USA Today, “I’m a Loser Baby”

The Zeitgeist of Our Times and Threat to our Institutions

It is getting difficult to keep up with USA Today’s prolific losses.  To summarize, I have developed a scorecard so others can catch up and follow the action.  It appears at this stage as though the publication can’t stop kicking against the goads.

1-0  Character assassinating bully day one.

2-0  Speir Challenges USA Today reporter to debate Reporter forfeits by default.

3-0  USA Today admits double standard in the comments section by default. 

4-0  USA Today surrenders primary function on National level by Removing all comments from all publications.

5-0  Prayer is made contrary to USA Today's rhetoric at the first New College of Florida Trustee meeting.

6-0  Covid revelations by CDC prove Trustee Speir’s position from the beginning.

7-0  USA Today goes off the deep end in wild allegations of impropriety against IA

8-0  Attempt to discredit Speir’s wife backfires and highlights wife’s sacrifice, integrity, and character.

9-0  Embarrassing allegations of disregard for religion and academics at Inspiration Academy.

This latest article, bringing the score to 9-0, is another hit piece of whole-cloth fiction and sheer gossip that would make the hosts of The View raise their eyebrows.  Chris Anderson somehow expects his readers to believe that Cincinnati Christian University and Bradenton Prep’s failures are connected to Inspiration Academy.  These schools have nothing to do with Inspiration Academy, but Chris thinks that if the story is replete with colorful anecdotes, his readers will conflate the stories, and he will have succeeded in canceling Inspiration Academy. 

Just like his attempt to discredit my wife in loss number 8,  Chris Anderson, the dutiful foot soldier of USA Today (Stalin would call him a useful idiot), accuses IA of not emphasizing religion or academics in our obsession with sports and baseball, specifically.  Allow me to introduce to you our Director of Baseball, Mario Jimenez.

Many people in the area or associated with baseball don’t need an introduction.  They are very familiar with his status as a leader in the community and especially now after his family's battle with cancer that claimed the life of his eldest daughter Aubrien.  Frankly, it is embarrassing to bring this up to a reporter in the area. 

Mario sees past the temporary wins and losses of a specific sport.  He had a vision for his family, and Aubrien shared that vision.  The vision was to shine the light and love of Jesus throughout all of Aubrien’s battle.  There would be good days and bad days, but Aubrien’s purpose, her vision never changed.  And for those lucky enough to have spent time with Aubrien and witnessed this light that never dimmed and loved others selflessly, we are forever changed.  It’s one thing to talk about God; it is another to live it and share it as the Jimenez family has.

Mario continues to prioritize this message in talks to area high school sports teams like Sarasota, Bayshore, Palmetto, and others, as well as college teams like the University of Connecticut basketball teams.

Aubrien Jimenez inspires the UCONN men’s basketball team: ‘that little girl changed my life.

If you get a chance to hear Mario talk, I highly encourage it.  Honestly, it is hard to keep writing after reliving such a beautiful life and family. 

Reluctantly moving on, in the less meaningful world of politics and rhetoric, this is obviously another loss making the score 9-0.  But, I’d like to shift focus back to loss number 4 and explain it better as I understand it and contemplate its significance. 

This fourth point in the overall score just kept looming larger and larger.  At first, I thought, wow, my demand for an apology and the response from USA Today’s legal team might have catalyzed a larger decision.  Let me get this straight; I thought: USA Today, the largest daily newspaper in America, had just shut down dialogue in their comments section for all of their publications.  This feels surreal; please correct me if that is not the case.  This is an important moment in time.  It is a significant change in our country, and it seems like nobody even noticed. 

As I try to process this, allow me some reflection and conjecture here.  First, the song by Beck in 1994, “Loser.”  The chorus goes, “I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me.”  The song has a folksy rap style and a contagious sound.  Despite, or maybe because of, its dark lyrics, many people immediately connected with it, and its popularity only grew through the 90s and 00s. Without admitting it for fear of what it meant, many industry experts nonetheless recognized the significance as a transcendent work that became a cultural anthem.  I would agree and say it reflects the zeitgeist of early 21st-century America.

Loser, by Beck, released on March 8, 1993

This nihilistic indifference declares that excellence is inconsequential, truth is relative, and feelings are superior to facts.  And any challenge to improve, succeed and thrive is met with sardonic defiance.  This teenage angst of the 90s has not grown up but instead grown into positions of significant importance in American society.  Positions like executives of mainstream media companies, directors of bureaucratic governmental agencies, like Pete Buttigieg of NTSB, and others in FEMA and the CDC. What a perfect environment to develop Stalin’s useful idiots in a culture war of wokeness against a constitutionally protected free society and its institutions.

So let me be clear, my intention has not been to whine about comments; it was and still is for USA Today to stop pretending to be fair and balanced and act like the comments section is a safe and welcoming environment.  It is not a safe and welcoming environment.  Now the question is, “should it be?” And my answer is, “No!”  It should be an environment where USA Today facilitates Americans having passionate, vibrant, and contentious discussions.

So, please do not shut down the comments section.  Americans can handle our disagreements; our laws concerning free speech are adequate.  We don’t need to be coddled and protected by you.  We need you to stand up and do your job as an essential part of the fabric of American society. 

Do not surrender this platform of the free press to the oligarchs of big tech.  It doesn’t matter how much we may find the opinions of others objectionable (within the constraints of the law). Those opinions matter, and the people who hold those opinions matter. 

Although they have not said this directly, this is how I understand the essence of our communications to this point:

USA Today, “I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me”

Eddie Speir, “Do not co-opt me in your desired suicide.  You are losing.  Do better. Remember your mission: To advance truth, science, morality, and the arts in general. To spread differing opinions of freedom and our government’s role therein, and to facilitate discussion and promote unity among those ideas.  To shame and intimidate government officials into more honorable and just behavior.”