Ok, maybe that was a little bit over the top. I make no excuses for my rooting interest in the Packers, part of which is genetic (I’m only half troll), but most of which is based on my anarcho-syndicalist politics.
The Packers are “the only publicly owned company with a board of directors in American professional sports”. They are one of only 7 publicly traded companies (Atlanta Braves, New York Rangers, New York Knicks, the Carolina Hurricanes, the Seattle Mariners, and the Toronto Blue Jays) which are required to fill out annual reports for the SEC and other regulators. Until 1965 they played at City Field, Lambeau is the name of one of the founders (the other is George Whitney Calhoun) and first coach.
“No shareholder may own over 200,000 shares, a safeguard to ensure that no individual can assume control of the club.” “Shares of stock include voting rights, but the redemption price is minimal, no dividends are ever paid, the stock cannot appreciate in value, and stock ownership brings no season ticket privileges.” The last time they sold shares the price was a flat $200 and as of 2005 over 111,921 people owned 1 or more of the 4,749,925 shares.
Now some people may think that all they do in Wisconsin is drink-
Well, they drink a lot, but the Summer is short and the Winter nights long dark and cold and without much else to do. There are other hobbies however like eating Brats and Cheese and writing songs. I was looking for a simple sample of their fight song and I found these pieces in the Rap, Polka, Punk, Southern Rock, House, and Lil’ Wayne categories (yes, he has his own category).
Rap
Polka
Punk
Southern Rock
House
Lil’ Wayne
Live
Now if I only knew who Lil’ Wayne was.
And they make cookies.
Cookies!
I’m sure the Seahawks are a fine team and fully worthy of their fans devotion and loyalty (in the sense that Billionaire Paul Allen, Microsoft, and any franchise that hasn’t Bolted deserve it), but I must say that my heart is in Green Bay with the Packers and Cheeseheads.
The Seahawks are everyone’s pick to win (7.5 points) which is only fitting for the top seeded team. They have a good offense that totally confounded the Packers in Game 1 of the season but the Packers were sporting a new defense that has since been abandoned and have performed much better. The real story is on the Packers side of the ball where the #1 offense will be facing the #1 defense. Aaron Rodgers is still feeling the effects of being stepped on in the Lions game, so there is that. Still, I rate the chances about even especially if the Packer D can get their act together.
Nothing to see here. Bolts will go down gasping @ South Park.
Richard asks me if I’m carrying a grudge. You’re damn right! The whole game is reprehensible.
Doesn’t mean it makes for bad sports live blogging though. Fans may check in at the Bolts (boo, hiss) or Mile High (you want to share that with the band man)?
I should hope by now I don’t have to explain why I’m a total cheesehead since the accident of my troll birth and political sentimentality is fully exposed so instead I’ll share a story from my past life as capo di tutti.
It was about playoff time and we had one of our quarterly meetings at a “hotel” in Hartford that was really a training dormitory for one of the big insurance companies with end of the corridor common rooms of the campus style suitable for “hospitality”, also of the keg chugging beer pong college type (it was a ‘fun’ club).
We were favored by a comely visitor from an isolationist local and since everybody appeared to be shunning her I did my little leadership thing and spent a lot of time making sure she felt welcome in our midst.
Now normally I was the diest of hards but on this particular occasion I heeded the entreaties of my new handlers and staged a gracious exit before the festivities had hardly begun.
Hardly?! After I left comely visitor was assaulted by the harridan wannabe spouse of one of my sponsors (the one who could get us thrown out of an airport bar, who else?) and accused of adultery which would have been true if my Irish friend (?) had been married to the Xanthippe instead of merely co-habitating (which is a sin in the eyes of the Church guys, just saying).
Words were said, people grappled, and eventually car keys were siezed and tossed out of an open window into the night.
So at about 4 am, when I was about my groggiest, there came a knock on the door. Do something about this… now.
Umm… sure, yeah, could you repeat that while I wipe out the sleep?
I parked adultery gal on my bed (I was using the chair to make phone calls for you filthy minded) and listened to her tale of woe and called the front desk where they very politely (I would have told me to piss up a rope and that my crew of social outcasts was responsible for every scratch) told me that the janitor would be in about 7 and that searching for the missing keys on the 4th story roof would be much more effective in the daylight.
