Wildcats to honor USS Arizona
Eggs sends us links to the story that the college football team, the Arizona Wildcats, plan to honor USS Arizona, the battleship which rests at the bottom of Pearl Harbor since December 7th, 1941;
A survivor from the U.S.S. Arizona attack will be honored at halftime at Saturday’s game against Hawaii at Arizona Stadium, and the Wildcats will also wear special uniforms honoring the battleship. Arizona unveiled the new uniforms Wednesday night:
That seems like a much more productive behavior for football players than some of the other examples we’ve seen lately.
Category: We Remember
I think the NFL should suspend anyone not standing for the national anthem. if you don’t love and support this great country, then you don’t deserve the millions of dollars you get paid for playing a stupid game! Try serving the country instead of disrespecting it, You pussies couldn’t even pass basic training! Fuck all of you that won’t respect this great country!
There was a story (I think I saw it on Ace of Spades HQ) about a player this season who wanted to wear 9/11 tribute cleats and the NFL threatened to fine him if he did. Police association Presidents in New York and New Jersey offered to pay the fine and I don’t think anything came of it.
OTOH the league was cool with Kaepernick’s little stunt-think about what that says about Goodell and the rest of the NFL front office.
It says nothing about Goodell and the the rest of the NFL at all.
The uniform policy is negotiated with the union as are the violations and penalties.
There is no policy (negotiated or not) on standing for the national anthem.
As to the cleats, the NFL was asked about it and the response was that they were going to look at it. They later came back and said that similar cleats for 9/11 had been worn in the past so they weren’t going to do anything about it. Part of the reasoning is that it is difficult to fine a player for something that the league supports and had official events for.
The comparison of the cleats and the anthem is apples to tomatoes. The same false comparison was made when Kaepernick wore stupid cartoon police socks at practice, but the NFL said the Cowboys could not wear stickers to honer the police killed in the Dallas shooting. The socks were at practice and not subject to the uniform policy. The stickers are subject to the uniform policy. Once again, apples and tomatoes.
Kaepernick is a jerk and the idea that he or anyone wants a “conversation” about these issues is false. They are not looking for a two way exchange of ideas with people listening and contemplating other opinions. They just want complete capitulation to their point of view.
Well my 2 cents is it is free speech. Douche baggery but free speech. My response is to not watch any game where players choose this action. If enough of us do this it will eventually influence their advertising money.
Agreed. Absent committing criminal acts, freedom includes the freedom to make an ass of yourself in public, and to be seen as such. Its my choice whether I watch the resulting idiocy.
However: absent something saying otherwise in a collective bargaining agreement, freedom also includes the freedom of an employer to fire an employee for violation of workplace rules and/or creating bad publicity for their employer. Some of the tools featured on this site have reputedly learned that the hard way.
Concur. The beauty of free speech is it goes both ways. So they can sit for the anthem, but they can also take the heat for being ass bags.
NFL fans will whine about guys sitting but in the end they’ll keep watching. It’s why the NFL can do whatever the fuck they want whenever they want to. They hire rapists, killers, men who murder dogs for sport, child beaters, wife beaters, men beaters, some of the most despicable humans in the US work for the NFL and the fans LOVE it.
Not only do the love it, they sit there for FOUR FUCKING HOURS on their ass on the couch doing nothing but watching. As long as fucking idiots sit there on their asses watching beer and viagra commercials (not sure what that says about the viewers) the NFL doesn’t give two flying fucks what any of you football fans think.
Of course football fans are no different than our voting public, also a great group for pissing and moaning but doing nothing to effect change. Consequently they don’t get any change. Systemic laziness throughout our society allows corporations and entertainment products to disregard the consumer because the consumer is too fucking lazy to alter their habits. One only need look at the astonishingly large number of Hollywood and TV remakes recently to realize just how lazy the consumer has become, they are making 30 year old movies over instead of writing new stuff because they know the fucking idiots in the public will still go and plop down their $12 and watch the film.
NFL players sitting is a free speech right to be certain, if the fans and their concerns had any impact on the bottom line the NFL might punish players. Since the fans don’t actually act on their concerns, the NFL doesn’t give a shit what the fans think.
Next case your honor.
Hollywood has NEVER had any imagination. Many “classic” movies were themselves remakes, and most were made from older novels and plays. That’s why there is an Oscar for “original screenplay”. They don’t do anything different today than they did then.
That being said – the athletes are entitled to their opinions, and I am entitled to ignore their childish antics and privately boycott the sponsors. If enough people said “we’re not gonna BUY a new F150, iPhone, whatever, due to the NFL clowns – trust me, those multizillion dollar sponsors would be lining up to kick the players’ asses.
The enablers for this so-called exercise of freedom of speech in this kneel down/sit down silliness are the team owners. Let one of these pro players wear an Adidas hat when Nike is a sponsor or sneak a Perrier bottle onto a sideline when Gatorade is a sponsor and see what happens and how fast it happens. The arenas in which these players perform are workplaces and management controls many aspects of the players’ workplace behaviors, including what they do during the playing of Star-Spangled Banner. The government neither mandates nor prohibits what the players do: management does. Remember that openly gay football player, Michael Sam? He was drafted (another story there) by and later cut by the Rams. What if a player decided to turn his back on Sam every time Sam came around the other player? What if a group of Rams players went to the press and said, “We are not dressing or showering with that fag.” Would that be free speech? Of course it would. But would management tolerate it? Hell no. The NFL would be issuing statements left and right and calling for ownership meetings to deal with the problem. Fines would be levied and a player or two released. Free speech my ass. The government has no role in this.
