I have many problems with the New York Giants, primarily their performance from last season and a 3-13 record. I also understand the controversy surrounding the NFL's insistence on making a policy regarding the National Anthem. And, while I feel that first amendment rights should always be protected, the Giants have never allowed this particular issue become a headline in a paper. I believe that's due to the ownership's desire to have all press about this ball club be about the game, and not off-the-field issues. Granted, some players bring that on themselves as we saw with kicker Josh Brown who admitted to domestic abuse. He was summarily dismissed. Was he the best kicker? No, but he was able to make nearly 92% of his scoring attempts and had the 5th most field goals made in the organization. There's no place for that level of abuse in sports, and players who commit such crimes should not be allowed to be team representatives or community role models, which these athletes, and others from parallel leagues, are.
With that mentality, I also agree with the Giants position on cheerleaders. From a 2010 article in the New York Times: “Philosophically we have always had issues with sending scantily clad women out on the field to entertain our fans,” said John Mara, the Giants co-owner. “It’s just not part of our philosophy.”
Exactly. Parading around half-naked women during a sporting event where there are thousands of inebriated patrons, predominantly men, doesn't make sense. Are you there for football or are you there to gawk? Ask the Jets, where in the old Giants Stadium it was tradition to harass women to take their tops off as they walked by! Don't worry, instead of doing a better policing job and throwing this scumbags out, the Jets, in 2006, started their own cheerleading squad to better focus leering fans. Again, why are you there?
In today's New York Times I learned of another lurid tactic: in addition to the ladies who are actually required to perform dance routines during the games, there is a second group of cheer-leader-adorned models whose only purpose is to promote luxury services by either selling suites or as during-game entertainment. Basically, teams employ this secondary squad to create a Hooters-like atmosphere at games for those with cash to encourage them to keep coming. These women frequently make minimum wage, and are routinely sexually and physically harassed by the same patrons these organizations are courting.
These women are also expected to be used for photo shoots and promotional materials such as swimsuit calendars...for minimum wage. As detailed in their etiquette manuals, the restrictions on where they can appear, what they can wear, and what they can say are highly regulated, nevermind the fact that they also have to maintain waistlines and bustlines or be terminated. They even are required to sign non-disclosure agreements which has prohibited some of them for going on record with the news media about the hostile work conditions they face as their sex-symbol football personas.
Now that lawsuits have surfaced from these women about their treatment, the NFL teams needs to do some serious soul searching. How much of your annual revenues are due to mostly naked women? What real purpose do they serve? Do they impact the team's ability to win football games? I think we know most of these answers, and in the spirit of not abusing women or supporting those players and administrators who do, it may be time to end the practice of cheerleading in professional sports as it flies in the face of what this country stands for, specifically as a violation of women's civil rights in a workplace (See Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII).
Based on new policies claiming the need to honor our country during the National Anthem, this should be a no-brainer.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Not Necessarily At Peace
You're going to hate me, but, like Jimmy Carter I believe that this president...Agent Orange, The Donald, vulture of real estate, has a real shot at receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
I'll wait.
I hope that by the time you continue this, you've stopped vomiting in the trashcans at your collective desks. While I understand that the White House has now made a statement that the summit between Big DT and the Insane Human Rights Dictator Kim Jong-un may be delayed, if it actually happens, if they discuss nuclear disarmament, if they theoretically unite the two Koreas, then Donald J (stands for Jackass) Trump would be a clear candidate for the honor.
Take that in for a little bit.
What's the logic? Well, it could have been any American diplomat or international diplomat for that matter, sitting at that table, but it's not. The Korean war started in 1950 and bringing about its end is worthy of ridiculous praise and would be a huge accomplishment. What's more, it would be a far more concrete reason for the prize than the logic as to why Obama got one. Frankly, that was an odd and poor choice in my opinion. The Nobel committee's logic was that Obama went to "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" without naming specific peoples or events. After international criticism on the choice, the Nobel committee was quick to defend their choice indicating that he wasn't getting it because of what he would do as the newly elected American president...but what he had done. Which was what, exactly? He wrote some books, won two Grammy's for the reading of those books, won his elections by a large majority, practiced civil rights law and made an important speech against the (unpopular) Iraq invasion, became senator...um...and then became President.
I'm missing the details, and I'm happy to be wrong, but his rise to the Presidency wasn't bookended by Mother Theresa-like moves in international diplomacy and peace. He was a good person...but maybe not as good as the people who were passed on that year to receive the prize. Even the Nobel secretary has had second thoughts...especially after Obama's military accidentally bombed previous Nobel winner's Doctors Without Borders in 2015, when one Peace Prize winner bombed another.