Keys found floozy vanished which I suppose was the best for me since I’d already spent an enormous amount of political capital keeping her hidden and quiet, but on the other hand WTF since I’d already fired and replaced my exec (from which she never recovered) and her boyfriend (who also never recovered and speaking of adultery she was sleeping with him and not my brother her public ‘boyfriend’) and suffered the resignations of all that had been associated with their faction which I soon enough found out had been stealing 10s of thousands I had personally donated to keep the organization afloat…
Not that I’m bitter.
But more to the point it was clear I’d need a nap so I called to the front desk and told them I was not moving that Sunday and they would just have to clean up around my prostrate form which they were surprisingly ok with. I like those guys.
Mid afternoon I roused myself to tune in a playoff game and considered how lucky and privileged I was to enjoy that moment.
So I took another nap.
Oh, ‘Boys @ Cheeseheads. Did I mention that Airport Drunk was a total and vociferous ‘Boy toy? Makes me proud to be a Packer fan.
I don’t mind admitting I kind of want the Panthers to win so that the Packers have another home game but I don’t expect the Seahawks to co-operate. The Seahawks are, after all, the defending Champions and they’re really a much better team than the Panthers.
The Panthers have also lost their inside rushing defense in the person of 311 pound Star Lotulelei, one of those Pacific Island monsters who broke a foot this week in practice.
And then there is Century Link Field, one of the loudest Domes in the league. The Pack will not be daunted by that, but the Panthers are younger and rawer and less used to distractions.
So here’s hoping for an upset, not that I dislike the Seahawks, but that I actively support the Pack and am a total cheesehead.
Look, I have my reasons to hate the Patsies and like the Ravens the primary one being that the Ravens, since they are new, haven’t dinked around cities the way the Patsies have.
Oh, and Bill Belichick and Pat Brady are steroid addled assholes, but that’s so common in Throwball it’s hardly worth mentioning.
The truth is that I’d be very surprised to see the Ravens walk off the Foxborough turf victors. Belichick has used Brady to build himself a buffer of talented role players without wasting time and money on a Quarterback hunt and it shows in the system which should last (given good luck and Robert Kraft staying out of the way which he seems inclined to do) beyond both their careers.
I still think they’re all thoroughly horrible people and brain damage only accounts for some of it although it helps.
Now normally I’d have no trouble at all rooting against the ‘Boys since their fans are the biggest assholes in professional sports- ignorant, loud, and irrational.
On the other hand I haven’t much forgotten the Lions’ Ndamukong Suh stepping on Aaron Rogers.
We won’t get a rematch of that if the Lions advance. As the lower seed they’ll face the Seahawks and the Packers will get the Panthers. If the ‘Boys advance they’ll face the Pack at Lambeau where General Winter will crush them as they deserve to be crushed.
Game time 4:30 on Faux. Consider this an open thread too.
I think we’re all pretty clear by now that I don’t like franchise shopping and extorting communities for stadiums that teams ought to be buying with their own money because, except on rare occasions, they sit like great white elephants on acres of parking that could and should be parks except for 8 days a year when they suck all the money out of the municipalities they’re supposed to be such an engine of prosperity for and deposit it all in the off the books coffers of the team owner’s concession stands.
And of course if I ever needed a team to illustrate that story it would be the Bolts.
Other than that there are only 2 teams I actually like, one because of geography who are not in the playoffs and likely never will be again as long as Tom Coughlin is coach, and the other is the Packers who get right what every other professional franchise in any sport get wrong.
So it’s not that I don’t like the Bengals, it’s that I don’t much care about them one way or another unless they’re playing a team I really hate.
The Bengalscould win. The Bolts defense is nothing special, but the Bengals Quarterback is a choke king who has 1 Wild Card win for 4 appearances in the last 4 years. In today’s game he has a $1 Million bonus riding on the outcome. It will be interesting to see if that motivates him.
The game starts on CBS @ 1. As yesterday there is no guarantee I’ll be around to live blog, so it’s open thread.
