Why Newspapers are dying: Boston Globe edition

If Bill Gallo and the New York Daily News wasn't enough we now have Peter Frunt and the Boston Globe. I wonder if these guys realize that the equivalent of what they are writing is when old white people in the mid-90's started freaking out about gangster rap. 

WHAT WOULD it take for states to allow high-stakes, televised dog fighting?

I am going to go with the total collapse of society, which will probably mean there won't be any television

The very question is repugnant, yet the blueprint has been drawn with remarkable clarity by promoters of so-called mixed martial arts (MMA), or "human dog-fighting'' as the New York State Catholic Conference called it in a recent letter to lawmakers.

Nothing like that papal seal to show that you mean business (disclosure: I am Catholic).

Legislators in Massachusetts and New York are inching closer to sanctioning MMA, joining 40 other states that have abandoned their moral stands against the bloody events in which choking, kicking, and pummeling opponents while they're on their backs are not only routine, they are the essence of the spectacle.

The rich irony of this is wonderful. I should go out and find a Mormon from Utah, or a Baptist from Mississippi, and watch them decry Massachusetts as possessing the moral decadence of Sodom and Gomorrah for allowing gay marriage. Another example of moral absolutism being a really bad basis for policy. 

What 10 years ago was an almost invisible "sport,'' barred in most states, forbidden on broadcast television, and struggling without sponsors, this summer conducted its biggest event yet - a championship in Las Vegas with a $5.1 million gate and many millions more in revenue via pay-television.

Oh my god. It's almost as if they grew a sport. This is unacceptable!

It's been less than a decade since Senator John McCain called these fights "barbaric.''

McCain would know as he was witness to the Visigoth's sacking of Rome. 

MMA is "not a sport'' he argued in letters to all 50 governors, urging a total ban. What changed in so little time to move this brutal activity troublingly closer to the mainstream?

Its called the "Unified Rules" and sanctioning by state government athletic commissions. Now if you had actually done your job you would of known that. 

Supporters say tighter rules - such as eliminating head butts and groin kicks, while adding a requirement that fighters wear small, fingerless gloves - were sufficient to quiet critics.

I wonder if he realizes that head butts and groin kicks were elimaned like 15 years ago? 

Yet, at the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, a Los Angeles Times writer observed: "The blood is gushing out. . . just a beautiful sight for the UFC 100 crowd, the folks here in Mandalay Bay screaming with hunger for even more.''

The L.A. Times writer your quoting hated the event and was being moronic in his description.

Another reporter noted that the eventual winner "used at least 17 unanswered blows'' while his opponent was flat on the canvas.

See what he is doing here, taking little quotes from a report to elicit an emotional response from the reader. 

The UFC circuit was purchased in 2001 for $2 million by Nevada casino owner Lorenzo Fertitta and his brother Frank. Seven years later, Forbes magazine valued the business at $1.1 billion. Financiers, marketers, politicians, and sociologists should all take note.

Yeah, its called running a successful business. By the way how are newspapers doing?

The brothers hired a former Nevada athletic commissioner to lobby in state capitals; made unabashed political contributions - to, among others, Senator McCain, who has since changed his tune about MMA; created and funded a reality TV series that glamorizes fighters; used aggressive promotion on the Internet; developed video games based on MMA fighting; and signed Bud Light as a sponsor.

Wow its like they did what business do. Hey, I have a real topic for your moral outrage. Torture! Or how about this. I look forward to that column. 

For each state legislature the arguments for permitting it became more simplistic: other states are allowing it; there is much tax revenue to be had; by sanctioning it, regulations can perhaps be implemented to protect the fighters.

Yeah, those "sin taxes" on gambling, liquor, tobacco, alcohol and cigarettes that every state uses so they don't have to raise taxes on the rich and middle class are totally legit. Wait, no moral outrage about the ethics of taxing an addictive and unsafe product for the sake of the state?

But the biggest boost to mixed martial arts was delivered by media. Last year CBS broke an informal industry agreement by carrying MMA bouts on national broadcast television.

And history books will forever read "The Grand MMA Detente of 1999 was broken when CBS militarized the Sudentan land." 

Newspapers and magazines, torn between ignoring a genuine phenomenon or further legitimizing it through coverage, soon fell in line.

OH MY FUCKING GOD! You guys write and talk about the BIRTHERS! 

Sports Illustrated was among the first to yield to what its editor described as "an ironically ethical alternative to boxing.'' In the tortured reasoning of Terry McDonell, "[Boxers] take so many head shots that they can end life with permanent brain damage. MMA may look more brutal, but the many ways fighters can strike, grab, punch and kick an opponent tends to mean less overall permanent damage.''

You never took physics did you? Alright let's do a quick comparison, which is more dangerous football or rugby. Football is because they have more padding, which means they can throw their bodies around with unnatural force. Also over 300 people have died in the boxing ring. 

The New York Times recently declared mixed martial arts a "mainstream sport.''

OMG the New York Times said it! It must totally be fucking true!

The point was made within a truly bizarre account detailing how MMA fighters are turning to plastic surgery to alter bones and tissue so that when hit in the face they will be less likely to bleed.

Because placing a leg ligament in your arm is totally the social norm! Baseball forever!

In his book "Blood in the Cage,'' whose title refers to the chained enclosure, or cage, in which MMA events are staged, sportswriter L. Jon Wertheim suggests, "MMA is a stiff jab to overprotective social engineers . . . a sport for Hemingways in a culture of Dr. Phils.''

Ah the novelists and their flare for the creative. Real quick, I want to see your moral outrage about this being shown over and over again on ESPN and ESPN 2. 

Such thinking only goes so far.

If dog fighting were to be sanctioned and televised, there would undoubtedly be a sizeable audience, consisting of the eager, the curious, and even the repulsed.

I am not sure if you ever took biology, or even philosophy, but dogs are not humans. I really wasn't sure since you seem to be equating dogs and humans for this "article". 

Presumably that would lead to expensive ring-side seats, video games, and a beer sponsorship.

Seriously dude, your argument is the equivalent of this, "If we let gay people marry then people will want to marry their animals." That is how intellectually bankrupt this story is.

But lawmakers, media, and business people would never condone it. 

Only if Tina Turner ran Barter Town, then it would be condoned. Isn't that your argument?

Why they are willing to view "human dog-fighting'' differently is something the culture of Dr. Phils ought to consider.

Just because you call it "human dog-fighting" --which by the way is really unoriginal most people go for human cock-fighting but I guess you are trying to ride the wave of the Michael Vick release-- doesn't make it the equivalent of dog-fighting. 

Okay I will indulge you for the sake of fun, so let's compare.

Dog-fighting entails the breeding of animals in order to develop traits of aggressive behavior. Animals that do not want to fight are killed and removed from the gene pool of the kennel while animals that do fight are breed to create more combative animals. These dogs are then beaten and starved to further illicit aggressive behavior so when they enter a fight and try to kill and maim. 

MMA fighters are not starved or beaten to create aggressive behavior. Nor are they bred for combat. They train in Jiu-Jitsu, Karate, Muay Thai, Roman-Grecco Wrestling, Judo, Boxing and many more disciplines to hone their talents. The integration of these skill-sets and a forum of competition that allows all of these skills to be utilized has created a new form of martial arts, dubbed mixed-martial arts. These competitions, which any person who is capable of rational thought, would see as the natural extension of other martial art forms which are consider sport. Thus MMA is a sport and is no way equivalent to your Rovian catchphrase.