I love to hate Trump, and I believe that Obama will be written into history as a good/productive President regardless if you like him or not. Which is why I am secretly happy that our US Government, maybe prematurely, printed commemorative coins for this now-delayed summit. You never know what you're going to get with a human-rights-abusing mad man (Trump or Kim), but if the summit doesn't happen now, at least I'll get a laugh out of this coin...and I won't have the nagging feeling that I would need to acknowledge the positive fact that Trump ended a 68 year war.
I'll wait.
I hope that by the time you continue this, you've stopped vomiting in the trashcans at your collective desks. While I understand that the White House has now made a statement that the summit between Big DT and the Insane Human Rights Dictator Kim Jong-un may be delayed, if it actually happens, if they discuss nuclear disarmament, if they theoretically unite the two Koreas, then Donald J (stands for Jackass) Trump would be a clear candidate for the honor.
Take that in for a little bit.
What's the logic? Well, it could have been any American diplomat or international diplomat for that matter, sitting at that table, but it's not. The Korean war started in 1950 and bringing about its end is worthy of ridiculous praise and would be a huge accomplishment. What's more, it would be a far more concrete reason for the prize than the logic as to why Obama got one. Frankly, that was an odd and poor choice in my opinion. The Nobel committee's logic was that Obama went to "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" without naming specific peoples or events. After international criticism on the choice, the Nobel committee was quick to defend their choice indicating that he wasn't getting it because of what he would do as the newly elected American president...but what he had done. Which was what, exactly? He wrote some books, won two Grammy's for the reading of those books, won his elections by a large majority, practiced civil rights law and made an important speech against the (unpopular) Iraq invasion, became senator...um...and then became President.
I'm missing the details, and I'm happy to be wrong, but his rise to the Presidency wasn't bookended by Mother Theresa-like moves in international diplomacy and peace. He was a good person...but maybe not as good as the people who were passed on that year to receive the prize. Even the Nobel secretary has had second thoughts...especially after Obama's military accidentally bombed previous Nobel winner's Doctors Without Borders in 2015, when one Peace Prize winner bombed another.
I love to hate Trump, and I believe that Obama will be written into history as a good/productive President regardless if you like him or not. Which is why I am secretly happy that our US Government, maybe prematurely, printed commemorative coins for this now-delayed summit. You never know what you're going to get with a human-rights-abusing mad man (Trump or Kim), but if the summit doesn't happen now, at least I'll get a laugh out of this coin...and I won't have the nagging feeling that I would need to acknowledge the positive fact that Trump ended a 68 year war.
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Some uncomfortable facts...but only if you're a liberal
Listen, I hate the President with all of my heart. Why? Probably because of his disdain of science and facts. It's no secret that the President has alluded that climate change, which is very, very real, is a global hoax perpetuated by the Chinese. His administration is hell-bent on rolling back decades of environmental policy and protections. His shrinking of my/our public lands is not only environmentally unethical, but also a slight against the American tax-paying public who, you would think, should have a say in reclaimed public assets.
But, that's not everything. Several websites track his misrepresentations of the truth, and, since taking office, we've cleared the 3,000 mark on lies or mischaracterizations that have come from his mouth. However, this man's administration successfully bartered the release of 3 political prisoners that were being held in North Korea, and you can take that fact to the bank.
Being fond of the New York Times and NPR, I find it alarming that, when they speak of these three hostages and their release, they give nearly zero credit to the White House. That's just flat out wrong. In a political atmosphere where so many half-truths are flying around, this one seems plains-as-day apparent: the President, and his foreign policies with North Korea yielded the release of prisoners who had been incarcerated for as long as two years. Who were they? The BBC describes them this way:
Forget waterboarding, the North Koreans typically subject their prisoners to hard labor (read: mining, logging) for long hours, and isolated in the state's attempt to break them down. North Korean prisoners can be arrested and jailed for everything from speaking ill of the regime to watching an "illicit" South Korean DVD, to stealing a North Korean propaganda poster. These releases are of no small value from a nation that treats its citizenry worse than most western nations treat their most notorious criminals.
So, before we brush this huge accomplishment under the rug, take a minute to acknowledge that this administration under this President, actually did something fantastic where other administrations in the past had failed. That's a cold-hard fact.
Also: stop getting so excited that major corporations would have paid a low-level aide hundreds of thousands of dollars for perceived access to the President. It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last...and the Russian connection is thin at best. My 2 cents.
