Quick Thoughts - Start of MO-Vember & More

Some random thoughts that have come to me in the last few days as we head into MO-Vember;

He is Rich and will not listen to anyone but himself, despite the fact he could probably become even richer

 

- While I agree the name "Redskins" sounds inflammatory and can be very offensive to natives, Dan Snyder (owner of the team) and the front office staff of the team have taken the entirely wrong tact in dealing with this situation. In case you have missed it, over the last few years, many college teams have changed their names from Braves, Indians, Fighting Sioux and the like, to be more PC Friendly and because some of the more powerful Native groups (the bands who essentially did what they had to in order to survive, selling out in part and owning multi-billion dollar generating casinos since the US Government has never done anything to help them) have waged expensive campaigns through the media to demonize anyone who still holds onto these sports nicknames. Dan Snyder has been openly attacking the very notion of ever changing the team name. 

Instead of being defiant like he is saying he will not “bow down” to pressure to change it, using skewed stats of his own season ticket holders (68% said they do not want a name change), he should instead be attempting to bring in native representatives and offering to fund some native charities an attempting to turn the name into a rallying cry by honouring all natives across the country in a ceremony at half time of one of their home games (just one of many things he could do or say). Maybe even keep the name but try to honour the people upon which the name was initially a mocking gesture by its initial former owner (who was known to be a racist) way back in the 1930’s.

There may be some other inner workings here as the team may just be posturing for an eventual name change but this has been handled so poorly by the team that the league may well have to step in just to try and save face. And guess what Snyder, you would make a TON of money on re-branding the Redskins too if you decided to “cave” to the pressure. Some guys have it made regardless of what they do.

I'm happy for Big Papi, who had an absolutely phenomenal World Series and is now a 3 time Champ

 

- The Red Sox won the World Series and as much as I would love to be happy for them (I am for the players mostly), I just can’t help but feel like John “Benedict Arnold” Farrell did not deserve this at least not this soon after he weaseled his way out of Toronto. What he did was despicable and he and everyone in the game knows it. He tarnished the image of the Blue Jays and the perception of the team around baseball and then he gets rewarded by the baseball gods with a Championship? David Ortiz I am happy about, he is a true giant of the game and deserved to be the World Series MVP. Farrell is a bum and it’s not right that he did this and then wins the World Series so soon afterward..

-Still talking about sports, I thought about what would happen if projected #1 overall NBA prospect Andrew Wiggins let it slip somewhere that he would refuse to sign or play for any other team other than the Toronto Raptors. That would be the best way for the sporting world to correct the image of the city tarnished by Farrell; to have a high profile athlete basically come out and say “Screw all of you, I want to play for my home town team”. Couple that with someone like Kevin Durant (free agent after next year) saying he too, wants to play for the team that was his favorite growing up, and then you would REALLY have something in Toronto with regards to the Raptors. 

Leiweki with Drake and new Raptors GM Masi Ujiri. All 3 men should be hoping for a horrible Raptor season

 

The new CEO of MLSE, Tim Leiweke, has let it be known that he wants to turn the team into a perrenial contender and the first step towards that might well be changing the team name. Raptors was clearly choosen at a time when Jurassic Park was still fresh in the minds of everyone. The purple dinosaur has had its day and its time for a new nickname. Huskies would have been a great name but if not that then I am sure they will come up with something that makes a lot more sense then a dinosaur. 

On a sad note, the guy who plays the Raptors mascot at games tore his achilles while performing at a school in Saint John, New Brunswick and will be out the entire year. He will not be replaced as the team has decided not to have someone else try to fill his shoes while he recovers. Classy move by the team. Now if only the team could find a way to transfer that class to how they are portrayed on TV as the ratings locally for their first home game were pathetic (only 54,000 people). They are 2-1 on the season now only z week into the year but they would be better served by tanking. 

Stripes will be filling in for this year as the Raptor heals from a torn Achilles. Odd but a classy move

They did open their season with a win over the re-building and hapless Celtics. In a lot of ways, the Raptors would probably be better off being in the shoes of the Celtics in their pursuit of Andrew Wiggins and the #1 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. Many analysts are saying that the league will reach epic losing this year as teams will know by the 40 game mark if they are good or bad and if they are bad, look for massive tanking to take place (playing really young players and trading away ALL your veterans in the hopes of winning the draft lottery). It could get so bad that the league may have to re-visit the idea of how they conduct their draft lotteries entirely.

-Changing gears for a moment, with the recent statement released by US NSA officials saying that in their defense, the information they collected was actually given TO them by their allies, one would think that would, if true, at least start to get some of the heat off of them, if even for a moment. I'm not trying to take then off the hook for what they did but if the Italians were already looking into German politicians and passed the info to the NSA, then simply because the NSA had that info does not mean that they are the only ones guilty of something.

I'm not sure what is scarier; that he didn't know about the NSA doing what they did or if he did...

 There is another aspect of this entire story which no one is really talking about and that is the truly scary part about this entire situation being the very real possibility that the President had no knowledge of these covert actions. If that is true, then who really is in charge in the US?

The Tea Party is doing its best to throw several wrenches into the gears of government (on more than one occasion) claiming it is in the best interest of the country (and not what it truly appears to be, overt racism against a black man who happens to be the President as well). There are the Republicans in the Senate and in Congress, trying to make sure they stay in office, who are being warped along with all their morals and values as they alter their positions on just about anything so that their extreme constituents will keep voting for them. These same morons then sit back and wonder why the US Government is mocked and laughed at by the rest of the country and the world when they are barely able to function with their Democratic colleagues.

If the NSA was not reporting their actions to the President, who is supposed to be the most powerful man on earth, then who do they answer to? Is there some other shadowy figure out there that has even more power than the President that we should actually be fearing even more then these radical Tea Party idiots?

The whole situation reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. The “GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ” had no real power, despite all the appearances in the world to the contrary. As much as we would love to have thought that President Obama was going to change the world, clearly he never has been given a fair and viable situation in so many different levels as he was brought into power with so much of the nation falling apart. Just a few of the issues that began to hit hardest just as he came into power include; the financial meltdown, civil unrest in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, The US middle class being destroyed and corporations eating up all the money they possibly can while exploiting as many as possible, Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp, fighting 2 unjust and unwarranted wars, US soldiers desecrating prisoners, killing indescrinmately as if they are playing Call of Duty, Wikileaks exposing thousands of military secrets, and last but not least being the President who had to try and clean up the pile of crap that his predecessor left on the desk of the White House before he left.

Add to the fact that the NSA has basically put him in a situation where either he is made to look like a liar to other world leaders or as if he is so weak that he has no control over his own covert agencies. He is in a no-win situation. How nice.

-Finally, as we are now in November, correction, MO-Vember, it is time to turn my attention to the fact that I am now 3 days into "growing it out" and so far I only have 1 person who has pledged to support me in my month long growing. For each day that I let it grow out, Mike will donate $5. If I last the whole month, he will double the total (for a donation of $300). For me, it will be a piece of cake to keep a long goatee going. I would like to invite anyone else who has known or knows someone who lost their fight with Cancer to pledge support for me as I do this in memory of my 3 uncles and my aunt who all lost their fights with this killer disease.