After placing third in the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Trump Doral National Golf Course, Rory McIlroy took an indirect political shot at presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump. Last year at Doral, McIlroy threw his three iron into the drink. Club owner Donald Trump dryly returned the club to complete the pro's club set.
Now, it is dubious that the Donald would repeat the gesture after McIlroy's immigration slice.
ESPN fired former Major League Baseball star pitcher and TV Color Commentator Curt Schilling because of sharing a meme on transgender bathrooms on Twitter.
Disney owned ESPN insisted that the company was dedicated to inclusiveness, so it terminated someone with a view which different from the current politically correct line. It is intriguing that Disney owned ABC Good Morning America report blurred out the image of a transvestite who would have been eligible to use whatever bathroom which he/she/zei felt like using. It seems that the ideals of diversity and inclusiveness can not be particularized in a reductio ad abusurdum.
There seems to be an academic and corporate corporate push to be intolerant towards "ciscentrism" and those who do not acquiesce to "the new normal" regarding self designated transgendered bathroom fluidity. It is dubious if ESPN would punish an employee for sharing progressive political memes.
From its inception, DC-Jockularity recognized the convergence of sports and public policy. ESPN's aggressive application of standards reinforces the idea that ABC/Disney/ESPN is a progressive entity which pushes its agenda even unto sports coverage and will not brook dissent.
While at a campaign event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump confused the crowd of 8,000 by suggesting to bring Joe Paterno back.
Many mock Trump's entreaty, implying that the Manhattan mogul did not know that the legendary former Penn State football coach had been dead for nearly four years, after being ousted in the wake of the Assistant Coach Sandusky pedophilia scandal. What was more likely is that Trump was referring to the statue of Paterno, which was unceremoniously removed from exterior of Beaver Stadium in University Park. What was remarkable was how disjointed and desultory that Donald Trump sounded even when reading from prepared remarks. In addition, Trump types are proud that their leader would be beholden to no special interest. Yet the pathetic Paterno pleading before Keystone voters right before the Pennsylvania primary belies that brag.
One of the reasons why sports is a popular pastime among Americans is because it has tended to be non-partisan. It is news which mentally reconnects aged athletes back to their glory days, while stoking local loyalties and friendly rivalries and forgetting the tumult of news from the "real world". Unfortunately, the trend in the media has been to politicize everything, including sports news. More than seeing sports through a lens of political correctness, the sports media has segued into political propaganda. A case in point was a ESPN Sportscenter social media sharing in regards to President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba after 55 years of bilateral hostility. ESPN authorized a Tweet which whitewashed the brutality of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's communist regime by promoting propaganda that Fidel was a sports fan.
It may be true that Fidel is a big sports fan. Fidel even yearned to play for the Yanquis in his youth. But ESPN featuring such factoids during a controversial trip to Cuba by President Barack Obama amounts to propaganda. To give a truer picture of the sporting Castro, it is important to understand how Fidel Castro used sports as a weapon to enforce his communist ideology. A more accurate picture of Fidel Castro's sporting sense is captured by hitting the links with the bloody revolutionary Che Guevara.
[L] Che Guevara [R] Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro
It is dubious that Che's favorite sport was golf. More likely it was coaching firing squads.
Ironically, Schlafly is making her pitch as the Major Leagues have been earnestly endeavoring to expand their influence worldwide. In 2014, the MLB season kicked off in Australia. There has been lots of talk (along with trepidation) about moving a franchise to Mexico. And currently, the Toronto Blue Jays aren't playing their home games on US soil (and it is dubious if Canada will withhold foreign players' visas).
While it is lamentable that there is not as much sandlot baseball that progresses player into the Major Leagues, reimposing bigotry barriers goes against the grain of the civil rights movement.
It is bizarre to believe that sports fans today worry about the ethnicity of an athlete as opposed to their athletic abilities. Anyone who suggests an "America First" on the fields of competition is out of this zeitgeist.
Granted, Phyllis Schlafly is 91 years old. Her notoriety skyrocked in the mid 1970s fighting against the willy nilly imposition of the Equal Rights Amendment. This was around the same time that then Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) was selected as President Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in 1976.
