Tag Archives: nfl

Bill Nye Slams Bill Belichick: "What He Said Didn’t Make Any Sense"

by EmiliaSchwindt Posted on January 25, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Let me start by saying, I don’t know anything about football. I’m from Los Angeles. We don’t have a football team. I went to NYU where the most popular sporting event is the Spring production of Damn Yankees. Up until very recently I thought football was soccer but with players who didn’t have feet, instead their legs ended with sort of rounded nubs—”balls,” if you will—and I thought it was so awful that millions of Americans get together every Sunday—which is the Lord’s day, by the way—to force disabled folk to compete in some sort of blood sport. It’s not that though. It turns out it’s the real life version of NFL Blitz, which it turns out isn’t just a video game. It’s based on a real thing. Anyway, what am I talking about?

Oh yeah! #Deflategate! The Patriots! (Why are they called “the Patriots”? I get that it’s about the American Revolution and Massachusetts played a key role in that but come on, we’re all patriots here, FOX News. Even the Bengals fans.) I don’t like the Patriots because they’re from Boston and Boston is the home of the worst NBA team in the whole wide world, the Celtics, who had the audacity to beat my Los Angeles Lakers a couple of times in the 1980s. Also, the Red Sox! They’re pretty awful! And Boston is a very cold city, at least in the winter. A not-so-long ago history of racism, Boston also has, let’s not forget. And New England clam chowder is garbage compared to Manhattan clam chowder. So, I say this just to be transparent. I don’t think I personally want the Patriots to win the Super Bowl. Maybe I do. The Seahawks don’t sound great. Pate Carroll is apparently a 9/11 truther, which is a turnoff.

Let’s veer this ramble towards the news: #Deflategate! Bill Belichick says he didn’t do it. It wasn’t him. It was Mr Blue in the Library with the piano wire. Or, something. He has a scientific explanation for why the balls were tested to be under-inflated.

“We simulated a game-day situation, in terms of the preparation of the footballs, and where the footballs were at various points in time during the day or night. … I would say that our preparation process for the footballs is what we do —I can’t speak for anybody else — and that process raises the PSI approximately one pound,” Belichick said. “That process of creating a tackiness, a texture — a right feel, whatever that feel is, whatever that feel is. It’s a sensation for the quarterback. What’s the right feel — that process elevates the PSI one pound, based on what our study showed. Which was multiple balls, multiple examples in the process, as we would do for a game.”

I don’t know what any of that really means. It reads like gibberish to me. I, like so many Republican politicians, am not a scientist. Bill Nye is though and he says it’s gibberish too:

“What he said didn’t make any sense…Rubbing the football, I don’t think, can change the pressure.”

And that’s the news. Goodnight and good luck.

P.S. One of the things I was confused about was how deflated balls would give an advantage to a football team, because presumably it would make them less aerodynamic, but as my colleague Tim McDonnell notes, it’s about “grippiness.”

Visit link: 

Bill Nye Slams Bill Belichick: "What He Said Didn’t Make Any Sense"

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Pines, Prepara, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Bill Nye Slams Bill Belichick: "What He Said Didn’t Make Any Sense"

40 Great Quotes From 40 Great Interviews

by 0c4g78x Posted on December 29, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Wow, looking back, we’ve had the privilege of talking to some really talented and interesting people this past year. This is just a fraction, actually. I didn’t want to overwhelm you. But no matter your interests, you’re bound to find something below that’s up your alley.

On Feminism

“It’s really cool that Miley Cyrus said she’s the biggest feminist ever. I was like, ‘That’s the sound of 200,000 eight-year-olds Googling the word “feminist!'” —Riot Grrrl icon Kathleen Hannah, now back on stage with her latest band, The Julie Ruin

On Preparedness

“If you want to read anything nasty about me, just go to the backpacker websites. I mean, lots of outdoor people love Wild, but there’s this kind of elitist branch where they really believe that I had no business going backpacking. I get blamed: “Oh, Cheryl Strayed, it’s her fault if somebody needs to be rescued.” First of all, things have gone awry in the wilderness well before Wild was ever published. But I actually don’t have any fear of people reading Wild and going out unprepared. Because one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I went out unprepared.” —Author Cheryl Strayed, whose memoir is now a film starring Reese Witherspoon

On Rock and Roll

“Before I leave this world, if I can create something that’s timeless and museum quality, then it will have all been worth it. And if I don’t? It would have still all been worth it.” —Country music luminary Rodney Crowell

“It’s a lesson that I learned in Toronto when I was a kid and played guitar on sessions. The studio people were forever rummaging through closets, fishing out equipment. Hours would go by, people would be in the game room playing pinball while some other guy hit the snare for hours on end. I said to myself, “Is this what rock ‘n’ roll is about? The Ramones walk in the door and they’re going to play pinball? No way! I want the Ramones walking in and rocking out!” —Daniel Lanois, producer of iconic albums by U2, Bob Dylan, and Peter Gabriel

“Whereas my friends might listen to the songs, I would spend hours looking at the liner notes and figuring out who did what and listen to the productions. I don’t think other kids would listen and think, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting bass sound.’ Whenever I was sick at home my dad would bring me a vinyl record. I remember getting David Bowie’s Station to Station when I had the flu.” —Singer/songwriter Jill Sobule