Free speech includes the right to express oneself in writing. In 2014, the then Redskins’ QB (ouch!) RG III wore a tee shirt to a press conference that read, “Know Jesus, Know Peace.” Want to guess what happened? If you guessed that he turned his shirt inside out as he entered the presser, you would be right. He didn’t want to get fined again for expressing his religious views. Free speech my ass. The government has no role in this.
Indeed the players are free to speak/protest and the organization is free to fine them terminate them.
There’s no incentive for the latter because there’s no actual concern from the management that fans or sponsors will walk away from the billions to be made.
The government has no role, but the players are free to be idiots and management is free to act or not act. We’ve seen the NFL in action for years, they lie about what they know regarding head injuries, they promote a youth sport that injures more players per year than the next five youth sports added together. The get free interns from the college system, many of whom are injured for life in that system and not compensated for it beyond a fake education.
The NFL has about as much character and integrity as the Clinton Foundation. Which is why I don’t waste a single fucking minute watching those rat bastards or spend any money on their shit. I don’t own a single NFL jersey or piece of merchandise and I never will. But the average NFL fan can’t miss his weekly fix and will consequently make it profitable for the NFL to continue to do nothing. Which is how it should be in a free country. Except for the tax breaks for billionaires to build stadiums and profit from the tax break. But that’s a topic for another day.
This matter is damn near personal to me and I am sick of the “free speech” bullshit that is being mindlessly bandied about. This is not a free speech issue. It is a PC issue.
Why don’t they ask the players to remain in the locker room out of protest vs. the visual display and hijacking the moment?
I think this is a reasonable compromise. If you intend to do anything other than stand for the national anthem, we ask that you remain in the locker room in silent out of sight protest.
I’m not a fan of the SF 49er’s anyway, so it is easy to protest by not watching any of their games. May be tough if they play my favorite team.
That said, how would they even know that I and thousands of others are not watching a game? A Nielsen survey/ratings?
Another compromise that everyone can live with is we refuse to watch the pre-game festivities. Advertisers will not want those ad slots and this will drive the teams/owners/networks to have to live with scheduling non-protesting teams. The team will then find a way to have the protesters think on another way to voice their opinions – enter the “don’t leave the locker room in silent protest” option outlined above.
“Why don’t they ask the players to remain in the locker room out of protest vs. the visual display and hijacking the moment?”
That would defeat the players’ purpose. If these players were truly interested in supporting some cause, they would write big, fat checks to that cause and maybe make personal appearances. But that’s not what this is about at all. It’s about free publicity, not free expression.
Last year, a law suit was won by a fellow named Emmerich. He displayed a sign reading “John 3:16” after ESPN told him not to do so. This time the government was involved. He was arrested by four SF (!) police officers. That was gov’t involvement. He won his suit.
Nice to see both teams recognize the Pearl Harbor attack, and the University of Arizona to wear special uniforms for the day.
HOOOOOAH ! ! ! ! ????????
Good on the Arizona Wildcats!!
On the other issue, way back when Bud Grant was head coach up here in the tundra, I used to actually watch the games. I have a feeling that Ol’ Bud wouldn’t put up with this bull shit.
I’d love to see Tom Landry handling Colon Kaeperdink’s little tantrum.
Before You Put Your Camel to Bed(borrowed from an ese member, too good not to share)
Jiggs McDonald, NHL Hall of Fame broadcaster, speaking in Ontario, says: “I am truly perplexed that so many of my friends are against another mosque being built in Toronto. I think it should be the goal of every Canadian to be tolerant regardless of their religious beliefs. Thus the mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance.”
“That is why I also propose that two nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque; thereby promoting tolerance from within the mosque. We could call one of the clubs, which would be gay, The Turban Cowboy, and the other, a topless bar, would be called You Mecca Me Hot.”
“Next door should be a butcher shop that specializes in pork, and adjacent to that an open-pit barbecue pork restaurant, called Iraq of Ribs.”
“Across the street there could be a lingerie store called Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret, with sexy mannequins in the window modeling the goods, and on the other side a liquor store called Morehammered.”
“All of this would encourage Muslims to demonstrate the tolerance they demand of us.”
Yes we should promote tolerance, and you can do your part by passing this on. And if you are not laughing or smiling at this point, it is either past your bedtime, or it’s midnight at the oasis and time to put your camel to bed.
That is good.
(laughing) Thanks. Hadn’t seen that before, and it’s freaking hilarious.
http://videos.extremesealexperience.com/comment_images/comment_8939469736.jpg.
Can someone post this picture? It’s so fitting for this article but I’m too computer illiterate to figure it out!
Somebody in that football program gets it.
The story of the bell:
https://www.union.arizona.edu/traditions/scrapbook/history27-2002.php