But, that's not everything. Several websites track his misrepresentations of the truth, and, since taking office, we've cleared the 3,000 mark on lies or mischaracterizations that have come from his mouth. However, this man's administration successfully bartered the release of 3 political prisoners that were being held in North Korea, and you can take that fact to the bank.
Being fond of the New York Times and NPR, I find it alarming that, when they speak of these three hostages and their release, they give nearly zero credit to the White House. That's just flat out wrong. In a political atmosphere where so many half-truths are flying around, this one seems plains-as-day apparent: the President, and his foreign policies with North Korea yielded the release of prisoners who had been incarcerated for as long as two years. Who were they? The BBC describes them this way:
- Kim Hak-song was held on suspicion of "hostile acts" in May 2017. He had previously described himself as a Christian missionary who intended to start an experimental farm at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST)
- Tony Kim, also known as Kim Sang-duk, also worked at PUST. He was detained in April 2017 on espionage charges. According to South Korean media, he had been involved in humanitarian work in the North.
- Kim Dong-chul, a pastor in his early 60s, was detained in 2015 on spying charges, and was then sentenced to 10 years hard labour
Forget waterboarding, the North Koreans typically subject their prisoners to hard labor (read: mining, logging) for long hours, and isolated in the state's attempt to break them down. North Korean prisoners can be arrested and jailed for everything from speaking ill of the regime to watching an "illicit" South Korean DVD, to stealing a North Korean propaganda poster. These releases are of no small value from a nation that treats its citizenry worse than most western nations treat their most notorious criminals.
So, before we brush this huge accomplishment under the rug, take a minute to acknowledge that this administration under this President, actually did something fantastic where other administrations in the past had failed. That's a cold-hard fact.
Also: stop getting so excited that major corporations would have paid a low-level aide hundreds of thousands of dollars for perceived access to the President. It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last...and the Russian connection is thin at best. My 2 cents.
Friday, May 4, 2018
Bolero
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to see the band moe. Wikipedia tells me that they formed around 1989 and quickly established themselves on the Jam Band scene. They're super talented. This is the first time I've seen them, but I went with others who are far better versed in the music than I am. The truly dedicated fashion themselves as "moe.-rons." I get it. Having seen a band (Phish) well over 30 times since 2003, and studying the Grateful Dead as I am wont to do, I understand the seemingly blind devotion to something super familiar, and at the same time, new and powerful.
I try to explain this to those who see a band once and then they're done. As I'm a music snob, I equate this musical disconnect to people who bus-trip through the National Parks. The bus parks, everyone gets off at the popular spot, takes their picture, and an hour later, they're on the bus to the next one. To me, that's like having the entire menu trotted out so you can look at it, but not eat it. But my metaphors are multiplying. I digress. The point is, I get why a band that's been around since the early 1990's remains popular today. The secret is in the jam: they never play a song the same way twice.
That said, I left the show a little unimpressed (see: music snob above). My chief complaint was that the sound was off. No, they didn't play "wrong notes" as, there are no wrong notes in an improvised jam. No, my issue was the sound: levels between the vocals and the instruments weren't well balanced. It was neigh impossible to understand what the singer was crooning during a song. I get that your ability to hear well is largely dependent on where you are in a venue. Are you too close to a speaker? Are you too far back in the hall that the reverberation is causing an echo? To combat this, we were standing next to the sound board where the engineer was fiddling with microphone levels the entire night. That's usually a good rule of thumb: it makes sense to hear the band the way the engineer hears the band in order to get the best mix. Well, that night he was off.
To give the band a second chance, I bought a download of that same show. This is a common offering made by the jam band scene: you can download the show you saw weeks, days or even hours after you've seen it so as to have a perfect souvenir of your experience. Again, blame the Grateful Dead for this as they've always been friendly to "tapers" (those who set up their own microphones and recording equipment...usually in front of the soundboard, get it?) and, at times, even allowed concert goers to plug directly into the board itself for the "best" quality recordings. In these digital times, a company named nugs.net got together with Phish and Metalica (not exactly an exclusively jam band offering) and started making the music available to those who want to purchase it.
So I've given this show a second listening, and I was still not "moved." The dudes on the stage in moe. were extremely talented, especially the gentleman on vibraphone...which couldn't be heard well because, again, there were level issues. No, the real reason why I didn't fall head over heals for this show was the severe lack of climax. I call this the lack of the Bolero effect.
