Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Person of the Year...

In all seriousness, I think one could do worse than Kos. Chuck Schumer would have to be another candidate. The Dems' success has more to do with Bush's failure than anything else, and I've been skeptical about the Daily Kos's influence, but it's hard to argure with results.

In reality, I'm predicting a cop out multiple winner, like the "whistleblowers" or "American GI" of previous years. It could be "the independent voter," or "the scientist," or even "the blogger." Or they could really punt and go with someone like Katie Couric.

For Sportsman of the Year, it's boring, but I'd have to go with Tiger Woods. He again established himself as in a class by himself. To go off the beaten path, I might pick Rutgers fullbackBrian Leonard (and I highly recommend the linked article), who captures most of what's great in sports.

SI might pick Woods, but they can't pick him every year. Tony La Russa's probably in the running, as is Andre Agassi.

I'm wearing a T-shirt and gym shorts. I'm watching my video of the 1999 Rams Super Bowl year, and I'm reminded how much I miss watching Marshal Faulk play football. It's odd his retirement was greeted with so little fanfare. I don't think there's any athlete I enjoyed watching more than Faulk. Also, it's kind of strange how the play Isaac Bruce made for the 80 yard winning touchdown with 2 minutes left in that Super Bowl has faded to obscurity, between the way the game ended and the Rams losing the Super Bowl dramatically two years later. But it's hard to think of a play in Super Bowl history that mix of being spectacular and having an impact on the result.

4 comments:

TenaciousK said...

Hey John:
top-posting a reply pushes other recent posts down the page. I'm thinking we'd rather have variety at first glance - don't you think?

Just a thought.

JohnMcG said...

TK,

I'm trying to err on putting more content on the front page rather than less. Right now, the FAQ, posted last Friday, hasn't yet been pushed off the front page.

I guess the model I see for this is closer to a Breakfast Table (contributors chime in on various topics, conversational tone) rather than the Fray (someone posts an essay as a top post and people discuss it in the thread). So, for myself, I'm lowering the bar for what merits a top post. At this point, I think it's more valuable for us to have a fluid conversation than to conserve front page space.

But that's just me; I could be wrong. If the consensus is that the top posts are a nuisance, I'll cease and desist.

Ed said...

John: I'm fine with your approach.

TK: Valid point. However, consider: (a) for regulars, the comment feed keeps us abreast of active conversations no matter how old the post those comments are in response to; (b) there are 20 slots for top posts on the blog, and I can increase that number (it’s really arbitrary, if anyone thinks it should be more, let me know); and (b) blogs are different in that unlike the fray where once a top post is pushed off the front page is might as well have fallen of the face of the earth, blog posts remain indexed in search engines, and search engines are one of the primary ways people find blog posts talking about what they’re looking for.

Dawn Coyote said...

Noting that I'm cynical about the criteria for the award of PotY, so I didn't even bother to mention Mohammed Yunis: not pretty/visible enough.

Also, I have a special set of torments reserved exclusively for sports fans.