Everything.
That being said, Mt Everest needs a break. It is trashed almost beyond repair, with the mountain being littered with dead bodies, oxygen bottles, garbage, equipment and detritus.
How about we give the mountain, say, a ten year break so a concerted effort can be made to at least attempt to bring down the dead and remove the trash?
BZ
Sports journalist Jason Whitlock, on the April 25th episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, happened to knock it out of the ballpark with his comments — bottom line, fundamental, common sense comments — about the NFL, players who kneel, Colin Kaepernick and the actual role of the NFL itself.
Damn Jason Whitlock to daring to speak the truth: the NFL is a television show and NFL players are commodities in a television show. Abuse the consumers or viewers of this television show and you stand to lose eyeballs and ratings. Hence you stand to lose money and the program itself.
If you haven’t heard — as a direct result of this, Vince McMahon said he’s bringing back the XFL in 2020. Why would he do that? From GQ.com:
Vince McMahon Is Bringing Back the XFL and Diving into the Culture Wars
by Jay Willis
And there’s no better time to try it out than now.
Nearly two decades after the XFL’s first and only season ended with the Los Angeles Xtreme besting the San Francisco Demons in the first and only Million Dollar Game, Vince McMahon’s football league will return to a stadium near you in January of 2020. “I wanted to do this since the day we stopped the other one,” the billionaire WWE chairman told ESPN on Thursday. Although he denied that the timing of his decision is motivated by the NFL’s well-documented recent ratings slide—”What has happened there is their business,” he said politely—it’s hard to believe that the timing is coincidental. For a multitude of reasons, there are plenty of fans right now who have become disenchanted with the No Fun League, and for a businessman as shrewd as McMahon, the formula for giving those people what they want has never been more apparent.
As I’ve said numerous times — and as I’ve had it hammered into my thick skull on too many occasions to count in law enforcement — timing is everything.
“We’re going to give the game of football back to fans.”
To summarize: I don’t believe I’m farting in church when I say that the NFL’s ratings are plummeting because average viewers, frankly, don’t give one fragmentary shite about the political leanings of players.
In fact, these days, most viewers seek solace in sports for the exact opposite of what too many players and the NFL are embracing: politics.
NFL viewers — hello? we are customers — are sick and tired of politics. We just want a release. We want some stats, we want some hits, we want our local teams to win, we want to get excited about next Sunday’s big game. Trust me: everything else is extraneous. We seek out sports events because we want to, for just a few hours, try to forget about the chaos surrounding our lives.
It’s an escape. Plain and simple.
My prognostication is this: if the NFL continues to soothe the perceived “injustices” by NFL players (more black millionaires in sports than at any time in sports history), this could be the last season the NFL flourishes. Ratings are plummeting. It is clearly overexposed. Get rid of Thursday Night Football. Get the players in line. Have them play and then babble incessantly about injustice on their own time.
The NFL needs to realize two recent fundamental changes:
Let me be frank: I do not give one flying monkey what any NFL player thinks about _________. Fill in the blank. They either play the game or I am gone.
Guess what?
I’m not alone.
And if the NFL dies?
I’m okay with that.
I’ll live.
They too are discretionary.
BZ
Tim Tebow kneeling before God in 2011. Tebow bad. Kaepernick good. End of story.
Eric Reid of the San Francisco 49ers states that there is “systemic oppression” in the United States and the NFL. He stated this because Vice President Mike Pence, whilst attending the Colts and 49ers game last Sunday the 8th, left the stadium when 23 San Francisco players took a knee during the national anthem. Eric Reid said:
“This is what systemic oppression looks like,” he said. “A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple of things out and leaves the game with an attempt to thwart our efforts. Based on the information I have, that’s the assumption I’ve made.”
In response, Vice President Pence said:
“I left today’s Colts game because President Trump and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.”
How quickly people forget some of these aspects.
2011: Tim Tebow “took a knee” for God whilst quarterbacking for the Denver Broncos and it was heresy, heresy I tell you. Tebow is a Caucasoid.
2013: Football coach Joseph Kennedy lost his job for kneeling at the 50-yard line after games. Perhaps he should have knelt during the national anthem. Is the difference simply a matter of timing?
Kennedy, an assistant high school coach in Bremerton, Washington, used to lead his team and staff in prayer in the locker room, and then prayed at the 50-yard line after games. Students would join him and the school district squashed that because Kennedy was endorsing a religion.
The district would allow Kennedy to pray at the 50-yard line after everyone had left the stadium.
Kennedy agreed to this, but eventually began praying before all the parents and students exited. He was suspended, and eventually fired.
Kennedy unsuccessfully sued the school district and was himself sued.
2013: The NFL fined Brandon Marshall $10,500 for daring to wear green cleats to raise awareness for people with mental health disorders. Marshall is black.
2014: Robert Griffin III entered a post-game press conference wearing a shirt that said “Know Jesus Know Peace” but was forced to turn it inside out by an NFL uniform inspector before speaking at the podium. Griffin is black.
2015: DeAngelo Williams was fined $5,787 for wearing “Find The Cure” eye black for breast cancer awareness. Williams is black.
2015: William Gay was fined $5,787 for wearing purple cleats to raise awareness for domestic violence. Gay is black.
2016: The NFL prevented the Dallas Cowboys from wearing a small decal on their helmet in honor of the five Dallas Police Department officers killed in the line of duty that year.
2016: The NFL prevented and threatened to fine players, like Avery Williamson, who wanted to wear cleats to commemorate the 15th anniversary of 9/11. Williamson is black.
So, Eric Reid, just who is oppressive and for what reasons?
I wrap with this quite telling quote from Colin Kaepernick, the instigator of the whole “sitting down” and “taking a knee” thingie. He’ll stand if he gets an NFL job.
Looks like Kaepernick doesn’t truly mind performing a bit of corporate fellatio when he benefits. Eh wot? Now that it got out, he’s walking it back of course. Too late, my callow friend.
Knowing that, I wonder how the rest of you football wonks feel about having been abandoned by your stone idol?
BZ
And while we’re at it, f___ the San Francisco 49ers.
Magically, I just became a Raider fan in the Bay Area.
Read the story here and I believe you’ll understand.
A fact that clearly escapes Mr Kaepernick.
Just as Colin Kaepernick has the freedom in America to sit down during the national anthem, I likewise have the freedom to write what I have. The 49ers, by the way, lost that Friday game to my Green Bay Packers, 21 – 10.
BZ
Little did you know there was a complicated little puzzle within one of Sunday’s Super Bowl 50 commercials. You would never have guessed it involved avocados.
First, watch the commercial. Keep your eyes open. You’ll notice something in passing.
Now that you’ve seen the video once, do you remember the dress on display in the case adjacent Scott Baio? The “white and gold dress that caused a civil war”?
He said white and gold. To me it is clearly blue and black.
What color was the dress?
Tell me.
BZ
P.S.
Second favorite commercial:
The rest of the commercials were mostly uninspiring.
What happened to creativity?