“I really see the rock movement as the revolution that happens in the aftermath of destruction. It’s the thing that people don’t talk about. Media always talks about war, but nobody really talks about the day after, and the year after, and the five years after—what it means to rebuild. It’s that hidden story that’s less sensationalist, and less sexy. It’s much more complex, and much more human. You are confronted with your own inadequacies when you start thinking about the difficult things, the work of what it is to be human.” —Jeremy Xido, director of the documentary Death Metal Angola

On Being Young and Gay

“I knew when I was signed, at the age of 23, in Hollywood, at a huge studio, that the fact that I was openly writing about my homosexual lifestyle and that I presented myself as an out gay man was very, very unusual…People tried to persuade me to hide it and be a little more mysterious. But I didn’t want to hear any of that.” —Songwriter Rufus Wainwright

“My first crush, as early as age 5, was Gadget the Mouse from Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers. It didn’t bother me that she was animated, or a mouse. It bothered me that she was female. I had these inclinations, and was really terrified by them.” —Sara Farizan, whose gay-themed YA novels have been an unexpected hit

On Sexism in Art, Science, and Technology

“I don’t read the comments anymore, unless they are moderated. Which is not to say censored, but I don’t need to read someone saying, “You’re ugly.” Nasty emails I delete. I read them, and of course it hurts. I’m human, and I allow myself to feel that hurt. But I also try to keep it in its proper place. This is not someone who deserves my time. They don’t deserve my pain. I try to remember that.” —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist, on dealing with the inevitable trolls

“Shit’s tough for girls…I wish I understood it better. Because I see it, and I have friends that suffer from it. And I worked with Kari Byron for 11 years, and I’ve watched the evolution of the terrible shit Kari’s had to deal with as a public figure and a woman and a science communicator.” —Mythbusters star Adam Savage on sexism in science and tech

“What I also found really odd, when I was criticizing Eminem for being misogynistic, is how few people came to my defense. I’m not trying to look for pity or sympathy. I was just surprised that so many people in the world of entertainment seemed to be okay with misogyny and homophobia as long as they were profiting from it.” —Musician Moby, on his public feuding with Eminem

“There’s no rap against comics that isn’t true. They were sexist, they were racist, you name it—and they kind of gloried in that. If someone attacked them, back in the time I was growing up reading comics in the ’40s and the ’50s, the purveyors would look at you not knowing what the hell you were talking about. This is just what they did: ‘What’s wrong with this?'” —Jules Feiffer, who released his first graphic novel this year at age 85

On #Gamergate

“You hear a lot of this. ‘Why are you dragging real-life politics into cyberspace? I go to gaming to get away from real-life issues.’ For a lot of geeks, gaming is all about stripping who you are completely and entering this imaginary space, this world that’s made for you, where winning and losing have nothing to do with real life. They try to argue that representation in games has not been an issue because nobody is really themselves in a game; it’s all just avatars. They’re not seeing the many ways in which that’s not true.” —Jeopardy champ Arthur Chu

On Race

“I’m not walking around feeling black all the time. That would stress me out. It would make me crack. Some days I do feel that pressure of, “What do I mean as a black woman? What am I representing?” It honestly just gives me anxiety.” —Daily Show correspondent Jessica Williams

“It’s so easy to hate something you don’t know. What’s harder is to actually scratch the surface.” —Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who is making a documentary about the experience of young whites in America

On Fame

My husband “doesn’t give a shit about all the VIP. We’re going to the Glastonbury Festival this weekend, and I was like, ‘Someone’s given us a hotel if we want it,’ and he’s like, ‘Why the fuck would we have a hotel? It’s Glastonbury! We’ve camped since we were 20.’ And there’s the Jewish princess in me being like, “Please say yes to the hotel. Please say yes to the hotel.” —British popstar Jessie Ware

On Environmental Mayhem

“The BP spill happened, and then nothing happened. I hope the film can address why nothing happened, and I think a lot of that is Congress. But also that, the minute it got off the news, people stopped thinking about. It seemed like, ‘Okay, they capped it. It’s gone.’ But actually, there are no new safety regulations. It’s not gone. —Filmmaker Margaret Brown, whose documentary The Great Invisible tells the inside story of the Deepwater Horizon disaster

“I’m not an activist, but as a comedian, some of how it is talked about is incredibly funny to me. The stridency, and the intense comfort with a lack of scientific information, is ludicrous—it’s objectively ludicrous…This world will be a complete ball of fire before it stops being funny.” —Comedian John Oliver, on climate change

“If you’re asking in the abstract, ‘What could you do to really mess up a lot of species?’ it would be hard to design a better system than the one we’ve got. Practically everything is on the move now, in some way, because of climate change. And they’re going to run up against all these man-made barriers. We’ve completely changed the rules of the game.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction

On Technological Change

“One of the things I loved about the series Deadwood was that sense of just how deadly clever people in the 19th century probably really were. If those guys got out of the time machine now in downtown Los Angeles, they wouldn’t be hopeless hicks. They’d be very dangerous characters, simply because they were. And the people in my 22nd century initially assume that anyone they’re dealing with back in 2025 or whenever is just kind of a hick.” —Author William Gibson on his latest novel, The Peripheral

“The problem with social media is that people respond therapeutically. It is therapeutic to hit back against your enemies, but it is not necessarily strategically wise. McDonalds and JPMorgan opened up Twitter conversations that were taken over instantly by their detractors. People in my industry would like people to believe we have ways to control it. But that’s one of the great swindles.” —Corporate crisis-management guru Eric Dezenhall

