Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 372

Faith On The Football Field

Jerry A. Coyne passes along the above chart:

This graph summarizes the data, with “average Americans” in tan, football fans in maroon, and other fans in olive. Now since the survey methodology reports a survey of 1,011 adults—not just sports fans—I assume that the data below represent a subset of those Americans who follow sports. But, according to the data, that is 89% of all Americans (I’m one of the other 11%). Yes, exactly half of the fans (and 55% of football fans) see supernatural influences in sports.

In an interview, Greg Easterbrook is asked, “Does God participate in the National Football League?” Part of his answer:

To the extent that people believe that God controls outcomes—and I am a churchgoing Christian who does not believe that—then football games present you with a fast-moving morality play. The good guys should beat the bad guys; the virtuous athletes should succeed over the cheating athletes. If you believe that God controls outcomes, daily life is full of little morality plays—but most of them are hard to discern, whereas a football game is right on TV. You know what’s happening, you know who wins, you know which players you like and which players you don’t like. Athletics gives you a type of morality play for the presence of God’s active control in life.

Easterbrook also recently cautioned that it’s mostly not pro players who suffer the effects of game-related concussions:

What about high school concussions? Steven Broglio of the University of Illinois estimates prep football players sustain 43,200 to 67,200 concussions annually. That’s versus 80 to 100 concussions annually in the NFL, where the attention focuses. In high school there is usually no certified athletic trainer on scene (fitness trainers are nice but often unskilled in medical matters), nor ready access to neurologists. The only health insurance many high school players have is Medicaid, which is stingy about specialists; their parents or guardians may avoid doctors, fearing co-pays. The result is a head-injury double whammy: High-school concussions are far more frequent than NFL concussions, plus more likely to be mistreated (if treated at all).

Quote For The Day II

 

“I heard that Eastwood is saying that this will be his last film as an actor. There’s part of me that feels that way during almost every movie. On ‘Synecdoche,’ I paid a price. I went to the office and punched my card in, and I thought about a lot of things, and some of them involved losing myself. You try to be artful for the film, but it’s hard. I’d finish a scene, walk right off the set, go in the bathroom, close the door and just take some breaths to regain my composure. In the end, I’m grateful to feel something so deeply, and I’m also grateful that it’s over … And that’s my life,” – Philip Seymour Hoffman. RIP.

Which Beer Is The Coldest?

The one in the fridge:

How cold a beer is has nothing to do with how it’s brewed and packaged and everything to do with whether and how long the consumer refrigerates it before drinking it. No thinking person would ever claim to like Beer Brand A more than Beer Brand B because Beer Brand A is colder. But beer advertisements aren’t geared toward thinking people—they’re geared toward thirsty people. Commercials that brag about beer’s coldness are a wildly unsubtle attempt to circumvent viewers’ rationality by appealing to their baser instincts. Whatever your level of media literacy, a bottle of beer that sheds fragments of ice as it’s slammed down on a countertop in slow motion looks pretty darn refreshing.

The Politics Of Pigskin

Ryan O’Hanlon suggests that politics inevitably play a role in the Super Bowl:

For better or worse, the Super Bowl is America. More than twice as many people watched last year’s Super Bowl delay than watched the Oscars, the most-viewed non-football event of 2013. And in 2012, the only thing more people chose to do than watch the Giants/Patriots Super Bowl was vote. It’s impossible to remove politics from an event so big and widespread, which makes you wonder why we even try and if we really should. Creating some kind of boundary between sports and politics—or maybe more accurately, imagining that there’s no connection between the two—seems, if anything, just incorrect.

That’s not to say that if Richard Sherman intercepts Peyton Manning in overtime on Sunday and runs the ball back for a game-winning touchdown that it’s some metaphor for liberals wresting control of the racial-politics conversation from their conservative foes. Rather, it’s to acknowledge that, even on Sundays, the conversation exists—and that the guy screaming into your television is right in the middle of it.

Albert R. Hunt objects to painting the contest “with racial (white versus black) or political (red state versus blue state) overtones”:

This is inane. The majority of players for both the Broncos and the Seahawks are black; that’s true with about every National Football League team. Colorado and Washington state, the respective homes of this year’s Super Bowl contenders, both voted Democratic in the most recent presidential election, as did New Jersey, the site of Sunday’s game. So much for any political connotations.

Who Watches The Super Bowl?

