Boston Globe Death Watch - III

When Boston Globe sports reporters like these two clowns start banging on the digital tin cup to try and drum up support for a dying newspaper in a dying industry, it would take a heart of stone not too laugh:

$1 per month for six months is pretty tough to beat. Please subscribe to stay informed and support local journalism https://t.co/mT18y1vFBq https://t.co/HTI4EUA8G7

— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) April 9, 2020

It's bad enough we have multiple elected leaders at the state level that ordered large swaths of the economy shut down for at least three weeks and looks like a lot of them will do so for a few weeks more, but of all the industries most vulnerable to outright seismic collapse because of this is the newspaper industry. With the Globe recently announcing 50 layoffs and 55 buyouts sought, their position is precarious at best. That part I have no problem with, but the self-inflicted wound of economic misery that will likely follow is / was entirely predictable and preventable if only these same politicians from both sides of the aisle didn't hit the panic button like they did and force millions of people to stay at home, get fired / laid off and suffer like they are now. The voluntary social distancing and other measures were by and large happening on their own and this massive overreaction is only being done, in my opinion, to save these 'leader's' political reputations at the expense of the rest of us. As far as this cat's concerned their reputations are as worthless as tits on a bull.

We will eventually look back at this and realize what a galaxy-class fuckup it was to force large parts of the economy to shut down by executive orders. Every one of these assholes that ordered this should be tarred & feathered at a bare minimum.

Oh, To Be A Fly On The Wall For This One

(Another in the occasional series of departing from DSW posts while Shank pisses in some water bottles in Fort Myers...)

You know where I'd love to be on Friday morning? Sitting in between Lou Merloni and Kirk Minihane when this goes down:

Boston radio station WEEI will have all of its employees undergo mandatory sensitivity training on Friday, the network announced Wednesday, during which time all live programming will be suspended.

“Nothing is more important to WEEI than the close-knit and diverse Boston community we call home, and we are committed to actively contributing to its betterment,” WEEI said in a statement. “WEEI is in the process of closely reevaluating our policies and procedures in an effort to ensure that our programming is never intolerant or harmful to our listeners or our city.”

The decision comes after two recent incidents that led to the suspensions of two hosts.

A few thoughts here:

1) They should broadcast this 'sensitivity training' instead of whatever's going to replace the twelve hour void.

2) Make no mistake about this - this isn't an exercise in 'sensitivity training' as it is an excuse for a good healthy dose of political correctness to be shoved down the throats of a mostly male audience. You can already see it in the above statement referring to the 'close-knit and diverse Boston community' codswallop they're trying to sell. Human Resource departments in organizations are generally speaking where companies stick their most useless employees when they lack the balls to fire them outright, which helps to explain why they're the petri dish for these things to grow. A general observation of organizational behavior is this - as an organization grows larger, it becomes more infused with rules and procedures, and as a result conformity / playing by these rules is encouraged while certain behaviors are discouraged and actively punished. Just go and Google the name 'James Damore' (a former Google employee, oddly enough) for further discussion of this phenomena.

The notion of 'sensitivity training' is approximately twenty years old as best I can tell. Compared to 98.5 The Sports Hub, there are a lot more incidents at WEEI, both historically and recently. My roommate (a local law enforcement official) was just today subject to this very thing, where he described it roughly like this - 'Sit down and shut up while we verbally beat the shit out of you for the next six hours', which I equate to my remedial drivers education course from twenty years ago. I guarantee this is how this Friday 'sensitivity training' will be described by every single participant, in the event any of them are allowed to go on record to discuss it.

There's an old Klingon proverb - 'Revenge is a dish, best served cold'. Break out the cutlery, Lou and Kirk...