On Politics and Politicians

“It became obvious that there were really funny characteristics about this guy, chief of which would be that he seemed to devote about 85 percent of his waking energy to suppressing any sign of his emotional response to anything that was going on around him, and the other 15 percent blurting out those authentic responses in the silliest and most inopportune ways. And he had these smiles that would come at the most inappropriate times—just flashes that there was an inner life screaming to get out. —Actor Harry Shearer on portraying Richard Nixon

I can’t say I follow the ins and outs of electoral politics closely, but I tend to think having an impact on the world is a lot more complicated than government. If I were to point to the person who’s having the greatest impact, I wouldn’t be naming that many government officials. I’d point to, for example, Elon Musk. —Actor Joseph-Levitt

On Scrabble

“The last time I attempted Scrabble with an interviewer, I accidentally stole 12 tiles from the Bryant Park public Scrabble set.” —The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt on his recent book, 101 Two-Letter Words, illustrated by Roz Chast (see below)

On Professional Sports

“Short shorts are not for everybody. I’m not trying to wear capris, but I got a lot of leg. I need to cover it up a little bit. They want more male attendance, and for us to change our uniforms to “sleek and sexy” takes away from what we’re trying to do on the court. I want you to come watch my game, not the uniforms. If you wanna come just because we look sexy, then I really don’t want you there.” —WNBA star Britney Griner

“The NFL is a culture that values secrecy. When you’re with an NFL team, the message to you is clear: Don’t fuck anything up for your partner, and don’t fuck anything up for the team. Don’t be controversial. Don’t talk to the media. Stay out of the way. Support the player and be quiet.” —Tracy Treu, a former NFL wife, on the league’s domestic violence problems

On Crime and Punishment

“When you hear about a case—even if you’ve attended a trial—there’s a story presented which is a kind of agreed-upon narrative that each side brings…The thing that hooked me is realizing that the story they’re telling at trial is just one layer that’s just sitting on top of this whole super-interesting ocean that we don’t ever get to hear about.” —This American Life producer Sarah Koenig, speaking shortly before the premiere of Serial, her wildly popular podcast

“What really interested me was the moral divide in all of us: In trying to do the right thing, where’s the line you cross? At what point have you gone irrevocably into moral hazard? Every character in our show, practically, crosses that line.” —Scandal star Tony Goldwyn on creating The Divide, a new drama about the death penalty

On Shooting a Film Over 12 Years

“It’s such a crazy, wildly impractical idea. The logistics were tough enough that we didn’t even talk about doomsday scenarios. We’re all just a phone call away from our lives changing pretty enormously, so you kind of play the odds. I remember saying to Patricia Arquette, ‘Where are you going to be 12 years from now, just theoretically?’ It wasn’t hard to convince an adult to jump in. A kid, they’re not even aware what they’re getting into.” —Richard Linklater, director of Boyhood

“Rick made a conscious decision to not have Mason do anything I hadn’t already done. Looking back, I now see that he would feel it out and see, like, ‘Is he still a virgin? Has he gotten drunk yet? Has he done drugs?’ And then he would throw those things in.” —Actor Ellar Coltrane, who was six years old when Linklater cast him as his lead

On Gun Rights

“When you actually go back and look at the debate that went into drafting of the Second amendment, you can squint and look really hard, but there’s simply no evidence of it being about individual gun ownership for self-protection or for hunting. Emphatically, the focus was on the militias…Every adult man, and eventually every adult white man, was required to be in the militias and was required to own a gun, and to bring it from home. So it was an individual right to fulfill the duty to serve in the militias.” —Michael Waldman, author of The Second Amendment: A Biography

On Being a Zombie

“I get email after email, and I get stopped on the street—which is sort of astounding, considering I’m not an on-camera guy. People will come up and go, ‘How do I get to be a zombie on The Walking Dead?’ They don’t think about the fact that it’s 120 degrees outside, and you’re going to be sitting in a makeup chair for an hour and a half, and you’re going to be sticky and hot, and you’re going to work all day, and then at the end of the day we’ve got to use all the remover. It sounds more glamorous than it is.” —Makeup effects guru Greg Nicotero

On Improvisational Performance

“I think about the audience. I just want to make sure they’re having a good time. I don’t want them to think that I’m just going off and not giving a fuck about them. Laughs. So there’s that.” —Weirdo comedian and musician Reggie Watts

On Dealing With Aging Parents

“You didn’t throw away jar lids or Band-Aid boxes. There was a drawer of those amber plastic vials, what pills come in—you might need them for, I don’t know, three cotton balls or something. It was borderline hoarding.” —Cartoonist Roz Chast, author of the memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

On Pulitzer Prizes

“I was teaching in Uvalde, Texas, the day I won. I gave six speeches that day. My friend Susan Freudenheim told me I had won the prize. I was too busy to have much of a reaction to it. I once owned a collection of 77 novels that won the Pulitzer. The only good novel of the bunch was The Grapes of Wrath.” —Lonesome Dove author Larry McMurtry, whose latest novel is titled The Last Kind Words Saloon

On War

“I saw Donald Rumsfeld selling a book of leadership tips on Meet the Press and the Today Show, and I was like, ‘How is this possible?’ I understand why anti-war folk don’t like Rumsfeld, but if you were pro-war you really shouldn’t like him, because he messed it up and invalidated your whole worldview.” —Phil Klay, Iraq War veteran and recent author of Redeployment

On Art

“What I’ve seen recently is the creative class finding a way, like the rest of the culture, to peddle in capitalist ventures of one kind or another so they can afford to be where they want to be, and it gets harder and harder and harder. The process of gentrification now takes about eight minutes.” —Artist Art Spiegelman, who published a major retrospective in 2014

