ESPN fires Paul Shirley after comments about Haiti

[HipChick]

http://blog.zap2it.com/thedishrag/2010/01/paul-shirley-fired-from-espn-for-haiti-comments.html

On Wednesday, ESPN released a brief statement announcing Shirley's views "do not at all reflect our company's views on the Haiti relief efforts. He will no longer contribute to ESPN."

[FSogol]

1. What an ass. Glad he's gone. n/t

[roguevalley]

29. about time. that man is satanic

[SidDithers]

2. An entirely appropriate response from ESPN...

good for them.

Sid

[NYC_SKP]

3. What a dick. I'd read about the comments but no idea who this person was...

Ha.

A sports figure.

No wonder I never heard of him.

Asshole asks them not to rebuild shanty towns next time around.

Yeah, that shanty chic is so outdated, they should have built McMansions like we do here.

Those silly Haitians. :sarcasm:

[lpbk2713]

4. ESPN wanted to hire Limbaugh until they got an overwhelming public reaction.

ESPN knows their boundaries.

[devilgrrl]

5. ESPN did hire Limbaugh and let him go after making similar racist comments about Donavan McNabb

eom

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Uh, when they're already hard-pressed to buy food?

As many Third World countries have learned, it's not that easy.

In a land without a social safety net, having a lot of children seems like a way to ensure that you'll have someone to take care of you when you're old.

In a land with a large number of illiterate people, it is hard to spread information. (The greatest predicter of a low birthrate is the average educational level of the women. All over the world, no matter what the country's religion, countries where the average woman has at least a high school education have low birthrates.)

The culture may treat a large family as proof of the husband's manliness and the wife's virtue.

[HipChick]

17. Haiti is 80%+ Roman Catholic..

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. True, but so are Spain and Italy, and they have low birth rates

Italy has one of the lowest in the world.

I have no patience with the Roman Catholic Church's stance on birth control (a bunch of elderly bachelors are going to dictate what women may or may not do?), but you'll see high birthrates in all the world's poorest countries.

[LynneSin]

24. Well it doesn't help that for 8 years, Bush cut family planning aide for overseas nation

because his opinion it was all about abortion whereas for the rest of us it was about helping people find effective forms of birth control so they can plan their families. Obama restored it the day he came back into office.

[Bluebear]

26. We'll let them know your proclamation immediately.

[Dappleganger]

7. Good!

[Arkansas Granny]

8. As bad as his remarks were, some of the comments on the article

were in the same vein. It's unbelievable that people have so little compassion and understanding of a situation. That's compounded by the fact that they seem to be proud of their attitudes.

[grace0418]

10. Oh, I know! And I love the way some of those geniuses ask "why build your houses in a flood/quake

zone?" :mad:

First of all, is there anywhere on this planet that is completely safe from natural disaster? Floods, earthquakes, volcanos, tsunami, tornados, hurricanes, mudslides, blizzards, wildfires... name one place that is completely safe in this world. And that's not even counting the areas that are unsafe due to terrain, temperatures, or human activity. The state of Illinois is on a big, giant fault line, for pete's sake. And the area underneath Yellowstone is an enormous volcano that would take out a big chunk of the US if it ever blew.

And secondly, where are these people supposed to go? They were born there, that's where their families and loved ones are. I wonder how many of the yahoos who made those comments would pick up and move immediately if they discovered their hometown had a chance of some big disaster happening. I mean, I've lived in Chicago all my life. I've known since I was in high school that the New Madrid fault line comes pretty darn close to this city. If there were a really big earthquake on the upper end of the fault line, half the city would be leveled. Except for downtown, Chicago is primarily brick buildings that were built in the early 1900s or earlier. The building I live in would probably shake apart in a few seconds.

Anyway, where are these people supposed to get the money to leave? Haiti was in dire straits before this happened.

[Bluebear]

30. +1

[grace0418]

9. I'm sure the Haitians had the money and resources to build high-tech, quake-resistant buildings

but they were just too lazy to do it. They figured the rest of the world could be suckered into helping them if anything went wrong, and they'd have saved all that money in the meantime.

:sarcasm: <<<<---- Do I even have to put this?

[Brewman_Jax]

11. Good for ESPN

now, if they'd make clear their policies and not hire racists in the first place (see Limbaugh), they might be able to focus on sports.

[dem629]

12. Strange how so many people are thrilled that someone they never heard of

is fired.

The only reason I ever heard of this guy was b/c I clicked on this thread.

We're going down a pretty interesting road in this country where someone can claim to be offended and the remedy is to fire someone else. That solves a lot, huh?

Anyway, everyone remember to be offended by something today!

[tosh]

14. Really???

Either you forgot your sarcasm thingy or you elected not to click the link and read just what this idiot had to say on company time and property.

[fishwax]

18. just because you've never heard of the guy before clicking on this thread

Doesn't mean that nobody else had. There were several threads yesterday when his original missive was posted here, and yes people were outraged and offended--justifiably so.

But he wasn't fired because "someone can claim to be offended"--he was fired because based on his assinine and offensive response to the disaster in Haiti ESPN didn't think he'd be a good writer for their brand. It wasn't personal pettiness, and it's nobody's fault but his own that he made himself a business liability.

[Forkboy]

21. Read what he said and get back to us.

If you're not offended you have problems bigger than we can help with.

[Bluebear]

28. Guess it was hit and run idiocy

[Johonny]

22. it's odd because sports talk radio was all over this guy

So apparently the type of people that ARE interested in EPSN's product knew who he was and had rather unkind opinions of him.

[Bluebear]

25. Strange that you are admitting to being such a complete asshole.

[hlthe2b]

15. Disgusting self-entitled narcissistic racist piece of shit.

I know there are good people in sports, but the unbridled machismo, not infrequent misogyny, and bravado that is sometimes pervasive fosters this kind of ass. That is what turns people like myself off most pro sports. My opinion only. Your mileage may vary.

[Jennicut]

16. Good! Now I don't need to be ashamed of them when I drive past their headquarters.

They are about 15 minutes away from me...Bristol, CT. Berman lives in my hometown (Cheshire).

Shirely was digusting.

[blueamy66]

20. Can he please take off the Suns jersey?

nt

[Dinger]

23. What About Mike Greenberg?

I can't recall, but within the last week or so he said something really awful around Martin Luther King Day. I think he apologized. Anybody remember the comment?


On edit:


He said "Martin Luther coon." Fucking jerk.

[Caliman73]

27. Typical

The comments after the article were equally ridiculous. I suppose you cant expect much from a mediocre pro-basketball player, but he has the leisure to actually learn about and understand why Haiti is the way it is. If he even looked into it a little bit, then he would understand what an asshole he is for the comments.

The people commenting on the article are typical low information "speaking from the gut" Americans. They are ignorant that the interference of the US and other nations has been the largest obstacle to any chance Haiti has at a stable country and a prosperous future.

What a bunch of idiots.