Perhaps it is time for Ms. Schlafly along with Senator Dole and President Jimmy Carter to gracefully surrender the public spotlight before they further embarrass themselves.
Al Arabiya reported that eight members of the Iranian Women's Soccer team are not actually woman and having been playing on the national team without a sex change operation. Some of those cited played their entire career as men but only revealed their gender on their last day of duty. Seven players were terminated because of this controversy.
This is not the first time that the Iranian women's team has been over-inclusive in their team make up. In 2014, when the Iranian governing soccer body started gender testing, it was revealed that four players on the women's national team were men awaiting sex change operations.
The Iranian womens' soccer team is renowned for wearing a modified hijab when they are on the pitch. FIFA banned the Iranian Womens' team in 2011 as the international body deemed the headscarf unsafe. Perhaps. But headwear certainly helped hide these sporting Tootsies.
Aside from the jocular grotequeries of the Iranian Womens' Soccer team farce, this brings up several ancillary meta-issues. President Obama made an Executive Agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran over Nuclear Arms. Many questioned provisions which allow the Iranians to self inspect, citing their history of cheating. The multiple malfeasance by the Iranian Womens' soccer team does nothing to dissuade this perception of Persian prevarications.
Secondly, the number of Iranian Womens' Soccer players who are supposedly having sex change operation calls into question transgender issues. While operations may mutilate genitlia to mimic the female body features, does it really change someone's genetics. In the wake of Bruce "Call Me Cait" Jenner's rollout, questioning this scientific fact can bring a civil discussion to blows.
Last year, MMA fighter Tamikka Brents reacted to her Technical Knock Out by transgendered athlete Fallon Fox (ne Boyd Burton). Brents opined:
I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I
felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because
she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. I can only say,
I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally
strong female in my own right. Her grip was different, I
could usually move around in the clinch against other females but
couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch…
Some say this is just sour grapes after being TKO'ed. Perhaps. But does a sex change operation change a person's skeletal and muscular structure? Of course not. This XY advantage becomes more evident in combat sports like Mixed Martial Arts, boxing and wrestling. Lately, the political news has been abuzz over politically incorrect comments made by Republican Presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson about how he could never support an unreserved Islamist for President. Liberals lambasted the proud non-politician candidate as being a racist (which incorrectly presupposes that Islam is a race). But the crux of the matter is that an Islamist adheres to sharia, a holistic religious, cultural and political legal system which supersedes any existing secular law. Part of sharia allows for taqiyya, deception to advance one's aims by cheating. It is sad to wonder if the Iranian "Womens'" Soccer team had to cheat to try to win, but the hijabs seem to do more than protect a woman's female honor on the field. What a Farsi (sic)!
To illustrate how Republican Congressional Leadership is acting like the Surrender Caucus in allowing full funding for President Obama's unwise and extra-constitutional actions with Obamacare, Executive Amnesty and the Iran Nuke Deal, Senator Cruz resorted to a football analogy.
Senator Cruz has not endeared himself with his colleagues for calling them out on show votes which are meaningless but letting government growth legislation pass without objection. But if Cruz can successfully convey this Congressional Kabuki show to primary voters, he may score with frustrated populists, Tea Party Conservatives and RON Paulesque "conservatarians".
During this Trump Summer before most primary voters seriously concentrate on electing a Republican Presidential nominee, the billionaire populist GOP candidate earned an unexpected assist. Trump was endorsed by Dennis Rodman.
Of course, Rodman has also endorsed North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, so it is hard to discern what Rodman's political disposition is, other than supporting friends. In the past, Trump was chagrined by prior attempts to by Rodman to worm a connection between the Big Apple billionaire and the Pyongyang's newest Dear Leader.
Last week, the Chinese Central government began a crackdown on golf by shutting down 66 "illegal" golf courses, which is 10% of the nation's fairways. While Beijing has be officially forbidden the construction of new golf courses since 1984, they have proliferated in the PRC. Between 2004 and 2009, 400 new golf courses were created despite the ban (tripling the number of links). But as the Chinese maxim goes, the mountain is high and the emperor is far away.
Aside from being good for generating yuan for their communities by catering to elites, foreign tourism and sparking ancillary business opportunities, golf courses were a great way to gain graft.
