NewsBusters reported Saturday the tragic murder-suicide involving a Kansas City Chiefs' football player and his girlfriend.
During halftime of NBC's Sunday Night Football, Bob Costas chose to lecture America about how guns were to blame for the incident (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BOB COSTAS: Well, you knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, [unintelligible] sports clichés was heard yet again: something like this really puts it all in perspective. Well, if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf-life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games.
Please, those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective. You want some actual perspective on this?
Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock with whom I do not always agree, but who today said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.
“Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead."
“Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead."
“Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions, and their possible connection to football, will be analyzed. Who knows?"
“But here,” wrote Jason Whitlock, “is what I believe: If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”
Yes, because men never killed each other or themselves before the creation of the gun.Of course, Costas is entitled to his opinion, but does he have to give it during halftime of a nationally televised game?
For those interested, here's Whitlock's entire article without paraphrases.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/12/02/nbcs-bob-costas-blames-nfl-murder-suicide-guns#ixzz2Dxr3K0EO
Crime
NBC’s Bob Costas Interrupts Sunday Night Football With Gun Control Lecture
NBC Sportscaster Bob Costas took a detour from his usual
discussion of athletics during Sunday Night Football to lecture his
audience on gun control.
Discussing the shocking murder-suicide that rocked the NFL over the weekend, when Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend and then committed suicide in front of his coach and general manager, Costas argued that domestic disputes are more likely to end in such a fashion if the government does not limit people’s access to firearms.
Costas said:
Twitchy captured the flabbergasted and impatient tweets of viewers:
As Twitchy reported yesterday, CNN’s ratings-challenged Piers Morgan took to Twitter to fawn over Bob Costas’ sermon on the evils of guns.
“The 2nd amendment was devised with muskets in mind, not high-powered
handguns & assault rifles,” the gun control fetishist tweeted.
In a beautiful smackdown heard ’round the Twitterverse, author and commentator Carol Roth went after Morgan for his holier-than-thou preaching. When he snootily asked what part of the Constitution addresses self-defense, Roth zinged, “right next to the word ‘muskets.’“
Piers’ response came 18 hours later. No, really: 18 hours!
Sportscaster Bob Costas hijacked Sunday Night Football tonight to
give football fans a patronizing sermon about the need for gun control
in the aftermath of the Jovan Belcher shootings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B1ijkccD9_8
''It had been a long road,'' John Butler said. ''It wasn't completely out of the blue.''
Unlike Butler's professional career.
The Pittsburgh native played wide receiver at St. Bonaventure and was planning on returning to school to get his master's degree when he received a phone call from Steelers business manager Fran Fogarty in the summer of 1951. To be honest, Butler assumed Fogarty had the wrong number.
''I didn't know anything about professional football,'' Butler said.
It didn't matter. Over the next nine years, Butler became one of the NFL's top defensive backs, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound wrecking ball known for his physical play and uncanny knack for getting to the ball. Butler intercepted 52 passes during his career, including a league-high 10 in 1957. He made the Pro Bowl four times and was chosen first-team All-NFL three times before a knee injury in 1959 ended his career.
Butler remained close to the game after his retirement, becoming a prominent scout who worked closely with the Steelers for over 40 years.
During one stretch from 1969-74, Butler's insight helped Pittsburgh draft nine players that would all precede him in the Hall of Fame, including Terry Bradshaw and Joe Greene. The group became the core of a franchise for the better part of a decade, helping Pittsburgh win four Super Bowls in the span of six years.
''He was an excellent person both on and off the field, and he played an integral role in the BLESTO scouting program and our entire draft process before his retirement,'' Steelers chairman Dan Rooney said. ''His family was very close to the entire Rooney family, and he will be missed.''
Butler served as the backbone of a string of mediocre to middling teams in the 1950s and his bruising style became a precursor to the ''Steel Curtain'' defense that has been the team's hallmark for most of the last 40 years.
He was in his prime in 1959 when a collision with Philadelphia Eagles tight end Pete Retzlaff put an end to his playing days. The details of the play remained vivid more than 50 years later.
''He caught the ball and I was coming over to hit him, to tackle him and before I got to him, he tripped or caught his foot or something,'' Butler said in July, 2012. ''As he was going down, his shoulder hit my (left) knee.''
Butler knew the second he looked down at the smashed joint - which appeared to be at a 90-degree angle with the rest of his leg - he needed to think about what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
''It was just sticking out,'' Butler said. ''I knew I was in a lot of trouble.''
There was no such thing as arthroscopic knee surgery back then and given the severity of the injury, Butler's not sure he could have recovered if the injury happened today. He endured 10 surgeries and eventually had both of his knees replaced, procedures that limited his mobility later in life.
