RAGBRAI is dead - sort of

[kppolich]

Both RAGBRAI and the fundraising are more important and valuable to society than someone's questionable retweets from 7 years ago. Prove Me Wrong.

[echappist]

Originally Posted by kppolich

Both RAGBRAI and the fundraising are more important and valuable to society than someone's questionable retweets from 7 years ago. Prove Me Wrong.

you could be wrong, and you could be right, but that's a deeply cynical and transactional view of the world.

If the person raised only $100 as opposed to $3M, would that make a difference?

I'm actually aware of one setting where the amount does end up mattering, but then again, it's called the sentencing phase of a trial, where the convicted tries to convince the court that good deeds done should justify a lighter sentencing.

[kppolich]

Originally Posted by echappist

you could be wrong, and you could be right, but that's a deeply cynical and transactional view of the world.

If the person raised only $100 as opposed to $3M, would that make a difference?

I'm actually aware of one setting where the amount does end up mattering, but then again, it's called the sentencing phase of a trial, where the convicted tries to convince the court that good deeds done should justify a lighter sentencing.

If he had raised $100 he would have spent it on the beer like a good chap and would have never made the news, and the 'journalist' would have never known his name and thus never looked 7 years into his past to make a story.

[echappist]

Originally Posted by kppolich

If he had raised $100 he would have spent it on the beer like a good chap and would have never made the news, and the 'journalist' would have never known his name and thus never looked 7 years into his past to make a story.

quite the deflection there...

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by kppolich

If he had raised $100 he would have spent it on the beer like a good chap and would have never made the news, and the 'journalist' would have never known his name and thus never looked 7 years into his past to make a story.

You're discounting the background of story subjects is a vital part of the journalistic process, especially in situations where donations end up going towards scams, are raised by nefarious people, and otherwise ruin what otherwise is a feel good story. Would you rather the paper uncritically report the story, like, say the $400k GoFundMe scam? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/u...am-guilty.html

Tweeting racist stuff ain't a crime. But he pre-empted the Register coverage of by holding a news conference to apologize for them after Busch Light already cut ties.

[kppolich]

Discounting a kid who raised money for something he didn't have to before he came into good fortune? Shame on me! Discounting a 16 year old for retweeting Tosh.0, I bet nobody else on earth has ever done that!

Not deflecting just stating the absolute truth. If it was $100 and not $3,000,000 we wouldn't be having this conversation and it would be back to arguing about Campy vs. Shimano.

Yes, if you view his retweets as mildly racist that is your right. If you view them as just another retweet on twitter that you didn't know or care about before someone started this thread, that is your right.


Digging deep into the past of anyone to make a name for yourself is shameful at best, but if you'd like to give the 'journalist' kudos for that too, be my guest.

Some things are more important than your political and human right opinions on if a tweet qualifies as 'World Ending Racist Behavior that will set us back 300 years' This was not that, and if you feel that way I recommend you talk to someone.

Overall, this sucks for everyone. Bad for the paper, bad for the kid who had the same judgement abilities as most of us at Age 16, and most of all bad for the state of Iowa with RAGBRAI losing some glitter. Spliting groups in half is exactly what this did, and RAGBRAI is just too cool of an experience to take away from.

/thread

[unterhausen]

To get this straight, the guy tweeted a tosh.0 clip without comment? How racist is tosh.0?

[Red Tornado]

Originally Posted by kppolich

Discounting a kid who raised money for something he didn't have to before he came into good fortune? Shame on me! Discounting a 16 year old for retweeting Tosh.0, I bet nobody else on earth has ever done that!

Not deflecting just stating the absolute truth. If it was $100 and not $3,000,000 we wouldn't be having this conversation and it would be back to arguing about Campy vs. Shimano.

Yes, if you view his retweets as mildly racist that is your right. If you view them as just another retweet on twitter that you didn't know or care about before someone started this thread, that is your right.


Digging deep into the past of anyone to make a name for yourself is shameful at best, but if you'd like to give the 'journalist' kudos for that too, be my guest.

Some things are more important than your political and human right opinions on if a tweet qualifies as 'World Ending Racist Behavior that will set us back 300 years' This was not that, and if you feel that way I recommend you talk to someone.