On Personal Struggles

“Before my first novel, I was dating a woman who later went to prison for bashing a guy with a hammer. And she had another boyfriend! Can you imagine the depths of self-rejection one would have to reach in order to have a relationship like that?” —Author Gary Shteyngart, whose recent memoir is titled Little Failure

“When I won my way to the international science fair, I didn’t want to embarrass myself. It was the first time I was going to be away from home, the first time taking an airplane. I went to the local library, checked out every single etiquette book, and I read those books like I was uncovering some sort of treasure. I committed every one of the rules to memory. When somebody puts down four forks on one side and four spoons on the other side, what does that mean? All of a sudden I knew what to do when the food dropped from the table and how to signal that you were finished and how to signal that you wanted coffee—all these little intricacies that just did not come into our lives because we were poor.” —New York Times columnist Charles Blow, whose recent memoir is titled Fire Shut Up In My Bones

On Teaching Science

“A TV show has to be entertainment first, education second. I spend a lot of time with Nobel laureates and a lot of rocket scientists. Being a good teacher is a completely different skill from being a good scientist.” —Bill Nye (the Science Guy)

Read this article: 

40 Great Quotes From 40 Great Interviews

Posted in alo, Anchor, Cyber, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 40 Great Quotes From 40 Great Interviews

The Problem With the Ferguson, Ray Rice, and UVA Rape Stories

by CathleeWRR Posted on December 3, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

What do these three recent stories have in common?

Ferguson
Ray Rice
The University of Virginia gang rape

One thing they have in common is that I’ve written little or nothing about them. But they share two other attributes as well. Here they are:

  1. All three have spotlighted problems that are critically important and absolutely deserving of broader attention. Ferguson is all about racial disparities, police killings of unarmed civilians, the militarization of law enforcement, and other equally deserving issues. Ray Rice was about the scourge of domestic violence and its tacit acceptance within the culture of professional sports. The UVA rape story was about sexual assault on university campuses, fueled by alcohol, fraternities, and official lack of concern.
  2. However, the specific incidents in all three cases are, to say the least, less than ideal as poster children for these issues. We will never know for sure what happened to Michael Brown, but as evidence has dribbled out, the simple liberal narrative of a gentle teenager being gunned down while trying to surrender has seemed less and less credible. In the Ray Rice case, it’s clear that Rice did something terrible—but as it turns out, the evidence suggests that the criminal justice system treated him fairly reasonably and that the NFL’s actions were mostly a craven reaction to public opinion. Finally, in the UVA rape scandal, a number of credible questions have been raised about whether Rolling Stone‘s account of what happened was fair—or, in the worst case, even true.

If you’re curious about why I’ve been relatively quiet about these stories, that’s why. All of them spotlight issues that I think are well worth spotlighting, and I don’t really relish the thought of doing or writing anything that might dilute their power. These are all things that I want people to pay more attention to, not less, and if you want the world to change you have to be willing to exploit the events you have, not the events you wish you had.

And yet, the specific fact patterns of each specific case are genuinely problematic. To pretend otherwise is to be intellectually dishonest.

I’ve dealt with this by not saying much. That’s not exactly an act of moral courage, is it? And yet, with the facts as hazy as they are, I’m just not sure what else to do. Perhaps the answer is to stop worrying about it: Just accept that we live in a messy world and sometimes the events that have the most impact aren’t clear cut. But you use the events anyway in an effort to grab public attention and improve the world a bit, even if that sometimes means a few individuals end up being treated unfairly in some way. Perhaps.

I don’t know—though I’m struck that three such similar events have occurred in just the past few months. But I’m still not sure whether I should have reacted differently. I just don’t know.

See more here – 

The Problem With the Ferguson, Ray Rice, and UVA Rape Stories

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Oster, Pines, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Problem With the Ferguson, Ray Rice, and UVA Rape Stories

Map: The Most Popular NFL Teams Everywhere in America—According to Twitter

by JoshMealmaker Posted on October 22, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

For now, even after all the concussions, the domestic violence, and the still-horribly named team from Washington, DC, Americans still love their pro football. Twitter took a stab at measuring the popularity of every NFL franchise by looking at the official Twitter handle for each team and then counting followers of those teams in each county. It’s an imperfect measure, for sure, but it’s a nifty interface and a lot of fun! Take a look:

See original article:

Map: The Most Popular NFL Teams Everywhere in America—According to Twitter

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Map: The Most Popular NFL Teams Everywhere in America—According to Twitter

Roger Goodell’s Life Just Got a Whole Lot Worse This Weekend

by ChristiStorkey Posted on September 21, 2014

Mother Jones

There’s been a mountain of talk about the Ray Rice domestic violence case, but the evidence about exactly what happened and when it happened has remained stubbornly fuzzy. That changed this weekend. ESPN’s blockbuster piece, like all stories of this nature, relies a lot on unnamed sources and therefore still isn’t quite rock solid. Unnamed sources can have their own agendas, after all. But on the surface, anyway, it seems pretty damn close to rock solid. And it looks very, very bad for Roger Goodell, the Baltimore Ravens, and the NFL. Read it.