Still, he managed to make it to Canton, Ohio last summer to be inducted into the Hall of Fame after being elected by the senior committee. It was an honor Butler had given up on long ago even as a campaign to get him into the Hall built steam. He was second in NFL history in career interceptions when he retired and still ranks 26th all-time, tied with Champ Bailey among others.
More than a dozen members of his family made the two-hour trip to Canton for the ceremony when the weight of Butler's accomplishments finally seemed to set in.
''If you'd asked him five years, 10 years ago, he'd have said it was no big deal,'' John Butler said Saturday. ''But then when it happened, he was like, 'this is a big deal.' When they told him 25,000 players or so had been in the league and you're No. 268, he was like, 'Wow, that's pretty good.' He kind of really figured it out.''
Butler didn't have a secret for his transformation from unknown to Hall of Famer. He knew he loved football. And he knew he could get away with the kind of contact today's defensive backs only dream about.
''You could bump'em and push'em and do things,'' Butler said. ''You could grab onto his jersey so he doesn't get far from you. You could hold on a little bit. Now they're all over you. It's hard to do anything today.''
There was no method exactly to Butler's success. He was smart, sure. And he could tell by a receiver's footwork where he was heading. Yet Butler says most of the credit should go to a work ethic and a little bit of naivety. He didn't know what he was doing when the Steelers signed him to a $4,000 contract in 1951.
''I must've been given some talents,'' he said. ''Whatever talents I had, I worked like hell to improve what I had.''
Discussing the shocking murder-suicide that rocked the NFL over the weekend, when Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend and then committed suicide in front of his coach and general manager, Costas argued that domestic disputes are more likely to end in such a fashion if the government does not limit people’s access to firearms.
Costas said:
Writer Jason Whitlock, with whom I do not always agree but today said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.Here’s the video, via MRC-TV:
Our current gun culture, Whitlock wrote, ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead.’
Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.
In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows? But here, wrote Jason Whitlock, is what I believe: If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.
Twitchy captured the flabbergasted and impatient tweets of viewers:
Pathetic: Piers Morgan takes 18 hours to craft comeback to ‘gun-toting heroine’
@piersmorgan right next to the word "muskets"
Does it authorise individual ownership of tanks, UZIs and nukes? > RT @caroljsroth @piersmorgan right next to the word "muskets"
In a beautiful smackdown heard ’round the Twitterverse, author and commentator Carol Roth went after Morgan for his holier-than-thou preaching. When he snootily asked what part of the Constitution addresses self-defense, Roth zinged, “right next to the word ‘muskets.’“
Piers’ response came 18 hours later. No, really: 18 hours!
Bob Costas hijacks Sunday Night Football to give anti-gun lecture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B1ijkccD9_8
You knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again, ‘Something like this really puts it all in perspective.’ Well if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games. Please.Initially, some Twitter users were in a state of shock:
Those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports, would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective. You want some actual perspective on this? Well a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock, with whom I do not always agree, but, who today, said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.
“Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead. Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows? But here, wrote Jason Whitlock, is what I believe: “If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”
Steelers Hall of Famer Jack Butler Pass Away at the age of 85
By | The Associated Press – 5 hours agoRelated Content
View PhotoFILE- Int is Aug. 4, 2012, file photo, former NFL football player Jack Butler poses with a bust of himself during an induction ceremony at the Pro Football …
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Jack Butler, who helped
revolutionize the way cornerbacks played in the NFL during his Hall of
Fame career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Saturday after a lengthy battle with a staph infection. He was 85.
Butler's son John said his father's heart stopped suddenly Saturday
morning. The elder Butler had spent the last several months in the
hospital dealing with a staph infection that plagued him since his
career ended in 1959.''It had been a long road,'' John Butler said. ''It wasn't completely out of the blue.''
Unlike Butler's professional career.
The Pittsburgh native played wide receiver at St. Bonaventure and was planning on returning to school to get his master's degree when he received a phone call from Steelers business manager Fran Fogarty in the summer of 1951. To be honest, Butler assumed Fogarty had the wrong number.
''I didn't know anything about professional football,'' Butler said.
It didn't matter. Over the next nine years, Butler became one of the NFL's top defensive backs, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound wrecking ball known for his physical play and uncanny knack for getting to the ball. Butler intercepted 52 passes during his career, including a league-high 10 in 1957. He made the Pro Bowl four times and was chosen first-team All-NFL three times before a knee injury in 1959 ended his career.
Butler remained close to the game after his retirement, becoming a prominent scout who worked closely with the Steelers for over 40 years.
During one stretch from 1969-74, Butler's insight helped Pittsburgh draft nine players that would all precede him in the Hall of Fame, including Terry Bradshaw and Joe Greene. The group became the core of a franchise for the better part of a decade, helping Pittsburgh win four Super Bowls in the span of six years.
''He was an excellent person both on and off the field, and he played an integral role in the BLESTO scouting program and our entire draft process before his retirement,'' Steelers chairman Dan Rooney said. ''His family was very close to the entire Rooney family, and he will be missed.''