Probably not around for this one either. Forget the hype about Le’Veon Bell, he wasn’t going to be much of a factor anyway. The Ravens suck on the road, but they have great run defense. Fortunately for the Steelers they have Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown.
The Ravens may be a contender next year, now they are a tune up for the Steelers and a rest day for Bell.
Won’t be around much for this one, places to go, things to do and really, who cares? The Panthers are going to crush the Cardinals like bugs. I wish it were different, the Cardinals are an original NFL team (1898) and match up better against the Seahawks who are otherwise going to have home field against the Packers, but they’ve lost 4 of their last 6 and are playing their 3rd string Quarterback.
The Panthers have won 4 straight (3 in the woeful NFC South, which is why they advance with a losing record and home field advantage).
If the Cardinals can stop the scramble they might win, but I’m not expecting much.
As is our customary start to the New Year, we give you coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade.
We start this year’s report with sadness and regret. It seems the Mummer’s Parade, a Philadelphia institution celebrated since the mid 1600s and the oldest folk festival in the United States has fallen on hard times.
So what has happened to this tradition, honored by our first President George Washington himself during his 7 year tenure at President’s House (or did you forget that Philadelphia was our second capital under the Constitution after New York City, starting in 1790 and lasting until 1800 when somewhat prematurely John Adams occupied the District of Columbia in the hopes of winning enough Southern electoral votes to defeat Thomas Jefferson?)?
Well, it’s a phenomena I know all too thoroughly from my years as a community organizer. Participation has become excessively expensive and potential new members are less interested in participating.
Being a Mummer is a commitment of both time and money. The routines take all year to practice, at least once a week for about 5 or 6 hours for the casual groups that don’t care about winning prizes (yes, until recently there were cash prizes for each division, Comics, Fancies, String Bands, and Fancy Brigades) and more for the elite “New Years Associations”.
And they are expensive with members being responsible for their own costumes which can weigh 100 pounds and cost 5 to 6 figures in addition to annual dues of the same magnitude.
It was not that long ago that the parade involved tens of thousands of participants and lasted 11 hours, making it the longest parade (in terms of time) in the United States. In 2010 the City of Philadelphia (because of austerity) withdrew their annual $1 Million contribution ($750,000 of which was Police and Sanitation overtime pay) which parade organizers have been scrambling to replace. Participants have become older and the parade route has been shortened from 3 miles to 1 with drill judging moved from the the end to the beginning. Except for certain die hard units the parade will totally miss “Two Street” where most of the Associations are based.
Declining membership, soaring costs and more elaborate productions have forced big changes in the Mummers Parade, a colorful New Year’s celebration often called Philadelphia’s Mardi Gras.
…
Many clubs are having fundraising issues, leading some to become nonprofits and pursue grant money since the city stopped offering cash prizes at the parade. And the younger generation isn’t pursuing Mummery the way their older relatives did.
Overall, participation has declined from 12,000 performers in 2001 to about 8,000 this year, said Mummers Association president Bob Shannon.
The Original Trilby String Band, a troupe that has strummed and strutted annually on New Year’s Day since 1898, will not march in this year’s Mummers Parade because of a shortage of cash, members and miracles.
“I don’t even have words,” said Kaminski, 48, who as club captain told members this month he was pulling the plug. There was no chance, he concluded, of mounting a show with unfinished music, no costumes, too few musicians, and but a few props.
“It was,” said Kaminski, his voice cracking, “the worst decision of my life.”
Trilby may be down on its luck, but the club is no outlier in Mummersland. The same pressures kicking Trilby to the curb are behind a much-shortened parade route this year that eliminates a 2-mile stretch through South Philadelphia, where the working-class parade was born.
Declining membership and soaring costs are building a story line of stress within Mummery that goes something like this: If only Dem Golden Slippers could be melted down and sold for cash, the feathered folk tradition might feel more secure.
“They are the oldest name in string bands,” Tom Loomis, president of the Philadelphia String Band Association, said of Trilby, whose disappearance on South Broad Street is, for now, only temporary.
“That name will not disappear,” Loomis vowed. “We will find a way to get them back onto the street next year.”
