A path to canceling the cancel culture
Man, there are a few athletes that are truly leading by example in these confusing and troubling times.
Take Bubba Wallace, who has kept his foot on the pedal of compassion and shifted grace gears perfectly through the flag and Twitter barrage from the White House.
Take Julian Edelman, who offered his time and knowledge after DeSean Jackson's recent anti-Semitic social media posts.
Could these isolated examples be a shift in the cancel culture. We can hope so.
Back story: The cancel culture, a catchphrase for the quickly swelling backlash that comes after a controversy around a company, a quote, a person, a post or just about anything else that comes public and then becomes offensive to almost anyone whether they are affected or impacted or not.
The cancel culture has veered out of control because of the over-enthusiastic and easily offender social media morality mob than galvanizes and attacks until a) a person is fired, b) mob gets its way or c) a bigger star finds the cross hairs or a more controversial offense happens.
(Side note: I vowed to try to do a better job of explaining cancel culture when I reference it, so there's that.)
But this DeSean Jackson deal should give us all hope about compassion and possible examples. After Jackson's Hitler references and ant-Semitic remarks, Edelman offered his time to help educate Jackson. Then a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg invited Jackson to join him on a trip to Auschwitz.
Jackson accepted.
That's a cool next chapter in this story.
Big news in Big 12
Couple of college football headlines that made my head turn.
First from Ames, Iowa comes some hard and fast numbers from the Iowa State AD about the calculated losses if there's no Iowa State football on the school and the athletic department. It is not pretty.
> No football would leave the athletic department with "approximately $40 million in unfunded expenses in the next six months;"> The school's loss of revenue is "more than $41 million" for 2021;
> Total losses of revenue and costs for Iowa State "since the start of COVID-19 through Aug. 23, 2020 are estimated to be an additional $73 million."
And that's Iowa State friends.
The other Big news in the Big 12 was from Texas, as the school agreed to a number of the demands made by current players to rename buildings and honor former Black players and figures in the program's history.
Royal-Memorial Stadium will be renamed after Earl Campbell and Rickey Williams. Julius Whittier, the first Black football letterman at the school, is getting a statue.
The alma mater will remain the "Eyes of Texas" though despite the athletes wanting that to end too.
Tuesday in the kitchen
OK, we were committed to trying something new in the kitchen this weekend.We did, and this is the first time I can recall following a recipe and knowing almost instantly I was going to make some changes.
We have been challenged to try new things with our CSA box of vegetables from Signal Mountain Farms. For that we have been grateful. And especially pleased with the produce.
With five fresh ears of corn staring at me Sunday - hold on does corn stare or does it listen hmmmm discuss - so we rolled with bacon and corn fettuccine.
Cook a 16-ounce packages of noodles (remember to salt the water before you boil for flavor) and eight pieces of bacon. You can do a few more. Crispy bacon is best for this dish.
Shuck the corn and cut the kernels off the cob. The recipe called for four ears, in truth, it was a little corny (insert Spy's "Greeson making something a little corny SHOCKER!" one-liner here) for my tastes, so I think two will be plenty.
Drain the bacon grease from the pan. Crush up the bacon and mix it with the corn, 1/2 cup of finely cut shallots, a tablespoon of chopped thyme, a tablespoon of kosher salt and 2 tablespoons of basil. Cook for four minutes stirring frequently until the corn is tender.
For the sauce, we went very basic on our cream sauce - whisk 3 tablespoons of flour in 1/2 a cup of whole milk until smooth, bring 2 cups of whole milk to a simmer and add the flour mixture. Stir frequently and add salt and pepper to taste. Easy peasy lemon squeezey. (Depending on your preferences, you can make the sauce as heavy or flavored as you want.)
Add the bacon mixture to the sauce and stir. Then add the cooked pasta over the heat and stir. Serve with grated parmesan cheese and sprinkle with basil for style points.
It was fine and the family enjoyed it. But it will be augmented in future attempts. We will add some crushed red pepper. We discussed less corny - shut it Spy - and I think we will find some fresh green peas. We also are going to pan sear some scallops for the top of the dish.
So there's that.
This and that
- You know the rules. When TFP college football expert David Paschall writes on college football, we read and link Paschall's prose on college football. Here is his update on how the Georgia quarterback room just got better with transfer J.T. Daniels being ruled immediately eligible. Here is Paschall catching up with Will Healy, the local kid made great who is hoping his head coaching chance in Knoxville will happen amid the Corona.
- Speaking of college football experts, what's the opposite of that? Yep, Donald Trump, who on a conference call Monday consistently mixed up a pretty famous college football coach with his football coaching father. "He's great," The Commander and Tweet said, "that Lou Saban. What a great job he's done." Oy.
- Hamilton County mayor Jim Coppinger pulled up a chair on Press Row.on Monday. Here's the interview.
- Coppinger was hopeful for high school football - aren't we all - and here are some new TSSAA guidelines for schools to start something akin to practicing. The football restrictions truly leave teams doing little more than conditioning according to how I interpret those guidelines.
- Speaking of things that make you go hmmmmm, on Golic or Wingo on Tuesday morning, a former Washington Redskins executive offered a very interesting detail in Daniel Snyder's decision to retire the controversial team name. (Yeah, the name Washington is more and more offensive by the day What?) So, Snyder was dead-set to never change it. Fact. Pressure came, even from within, but Snyder had stood up to that pressure multiple times throughout the last decade or more. But, Snyder, according to this former executive who was with Golic or Wingo, was intensely jealous of Jerry Jones' monster state-of-the-art stadium and wanted one of his own in D.C. And more than one person has asserted that as a provision to get the land Snyder wanted to build his personal version of Jerry World (Dan Land, maybe?), Snyder was going to have to change the name. Hmmmmmm.
- Because it's 2020 y'all. The percentages of an earthquake on San Andreas fault line is three to five times more likely because of recent tremors and studies. To be fair, researchers put the likelihood at a little better than 1 percent that a major San Andreas quake happens, but it is 2020. And unless, L.A. falls into the Pacific, the results of almost any San Andreas event will still be better and less awful than the San Andreas movie. Egad what a disaster.
- Interested in this growing trend. Online sports betting handler FanDuel has announced that it will refund bets on Max Holloway to win and Holloway to win by decision after the controversial MMA ruling that Alex Volkanovski won their fight last weekend. I have to believe that there was so little on Holloway that the good will was worth more to FanDuel than the coin.
Today's question
True or false, it's Tuesday.
True or false on national mac and cheese day, you like Kraft Mac and Cheese.
True or false, San Andreas is the worst movie of the last decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_(film)
If you have a false for the last two, feel free to offer a better (or worse) choice.
And feel free to offer some T or Fs as well.
Easy Rider was released 51 years ago today.
Billy the Kid was killed on this day in 1881. He was 22.
Rushmore of old West nicknames. Go.