Friday, October 18, 2013

Krauthammer opines on Washington Redskins name change.


Why? None of his business. I do not care for that sort of thing so I didn't read it.

I'm childish about it too. Both hands flip off, double flip, since they're right there together typing ,and stick out my tongue. Toward Krauthammer and his opinion. Even though I don't care about the football team. In fact, I don't care about football generally. I didn't even know the team is football until I saw the helmets on Amazon. Could have been baseball for all I knew. I'm admitting I'm stupid about the subject and childish in reaction to nudging.

How's that? See an opinion and not care about it or for it, but do care about the subject being gnawed. That just bugs me that liberals do that. So skip Krathhammer's opinion with no apology and go straight to comments and say so. I'm getting like that. I really do admire Krauthammer, he is frighteningly smart and I'm glad he is a reasonable person now, not like before when he vexed us for using his intellect working up circles advancing liberal issues, projecting and then attacking conservative values. He was ridiculous then, and annoyingly frighteningly smart about being so harmfully ridiculous. Then suddenly, flip. That facility is brilliant, the facility to flip like a switch, but I always did know his reasoned mind no longer cluttered and circling curlicues for wrought over-intellectualism is fundamentally directed by liberal tender heart, and it is basically liberal blood squishing through it, thump-thumpa thump-thumpa thump-thumpa .

Aren't we all?

I've seen this too many times to not know how it ends. Then on to the next new agitation, or perhaps two at once. Prolonged agitation is where the left excels. Truly. Excels as a mental disorder. It can be challenged but not matched. Collectively they have the patience that spans generations. Like a dog gnawing a bone down to the splinters and marrow and passing the gnawed bone to litters of pup activist gnawers, even to one-time liberals otherwise made right of mind. It is similar in abuse to being stuck in a soured marriage to a nagging wife. One way out of the enervating marriage is murder. And you honestly do consider that.  Another way out is, "Yes, Dear." (you nagging cow, die, die, already, die.)

Dude. Check yourself. So knowing that, and knowing banned things become valuable, even stupid things, head off to Amazon and look at what Washington Redskin memorabilia is offered, and see if there is anything there that could be useful or attractive. See if there is anything that I like. And there is. And I do.

Even if they stay resolute and do not change their name, HA!, this is fairly good stuff. Things I would like in any case. I really do like this indian logo. Uniquely American.  Patches. I am putting patches on things  just to be different. And writing on sleeves. And sometimes the yoke. And the front panels too. Okay, all over the place with patches and writing here and there, as tattoos.

This post is about the impressive line of worthwhile things available in the attractive tone of Washington redskin rust red color, with mustard yellow, and very attractive indian logo. Not about Krathammer's opinion, whatever that is. This investment opportunity is suddenly superseded by real desire to wear and own these objects. Come check them out:



One day in Aspen I was taken to a house owned by a woman who was divorcing a curator of one of the New York museums. (The couple together own a shop in town and we saw similar things in there.)  The house is loaded with artifacts as if a museum itself. The whole thing without one speck out of place. Pre-Columbian figures arranged in a row where a soap dish would be in a regular home. Stuffed throughout with valuable artifacts. Odd things, a large bowl of antique Italian bocce balls, wooden spheres riven with nails to form a pattern in metal, sometimes a number, with varying shapes and sizes of nails to produce individualistic heavy ball completely covered with the heads of nails, used in a lawn game, on the breakfast table instead of a bowl of fruit like regular people. A general animal theme throughout. Real animals. Oddest of all, a leopard skull finished elaborately in silver and jewels and  ornate etching to a ghastly implement with protruding saber teeth jutting forward, the object of no known practical use beyond macabre decoration.  Impressively large antler clusters for lighting dominating one of the rooms, you see these, but not extravagant as this one, giant turtle shells arranged decoratively as if they were regular size turtle shells or plastic turtles, surely that is not allowed in this country, real skins all over from rare species, heads of various African antelope high on a wall facing Mt. Ajax and appearing as if all three are enjoying the view, and one thinks, "This shit cannot all be legal. It just cannot be. And it is not fair either."

 

But best of all that plunder, I thought,  is an African headdress in museum box-frame presentation. Shiny black feathers splayed against flat black matt. So black on black, shiny on flat, one looks for the subtle pattern in the sheen and realize it's feathers.  Sparse animal hair fringe attachments to the feather tips, scant colored beadwork. Faint leather and sinew straps. That's all. It is a meager headdress but respectfully displayed as rare art. "I can do that." I know I can reproduce it. Crows feathers. I compared it with what I recalled of similar native American headdresses. I recalled the craft shop I wandered into that sold the elements to make such things and how I dismissed them at the time as Cub Scout-like in its modern appearing colors, while straining and sorting through for the natural elements that were offered in that shop at the time.  The presentation  was  among the most subtle and largest and most compelling of items in that very odd and compelling house of nothing but odd compelling rooms, one after another. A visit to that place is rattling, not settling.



I did not know African natives  have feather headdresses like American natives do." That is where my amazement centered. And our native headdresses are 10X better. Cor! Ace! Score!

