Brave For Speaking Out: Dr. Ford Trash Admiration Talk

Okay, the last post indicated a few thoughts as we are on the cusp, and maybe by the time I post this, other side of Kavanaugh confirmation. But Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was brave. Brave. Courageous, not just for herself, but all girls now and all to come. The Kavanaugh confirmation battle may be individually lost, but Dr. Ford set a standard of courage that should stand the test of time. A long time.

I said I would be back with our usual open thread sports Trash Talk, and so here we are.

In the colleges, there are several good games. Texas has already edged Oklahoma in the Red river shootout 48-45. LSU at Florida could be interesting. Jim White was out at a blues bar last night, will he be awake for this?? LSU up early and looking for two in a row in Gainesville. As crappy as Florida State has been so far this year, I smell an upset in Miami. My favorite game of the week, maybe year so far! is Kentucky at the Aggies of Texas A & M. The KY Wildcats are on the most improbably roll so far and are undefeated. But can they take the Aggies in College Station? Tall task! Honorable mention to Notre Dame at Virginia Tech and Utah at Stanford. Think the Domers and Trees win, but they play unpredictable opponents. The local joes, the ASU Sun Devils, are up at another of my old haunts, Folsom Field at University of Colorado. The Buffs are certainly favored, but the Devils may have something for them. Or not, we shall see!

Okay, in the Pros: The Pats already clocked the Colts and have significant time off until the next game. With Josh gordon and the return of Edelman, things are looking up there. Falcons at Steelers is interesting. Both good teams way underperforming this year so far. Green Bay at the Kittehs in Detroit is also interesting. The Pack has underperformed, and Aaron Rodgers been a bit hurt, but if they can come out of Motown with another win, they will be sitting pretty. The Lions desperately need another win to stay in the mix at all. In a battle of terrible teams, the Cardinals visit the 49ers. If Jimmy G were on the field, this would be a no brainer. Still may be. Vikes at Eagles has some gloss to it, but, again, both teams need to step up.

Formula One is at Suzuka in Japan. It is, yet again, raining there, and the circus has grown stale from lack of competition for Mercedes. It is really pretty pathetic.

On a positive note, MLB playoffs are underway, and the Red Sawx and Yankees are heating up with Boston taking a narrow win last night in game one in Fenway. Dodgers and Brew Crew seem to be rolling. October baseball is good baseball!

And, that is it. Music today is Brave by Sara Bareilles. She is really good. And Christine Blasey Ford was really brave.

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46 replies
  1. jo6pac says:

    9ers?

    Raiders?

    F-1 I just don’t care any more.

    The supremes just got worse if that was even possible:-(

    Go Warriors

  2. scribe says:

    Not happy with my Stillers.  Less happy, if that’s possible, with Bad Teammate LeVeon Bell.  There was a scene I remember from Brian’s Song, where Caan (playing the doomed Brian Piccolo) recounts how the Bears fooled some other team’s fearsome defense running a draw play for Gayle Sayers.  Then, seeing how well that play worked, the Bears ran it again only this time the ball goes to Piccolo.  When he takes the handoff, the opposing team is not fooled and he finds himself looking at the defense, lined up like a team picture.  And gets hammered by the entire defense.

    Sounds like a reasonable solution to the LeVeon Bell issue.  Showing up during bye week.  Pshaw.

    Still, getting trashed by Baltimore in their own house is just plain embarrassing.

    The long and the short of it is, in a world of no defense, the Stillers’ D sucks.  And, second, Mike Tomlin has run into the shoals that face every “players’ coach”, and bring down most – the inmates run the asylum and he’s given away his power over them, one incident and one infraction at a time.   I was watching their game last week or the week before and they showed a banner with distinguished Steeler alumni names on it.  Alan Faneca was among them.  Faneca went free agent after Tomlin’s first year – played out the string with the Jets, IIRC – and for good reason.  Faneca didn’t want to run the wind sprints then-new Coach Tomlin had all players running.  He was punished for it by Tomlin and didn’t take the punishment well.  So they ran him out of town.

    So now, he’s an honoree?  Puhleeze. Make him wait until after Tomlin goes.

    The thing is, given how the Steelers don’t hire and fire coaches – they’ve had 3 head coaches since 1969 – Tomlin is not likely to be going anywhere soon.  For those interested, Noll coached from 1969-’91 (23 seasons), Cowher from ’92-’06 (15), and Tomlin since ’07 (11th underway).

