Tuesday, June 09, 2009

I'm Back, Baby!

Boy, you take a little sabbatical and the whole farkin' blogosphere is going to pot!

By this, I'm talking about the "blog war" between my Harrisburg basketball cohort and several other bloggers, including my friend on Lake Herman.

The issue at hand is the posting of several photogs of fairly attractive women on my Harrisburg basketball cohort's website. An homage, if you will, to Esquire, which I think is twice as classy as Playboy and a hundred times moreso than FHM or Stuff. Nothing wrong with posting pictures of beautiful women... after all if you take away all images of beautiful women, you lose about half of the world's artistic masterpieces.

But what has surprised me is the outrage that some of the "fellow traveler" blogs have heaped upon this guy because he posted some pics.... of beautiful women... fully clothed or at least not in an indecent posture. Basically, this guy has become the human punching bag of the South Dakota Blogosphere.

And frankly, I don't like it.

Now I like to think I get along with everyone... with the exception of a few ex-girlfriends! So when I say this, I say this with all due love and respect...

TAKE A CHILL PILL!

When I first heard of this little "Blog War", I thought it was just a bunch of play-acting and that people were just blowing off steam. But this is getting a bit vicious. You have several folks accusing one guy of basically being worse than Hitler, or at the very least, Joey Buttafucco.

Frankly, I think everyone is getting just a bit too worked up about this. Honestly, you're going to rake this guy over the coals over a few pictures? I can understand if you disagree with them, that's fine. Don't pay attention to them...

Friendly disagreement I can handle... Ganging up on someone for no good reason and I get my Irish up... even if I don't agree with everything he or she believes in.

When I was a teacher, a piece of advice that I learned too late was "You have to learn to pick your battles." Before everyone involved gets to saying things that can't be taken back, let me ask you these things...

1) Is it worth it?

2) Aren't there worse things in the world to get worked up about?

and finally...

3) IS... IT... REALLY... WORTH... IT???

So now, I'm probably a pig. And if I have to earn someone's scorn because I'm standing up for someone getting picked on, so be it. I stopped giving a shit what others think of me when I turned 30... Get off your crucifixes.

3 comments:

caheidelberger said...

Hey, Matt! Good to see you back on the blog horse!

Note: I haven't mentioned Hitler or Joey. And my critique isn't about beautiful women. It's about "hot babes." Much different from saying, "Ah, how lovely." See "The Daughter Test."

Jackrabit1 said...

It's called "dramatic license," amigo.

Let me post this to you... do you think you and the others may be over-reacting just a tad? Granted, when I read Rolling Stone, there are several things in there I don't agree with or find offensive, but I just skim past that stuff and get to what I want to read.

Now... did our Harrisburg friend put a picture up of woman barefoot and pregnant and say "keep 'em that way?" Or did he advocate the caveman approach of clubbing some unsuspecting maidien and dragging her by the hair back to the cave? No. What did he call an attractive woman? A "Hot Babe"... big whoop! Did he call them "Squeezes" "Tomatoes" or something even more offensive and repulsive? Hell, no.

If you really want offensive, try watching what they're showing on MTV, or VH1, or even the so-called "reality" shows... which are geared towards the impressionable young girls that you write about. The stuff on there would make picture of a good-looking woman and term of "hot babe" feel like belongs on "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer."

Frankly, I think this whole thing is making a mountain out of a molehill. And the reaction that I've seen doesn't justify the so-called "offense". You disagree, fine. But at the same time, don't harp on it... it's like those damn TPS reports on "Office Space"!

BigDaddyC said...

Matt's got a point, here. Personally, I think the whole arguement is stupid, at best.