Tag Archives: sports

Current Events

Orwellian America

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I somehow knew my Marine brother, Greg, would eventually write something about this insane event overtaking our country.  This is so unbelievable, it defies even trying to explain it using Webster’s words. With that, I’ll let Greg talk about it.

 

 

A transgressive disaster                                                   By: G. Maresca

The older I get, my hearing and vision isn’t necessarily the problem; rather, it is believing what I hear and see. To wit: the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” voted on last week in The House of Representatives.

The bill’s resolve is to amend Title IX’s legislation regarding women’s athletics where “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” The bill says plenty about the polarization and politicization of transgenderism that is symbolic of today’s devolving culture where an addendum is desperately needed.

Predictably, the vote went strictly along party lines with all Republicans supporting it, while every Democrat voted against it. Given the bill’s necessity in Orwellian America, I couldn’t help but think of one particular episode in the highly acclaimed 2010 HBO series The Pacific that chronicled  the Marine Corps’ numerous island-hopping campaigns during World War II.

The scene upfolds as Marine Eugene Sledge boards an amtrak in the darkened bowels of a navy warship. As the hatch opens to unleash the tracks from their bay, the light is blinding. Within minutes, Sledge and his fellow Marines hit the beaches at Peleliu under extreme fire. Only one percent of those survivors are still with us. I often wonder how they would feel about how their grandchildren are so divided over legislation to protect girls from competing, sharing locker rooms and showers with boys who think they are girls.

What is lost on Democrats is that Title IX was meant to correct sex discrimination, not enforce it.

Are Democrats simply blind loyalists to a deeply flawed political ideology or cowards unable to stand for what they truly believe is right? Or is it that they no longer believe that boys in athletics have innate advantages over girls? Instead, they view the transgendered as victims rather than suffering mentally.

Cue Rod Serling, another decorated World War II veteran, and his notorious Twilight Zone theme. Even Serling’s boundless capacity to write creative futuristic fiction would have an issue with such insanity in 2023 America.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke truth to power saying, “There’s a reason why there’s men and women’s sports. . . it’s about fairness.” Florida Republican Greg Steube, one of the bill’s sponsors, added that Congress first passed Title IX “to enable women to have an equal playing field in athletics.”

Women have spent decades fighting for equal opportunities and Title IX ensured they had a level playing field. Allowing men to compete against them is its antithesis. Men’s and women’s sports exist due to fairness.  Recall in 2017, a U-15 boys soccer team from Texas beat the world champion USA women’s team 5-2 in a “practice” game.

Seemingly dismissed is how girls are not clamoring to compete against boys. MMA fighter Jack Shields has challenged any gender-confused woman to a bout. Guess how many have accepted?

None.

Such politically driven ideology deprives girls of opportunities as gender is consciously divorced from one’s biological sex. Girls should not be forced to compete against boys in sports. No issue underscores the leftist agenda more than transgenderism that places the desires of the few above the many. Who could possibly be happy with such circumstances and for what reasons? There is nothing woke or progressive in rolling back women’s rights and protections.

The deconstruction of traditional male and female roles has led to confusion that is the impetus for falling birth rates to the decay of the nuclear family.

This legislation puts the rule of law where one cannot change their biological sex at will.  Such insanity begs the question if changing one’s sex is acceptable, what about changing one’s race?

Where are the pink hats of the feminists? They should be justifiably up in arms, but nary a word unless it is anything pro-abortion.  One would hope that all women affected by this ongoing issue would vote accordingly.

However, in today’s Orwellian America that may be too much to ask.

For those who oppose such common sense, the Senate revealed they will not debate it, while President Biden has said provided the bill ever did make it to his desk, he would veto it.

As such, this insanity continues.

Isn’t it amazing the vote went exactly along party lines? I wonder if any those Dems who voted against the bill have any young daughters playing women’s sports, and if there are some, have they told their daughters  how he/she voted? I doubt it. I am really have a tough time with this issue. I simply cannot believe how someone with half a brain could be in favor of this travesty, but then there are lots of things the Dems do and say that defies my understanding.

