Posts Tagged ‘sports’

Don’t piss this referee off. Hell, you better be on your best behavior.

According to Reuters, a soccer referee in Malaysia pulled a gun and fired it into the air after issuing a red flag to one of the players – a suspension that cause several unruly players to get even more unruly. After the man was “attacked” for the call, he ran to his car and grabbed his service revolver. After all, he’s also a cop.

Officials have arrested the referee on tentative charges of unlawful discharge of a weapon, and are also holding several of the players on possible rioting charges.

Not an incredible story, but certainly a funny one. After all, I always thought the red card was the most serious punishment you could receive in a soccer game. Malaysia decided to add a new tier.

I found this article on Yahoo! News this morning, which was originally written by Mike Klis of the Denver Post. In the article, Klis writes this:

The NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers decided to start their Monday Night Football game without the National Anthem according to the Denver Post. Bad enough football has taken away all our free time in the fall and early winter. Now, it’s going to take away our patriotism?

This time, it seemed like the NFL had gone too far.

And I have to ask Mr. Klis, “Are you f**king kidding me.” I hate how sensitive people are these days, and I really, really hate when people accuse others of being unpatriotic. I hate it when Republicans criticize others for questioning the President and policies and calls those critics unpatriotic – isn’t it more patriotic to question what isn’t right? (balance of powers, freedom of speech, etc.) I hate it when… well, I just hate unpatriotic talk altogether. Unless someone goes and joins Al Qaeda and actively fights in one way or another against the U.S., they’re probably not unpatriotic. And this story just rubbed me the wrong way.

The article stems from the NFL and Pittsburgh’s decision to forego the National Anthem at the beginning of the game after kickoff was delayed 25 minutes due to horrendous weather, including lightning, rain and near swamp-like conditions. No one wanted to be outside, and I doubt the person singing the National Anthem really wanted to be outside, either. Can you really blame them for wanting to jump right to game play rather than spend ten minutes of the National Anthem, commercial breaks and so on and so forth?

Klis finishes his article with this: “The NFL hardly seemed worthy of its red, white and blue insignia colors by canceling America’s most honorable song so the show could on two minutes less late.” Come on! If anything, the NFL is probably the “most patriotic” sport in the USA, and they pander to patriotic thinking more than baseball, basketball, hockey and any other sport. Missing the National Anthem for one game is not going to kill anyone, and does not imply that the people who made the decision are any less patriotic.