Floyd, Kaepernick, Fromm, & Brees

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Professor Taboo

What do these four men have in common and what is uncommon between them?

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All four of them live(d) in the United States of America as legal citizens. That is one common denominator, but that is essentially where any similarities end other than genetics. What are the contrasts of these four men?

Three of the men play or have played in the NFL, one is no longer allowed to play in the NFL, and another was a fan of the NFL. Two are black men and two are white men, all from very different backgrounds inside the U.S. Three of the men are still living. Two of the men enjoy an extremely lavish lifestyle provided to them by their zip code births and family, the NFL, their respective team-owners, and brand-endorsements. One no longer has a career in the NFL and those rewards for simply going down to one knee during the imposed National Anthem before games to peacefully protest “police violence” on African-Americans and non-whites—a right provided by and protected by our U.S. Constitution and First Amendment for ALL U.S. citizens. One man was restrained by police officers and then suffocated to death by one officer, confirmed by two separate autopsies. The victim was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby market. Finally, two of these four men enjoy very different American lifestyles, legal protections and privileges under our laws and Constitution DESPITE the fact that all four men are/were legal U.S. citizens.

There must be another fact remembered here. According to our federal and state laws, all of us deserve equally certain and specific protections by these laws, even when “suspected” of a crime, before and during legal “Due Process” by our justice system. A popular catch-phrase for this is “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” Every single American citizen is provided these inalienable rights regardless of race, religion, color, creed, and sexual-orientation by the laws of the land, that is in theory. Economic or financial status SHOULD also be included and defined in these rights, but that’s another debate for another time and likely for a balanced, equitable U.S. Supreme Court.

Here is why I have gathered these four American men into a group. They currently represent citizens of the United States and the laws that are supposed to protect them. Perhaps I should have included Officer Derek Chauvin as well, but I chose not to in order to keep this post and topic somewhat brief and time-considerate. I will assume that most of my readers understand the purpose of American law-enforcement leading to arrests and probable cause (not sentencing!) for any police detainments and arrests, and followed by “due process” within our civil and criminal justice code and our U.S. Constitution.

George Floyd was suspected of passing counterfeit money. Did he deserve to die for this BEFORE getting legal representation in a court of law (due process)?
Colin Kaepernick was a star quarterback in the NFL who chose to peacefully protest police violence, a right provided to him by our U.S. Constitution. Yet, after his 2016 season and still incredibly talented, but released by the 49’ers, and then no other NFL team (31 other teams!) wanted to sign him, not even as a backup quarterback.
Jake Fromm is extremely outspoken about his personal religious beliefs giving him privileged success in football: “I want to represent Christ the best I can,” Fromm said. He later reemphasized his personal mission of proselytizing saying “I hope I can reach and influence as many people as possible. Let’s try to go and influence others, lead people to Jesus, and hopefully do the best we can with influencing them and hopefully shed a little light in their lives.” In 2019 during a Twitter conversation with a friend about gun-ownership Fromm tweeted “But no guns are good. They need to let me get suppressors,” then he added, “Just make them very expensive so only elite white people can get them haha.” Fromm has never experienced any trials or tribulations his entire life.
Drew Brees made comments during a June 3rd, 2020 Yahoo Finance interview about American symbols in the wake of protests over George Floyd’s murder and Kaepernick’s PEACEFUL protest against police violence. He said “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country. […] I think what you do by standing there [upright on your feet] and showing respect for the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity.” Brees is also recorded as stating his top four priorities in life in order of most importance. They are 4) philanthropy via Christian organizations, 3) football, 2) family, and 1) faith in Jesus Christ as he interprets it. The only trials and tribulations Brees has ever faced in his entire life are football injuries or team adversities.

What are your thoughts about my grouping and their bullet-points? I am curious to know, from any perspective. If possible, include your thoughts about social-media or freedom of expression today on social-media and how it is properly or improperly used by celebrities.

Late addition:
An interview by ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter June 4th, 2020 is quite telling from a celebrity white-man’s perspective. Watch the entire 6-minute interview. It is very revealing what Dale Earnhardt, Jr., a popular American NASCAR driver—a sport dominated by the Old South or Confederate States, white culture, and most popular in the South—says about the murder of George Floyd, racism and police violence today in the U.S.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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It’s Over, We’re Free!

