Thursday (Tubby time) edition: Wha’ Happened?
Posted on January 10th, 2008 – 9:18 AMBy Michael Rand
The situation with the Big Ten Network has gone from annoying to downright ridiculous. It was annoying for about three weeks in September, until we realized pretty much any college football game worth watching was on a reasonable channel. Now, however, there is a Gophers men’s basketball squad that offers genuine intrigue, and there’s a good chance 80 percent of the games will be seen only by those scant few who have the BTN. Both the cable companies, and the BTN, have an argument to a degree; having the channel on a sports tier makes it accessible to those who want it but doesn’t gouge those who don’t. Then again, there appears to be little rhyme or reason to which channels are considered “premium” and which aren’t (unless you consider it a right, not a privilege, to be able to shop via your television). Eyewitness accounts indicate the Gophers might not have been as impressive last night as a 19-point victory over Northwestern suggests. It would be nice if we had chances to judge for ourselves. For now, based on nothing but blind groping, we throw out this question: Do you think the Gophers are good enough to go to the NCAA tournament this year?
*We had a hand in the ongoing saga of Eden Prairie/Facebook yesterday. Please feel free to weigh in as you see fit. Some students have planned a walkout today starting at 9:30, so if you’re in the neighborhood of EPHS, feel free to drop on by and witness the magic. Our thought: Well, we have several about suburban youth and parent culture, but we’ll hold our tongue for now. Bottom line: Take responsibility for your actions and don’t post incriminating pictures. We won’t even add the “hot or not” application on Facebook because it’s just too controversial.
*Congress is going to get together with Rick Sutcliffe and George Clooney to solve that steroids thing.
*We want the pants, and we’re going to score! Sorry, just repeating Jon’s awesome comment from yesterday about the Josh Brown story.
*Would you rather have a load of prospects from the Mets or a couple of somewhat proven players from somewhere else in the Santana deal?
35 Responses to "Thursday (Tubby time) edition: Wha’ Happened?"
Re: Eden Prairie/Facebook/Walkout story -
There were four authors for that? Which paragraph did you write, RandBall?
I actually just wrote the bylines. It’s an old trick … actually, I had a little here, a little there. Mostly it was three people gathering and one writing.
Is it too much to ask for a live-blog of the walkout? Can the walkout be sponsored by Bacardi?
Re: BTN, the main culprit is the overall pricing system as we know it. We need an ala carte approach like they have in europe instead of this stupid tiered system where 70% of the channels you get suck. I have Dish, which is better than cable in that I get the BTN, but it also has its drawbacks.
Eden Prairie saga…. Im sorry, those kids are just too stupid and must be punished. Underage drinking has always taken place, we just werent stupid enough to advertise it.
The gophers basketball team will make the NCAA tournament with an 11 seed and be bounced in the first round and will be considered a success and a step in the right direction.
Id rather have the Met deal if we can get another great prospect in it. Our minor leagues are completely devoid of position players of much talent and we need to restock for the future. It doesnt hurt that Santana would be in the National league and we wouldnt have to face him very often.
Problem with the Facebook thing is similar to what cops face. If they see a bottle (unopened) they can’t charge anyone until they do a field alcohol check. The difference here is that the admin. at Eden Prairie cannot do a field check on a pict., and kids are notorious for holding up beers, bongs whatever. So, I say PROOF, Eden Prairie, proof that these kids were buzzed, but unless holding up a glass is a sin somehow..back off !
RE: Eden Prairie.
We had a similar situation back when I was in high school, when my friend Cyrus scrawled “Goody Talbot oughtn’t drink the demon wine” on the back of a coal shovel.
She was burned as a witch, and things settled down.
Blake Hoffarber was the key in the game last night. If he misses those threes, Northwestern continues to baffle the Gophs with their crazy amorphous zone defenses. I went to the Gopher/Northwestern game a few years ago, and it was the same crap. There were points last night that I thought I was having deja vu. (Oh yeah, I don’t get the game, I was watching at a buddy’s house who has Dish).