From then on I wanted one. An American headdress, not an African one. In honor. Respectfully displayed. An American Indian headdress displayed like that, fake of course, and not Hollywood-looking either, even if I have to make one myself, for the very impressive art that it is.



You know, Europeans freak out over Native American art. Comparatively, it is completely ace. That house in Aspen showed me that definitively, although it contained no American Indian artifacts that I noticed, save for Central and South America, I know other people that do own some few things legally, tiny bowls, small tightly woven baskets, arrow heads and such and those are  the first things I go to.






One commenter writes, Krathammer, your last name offends me. Change it.

Check out the Washington Redskin memorabilia before they are nudged to extinction. Later, for vaunted irony, these will be hipster, I intend to be counter-culture throughout, on account of being, you know, provocative and everything and different all the time.




I do like that red hat top center, and I like the beanie too.

38 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I read it. His point is that Words "evolve" and we have to adjust (as it were) to that.

K resumed it this way...

“And here’s the key point: You would stop [using the term] not because of the language police. Not because you might incur a Bob Costas harangue. Not because the president would wag a finger. But simply because the word was tainted, freighted with negative connotations with which you would not want to be associated,”

He seems to be saying that words are not about the past or traditions as much as they are about a representation of the present as constituted by the will of the users. Whatever that may be.

Although I may not agree with his in this case. I do understand what he is saying.

Third Coast said...

I've been meaning to get myself a Cleveland Indians baseball cap featuring the Chief Wahoo caricature. This Redskins kerfuffle has inspired me to follow through on the purchase.
I recently ran into a feller at some event wearing said headgear. Upon querying him as to whether he was an Indians fan, he said nope, he just liked Chief Wahoo.

Birches said...

Lem, that's exactly why I'm against the change and thought his argument was bunk. The meaning of words change over time. EXACTLY. Today the only meaning of Redskins to everyone (except for our Coastal Media Elite) is Professional Football Player.

Birches said...

You have to reach pretty far up your rear end to find an offensive meaning to Redskins if you're looking at it from a purely modern perspective.

john said...

They go best with rosemary, toss in onion and garlic and coat with xtra virgin. 475 degrees for 45 minutes.

But for mashed, Yukon Gold.

Methadras said...

Language is fluid, you can see that by the many dialects within the english language here in the US and other countries that speak english. With that said, trying to scrub clean the language has a purpose, but what is really that is being said here, like PHX said a few days ago, change it because it's the right thing to do, but what if it isn't the right thing to do?

Third Coast said...

C'mon, I mean everyone's heard all the sportscasters snickering whenever they said "Redskins".

john said...

OTOH, perhaps any team that dresses their big linemen in pink shoes to play may not be deserving of the name "Redskins". Maybe they should change their names to the Giants.

Chip Ahoy said...

Third Coast, I love that story.

Also the idea of being checked on the p.c. of it so I can go, "wut?"

JAL said...

Well dang. A couple years ago I got S-I-L a couple Redskins shopping bags to keep in the car so they could be environmentally correct.

(He's a big fan.)

Now I find I have committed a politically incorrect act.

Come to think of it, I think I gave him a hat a couple more years back.

uh oh.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Today the only meaning of Redskins to everyone (except for our Coastal Media Elite) is Professional Football Player.

It seems as thought that is good enough to bring about the change. The people that innocuously use the word, be something less than dammed... pushed aside... because they, the Elite, know better that the rest of us who use the word.

You heard Obama. If we don't do as he says we are never going to amount to anything.

Michael Haz said...

Interestingly, no Indian tribes have complained, and several have voiced support.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

They win elections.

JAL said...

It is the sign of s devolving society that serious people spend ink and pixels on this kind of stuff.

There is some chick locally protesting the "cheeky cherokee" Halloween costume.

Life is too short.

Third Coast said...

Krauthammer>Kraut>German>Nazi
Liberal dog whistles everywhere, even I'm starting to hear them.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

There is something about a constant application to political winds of the moment that the founders try to warn us about.

The very set up of three branches having to share power in order to make something happen while making it easy for a minority to attempt to stop something from happening speaks to this.

What does it say, when words can be used to accuse (under threat of indictment of racism) a generation of harm they have not committed, nor are even about to commit?

It's fucked up, that's what it is.

Guildofcannonballs said...

If you accept apologies from bigots like KKK Grand Kleagles in the Senate Democratic days of yore you are just as bigoted as the lynchers themselves and care nothing for the death of young black men.

Pox.

We are American, not Christian. Forgiveness is deadly.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The exercise of power is a constant test of the limitations.

We acquiesce at our peril.

rcocean said...

Yep, its one minor skirmish in the never ending Left-wing cultural war of aggression. We're offended -so change that name, We're offended - so don't say that, We think that's hate speech - so say that or your fired or arrested.

Buy a Redskin's cap and fight the power.

And Costas achieves the impossible - he's a dick *and* a pussy.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

When everything is political, everything becomes subject to the influence, if not direct will of those exercising political power.