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Professor Taboo

I’d rather be posting about the joint SpaceX-NASA launch today at 4:33pm EST. It will be the United States first launch of two astronauts into space since 2011 atop the new Falcon 9 rocket. It will be big news for many reasons. I do hope everything goes well, goes perfectly and hopefully the weather is going to cooperate. Unfortunately, we are still in the middle of a much bigger, unprecedented pandemic story dealing with just as much risk of life and death as space exploration ever has, actually more so for the mere fact that COVID-19 has taken hundreds of thousands of American lives and 350,000+ around the world. Controlling then stopping this pandemic is more important than the distraction and excitement of a SpaceX launch.

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This past Memorial Day weekend saw record crowds outside at beaches, parks, resorts, and Memorial-Veteran celebration events not seen since mid-March or before. As all 50 states began lifting and easing coronavirus restrictions this past week under pressure from pro-business, pro-economy, pro-danger-n-risk GOP groups, many Americans blatantly disregarded social-distancing and wearing protective masks. From Al Jazeera news:

In the Tampa area, along Florida’s Gulf Coast, the crowds were so big that authorities took the extraordinary step of closing parking lots. The county’s sheriff, Bob Gualtieri, said about 300 deputies were patrolling the beaches to ensure people did not get too close.
In the state of Missouri, people packed bars and restaurants at the Lake of the Ozarks, a vacation hot spot popular with Chicagoans, over the weekend.
One video showed a crammed pool where vacationers lounged close together without masks, St Louis station KMOV-TV reported.
In West Virginia, ATV riders jammed the vast, 700-mile Hatfield-McCoy network of all-terrain vehicle trails on the first weekend it was allowed to reopen since the outbreak took hold. Campgrounds and cabins were opened, as well.

Patrick T. Fallon-Reuters — *Florida beach front Memorial weekend – Patrick Fallon/Reuters*

Many authorities and law-enforcement have been confronted with disdain and hostility by Americans when trying to enforce or promote safety measures during the entire pandemic restrictions. This is perhaps the saddest testimony of a Dis-United States of America during this crisis. Park authorities, municipalities, and law-enforcement all agree that they cannot possibly monitor and make all Americans stay at least 6-feet apart. They do not have the staff to accomplish such a ridiculous order. However, they do remind all Americans that it is 90% self-governance and kind regard for neighbors, friends, and strangers alike. It is safety and health for everyone first as well as yourself. Common sense, right?

Port Aransas, Texas [Eric Gay-The Associated Press] — *Gulf beach at Port Aransas, TX, Memorial weekend – Eric Gay/Associated Press*

In a May 2020 study by the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, the W.H.O. Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analytics, the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, Imperial College London, and the Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, there are 24 states in the U.S. that still have not contained their COVID-19 outbreaks. Here are the 10 worst, most at risk states for a June 2020 resurgence of the deadly virus, from worst to less worse:

Texas
Arizona
Illinois
Colorado
Ohio
Minnesota
Indiana
Iowa
Alabama
Wisconsin

I am not the least bit surprised that Texas leads the pack in being #1 in NOT controlling our coronavirus outbreaks and most likely to suffer the worst with another June outbreak. For well over two weeks here in Dallas there are noticeably less and less people applying social-distancing or wearing masks. That most likely means they are not washing their hands regularly either. Texans see our nation’s leader never wearing a mask and taking doses of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has no clinical tests proving it works against COVID-19. This is a remarkably sad testimony for how Americans and Texans do not care for each other—unless of course it is their own family or a dear financially beneficial friend or Good Ole Boy—and care less about medical-scientific facts on pandemics and what the true experts warn and recommend. It’s a new era of illiteracy and unenlightenment.

Despite the increase of rebels and protesters throughout late April and all of May here in Texas and an uptick in the number of deaths, in Dallas County the number of ICU patients and emergency room visits for COVID-19 has flattened out. This is encouraging, yes. But the real indicator of whether this reopening happened too soon and many blowing off safety measures in public will be the final numbers around June 10th through the 14th when the incubation period expires for Memorial weekend infections and hospitalizations trend upward again. Whatever happens, the fact remains that in February and early March all of this should have been seriously addressed nationwide by our federal leadership. It wasn’t. American death-toll: 100,000+ and counting.

Three cheers for COVID-19. The winner! It is going to be around and a menace for a long, LONG time with this kind of unity and lack of virtues for others. I hope a tested, FDA-approved, effective vaccine is found and distributed very soon.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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It’s Definitely Broke!