George Orwell published “1984” in 1949, a year later on January 21, 1950 he succumbed to Tuberculosis. I wonder what his thoughts would be on today’s Orwellian America. I’ve not read “1984”, but I think I might, but hell, why do so, I’m living it..

Originally posted 2023-05-01 08:25:13.

Current Events

All-Star Strikeout

4 Comments

Greg hits another Home Run!

By: G. Maresca

As Major League Baseball (MLB) opened its season to sunny skies with every team playing on the same day since 1937, the game’s executives seem intent on beheading the golden goose with the woke ax of the Cancel Culture.

Given the issues with two recent Georgian elections, the state’s legislature passed a bill that would strengthen the integrity and fairness of their voting laws.  The MLB suits and their Democrat allies including President Biden disagreed labeling the legislation “an atrocity” and “Jim Crow.”  As a result, MLB’s midseason summer classic – its annual All-Star game and amateur draft that were to take place in Atlanta – will be relocated to Colorado that has similar voting laws.

The president’s distortion of the Georgia law is intentionally divisive since he promised to unite the nation at his inauguration.  Even the left leaning Washington Post awarded Biden four Pinocchio’s.

MLB’s certitude is business as usual.  During last year’s abbreviated season, MLB stenciled a Marxist organization’s initials on pitching mounds leaguewide.  Despite their All-Star boycott of Georgia, MLB announced an expanded television deal with China.  MLB must not realize that in China they eat their bats rather than swing them.

MLB should showcase their All-Star game in Wuhan.  Surely, the Uighurs in their Xinjiang province “re-education” camps would tune in. Even Secretary of State Antony Binken said China is committing genocide against the Uighurs.

The media needs to question Biden on how a law committed to voter integrity in a state that he won warrants a boycott, while communist China gets a pass.

The Georgia law will require absentee voters to provide identification when requesting and mailing in their ballot.  Likewise, ballot drop boxes that were temporary during the pandemic will continue but be reduced.  There were no drop boxes prior to COVID, ever.

What will MLB do when other states pass similar voter integrity laws? Stop playing games in those states?  Why are any of the 81 regular season games being played in Atlanta if this law is so egregious?

Politics injecting itself into professional sports is vogue.  In July 2016, the NBA pulled its All-Star Game from Charlotte, N.C. because a state law mandated that transgenders use bathrooms according to their birth gender. After the law was repealed, the NBA rewarded Charlotte their 2019 All-Star game.

Political division is nothing new, but the ridiculous and despotic reactions are.  Perhaps MLB is auditioning for their future masters – the Chinese Communist Party?  No need to concern yourself with voter suppression when there are no elections.

Georgia is in no way suppressing legitimate voters, but their law does make it harder for illegitimate voters – and that is the crux – for Democrats.  MLB has smeared Georgia’s elected majority as racist and anti-democratic.

State officials should sue for defamation.

Here is MLB lecturing on election integrity when nothing is more fraudulent than an MLB All-Star ballot, where voting early and often is creed.

Drive to the park, buy a beer at the game and you will need identification.  Producing identification is not voter suppression; it is voter certification.  And you better have your immunization card updated to enter because that is next.

Sports should be apolitical, but it is the weak and craven who fail to step up to the plate and make it so.  Georgia showed uncharacteristic courage for politicians something MLB and the crony and woke CEOs at Atlanta based Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola severely lack.

If other legislatures and organizations would exhibit such resolve perhaps, a real examination, without the name calling about why one group has lagged behind in most metrics despite decades of unconstitutional subsidies and preferences.  Then we could address some real causes: 70% children born out of wedlock, 52% of murders, 37% of abortions among a culture that is only 13% of the population where entitlement and victimization handcuff advancement while atrophying young minds.