Have you heard Ravel's "Bolero?" It's best heard rather than explained, but the premise is simple enough: start softly and slowly crescendo over the course of many minutes within a piece, adding more complexities, more instruments, and lastly, more decibels until the music is at its peak roar, the audience is on its feat and it all ends in a fantastic explosion of coordinated sound. Jerry did this. Trey does this. But, sadly, moe. does not. The jams were good, but they started at 7 or 8 and kept them there for the duration of several 15 minute songs. Listening using 80% of your concentration on a song is hard to do over long periods (see: Frank Zappa who did this deliberately), frequently resulting in what my uncle helped coin: a swirling mind turd.
While I'm applying this to music I've recently seen, the same logic can be made with some of today's most popular movies or TV shows. Avengers: Infinity War nailed this, The Shape of Water comes close...as does Game of Thrones, sometimes over the course of the season, sometimes over the course of an episode. Would I see moe. again? To tell the truth, probably. I've got a couple of early recordings, and some of their songs are solid, despite lacking the crescendo I have come to expect from other groups. No moe.-ron here until they can match the power of what Phish does with You Enjoy Myself...but because every show is different, there's a chance that they (moe.) attain "Bolero": achievement unlocked. But, I guess I'll have to keep going in order to find that out.
I try to explain this to those who see a band once and then they're done. As I'm a music snob, I equate this musical disconnect to people who bus-trip through the National Parks. The bus parks, everyone gets off at the popular spot, takes their picture, and an hour later, they're on the bus to the next one. To me, that's like having the entire menu trotted out so you can look at it, but not eat it. But my metaphors are multiplying. I digress. The point is, I get why a band that's been around since the early 1990's remains popular today. The secret is in the jam: they never play a song the same way twice.
That said, I left the show a little unimpressed (see: music snob above). My chief complaint was that the sound was off. No, they didn't play "wrong notes" as, there are no wrong notes in an improvised jam. No, my issue was the sound: levels between the vocals and the instruments weren't well balanced. It was neigh impossible to understand what the singer was crooning during a song. I get that your ability to hear well is largely dependent on where you are in a venue. Are you too close to a speaker? Are you too far back in the hall that the reverberation is causing an echo? To combat this, we were standing next to the sound board where the engineer was fiddling with microphone levels the entire night. That's usually a good rule of thumb: it makes sense to hear the band the way the engineer hears the band in order to get the best mix. Well, that night he was off.
To give the band a second chance, I bought a download of that same show. This is a common offering made by the jam band scene: you can download the show you saw weeks, days or even hours after you've seen it so as to have a perfect souvenir of your experience. Again, blame the Grateful Dead for this as they've always been friendly to "tapers" (those who set up their own microphones and recording equipment...usually in front of the soundboard, get it?) and, at times, even allowed concert goers to plug directly into the board itself for the "best" quality recordings. In these digital times, a company named nugs.net got together with Phish and Metalica (not exactly an exclusively jam band offering) and started making the music available to those who want to purchase it.
So I've given this show a second listening, and I was still not "moved." The dudes on the stage in moe. were extremely talented, especially the gentleman on vibraphone...which couldn't be heard well because, again, there were level issues. No, the real reason why I didn't fall head over heals for this show was the severe lack of climax. I call this the lack of the Bolero effect.
Have you heard Ravel's "Bolero?" It's best heard rather than explained, but the premise is simple enough: start softly and slowly crescendo over the course of many minutes within a piece, adding more complexities, more instruments, and lastly, more decibels until the music is at its peak roar, the audience is on its feat and it all ends in a fantastic explosion of coordinated sound. Jerry did this. Trey does this. But, sadly, moe. does not. The jams were good, but they started at 7 or 8 and kept them there for the duration of several 15 minute songs. Listening using 80% of your concentration on a song is hard to do over long periods (see: Frank Zappa who did this deliberately), frequently resulting in what my uncle helped coin: a swirling mind turd.
While I'm applying this to music I've recently seen, the same logic can be made with some of today's most popular movies or TV shows. Avengers: Infinity War nailed this, The Shape of Water comes close...as does Game of Thrones, sometimes over the course of the season, sometimes over the course of an episode. Would I see moe. again? To tell the truth, probably. I've got a couple of early recordings, and some of their songs are solid, despite lacking the crescendo I have come to expect from other groups. No moe.-ron here until they can match the power of what Phish does with You Enjoy Myself...but because every show is different, there's a chance that they (moe.) attain "Bolero": achievement unlocked. But, I guess I'll have to keep going in order to find that out.
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