This afternoon it dawned on me that I had not yet read Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN Page 2. It is a column that I read many times (and enjoyed) without really registering the source, but recently, perhaps because of his train of thought on Hillary’s novel, I’ve taken notice. However, tonight on Page 2 (I’ll have to find a more permanent link) there is an announcement: To our readers: Tuesday Morning Quarterback will no longer be available on ESPN.com.
Gregg Easterbrook is the Tuesday Morning Quarterback. He has already been removed from the list of Page 2 columnists (note that I might steal this layout once kissaboo has more constantly contributing authors). Even his old columns have been removed from ESPN (example). Now through his column, I knew his main job was writing for The New Republic and he has a blog there. While I have heard of this publication, I have never read it and do not know what its stance is or what issues it covers. Thus I have never read Gregg’s blog, all I know is that I love his analysis of the NFL – managing to combine humor with excellent observations on the nature of pro football.
Now I remember in passing his name being mentioned on a couple of news sites attached to some scandal, but as I wrote before, I never read his blog and figured that any publicity is good publicity. A quick search of the web upon discovering that TMQ has been removed from Page 2 discovered this entry (2nd Moveable Type Blog of the day – Norlos) – but the real discussion is occurring on this post. It turns out that in this post on Easterbrook’s blog (which he subsequently apologizes / clarifies later) he questions what factors would allow Jewish executives to allow the release of such a violent film as Kill Bill. Now, I did not read his initial entry because I still plan to see Kill Bill. I know it will be an exceptionally violent movie – at least I have heard this – but I don’t see this as “mind warping violence”. I saw in his apology that some claims were made about violent entertainment on kids and my response is a) I have yet to see a sensible study that showed any true causal relation between the 2 and b) this film should not be viewed by kids unless their parents think they can handle it.
The sad part is that TMQ has nothing to do with this.
However: Kill Bill -> Miramax -> Disney -> ESPN -> no more TMQ
Since I doubt that ESPN or Disney executives will come across this site and reach any epiphany about freedom of speech and the fallibility of humans, I plan to formally write a letter of protest. They still will not reach any epiphany, but I encourage everyone to make their voice heard if they feel the same on the matter.