Bureaucratic elites are in lockstep with the anti-liberty, totalitarian, Constitution-hating zealots who occupy Washington.  This decision by MLB is just the latest example.

Sports is entertainment, not a political movement.

Until conservatives can boycott as effectively as leftists, expect more of the same.

Conservatives need to take a final homerun trot around the MLB bases of going, going… gone.

Good luck with your new friends, MLB.

 

Originally posted 2021-04-09 11:02:17.

Current Events, Recent Posts

Coke CEO

4 Comments

Shut up and run your company

I find it remarkable that of all the corporations and organizations who have come out condemning Georgia’s latest legislation concerning voter requirements, nary a one has explained how the law disenfranchises minority voters. Amazing. I recently read where even CNN said it does nothing to harm minority voting. Have any of these woke companies/organizations even read the law? I seriously doubt it.  Someone, anyone, please explain to me how requiring an ID to vote in the United  States infringes upon a minority’s right to vote. Maybe I’m just out of touch with today’s world, but I don’t think so since the chart below shows an awful lot of “things” that require an ID. How does one exist in today’s world without an ID?? You all know from past posts I consider myself an Economist by education and hobby. I know for a fact that we, as consumers have more power than many of you think. Oftentimes, commenters have asked what we can do to help society get back on track. Well, let me tell you it’s plain and  simple. Spend your hard earned money wisely, that is, do not buy from producers who pay more attention to social media than running their business. Corporations like Coke rely on us for their existence. They should shut their woke mouths and concentrate on running Coke for the benefit of the owners, who are , of course, shareholders! Can you imagine if you forwarded this post to everyone in your address book, and they did likewise, we could really hurt Coke, and perhaps teach that idiot woke CEO, James Quincey, a lesson in Economics!

I recently switched razors to Harry’s, and was about to order some more blades. It’s going in the trash today. We should be together on this Gang. If you read about some company/organization  condemning Georgia for their new ID law, make a comment about on here. Let’s start a list so we all know who to stop buying from or supporting.

 

 

 

 

 

I know switching from favorites can be tough e.g., Tide is but one product of Proctor & Gamble. However, we have to do something rather than sitting round bitching about things. Please join me!

What I Wouldn’t Give for a Shave That Isn’t Woke

From my closet to my bathroom, my house is full of leftist brands. It’s time to do something about it.

From the WSJ

By Dave Seminara

April 4, 2021 4:16 pm ET

Maybe I was wrong to think conservatives should refrain from adopting the bullying, boycotting tactics of the left. I made the case against emulating progressives in these pages last summer as I lamented the rise of the woke corporation, documenting how many of my favorite companies embrace values antithetical to my own. But it’s increasingly clear that the sharp increase in corporate virtue signaling after George Floyd’s death wasn’t a passing trend but a sea change. Perhaps it’s time for conservatives to boycott companies that hate us.

Coca-Cola and Delta, a pair of Atlanta-based companies I’ve patronized for many years, became progressive boycott targets this month for allegedly not doing enough to stop Republicans in the state from passing an election-security law that’s been recast absurdly as a civil-rights violation. The companies haven’t withstood it well.

In an interview Wednesday with CNBC, James Quincey, Coca-Cola’s CEO and virtue signaler in chief, called the law “unacceptable” and “a step backwards,” but didn’t explain why. CNBC host Sara Eisen never asked if he feared a conservative backlash. Instead she pressed him on why Coca-Cola didn’t “publicly oppose this before.”

Mr. Quincey’s comments didn’t placate the woke mob on Twitter, with some insisting that Coke hadn’t condemned the legislation soon enough or forcefully enough. Delta CEO Ed Bastian appeared to be reading from the Coca-Cola script later the same day. His company released a statement condemning the law, and Mr. Bastian said in a memo to employees that the reform was “unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.”

Opinion: Morning Editorial Report

As the Journal’s editorial board has pointed out, the legislation is in no way a return to Jim Crow, but rather an honest effort to improve election integrity.