Taken from:

Roger Goodell’s Life Just Got a Whole Lot Worse This Weekend

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Roger Goodell’s Life Just Got a Whole Lot Worse This Weekend

How Should the NFL Handle Domestic Violence Cases in the Future?

by XMSEfrenxt Posted on September 14, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I was browsing the paper this morning and came across an op-ed by sports writer Jeff Benedict about Ray Rice and the NFL’s problem with domestic violence. After the usual review of the league’s egregious mishandling of the Rice incident over the past few months, we get this:

So this nagging truth remains: It should not take a graphic video to get the NFL to do the right thing. For too long the NFL has had an antiquated playbook when it comes to players who commit domestic violence.

….NFL players aren’t like men in the general population, especially in the eyes of children. Rather, NFL players are seen as action heroes who epitomize strength, athleticism and toughness. That’s why so many kids emulate them. And that’s why one instance of a celebrated player using his muscle to harm a woman is too many.

Etc.

I read to the end, but that was about it. And it occurred to me that this piece was representative of nearly everything I’ve read about the Rice affair. There was lots of moral outrage, of course. That’s a pretty cheap commodity when you have stomach-turning video of a pro football player battering a woman unconscious in an elevator. But somehow, at the end, there was nothing. No recommendation about what the NFL’s rule on domestic violence should be.

So I’m curious: what should it be? Forget Rice for a moment, since we need a rule that applies to everyone. What should be the league’s response to a player who commits an act of domestic violence? Should it be a one-strike rule, or should it matter if you have no prior history of violence? Should it depend on a criminal conviction, or merely on credible evidence against the player? Should it matter how severe the violence is? (Plenty of domestic violence cases are much more brutal than Rice’s.) Or should there be zero tolerance no matter what the circumstances? How about acts of violence that aren’t domestic? Should they be held to the same standard, or treated differently? And finally, is Benedict right that NFL players should be sanctioned more heavily than ordinary folks because they act as role models for millions of kids? Or should we stick to a standard that says we punish everyone equally, regardless of their occupation?

Last month the NFL rushed out new punishment guidelines regarding domestic violence after enduring a tsunami of criticism for the way it handled Rice’s suspension. Details here. Are these guidelines reasonable? Laughable? Too punitive? I think we’ve discussed the bill of particulars of the Ray Rice case to exhaustion at this point, so how about if we talk about something more concrete?

Given the circumstances and the evidence it had in hand, how should the NFL have handled the Ray Rice case? And more importantly, how should they handle domestic violence cases in general? I’d be interested in hearing some specific proposals.

Continued here – 

How Should the NFL Handle Domestic Violence Cases in the Future?

Posted in Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Should the NFL Handle Domestic Violence Cases in the Future?

3 Ways the Baltimore Ravens Completely Screwed Up the Ray Rice Mess

by RalphIsabel Posted on September 8, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This afternoon, the Baltimore Ravens released running back Ray Rice in response to a video released by TMZ showing Rice knocking his then-fiancée (and current wife) Janay Palmer unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator in February. Rice has been the subject of intense scrutiny since the NFL suspended him for two games—earlier today, it suspended him indefinitely—but some had given the star running back the benefit of the doubt after he claimed he was simply defending himself. (Indeed, both Rice and Palmer were charged with assault following the incident.)

This new footage, though, clearly shows that wasn’t the case, and as outrage mounted today, the Ravens had little choice but to take decisive action against Rice. But we should hardly be praising the team. If anything, the Ravens have been defending Rice and victim-blaming from the very beginning. For example:

1. In May, the Ravens decided it’d be a good idea to sit Rice and Palmer in front of the media and have them publicly address the Atlantic City incident. The result was a complete PR disaster. Rice began by apologizing not to Palmer, but to senior Ravens management and coach John Harbaugh. Rice also chose his words poorly, defining failure as “not getting knocked down, but not getting back up.”

2. Even more tone-deaf than the press conference itself was how the Ravens presented it. The team had a staffer live-tweeting the spectacle, and the team’s official account sent out this unbelievable tweet, straight out of Victim-Blaming 101:

The tweet was deleted today.

3. After Rice’s two-game suspension was handed down in late July, people were outraged that occasional pot smokers got harsher punishments from the NFL. The Ravens PR machine thought it was the perfect time to start rehabilitating Rice’s image, releasing a glowing dispatch from his first major public appearance after the punishment. The article, posted on the team’s website, says Rice got a “standing ovation” from fans who “showed him a lot of love,” even though he had been under “national scrutiny.” After noting that he showed his “usual fun-loving side,” the piece observed with remarkable subtlety that “Rice jerseys sprinkled the crowd, worn by both males and females.”

The NFL has earned much-deserved flak for toughening its domestic-violence penalties only when the national criticism ramped up. Today’s move by the Ravens should be seen in a similar light: Cutting Rice was the right decision, but it’s clear the organization has never taken his offenses all that seriously. It took an even-worse leaked video to make the Ravens finally act.

This article:  

3 Ways the Baltimore Ravens Completely Screwed Up the Ray Rice Mess

Posted in Anchor, Casio, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, The Atlantic, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 3 Ways the Baltimore Ravens Completely Screwed Up the Ray Rice Mess

Being an Oakland Raiders Cheerleader Just Got a Little Less Awful

by ThaliaKetchum Posted on July 7, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In January, an Oakland Raiders cheerleader named Lacy T. filed a class-action lawsuit against the team with a laundry list of embarrassing allegations: Raiderettes were paid well below minimum wage, fined for things like forgetting to bring their pom-poms to practice or gaining five pounds, prohibited from talking to the press about their working conditions, and required to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars out of pocket for hair appointments, tanning sessions, and other beauty supplies. Similar lawsuits quickly followed from four other NFL cheer squads: the Ben-Gals (Cincinnati Bengals), the Flight Crew (New York Jets), the Jills (Buffalo Bills), and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ cheerleaders. (Read Mother Jones‘ roundup of NFL cheerleaders’ allegations here.)

