"I decided I’m going to soften my language a little bit, and I did, and they’re still offended,"
-- Rep. Steve King (R-IA) explaining calling the First Lady's guest a the State of the Union "a deportable." Yes, it's true. Steve King told radio station WHO-AM on Friday that he was just being "kind and gentle" in his tweet that demeaned 21-year-old Ana Zamora. No, he wasn't. Because...well, okay, seriously, I don't believe that anyone needs an explanation as to why Steve King wasn't actually being kind and gentle and softened his language when he made up a smarmy word that never before was a noun. And when I say "anyone," I include those who agree with his sentiments. Even they know in their agreement that he wasn't trying to be kind and gentle about it, since I suspect they largely agree with him specifically because he was being blunt and insulting. On the other hand, to be fair to Steve King, given some of the over-the-top, egregious, inflammatory insults he's regularly hurled often in the past, this was sort of kind and gentle for him. But I don't believe that was through any warm-and- fuzzy effort of his, but rather because Twitter limited him to 140 characters, and "deportable" was the fewest number of letters he could come up with under the circumstances. In trying to defend his insult to the young Ms. Zamora, Rep. King tried quoting a federal statute which describes the "classes of deportable aliens" who the attorney general has the right to remove from the country. And so the far-right inamorato felt this justified the warmth and kindness of his made-up noun. There's just one problem (well, there are a lot of problems here, but one really big one) -- because of President Obama's executive action on immigration, Ana Zamora no longer is in a class of deportable aliens. So, when Rep. King referred to her as "a deportable," he wasn't softening his language...he was wrong. Wrong. At best. At worst, he was knowingly lying. And in all cases he was being inflammatory and abusive. But actually it's quite possible that that quote above is not really the "Quote of the Day." Rather, it's when Mr. King explained in Friday's interview his deeper opinion of undocumented immigrants who support the Dream Act. "They try to figure out what is it that they can hyperventilate about. They want to live in a perpetual state of outrage. They're constantly scanning something they can be outraged against." Really. It was Rep. Steve King (R-IA) would actually said that. This from a man who, pretty much the only time you hear about him in the news, is regularly hyperventilating against something that perpetually outrages him. Like, say, when the First Lady of the United States invites a personal guest to the State of the Union Address who he doesn't approve of. That's a fine Daily Double, even for Steve King. Cowardly to not be willing to stand behind his insult but instead saying he was just trying to be kind and gentle. And self-delusional. All in one interview. I'd be more blunt about Mr. King, but I've decided to soften my language.
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It's been a quiet week. The Sons of Knute host their January gala, the flu comes to Lake Wobegon, and Eloise Krebsbach attempts to live a stress-free life.
Here's some from from the British sketch comedy series, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, but with a slight difference -- and a bonus. In addition to his talents as a comedian and dramatic actor, Hugh Laurie is also an accomplished, serious musician, both for piano and guitar (and a quite passable singer, as well). In fact, last year he released his second blues album and even went on tour with his backup group. As such, every once in a while, he would write and perform a comic song for the comedy show. Here then is "Mystery." And now the bonus. In more recent days, I've heard a very popular song -- indeed, an Oscar-winning one -- by an even more-popular artist, and I'd scratch my head, because it sounded so familiar. But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. And then I finally realized... The song is Adele's "Skyfall," written for the James Bond film and winning the Oscar as Best Song. And I just couldn't stop laughing when it hit me how much similarity it had to Hugh Laurie's "Mystery" -- written 25 years earlier. To be clear, unlike the other comparison-songs I've posted here, these aren't dopplegangers. But there's enough in common between the two (even some of the point of the lyrics) that it now makes it near-impossible for me to listen to the super-seriousness of "Skyfall" with a straight face. If you don't remember the latter, take a listen -- As readers of these pages have figured out by this point, one of my bugaboos about winter sports coverage has been figure skater commentary. The polite version is that Olympic champion Scott Hamilton did a very good job before the competition, but became largely close-lipped once the skating began. And Sandra Bezic was a waste of air-space, being passable beforehand but disappearing to near-silence during the skate, other than "Oh, my, how lovely." Anchor Tom Hammond never seemed to have a great sense of what was going on, other than how much time was left in the performance. The result is that figure skating was covered, not as the actual sport it is, with solid in-performance analysis and commentary, but an artistic pageant to be watched in silence.