The local officials would line their pockets from the construction (as they expropriate peasants' land and profit from the sale to the golf industry) and they are can be surreptitiously sanctioned as being "ecological restorations". How conveniently corrupt.
The day after the golf course crackdown occurred, a Commerce Ministry official was investigated (effectively being found guilty) for participating in a golf event, which violated one of Chinese President Xi Jinping's eight rules against extravagance by government officials. From a political perspective, it makes sense for a fledgling government to embrace the game.
Despite the burgeoning number of golf courses in China, it is considered "the millionaires game". Mao Zedong banned golf in 1949 as bourgeois "green opium". Today, a round of golf can cost $150, in a nation where the average daily salary is $5. So it still remains "the rich man's game".
From a political perspective, it makes sense for a fledgling government not to be seen embracing the game of golf. Gordon Chang has been warning for years that the Chinese economy is on a precipice and a severe world financial downturn which results in a weak demand for cheap Chinese labor could spark a downfall in the current polity in Beijing. So a public crackdown from the Beijing government on golf appeals to the have nots to quell any clamoring for revolution while President Xi Jinping re-establishes central control over wayward provincial politicos engaged in crony capitalism.
Yet it is unlikely that China's War on Golf will actually forbid the game. Beijing has been spending serious capital on grooming a team to qualify for the Rio de Jainero Olympics in 2016. It's a tension between domestic tranquility and international glory.
Dan Washburn, the author of "The Forbidden Game" (2014) considers Chinese Golf to be apt allegory for the corruption, land grabs,
environmental issues and escalating economic disparity that have become
hallmarks of New China.
Washburn is ambivalent as to what will result from the war on golf. Washburn's metric is how the seized fairways are used in five years. Considering China's dismal track record on environmental issues, it is dubious if the seized courses will end up as actual "ecological restorations".
Will they be re-appropriated like the Shanghai Golf and Country Club in Hongqoai Park, which was converted into the Shanghai Zoo in 1954? Or will the seized courses go the way of Wonderland, a Chinese rip off of Disneyland, which is rotting away due to lack of business and uncertain legalities. China has a series of ghost cities, which are colossal waste of investment that temporarily pump up the GDP and esteem of a local official while saddling the area with a white elephant and a mountain of debt.
Typically, the Heisman refers to an award given to the outstanding college football player in the United States since 1935. The Heisman Memorial Award trophy is distinct as it is a lost wax process bronze casting design by well known sculptor Frank Eliscu that depicts a skilled and powerful football player, sidestepping and straight-arming his way to a touchdown.
Sculptor Frank Eliscu and the Heisman Trophy
Recently, when former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt, the undeclared Republican Presidential hopeful invoked the Heisman when surveying the 2016 political playing field. Jeb Bush was asked about all of chaos in the Middle East which the Obama Administration's foreign policy precipitated (namely Libya, ISIS and an inchoate Arab nuclear arms race). Governor Bush responded that:
"I think she can’t do the Heisman on the first four years of the Obama
foreign policy. She’ll try. I mean, she’s going to, look, this is very
Clintonian, I think, to figure out a way to get out of a mess."
Bush invoked the image of the Heisman stiff arming opposition before striding into the end zone for a score. Certainly, the big bench of talented GOP Presidential candidates will seek to stop Hillary from side stepping opposition blocking her way to the South Lawn of the White House despite screens from the Lamestream Media.
It should be remembered, however, that the Heisman Award is an honor given by sportwriters (journalists) through a beauty contest vote. There is concern about the Heisman curse that designated winners often do not perform well the big game or during their careers in pro football despite the honor and the hype of the Heisman. Certainly, parallels can be made to Hillary's proto Presidential campaign and presumed coronation at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Wonder if the First Lady of the Outdoors who stars in the Sportsman's Channel's show "Amazing America with Sarah Palin" is suggesting politically hunting for RINOs with deflated balls.
However, in the run up to the NFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers, Socialist Alternative Councilwoman Kshama Sawant railed against the restrictiveness nature of Seattle Seahawk season tickets preventing many unprivileged WeHawk fans from seeing the game in person.