    I’m hunkering down for a loonnng season, my pain mollified by only 2 things – the Dallas Owboys are losing, too, and the Stillers won’t be seeing the playoffs (at the rate they’re going) so I’ll have January time for other things.

    As to the Yankees at Sawx, striking out with the bases loaded and two out is how you lose playoff games.  Do it twice in the same game and it’s a given.

    In other words, meh.

  3. phred says:

    Where is BSL when I need him???  GO SOXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!!

    Here’s hoping for a Brewers vs. Red Sox World Series : )

      • phred says:

        There is nothing wrong with my spelling, other than excessive enthusiasm, but I think the problem here is my lack of pronunciation key.  I’ll try to include that next time for the benefit of you out-of-towners ; )

      • Bay State Librul says:

        Clarification: According to the Urban Dictionary: red sox= red sahx.

        But no matter your spelling, the Red Sox played poorly last night.

        • Lulymay says:

          No, no, no, you got that all wrong!  The Yankees played very well last night (finally).  Yeah!  I hate any team from Barston, especially what they did to my Canucks in the Stanley Cup playoffs a few years back – with the help of Gaaarrry Batttman’s referees, of course.

    • Pete says:

      Me too.  My son-in-law is born-bred Wisconsin near the big lake.  Wife is from Boston (actually near – people near Boston always say they are from Boston – weird), but I think she thinks Tom Brady could just as easily be a pitcher because he throws a ball of some kind.

      I figure it would be a great extended family kumbaya bonding experience.

  4. posaune says:

    My 13-yo son wrote this poem yesterday October 5. I’d like to ask if I could share this here.

    Title: My Plea
    All in the news, we hear of injustice. Woe
    is us if cries are left unheard. The brave women
    who step up only not to be heard is absurd.
    Lady Liberty lies sick, dying a most painful death on her bed.
    The words of falsifying men are those only allowed to be said.

    What has become of our country, I ask? Only a lie can I see.
    Land of the Free? Pshaw!

    Untruthful men on our court supreme in the land of lies, bent to
    the orange man who says “Yuge,” his cronies, crooks and falsifiers who
    advertise that we are the Land of the Free.

    Why, oh why, white men of the Senate, must your ears be deaf?
    Deaf to brave women, their stories of of pain and trauma, dug from their pasts, torn from hearts of truth sealed and sworn.

    And on this morn, Kavanaugh stepping to the court, Lady Liberty succumbs – this very day, witness to those who will not listen.

    Hear my cry, my plea: These are times of insanity!
    Our flag will fly low, sadness upon our hearts shall grow. Our people
    shall suffer in unceasing troubles, as founding principles are driven underground. Women and children left unheard, cruel and absurd.
    Hear my cry: Believe those who stretch their voices in truth. Believe them for the sake of sanity so that we may pass a real inheritance to our children’s children given in These Times of Insanity.

    • Pete says:

      He shows a deep heartfelt understanding.  So, there is hope.  We may be passing him insanity, but it does not have to always be.

      Tell him he makes more sense, has more wisdom, and more understanding than those (old) white men of the Senate.

      Pete

    • BobCon says:

      Good for him. Buy your son an ice cream for that, take him to the comic store, or take him to the movies.

    • Sabrina says:

      Beautiful poem! He shows a maturity far beyond his years, and an empathy that’s lacking in government right now as well as in public discourse. Please tell him his poem was wonderful, and to make sure that he never gets to a point as an adult where he turns his back on that connection to others- it embodies the very best of humanity.
      Gives me hope that empathy will eventually win out over cruelty, and children like your son are great examples of the ideals America has always tried to stand for.
      Thank you for sharing. It brightened my day to read that, honestly. It’s been a depressing go lately with the rise of RW political figures almost everywhere, it seems (fun fact: we just got a *second* provincial RW government voted in for Quebec. I’ve had enough intolerance and negativity in the past few years to last a lifetime, and it’s just agonizing to see that at least in Canada, things may actually be on the verge of getting worse).
      P.S. I realize my reply was also part venting, so apologies in advance. This site is, as always, a level-headed reprieve from the emotional roller coaster that is politics nowadays.

    • Bruce Olsen says:

      Get him together with a decent hip hop producer. It can hear it downtempo, background piano with a lot of reverb, minor key.

      It’s really quite good. Maybe he can help the cause.

