The United States is in an uproar over the murder of George Floyd. Protests have been occurring in most major cities the last two nights. Everyone has something to say or in the case of Donald Trump, something to Tweet:

“These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

Oy….again! Way to calm to nation…again!

Chicago Mayor has been giving press updates daily during the coronavirus pandemic. Sometimes the topic drifts from health issues to other issues of the day. Friday was one of those days. When asked about Trump’s tweet about Minneapolis, she responded:

“I will code what I really want to say to Donald Trump, It begins with F and ends with U.”

The interwebs went into immediate shock. People couldn’t believe what they heard or read. Multiple people were saying that the Mayor dropped an F-bomb on the President of the United States. She didn’t. She only used two letters of the alphabet. This is what an F-bomb to the president looks like:

Donald Trump…FUCK YOU!!!!

See the difference?

And even if you consider what she said an F-bomb, so what. It’s not a big deal. Most of us do it multiple times a day. Admit it, you know you use some form of the word when talking about Don every single day. My favorite is when I see him doing or saying something disgusting or hurtful is “Don, go fuck yourself!” Another personal favorite is usually when I see him get on Air Force 1 and waving to whoever is on the tarmac is “I can’t believe this fucking guy is president!” Even though I’m usually alone while saying these things, I feel better after F-bombing him.

When I read about Lori saying this, I wondered how many times I used these words towards Trump. On Friday, I counted six. Pretty sure that’s a low count since I didn’t start until late in the afternoon.

So Lori, if you ever start to feel bad about your response to Trump, stop. We’re with you all the way! One hundred percent behind you! I only ask one thing of you….next time say the words! It’ll make you feel better!’

Related Post: Lori Lightfoot is Chicago’s new Mayor. Please don’t fool us again!

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Martin Luther King Jr said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” The language that is unheard seems all too often, “I can’t breathe.” It is kneeling on one knee during the national anthem. It is hundreds of marchers saying, “Black lives matter.” It is raising arms above your head and begging, “Don’t shoot.”

I can’t watch the footage of George Floyd being killed by a cop. And, I can’t watch our cities burn. It is too much.

All I feel, truly, is a numbness that started in my stomach and spread to my chest. The numbness is coating the fear that my country, my fellow white people are engaged in a kind of genocide against African Americans. 

As a white woman, I don’t feel the terror that Black women feel when their sons and daughters leave home and face the possibility of dying at the hands of cops. Or dying because a cop kneeled on their necks until they couldn’t draw another breath.

None of us is innocent. None of us is without sin. We all break laws, perhaps every day. We speed, roll through stop signs, and we refuse to wear masks to prevent the spread of a pandemic. We may even commit crimes. 

But in this country, this land of the free and home of the brave, we have due process. We have a justice system, as deeply flawed as it is. We have the right to lawyers. We have the right to stand innocent until proven guilty. Those rights are for all of us, but all too often have become a luxury that only whites can count on.

If America is exceptional, as we white people are raised to believe, then we are exceptional more for our brutality to people of color than we are for our representative democracy that seems too often to represent only whites.

Numbness is spreading to my heart and is breeding depression and hopelessness. Underneath it all is disgust and outrage and anger and sorrow and grief and fear. Racism is ugly, a systemic force that empowers violence and murder. I wonder if it is a force too great to stop or change.

King didn’t advocate riots, but he understood the impulse.

I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

We must fight this status quo, as white people, and commit ourselves to justice, equality, and humanity.

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Wake up America. All Cops are not bad cops.  Criticize the guilty, bad behavior has no skin color, no certain uniform, no gender, and sadly as long as humans inhabit the earth it will continue. It’s reckless to think all cops are bad and that justifies, looting, rioting, and burning properties. Be outraged but don’t engage in despicable behavior. Join a decent society that has laws and a justice system.

Try and let this sink in..”DON’T LET THE ACTIONS OF A FEW DETERMINE HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT A GROUP AS A WHOLE.” Chicago over a 14 day period has endured 28 murders and over 117 people shot. We are all mad as hell, and outraged, but we didn’t take away from our outrage by looting, rioting, and setting fires and committing other acts of criminal behavior in the guise of protest. Nobody is mentioning skin color or shouting racism. Despicable acts know no skin color.

I’m going to share something with you.”NOBODY HATES BAD COPS MORE THAN GOOD COPS.” BELIEVE THAT FOR SURE. The sight of George Floyd begging to breathe and the cop kneeling on the back of his neck for approximately 8 minutes just shakes me to the core. Losing the sense of decency is deplorable, no matter what uniform or what skin color one has. The justice system in America for some is a slow process, but it is what makes our country great.