Sawart organized some street theater to illustrate the divide between the Seahawk fans have and have nots with a "13th Man Initiative". The socialist rally on Capitol Hill gathered hundreds of blue and lime clad workers chanting "No justice, no beast". During their march to Pioneer Square, protesters carried signs reading "We are the 13" and "12th Man, aka Bequeathed Mode".
“With 3 million people in the Seattle metro area, that’s about 44 people
per seat. After this weekend, the Hawks will have
played 10 home games, or 41 quarters (remember the overtime versus the
Broncos). If you subtract infants and Sounders fans, that comes out
almost perfectly to one quarter per person."
It is a pity that rabble rousers and progressive political animals continue to use sports as a platform for forcing their politics into sports rather than allowing the teams to build unity among the community. Alas the 13th man initiative is the odd men as the are people who can not root for their team without playing victim (for not having tickets), "raising consciences" and politically dividing the Seahawks fan base.
Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) attended the Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game on Sunday night and even sat in the Visitor Owner's box at Lincoln Field. This appearance did not go over well with some grumpy Garden State area gridiron fans.
While at the game, fans directed some choice words towards Governor Christie for sitting with "the enemy". Philadelphia Councilman Jim Kenney (D- At Large) used his official Twitter account to share some ad hominem attacks against Governor Christie.
So much for Kenney's aspiration to "Let's be decent to each other." However, Councilman Kenney is presumptuous that Christie was ingratiating himself with "Texas ass" for 2016. Governor Christie has been a Cowboys fan since age nine. This was something which came up during his first run for high office in Trenton.
Governor Christie refused to engage with Councilman Kenney asking: "First of all--who?" Then Christie opined: “I don’t even know who this guy is. But listen, there’s lots of people
who attempt to use me to increase their own fame. He’s got to get somebody else beside
his parents to know who he is, so that’s good.” This reinforced Christie's rough and tumble reputation of not suffering fools gladly but doing so without drawing proverbial blood.
But to be fair, there may have been a counter-intuitive political calculation with Chris Christie's unabashed Cowboy fan-dom. It was not necessarily to win friends deep in the heart of Texas. It is more likely that it was a Sister Souljah moment.
During the 1992 Presidential campaign, then candidate Governor Bill Clinton (D-AR) was questioned about whether he agreed with Sister Souljah, a hip hop artist and political activist, on black on white violence in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Mr. Clinton publically repudiated Sister Souljah and cultivated a centrist political reputation going into the 1992 General Election.
In this vein, Governor Christie used his lifelong support of the Dallas Cowboys as a means to reinforce his brand. Rather than take a mealy mouthed political position to root for the "home team", Christie rejected this "namby-pamby crap” of hiding his love for his team. By standing firm to his internal compass and offering straight talk, it also reinforced Christie's brand.
UPDATE 01/05/2014 Gov. Christie joined Jerry Jones in the owners box at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas and celebrated the Cowboy's wild card playoff victory against the Detroit Lions.
The Daily Mail (UK) speculated that Gov. Christie was alienating supporters in the Tri-State New York area. Cynical politicos questioned if another high profile Cowboys appearance might soften anti-Yankee sentiments in the Lone Star State's presidential primary. Fashionistas wondered if that was Christie's lucky sweater or the extent of his dressy casual wardrobe.
During the 1960s, a students started a tradition to shout a primal scream out their windows at midnight for ten minutes on the eve of final exams as a stress release. By the 1990s, this exercise in youthful exhuberance devolved into an event in which everyone comes out to gawk, as many as five score of streakers (who are often inebriated) gather to run around Harvard Yard counterclockwise.
The hedonistic happening has a quasi-official imprimatur, as the Harvard Band (dressed only in their parade tops). About 25 Harvard administrators also attended this year and attempted to choreograph the organized chaos.
This year, about 30 activists tried to co-opt the Harvard Primal Scream by imposing a "Black Lives Matter" protest prior to the run. Originally, protesters wanted to have a die-in but were convinced for student safety to revise their rabble rousing plans.
As conveyed by senior Aubrey Walker, the co-director of "Cultural Rhythms" at the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, the protesters wanted to have four and a half minutes of silence before the run. In fact, protesters convinced the band not to play during their silence. Alas, there were unexpected kinks with this protest plan.
