The local 12th Dog Association was coming over to watch the game tomorrow. For those of you who live in a cave, by "the game" I mean Super Bowl XLIX.For those of you who don't follow my blog on a regular basis, are new to this blog, or just forgot, the 12th Dog Association is about two dozen or so canines of assorted sizes and breeds who live in the area who are devoted Seahawk fans. And a cat named Freddie. The Association allowed Freddie to join the club, because there isn't a 12th cat association because (as I was informed) most of the local cats are not Seahawk fans.
Oh well. I'm in. 
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I'm a freak.
I'm one of those people who listens to news and other informational programing. I like to know what's going in in the universe, or at least on my particular planet. I'm interested in global warming (or cooling, one of the two - I forget from week to week which we are believing at the time), racial unrest, police shooting, radical terrorists,
and the 2016 elections.
But only because I'm worried that Hillary Clinton might not only run for president, she might actually win.
Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with electing a woman as president.
Just not THAT woman.
So one evening I was listening to Jim Bohannon and the topic was the police safety in the light of recent terrorist activities, and threats. Bohannon had just asked a good question, and was about to receive (what I hoped would be an) equally good answer from his guest, when suddenly the show was interrupted by the station.
An amber alert?
A storm warning??
A nuclear strike by radicals???
No, something even more important: basketball.
Yes, I said basketball.
The station deemed basketball more important than the safety of our nation.
And it wasn't even NBA, or even college basketball.And it wasn't even my alma mater.It was High School Hoops!
(Go Bombers!)It was bad enough when the station stopped airing Star Talk...
Me and Macky Rae (my younger dog) liked Neil Degrasse Tyson. Regular readers of this blog are aware that he is fond of science and science fiction....and now this!
Don't get me wrong, I like sports. But some thing are more important that sports. Like the safety of the free world.
The public have an insatiable curiousity to know everything,
except what is worth knowing.
~ Oscar Wilde
And why do they still broadcast sports on the radio? We have TV (and have had for well over a half century) and (IMHO) it is a much better medium for visual entertainment.
There was a time, when human being lived in caves, that radio was the only was transmit immediate information of sporting events.
Or if you didn't need immediate sporting information, you could wait until the following day and hear the results announced by the town crier.
Some sports you just have to watch, either live or on TV. Football I can understand, but that's because I like football. But Basketball? High School Basketball???
Other than parents (and maybe a few other family members), I can't imagine anyone wanting to listen to high school basketball (or any other high school sport). I might be wrong (and often am) but I can't believe they have enough listeners to warrant preempting other programming.
At the very least, KONA shouldn't run a show that the plan to interrupt for "high school hoops." The should either do a pre-game show, or just play some music until the game starts.
Just don't get me involved with a show, only to yank the rug out from under me (figuratively speaking) just when it gets interesting.
So, lets talk sports.
In the United States, there are only 6 sports played: Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, NASCAR,
and everything else - This is according to a 2013 Harris poll.
2176 people were surveyed between December 12th and 18th of 2012, and these are the results:
Football was #1 (anyone surprised by this?) at 46% - 35% favoring NFL, 11 favoring college (NCAAF).
Canadian Football did not make the list.
"You can't be a real country
unless you have a beer and
an airline. It helps if you have
some kind of a football team,
or some nuclear weapons, but
at the very least you need a
beer."
~ Frank Zappa
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Outside the United States (and Canada), "American" Football does not enjoy much popularity. Worldwide, the #1 sport is Soccer.
Most countries enjoy some form of "foot" ball: Soccer, Rugby, and American Football being the most preeminent.
My dogs like football. They are Seahawk fans.
You probably guessed that from the intro to this blog entry.
Two weeks ago, went down to the Zip-E-Mart and bought sodas, chips, and beef jerky - snacks for the NFC championship game. As the game was about to start, I reached over to turn up the volume.
That's when they attacked me.
They thought I was going to change the channel, and panicked. Freedom (my oldest) bit my hand, Sarah (my female) bit my leg, and Macky Rae jumped up on me and head-butted me until I lost consciousness.
Green Bay - 22
Seattle - 26
Trip to the ER for stitches- $300
Laying on the floor in a daze, bleeding, listening to the NFC playoff game - Priceless
It was an awesome ending, so the dogs told me.
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Nipper listening to the 1919 World Series.
The Cincinnati Reds defeated the Chicago
White Sox 5 to 3
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Baseball was #2 with 16%.
How can anyone enjoy listening to baseball?
