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Friday, August 8, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
No apologies needed
Search the word "apologize" in Google News at any given time and you’re likely to come up with an absolutely shocking number of results.
In the last week alone, there’s been a handful of good ones: ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith apologized for a garbled radio rant about domestic violence, former Buffalo Bills receiver Andre Reed apologized for saying "[Expletive] Bon Jovi" in an article, NBA player Dwight Howard apologized for a "#FreePalestine" tweet, and Paramount Pictures apologized for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie poster that shows the characters jumping from an exploding building (the movie’s Australian release date is Sept. 11).
Those are just the big ones — I’m ignoring the scores of other, lesser-known incidents that come up quickly with a little more digging. It’s utterly ridiculous, and it is a problem.
Apologies have become a way of life for America, and it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re a celebrity, a bar owner, or just some kid on Facebook; you still need a well-dressed, carefully manicured PR person on hand with a pre-typed, insert-sin-here "I’m sorry" email that can instantly be sent out to all major news outlets ... just in case.
It’s not that these apologies aren’t warranted — some are and some aren’t — but I’m not judging that. It’s about what it says about us as a society that we demand them so often and for every little thing, even though most of the statements (and the mea culpas that follow) come from the rich and famous and are put out to placate some tiny, terribly sensitive group that just can’t handle their own outrage.
But the crocodile-tear atonements are rarely genuine and never convincing, and the person in question is usually much more regretful that someone caught them saying their offensive thing instead of being upset with themselves for saying it.
America has embraced the victimhood culture — that’s very clear — and in 2014, everyone is a fragile snowflake with feelings that blah, blah, blah. But whatever happened to having a "thick skin"? Whatever happened to being tough, to brushing off what someone who’s not worth a minute of our collective time said? Have we considered why we care in the first place?
Did it help — or hurt — my life when "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson made some extraordinarily ignorant comments about minorities and gays in a magazine article last year? They were off-color, certainly, and they made me think less of him as a man. But after watching one episode of the show, could I really be shocked that he’d think that way? And did it affect me in the least that he did? After his half-hearted apology, which A&E wrenched from his mouth by suspending him from his own show, did I sleep better?
People are not perfect. They say and do stupid things and act in bizarre ways (celebrities even more so). That might be off-putting; it certainly is when people do it in our personal lives.
But we need to stop crying. If you don’t like what a celebrity is saying, don’t buy what they’re selling. It’s as simple as that. Freedom of speech is a right in this country, even when we don’t like the speech, and the constant call to publicly shame someone for this or that detracts from real issues, worries, and problems.
And if you don’t agree with this, write to someone else. Because I’m not apologizing.
--
http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/no-apologies-keep-em-to-yourself-please-1.1063355
Those are just the big ones — I’m ignoring the scores of other, lesser-known incidents that come up quickly with a little more digging. It’s utterly ridiculous, and it is a problem.
Apologies have become a way of life for America, and it doesn’t matter anymore if you’re a celebrity, a bar owner, or just some kid on Facebook; you still need a well-dressed, carefully manicured PR person on hand with a pre-typed, insert-sin-here "I’m sorry" email that can instantly be sent out to all major news outlets ... just in case.
It’s not that these apologies aren’t warranted — some are and some aren’t — but I’m not judging that. It’s about what it says about us as a society that we demand them so often and for every little thing, even though most of the statements (and the mea culpas that follow) come from the rich and famous and are put out to placate some tiny, terribly sensitive group that just can’t handle their own outrage.
But the crocodile-tear atonements are rarely genuine and never convincing, and the person in question is usually much more regretful that someone caught them saying their offensive thing instead of being upset with themselves for saying it.
America has embraced the victimhood culture — that’s very clear — and in 2014, everyone is a fragile snowflake with feelings that blah, blah, blah. But whatever happened to having a "thick skin"? Whatever happened to being tough, to brushing off what someone who’s not worth a minute of our collective time said? Have we considered why we care in the first place?
Did it help — or hurt — my life when "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson made some extraordinarily ignorant comments about minorities and gays in a magazine article last year? They were off-color, certainly, and they made me think less of him as a man. But after watching one episode of the show, could I really be shocked that he’d think that way? And did it affect me in the least that he did? After his half-hearted apology, which A&E wrenched from his mouth by suspending him from his own show, did I sleep better?
People are not perfect. They say and do stupid things and act in bizarre ways (celebrities even more so). That might be off-putting; it certainly is when people do it in our personal lives.
But we need to stop crying. If you don’t like what a celebrity is saying, don’t buy what they’re selling. It’s as simple as that. Freedom of speech is a right in this country, even when we don’t like the speech, and the constant call to publicly shame someone for this or that detracts from real issues, worries, and problems.
And if you don’t agree with this, write to someone else. Because I’m not apologizing.
--
http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/no-apologies-keep-em-to-yourself-please-1.1063355
Monday, August 4, 2014
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Atlantic City is hemorrhaging
It wasn't hard to see even back then: this place didn't have long.
Sure, it had elements of the old extravagance: that luminous cluster of casinos, filled with the most admirable characters that such a city could find, gathered around the gaming tables in unprecedented numbers to burn their money and ditch their morals. The lights never dimmed, the cash roared in, and inside those glass doors, life was grand.