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Professor Taboo

It has been a hard, long road of COVID-19 social-distancing, or as I sometimes call it: healthy anti-socializing. Leave public health and safety up to the masses, the general public and things WILL breakdown. It will crumble. Many things breakdown when a free democratic society is forced to behave, conform, and be smart for the greater good.

#1 — Complicated phone conversations — Try having a conversation with your significant other on your phone about 4-5 specific items on your shopping list, in a noisy supermarket, through your N95 mask. Broke.

#2 — Have said broken phone convo while in the middle of the 5-ft wide Female Bodycare aisle trapped by a couple on one end waiting on you to move… and a store clerk unpacking boxes at the other end! Mexican standoff. Headed to broke.

#3 — When I finally got out the door of the very busy supermarket I was super primed for solo alone time! Not good! That’s broke. We are meant to be with others. We are a gregarious primate creature! Needed prescription?

#4 — Go on a thrilling, circular, looping (loopy?) ride like NASCAR does jamming to your best aggressive, break-something, get-it-all-out, squirm-n-bounce dancing Playlist with all eight speakers bangin’ serious decibel levels so that no one will notice you! Que some of my kick-ass, COVID-apropos, sing-along tunes. Click Play then sing and jam with me…

Break Stuff (Album Version (Explicit))

So Cold

Down With The Sickness[EXPLICIT]

Man In The Box[EXPLICIT]

Killing Strangers [Explicit]

Bawitdaba [Explicit]

After about 1-hour of driving around outer Dallas, singing my vocal-chords out, unable to hear with my broken eardrums the broken world outside, I did feel much better, almost euphoric. It was invigorating! Why? Because this/me could be a lot worse. I mean, I still have rhythm, I can snap my fingers, beat the steering-wheel, I can feel my toes, my fingers, and some of the 2-3 silver hairs I have left on my head and neck, and my ticker and ticker-manager organs still function fairly normal.

At least I don’t have a broken cup and crazy disobedient balls that won’t stay put in this pandemic! STOP IT! Get your minds out of the gutter already! How many balls do you have in your cup? Lost any? How many marbles do you have left in your brain?

See, things aren’t so bad. To the best of my knowledge at least I haven’t started losing all my balls/marbles… poor kid.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always — Lose Some Balls

My Upcoming Appointment

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Professor Taboo

I have put this doctor’s appointment off twice now. The COVID-19 effect has delayed it some. My Mom has recently and strongly urged me not to postpone it again. She has told me a few different times “Dwain, you need to go so that preparations can be made for a more considered lifestyle as you approach your sixties.” You see, Mom is right. Mothers usually are aren’t they? She should know. Mom has medically diagnosed Dementia. One of her sisters had Dementia. She is now deceased. The other has Stage 2 or Middle Alzheimer’s. Mom reminds me frequently, because she forgets 😄, that Alzheimer’s can be hereditary. However, if it were not for my long, active career in football/soccer as a goalkeeper, I likely would not be taking Mom too serious.

But I really do need to go because of the whole soccer thing for 27-years. Throughout that career I suffered from at least four (probably more) concussions from game collisions, one or two traumatic, and some at practices/training. One of the game collisions broke my jaw in three places and knocked me completely unconscious; unconscious long enough for EMT’s to arrive with smelling-sauce to awaken me.

Though I am still a little worried. It is just that what the doctor may inform me after these second battery of tests that I am indeed in the early stages of CTE, or what is medically and neurologically termed as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

The Mayo Clinic explains CTE this way:

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is the term used to describe brain degeneration likely caused by repeated head traumas. CTE is a diagnosis made only at autopsy by studying sections of the brain.

[…]

CTE has been found in the brains of people who played football and other contact sports, including boxing. It may also occur in military personnel who were exposed to explosive blasts. Some signs and symptoms of CTE are thought to include difficulties with thinking (cognition), physical problems, emotions and other behaviors. It’s thought that these develop years to decades after head trauma occurs.