The streaking participants could not keep quiet during the conscience raising silence, so protesters chanted "Silence, silence". When that had no effect, the Dean of College Rakesh Khurana was hoisted by a half naked student to bring order, but that had no avail. In fact, some runners followed their tradition and chanted "U-S-A, U-S-A", which protesters interpreted as a slap in the face supporting institutional power and that these fortunate sons refused to check their "White Privilege".
Shortly after this stand-off, the Primal Scream streakers ran clockwise around the Yard, conveniently avoiding the protesters.
Harvard Primal Scream, spring 2014
Some later said that had they known about the protest beforehand, they would have joined in. Others said there was too much of a crowd to know that they were being organized to protest.
It is interesting that at a time when accusations about sexual misconduct has roiled college campuses that Harvard hosts the Primal Scream and has university officials organizing it. But regardless of what one thinks of the propriety of streaking through campus at midnight at one of the nation's elite institutes of higher education, this was not the time to raise consciousness. It is asking too much for drunken, naked students who want to have fun and frivolity to silently shiver in at the witching hour in the New England wintery cold for a protest was not going to go well.
Despite the chaos and hurt feelings, this sort of smiling jog might have convinced the late Joan Rivers to consider running.
Home Ice TaxDisadvantage is a joint study by the Canadian Taxpayers Foundation and the Americans for Tax Reform which studied the impact of taxes upon labor mobility by focusing on the 123 unrestricted NHL free agents during the 2014 off-season. The study accounted for the team salary spending, the personal tax rate and the "True Cap" which took into consideration these rates.
Home Ice Tax Disadvantage discovered that 57% of the players who switched teams during that time period chose to migrate to lower tax jurisdictions. The 78 free agents who switched teams, cumulatively saved $7,951,784 in taxes. These choices are more marked when considering particular players' circumstances.
For example, Benoit Pouliot was moved from the New York Rangers to the Edmonton Oilers. Had Pouliot been offered the same deal in New York City, he would have paid $572,752 more in taxes. Jason Spezza had a no trade clause in his contract, which aided him when he moved from the Ottawa Senators to the Dallas Stars, where he now only pays $349,535 in taxes. Yet P.A. Parenteau did not have a no-trade clause so when he moved from the Colorado Avalanche to the Montreal Canadiens, it cost him $349,352 in taxes to play for the 'Habs.
Alberta had the lowest jurisdictional tax rate, so players for the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers only paid 38.5% in taxes. Alberta's overall tax rate was lower than Southern U.S. states like Florida, Texas and Tennessee which boast no state income taxes. The Los Angeles Kings pay the highest overall amount in taxes, forking over $27.8 million to Uncle Sam and $8.5 million to the state of California. The Montreal Canadien players face the highest tax rate of 58.5%.
As CTF Director of Research Jeff Bowes, who authored Home Ice Tax Disadvantage, put it:
“The numbers don’t lie; NHL players take a financial hit to play in certain jurisdictions. Obviously, there are other
factors at play besides taxes, but the fact remains that disparities in
tax rates leave some teams at a major disadvantage.”
The point of the study was not to study comparative advantage in the NHL or to stoke up class envy but to suggest that high tax jurisdictions are alienating skilled workers such as doctors, engineers or corporate executives with onerous progressive taxation and prompting them to vote with their feet. The ever increasing tax rates on the top tier of taxpayers may explain why places like New York and California keep losing businesses and population to locales like Texas and Florida.
Longtime Duke University and Team USA Olympics basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski was awarded the George Marshall Medal by the Association of the United States Army for his selfless work to support troops and their families.
During his acceptance speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Coach K offered some cogent yet incisive criticisms on current events. Without mentioning any names, Krzyzewski intimated how strategic thought from the parquet courts could assist formulation of policy at Foggy Bottom or even "in the Oval".
If only President Obama would spend less time on Barack-etology (sic) during March Madness, and more time on executing his primary duties as Commander-in-Chief, we might be able to achieve results, even without actually putting boots on the ground. But a leader who insists on transparently telegraphing strategic taboos about the red line which he won't cross gives advantage to opponents.
