Category Archives: Sports
Big Ten Numbers
The Big Ten hasn’t been that for a while. The ten became 12 when Penn State and Nebraska came on board. But at least they were still Big. Now the 10 are 14 with the addition of Rutgers and Maryland – not so big.
The number that really counts is the Big Three – Chicago, Washington DC, and New York city TV markets.
Mongo
Alex Karras died Wednesday. He played football for the Detroit Lions. He was also a pretty funny guy who appeared on Johnny Carson and in movies.
In one of Karras’ most famous scenes, as Mongo in Mell Brook’s “Blazing Saddles”, he slugged a horse knocking it out cold. Blazing saddles could not be made today. There would be naked starlet PETA protests (this is bad?), and the horse would be evaluated against his baseline concussion history and required to sit out for at least a week. Blazing Saddles mocked race relations, sexuality, Hollywood, the American Frontier, and Methodists. It fails the Civil Discourse test miserably. It’s hilarious.
I asked a really bright and hip young woman editor if she knew who Mongo was. She said, ” I can’t believe it! You’re the second person to ask me that today and until now, no, I’d never heard of him.”
Pop culture references are tricky.
Replacement Refs
I thought I’d take a break from drawing about lying, incompetent politicians and instead draw about stupid, incompetent NFL replacement refs.
Here’s a Bleacher Report that looks into who the replacement refs really are, including one who was kicked out of the Lingerie League!
Flying Squirrel
The London 2012 Olympics has become, in many ways, a no free speech zone in order to protect the branding rights of “approved global sponsors”. Here’s a helpful list of words to avoid.
Animal Farm
The going is getting weird. Chick-fil-A owner, Dan Cathy, expressed an opinion he shared with president Obama until a few weeks ago – namely, that marriage is between a man and a woman. This so outraged a newly sensitive Chicago alderman as well as the mayor of Boston that they threatened to destroy his business.
Meanwhile, Romney, hoping to avoid further display of his financial success, refuses to watch his ballet horse perform in the Olympics.
UPDATE: Cow wins, horse loses. Chic-fil-A had a record setting day Wednesday. Ann Romney’s horse, Rafalca, didn’t win a medal.
