And Now ... The Schloss-Blog on Sports

With the coronavirus out of control again and the president cutting back on testing ("I don't kid," he says), today the Schloss-Blog is talking sports. Not the most opportune time to do that, what with the virus setting new daily record high counts and states pausing their reopenings, but sports is part of this, a huge part.

And it's in limbo, delay, a sort of purgatory of "booth review," if you will.

We need sports now like we needed it after 9/11, except this a pandemic out of control with no expiration date.

But look around.

The NFL, rolling around like nothing is wrong, just admitted something is wrong - it canceled its Hall-of-Fame ceremony in Canton and the accompanying football game that goes with it to kick off the exhibition - uh, "pre" season. It specifically cited the coronavirus.

Players and front-office personnel in all sports set to resume or get going are reporting to training facilities having tested positive.

This week alone, NBA stars Buddy Hield and Nikola Jokic reported having tested positive, Jokic still in Europe (isn't there a ban on travel from Europe?).

Tennis star Novak Djokovic is positive, almost deliberately, after hosting an exhibition tournament with many other stars and not requiring any protective equipment for players or fans. Four other players tested positive and "Joker" has since apologized for his actions and pleaded with attendees to get tested. Too late though.

(Stick with me, this is a long list and these sports have yet to get underway or have just barely gotten underway.)

Quick time out - was Trump spotted wearing a mask? No, Just denying he knew anything about Russia putting bounties out on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. OK, back to sports.

Speaking of America's first golfer, who cheats as much at that as he does everything else, the PGA's Nick Watney had to drop out of the RBC Heritage tournament because he tested positive - halfway through. He is the first on the tour to test positive, a place where social distancing is possible. Well, on the course, at least.

There isn't even a grand-slam to be had in golf this year, with The (British) Open canceled. There will be no champion golfer this year holding up the Claret Jug. And now, at the Travelers this weekend, three prominent players withdrew due to COVID considerations and the tour is looking at further precautionary measures, perhaps cancellations.

Just goes to show, these leagues and associations can take all the safety measures they want and scrub their facilities germ-free - but they can't control the participants off the court, the field or the course. And it's showing.

The Phillies, the Blue Jays, the Giants and the Rangers all shut down and scrubbed their facilities top to bottom (good luck with that), prompting a sport-wide scrubbing. We'll see how long that contains a virus that will likely be carried into those facilities almost every day, no matter where those facilities are. It's not like they kept steroid out of the game.

So we're asking, are you ready to go to a game if they start allowing fans? Are you?

Avery Bradley isn't. The Lakers star, a veteran along the lines that LeBron likes to have on his rosters (GM and Coach LeBron, that is), isn't going to play in the league's makeshift tournament to first determine who scrambles into the final playoff spots in both conferences and then who gets to waste their time playing the Lakers and Bucks, respectively, in the first round. Bradley is concerned about the virus, period.

And it's all in Orlando, where the players and their loved ones are being carefully sequestered so as not to be exposed when they go about America's theme-park playground headquarters. Good luck NBA, in keeping the virus out of the fan-free arena where 22 teams will eventually play over three months.

What do you do, NBA, when three players on one team and four on another test positive on a game day, leaving their rosters compromised for competition? Or coaches? Or GMs?

Same goes for you NHL. How many cities want to be hubs for your makeshift tournament with the coronavirus out of control again because too many (Republican) governors in too many (Red) states reopened ahead of the guidelines set down by the CDC?

Horse racing, auto racing, golf, tennis (singles) and cornhole tournaments (yeah, corn holing, yikes!) are about the only sports that can possibly be played with less risk than other team sports.

Even high schools are not exempt. In Illinois and Arizona, where I split my time, state guidelines for reopening schools specifically cite avoidance of sports activities that require close guarding or physical contact. Players are reporting having tested positive and you know many more will, despite their best efforts dedicated to social distancing and other protective measures.

And so we face a fall without major sports. The Olympics were already postponed until next summer, but will we even have a secure, tested, approved vaccine by then? Will the anti-vaccine crowd even bother to get it? Will the Lakers get it first, ahead of everyone else?

Meanwhile, the president is cutting funding for testing across the country. He's dead set, literally, on getting those test numbers suppressed so his poll numbers go up.

Right now, he's got 125,000 dead reasons to want to do that, likely to be 200,000 by Election Day.