But last week, the Raiderettes had a small but real victory: In audition flyers that have since been taken off the team’s website, the Raiders stated that this year’s cheerleaders will earn $9 per hour, California’s minimum wage. This makes the Raiders the first of the sued NFL teams to give their cheerleaders a raise. Furthermore, Caitlin Y., a cheerleader waging a separate class-action lawsuit against the Raiders, was invited back to the team after auditions this past weekend, making her the first active cheerleader to have spoken openly to the press against the team’s working conditions.

DV.load(“//www.documentcloud.org/documents/1213003-raiderettes-lawsuit.js”,
width: 630,
height: 354,
sidebar: false,
text: false,
container: “#DV-viewer-1213003-raiderettes-lawsuit”
);

Raiderettes Lawsuit (PDF)

Raiderettes Lawsuit (Text)

The battle isn’t over yet for the Raiderettes: Arbitration in mid-July will address other allegations from the January lawsuit, like the requirement that cheerleaders pay out of pocket for beauty expenses, and will discuss the potential for veterans to receive back pay to make up for lost wages. The lawsuit that Caitlin Y. and teammate Jenny C. filed against both the Raiders and the NFL is still under way. In addition to claims about low pay, it alleges that cheerleaders are ridiculed for the size of their breasts, called “Oompa Loompas” if their skin is too tan, and routinely required to work events where they are subject to the inappropriate comments and groping hands of drunken fans.

Notably, this degrading treatment echoes claims made in other squads’ lawsuits: Buffalo Bills cheerleaders allege that they are subject to routine “jiggle tests” to make sure that their stomachs and thighs aren’t too bouncy, and that at the team’s annual golf tournament the bikini-clad cheerleaders are dunked into pools of water and “auctioned off” to the highest bidder.

The cheerleaders have a long road ahead, but, just maybe, a pay raise for the Raiderettes could be the first step toward NFL teams treating their cheerleaders with some semblance of dignity. If professional cheerleaders can’t keep their hopes up, who can?

Read article here: 

Being an Oakland Raiders Cheerleader Just Got a Little Less Awful

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Being an Oakland Raiders Cheerleader Just Got a Little Less Awful

Most Soccer-Related Brain Trauma Isn’t From Heading the Ball

by Gwenda Bischof Posted on June 19, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Since February, when a New York Times article linked heading soccer balls to the possibility of brain injury, the media—eager for a new angle on the 2014 World Cup—has fixated on the dangers of headers. The Boston Globe, Slate, and Fox News have all warned of that heading the ball might cause serious damage to players’ brains.

Scientific studies have shown that rates of concussions and head injury in soccer are comparable to football, ice hockey, lacrosse, and rugby. But news stories that focus on the danger of heading have it all wrong. It’s not the ball that soccer players should be worried about—it’s everything else. Player-to-player, player-to-ground, and player-to-goalpost collisions are soccer’s biggest dangers, explains Robert Cantu, a professor at Boston University who has researched the issue. An opponent’s head, foot, or elbow is much more dangerous than a one-pound soccer ball. It’s true that “the single most risky activity in soccer is heading the ball,” Cantu says—but that’s because contact with other players, the goalposts, or the ground is so much more likely when a player goes up for a header.

Government data supports the idea that contact with other players is a much bigger problem than contact with the ball. Most of the 24,184 reported cases of traumatic brain injury in soccer reported in a 2011 Consumer Products Safety Commission study resulted from player-to-player contact; just 12.6 percent resulted from contact with a ball. Head-to-head, head-to-ground, and head-to-goalpost injuries are all more common than head-to-ball injuries in US youth leagues, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Recent speculation about the damage done by headers on the brain has centered on the case of Patrick Grange, a 29-year-old forward for the Chicago Fire‘s development league team who died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, sometimes known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2012. Scientists who studied Grange’s brain after his death found evidence of chronic trauma encephalopathy, a disease previously found only in the brains of deceased boxers, NFL players, and military veterans. CTE, which some researchers believe is linked to repetitive head trauma, can cause memory loss, dementia, aggression, confusion, and depression. But often, symptoms don’t show up for years after the initial brain trauma, and for now, doctors can only diagnose it after death.

Christopher Nowinski, the author of Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis from the NFL to Youth Leagues, which focuses on head trauma in football, has linked Grange’s death to heading the ball, calling him a “prolific header.” But scientists do not fully understand the link between brain injuries and concussions and the act of heading a soccer ball. Current studies of soccer, heading, and brain trauma have small sample sizes; many don’t account for dementia, mental-health issues, previous concussions, or other brain injuries or diseases, such as Grange’s ALS.

The New York Times, for example, reported that Grange’s parents said he had suffered several concussions in his youth, including a fall as a toddler, as well as concussions playing soccer before advancing to the Fire’s developmental team. The more concussions a person suffers, the more likely he is to sustain future, more severe brain injuries. The science suggests that headers have something to do with brain injury in some cases, but the connection is not clear yet.

What is clear from the science, however, is that collisions with players, goalposts, or the ground can be extremely dangerous. Take Thursday’s Uruguay-England World Cup match, for example. Fighting for the ball, Uruguayan defender Álvaro Pereira took a knee to the head and was knocked out on the pitch. Still, Pereira immediately returned to play, going directly against last year’s recommendations from the American Academy of Neurology: “If in doubt, sit it out.” (FIFA, international soccer’s main organizing body, has a similar suggestion on its website but has no hard rules regarding concussions and required time off the pitch.)

