Flag on the Play, Jackass Interference!

So here's the deal. YOu feel strongly about some issue? you have a stance on something? Save it for after the whistle blows.
In the 2003 NFL season, right wing agitator Rush Limbaugh was a commentator for ESPN's sunday night football broadcast. The subject on the table was Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Donovan McNabb. Here's what Rush had to say

Completely lame and uncalled for. Nothing can convince me that this wasn't a calculated attempt to create controversy; another form of racial arson, which I've talked about before. Rush has zealots to feed meat to and he decided gameday was suppertime. I can just imagine him in the moments before the "on air" light came on: "Wait'll they get a load of what I say NOW. My Dittoheads are gonna love this one. Ramifications for my fellow broadcasters? Who Cares? Fallout for the Network that hired me to talk about football, not to advance my political opinion? To hell with them! All that matters is the further advancement of my own cult of personality."
To the credit of the Disney Company(ESPN's parent company), Limbaugh was dismissed soon thereafter. They let him save face by giving him an opportunity to resign as opposed to being fired, but everybody knew what was up. Later that season, Donovan McNabb took the Eagles to the Superbowl.

This past November, comedian/political commentator Bill Maher, In the New Rules segment of his show "Real Time", decided Quarterback Tim Tebow who had recently been named the team's starter, would make a great metaphor for the the Republican Presidential field. Here's how it went down.

Bill Maher has made no bones about his disdain for organized religion. Furthermore, this wasn't the first time he's found unkind things to say about Tebow. With that said, As of this writing, Since replacing Kyle Orton as Denver's Starting QB, Denver's record stands at 5-1. I guess it'd be a bridge too far for Maher to maybe look at that and think twice about his anti-religious predilections, but I wonder if he would at least be man enough to consider that he may have let his opinion taint his perception of reality. The truth is in this case, Bill Maher did the same thing he calls out the evangelicals for. He let his religious beliefs(or lack thereof) color his opinion in defiance of all of the stats, facts, and evidence. I'm no Tebow expert, but one look at his history as a player suggests that "in over his head" and "throws like a girl" seem at best ridiculously innaccurate and at worst like the words of someone more interested in their agenda than in an actual dialogue about sports.

Generally speaking, I dig Bill Maher. Rush Limbaugh not so much, but in this case they're both guilty of the same sin.
You know what the cool thing about sports is? Agendas and plans and opinions don't mean a thing. Sports is (with some exceptions)about whether or not you can get it done. that being the case, your feelings on Affirmative Action or Religion mean NOTHING. You embarrass yourself an annoy all of us by introducing those things into this conversation. I suppose neither of these situations should be a suprise to anyone; both of these fellas have a habit of making their hubris more important that what they're talking about.
So I guess the lesson to take from this is that not everything is Peanut Butter Cups. Before you get ready to introduce your personal hangups into our sports converstation, Think twice. As a matter of fact, no don't think about it even once. Just shut up, have some nachos and watch the game.

Nothing's Gonna Stop Her Noooooowwww!!!

I have figured out Kim Kardashian. The last week has seen the kind of ridiculousness seldom seen outside of stupid romantic comedies. The climactic anticlimaxing culmination of a long national nightmare of being celebrated for the kind of avarice, arrogance, and vapid ignorance that in previous centuries inspired political cartoons featuring pigs as people. Unfortunately, even in the wake of this new fiasco it probably won't end.
She's built a grossly lucrative empire on more or less being present. By just being there. She's proven herself very adept at things like showing up, standing, posing, smiling, collecting a check...and of course getting peed on late at night.
She shows up at parties and clubs(which she gets paid for), on twitter(where she gets paid several thousand dollars to tweet about products), they put her name and face on products(more money). And then there's the Kardashian franchise of TV shows, I've posted about her before, and my opinions are no secret. I'll save most of the venom; that's been there, done that material. I'll just share what I figured out. Let's go to the tape

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKunZnUSl_s&feature=related

Prince's Welcome to America tour earlier this year. Madison Square Garden, NYC. Prince invites her onstage. Like an idiot, she just stands there. And that's pretty much a microcosm of the entire Kardashian experience.

On Dancing With the Stars, she was cut in week three. Not really a run to be proud of when you supposedly have that many fans to theoretically vote for you.

She records the song "Jam", which is permeated by lyrical Gems as "turn me up turn me up yeah yeah yeah" and "Maybach in the front/I pick out any boy that I want". As good as my vocabulary is, It is woefully inadequate at describing the level of suck intrinsic to this recording. How often does autotune not help?

And finally, the Humphries/Kardashian wedding. Several fortunes worth of dollars spent. People fly in from all over the world toting along $200,000 worth of gifts. Kim's there. Doing all the things she's good at. Showing up, standing, posing, smiling, collecting a check. And of course getting peed on probably later that night. In the subsequent months however, having to actually be married proved too much for her. Even with every possible advantage. None of the financial concerns most married couples have, not to mention the goodwill and support of literally millions of fans that most married couples never get. With every possible advantage a newlywed couple could ever need, she couldn't handle it.

Looking at the evidence, my extrapolation is that Kim Kardashian is great. She's awesome....as long as she doesn't have to actually DO anything. Onstage with Prince, frozen stiff. Dancing with the stars, one of the first gone. Records a song, makes most want to poke out their eardrums. A wedding with all the bells and whistles. Can't handle the marriage for more than 72 days. All she can do is be present. She can be there no problem, but don't ask her to contribute, because that's asking too much.

Kim Kardashian is the worlds first fully functional multi media mannequin. She's like a screwed up version of Kim Catrall's character in the movie Mannequin. In that movie the girl was alive until people actually looked at her, in which case she froze. She could be in the room, be draped in finery and put in a window that had been decorated with elegant and exotic backdrops. However, When people actually paid attention to her; actually got a good look at her, she became frozen and hollow. A fake person in a fake scenario used to make people pony up cash for the clothes, the jewelry, and the shiny happy life. A frozen fake smiling plastic statue.