Anyway, good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

More on my Radio Free Phoenix show on Sunday night.

The White Republica President Tells No Lies

The Schloss-Blog has learned exclusively that the Trump campaign, trailing in the polls, will be resorting to distortion.

For example, in the very near future, expect to see:

• On election eve, Trump announces the coronavirus vaccine is en route to doctors' offices and hospitals near you for injection this weekend; 
• Trump announces at the GOP (petri-dish) Convention that his administration is introducing carefully crafted legislation granting blacks and women the right to vote, on a limited basis;
• Trump will announce he is going to read the Bible instead of just holding it upside down in front of a church;
• Trump will announce that he will only use the U.S. Military domestically to attack naturalized citizens and DACA recipients, or anyone from a shithole country;
• Trump will announce he's firing the Supreme Court justices in their entirety and is starting to rebuild the court by naming Bill Barr, Jay Sekulow, Ty Cobb and John Dowd to the court and maybe as its only members, permanently;
• Trump will issue an executive order banning arm-bar chokeholds by the police but will allow the use of police nightsticks and batons as strangulation weapons;
• Trump announces he'll take election campaign assistance from foreign countries, even shithole countries, but not immigrants;
• Trump says he considers 200,000 dead from COVID-19 by election day to be collateral damage in what he tells Fox News is his expression of compassion for the victims and that no one has more compassion for them than he does;
• Trump announces a forthcoming further tax cut, but this one for Fortune 500 and top one percent only because he doesn't want the money going to perhaps undocumented, asymptomatic coronavirus carriers;
• Unable to pull the licenses from MSNBC and CNN, he announces he's having the Department of Energy cut off  power to their respective broadcast centers;
• Trump announces that Radio Free Phoenix's David Hughes will become FCC Commissioner;
• Trump announces that his "Book of Poetry" is a best-seller - in shithole countries and Norway;
• Trump announces he's garnering Democratic support by having affairs with various senators from California, Arizona and New York;
• Trump further announces he's garnering Democratic support in the Senate by dispatching Melania to have affairs with certain senators from New York and Illinois;
• Trump revises that by sending Stormy Daniels in and paying her from campaign funds;
• Don Jr. and Eric announce that the COVID virus is all over as they test positive and positive is a good thing, right(?), they declare;
• Trump announces that Putin is setting him free by relieving him of his debt to Deutsche Bank;
• And finally, Trump announces if he loses the election, he'll move someplace where they love him: Norway.

More on my Radio Free Phoenix show tonight.

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

And Now, For Something A Little Different...

Today, the Schloss-Blog is turning over a considerable amount of its space to trusted friend and fraternity brother, Neil (Hick) Hansen, my fraternity "father."

Neil's insight and observations on the recent race protests across the country, which he posted on his Facebook page, are being reposted here with his permission. I couldn't trust nor respect him more if he was my real father.

In his first post, he looked back to the Summer Olympics of 1968, a tumultuous year in U.S. history, and reflected on a significant expression of the black community's protest for rights on the awards platform in Mexico City and its relation to the kneeling protests of NFL athletes during the national anthem.

In the 1968 Mexico Summer Olympics, when black American runners (Tommie) Smith and (John) Carlos won gold and bronze medals for the 200-meter running event, they stood on the podium, heads bowed down but black-gloved fists in the air. 

They were later removed and banned from the Olympic Village. 

These athletes wanted to transcend the standards of the Olympics to help bring awareness of human suffering and inequality to the forefront. It appears that as a nation we are really slow learners. Colin Kaepernick kneels at a football game during the national anthem and the nation goes berserk. What a horrible person he is. But throughout these protests did anyone ask???? why are these people upset, why are they protesting???? Oh, you shouldn't protest at these special events ... I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO.

Neil is spot on here. And Smith, who declared the raised fist a "human rights" declaration, was removed from the U.S. Olympic Team, along with Carlos, after the IOC deemed their act a political statement, expressly banned by its charter.

What better and more-visible platform were they going to have than the medal-winning platform at the Olympic Games? As a kicker, Australian Peter Norman, the silver-medal winner, also wore a human-rights badge on his jacket at the platform, although he did not raise a fist in the air. He was a noted sympathizer to the cause for which Smith and Carlos were protesting and was so honored in Australia for such. He died of a heart attack in 2006, his legacy intact as a member of that medal podium.