Then, during the last winter Olympics in Sochi, I wrote about watching the secondary NBCsports cable channel coverage that was on during the day (rather than the main primetime broadcast), where anchor Terry Gannon headed up a team with Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, all of whom blew the primetime gropu out of the water. The intentional flamboyance of Weir could get a bit eye-rolling at times, but his friendship with Lipinski was clear and charming, and the rapport between all three was involving -- with Gannon seeming to have an idea of what was going on. They didn't talk as much as I'd prefer during each skate, but they did talk, and plenty enough -- and did it interestingly and objectively and entertainingly, so that you could follow the flow of what was going on. And then not long later, it turned out that I wasn't alone -- because NBC surprisingly but properly replaced their primetiime team with Lipinkski, Weir and Gannon. And today (Saturday) is the first U.S. Nationals coverage that they have center stage. This afternoon was the Short Program, and I turned in. (I missed the pairs free skate, which was earlier in the broadcast.) And it was a joy to see. The difference was profound. Again, I wish they talked more during each skate, but the fact that they talked at all -- and well -- and told you what was coming and how well (or poorly) each skater did each move and why, was a total pleasure. It turned a night of flouncy art into the sport it is. And before and after each skate, Lipinski and Weir's analysis was sharp and terrific. And Terry Gannon kept it all together really well. It's worth noting that NBC, to its credit, still kept Scott Hamilton on the broadcast, but in the area he's best at, as a sort of "in-studio" analyst to give over-all perspective of the competition. (At this event, he wasn't actually in-studio, but off to the side in a corner of the rink with Andrea Joyce.) No Sandra Bezic in sight... After the ladies Short Program, the coverage went over to Ice Dancing and...well, I have no idea. I turned it off. Ice Dancing is idiotic, no matter how "it's sooo pretty" it is. It's athletic and artistic, and requires talent, but it's not a sport. It's literally dancing the cha cha and tango, just on ice. I'm sorry, I don't care how pretty and skilled it is. It's no more an Olympic sport than is ballroom dancing. Anyway, for thems what are interested in how this new team does for yourselves, you can tune in tonight for the Long Program finals. It airs during primetime, from 8-11 PM, East Coast time (tape delayed for the West Coast). The men's finals will be broadcast tomorrow afternoon, Sunday. That alone should tell you where figuring skating interest sits. The women are at the top of the heap. And thankfully we finally have a broadcast team willing to tell you all about it. Just a brief update about the comparison of two networks' coverage of Ernie Banks passing -- ESPN and baseball's MLB Network. I was about to post this yesterday as part of my other article, but decided not to let it to get in the way of the tribute. The MLB Network had a very nice 4-minute segment complete with video of Banks in action and additional footage to put his career in perspective. ESPN did at least make it their top story on SportsCenter. But it seemed about two minutes and had not even a single second of film footage of Ernie Banks, nothing of him playing baseball or being interviewed or anything. And the only public reaction they showed was two tweets, one from Dick Vitale (a former basketball coach) and Lance Briggs (a football player on the Chicago Bears). Seriously? ESPN couldn't find a reaction about the passing of beloved Hall of Famer Ernie Banks from anyone in baseball??! And if they couldn't find a tweet...why on earth couldn't they reach out themselves -- hey, they're a 24-hour sports network, after all, y'know -- and just...well, ASK someone for a comment? It's what reporters do, I'm told.. To be fair, I would expect a baseball channel, like the MLB Network, to devote more time to the story, so that's thoroughly understandable. And it was good that ESPN made it their top story. But for them to have zero footage and just those two tweets from no one in baseball is irresponsible for a 24-hour sports network. "We had to rush to get the story out" would be no excuse -- MLB Network was able to do it. Besides which, all news organizations put together obituaries ahead of time for famous people who are elderly, just so they're prepared, in case. Far better would have been to briefly announce the news as the lead story and then say, "We'll have more coverage of Ernie Banks' legendary career later in the broadcast." No