Americans, by and large. One reason why it has a far smaller international audience than other, similar sporting events? Scheduling:

In 2010, European soccer’s governing body moved the Champions League final from its traditional Wednesday night time slot to Saturday night. That makes it much easier for audiences in populous and soccer-obsessed South America and Asia to tune in, Alvay says. “People in Asia have got a greater capacity to be up at the middle of the night when it’s on a weekend and they don’t have to work the next day,” he says. …

Contrast this with the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to maximize U.S. viewership; audiences peak during the showbiz-heavy halftime show. That makes it problematic for international audiences outside the Americas. It allows for daytime viewing in Asia, but this is where American football has its smallest following. In Europe, where the league has been focusing its recent international expansion efforts (the NFL has hosted a game in London annually since 2007), the timing couldn’t be worse: Kickoff is at 6:30 pm in New York, which is 11:30 pm in London and 12:30 am in Western Europe. And games typically last for three hours.

Chart Of The Day

Noah Chestnut explains what you’ll be feeling tonight:

Throughout the 2013-2014 NFL season, Facebook data scientists anonymously tracked messages posted by millions of football fans in order to measure their minute-by minute emotional reactions during a game. Football fans wind up following a predictable pattern: excitement before the opening kickoff and then frustration, anxiety, anger and depression set in for almost 2 hours until the winning team’s fans start to experience relief and joy.

Methodists For Marriage Equality

They are rebelling:

In December, the Reverend Frank Schaefer, a pastor in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was defrocked for officiating his son’s wedding. Earlier this month, the Reverend Dr. Thomas Ogletree, a retired minister and professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School, was charged for officiating his son’s wedding, and will face an ecclesiastical trial, on March 10th, in Stamford, Connecticut. Pastors often preside at the weddings of their children. But Schaefer and Ogletree married their sons to other men. …

Ecclesiastical disobedience is on the rise: in November, more than thirty United Methodist clergy jointly blessed the wedding of two men at a church in Philadelphia to show their solidarity; in December, the Seattle district superintendent married two lesbian Methodist pastors in Washington; and thousands of United Methodist clergy around the country have declared publicly that they will officiate such weddings. There are almost as many clergy now facing charges for engaging in same-sex relationships and participating in same-sex weddings as have been brought to trial in the history of the United Methodist Church.

Mental Health Break

One of the better nature timelapses out there, especially the storms:

When Faithlessness Leaves Family Behind, Ctd

A reader can relate to atheist guilt:

I spent my teens reading Camus and saying that God doesn’t exist. Then, in my late teens, I joined a youth group and tried to believe – partly because of my family, my friends, and the social stigma of not being a believer in the 1980s South (Atlanta).

Fast forward to age 35, when after years of hiding my non-belief, I came out. Mind you, I went to church, wound up teaching Sunday school, went on some mission trips, and was asked to be an elder or deacon. At that point, I figured I needed to come clean. So I came out. My wife and I divorced – partly because of my non-belief (she was on the road to becoming a Christian writer) – and partly because of the lack of intimacy we had between us. I felt guilty just watching The Sopranos because it wasn’t ‘uplifting.’ How can you have an intimate relationship when there is that type of judgment on the simple stuff?

Of course, my ex thinks I’m going to hell, literally. My family does too. My sister told me she didn’t know who I was, and we really don’t have a relationship anymore – after 13 years. But I’m happy. I’m open and honest about my beliefs and my wife and kids that I have now share my beliefs.

Meanwhile, an atheist since childhood offers some advice to new “converts”:

It’s important to remember that atheism is an altogether unremarkable thing. Sure, many come to the idea, or the acceptance, with a great degree of awe, and they convince themselves that they must now be true to themselves as atheists and never set foot in that awful place of worship again.

But your parents aren’t going to be around forever. Breathing and heartbeats are a finite resource. Go to fucking church with them. If your atheism is hanging by such a thread that you can’t sing a song from some old book with your parents, you probably aren’t really an atheist.

So Close

[Re-posted from earlier today]

We just passed $505,000 in revenue in January, and there are now only hours to go before the month ends. Last year, we had $516,000 in the same month. Can we actually make it over the top?  [Update at 8.30 pm: $512,000 - almost there!] Renew here! Renew now! Or subscribe here if it’s your first time. Update from a reader who did just that:

Ok, you got me! After years of faithful reading, I finally decided to pony up and help get you over the 516K bump. Hopefully you make it.

Why did I stand on the sidelines for a year? I don’t know … I check your blog multiple times a day (with the exception of Sunday), I silently empathized when you lost your beagle (as I had lost mine just a few months prior) and I consider the time you linked to my blog a few years ago as the highpoint of my online life. Perhaps I needed a year to see if this new model would change the Dish in ways I wouldn’t like. If so, I clearly need not have worried. You all continue to do excellent work. Here’s to many more successful years!

Another gets novel:

Instead of renewing at a higher amount, I gave three gift subscriptions to my siblings. Seedlings!

Another creates another price-point to add to $4.20/month and double chai ($36):

I started to enter double the required annual price ($19.99), then decided to honor our current president with $44.