. There's lots of other good stuff there by fantastic writers, so be sure to spend some time poking around.
The People vs. H.P. Lovecraft
Jim Hines reminded me in his Live Journal (and elsewhere) of an ongoing argument: a lot of people are angry that Howard Phillips Lovecraft's likeness is used for the statue given out as the World Fantasy Awards. I have conflicting feelings about this, but I'd like to add my voice to the discussion of What Should Be Done.
First of all, Lovecraft pretty much WAS a racist. You can sugar-coat it any way you want, saying he was "a product of his times" or "he was writing for his audience", or whatever. Mohandas K. Ghandi was a product of his times too -- and practically the very same times as Lovecraft, I might add, but he managed to be probably the least racist person in history. Please shut up about the whole "product of his times" argument: Lovecraft's hatred of the bulk of humanity wasn't just limited to people of color; he despised any non-WASPish white person too, as essentially being culturally inferior.
More than just racist, Lovecraft was well and truly a messed up person. He harbored fears about nearly everything -- odd-looking trees, women, hidden family secrets -- and had a number of highly unusual maladies, and likely some mental health issues as well. He died of cancer in 1937 at age 46 - three years younger than I am now. This year, on the anniversary of his birth (August 20), The Guardian published a list of "Ten things you should know about H. P. Lovecraft" . The site is a bit slow in reacting, so be patient. It's worth a read, and several points may stand out in explaining some of Lovecraft's many personality quirks.
Lovecraft was incredibly influential. Yes, I agree with this wholeheartedly. A large percentage of my professional writing output over the last decade owes a tremendous debt to H.P., either directly -- for my work on Lovecraftian tabeltop RPGs like Achtung! Cthulhu , or his influence on my thinking regarding horror themes in short fiction, as can be seen (I hope) in my short story "In The Shadow Of His Glory" from the anthology Sidekicks! . Were it not for Lovecraft's writing, I probably wouldn't be a writer today, though as I keep collecting rejection letters, I am reminded of Lovecraft living on something like a can of beans a day at the "height" of his writing career. There but for the grace of god...
Lovecraft was also extremely generous with his time to his friends, corresponding tirelessly and offering advice and editing help to his circle of fellow writers with whom he felt kinship. However, the true measure of a person is not how we treat our friends, but how we treat our enemies. Lovecraft falls down a lot on that point.
An interesting article on Lovecraft appeared very recently (October 13. 2014) in the Wall Street Journal. It discusses why Lovecraft is still important today. I encourage reading this article; it can be found here .
The argument that Lovecraft didn't write fantasy doesn't hold much water for me. Frankly, categories like that can be pretty broad and difficult to quantify with any precision. (Remember the whole 'What is art?' thing? Yeah, let's not go down that road again, okay?) Lovecraft is primarily known for writing horror, true, but his fantastical themes and images more than qualify some of his work, I think, for the realm of fantasy. I think this argument is a toss-up.
The statue is U-G-L-Y. Yep. I agree. If I were to ever win one of those (mighty long odds, I'll grant you) I'd be reluctant to keep it out in the open where I might come upon it suddenly and without warning. With apologies to Gahan Wilson, whose work I adore, the caricature of Lovecraft, so lovingly sculpted in GW's world-renowned style, is painful to look at. For some reason, I like Wilson's work better in 2-D representations.
Frankly, I don't think any living or formerly living person should be the subject for the World Fantasy Awards. It should represent something more closely associated with fantasy themes -- a dragon would be suitable, I should think. Given the vitriol of the discourse on THIS topic I don't think we could ever agree on what the Award statue should look like, but maybe I grow pessimistic in my old age.
Lovecraft is -- and should -- still be one of the iconic authors of American literature of the fantastic. His purple prose was hardly The best example of what most people define as good writing, and yet his ideas -- chiefly, that humans are NOT the center of the Universe and that random chance plays a larger role than any so-called destiny does in events -- were groundbreaking for his time. I personally owe HP a lot, but I agree that it's time for a change. Make the design of the World Fantasy Award more in keeping with fantasy themes, rather than an uncomfortable tribute to a guy with some uncomfortable ideas about his fellow humans.
Forgotten Again
Dramatic title aside, it's disappointing to be left off the credits for a book on which I've worked. It's happened to me twice -- once two years ago, and again in the last six months. In both cases these omissions were clearly not intentional, but they present a couple of major issues for me.
First of all, there's the emotional issue of feeling forgotten, left out. This is an issue I personally have problems with, so it's something with which I need to come to terms. Second, and more importantly, it means that this is a book I can't use on my resume -- at least until it's fixed in some fashion to give me proper credit. My worst fear is that, when applying for writing work elsewhere, the publisher or developer will look at that book, see my name is not on the credits page, and assume I'm lying about my involvement to pad my list of credits.
For the full post, please visit my website. Here's a handy link to this post: http://billbodden.com/2016/04/25/forg...
First of all, there's the emotional issue of feeling forgotten, left out. This is an issue I personally have problems with, so it's something with which I need to come to terms. Second, and more importantly, it means that this is a book I can't use on my resume -- at least until it's fixed in some fashion to give me proper credit. My worst fear is that, when applying for writing work elsewhere, the publisher or developer will look at that book, see my name is not on the credits page, and assume I'm lying about my involvement to pad my list of credits.
For the full post, please visit my website. Here's a handy link to this post: http://billbodden.com/2016/04/25/forg...
Controversy Over GenCon's Industry Insider List
Gen Con recently announced the
selections
for it's Industry Insider Program for 2016. First and foremost, I would like to congratulate the Industry Insider committee for a doing a great job of bringing greater diversity to the program. I was part of the program in 2015, and was grateful for having had the honor. I decided shortly afterwards that, though it was a positive experience and I would happily participate again, trying to be involved two years in a row would selfish on my part, so I opted not to submit my name for consideration for the next couple of years...
http://billbodden.com/2016/05/16/cont...
http://billbodden.com/2016/05/16/cont...