Butler served as the backbone of a string of mediocre to middling teams in the 1950s and his bruising style became a precursor to the ''Steel Curtain'' defense that has been the team's hallmark for most of the last 40 years.
He was in his prime in 1959 when a collision with Philadelphia Eagles tight end Pete Retzlaff put an end to his playing days. The details of the play remained vivid more than 50 years later.
''He caught the ball and I was coming over to hit him, to tackle him and before I got to him, he tripped or caught his foot or something,'' Butler said in July, 2012. ''As he was going down, his shoulder hit my (left) knee.''
Butler knew the second he looked down at the smashed joint - which appeared to be at a 90-degree angle with the rest of his leg - he needed to think about what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
''It was just sticking out,'' Butler said. ''I knew I was in a lot of trouble.''
There was no such thing as arthroscopic knee surgery back then and given the severity of the injury, Butler's not sure he could have recovered if the injury happened today. He endured 10 surgeries and eventually had both of his knees replaced, procedures that limited his mobility later in life.
Still, he managed to make it to Canton, Ohio last summer to be inducted into the Hall of Fame after being elected by the senior committee. It was an honor Butler had given up on long ago even as a campaign to get him into the Hall built steam. He was second in NFL history in career interceptions when he retired and still ranks 26th all-time, tied with Champ Bailey among others.
More than a dozen members of his family made the two-hour trip to Canton for the ceremony when the weight of Butler's accomplishments finally seemed to set in.
''If you'd asked him five years, 10 years ago, he'd have said it was no big deal,'' John Butler said Saturday. ''But then when it happened, he was like, 'this is a big deal.' When they told him 25,000 players or so had been in the league and you're No. 268, he was like, 'Wow, that's pretty good.' He kind of really figured it out.''
Butler didn't have a secret for his transformation from unknown to Hall of Famer. He knew he loved football. And he knew he could get away with the kind of contact today's defensive backs only dream about.
''You could bump'em and push'em and do things,'' Butler said. ''You could grab onto his jersey so he doesn't get far from you. You could hold on a little bit. Now they're all over you. It's hard to do anything today.''
There was no method exactly to Butler's success. He was smart, sure. And he could tell by a receiver's footwork where he was heading. Yet Butler says most of the credit should go to a work ethic and a little bit of naivety. He didn't know what he was doing when the Steelers signed him to a $4,000 contract in 1951.
''I must've been given some talents,'' he said. ''Whatever talents I had, I worked like hell to improve what I had.''
Zabrina Reyes. wins $100,000 Dr. Pepper scholarship
Scholarship winner Zabrina Reyes. FACEBOOK
SAN FRANCISCO — Zabrina Reyes of San Diego threw 11 passes into an oversized Dr. Pepper can Saturday, December 6 during halftime of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Championship Game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.As a result of her throwing accuracy, the University of California -San Diego freshman was awarded $100,000 towards her college tuition.
ADVERTISEMENTReyes revealed that she entered the competition prepared. It was reported that she had built a replica target and practiced three times a week for an entire month. She was even deft enough to grab two footballs at a time from the rack with one in each hand, cutting down her motion time.
“I felt like I could have practiced more, but I guess it was enough,” said a modest Reyes, one of 16 finalists picked out of over 1,700 participants.
Reyes, who is studying arts and sciences, was emotional after the victory, bursting in tears in front of the nationally televised audience. She said the prize money would take some weight off of her and her parents’ shoulders, and that it would “lessen the financial burden,” allowing her to concentrate on her studies.
“I just started crying, that’s all I could do,” Reyes said in a telephone interview via a video story on CBN News 8 with Matt Johnson.
She thanked the soft drink company for the opportunity to participate in the event then thanked her family and friends in both San Diego and Philippines for their support. Many on social media were so impressed with her passing skills that they called for Reyes to play quarterback for their favorite college football team.
“Out of my three sisters I’m like the least athletic, so it’s pretty funny,” said Reyes, who saw the tweets directed her way and admitted the most quarterbacking she would be doing in the future is maybe playing a little toss out in the yard.
In Reyes’ profile page for the contest, she said she would like to “cure ignorance,” “redefine abnormal” and has “always had an itch to understand the people around me.” Part of the scholarship money will also go towards funding school for her younger sister.
LLC 501C- 4 UCC 1-308.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Content
and Programming Copyright 2012 By Patcnews The Patriot Conservative
News Tea Party Network © LLC UCC 1-308.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT
PREJUDICE All copyrights reserved By Patcnews The Patriot Conservative
News Tea Party Network Copyright 2012 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials
herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be
reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast
without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter
or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the
content. © All Copyrights reserved By Patcnews The Patriot Conservative
News Tea Party Network
No comments:
Post a Comment