The officer has been charged with murder and like any other person charged no matter the outrageous criminal behavior they engaged in, we simply cannot resort to more criminal behavior, where would it all end? Albert Schweitzer’s “REVERENCE FOR LIFE” comes to mind.”A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY THAT GOOD CONSISTS IN MAINTAINING, ASSISTING, AND ENHANCING LIFE AND THAT TO DESTROY TO HARM OR HINDER LIFE IS EVIL.” After all the looting and burning and other acts of criminal behavior, we will still be left with the same nagging pain we started with. The true measure of any society is how they treat it’s most vulnerable citizens. Sometimes as we have witnessed in Minneapolis, we fail miserably, but as a civilized society, we cannot ever stop trying.

In the past, my scale would determine how my morning started. If my weight was low, I was satisfied. If it was high, I was disappointed. I had to ask myself why I wanted to lose weight. Was it for my health or appearance? If I am eating healthy, exercising, getting my rest, and doing my best to reduce stress, why should I worry about what the scale shows?

What would happen if we focused on our health instead of the scale? Every female will not wear a size six and you do not need to wear a size six to be healthy. What is your blood pressure? (A normal blood pressure is 120/80.) How about your cholesterol? (Cholesterol levels lower than 200 mg/dL is appropriate for adults.) How much do you weigh? People usually know their weight; however, weight is not the only number you should monitor.

Health goes beyond not being sick. Good health is comprised of physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being. Exercising, eating right, getting your rest, reducing stress, and having strong relationships all involve living healthy. In pursuing a healthy lifestyle follow your instincts. Change the things you feel you need to change and improve the things you feel need improvement. Don’t be afraid to seek professional help.

Appreciate the body you have right now. It is okay to say you want to change; however, don’t beat yourself up if the process takes longer than you expected. Be careful of following the latest diet where you lose weight but gain it back after you “finish” the diet. Living a healthy life is a long-term process not a short-term event. The scale is not a health or beauty indicator.

As the German Bundesliga has returned to action as the first major soccer league for the past few weeks, something in the broadcast has sparked a debate among viewers.

The Bundesliga is artificially adding recorded crowd noise to the broadcasts. The games are being played in front of empty stadiums, which means you could hear the communication between the players on the field without the artificial sound. Only some of the games have the extra noise, which is even stranger, but it has affected the viewing experience regardless.

The first week of matches were all quiet, but the big Bayern Munich-Borussia Dortmund match on May 26 had the piped in sound cranked up to 11. It was hard to miss and sparked some debate.

Amusing to hear the announcers in Dortmund-Bayern talk about how quiet it is in the stadium when the sound engineer has the fake crowd noise turned up to 11 today on the broadcast.

— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) May 26, 2020

The piped in crowd noise is way better in practice than I thought it would be in concept.

— Jason Davis (@davisjsn) May 26, 2020

Have you experienced the faux crowd noise Fox and some other networks have added to their Bundesliga broadcasts? Does it improve your viewing experience?

— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) May 28, 2020

Let's put this to the people. How do you feel about the fake crowd noise for #DortmundVsBayern?

— Jason Davis (@davisjsn) May 26, 2020

Based on a couple informal polls, it is trending as somewhat popular. Put me firmly in the camp of get rid of it and burn it with fire. It so obviously sounds fake and as much effort as they put into trying to match the chants to the action during the game (having the home crowd whistle during an extended string of possession for the away team, for example), it still lags behind how a real crowd would react.

I also am used to watching games with little or no crowd noise. I’ve watched far too much U-17 or U-20 World Cup qualifying (both men and women) where crowd noise is rare if not entirely non-existent. I find it enjoyable. Apparently not everyone agrees. I’m aware that I don’t understand the language the players are communicating in, but that’s not really the point.

The amusing part is that only some of the games have fake crowd noise. It seems to be random which games do and which don’t, but Fox Sports isn’t putting much effort into the Bundesliga at this point. Their contract with the league ends at the end of this season. The Bundesliga is heading to ESPN in the fall. Fox has no shoulder programming or halftime shows during these broadcasts despite positive ratings.

Fox Sports/Bundesliga numbers:

Dortmund v Schalke: 365K viewers, most-watched Bundesliga ever on FS1, up 489% over pre-pandemic Saturday average. Most watched on streaming service as well.

