Idiocracy

[herman]

Pops: he gets it.
https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2017/9/25/16362298/gregg-popovich-spurs-trump-comments-racism-president-nba

 

[Nik]

"You know what I hate? When protesting players have to bring politics into sports!"

 

[bustaheims]

Pretty sure that's a violation of US Flag Code

 

[L K]

Trump finally pulled himself away from anti-NFL comments to get back to talking about Puerto Rico.  He's really concerned.....about the fact that they owe billions to big banks.  What a huge piece of human feces he is.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

Loving the response from the athletic community against this clown of a man....well aside from the Penguins organization who threw out the "we respect the office of the President" nonsense.

Yeah, I said it in the NHL thread but that was pretty disheartening. To me it's not about politics or even in this case whether or not the Penguins are going to the White House. It's that they felt the need to make an announcement that didn't even address the complete and total lack of dignity and respect the President showed to people in their profession.

Puck Daddy said it well:

https://sports.yahoo.com/penguins-wrong-accept-trumps-invitation-feeble-statement-164255570.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw

Some of interesting thoughts about Crosby and the Penguins going to the White House, and some history of racial tensions in Cole Harbour:

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[herman]

And just to say one more thing on the topic. Because I like to think of myself as someone who does try to at least understand all sides of an issue even if I very much disagree with a side I did wonder, this weekend, how I would feel if Carey Price or another player of Native descent decided to kneel for the Canadian anthem because of the treatment of our First Nations people. Or, alternately, if an opposing player refused to stand for the Israeli national anthem to protest the ongoing conflict there.

And what I keep coming back to is this is why it is a bad idea to conflate sports and nationalism. This is why it's a bad idea to play the anthem, and demand everyone respond in the same way to the anthem. No matter how benign or benevolent you think your country is I think even a basic level of empathy would recognize that not all people feel the same way about nationalistic identity and the symbols of it. Demanding they do is creepy.

Because let's be real. It's performative. I'm pretty confident that nobody here, watching Hockey Night at home, stands up and removes their hat for the Anthem. We probably keep sitting and eating or talking or whatever.

Playing the anthem is inherently political and we don't demand it of every public gathering. We don't do it at concerts or at movies or the theatre. You can't demand a political statement like "everyone now perform their rote, required daily patriotism" and then be offended ; when people want to have their own political moment.

tl;dr We shouldn't play national anthems before sporting events. Patriotism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.

This is Nik's greatest ever post.

Isn't sports largely understood to be a proxy for war? A peace-time activity to vent aggression, etc.? The conflation of nationalism, patriotism, militarism with fandom is littered throughout sports rhetoric.

 

[bustaheims]

Isn't sports largely understood to be a proxy for war? A peace-time activity to vent aggression, etc.? The conflation of nationalism, patriotism, militarism with fandom is littered throughout sports rhetoric.

Sure, but, war between cities in the same country? Anthems make sense when national teams are playing - in those situations they do work as that kind of proxy. For local teams? Not so much.

 

[Nik]

Isn't sports largely understood to be a proxy for war? A peace-time activity to vent aggression, etc.? The conflation of nationalism, patriotism, militarism with fandom is littered throughout sports rhetoric.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here but I don't think sports are a proxy for war. Sure you have some cases where the teams on the field represent a concurrent geo-political struggle and, yes, the bombastic use of violent metaphor sort of amps up the rhetoric but those things are kind of bogus.

I mean, if Canada were to play a series of games against Sweden would we think of that as a proxy for a war against Sweden? Where we could vent our aggression against their attractive people and hard to assemble furniture(hold on, that actually sound appealing).

There's a reason most international soccer games are called "friendlies".

 

[herman]

I mean the concept of sports in general being a proxy for war.

So this is not to say people need to vent their negative feelings towards particular countries or cities; the origins of the opponents are largely irrelevant. The crests on the jerseys are just extensions of coat of arms or uniforms (or house sigils) to help easily identify who to root for (or kill). The first sporting activities were martial exercises to showcase battlefield prowess (Babylonian wrestling, gladiatorial events). Evolutionarily speaking, our minds are honed for violence in the pursuit of adding to what we have and removing from those outside our tribe.

Modern sports occupies the same niche in our collective psyches as all of that nativism/tribalism, aggressive competition; thus conflation with those real-life emotions and concepts is not easy to separate for a lot of people. People clearly have difficulty separating anthems and flags from feelings about the military as the synecdoche is so deeply ingrained in our imagery of both sport and military.

