Tag: Sports

Tweet(s) of the Day

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They both have to do with Russia, and the current hysteria that posits that $100,000 in ads on Facebook somehow trumped the $1,000,000,000 that the Clinton campaign spent.

The first is about bus kiosk ads from RT:

While everyone freaks out about Russian ads, RT takes out more Russian ads pic.twitter.com/Z5eW8GS6pg

— Jane Lytvynenko (@JaneLytv) October 10, 2017

The second one, from the Russian ambassador to the UK, hits the British where it hurts, their 52 year drought in the World Cup:

A football team would be a better option pic.twitter.com/4Psj4ZkGy5

— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) October 10, 2017

Dayyymmmm! That one is going to leave a mark.

H/t Naked Capitalism.

Adding to the List of They Who Must Not Be Named

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Former football coach and tight end Mike Ditka, who just said that, “there has been no oppression in the United States in the past 100 years:

Even before this NFL season, which has featured team owners linking arms with players as shows of solidarity amid sharply critical comments from President Trump, some players were noting that the original message of protests during the national anthem had been largely lost. To them, the cause of bringing attention to racial injustice, in particular police brutality against black men, had been overshadowed by a heated national discussion over the merits of taking a knee during the national anthem.

To former NFL coach and ESPN analyst Mike Ditka, however, that cause made no sense to begin with. In a pregame interview before a radio broadcast of Monday night’s game between the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings, he said, “There has been no oppression in the last 100 years that I know of.”

The Germans have a term for this, Fachidiot, (Google Translate) which refers to an expert who is a complete moron outside of his limited area of expertise.

Thus, I add Michael Keller Ditka to my list of They Who Must Not Be Named, unless he decides to do something like running for office, (please God no) you will here nothing about him from me

Of course, I haven’t posted about him before, so carry on.

Not the Onion

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The National Review is siding with a black athlete over a white Republican.

I think that this is a sign of the apocalypse:

Americans do not and should not worship idols. We do not and should not worship the flag. As a nation we stand in respect for the national anthem and stand in respect for the flag not simply because we were born here or because it’s our flag. We stand in respect because the flag represents a specific set of values and principles: that all men are created equal and that we are endowed with our Creator with certain unalienable rights.

These ideals were articulated in the Declaration of Independence, codified in the Constitution, and defended with the blood of patriots. Central to them is the First Amendment, the guarantee of free expression against government interference and government reprisal that has made the United States unique among the world’s great powers. Arguably, it is the single most important liberty of all, because it enables the defense of all the others: Without the right to speak freely we cannot even begin to point out offenses against the rest of the Constitution.

Now, with that as a backdrop, which is the greater danger to the ideals embodied by the American flag, a few football players’ taking a knee at the national anthem or the most powerful man in the world’s demanding that they be fired and their livelihoods destroyed for engaging in speech he doesn’t like?

I guess that this falls in the, “Stopped clock,” category, but still, the National Review?

We are in Bizarro World.

Quote of the Day

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There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people. The air was sparkling. The sunlight was warm. The band struck up the national anthem. The flag billowed in the wind. It should have been a glorious moment for me as the stirring words of the national anthem poured from the stands. Perhaps, it was, but then again, perhaps, the anthem could be called the theme song for a drama called The Noble Experiment. Today, as I look back on that opening game of my first world series, I must tell you that it was Mr. Rickey’s drama and that I was only a principal actor. As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.

—Jackie Robinson, in his autobiography.

(emphasis mine)

Don’t Normally Comment on Football, but ………

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I have commented on some egregious calls calls by the officials, when I it felt that it had to do with the unfair treatment of referees by the league.

This weekend, Donald Trump went after the league because some players kneeled during the national anthem to protest racism, and in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, who has been shut out of the league by craven management.

Trump tweeted, and the players and owners just told Trump to go Cheney himself:

Some stood. Some kneeled. Some remained in the locker room, choosing to speak through their absence from the NFL’s pregame ceremonies, in which the American flag is displayed and the national anthem sung. But from London to Los Angeles, virtually all NFL players on the sidelines before kickoff of Sunday’s slate of 14 games locked arms with each other in response to President Trump’s three-day campaign demanding that team owners “fire or suspend” players who kneel during the national anthem and calling on fans to boycott games if the form of protest continued.

The silent rebuke to the president, determined independently by each of the 28 NFL teams in action Sunday, represented an unprecedented collective action and show of solidarity among players who battle against one another 16 weeks, some more, each season.

