What did he do that required any sort celebratory reaction? Did he disarm a nuclear bomb? Save some orphans from a burning building? Cure a disease? Turn water into gasoline? Nope. He scored a TD on opening day that neither gave his team the lead or tied the score.

This is so disingenuous it has to be called a lie. He put his team within the extra point (as high-percentage a play as exists in football) of tying the game, thus keeping alive the team's chances of winning the game, and their chances of having a breakout season, one of the very few seasons he'll be playing in college football, which is probably as far as his football career will go, football obviously being one of the most important parts of this kid's life, and he did it in front of tens of thousands of fans who erupted with joy as soon as he did it. It was probably as emotionally intense a moment (for him) as a human being can ever experience. Don't pretend that what he did was nothing special.

I can't defend the rule. It is even more difficult to defend a player that breaks it.

No, it's relatively easy to defend the player who breaks an indefensible rule. You seem to think that the fact that the rule is indefensible is irrelevant to whether he broke it or not, but that's not the case because it matters how difficult it is for a person to obey it. It's obviously more reasonable to expect a player to obey a defensible rule such as, say, not shoving the ball down another player's throat, than it is to expect him to obey an indefensible one such as not flipping the ball in the air after a touchdown, especially in a situation as intense as this. Not all rules are the same; some require a lot more self-control than others. It's true that players have to follow the rules and Locker (and his team) would have been better off if he followed them, but that's not saying much. For you to judge Locker as stupid and lacking in self-control because he instinctively reacted to his touchdown in a way that most people agree is perfectly normal and inoffensive, and to claim this failure to observe the ludicrous rule is determinative--or even suggestive--of his "personal growth as a person and a student while in school" is preposterous.

Of course it's not impossible to obey the rule--some players in that situation won't toss the ball in the air. But let's be realistic: that's not because they're making a conscious ethical choice to obey this silly rule in the heat of the moment. It's because whatever their instinctive reaction is happens not to violate the rule. The measure of self-control in that split-second situation is whether you behave reasonably or unreasonably, not whether you follow a rule that we've agreed is senseless.

... so many red herrings in your reply, rampart, and so widely missing the point of my post, that I'll let it go. You're apparently one of those who doesn't make distinctions or admit complexity. So be it.

How did you know that all of the remaining designers are showing a collection at Bryant Park? They haven't announced that on the show yet, so I was expecting more eliminations. That's a pretty big surprise, and you just blew it for me. You may not have spoiled the finale, but you spoiled the next episode, and that's still pretty shitty of you.

As happens every time there's real economic uncertainty, we're told that the consequences of no government action will "almost certainly" be "disastrous," without any specifics on what that actually means. That's nothing but a scare tactic, regardless of whether or not the danger is real. (Terrorism, anyone?)

This isn't 1929. So please, Andrew, from someone who's not an economist and who turns to articles like this to help me stay informed, will you for once justify your assumption of impending disaster? Or at least refer me to someone who's done it?

Regardless of the argument about "bandwagonning," you can't just gauge the size of a team's fan base, or its degree of loyalty, by attendance at the ballpark. I follow my team all season long, root for them without question, and occasionally buy some merchandise, but I only go to one or two games a year. I don't have an impact on attendance figures, but I'm a loyal fan and I have been all my life. You've got to factor in people like me if you really want to measure this stuff.

Given this, I do think it's fair to assume that storied teams with long histories of ups and downs (e.g. the Phillies) have bigger and stronger fan bases than upstart teams (e.g. the Rays), and also to believe that dedicated fandom shows more character than the "newfound passion," "consumer choice" kind of fandom you're talking about—even though there's nothing wrong with the latter. But I'm also compelled to wonder why we should give a shit about such things, and people who complain about bandwagon fans need better things to worry about.