I'm with you in terms of cutting out the anthem stuff, but I think it's easier said than done.

 

[Nik]

I mean the concept of sports in general being a proxy for war.

So this is not to say people need to vent their negative feelings towards particular countries or cities; the origins of the opponents are largely irrelevant. The crests on the jerseys are just extensions of coat of arms or uniforms (or house sigils) to help easily identify who to root for (or kill). The first sporting activities were martial exercises to showcase battlefield prowess (Babylonian wrestling, gladiatorial events).

I'm no anthropologist or anything but my guess is that's not true. I'm guessing cavemen would race each other to the nearest river or whatever before any sort of organized, spectator bloodsport came into being.

Modern sports occupies the same niche in our collective psyches as all of that nativism/tribalism, aggressive competition; thus conflation with those real-life emotions and concepts is not easy to separate for a lot of people. People clearly have difficulty separating anthems and flags from feelings about the military as the synecdoche is so deeply ingrained in our imagery of both sport and military.

I mean, I tend not to be overly forgiving of using evolutionary biology as justification for dumbness or bad behaviour because, you know, "the life of man, solitary, nasty, poor, brutish and short."

Any argument towards enlightenment is an argument away from evolutionary biology and those feelings. I think that's the core concept.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

Lots of good stuff in here about Trump's history of repeatedly trying and failing to become an NFL owner, and of his failed venture in the USFL:

http://www.newsweek.com/trumps-nfl-fight-dates-back-failed-usfl-experiment-80s-jeff-pearlman-670843

 

[CarltonTheBear]

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/912511500295835650

Don Lemon unpacks the whole kneeling situation pretty well here I think.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The Pens might be going to the White House, but Pittsburgh's mayor won't be:

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto says he?s skipping the Pittsburgh Penguins? Oct. 10 White House visit because of recent tweets by President Donald Trump.

The Democratic mayor accompanied the NHL team when they met with President Barack Obama following last year?s Stanley Cup championship.

But he Peduto says he?s not going this year because of Trump?s tweets criticizing NFL players for kneeling or otherwise protesting during the national anthem.

https://www.apnews.com/e2963ca9d00344bea9b945e284830461

 

[herman]

Don Lemon unpacks the whole kneeling situation pretty well here I think.

Impeccable delivery for this very important message.

I came across this one as well, which goes a bit deeper into why Kaepernick knelt instead his original plan to sit.
https://twitter.com/getnickwright/status/912421985958768640
www.twitter.com/getnickwright/status/912421985958768640

It's not really going over any new ground, but for the Fox Sports audience...

 

[herman]

I was confused about where to post this:
https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/912299342559694848
www.twitter.com/neiltyson/status/912299342559694848

 

[Nik]

I was confused about where to post this:

Neil Degrasse Tyson really seems to want to be Leonard Nimoy from the Monorail episode of the Simpsons.

 

[herman]

I was confused about where to post this:

Neil Degrasse Tyson really seems to want to be Leonard Nimoy from the Monorail episode of the Simpsons.

That's perfect.

 

[spiderbob]

I typically lurk here but felt I felt the need to post this in response to HeroicShrimp's post on the previous page with all the tweets.

It's worth noting, Crosby never actually went to that High School. The only High School in Cole Harbour Syd actually attended was Auburn High and I don't know how long that was for as he was off to Saint Mary's in Minnesota(?) and is actually credited with graduating from a High School in Moncton while he was playing in Rimouski. And in his defense, the racial tensions in the city in question aren't exactly as high as the tweet storm implies. Not high enough to refuse a WH visit, under normal circumstances ofc.

 

[Nik]

It's worth noting, Crosby never actually went to that High School.

I guess. But it seems like something you'd at least be aware of in a relatively small town even if you weren't right in the mix. I'm guessing the racial tensions weren't specific to one high school.

 

[spiderbob]

It's worth noting, Crosby never actually went to that High School.

I guess. But it seems like something you'd at least be aware of in a relatively small town even if you weren't right in the mix. I'm guessing the racial tensions weren't specific to one high school.

Not really, as far as I can recall, Auburn High has never had these types of issues. These usually boiled down to two communities as opposed to a city wide racial tension. Most times after things simmered down it was business as usual. And as I said, any "racial tension" in this city isn't bad enough to give up a WH visit. If you wanna protest along with the real reason player's are kneeling, all the power to you. But again, her tweet storm painted a pretty bad picture, fueled by the media, that doesn't actually exist to the extent it seems she implied. As for the other High schools in the area, not that I can think of, and that includes those in other mixed race communities.