Category Archives: Miscellaneous

As noted previously—here and here—the Atlanta Braves became the first major league team to sponsor a so-called “faith day” event. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described the event as a “blend of big-tent evangelism and the national pastime.”

But as David Zirin pointed out in The Nation last month the events were to be cosponsored by right-wing group Focus on the Family, which, according to their press release, used the event to distribute promotional materials about a website they run called TroubledWith.com, which features virulently anti-gay content:

Male homosexuality is a developmental problem that is almost always the result of problems in family relations, particularly between father and son. [Link]

The following factors can also contribute to the homosexual orientation: pornography; spousal abuse in the home; molestation and pedophilia… [Link]

‘Mom…I’m Gay’: The story of one woman who heard these devastating words. [Link]

While the Braves have not cancelled the remaining “Faith Day” events at Turner Field they have given the boot to Focus on the Family. The Associated Press reports today that:

Focus on the Family, a group founded by James Dobson, was barred from participating in Sunday’s postgame activities after sponsoring the first such event at Turner Field last month.

While the team wouldn’t provide a reason for its decision, several gay rights groups on the Web bristled with speculation that Focus on the Family was given the boot for promoting its belief that homosexuality is a social problem comparable to alcoholism, gambling or depression.

The Braves remain under the curse of the FSM for their collaboration with Focus on the Family and are currently mired in 4th place in the National League East, 17 games behind the evil New York Mets.

I’ll admit to producing a few PowerPoints presentations in my time, but not that many … really!

In fact, I’ve even broached the idea with a few colleages (and students in my curriculum seminar last term) that powerpoint has a “controlling” if not “silencing” effect on classroom interactions—absolute heresy in an era when it seems powerpoint is de rigueur in the university classroom (at least among folks who think good pedagogy can be had by merely adding technology to the classroom).

But I never really thought about powerpoint as Stalinist pedagogy, until now…

Well, seems I’m not alone as Edward R. Tufte has produced a devasting indictment of powerpoint in his essay “The cognitive style of powerpoint”, where he argues:

In corporate and government bureaucracies, the standard method for making a presentation is to talk about a list of points organized onto slides projected up on the wall. For many years, overhead projectors lit up transparencies, and slide projectors showed high-resolution 35mm slides. Now “slideware” computer programs for presentations are nearly everywhere. Early in the 21st century, several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint were turning out trillions of slides each year.

Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?

Here’s another sample from the Tufte’s essay: Powerpoint does rocket science

On June 2, I posted an entry about the Atlanta Braves plan to have “Faith Nights” at Turner Field this summer.

Faith Nights (and Days) is a promotion that aims to turn the ballpark into an evangelical Christian testimony service. In a piece for The Nation titled ““You Can Keep the Faith,” Dave Zirin exposes the Braves promotion as a surreptitious collaboration with the James Dobson’s anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-sex education Focus on the Family organization.

Zirin calls for Faith Days and Nights at ballparks in the major and minor leagues to be “exposed, picketed and, most of all, shunned. Let the emissaries of Dobson preach in peace outside the park. Inside is sacred space.”

You can send a letter of protest to the Atlanta Braves via their web site.

Here’s my latest letter to the Braves:

I have been a long time Braves fan (since before the team moved to Atlanta) and as an Atlanta resident in the 1970s and 1980s I attended many games.

I wanted to let you know that I am deeply offended by the Braves “Faith Night” promotion. This promotion is blatantly exclusive of religious faiths outside of evangelical Christianity and it links the Atlanta Braves with an organization that is anti-gay and anti-Semitic.

Ostensibly a collaboration with Third Coast Sports, this promotion is apparently (according to the Third Coast Sports website) a partnership between the Atlanta Braves and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family an evangelical Christian group that is anti-choice, anti-gay, against sex education, and the leading proponent of the bogus notion of “reparative therapy” for homosexuality.

I find the very notion of “Faith Nights” at the ball park disheartening as baseball has (and should remain) a game that brings diverse people together, however, this crass marketing campaign to bring bus loads of church goers to the park actually works to build barriers between people. Personally, as die-hard Braves fan all my life, your collaboration with religious hate-mongers deeply saddens me.

E. Wayne Ross