9 responses so far ↓

• 1 J. Goard // Apr 10, 2006 at 4:32 am

  “nobody’s figured out how to redistribute awesomeness to the less awesomely endowed”

  Well, with respect to a specific achievement by which awesomeness is to be evaluated, you could always establish separate competition within a handicapped subpopulation, then convince almost everyone that accomplishments are commensurate. As is, Davenport turns out to seem about as awesome as Federer, even to my jaded mind. And isn’t awesomeness pretty much defined by the seeming?

  Redistributing awesomeness in journalism, I’m not so sure about.

• 2 EDA // Apr 11, 2006 at 2:55 pm

  Congratulations to Kerry from me. Looks like there
  are some pretty formidable runners up.

• 3 Chuck // Apr 12, 2006 at 2:33 pm

  Goard, what the hell is wrong with you? Federer is on pace to be the greatest ever, Davenport is hall-of-fame material to be sure but run-of-the-mill for that (elite) crowd.

  Congrats to Kerry. In a field full of “wanna-be”s, she’s the real deal.

• 4 J. Goard // Apr 14, 2006 at 3:15 am

  Chuck,

  Dude, at her prime, she was arguably the first through third best woman of her time, and maybe down to fifth or sixth of all time. (Athletes are always getting better, of course.) Run-of-the-mill?

  Anyway, my point is that if one thinks a Rawlsian ethic can’t justify the institutional redistribution of prestige, one is mistaken. We actually ought to be having a conversation about when it should and shouldn’t occur. Obviously it should occur with kids in sports: we shouldn’t say to the 10-year-old swimmer, “Hey, there’s no way you can beat any 17-year-olds. You suck. Maybe you’ll be good someday.” We set age groups for competition, so (some) ten-year-olds can be awesome too. In professional awards, this generally doesn’t happen, and probably shouldn’t. Sometimes it does, though, today usually based upon race. Should it? Seems like a good question to me.

  And damn, Julian is officially a philosopher, so I have a right to nitpick his offhand comment.

  But yes, congrats to an awesome writer.

• 5 Tim Blair // Apr 15, 2006 at 12:03 pm

  I think someone’s trying to score some ass.

• 6 Julian Sanchez // Apr 16, 2006 at 3:56 am

  I think I can say nice things about my girlfriend without its falling into the “trying to score some ass” category.

• 7 Julian Sanchez // Apr 16, 2006 at 6:20 pm

  My name is Julian Sanchez too!!!!!!!! I just typed in my name on this address and you popped up. Talk to me. I’ve never met anyone else with my same exact name.

  ps. What’s your middle name???

• 8 Julian Sanchez // Apr 17, 2006 at 1:54 am

  Julian actually is my middle name. My full name is Miguel Frederick Julian Sanchez, but I’ve always gone by Julian. There are actually a bunch of us: A photographer, an ultimate fighter, a graduate student in biomedical sciences, the head of multicultural affairs at Duke… among others, no doubt.

• 9 Taylor // Apr 19, 2006 at 9:04 am

  Redistribute Howley’s talents? You sound like a commie! 😉