Coca-Cola, Delta, Microsoft and other companies my family supports all but called the legislation racist, implying that those, like me, who support it are bigots. As distasteful as this is, I can’t say I’m surprised. When I look around my house, I see many products from woke companies that want me to know how strongly they disagree with me on pretty much every issue of the day.

Start with Patagonia, one of my favorite clothing-and-gear outfitters. The top of its website exhorts visitors to “act now” to stop climate change, warning that “extinction looms for more than one million species of plants and animals.” Maybe so, but what about shoppers who are there just to pick up a $35 “live simply” T-shirt? The homepage tab next to “shop” is “activism.” Click if you dare, because you’re in for a world of lefty indoctrination. Patagonia even endorses political candidates. You won’t be surprised to learn that none of them in 2020 had an “R” after their names.

Moving to the bathroom, I encounter my progressive razors. No, not Gillette. I ditched those in 2019 after the company released a ludicrously woke ad decrying toxic masculinity. But last month I learned that the new brand I’d chosen, Harry’s, had pulled its advertising from the Daily Wire, a conservative website I like. The razor company fled after a Twitter user with 29 followers complained that one of the Daily Wire’s podcasts “is spreading homophobic and transphobic content.” You might think it’d be easier to find a politically neutral shave, given that a majority of men are Republicans and companies generally play to their customer base. But this reality is apparently lost on Harry’s—and Gillette, or rather its parent company, Procter & Gamble.

Another P&G brand my family uses—Pantene shampoo—recently released a commercial about the life of a young transgender girl and her lesbian moms. “She has always been super gender creative, and hair has been a big part of her transition,” says one of the moms. At the end of the commercial, a banner reads, “PANTENE Family is #BEAUTIFULGBTQ—Proud to Support Transgender Visibility.” The ad has about six times as many dislikes as likes on YouTube, but that hasn’t given the company pause. It tweeted that “transphobia has no place in our world or in our feed.”

Maybe Pantene believes that’ll be the extent of the blowback. Many companies take Republican customers for granted. Perhaps they’re right. I still have subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu and Disney+, even though many of their offerings, particularly documentaries, advance left-wing agendas.

But there’s money to be made on standing up to cancel culture. Last summer, after I complained that my preferred coffee company had gone too far left, readers suggested I buy from Black Rifle Coffee Co. “They support Veterans and the coffee is very good,” one reader wrote me. He was right and word is spreading. The company’s revenue nearly doubled in 2020—a year when every other business seemed to be going woke.

Unlike many on the left, I’m fine with companies not taking sides, and I don’t expect every company I patronize to embrace my views. But if Pantene can stand firm on behalf of transgender visibility, perhaps it’s time for conservatives to stiffen their spines, too. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask that the businesses I patronize refrain from actively and loudly despising me.

Mr. Seminara is a former diplomat and author of “Footsteps of Federer: A Fan’s Pilgrimage Across 7 Swiss Cantons in 10 Acts.”

Originally posted 2021-04-05 14:55:57.

Recent Posts

An Intentional Balk

6 Comments

LOL, I love it when these leaders of the sports world make decisions that they believe will save their beloved sport. Good luck! It’s Economics folks, pure and simple, which is a “social” science, so again good luck figuring out what your fan base will do when you enact something. Since I have never been an avid MLB fan, I could care less, but I will enjoy watching what happens. 

By Greg Maresca

In 1968, Simon and Garfunkel wanted to know where the Yankee Clipper Joe DiMaggio had gone. Over half a century later, the suits of Major League Baseball (MLB) have to be wondering the same for their younger fan base.

Economists say demographics are king, and if true, then MLB is in more trouble than the British Royal Family. A survey by Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal reported the average MLB fan is 57 years old. By comparison, the average age of an NBA fan is 42.

 Baseball like the culture it entertains has its share of problems.

 The game is still popular but is rapidly aging. Declining attendance has also plagued MLB having lost 6.3 million in attendance over the last eight regular seasons.