If the Gophers make the NCAA tourney, this season has been a success. Tubby’s not working with a whole lot, but he’s got them playing hard. The use of the full-court press is something I love to see.
Re: Santana - If the Twins can get that 5th prospect, I say trade him to the Mets and be done with it. The odds of the Twins winning the World Series, much less making the playoffs this year, aren’t fantastic, so let’s get something for Johan before we’re left with compensation picks.
I’d like to see/hear them win a few more conference games before I say that they are NCAA Tourney bound. They are much better than last year, but that really isn’t saying much.
P3, do you honestly believe that high school kids hold up alcoholic beverages to have pictures taken at a party and aren’t drinking them?
Then again, it’s probably easier to tell if it’s Thompson’s Water Seal. That container is pretty recognizable.
As the not-so-proud owner of an alcohol suspension during my high school days, as I remember the penalty was only two contests or two weeks, whichever is shorter, for any person who is caught at a party where alcohol is being served to minors. So these EP kids need to shut up and take their medicine. Football is really the only sport where two contests can drastically alter your season.
Unknown Dave…sometimes it’s for show
and Stu, true story coming up (honest), but (vaguely) similar to yours…We had an English teacher so mean we would all yell “I’m melting !” when she passed. Well, one day I was talking to my friend Harley and she busted in saying “Would you like to tell the class what is so interesting ?” I said “no” since she had put that as a question. Then she Demanded to know, and since then I knew my as. was grass no matter what I said, I told her that I had asked Harley if she was mean because she was ugly or ugly because she was mean …resulting in one of my many suspensions…3 days of daytime tv
It’s good that these EP kids are learning now that anyone can find anything that you put up on the internet. Better to find out when the penalty is some minor stuff in high school than to have a prospective employer google you and come up with all sorts of things that you don’t want up there…
MR !! tell me about it. I have a ton of opinion pieces published that I can find using a variety of search engines, but imagine my surprise (and horror) that even in Google I could find the RandB picture I sent in of me wearing my beloved Favre shirt. I mean people in Seattle when I was out there were just hooting seeing that….but mainly I was embarrassed since I’m not as pathologically bonded to a team as some I know 
RandBall - It’s the internet! You can’t hold your tongue! RandBall is about many things, but never about pulling punches. Right?
Stu - Thanks for the morning laughter.
I love it when kids in Eden Prairie decide to “stick it to the man” and walk out of their classes.
Hilarity. What a proper us of a walkout-facebook stupity-when I was a kid…
Re: BTN
It is Comcast’s fault. Do you think the Comcast produced SEC network will end up on the sports tier?
Jon: Yes and no … since I’m working on the story, I feel the need to reserve judgment to separate personal opinion from the facts at hand.
Yes and no … since I’m working on the story, I feel the need to reserve judgment to separate personal opinion of these spoiled little clowns from the facts at hand.
Better.
I hope they suspend kids involved in the walkout too. It’s a stupid reaction to their own stupidity. And the school doesn’t have the same burden of proof as cops. That so few were suspended is probably the only travesty. And for those (not here, but in the story) that say that the “schools have no business punishing students doing that which doesn’t disrupt school affairs,” talk to me after one of these kids gets in a car and manages to maim/kill themselves and some more students. Because that doesn’t disrupt school affairs.
Regarding the Big 10 Network, both sides have an argument, yet both sides manage to pretty much be wrong. Not sure how Comcast thinks they would have to raise the price to cover adding BTN, but they didn’t lower my price when they took away ESPN Classic last summer. How am I supposed to watch a May 1983 baseball game between the Brewers and Blue Jays now? Still, BTN is ridiculous to think they can charge as much as they do, for that programming–I turned it on one day, and they were showing a concert from the Northwestern Orchestra. Not even at a regional Big 10 Orchestral Competition, mind you.