Uruguayan defender Álvaro Pereira takes a knee to the head. Juan Carlos Colin/Vine

Goalkeepers, who spend their games diving into the ground and colliding with other players, are arguably the most vulnerable to brain injury. Their risk for injury to the head and cervical spine is comparable to that of skydivers and pole vaulters, according to a 2000 study Cantu coauthored. FIFA has published an article on its website warning that goalkeepers are constantly “subjected to direct trauma” resulting from contact with the ground, the goalposts, and other players.

In April 2010, Briana Scurry, who played goalkeeper for United States Olympic and World Cup teams, was in her second season with DC’s Washington Freedom when she collided head-on with a striker. Scurry began getting severe headaches and feeling depressed—symptoms she later attributed to a concussion and neck injury. “All my career, my success has been based on my mentality. It all starts with my mind,” Scurry said later. “And so, for me, my brain was broken.”

Xi Shui/ZUMA

Scurry isn’t alone—goalkeepers have fallen victim to traumatic brain injuries for decades. In 1933, Jon Kristbjornsson, a goalkeeper for the Icelandic soccer team Valur Reykjavik, died of brain trauma after colliding with another player. The rule in soccer forbidding players from kicking the ball once the goalkeeper has possession was the result of the death of keeper Jimmy Thorpe, who perished after being kicked in the head and chest in a game in 1936. In 2006, Petr Cech, the goalkeeper for Chelsea, needed skull decompression surgery after colliding with a midfielder in the penalty box. He now wears safety headgear when he plays. Last year, Boubacar Barry, an Ivorian keeper, hit the goalpost while making a save and fell unconscious, missing the rest of the season. In April, a keeper from Gabon died because a striker accidentally stepped on his head after he saved a shot and was lying on the ground.

Soccer headbands and headgear may offer a partial solution. A study published in 2003 by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association in coordination with the National Institutes of Health found a significant reduction in peak force of impact on soccer players’ heads with three different marketed headbands, and a 2006 McGill University study that tracked 278 adolescent soccer players over a season found that using headgear was associated with cutting concussion risk in half. Players who didn’t wear headgear were twice as likely to get concussions. Despite these and similar findings, FIFA does not require or recommend the use of headgear for soccer players—including goalkeepers—at any age level.

More:

Most Soccer-Related Brain Trauma Isn’t From Heading the Ball

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Oster, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Most Soccer-Related Brain Trauma Isn’t From Heading the Ball

Jiggle Tests, Dunk Tanks, and Unpaid Labor: How NFL Teams Degrade Their Cheerleaders

by FreddyCaruso Posted on May 22, 2014

Mother Jones

NFL cheerleaders might appear to be a happy, peppy bunch, but off the sidelines their working conditions are far from cheery. On Monday, a former cheerleader for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers sued the team, claiming she was paid less than $2 per hour during her 2012-13 season of work. It was the fifth such lawsuit this year; cheerleaders for the Oakland Raiders (Raiderettes), the Cincinnati Bengals (Ben-Gals), the New York Jets (Flight Crew), and the Buffalo Bills (Jills) have filed similar suits. (In March, the Department of Labor ruled that the Raiderettes didn’t qualify for minimum-wage laws because they’re “seasonal workers.”)

So what’s it like to professionally cheer for America’s favorite sport? The allegations and evidence provided in the five lawsuits, plus a leaked 2009 employee manual from a Ravens cheerleader, give us a glimpse into the life of the women dancing on NFL sidelines. Here are 11 things they have to deal with:

Long game days, with little or no pay: NFL cheerleaders are often paid a flat rate for games that translates to a few bucks an hour, at best. Between arriving before the game and staying after it, cheerleaders work up to nine hours on game days. The Ben-Gals are paid $90 per game, and the cheerleaders for the Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Buccaneers make $100 per game. The Raiderettes and the Jets Flight Crew make slightly more: $125 and $150 per game, respectively. The Buffalo Jills, whose operations were suspended in April after five Jills sued the team, seem to get the stingiest deal—they aren’t paid for games at all. Instead, they receive a game ticket (worth $90) and parking pass (worth $25) for each home game, which they can sell if they choose.

Not getting paid to practice: A lot of practice goes into that perfect halftime show, but many squads—including the Ben-Gals, Jills, Raiderettes, Flight Crew, and Buccaneers cheerleaders—are not paid for practicing. Cheerleaders for these teams are required to practice between 6 and 15 hours per week.

Making public appearances for free: The real money for cheerleaders often lies in public appearances at community or corporate events—Ravens cheerleaders can make about $50 per hour for corporate events. But they’re also required to attend charity events twice a month, sometimes for free. The Ben-Gals, Raiderettes, Jills, and Buccaneers cheerleaders have similar setups. Between practice, games, and unpaid events, Jills allege that they work about 20 hours a week for free.

Being auctioned off and sitting on the lap of the highest bidder: The Jills lawsuit detailed a number of public appearances involving “demeaning and degrading treatment,” including the Jills Annual Golf Tournament. First, golfers dunk bikini-clad cheerleaders into a pool of water. The cheerleaders are then “auctioned off” and ride around in a golf cart for the rest of the event with the winning bidder. Because there’s not enough room in the golf cart, Jills often sit on the bidders’ laps. Jills aren’t paid for the event.