Some, such as the Jacksonville Jaguars, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins, were joined on the sideline by their team owners, Shahid Khan, Jeffrey Lurie and Daniel Snyder, respectively. Most were joined in standing shoulder-to-shoulder by coaches, staff and, in some cases, police officers.

All but two of the NFL’s 32 team owners and CEOs issued statements Saturday night and through Sunday in response to Trump’s crusade against protesting NFL players, which began in earnest during a Friday night rally in Alabama. After making a thinly veiled allusion to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked a national debate by taking a knee during August 2016 preseason games to protest police violence against minorities, Trump called on NFL coaches to get the “son of a bitch” players off the field if they continued to kneel. The president repeated his call with no less intensity on Twitter on Saturday and Sunday morning.

………

Among the more notable was New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a vocal Trump supporter and a $1 million donor to his inaugural.

“There is no greater unifier in this country than sports and, unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics,” Kraft wrote in his statement released Sunday morning. “I think our political leaders could learn a lot from the lessons of teamwork and the importance of working together toward a common goal.”

Well done, but Colin Kaepernick has still not been signed. 

I’ll wait to hear about that.  (BTW, if the Raven’s performance today is any indication, sign him.) 

Clueless Protesters

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Some fans in the Monster Seats hung a banner over the wall that said, “Racism Is As American As Baseball.” Security removed them. pic.twitter.com/tVSai9XocY

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) September 14, 2017

Given Boston’s history of racism, I’m inclined to think that protesting racism at Fenway Park during a Red Sox game is a good thing.

Boston is NOT a “woke” place, and getting in the face of the town in what is arguably the most Boston place in Boston is a good thing.

That being said, if you do protest, run it by an editor to make sure that your actual words are unambiguous:

Fans draped a sign reading “Racism is as American as baseball” over the Green Monster at Fenway Park during the Red Sox-Athletics game Wednesday night.

 Red Sox spokeswoman Zineb Curran replied with the following statement via email when asked about the incident:
“During the 4th inning of tonight’s game, four fans unfurled a banner over the left field wall in violation of the club’s policy prohibiting signs of any kind to be hung or affixed to the ballpark. The individuals involved were escorted out of Fenway Park.”

 According to The Boston Globe, the sign was visible for about two minutes and no arrests were made in connection to the incident.

………

 One member of the group spoke to CSNNE anonymously Wednesday night, telling the network they expected to be kicked out of Fenway but were surprised by some people’s interpretation that their message wasn’t clear.

“I guess we should have seen that coming, but we also didn’t think of it as an ambiguous message,” the group member said. “It’s kind of telling that it is being interpreted as one.”

When I first heard about this, I thought that it was a group of white supremacists endorsing racism.

For F%$#’s sake, you need to run you slogans by an someone who wasn’t involved in drafting the slogan, and maybe a trained copy editor.

To quote a an internet meme, “Get a brain, morans.”

I F%$#ing Hate Tom Brady

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I did not watch the Super Bowl, I was in bed, dealing with a nasty cold, and I really did not care who won the game.

I don’t have a problem with his looks, or his wealth, or his celebrity.

I hate him because he can make Sharon,* a Patriots fan since before the Drew Bledsoe era, scream loudly in ecstasy.

That is MY job, dammit!

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Some More Silver Linings

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First, we had a historically large (but still small) number of batsh%$ insane district attorneys turfed out of office, because they are sick and tired of abuse of prosecutorial power.  (In Houston, the DA jailed a mentally ill rape victim, and they were given the boot, for example)

Also, in conservative San Diego, voters rejected another huge give away to a pro sports franchise for a gold plated stadium complex.

I hope that both of these are the beginnings of a trend.

It’s a little thing, but it is a good thing.

Cold Feet and the End of the World

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On Tuesday, I did early voting, and I had cold feet.  ……… Literally.

It was a long line, about half an hour long , with the first 20 minutes being outside, and my feet got cold.

All things considered, the line actually went fairly quickly.

One interesting thing:  when I signed it, the volunteer asked how long it took, and I checked on my phone to get the elapsed time.

I then dropped my phone, which landed on the table with a loud bang, and Everyone in the room jumped.

Poll workers are on edge this year.

As an FYI, since I live in Maryland, so my vote doesn’t count, I wrote in Bernie Sanders for President.

As to the end of the world, I’m not talking about Donald Trump, but the fact that the Cubs have won the World Series for the first time in 107 years.

Congratulations to the new champs.