  5. posaune says:

    Thanks for your kind words. I’ll be sure to pass them onto him. Namaste.
    And bmaz–thank you for your calm and stabilizing presence this week — much needed and much appreciated.

  6. Webstir says:

    Bmaz,

    Two weeks in row and no mention of the Donkeys? We’d a taken KC last week if Mahomes was actually a human being. But nooooooo. He’s gotta throw the ball with BOTH hands.

    Sigh …

  7. scribe says:

    Couple quick notes:

    Aaron Judge hit that home run about as far as one can hit a ball in Fenway and not have it leave the building entirely. Shut down those Sawx fans for a while. Almost like that 2000 World Series game at Shea, when Jeter led off and took the first pitch out of the park. Put a pall on the Mutts’ fans that never left. Not the longest ball I’ve ever seen, though. The first time I went to Fenway I saw then-rookie Mark McGwire hit one off Oil Can Boyd that cleared the Monstah and the screen and wound up on I-90. And Price was Price and Tanaka Tanaka, all leading to an excellent result.

    F1: caught a little of it when I woke up in the middle of the night. Hard to tell given the speed with which the cameras sweep to follow the cars, but it seemed there were a lot of empty seats in the stands there. And it seemed Vettel was having an exceptionally easy time passing everyone in front of him, moving up like 10 spots on the board in the 10 minutes I watched.

    McGregor/Habib: Sounds like the afterparty was better than the main event. Given how everything seems to devolve to a barroom brawl these days, I’m halfway wondering whether I should have ponied up.
    Naaah. After the Nevada Boxing Commission wrings their pearls for a while, the lure of another pot of money will be impossible to resist and they’ll have a rematch. The two principals were smarter than McGregor in NYC last winter: they let their surrogates do the post-fight fighting and kept their own noses clean.

    • bmaz says:

      Oh, know it well. It is excellent. I talked to Cannell back in 2011 or 2012, and there was to be a movie made on The Limit, starring Toby McGuire. Apparently it got scrubbed somewhere along the way. Do recommend the book though. Also a book that is probably hard to find now called Yankee Champion, which is basically Phil’s autobiography.

  8. scribe says:

    When it’s Browns 9, Ravens 6 with under 2 to go, and the Ravens in the red zone, and you’re a Stiller fan hating both teams, who do you root for?
    This is one of the great existential questions of the age.

    In other news, Stillers dealing an asswhipping on Atlanta, Kittehs leading Pack.

  9. Pete says:

    Yeah, doesn’t look like The Pack or Fins will be going to any late season parties unless something changes soon.

  10. tinao says:

    My Stillers came through. Not looking bad, yeah there was some D-fence and running game today! YEAHH!

  11. scribe says:

    I came down on the side of the Browns, mainly because their winning kept the Ravens from pulling away from the rest of the field in the AFC North.
    Nice to see the Kittehs win, for a change.
    Iggles still working off that Super Bowl hangover.
    And the capper – the Owboys lose in OT. Made my night.

  12. Bay State Librul says:

    Down memory lane and back to baseball

    Scribe brought up home runs at the Fens, and I remember Manny’s juicy home run that landed on the Mass Pike.
    Game 2 ALDS – Red Sox Angels, Manny wallops a 3 run walk off home to win.
    The other memory jogger…. Ted’s 502 torpedo in 1946 (not born yet)

    To this day, I miss Swampscott’s Tony C blasts….

    Slugfest or pitching duel? — no contest

  13. Kick the darkness says:

    I love the picture for the post.  Last week was a sucky week, no f’ing doubt about it.  Strange music choices for me.  Somehow the Plasmatics “Beyond the Valley of 1984” album seemed to fit with the occasion-go figure.  Not even sure why I have the file in my iTunes.  Always thought of that band back in the day as too much fashion and not enough thrashin’.  But there it is.  And Mendelssohn’s violin concerto in e minor.  The beautiful pathos.  Arsenal 5-1 over Fulham.  I mean one would hope so, but there has to be a bright side.

  14. Bay State Librul says:

    I don’t mean to be an asshole but Yankee Stadium is dead and fans have left for the nearest bar.

    I’m enjoying ever minute of this debacle.

    Tomorrow could be a different story though

    What do you think of the announcers?

  15. Bay State Librul says:

    Brock hits for the cycle!

    Brock for President. All Red Sox players are now Democrats.

    The announcers are still talking about Sanchez

    Still Nervous Nellie for tomorrow

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