Those who play the game are shrinking as well from Little League up through the minor leagues.

It is no secret that participation in Little League has declined greatly through the years. All one has to do is look around. The one youth baseball entity that is doing well is travel baseball. Travel ball provides a chance to play year-round with exposure to college coaches and professional scouts. The problem is the costs are out of reach for many families pitting the baseball haves against the have-nots.

Stickball and stoopball were both central components of the urban youth streetscape experience that have now joined Ringolevio, Hopscotch, and Double Dutch as just more relics of the past. What does any of this have to do with MLB?

Plenty.

All came of age like MLB during the first half of the 20th century. We are now in the first half of the 21st century and like anything else, change is in vogue and baseball is an agrarian game from another century.

MLB is trying to adjust, but at what cost?

The homerun is baseball’s signature and in 2019 BC (Before COVID), the regular season homerun record was broken. The strike-out record also fell that year turning baseball into a prolonged version of Gillette’s Home Run Derby. MLB’s response: the 2021 baseball will be slightly “deadened” meaning a 375-foot stroke will be a few feet shorter – enough to keep more balls in play.

 The changes that remain post-COVID include doubleheaders lasting seven-innings each. Positive coronavirus tests saw teams play 55 doubleheaders. These abridged seven-inning games took an average of just over two and a half hours. This change should help address today’s compromised attention spans that can be juxtaposed to a barn cat in June. And with the average baseball game lasting three hours and seven minutes – Houston we have a problem and it is much more than the Astros cheating.

One change suggested was that all television and radio broadcasts would only be able to air just one 30-second advertisement at the half-inning. Greed overruled and the idea was dropped as quick as conducting more Joe Biden press conferences.

After allowing the designated hitter (DH) during last year’s pandemic-shortened season, the National League (NL) will again have pitchers batting. However, this season could very well be the last time pitchers’ bat. The consensus is the DH is the future of the NL, as it has been in the American League since 1973.

 Moreover, all extra innings with start with a runner on second base. This has been successfully done throughout the minor leagues in recent years, but to the purists of the game it’s nothing short of baseball heresy.

The MLB playoffs will return to their previous format with three division winners and two wild cards per league. But when MLB’s collective bargaining agreement ends December 1 expect the playoff field to permanently expand.

There has never been a time where competition for the entertainment dollar is as fierce, so what does MLB do? Propose eliminating 42 of its 160 minor league teams.

The games abiding fabric can be found within the minors, where the prices are affordable and the players accessible. Kids can get on the field during promotions. The minors are not just for player development, but for fan development, too.

Eliminating many grassroots minor league teams which, in and of themselves, carry a longstanding history is baseball’s version of euthanasia.

This is no 7th inning stretch.

 

UPDATE:

As though all these woes are not enough, the MLB Commissars  have decided the MLB should enter the political arena. Since GA has enacted, or are about to, election laws requiring an ID to cast your ballot, they have decided to move the All-Star game and the MLB drafts from Atlanta to who knows where. Reason? They say enacting a requirement for an ID to vote restricts people of color from voting. WHAT? That is asinine. How many actions today require an ID? So people of color can not do anything today that requires an ID because, what — they do not have one? Why? Someone of color please explain that to me.

MLB is dying, as is NFL and NBA. And as far as I am concerned they can all go the way of the Dinosaur. I’ll continue to watch certain  NCAA sports, but it appears there could be some drastic changes coming about from that group of misfits as well e.g.,  some literal college grants a transgender a scholarship to play women’s basketball.. Don’t believe me, watch and see, I guarantee there is a university out there thinking about it and many transgender basketball players filling out their applications as I write.

Originally posted 2021-04-03 09:52:54.

Current Events

The Equality Act

3 Comments

Folks there is not one thing in this bill that even comes close to equality. It may be equality to the leftist progressive idiots in charge, but it sure does not spell equality to this patriot.  I am beside myself and can’t even imagine what may come next. Please read on and do as Greg asks, write your elected officials NOW. This is absolutely insane. God, we need your help NOW.