Union Berlin v Bayern Munich: 361K, 2nd most-watched Bundesliga match on FS1. (1/2)

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) May 19, 2020

Tom Hamilton explained what the Bundesliga is doing in a story for ESPN. Turns out the fake noise is coming from Germany, via Sky Deutschland.

“We created audio samples for specific scenes: penalties, fouls, decisions from VAR and how people would react,” Alessandro Reitano, Sky Deutschland’s SVP sports production, told Hamilton. “We created samples from the dedicated fans and there is one guy, a Sky sound producer, who is watching the match live. Their job is to insert a specific sample if an action happens.”

Derek Rae, who has been doing English commentary remotely for Bundesliga matches, explained part of the process.

Thread: A lot of interest in the “enhanced audio” track which Bundesliga viewers in some parts of the world have been fed as the default. In other parts of the world, it’s not used at all. In 🇩🇪, a middle way: main coverage is without it, but you can press a button to access it.

— Derek Rae (@RaeComm) May 26, 2020

That SAP button would have been a welcome addition for U.S. broadcasts considering not everyone prefers it.

The concept has been an interesting wrinkle that most people probably didn’t think about when considering the return of sports in empty stadiums. It will also be interesting to see what other innovations come in the next couple months as more leagues and sports return.

When it comes to the prospect of restarting sports again in this country, the health and public safety issues are at the forefront. That’s just as first glance however. Upon further inspection, we’re finding that beyond the issues of playing safely amid the world of COVID-19, the sports world of “office politics” take over. The more people involved in the sport, the harder it is to social distance, obviously, but it’s also hard to get all the different stakeholders aligned on the same page.

For the most part, it’s the classic struggle of ownership/management versus labor- the conflict that defines capitalism to its core. And of course, labor issues are all about who gets what slice of the revenue pie. As Notorious B.I.G. famously told us: “it’s like the more money we come across, the more problems we see.” Let’s take a look at where the current sports stand right now, in terms of restarting.

Horse racing is set to return in this state at two Illinois racetracks, Hawthorne Race Course and Fairmount Park, but the timetable for the biggest and best venue, Arlington, is still unclear at this time. As the most most popular racebook in the US will tell you, it’s a sport that is largely consumed remotely anyway. The term itself “off track betting” says it all, and that’s been part of the lexicon since the 1970s. 

NASCAR is another sport that lends itself easily to social distancing, and also is not very difficult in regards to competing interests. The auto racing body returned to action at Darlington on May 17. Both auto and horse racing events will be staged without fans allowed. One would think that goes without saying- all sporting events will be staged behind closed doors, but that’s not entirely true. Golf returns in less than two weeks with the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge, June 11-14 at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth.

It will be played without fans, but the state of Texas, in the specifics of its re-opening policies, would allow spectators there, albeit at much less than capacity. With team sports, it’s much more complicated. The NWSL  announced this week that they will host the NWSL Challenge Cup in the Salt Lake City area beginning on June 27. If it goes off without a hitch, they’ll become the first team sports league to reactivate since the COVID-19 pandemic began. 

The NHL announced its 24-team return-to-play model this week, with a plan that effectively ended the 2019-20 regular season. Thus it goes straight into the Stanley Cup playoffs, with eight more teams than usual qualifying for the playoffs. The plan, as of now, has more questions than answers, the first of which being- which hub city will be the staging ground for this tournament? 

MLS is also going the tournament in one central location route, with Orlando, FL the chosen destination. Earlier plans, which called for players to be out of market and thus away from their families, were rejected by the MLS Players Association. The MLSPA is negotiating with league leadership about how drastic a paycut, 10% or 7.5% the players will have to take. It is thought that players will decamp from their hometown markets and head to Orlando starting June 21.

Speaking of Orlando, all signs indicate the NBA will eventually resume its season there, at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. The league’s Board of Governors will hold a vote Thursday, where they are expected to approve commissioner Adam Silver’s plan.

Which brings us to the real big question- will we have a Major League Baseball season in 2020? On the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver, quoted a MLB rep telling the Washington Post: “I would be lying if we were to say we had a good idea, they’re all degrees of bad.”

The biggest sticking point? Labor issues of course. It’s easy for the media to paint this dispute with the “millionaires versus billionaires” brush, but that’s being very simplistic, and ultimately missing the point. ESPN has the latest at this link, and well, if you’re with the players on this one, then you’re probably on the right side of history here.

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.

You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.

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