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A FEW THINGS that have floated through my mind this past week: • There's nothing worse than a white lib-er-al trying to scream racism where none exists. Such is the case with The Sporting News' writer Bob Glauber, who claimed in a recent column that the NFL's new policy banning bandannas on players is racist, since most of the players who wear them are black.
Everyone knows the NFL is notoriously nitpicky when it comes to its game dress code. Players have been fined substantial amounts if their socks don't cover all of their calves. A few years back, then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle waged a running battle with Chicago Bears QB Jim McMahon over a headband McMahon wore. That's just the way the league is.
Now it seeks to ban bandannas, partly due to the negative (gang-related) connotation bandannas convey. This does not seem unreasonable.
A player can be financially set for life after playing just a few years in the NFL. And image is an important part of the league's ongoing success. It seems to me any and all players would, therefore, have a vested interest in protecting the source of their income and upholding a positive image of the league. That doesn't seem to be asking too much.
As for Glauber, his column is the journalistic equivalent of some dork wannabe driving past a group of African-Americans and turning up his rap-blasting CD player just to show the brothas he's an all-right white boy.
• I have no doubt others will take a similar stance next fall when the NCAA outlaws the asinine practice of removing one's helmet to showboat after making a decent play in college football. I'm sure some idiot will call the rule racist just because he's never seen a white guy do it.
All I have to say to those exhibitionist jerks is: Hey, you made a big play. Big deal. That's why they gave you a scholarship. Now take your sorry ass back to the line of scrimmage and make another one.
When you chose to play football, you knew the game was played with a helmet on. If you want people to see your face, go play tennis or some shit like that. Or if you want to take your helmet off on a football field, just take it off and leave it off. We'll see how bad you are.
• I spent time last week trying to get through to Rush Limbaugh to argue over school lunches.
I listen to him in the car, just to get my comatose-level blood pressure up to normal. But sometimes I'm scared when I realize just how many stupid white people there are out there.
He and his mindless minions spent the week swapping anecdotal horror stories about free and reduced-price school lunches. My favorite was from a woman outraged to learn a neighbor's kids get reduced-price lunches while, at the same time, the parents were talking about putting a Jacuzzi in their back yard.
Limbaugh is pushing the GOP agenda for the abolition of federal school-lunch programs, with the money being shifted to block grants to the states. He admits the states would be able to do whatever they want with the money, but assures his robots that all of the states would do a much better job of feeding kids than the federal government does.
He's obviously never heard of the Arizona Legislature. Just imagine what those assholes would do with that money. Guarantee they'd use it to abolish or severely lower taxes for the rich. Absolutely guaranteed.
And on the one-in-a-million chance they use it for lunches, where are they going to buy the food? Congress didn't do away with farm subsidies, so there'll still be surplus food controlled by the feds. All that means is the states will have to buy food from the federal government, meaning the creation of yet another agency to handle the purchases.
• My best friend, Brian Peabody, was recently named Coach of the Year in the Class 5A Southern Division after he guided the Salpointe Lancers boys basketball team to the school's first-ever sweep of the regular-season and post-season divisional titles. This in only his second year at Salpointe and with a team made up mostly of juniors and sophomores.
A friend at The Arizona Daily Star, however, told me the vote was close because some of the other coaches considered giving the award to Pueblo's Barry O'Rourke.
Pueblo finished tied for fifth in the seven-team league and ended the year 12-17. Nonetheless, O'Rourke said this was his best Pueblo team since the state champions of 1977-78. Somehow, he seems to have forgotten he coached a team that reached the state championship game in 1983. Surely that team was better than one that went 12-17.
• Is there a rational human being in America who still thinks O.J. Simpson is innocent?
Meanwhile, most trial lawyers still feel Simpson will be acquitted. And they wonder why we hate them so much.
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