But they were just islands of illusion in a turbulent town. A block or two inland and you'd feel the city's real pulse - and it was not something a bus tourist would be keen on. The true Atlantic City was a shattered, burnt-out husk of the place we read about in the history books as having the first boardwalk or finest taffy. The streets were dark and dangerous, and that boardwalk, littered with hustlers and hookers, pushers and pimps, attracted only the foulest that humanity could muster.
It was America's inequality addiction, laid out nice and neat for all to see: the glittering facades full of the Haves, who giggled drunkenly while they threw their money into the fire, and the cruel reality of the Have Nots, who scrounged and stole and scraped for their next meal or final fix.
That city was a loaded gun if I ever saw one.
It took longer than I thought - maybe 10 years or so. But when the voters of New York approved the idea of gaming tables in their state late last year, that trigger was pulled. Gambling was already legal in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and AC's competition, once non-existent, had become stifling.
But even though every casino that opened in another state was a little cut through which Atlantic City's lifeblood ran out, everyone knew that any resort so close to New York City would be a shotgun blast to the chest of a faltering patient.
The revenues tell the tale. Last year's were about half of the city's 2006 high of $5.2 billion. Three of the city's 12 casinos are going out of business already, and who knows if any more will follow.
Call it what you will. The term "casino saturation" seems to be the catchphrase now. But I think it's just capitalism catching up with a city it was once slanted to favor.
Of course, the city's fathers - the real ones, not the politicians - are just as guilty as anyone else. The casino lords and local bosses grew rich off the deals, but instead of seeing the writing on the wall, pulled the tried-and-true method of dodging reality by pushing their heads further into that ever-shrinking pile of greenbacks.
Governor Christie's five-year plan to revitalize the gambling district is sinking into the sandy soil, and every day it grows more and more clear that those golden Monopoly board streets have turned to coal.
If people in this state - or the state's administration - are serious about saving that city before it's too late, a new plan has to be moved forward that will make it into the destination it always should have been. The particulars will have to be worked out by someone who knows those things, and heavy-handed "convincing" of some parties down there may be needed. But if Atlantic City is to survive as anything but a ghetto-by-the-sea, it'll be necessary.
It must become a place that people want to go, just to say they've been there, a city that shows the best of New Jersey - what we can be - not an example of how easily we can flood our own mines.
If it doesn't, there will be consequences. And we'll be left with an oceanfront graveyard, its dark buildings rising into the night like massive tombstones, memorials to the city that lost its biggest hand and never rolled the dice again.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
--
- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/atlantic-city-is-hemorrhaging-1.1048648#sthash.R8saq8t0.dpuf
Sure, it had elements of the old extravagance: that luminous cluster of casinos, filled with the most admirable characters that such a city could find, gathered around the gaming tables in unprecedented numbers to burn their money and ditch their morals. The lights never dimmed, the cash roared in, and inside those glass doors, life was grand.
It was America's inequality addiction, laid out nice and neat for all to see: the glittering facades full of the Haves, who giggled drunkenly while they threw their money into the fire, and the cruel reality of the Have Nots, who scrounged and stole and scraped for their next meal or final fix.
That city was a loaded gun if I ever saw one.
It took longer than I thought - maybe 10 years or so. But when the voters of New York approved the idea of gaming tables in their state late last year, that trigger was pulled. Gambling was already legal in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and AC's competition, once non-existent, had become stifling.
But even though every casino that opened in another state was a little cut through which Atlantic City's lifeblood ran out, everyone knew that any resort so close to New York City would be a shotgun blast to the chest of a faltering patient.
The revenues tell the tale. Last year's were about half of the city's 2006 high of $5.2 billion. Three of the city's 12 casinos are going out of business already, and who knows if any more will follow.
Call it what you will. The term "casino saturation" seems to be the catchphrase now. But I think it's just capitalism catching up with a city it was once slanted to favor.
Of course, the city's fathers - the real ones, not the politicians - are just as guilty as anyone else. The casino lords and local bosses grew rich off the deals, but instead of seeing the writing on the wall, pulled the tried-and-true method of dodging reality by pushing their heads further into that ever-shrinking pile of greenbacks.
Governor Christie's five-year plan to revitalize the gambling district is sinking into the sandy soil, and every day it grows more and more clear that those golden Monopoly board streets have turned to coal.
If people in this state - or the state's administration - are serious about saving that city before it's too late, a new plan has to be moved forward that will make it into the destination it always should have been. The particulars will have to be worked out by someone who knows those things, and heavy-handed "convincing" of some parties down there may be needed. But if Atlantic City is to survive as anything but a ghetto-by-the-sea, it'll be necessary.
It must become a place that people want to go, just to say they've been there, a city that shows the best of New Jersey - what we can be - not an example of how easily we can flood our own mines.
If it doesn't, there will be consequences. And we'll be left with an oceanfront graveyard, its dark buildings rising into the night like massive tombstones, memorials to the city that lost its biggest hand and never rolled the dice again.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
--
- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/atlantic-city-is-hemorrhaging-1.1048648#sthash.R8saq8t0.dpuf
Monday, July 7, 2014
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