News from the Wild coming soon…Look for the Wild to announce they are being sold..just a hunch.
more than a hunch now. Confirmed according to Strib
The problem I have with the whole EP story is the lack of due process. There was no way they could prove any of those kids were drinking. In fact, some of those pictures were reportedly of kids at family functions and family weddings, sitting at tables where drinks were on the table.
Combine that with the shot of the girl standing behind the bar in her friends’ basement, with “OMG” BOTTLES VISIBLE! and suddenly things get sketchy in a hurry.
If they’re busted by the cops, or drinking on campus, or show up drunk to a school event, that’s one thing. But this is a whole different story.
Does the MSHSL still have the awesome “guilt by association” rule? Back in my day (around the time of Stu’s coal shovel experience), you didn’t even have to be drinking to be busted. Being with people drinking was enough.
Nathan, that said, even being near alcohol in a party setting is enough to get a suspension from activities. Always has been.
Which while true, is still stupid, always has been.
The only ones that should be found guilty are the ones stupid enough to post on their own sites… That way it is simply following natural selection.
you didn’t even have to be drinking to be busted. Being with people drinking was enough.
Yep. Didn’t like it at the time, but it did instill the valuable “life is arbitrary and unfair” lesson that you just cannot learn soon enough.
RandBall - You’d do it for Randolph Scott.
Nathan, it’s called not putting yourself in a situation where what you were doing was even in question. It shouldn’t be that hard. I managed it as a four year high school athlete. Some of my teammates couldn’t quite do it. They paid consequences (loss of captainships, loss of participation in meets/competitions/games).
Due process is for the courts, not for the MSHSL. People need to realize that no one is being prosecuted. No one is being denied their rights. Extracurricular activities are not a right, they are a privilege. No one has been suspended from school due to the pictures. There really is no argument to be had here except the weak, uninformed arguments coming from people who are afraid of being held accountable for actions in which they’ve now been caught.
If you want to drink in high school, don’t play sports, be in band, NHS, etc. In other words, don’t do any of the things that give you something to do other than drink in high school.
What’s Facebook?
“We shook the school today” - Nick Laurent
No, you really didn’t. People have been doing walkouts over stupid [redacted] for years. The only thing those students did is prove how immature and stupid they are. They’ve found multiple ways to do that over the last couple days. I’m wondering what’s next. I’m guessing some kind of threat to get the school evacuated. Because that’s creative and new, too.
My, my, everyone has an impassioned point in this Eden Prairie “Crime of the Century”, but if you were all reading your opinions of today 10 years ago, you would all sound like old fogeys…in your own eyes !! Let’s wait around for something stupid…like proof ! An analogy could be made that most every person who stood near a cliff for a lame picture did NOT jump…(obscure point involved there) ..
What’s Facebook?
Thank you. Wasn’t Bachman Turner Overdrive awesome?
Heavy line coming up rightt now so be sure 2 laugh, but Lennon (tieing in to other blog) once said something applicable to Facebook saying that in previous times people wanted money or sex or power (still do !) but now since few can get to the pinnacle in those dimensions aim at fame !!..being seen, being known..even if you are a lousy singer being carted off to a mental hospital…Fame, I’m going to live forever !!…so kids want their faces out there…like Classmates.com…ok I’m done. Start laughing but it was Lennon’s rap, remember
So, does that mean that no high school athlete can ever be in a restaurant where booze is served? Their parents need to tee-total? They can never drive a car in which alcohol is being transported?
These ridiculously arbitrary rules are pathetic.
I just have a major problem with suspending people on suspicion. Suspensions with proof, go for it. Suspensions with arrests, sure thing. However, suspensions based upon pictures of kids at a party where alcohol is being served is ridiculous. If they are in possession of the alcohol, that’s one thing, but that isn’t always the case.
I have no problem with accountability and kids getting busted (especially western suburban cake eaters), but this is just too far.
Thanks for sharing
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