Have you seen the 2015 film Concussion starring Will Smith? If not, here is its official trailer:

Even though soccer/football concussions occur nowhere near as often as they do in the NFL, it is nonetheless a serious matter. This film hit me hard and hit deep, so deep at the end it made me sit in the living room recliner seemingly paralyzed and with abnormal breathing. Why? Why such a reaction? Two reasons:

Mom and two of her four sisters had/has Dementia/Alzheimer’s. One of them died too soon to conclude with certainty that she had Alzheimer’s—we’ll never know. Plus, two of that aunt’s four children are very religious (Pentecostal, Church of Christ?), another passed away early before my aunt died, and her youngest boy, my cousin I grew up with and was closer to was not confrontational nor religious at all. He was a hilarious peacemaker. I say all of this because there was no way in Hades that the two oldest, very religious cousins of mine were going to allow a medical examination of their mother’s brain. Therefore, it has only been confirmed that two, my Mom and her sister have dementia with the latter definitely suffering from Alzheimer’s.
As I mentioned earlier, I have suffered at least 4 or more concussions, likely more, and one of them knocked me unconscious for quite some time. During my playing days there was no Petr Cech padded helmets in existence (see image below). In addition to these multiple soccer/football concussions, I suffered another off-the-field of play. One early morning while—in high school freshman or sophomore year—delivering my papers for my Dallas Morning News paper route. Mom was driving me through the neighborhoods in our Plymouth four-door sedan while I was outside on top of the trunk with two-bags of those Sunday morning papers. On one particular street turn Mom accelerated a bit too fast. I imagine the sedan had also been washed and waxed one or two days earlier? I’m unsure. I think Mom was approaching 30 mph after turning onto this street and unfortunately for me she was not looking at me through the rear-view mirror. I slowly slid down the trunk feet first, desperately trying to find something on the car to grab, but there was nothing. I hit the street pavement that had small grey-white gravel embedded and the back of my head SLAMMED into the concrete. Our family doctor later that day said I had a bad concussion judging from the swelling on the back of my noggin and he made it very clear that my parents were not to allow me any sleep for the next 24-hours.

The Mayo Clinic lists these symptoms of CTE:

“There are no specific symptoms that have been clearly linked to CTE. Some of the possible signs and symptoms of CTE can occur in many other conditions, but in the few people with proven CTE, symptoms have included:

Difficulty thinking (cognitive impairment)
Impulsive behavior
Depression or apathy
Short-term memory loss
Difficulty planning and carrying out tasks (executive function)
Emotional instability
Substance misuse
Suicidal thoughts or behavior”

Petr Cech of Chelsea FC, Arsenal, and the Czech Republic national team wearing his padded helmet following his major head concussion, trauma, and depressed skull fracture from a collision with Stephen Hunt of Reading FC.

I have six of these first eight symptoms, to varying degrees, for at least the last 15-years or so, one or two of them surfacing within the last 5-6 years. This is why my neurologist wants to see me again, and my Mom and I both agreed two years ago that I do need to go see a neurologist to get ahead of this. Either early in 2019 or late in 2018 I did go. The doctor concluded after testing that I was inconclusive at that date and time, BUT the fact that I had almost all of the currently known symptoms, made him want to see me again in a year.

Damn it! It has now been a year and if anything, I know with a lot of certainty that two of these above eight symptoms have manifested further. There are other external variables at play with these two—one being this unprecedented pandemic, social-distancing, and Stay-at-Home orders—so we must take those variables into consideration. Does that make this upcoming appointment Wednesday, May 20, 2020, any less anxious? Not really, not for me.

I hope this coming Wednesday night, Thursday, and subsequent days after will not be ladened with as Mom put it… “a more considered lifestyle as I approach my sixties.” From what I’ve learned about dementia, Alzheimer’s, and CTE I hope I might be a lucky goalkeeper who by some incredible odds does not develop any of these three neurological disorders for playing a sport and position I truly loved. Fingers crossed.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

That All Men Are Created Equal

Posted on May 16, 2020 by Professor Taboo

I want to change tacks (a sailing term by the way) diverging from my recent COVID-19 posts, and share some other news I found peculiar and enlightening yesterday, Friday, May 15. My readers who are sports fans, particularly football/futebol fans (Ark, John Z), should find this interesting, I hope.

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Some of you know that I am an avid football/soccer fan. I played The World’s Most Beautiful Game all my life, had a very successful collegiate career, and a rather short, average pro career then semi-pro career. All that to say, that along with the Canarinha, or Little Canaries of Brazil, I enjoy keeping up with our U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Soccer Teams, their schedule, who is coming up through the ranks as Wonder Kids and how our Youth Development is progressing compared to the Juggernauts of world football’s Pantheon. So off we go!

From our Declaration of Independence, 1776:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“That all men are created equal.” What does that mean exactly? How does it translate to 21st century America? Does it mean equality for all Americans? Does it mean a nation without prejudice, without discrimination and racism, and tolerance for same-sex marriage? If your honest about all of American history, in all aspects of American life, then the answer is no. Some Americans are not equal and do not have equal opportunity as others.

