Of course, it will never work. Makes way too much sense.

I will have the president and CEO of the new USFL on my talk show t0oday at 1:30 on TribLive Radio.

“Is this [vice presidential debate] about her brain power?… Do you think cute will beat brains?…Do you think she’d do better on the questions on Jeopardy! or the interview they do during a half-time?…My suspicion is that she has the same lack of intellectual curiosity that the President of the United States has right now and that is scary!”

“Senator, do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to be President of the United States?…If she were on Jeopardy! right now and the topic was national government, American government generally defined, would she look like an imbecile, or would she look okay? Does she know anything?”

“I’d like to see her on just a couple of episodes of Celebrity Jeopardy! or It’s Academic Mac McGarry to just see if she knows anything.”

Chris was on “Jeopardy” last night and made Sarah Palin look like Margaret Thatcher.

I’ll start posting again here Thursday while I wait for the change to go through.

Thanks again.

Thanks for hanging in there.

STILL WAITING FOR GO DADDY TO CHANGE THE DOMAIN REGISTRATION….THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

There’s a craze sweeping the country. Grown men are becoming obsessed with little toy ponies and a show called “My Little Pony.”

That’s right. While (you would hope) most men will be talking about the NFL draft, the Stanley Cup playoffs and maybe even the presidential election, there’s a growing group of men out there who are fascinated by an animated show intended for pre-school girls.

And, of course, the author of the story and the creator of the show think that this is a sign that men are evolving. In a good way.

“This might be a little short-sighted on my part, but I just assumed that any adult man who didn’t have a little girl wouldn’t even give it a try,” Faust said in a phone interview. “The fact that they did and that they were open-minded and cool enough and secure in their masculinity enough to embrace it and love it and go online and talk about how much they love it — I’m kind of proud.”

Faust brings up a good point. Aside from a few brony-haters, blessedly very little (negative) hay seems to get made over dudes liking something that’s “supposed to be for girls” (like, for example, the way girls would be side-eyed for liking Transformers in years past).

Despite a tacit understanding that some people might be surprised by their choice of entertainment, most bronies show little to no compunction about their fandom. They shouldn’t have to. And, intentionally or not, they might be bucking the gender socialization of things considered to be “for girls” or “for boys.”

The feminization of America continues.

There was a time when grown men playing with toys made for little girls would have a net thrown over them and be taken away to a really nice place with lots of really nice men in white coats.

Not to be judgmental.

He’ll be my guest Wednesday at 1.00 on TribLive Radio.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=629520

Fans love it.

Despite all the talk about concussions and life changing injuries, fans are still watching the games.

Maybe that’s because, even if some of us won’t admit it, we like violence.

John Allemang of the Toronto Globe and Mail pointed out in a column that, despite all the violence and all the suspensions handed out during the first round of the NHL playoffs –ratings are way up.

(He’ll be a guest on my talk show today at 1:30 on TribLive Radio.)

 

Enlarge this image

JOHN ALLEMANG

Sports violence is within us all

It’s a truth that’s impossible to deny as the bodies are carried off the NHL’s battlegrounds: Violence may be denounced and disallowed in the rest of our lives, but in hockey it remains a primal pleasure.

Fans love the thundering hit, especially in the playoffs when the stakes are raised, the referees back off, and the emotional level of a high-energy game is constantly on the boil. TV ratings are up by 50 per cent on TSN and NBC, and it’s hard not to see a connection with the bad-tempered side of the grinding Stanley Cup quest that has even the recently concussed SidneyCrosby throwing punches and trading insults.

 

 

PODCAST

A wild weekend in the NHL

“That’s really playoff hockey, isn’t it,” Philadelphia Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said after Crosby took on Philadelphia’s star player, Claude Giroux.

Cross-checks to the throat, heads crushed into the glass, punches traded by guys who are usually content to let lesser teammates play the goon role: This is all part of the heightened emotion and physical drama that the NHL promises fans and advertisers in the postseason.

“It’s adrenalin,” said Brian Burke, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ general manager famous as a proponent of on-ice belligerence, truculence and intimidation. In the heat of the moment, players can’t help themselves, or so the argument goes, and hockey fans are the beneficiaries: We watch with fascination to see what kind of carnage comes next.

Then a Marian Hossa is laid out flat by a professional NHL headhunter, and the blood lust takes a brief pause. Maybe the sight of highly paid gladiators savaging each other isn’t such a pure pleasure after all?

Introspection about violence in contact sports is a fleeting thing, and not just because the games would disappear if we took away the basic element of aggression. The larger issue sports fanatics are trying to evade is this: Who knows what we’d learn about ourselves by confronting the fact that other people’s suffering makes us happy?

“Moral outrage about sports violence comes and goes in fits and starts,” said Kevin Young, professor of sociology at the University of Calgary.

“We like to think we’re living in a society where violence is increasingly an anathema. So it might seem inconsistent with where we’re headed in a civilized culture for us to pay athletes to hurt other people and knock them out of the game. But that kind of reaction is just naive: This is what conventional, orthodox North American sport has always been about.”

And Mara actually admitted that NFL owners considered eliminating the kickoff before coming up with the stupid, sissified rule that moved kickoffs from the 30 to the 35 yard line last season.

Notice that the writer of this story says that you shouldn’t worry — that kickoffs won’t be eliminated because there will be no need to.  As I said at the time of the rule change, NFL coaches will just find kickers who can kick it at least 70 yards every time.

And, since return men who ran it out from the end zone only made it to the 20 yard line 43% of the time, the same coaches who see nothing wrong with punting from inside their opponents’ 35, will just tell their return men to never run one out of the end zone.

The writer also seems to think that’s wonderful in what he calls the “safety first” NFL.

Sorry, but you can’t make safety the first priority and still play football.

Player safety should be a serious consideration, but if safety is your number one priority and that causes you to eliminate the kickoff, you may as well just stop playing the game.

As a fan, I want to be entertained. The fact that it’s not safe is what makes the game appealing.

You can’t play hockey and have safety as your first concern either. You can’t tell large men to go over 20 MPH on skates carrying sticks and make staying safe your number one priority.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t do everything within reason to protect serious injuries but when you start taking something as basic as the kickoff out of football, you’re either really stupid for ruining the game or you’re really stupid for playing it in the first place.

I’ve spoken to my webmaster and he suggested trying a donation option. I’m going to look into that and also linking the blog to Twitter and  Facebook.

In the meantime, check out this feminist who was saved from being hit by a cab by the actor Ryan Gosling and then whined about being portrayed as the damsel in distress. Maybe she would have preferred playing the role of a bug on  a windshield.

http://www.nationalreview.com/home-front/295445/ryan-gosling-s-thankless-save/suzanne-venker