JuicyLesson #102: Here and there … Shorties mostly + more photos and even a video

Here and there … mostly shorties

Just heard this CNN news guy tease us with the following two rhetorical questions before cutting to commercial: Is the NFL anti-gay? Is the NFL homophobic? Gimme a break. Please.

Let’s face it, baby. Jocks are not the most progressive thinkers in the modern world. However, what is required of a professional athlete if you don’t want trouble is to keep your mouth shut, your head down, and your nose to the grindstone. You are not supposed to say what you think if what you think diverges in any way from the party line as defined, interpreted and applied by Commissioner Roger Goodel and the team owners. Sometimes you just have to take the money and run. Gimme all your money. I have a gub.

Same thing happened to me on a number of occasions when I was a teacher. I could never tolerate bullshit and instead of keeping my mouth shut which would probably have served me better, I opened up, sometimes with both barrels, on the object or objects of my distaste, shooting them right between the eyes on occasion.

The punter for the Minnesota Vikings is claiming that he has been cut by the football team because of his pro-gay stance, a position which he has never tried to conceal from his teammates. Could it be that this guy, an older, below average kicker, was let go for another reason, or for other reasons aside from his pro-gay oratorical interjections?

More controversy related to Sea World which is being accused of manipulating public opinion in the case of a one question poll which asked people if the documentary “Blackfish” changed their opinion about Sea World.* When ninety-nine percent of this question’s respondents answered in the negative, a newspaper or news agency – I don’t remember which – decided to undertake some investigative journalism and came up with the following conclusion concerning this unscientific poll – fifty-eight percent (58%) of the respondents came from an IT address associated with the company itself, Sea World.

*if this was indeed the way in which this poll question was worded, there is another problem with it in that it calls for an assumption on the part of the pollsters which is that respondents to the poll are assumed to have been favourably disposed to Sea World in the first place. On second thought, this is also an example of manipulation on the part of Sea World. The powers-that-be that be just get together and decide that people will be assumed to be almost naturally and of course positively disposed to Sea World. We don’t need to know for sure whether these people were or were not favourably disposed towards Sea World to begin with, we’ll just assume that they were/are and go from there, get it?

In other words, the people responsible for running Sea World are feeling the pinch due to public perception regarding their treatment of certain of their creatures, specifically their killer whale population as described in the recent doc entitled “Blackfish”. Partly as a result of the public reaction to the movie, (see trailer featured in today’s JuicyLesson), Willie Nelson and a couple of other name musicians (Heart and the Barenaked Ladies) along with about seven other bands decided to cancel shows they had planned at this marine resort. Nelson, in an interview in the wake of his cancellation, stated very definitively that he had no trouble deciding to call off his show given the situation portrayed in the documentary film. In that same interview, Nelson said that he never had been a big fan of Sea World in the first place and that the documentary, “Blackfish” was the last straw.

Nine bedrooms, fifteen bathrooms, around $15 million is the present ask for the Leonardo di Caprio’s mansion in California, down 50% from last year’s asking price. As my mother used to say, let’s not have a tag day for the guy. As I say, cry me a fucking river.

Rob Ford became the first candidate to file his “intention to run” for Toronto mayor in the next municipal election scheduled for 2015. Many people just wish this asshole would just disappear from the public eye but he doesn’t seem to want to. What kind of role model does this lying, crack-smoking alcoholic represent for the youth from both inside and outside the GTA? Not much of one, that’s for sure. But Ford doesn’t seem to give a shit. All he apparently cares about is himself and possibly his immediate family, including Doug, his very loyal brother and most likely the only friend that the mayor still has left on the governing municipal council which has, fortunately, decided to rid Ford of most of his power – both political and financial. However, unless Ford is actually arrested, charged and convicted of a criminal offense, there is no way for him to be fired, even by Ontario’s provincial government. Ultimately, it’ll be up to the voters in the G.T.A. as to where Ford goes and what he ends up doing in the wake of the next municipal election. Hopefully, he’ll be in rehab at that point or even possibly already out … anywhere but in the mayor’s chair.

… and now for some more pictures as a way to get us to reflect on the year just ended, 2013.

A bad year for the NY Giants

We’re in heaven, baby.

Football in Philly in December

Roll ‘Tide.

Chinese Neo-Nazis

American para-military Fascists

Turkish pepper spray

Come on, kid. Tuck in your shirt, stand up straight. Today’s your wedding day. You are aware of that, aren’t you?

Sox win! Sox win! The Boston Red Sox won their first World Series on home turf since 1918, a period of ninety-five (95) years. However, with three World Series victories since the year 2000 (in 2004, 2007, and 2013), the Bosox are considered to be the most successful team in MLB today. Their total of eight World Series wins, thirteen AL pennants, and seven East Division titles certainly place them among baseball’s elite teams – both historically and in the context of the contemporary baseball environment. I fucking hate the Red Sox what with that ridiculously short left field fence referred to in common vernacular as the Green Monster and their huge bankroll which pretty well enables them to sign the best free agents out there on a yearly basis.