I played baseball as a kid (little league) and it's a fun game to play, but (IMHO) it's boring to watch, let alone listen to. Very little happens unless a player gets a hit - otherwise most of the players are standing around, scratching and spitting. Only the pitcher and the catcher are (more or less) constantly playing. The pitcher's aim is to strike out the batter (thus preventing anything from happening), and a perfect game, when all the batters are struck out, is when absolutely nothing happens.
5% said Ice Hockey
There is a WHL team in in my hometown, called the Tri-City Americans
which is an odd name for them, because most of the players are Canadian.
Some years ago, I worked near the coliseum where they played, so many of the players came in for lunch. One afternoon, a few of the "Americans" came in and ordered lunch. While waiting for their sandwiches, the boys engaged in a bit of playful jocularity. One of them elbowed another in the ribs, to which the victim responded with an exagurated "ow!' along with the appropriate emoted gestures.
My co-worker, a hockey fan, was not impressed.
"You know" he told the 'injured' player "as a hockey player I expect you to take a body check better than that."
9% said Basketball, of which 6 % said NBA and 3% said college basketball (NCAAB)Note: nobody in the survey said "High School Hoops"
I've already had my say on this subject.
7% said Auto Racing and although the survey did not distinguish, I think it is safe to assume...yeah, I know: ass / u / me
... that they were mainly referring to stock car racing. Stock car racing in the United States has its origins during Prohibition, when drivers ran illegal whiskey. Bootleggers typically used small, fast vehicles to better evade the police. Many of the drivers would modify their cars for speed and handling, as well as increased cargo capacity.
Practice driving and competitions began to attract spectators, and soon stock car racing (NASCAR) became a formal an approved sport.
Especially popular in the south, and by rednecks everywhere
Especially popular in the south, and by rednecks everywhere
Just Sayin'
Dale "#3" Earnhardt is one of the most noted of these, primarily because he died.
I think that some rednecks believe that NASCAR drivers are taken straight to heaven.
My redneck friend (Keith) likes NASCAR and Earnhardt. About a year or so ago he posted a picture of Earnhardt on this Facebook page. It had Dale in his racing regalia, and in the background was an American flag and a bald eagle, and the caption underneath all this read "American Hero."
I had to comment on this.
"Keith" I wrote, "crashing in a car doing 200 mph does not make him a hero. American Heroes are firefighter and police officers, and GIs serving in the middle east."
His response: "So what does that make him?"
"A redneck who crashed at 200 mph!"
Another sport popular amongst rednecks is "professional" wrestling, or as it is called in the south "Rasling"Spoiler alert: Wrestling is not real.
No other sport is so, well, colorful.
Can you imagine freaky characters in other sports?
Oh wait. Dennis Rodman.
I was stationed in San Antonio (Texas) when I was in the Air Force. While I was there, a railroad bridge collapsed, causing a few railcars to drop into the Medina river. Not good, especially if one of them is a tanker filled with toxic chemicals, breaking open and leaking fumes into the air. And even worse when it occurs near a residential area.Specifically, a trailer park.
(This fact is important to the story.)
The television stations, notified by the emergency notification system, alerted the residence (primarily rednecks) to the danger and advised them to evacuate.
Immediately.
And all the rednecks went to the designated meeting spot.
Which was a convenience store.
One of the local stations sent out a news crew, and did a live report from the store. The crew filmed the evacuees as they roamed around the parking lot, drinking sodas and eating hot dogs, nachos, and whatever else they could buy from the convenience store. The reporter picked one of them at random (more or less) and asked him what had happened.
Noted comedian and redneck expert Jeff Foxworthy once said that not all southerners are dumb, it's just that they can't keep the dumb ones off the TV.
"Well, he said "me and the wife was watching wrestling when the TV told us we should leave, so we put the kids in the truck and came here."
"Here" being the convenience store.
What saved the residents was that the accident occurred between 9 and 10pm so everyone was still up (watching wrestling), and thus got the warning to evacuate the area.
If it weren't fer wreslin' a whole lot o' rednecks may've been kilt!
At the time of the accident, I was drinking a beer...
(actually it was more than just "a" beer, but who's counting?)
...in the lounge of the Airman's Club...
which means you can't blame me for the train wreck - I have an alibi
...with Bill MacHines...
and a witness
and was on my 2nd or 12th beer when the station cut away to the impromptu refugee center, interrupting the regularly scheduled programing, which just happened to be a local show called "Weekend Sports Update."
KONA people, please take note: this is how you are suppose to do it. You interrupt sport for news, not the other way around!!!
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