This is what stinks to me. Seems like if someone gets in the limelight these days, for anything, the press immediately tries to find dirt on them and then report on that with the equal, or more, effort than the original reason the person rose to recognition. I literally don't know one person that doesn't have skeletons in the closet, some bigger than others. The reporters that do this are showing themselves to be hypocrites, since I'd bet the majority of them are no better than the people they are smearing, and probably also did things they shouldn't have - like this reporter.
If someone has a pattern of bad/racist/violent/etc. behavior, especially in the present, that's one thing. If someone did some stupid things in their younger years but is a productive, law-abiding and in this case non-racist member of society, let it go.
Bad, low-brow journalism if you ask me and a sad picture of our society the way the masses eat this crap up.

[kppolich]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

To get this straight, the guy tweeted a tosh.0 clip without comment? How racist is tosh.0?

It was on Comedy Central who also has the Daily Show.
Comedy Central is owned by Viacom who also owns BET, MTV, Nickelodeon, CMT, and Paramount.

[Saxon]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

To get this straight, the guy tweeted a tosh.0 clip without comment? How racist is tosh.0?

Some comedy finds its humor in pushing the envelope, riding the line of good/bad taste and current social limits. Can you imagine what would have happened if he would have tweeted old Andrew Dice Clay clips? He would have been tagged as a radical misogynist.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by kppolich

Digging deep into the past of anyone to make a name for yourself is shameful at best, but if you'd like to give the 'journalist' kudos for that too, be my guest.

It's not shameful, it's a journalistic responsibility. It's not a reporter making a name for himself, its a reporter doing their job. And this isn't exactly Ida Tarbell or Upton Sinclair here. Searching Twitter is not hard. (Again, why no one should ever Tweet.)

Busch Light cut ties with the kid even before anything was published, because I'm sure they did the same basic Googling, because we live in a time where there is a recognition that the kind of casual, blithe racism that permeates discourse is bad.
I'm sure he was doing the presser to try get out ahead of the possible negative reaction to some old racist tweets, but ended up backfiring.

It's a messy situation all around but its not the outlet's job to suppress potentially negative things just to keep the feel good story alive. Busch didn't have to cut ties with the guy, they could have hung in because it was just a couple Tosh.O retweets.

A worthwhile conversation to have is does casual racism negate the good acts of someone? Or more deeply, is casual racism so ingrained in the culture that literally everyone does it? And it's broadcast on major cable channels on the reg. And if so, why?

Instead let's literally blame the messenger on this one.

[unterhausen]

if someone was tweeting at 16, they really need to go back and delete their tweets.

I have to admit that this seems a little off. I would say it's a lot more appropriate for the journalist to be fired for his twitter history from the sounds of it.

[tctyres]

I got this email from Brancel Charters this morning. It's a company that supports RAGBRAI participants logistically. I used them for a ride across Iowa a few years ago.

I think it must be frustrating if you are a small company but need to decide between the rides.

Originally Posted by Brancel Charters

Dear customers,

As many of you may have seen via social media and other news coverage, there was a change in the leadership of the RAGBRAI organization this week. If you have not read any of the coverage, we are providing a link here:

https://www.thegazette.com/subject/n...-king-20191017

Brancel Charters is committed to providing our customers with outstanding support during their bicycle ride in Iowa.

We are now in the situation of needing to determine if that will be in support of RAGBRAI or Iowa’s Ride.

We ask that you respond to this survey to provide us with as much information about what it is our customers want as we can possible gather.

Survey link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/G69P8F6

There are still many uncertainties as information and plans become available.

Thank you for your time,

Bob and Debbie Brancel

https://brancelcharters.com/ragbrai/index.html

[William]

Surprise, a 16 year old did something stupid. How many times in the history of the world have 16 year olds done something stupid? The question is, what have they done into adulthood? Do the still do the same stupid things or do they become adults and go on to do positive things? By all appearance,s in this situation, the man has appeared to move on and do good.

I guess the question becomes do you support the good, or do you focus on the past (apparently a single tweet/retweet) and tear down the good person and by extension their good deeds?







W.

[tylercheung]

Originally Posted by kppolich

Both RAGBRAI and the fundraising are more important and valuable to society than someone's questionable retweets from 7 years ago. Prove Me Wrong.

Look at this from a distance, my general gut feeling is that if an organization folds because of mere retweets, it was not a healthy organization on good financial or organizational footing in the first place...