…
“We’ve gone from six fancy clubs down to one,” Shannon said. “We’ve gone from four or five big comic clubs to three. We went from [27] string bands, now we’re down to 16.”
In the words of 70-year-old comic division President Rick Porco, whose Good Timers, Murray and Landi comic clubs account for about a third of this year’s parade participants: “It’s challenging, trying to raise money to participate in this parade.”
…
In recent years, many neighborhoods long dominated by Mummery have gentrified as older families have moved to the suburbs. Membership is no sure thing.
Those who still march shell out more money than ever as costumes have become more expensive, musical arrangements are outsourced, and a pot of prize money historically given out by City Hall is no longer on the table.
“There’s some bands spending $80,000 to $100,000 on costumes alone,” Shannon said.
…
Also falling on hard times: the string bands’ annual fundraiser, the Show of Shows.
For years, the showcase of Mummery thrived at the Civic Center in University City, routinely selling out of tickets. It moved to the Spectrum when the Civic Center was demolished, and, later, to Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall. This year, it was canceled, Loomis said. Drawing crowds to the Shore in February was just too hard.
Now you may easily point out that the history of the Mummer’s Parade is, well, checkered. Until the Civil Rights revolution in the 50s and 60s performances in Blackface were common and accepted. Women could not participate until the 70s (even today most female roles are given to men in drag). Associations are segregated by color and ethnicity and the whole festival is based on the concept of a riot of rowdy costumed gunfiring wassailers carousing drunkenly through the streets demanding drinks from hungover homeowners.
Sounds like good clean fun to me, but it was a simpler time.
The Rose Parade has its origins in exclusivity and elitism. In 1890, when Pasadena was a magnet for wealthy East Coast Americans looking for temperate climates to vacation in during the winters, the Valley Hunt Club organized the first parade to show off the city. The hunting and fishing club, which continues to be featured in the parade for historical reasons, has had a problematic history of not admitting people of color.
Today the Rose Parade continues to remain ensconced within Pasadena’s well-to-do neighborhoods in the South of the city. Its annual route avoids by a wide berth poor and working-class communities of color, whose homes are concentrated in Northwest Pasadena.
One of the most nausea-inducing aspects of the annual Rose Parade is its homage to sexism (and royalty) as embodied in the tradition of the Rose Queen. Each year, thousands of young women apply to be the Rose Queen, putting themselves through the demeaning rigors standard to beauty pageants like the widely ridiculed Miss America contests. Requirements for the Rose Queen and the members of her absurdly named “Royal Court” are strict: She must be between the ages of 17 and 21, unmarried, childless, and enrolled in school. The usual promises of scholarship money are used to justify the sexist pageantry that culminates in a tawdry display of the chosen Rose Queen and Princesses dressed in ball gowns and tiaras, riding atop a float as the Parade’s ultimate pieces of live decoration.
…
Not only is the Parade’s Rose Queen a sexist abomination, it also has, unsurprisingly, a racist past. It was more than ninety years after the first parade that a non-white Rose Queen was first selected: Asian American Leslie Kawai. A few years later, in 1984, the first African-American Rose Queen was chosen. Since then, there have been only three others, including this year’s 17-year-old Madison Triplett. Only a handful of Latinas have ever been crowned Rose Queen, most in just the past decade.
For a good part of the Rose Parade’s existence, African-Americans were not even allowed to be part of it. In 1957, Joan Williams, a black city employee, was chosen to ride one of the floats, but she was disallowed at the last minute purely because of her race. Even though the Rose Parade has become a more racially diversified institution today, Williams, who will finally ride in the 2015 parade as a consolation prize 60 years later, has never received an official apology from the city of Pasadena.
If these are not reasons enough to disavow the parade, the annual New Year’s Day spectacle has also become a display of militarism. For years now, B-2 Stealth bombers pass over the city. We Americans may have the luxury of watching in awe and from positions of safety as the bomber jets flying over us, but the only context in which people outside the U.S. see them is when they are being bombed by our military, as the people of Afghanistan were during the Operation Enduring Freedom. Sadly, many parade attendees thrill in the display of U.S. military might. As this newspaper reader defended the flyover, he claimed to, “thank the lord for the protection and vigilance the U.S. military provides for our nation and its freedom.”