pun intended, but ESPN dropped the ball. Here's the fine piece that ran on the MLB Network. It's sad to pass along the news that Ernie Banks passed away tonight at the age of 83. I've written about "Mr. Cub" quite a lot on these pages, including when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, and it's incredibly hard to explain to people outside of Chicago what he meant to Cubs fans, unlike what other great players meant to their cities and fans. Being a great player is one thing. Being an Ernie Banks...well, that's something else, and I'll at least try to explain. Baseball is filled with legendary players. And Ernie Banks was a Hall of Famer with statistics to stand in the same category as the best of the best. He had 512 home runs, was a 14-time All Star, still has the most base hits (2,583) and RBIs (1,636) in Chicago Cubs history (and would have the most home runs, except for being topped during the steroid era), and yet was a great defensive player, for decades having the highest fielding percentage by a shortstop during a single season. But those are just numbers. And all the Greats have spectacular numbers. But Ernie Banks is known as Mr. Cub because for years and years, he not only put up those great numbers but did so with no other top-notch players around him. For all those years, he was pretty much the only reason to watch the Cubs. Let me put this into perspective. At the end of every year, when baseball analysts discuss who should win a league's Most Valuable Player Award, the starting point of the discussion is which teams did the best, and many people argue that the winner of the MVP shouldn't just be on one of the best teams, but on the team that actually won its division. The argument being how valuable could someone be if their team didn't finish in first place. (The success of a team being a requirement for MVP is not an argument I agree with, but I'm in the minority on that.) Ernie Banks won the National League MVP Award, but not with a team that finished in first place -- or even close to first place (this is the Cubs, after all...) -- but with a team that actually had a losing record, finishing in "second division," the lower half of the National League. But that's not the point, it's more than just that. Because Ernie Banks, in fact, won the National League MVP Award twice -- with a team that also had a losing record, finishing in second division, too. Yet even that's not the point. You see, only 13 players in the history of baseball have won the MVP Award two years in a row. And one of them is Ernie Banks. Who did it on teams that not only weren't winners, but stunk. Who had losing records. He beat out future legendary Hall of Famers like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente and Warren Spahn -- who were on good teams. (Aaron and Spahn's Braves even won the National League pennant one of those years, and finished second the other season. Mays's Giants finished third both years.) But Ernie Banks won the National League Most Valuable Player Award two years in a row on terrible teams that had a combined record of 146-162. That's how great his seasons were. That's how great Ernie Banks was. It's easy to drive in runs when you have teammates who are getting on base ahead of you. It's easy to get good pitches to hit when opposing pitchers know they have to pitch to you because there are good teammates batting behind you. But when you're on really bad, losing teams and still put up amazing, Hall of Fame numbers like that, it's remarkable. There's a typical sports comment about a winning team and its best player that runs along the lines of "Without so-and-so, the team would have finished in fourth place." One of the famous baseball quotes attributed to legendary manager Jimmie Dykes is, "Without Ernie Banks, the Chicago Cubs would have finished in Albuquerque." Forget how great his statistics were. That's what Ernie Banks meant to the Chicago Cubs and their fans. Without Ernie Banks, the team would have finished in Albuquerque. In his later years, the Cubs did finally surround Banks with some great players. But alas, the team still (as you may have heard...) still never won. And so, though Ernie Banks played for 19 years on the same team, the Chicago Cubs, he not only never won a World Series, he never made it into the post-season. Yet he remained a sunny, joyous personality, whose most-famous quote was, "Let's play two!" Happily, I got to meet Ernie once, and have an autographed baseball from him. It's sat on my desk for years. But Ernie Banks has sat in my heart much longer. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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