But back to my friend, Neil. After reflecting so eloquently on the 1968 Olympics and its attachment to the protests of today, he wasn't done. The following was his reaction to New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees' statement that kneeling is disrespectful to the flag. Brees walked it back after catching considerable flak from his teammates and other players around the league, and then caught flak from President Trump for walking back his original statement about people Trump has referred to as S.O.B's. s Neil put it...

...And my thoughts on Drew Brees and his thinking ... if I have a thought process that I've had for a long time, solidly ingrained in my being, it will take someone questioning me about it, discussing alternative thinking, educating me, lifting me to new thoughts and expanding my horizons. I believe, right or wrong, that Drew is being educated by this experience, for the better, being made to see the light and that he honestly is a changed and more-enlightened individual.

No argument here. Brees has apologized profusely for his original comments, even by league-leading wide receiver teammate Michael Thomas, his favorite target - for his passes, not his comments.

Again, Neil is spot on here and has refreshingly reminded Trump that the discussion is not about the flag but rather the rights it represents - liberty and justice for all - as it says in the Pledge of Allegiance. Brees has indeed learned his lesson. It will be interesting though, in my opinion, to see the greeting he gets when the Saints report for training camp, assuming we have an NFL season.

Again, as a kicker, three years after the fact, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has publicly apologized on behalf of the league for not recognizing its players' rights to protest and speak freely on the black-rights movement that has exploded now because of George Floyd's death. Goodell was careful though in his apology and in his presenting of "free-speech rights" to the league's players not to mention the name of Colin Kaepernick, the Super Bowl quarterback who has been blackballed ever since for kneeling while Nike stood by him anyway and Sports Illustrated named him its Sportsman of the Year.

Drew Brees, as Neil so pointedly noted, has learned that lesson, has put that in his pipe.

And smoked it.

Donald Trump never has. Never will. He's still ignorantly glancing into the sun during eclipses.

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. More on Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.

Are We There Yet?

As all four officers involved in the George Floyd killing have now been charged, the Schloss-Blog is wondering ... are we there yet?

Was this the tipping point?

Was this where we as a nation stood up and said, "Enough?" Was this where the nationwide protests finally convinced the powers-that-be that it is time for equality in the justice system, in law enforcement and in police activity?

Clearly, there was no equality in any of that in this country.

In our prisons, blacks per 100,000 population far outnumber Hispanics and whites. At the end of 2018, there were 2,272 blacks per 100,000 in prison. There were 1,018 Hispanics and 392 whites per 100,000, respectively, that's despite the imprisonment rate in this country in general being way down since 2006.

Blacks are roughly 13 percent of the population of this country.

Hardly seems right. Hardly seems fair.

So, are we there yet?

Will this trial of the four officers who are charged with killing and/or participating in the killing of George Floyd change anything?

Has anything changed since Trayvon Martin?

There was outrage, there were protests, even President Obama chimed in on the shooting at the time, before it ever went to trial.

But did anything change?

Has anything changed since Laquon McDonald was shot down in Chicago?

He was shot 16 times. Yet, George Floyd still happened.

Did anything change?

Did anything change after Brionna Taylor was shot eight times by police bursting into her home as she allegedly rose to defend herself?

George Floyd still happened.

Did anything change after Freddie Clay died in Baltimore, in police custody?

George Floyd still happened.

Did anything change after Sandra Bland was found dead in a Texas jail cell?

George Floyd still happened.

This list is endless. And after each of these and so many other deaths, America grieved, America cried out in protest and pain and then America went back about its business.

Maybe George Floyd didn't die for nothing.

What are America's police thinking now? They've all seen the video. They've all taken an oath.

George Floyd is dead.

Did he die in vain?

The protests since his death say no. But so many of us thought that after Laquon McDonald, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Freddie Clay.

And the peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C., were violently swept aside when the president, in vanity, wanted to go across the street in front of an iconic church to have his picture taken holding a Bible upside down part of the time. Even the church's leaders protested Trump's photo op.

Australian TV captured it, and felt it.

The deaths, the protests and Trump's vanity make us look like a country in disorder.

Because we are.

So, are we there yet? Or is the next George Floyd waiting to happen?

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. More on my Sunday night show on radiofreephoenix.com.