My email is a strange collection of jokes and junk, of praise and profanity, of kids' sports and kidders of all ages.
Here's an example.
This week someone sent me a plea to send him all of my $1 bills, tens and twenties, because those bills are adorned with pictures of American leaders who owned slaves. The requester assured me the bills would be disposed of properly.
I also got a reminder from the Climate Reality Project about its latest works. The project is holding a sweepstakes in which the winner gets a signed copied of Al Gore's new book. (Wow, if that's the grand prize, what do you get for finishing third, three signed copies of Gore's new book?)
Speaking of social media
Do you wonder how much better the perception of our president would be if he could stay off Twitter?
Every time we turn around, Donald Trump is in another pot of 140-degree water because of something he blasted out in 140 or fewer characters.
The latest is the back-and-forth with former Chattanooga mayor and current Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker.
Raise your hand if believe our president's junior-high taunting act is tired.
Thought so.
Well, maybe Trump and Corker can settle this in study hall. It not like we don't have real issues to tackle. Oh, yeah. Scratch that.
Kowtowing to appearance of awkward
This is an awful look.
ESPN has switched announcer Robert Lee from announcing the University of Virginia football opener. Read that again.
As first reported this week by Clay Travis on his website OutKicktheCoverage.com, the worldwide sports leader preemptively switched a 20-something Asian because his name is the same as the Civil War general.
Wow. Just wow.
The network has said that it was a discussion between executives, Lee and his producer and that the decision was mutual. Regardless of who was in the room making it, the decision was a very poor one.
Seriously, the only thing worse than the overreaction of faux outrage and the interweb morality mob is any type of proactive efforts to avoid triggering that faux outrage and being so fearful of the interweb morality mob that it leads you to gutless and embarrassing decisions like this one.
One additional football item
On Wednesday, Colin Kaepernick supporters picketed and rallied in New York City in front of the NFL office. We're not really sure why.
If it was because the quarterback does not have a job, then why demonstrate outside the league headquarters? The NFL doesn't sign players and has not tried to prevent anyone from protesting. Protest specific teams like the Ravens or the Seahawks that have negotiated with but chosen not to sign Kaepernick.
If it's because the group believes Kaepernick has been blackballed by the league, members need to make sure the NFLPA gets in gear because collusion is a big-time no-no in almost every collectively bargained scenario.
Finally, and maybe more tellingly, why Kaepernick himself skipped this protest in his name was this quote from one of the speakers during the rally, via YahooSports: "If you can give $110 million to Donald Trump, who is committed to dividing our nation, you need to give back into black and brown communities," Pastor Jamal Bryant, a speaker at the rally, demanded. "In every city that there is an NFL team, we are expecting a financial investment."
There you go.
It seems that some have now flipped the meaning of Kaepernick's protest during the national anthem last year. What started as an attempt to end violence between cops and blacks became a request for equality that has now come to looking for cash.
Protests, huh? Sounds more like a growing number of them are looking for a payday.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343.