UPDATE  2/26: Greg commented that since the Act has already passed the house, phone calls to your two senators are in order instead an email or letter. others to use. So how about some help?

Too often words are used to assuage reality. Verbiage and euphemisms can be useful in certain circumstances, but language should never be manipulated to camouflage wickedness.

The U.S. House is set to vote on the Equality Act. Sounds innocent enough. After all, what red-blooded American is against equality?

The Equality Act is terribly misleading and not only threatens religious liberty, but freedom of speech and rights of conscience. It would make gender identity and sexual orientation a protected class turning biological and biblical truth on its head.

A few highlights of the bill include how religious medical professionals would have to participate in unrestricted tax-funded abortions or lose their licenses. They would have to provide gender-transition treatments to children who would be able to change their gender without parental consent. Faith-based adoption and foster care agencies would be required to place children with gay couples or lose their licenses. Men will be able to claim the rights of women who would have to share all facilities with biological men while competing with them for athletic scholarships. Such an arrangement will also allow pedophiles unrestricted access to children. Churches that rent their facilities for outside events would be required to do the same for gay marriages and other LGBTQ events or face loss of their tax-exempt status, fines, and possible closure. It would prohibit the Knights of Columbus and other Christian non-profits from community block grants unless they accommodate the LGBTQ guidelines including hiring practices. Provided Christian schools do not adopt LGBTQ policies they would face decertification as the act would prevent appeal to the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA).

Despite its name, there is no balance of LGBTQ rights with traditional religious rights. The bill should be renamed: The Cancel Culture Enabling and Enforcement Act.

The LGBTQ movement has successfully hijacked the Civil Rights Act, while specifically denying exemptions for religious freedom granted under the RFRA – a bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support sponsored by then Congressman Chuck Schumer. Today, relying on now Sen. Schumer to safeguard religious liberty is like trusting the dog to find who stole the steak off your plate.

The Equality Act would suppress the Constitutional rights of 97% in the name of the other three percent. Anyone who disagrees or questions is cancelled as a hate filled bigot.

A Christian ecumenical pushback is brewing and is the only way to protect our rights and be the catalysts for a spiritual and moral awakening. The hour is late, but not over. Contacting your Congressional representatives in both houses is a must.

“The Equality Act is, without a doubt, the most radical assault on religious liberty, the right to life, and privacy rights ever packaged into one bill,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue. Andrew Walker of the Southern Baptist Convention, “The Equality Act represents the most invasive threat to religious liberty ever proposed in America and effectively turn Billy Graham into Jim Crow.” President of Family Research Council Tony Perkins called it the “Inequality Act” saying, “It is an attack on parental rights, women’s sports, but to the millions of people of faith in this country, it is an egregious attack on the freedom to believe and live according to those beliefs. It would position the government to lord over churches and other faith-based institutions … for not falling in step with a view of human sexuality that directly contradicts orthodox biblical teaching.”

No institution or person of faith will escape the Orwellian reach of the Equality Act and what everyone will learn is when equality comes before freedom, we get little of either.

Your president plans to fulfill his campaign promise to pass the bill in his first one hundred days and with Democrats controlling Congress prospects are favorable. However, given the Senate’s fifty-fifty partisan split, it would only take one Democrat to break ranks, while any tiebreaker is decided by Vice President Harris. Sure, but what about the seven Rhinos who voted to impeach President Trump? How will they vote?

The Equality Act is another sterling example of how chaos and ignorance reigns when biblical truth is vanquished by a morally and financially bankrupt government. Leftists, blinded by their pride, cannot see how they are rushing headlong into destruction and taking the rest of us with them.

Is this the legacy we want our children to inherit?

Have you made your call to your senators Washington office yet????

Originally posted 2021-02-25 12:44:50.