Why would they not want that?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

One day they, in the not too distant future, so as to avoid bad for business controversy, a committee will be convened, that will approve names befitting, or in accordance with 'the times', whatever that committee believes 'the times' calls for.

It will be the only way to be sure.

William said...

When I was a kid, if you described someone as black, that was considered derogatory. Colored was the polite term. I've heard that back in the 19th century., redskin was the term Indians used to describe themselves. Well it's not a pendulum but a ball that keeps bouncing erratically......Leftists no longer raise a hammer and sickle flag to rally the masses. A Confederate flag is viewed by many as more of a symbol of slavery than of mint juleps and plumed cavaliers. And bell bottoms with a Led Zeppelin t shirt, no longer communicate hipness to the world.....If leftists can give up their hammer and sickle, maybe others should show a little adaptability.

edutcher said...

As I say, call 'em the Washington Welfares with Choom superimposed on a food stamp.

PS All this leads to battle fatigue.

That may or may not be a good thing.

At some point, just changing a name won't be enough.

rcocean said...

The problem with the "I'm so tired of this, lets give them what they want, we need to talk about the capital gains tax" brigade is that:

THE LEFT LOVES THIS.

Give-up on the Redskins and tomorrow they will be attacking and being offended by something else. They are never going to stop or shut up. So,the alternative is clear, either fight or give up.

And for the surrender monkeys: Just stop commenting/following this stuff. All you do is demotivate the people who want to fight. And I'm looking at you Dr. Charles

Michael Haz said...

Yep. The Redskins tomorrow, and then they'll want Oshkosh Tuesdat.

Birches said...

I listen to some local sports guys and they've brought up the name change a few times.

The first time they brought it up, they both agreed that if Native Americans found the word offensive, then obviously they should change it. I was a little disappointed because one the guys has a pretty good BS meter.

They brought it up again this week after Costas's rant. And what do you think they said? If the name is so offensive, how can Bob Costas go on national TV and say it 30 times in a piece where he is condemning the name? It must not be as offensive as we thought it was.

Good job Bob.

test said...

Revenant said...

It isn't unreasonable for an American Indian to be offended by "redskin".


American Indians aren't offended by the term.


Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The name "Google" offends me because it's infantile.

Change it!

Aridog said...

Lem said...

The exercise of power is a constant test of the limitations ... We acquiesce at our peril.

As I said recently here, "Acquiesce" is the new watch word. It is demanded. Acquiesce!! Now!!

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

There's a guy whose kids go to my kids' school who drives a pickup with a Redskins paint job--expensive professional work--and it seems every square inch is embedazzled with Redskins junk-the little flag on the antenna, the license plate frame, the giant decal on the rear mirror, etc. The guy is always wearing his Redskin jacket when I see him around town and my favorite part--he has an enormous logo tattoo wrapped around his calf.

Aridog said...

rcocean said...

And Costas achieves the impossible - he's a dick *and* a pussy.

Maybe Costas is trying to follow Keith Olbermann's career path to douchbaggery....that man is the penultimate dick & pussy.

ricpic said...

Clearly, to a non-ideologue that is, the Redskins moniker is a term of affection, not disparagement. And liberals with half a brain know that. So why this assault? So that slowly but certainly the past is wiped out. Tradition itself is disparaged. The ground is cleared. To make "The New Man." Think it's a joke? Only if you don't understand how dead serious the Left is about fundamental transformation. Or do you still think Barry's a nice guy?

rcocean said...

"Pick your battles. Save your energy for the next time some illiterate dolt takes offense at the word "niggardly" or the expression "chink in the armor"."

Yeah right. And when the next battle comes you'll be saying the same thing. Just like Krauthammer.

rcocean said...

The "we need to pick our battles" and "Save our energy".

Again, the difference between right and left. The left gets energized by this. They love to fight over politics.

The right always wants to give up and go watch football. Always looking for an excuse NOT to fight.

Which is why the left has won and will continue winning.

Trooper York said...

It's easy for somebody with no skin in the game to say to give in to a tiny minority of loud mouth liberal douchebags.

You know who has skin in the game. The Redskin fans. They have red skin in the game. In their blood. When they say they want a change then that is when it should change. Not when worthless pandering pussies like Obama get their panties in a twist. Fuck em if they can't take a joke.

Trooper York said...

The wheelchair guy is a charter member of the Rhino contingent. He went to meet with Obama and kissed his ass. Why would anyone listen to him.

It is only a matter of time until he is on Fox trying to sell us one of his Rhino buddies like Chris Christie or Jeb Bush.

Tune him out.

rcocean said...

They're setting Christie up for 2016. He's going to be the "reasonable" Republican who can win and "attract moderates".

Unlike "crazy" tea-party conservative politician XYZ (Insert Cruz, Palin, whoever).

Notice how all the left-wing hate against Christie in the MSM has disappeared? Once he started attacking Conservative Republicans and sucking up to Obama, they knew he was their guy in 2016.

ndspinelli said...

I don't think Trooper likes Christie.