In 2014, a new display of F-16 fighter jets was added to the Parade. The U.S. Air Force’s participation in the Rose Parade was lauded by one online magazine as a tribute to, “the everyday, hard-working Airmen voluntarily serving America and defending freedom.” On the ground level of the parade, the U.S. Marines also regularly make an appearance, as part of the Equestrian contingent.
Two years ago, the Pentagon formally participated in the Rose Parade, even entering its float for the first time, smugly (and threateningly?) entitled, “Freedom is not Free.” The Defense Department spent $247,000 of taxpayer money to advertise itself in the name of Korean War veterans.
And finally, the Rose Parade has evolved into an institution by and for corporations. Some of the major corporations on the Parade’s list of sponsors include luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co, weapons manufacturer Parsons, automaker Honda, food giant Dole, Princess Cruises, one of the world’s largest cruise companies, and even Nike, Disneyland, Hallmark, Trader Joes, and Amazon’s Zappos.com.
For the past three years, the post-parade showcase of the floats has been sponsored by Miracle-Gro, a brand of the notorious Monsanto corporation. Disgustingly, this year’s theme is “urban revitalization,” which is meant to promote community gardens and green spaces. But of course Monsanto has been fighting small farmers and organic growers for decades, favoring industrial agriculture infused with pesticides and GMOs-values antithetical to community gardens.
While many of the parade’s floats are by non-profit entities (and sometimes cities that are battling bankruptcy), the majority of the parade is bought and paid for by corporate money. The corporate floats are simply branding for private companies whose greatest motive is profit. What better way to harvest eyeballs for corporate brands than to decorate giant versions of their logos with flowers, many of which are carefully applied by volunteer hands?
Promisingly, 2014’s biggest political issue-police violence against communities of color-is the inspiration for an organized disruption of the 2015 Rose Parade. Pasadena-based activist Jasmine Richards with #BlackLivesMatter said, “I used to go to the Rose Parade as a little kid, but then it became so whitewashed that it was clear we weren’t even wanted there. So now we’re taking the streets back. This is the way the year is going to start. This is the way the year is going to end.” With that, it appears as though I finally have a good reason to attend the Rose Parade.
Gee ek, it’s just a damn parade.
After 10 years you should know me better. The class war is raging all around you, naked in tooth and claw. Our elite overlords are just as corrupt, stupid, and evil as the Ancien Régime and deserve the same contempt. Each year I make only one resolution-
To be even more obnoxious.
Happy New Year!
(The 126th Tournament of Roses Parade is on NBC and ABC from 11 am to 1 pm)
In feudal times the lord of the manor would give boxes of practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land.
Many years ago on the day after Christmas servants would carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day’s work. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts.
In churches, it was traditional to open the church’s donation box on Christmas Day and distribute it to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day.
Take your pick.
In the world of retail Boxing Day is the day everyone brings back all the crap they got for gifts that they didn’t want or is the wrong size or the wrong color or that they shoplifted and now want full retail for instead of the 10% that the local fence will give them.
Now fortunately for me I never had to work the counter during this period of long lines and testy, hung over sales people and managers dealing with irate customers who think that making their sob story more pitiful than the last one will get them any treatment more special than what everyone gets.
Is it all there?
Is it undamaged?
Did you buy it here?
Bingo, have some store credit. Go nuts. Have a nice day.
What makes it especially crappy for the clerks is that you don’t normally get a lot of practice with the return procedures because your manager will handle it since it’s easier than training you. Now you have 20 in a row and the first 7 or 8 are slow until you get the hang of things.
As a customer I have to warn you, this is not a swap meet. If they didn’t have a blue size 6 on Christmas Eve, they don’t have it now either EVEN IF THE CUSTOMER RIGHT AHEAD OF YOU IN LINE JUST RETURNED A SIZE 6 IN BLUE!
It has to go back to the warehouse for processing and re-packaging. Really.
So if you braved the surly stares today you have my admiration for your tenacity. If you waited for the rush to pass my respect for your brilliance.
But don’t wait too long. It all has to be out of the store before February inventory so it doesn’t have to be counted.