More Cowbell
The last few weeks have been illuminating for me, blog-wise.
Two of my recent, marginally political blog posts -- on controversy over GenCon's Industry Insider Program and on the Carl Brandon Society -- went viral, drawing in a vast number of viewers (far more than I'm used to, anyway) while several posts pertaining to my personal life barely get any reaction at all. While this is not too surprising -- how riled up can one get over a post about me wanting to find a permanent home for a plant , or about rescuing an ...
The rest of this post can be found at my website. Here's a handy link:
http://billbodden.com/2016/06/27/more...
Two of my recent, marginally political blog posts -- on controversy over GenCon's Industry Insider Program and on the Carl Brandon Society -- went viral, drawing in a vast number of viewers (far more than I'm used to, anyway) while several posts pertaining to my personal life barely get any reaction at all. While this is not too surprising -- how riled up can one get over a post about me wanting to find a permanent home for a plant , or about rescuing an ...
The rest of this post can be found at my website. Here's a handy link:
http://billbodden.com/2016/06/27/more...
Cartoon Network Strangles Steven Universe
(l to r:) Pearl, Steven, Amethyst, and Garnet.
So my loving wife got me hooked on a new-ish animated series called Steven Universe. I've found it to be one of the most creative world-building exercises I've ever seen, and am in a constant state of admiration as new details are revealed in each episode that either explain things from past episodes, or deepen one of numerous mysteries.
In a nutshell, it's the story of Steven, and his three "Guardians," the alien Crystal Gems: Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. The Gems are in fact living gems in humanoid form. As such they don't need to eat or sleep, though...
The rest of this post can be read at: http://billbodden.com/2016/08/01/cart...
"World" Fantasy -- Apparently Not For Me, Either
I've been contemplating attending the
World Fantasy Convention
for several years now. It's more or less a trade show for writers, editors, and artists in the field, and is expensive to attend. Also, as a nobody writer, it's been made clear to me that this is a highly clique-ish endeavor; it's where a lot of business is done, and the implication I've always taken away from discussions with people who have attended is that you have to be outgoing and gregarious to make any headway. I'm not those things, so despite hearing from many sources that attending could be good for my writing career, I think I'd do poorly under those circumstances.
More importantly, there's been a very recent dust-up this year about...
To read the rest of this post, please visit http://billbodden.com/2016/08/17/worl...
More importantly, there's been a very recent dust-up this year about...
To read the rest of this post, please visit http://billbodden.com/2016/08/17/worl...
How Cosplay Is Ruining Conventions
Lego-inspired cosplay at CONvergence, July 2015Recent articles quote a number of folks involved -- either directly or peripherally -- in the comics industry, decrying the state of modern comic conventions, and how the cosplayers, are, essentially, ruining everything. Perhaps I oversimplify their statements, but the sentiment is accurate, if not precise. Denise Dorman, wife of comic/sci-fi illustrator Dave Dorman, wrote a piece on this very topic, which Bleeding Cool reprinted word for word. You can read that piece HERE . Also mentioned in the article is a Facebook rant by Comic illustrator Pat Broderick. So how are cosplayers ruining conventions?
To read the rest of this post, please visit BillBodden.com
The Problem With Food
Food is in the news these days, and it's a surprisingly controversial topic. The biggest problem with food -- as I see it -- is that there isn't enough of it for everyone. Perhaps the biggest news is the fight over labeling foods containing GMOs -- Genetically Modified Organisms -- and how major food conglomerates are generally against this labeling.
I have a relationship with food like most people; I love to eat. My parents always -- ALWAYS -- did their best for me and my brothers, but by the time I was old enough to understand much, we were poor. My folks - both of them -- were decent cooks, and I grew up, like so many of my generation, with the "clean your plate" mandate. We never went hungry when I was a kid, but we often had to do without other things.
My parents were also big on trying exotic foods. Exotic to them usually meant Italian or Chinese, but that was life in small town Wisconsin in the 60s and 70s. They instilled in me the value of trying new things, for which I am eternally grateful. Today there are very few foods I will not try, and even fewer that I refuse to eat at all. Though there are some things I wouldn't choose on my own, if they are served to me while I am a guest in someone's home I will eat them without discomfort or complaint.
With all this in mind, I'd like to talk for a moment about...
To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2016/11/14/the-...
I have a relationship with food like most people; I love to eat. My parents always -- ALWAYS -- did their best for me and my brothers, but by the time I was old enough to understand much, we were poor. My folks - both of them -- were decent cooks, and I grew up, like so many of my generation, with the "clean your plate" mandate. We never went hungry when I was a kid, but we often had to do without other things.
My parents were also big on trying exotic foods. Exotic to them usually meant Italian or Chinese, but that was life in small town Wisconsin in the 60s and 70s. They instilled in me the value of trying new things, for which I am eternally grateful. Today there are very few foods I will not try, and even fewer that I refuse to eat at all. Though there are some things I wouldn't choose on my own, if they are served to me while I am a guest in someone's home I will eat them without discomfort or complaint.
With all this in mind, I'd like to talk for a moment about...
To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2016/11/14/the-...
My Own Brush With Political Money
It's no secret that political campaigns aren't free. Whoever said that anyone (any native-born citizen of the United States, that is) can run for President of the United States is clearly delusional. No one could even consider running for US President without a substantial campaign fund -- hundreds of millions of dollars, in this case -- to finance such a campaign. Money is the grease that keeps the wheels of politics moving...
To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2017/03/13/my-o...