Being fined for bringing the wrong pom-poms: Adding insult to already puny wages, some teams fine heavily for minor infractions. If a Raiderettes cheerleader forgets to bring the right pom-poms to practice, she’s fined $10. The same thing happens if she wears the wrong workout gear to a rehearsal, she forgets to bring a yoga mat to practice, or her boots aren’t cleaned and polished for game day. When one Raiderette accidentally got a Sharpie stain on her top at a calendar signing, she was required to buy a new one.

Buying dozens of copies of the calendars they posed for: Several teams produce swimsuit calendars featuring their cheerleaders. Instead of paying them for the photo shoots, some teams make cheerleaders pay for the calendars and sell them on the side. The Ravens cheerleaders are required to buy at least 100 calendars at $12 a pop—installment plans are available—and then sell them for $15 apiece. They get to keep the earnings, but if they don’t sell their share, they’re stuck with the debt and a whole lot of calendars.

Passing the “jiggle test”: It’s no secret that cheerleaders have to be in good shape, but turns out that being eye candy for the millions of football fans also means being subject to body-policing off the field. Coming in overweight can mean being benched for a game—which effectively means losing about an eighth of your income from games—or being dismissed from the team altogether.

Different teams have different weight-judging strategies. The Jills allege being subjected to a weekly “jiggle test,” which consisted of doing jumping jacks while their stomachs, arms, legs, hips, and butts were scrutinized. (The Jills manual also instructs, “Never eat in uniform unless arrangements have been made in advance. Just say ‘Thanks so much for offering but no thank you’…NEVER say, ‘Oh, we’re not allowed to eat!'”) Ben-Gals are required to weigh in twice a week, and if they come in more than three pounds over their “goal weight,” they face penalties: extra conditioning after practice, benchings, probation, or dismissal from the team.

Trips to the salon on your own dime: Being thin and toned is only the tip of the beauty-standard iceberg. Cheerleaders are expected to wear their hair and makeup in very specific ways, but often aren’t reimbursed for the cosmetic products and salon visits it takes to follow the rules. (Check out the Jills beauty and etiquette manual below for specifics.) The Ravens demand that the girls stay tan, keep their nails manicured but not too flashy, and get their hair dyed at least two weeks prior to every game. The Jills buy their own uniforms for $650 apiece, and while in uniform, are required to wear “foundation, blush, three natural eye shadow colors (lid cover, highlighter, definer), eye liner, mascara and red lipstick.”

All this grooming gets pricey—one former Ravens cheerleader says that keeping up her hair and makeup could cost more than $1,000 per season. A member of the Jets Flight Crew alleges that the team “required her to wear her hair straight, which in turn required her to see a hair stylist each week at an approximate cost of $45 per styling.” The Raiderettes handbook, according to an ESPN the Magazine article, simply says that it’s possible to “find yourself with no salary at all at the end of the season.”

Being instructed on how to use a tampon: Jills are given a manual that covers “appearance etiquette” and “etiquette for formal dining.” The guidelines are impressively detailed; for example: “If you are served pasta, never cut it to eat. Twirl a small portion on your fork with the assistance of a spoon.” Jills are instructed how often to brush their teeth and wash their faces (“Make-up left in the creases of your skin creates early wrinkles”). The manual even tackles what it calls “lady body maintenance.” “A tampon too big can irritate and develop fungus,” it reminds cheerleaders. “Products should be changed at least every 4 hrs.”

The full manual:

DV.load(“//www.documentcloud.org/documents/1165200-jills-glamor-and-etiquette-rules.js”,
width: 630,
height: 450,
sidebar: false,
text: false,
container: “#DV-viewer-1165200-jills-glamor-and-etiquette-rules”
);

Jills Glamor and Etiquette Rules (PDF)

Jills Glamor and Etiquette Rules (Text)

While we’re on the subject of lady parts, the Ben-Gals handbook (read the full version here) stipulates that “no panties are to be worn under practice clothes or uniform, not even thong panties.”

The Raven cheerleaders’ social-media presence is subject to a similar amount of micromanaging. According to the 2009 employee handbook, “If you participate in any social networking sites, such as MySpace or Facebook you are required to ‘Friend Request’ your director.”

Keeping these policies under wraps: It may be impolite to discuss money, but many cheerleaders are explicitly barred from talking about their income and their squad’s fee policy. The Jills handbook instructs: “NEVER discuss income!” The Ravens cheerleaders and the Raiderettes are also told to hold their tongues about the public appearances they’re required to make.

And doing it all with a smile: In their etiquette manual, Jills are instructed: “Do not be overly opinionated about anything…Be positive and consistently optimistic about everything…Never complain!” Ben-Gals are required to follow rules guiding their “attitude and behavior,” as follows (emphasis theirs): “Insubordination- Webster defines this word as ‘not submitting to authority; disobedient.’ Syn. Rebellious, mutinous, defiant. Insubordination to even the slightest degree IS ABSOLUTELY NOT TOLERATED!!! You will be benched or dismissed!!!” ; “Authority- ABSOLUTELY NO ARGUING OR QUESTIONING THE PERSON IN AUTHORITY!!!”

Looks like NFL teams might be out of luck on that last one.

Read this article:

Jiggle Tests, Dunk Tanks, and Unpaid Labor: How NFL Teams Degrade Their Cheerleaders

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Jiggle Tests, Dunk Tanks, and Unpaid Labor: How NFL Teams Degrade Their Cheerleaders