In these racially torn times — but, of course, there’s only one race, and we are all daughters and sons of Africa.
(Well, you have to back a ways for most of us. But then, the human race goes back a ways, to put it mildly.)
Yes, I know, most people don’t believe any of that. But there are flat-earthers in all walks of life, if you call that walking.
They don’t travel very far because, you know, the Earth is flat and they might fall off the edge. Of course, gravity just being a theory and all, you have to wonder how they believe they would fall.
Speaking of not traveling very far, there’s an NFL team in Washington that apparently still lives in the good old days of the 1800s, when men were men, women couldn’t vote, and slavery and massacring the native peoples was considered de rigueur.
George Preston Marshall was the original owner (1930s) of the NFL team that became the Washington Obsceneword. I like “Obsceneword” because it nearly rhymes with moronic beyond belief.
Marshall started the whole thing with his choice of names for his team. Originally, in 1932, the team was located in Boston and played in the ballpark of the Boston Braves, so Marshall named his team the Boston Braves, hoping to swell attendance on the coattails of the Boston NL baseball club.
In two words, it didn’t work. (Well, OK, if you’re keeping score at home, that’s three words. Details, details.) So, for the next season, and because of financial reasons, Marshall moved the team to Fenway, home of the Red Sox, which necessitated a name change.
Now, Dan Snyder and defenders of the Washington NFL team’s nickname contend that the nickname honors Native Americans, and they almost always point to Marshall’s changing the nickname as honoring Lone Star Dietz, the team’s coach (he was allegedly Native American; turns out he wasn’t, according to many sources).
It turns out, according to a 1933 Associated Press story dug up by Keith Olbermann and his team, that Marshall changed the nickname for reasons having nothing to do with Native Americans. He changed it, he told AP, because he wanted a nickname that would resonate with Red Sox fans, and so he wanted “Red-something.” Also, by choosing the nickname he famously (or notoriously; they don’t mean the same thing, sportswriters) did choose, he didn’t have to change the team’s logo, which saved him a bunch of money.
So much for the great Washington Obsceneword history.
Then there’s Mitt Romney, who is not necessarily a flat-earther. But then, it’s hard to know exactly what Mitt Romney believes in, outside of the proper way to take a vacation is to strap the family dog to the roof of the car.
You may chuckle at the supposed Romney resurgence, but he is now leading all the other potential GOP presidential candidates by 15 percentage points in the latest New Hampshire poll. This, of course, will spark more stories about strapping the family dog on top of the car on a trip to Canada sometime after the last Ice Age.
Old news, Republicans will say. As if strapping a family dog to the top of a car on a trip to Canada could ever be old news, what with the — how to put it politely — the dog’s do-do pouring down the side windows of the family car while the Mitt says, No, no, don’t, don’t, the Republican mantra these days. Not that GOPers believe in mantras, because that’s kind of touchy-feely.
Republicans are in love with the last Ice Age, mostly because they weren’t around to experience it, but also because it means they don’t have to worry, or do anything, about global climate change.
When, exactly, did the Earth become so flat?
