That Aud Smell

Agreed on all counts. E-Rod looks to be a valuable NHL player. But if he is in your top-6, then your team is not a playoff team. Enjoy! What in the actual ....

What a weirdly long break. Let's go, Buffalo!

So much power. So much privilege.

Long day at the office for me today. I couldn’t tell what’s literal and what’s metaphorical in this post. And we good, fam.

The arc that explains why why this thread, and its direction, has amused (and maybe bemused) me is a difficult one to reconstruct. I know it will over-simplify matters, but I'll try it this way: A story of a middle-aged white male executive acting like a horny sh*t heel and abusing his station and power in so doing prompted me to #SMH and reflect on how far too many middle-aged white male executives (still!) engage in this sort of behaviour and that I really wished it would stop post haste.** The ensuing defence campaign for the cohort at issue is, in the end, nothing short of confusing to me. I mean, are there other human beings who are not middle-aged white male executives who also do things that are bad? Fookin' right there are. I just don't see what that's got to do with the issue at hand, as I perceive it. ** And in so reflecting, I counted myself among the people who need to be part of building business cultures that are better. Shoot - in the time that's elapsed since this conversation started I came to realize that I had likely steamrolled and mansplained a junior female colleague during a planning session.

Just popped back in to see whether middle-aged white male executives were still getting a stirring defence. I was not disappointed.

I only got to see a bit of the game. The Sabres were positively dominant out of the gate. I saw the SOG this morning. Shame that the team didn’t get a better result - looks like they deserved it.

Well. Okay, then.

Perhaps because he presents as more ... entertaining (?) quarry.

Now, now. They do illuminate. They don't tell the whole story, of course. For sure. And of late they've been trending closer to good. Not sure where it's been discussed, but the TOR faithful have apparently been brutal to Gardiner (sp?). So says Twitter, anyway. Carolina would agree with that. OTOH, someone posted the top-12 (or so) Corsi teams the other day -- all but one (Carolina) was in a playoff position. It's his shtick.

Lol. I love Tierney's charts. So pretty! They often confuse me, though. Tierney's Corsi graphs plot the Sabres right between "Dull" and "Bad." I struggle with how to translate that into normal hockey/sports-speak. Like - what does it mean to be betwixt and between being dull and bad? Also, I have often found that characterization (dull/bad) would not really square with my experience in watching the team. I dunno.

I feel like sometimes the purported prohibition on stereotyping people can be weaponized in order to deny or dispute that a certain demographic has a shared experience and culture. Anyway, rather than being stupid, I found Chris Rock's joke hilarious. Here's a quote of it from a review of the special Bring the Pain: "You know what I like about Clinton? He's got real problems. He don't got president problems, he's got real problems like you and me. He's runnin' out of money. His wife's a pain. . . . All his friends are goin' to jail. I know Bill Clinton. I am Bill Clinton."

Re Dahlin. I saw some of Sean Tierney's charts this week that reflected that, of late specifically, Dahlin is already playing like one of the league's best d-men. I forget the metric at issue, but Dahlin was an outlier in the company of Karlsson and a couple others.

White privilege always has room for some token Uncle Tom's. Clarence Thomas is among the whitest motherpluckers out there. Which brings to mind one of my favourite Chappelle [edit: trying to recall who did the joke about Bill Clinton] bits: It's Chris Rock I was thinking of. I can't find the clip. It's the one where he talks about Clinton being black. I think Toni Morrison more famously called Clinton the first black president.

Thanks. When I drop in and drop out over the course of days, I lose the thread sometimes. Like: "Wait, what are we talking about?"

The slurring of the white male. So tragic. I shouldn't poke fun, actually. That exact sort of feeling wound up having a truly surprising effect in November 2016.

Leave who alone to do what?

Fwiw: p.s. I submit that without really understanding what it means other than blue looks "good" and red looks "bad." I know nothing about the two players. And this, in fact, is a reason that #fancystats can be helpful. I can have some understanding of the players without knowing much about their play.

Let’s go, Buffalo!! Whither @rickshaw?

I’m not sure I’m an analytic folk, but I distinctly recall such a conversation after a loss to the Rangers early on this season. I think this happens regularly when the Sabres lose, but deserved better. Not for nothing: That hasn’t happened too much this season. I look forward to digging up and replying anew to this post while sitting in a self-driven Uber. Shoot. They’re back online in Pittsburgh, yes? (Only for testing?)

“White men are inherently privileged and powerful in America.” Please allow me a modest LOL.

Something something about the mind that can simultaneously hold two contrary thoughts. This is routinely how I experience things: I enjoy the game in the moment (or I don't enjoy it ...) and then I peruse stats during off-hours.

Sir! Sir! Please do not burden me with such metaphysics. I am still working on @X. Benedict's demand to know how many hockey-pirouettes a young Phil Housley could have fit on Bill Hajt's head. It's an interesting question, on a lot of levels. I'll venture this: It would present a different analysis. A different set of solutions for a path forward. From the young lady's point of view, I don't know that it would matter all that much what her harasser's race was/is. I'm getting there.

I don't want to descend into the weeds on this. You and I have very different viewpoints on whether and to what extent being white and being male give rise, singly and jointly, to certain inherent and certain acquired privileges and powers in modern America. A black or Latino boss would not, like his white counterpart, hail from an historically advantaged, privileged race in America. So his race probably would not factor into my perspective in the same way a white boss's race would. White men in America have a specific and unique place in our society -- they (we) are, as a cohort, ensconced atop the social pecking order. I trust and expect that you would disagree with, dissent from that perspective.