And even 244-years later Americans are still confused and fighting each other as to how those famous opening words translate. So in our Declaration of Independence, later spelled out in much more detail in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and all her Articles and Amendments it was further defined and explicitly and implicitly explained, protected, and enforced by our Three Branches of Government. And yet many of us are still confused, sometimes fighting each other, and still practicing and supporting modern forms of discrimination, prejudice, and inequality in too many areas of American life. Case and point, from the U.S. Soccer Federation website May 15, 2020…

JOINT STATEMENT FROM THE U.S. SOCCER FEDERATION AND THE U.S. SOCCER FOUNDATION

Today the U.S. Soccer Federation and the U.S. Soccer Foundation released the following joint statement:

We have come to an agreement that we believe is in the best interest for the sport in the United States. As we move forward, the U.S. Soccer Federation and the U.S. Soccer Foundation will work together to provide access and opportunities for all soccer players across the country, particularly those in low-income communities and others in need.

Celebration of the U.S. Women’s National Team World Cup win.

That is all they said. Just 74-words ~~long~~ short.

Though the statement isn’t specifically spelled out in detail, barely at all, I believe what the USSF and the USSother-F are indirectly stating has to do with our now decades old Youth Academies and Development Programs across the nation. I find that highly intriguing and worth a bit of discussion should anyone be interested! Yes?

One reason why I find this highly intriguing for the men’s team is that since the late 1990’s and the FIFA 2002 World Cup in S. Korea & Japan—when our USMNT did phenomenally well with many highly accomplished players playing their club ball in Europe at good-to-great, elite, world class clubs with and against the world’s other elite, world-class players and coaches—the USMNT performances since 2002 have been a roller-coaster and shockingly unpredictable qualifying for the World Cups every four years and worse still, out of one of the easiest Confederations to WC-Qualify from: CONCACAF.

Why is it easy, or should be so easy, for the men’s U.S. National Team to qualify for the World Cup every four years? Mexico does it pretty much every single time. Costa Rica and maybe Panama or Honduras qualify every so often. Three nations qualify out of a total of maybe FOUR traditionally power-house nations; three is perhaps more accurate. Yet, with all the financial clout, resources, and sporting athletes the United States possesses now and has possessed since 1994—when the World Cup was here last and President Reagan promised FIFA and CONCACAF we would have a premier football league by 1996 or 1998. From a 1988 New York Times article:

U.S. Awarded ’94 World Cup Tourney in Soccer

Fricker said the U.S.S.F. will begin developing plans for a national soccer league, one that will encompass in some way teams from existing semiprofessional indoor and outdoor leagues. The league, he said, would operate at three levels, based on ability, to create ”the ideal environment for America to develop highly skilled players.” Presumably, as the 1994 tournament approaches, the best players will win positions on the American team.
— by Michael Janofsky, NY Times, accessed 5/15/2020

Unfortunately, none of this has really happened. Not for the boys and men. Why not? One of the USMNT’s most tragic performances since Reagan’s promise to FIFA and Americans in 1988 was not qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. We were beaten by Trinidad-Tobago and thus eliminated, and after a very good showing four years earlier in Brazil (see below ESPN video).

Yes, I do believe! I believed in our USMNT not only during the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan, but for our national men’s teams from 1994-1998 because we had several talented boys playing for clubs in Europe and South America! Some of them came through the mediocre NCAA-D1 programs, yes. But many of them did not waist those four irreplaceable years, went to play with outstanding foreigners in other divisions and leagues, then went abroad to improve. That is, improve European or South American style. Yes indeed, we had the talent then, we still have it now! What has been going wrong?

Another case and point. Ever since the incredible tournament play in the Group Stage then Round of 16, continuing into the Quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup, our absolute pinnacle to-date for soccer history and our boys, and we are still struggling! Something has not been jiving in U.S. men’s national team football, in our professional leagues like the defunct NASL, the old MLPS, the USFL, and now MLS as well as in the Youth Development programs the last 26-years or more? Twenty-six years is a time-span of at least one or two American generations! Do we now have a blurred answer, a sort of iffy cloudy answer now?

What are the USSF and the USSother-F saying, but not saying?

I would love to see your thoughts about this Joint Statement, its implied cause(s), and the implications and possible outcomes.

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