OGTEleven

This thing has gotten so far out of control I don't know what to think of it at this point, other than thinking that everybody is wrong, at least in my opinion (except, oddly enough, maybe Shady). Kaepernick started the whole thing as a protest over Michael Brown IIRC ( I think that was it). It turns out that it may not have been the greatest cause that ever existed because it sure seems probable that the Brown incident was at least primarily on him and not the cop. Regardless of that, how was kneeling for the anthem the right way to protest at all? How about speaking out about Ferguson Mo. in particular? Was the Ferguson incident an indication of our nation as a whole? The ideals of our nation? He certainly seemed to think issues went beyond Ferguson and that is something worth discussing. Starting that discussion the way he did and then with the pig socks, Guervera t-shirt and positive words about Castro might not have been the way I would have approached it. Kaepernick not having a job seemed to be phase two and that one has a lot of moving parts. A high salaried marginal QB who is far from bad and far from a guy that is the last piece to a championship brings a lot of questions by itself. Add the potential fan uproar to the mix and then what? Then his girlfriend and the Ray Lewis stuff? Every owner gets to make his own decision based on his own situation and Kaepernick didn't make it easy but man there are 32 teams so somewhere between 64 and 96 QB jobs and I would put him in the top 64 somewhere. He isn't being blackballed due to his skin color (see Taylor, Winston, Wilson, EJ, Webb, and many other QBs), but i it due to politics? Fast forward (skipping a lot) to Michael Bennett which just seems like it is being overblown to me. The guy was in a chaotic scene and was was detained by police. Was it a little rough? I guess. Were there some bad choices of words flung around in the heat of the moment? Maybe. Was he shot or hurt or falsely charged with anything? No. He has made claims that he got off easy because he was a football star. Maybe. Has anyone named even one non-football star that was not let off easy in that incident once they were cleared? I haven't seen it. Then Goodell and a bunch of owners jump in without all the facts to defend players. I get the labor relations side of this but the NFL has influence and I think they acted hastily. Now we have a bunch of guys kneeling and protesting the flag and country over things that are very cloudy at best. Of course the backlash from the other side comes complete with stupid statistics about how more white people are killed by cops than blacks. Of course there are. That's because there are more white people available. As a percentage, more blacks are killed. There are so many factors that go into this that are socio-economic, locations based and otherwise, but everyone takes a side, all sides based on bad math. Fast forward again and the president says something along the lines of having a right to protest but they should all be fired. What was the point of that? It's none of your business so stay out. How is it different than when Obama said the cops acted stupidly even when they didn't? These are issues that presidents have stayed out of forever because they should be, you know, doing their actual job. Of course this led to yesterday's mass kneelings which led to more reactions. The whole thing is ridiculous. Ted Kennedy, or Tip O'Neil (I can'r remember which, but neither of which I share ideologies with) was correct when he said all politics is local. The problem is that in 2017, everything is local. The speed of information has brought a lot of positives to society but it has also brought negatives, based on human shortcomings. We all oversimplify information in an effort to process it quickly. That proclivity knows no political boundary. The part that I like the least is that the flag and the anthem are supposed to represent our ideals. These ideals are things we should always be moving towards, not away from. No society in the history of human kind has ever completely lived up to its ideals. We are all flawed and we all fail. I think the protestors are mistaken in their protest if they say the anthem represents cops killing black people or something like that. It doesn't. It represents the ideals toward which we should all strive. Individually and collectively we all make mistakes and there are bumps in the road, but the ideals laid out in our founding documents are worthwhile goals. The people speaking out about achieving those goals and not simply arguing about which side is right and which is wrong are few and far between at this point. I'm not sure I even see one.

About the phone calls made from the towers and planes on 9/11.

It is hard to beat Saratoga in August and Lake George is right up the road. The track is awesome (but might be a long day for the little one). There is also a lot to do in town with a lot of great restaurants. Lake George is beautiful and there are activities for young ones around the Village area. Both places might be a little pricey when it comes to hotels at that time of year. IT might be a better fit for your mini-weekend getaway afterward.

I'd like to see the Bills get Maclin and have him be great but he can never be my favorite #19.

I'll add two songs that I think are really meant for a female voice, (although it is hard to beat the original of the first), and my favorite female voice at that. I think I posted these in the earlier thread that Jack couldn't find. Dancing in the Dark

As great a guitarist as he is (my personal favorite), his greatest attribute is as a songwriter. He always shows up (too low) on lists of the greatest guitarists but almost never on lists of greatest songwriters. Growing up I liked all the classic rock bands like Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Genesis (mostly the Gabriel stuff), Yes, etc. Dire Straits was definitely on the list. As I got older I still liked all those bands and I still do. The difference with Dire Straits was that I was always finding cool new things that I had missed in songs over the years. I knew all the songs by those bands but the Straits stuff always seemed fresh. The only exceptions were in their super popular stage with songs like Money for Nothing, which I like but is just a fun song. A lot of their songs (Telegraph Road, Lions, Tunnel of Love and even Sultans) have just a lot of stuff going on that is easy to pass over at first. Where Knopfler got underrated was that he was thought of as a guitar hero but his songs has some of the greatest lyrics and were written in original ways. Romeo and Juliet has a line "You can fall for chains of silver, you can fall for chains of gold, you can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold". It's a perfect phrasing for a rejected lover to throw at the his ex. One of my personal favorites is from Telegraph Road. "Cos I've run every red light on memory lane". While in Dire Straits he created the soundtracks to Cal, The Princess Bride and Local Hero, all among the greatest ever. Post Dire Straits he has created songs from about every genre (pop, rock, blues, country, bluegrass, folk, Celtic) and far surpassed his Dire Straits work in my opinion. Barely anyone knows this it seems. Unlike many songwriters, his songs are not commonly about himself. They are usually about ordinary people and usually paint them from a perspective of respect and dignity. They are incredibly relatable. Even when he writes about someone famous like Sonny Liston or Ray Kroc he makes them very real, not some larger than life figure. So many lines of his lyrics are pure genius. I'm sure most songwriters would be happy to have written one of them. He has hundreds. His guitar is still there. I saw him 18 months ago in concert (see clip below) and his guitar is still very much there (as you'll see at the end of the clip). The list of his collaborations and people who have covered his songs is unbelievably long and varied. Tina Turner, Chet Atkins, Bob Dylan, The Killers, The Judds, Kenny Rogers, Metallica, Emmylou Harris, The Indigo Girls, Randy Travis, The Everly Brothers, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shooter Jennings, Eric Clapton, and I'm sure I've left off a ton. I'd say he is underrated.

Oh my God. My wife (about whom I have no right to complain) also does this exact trick. She also adds an intra-store mode to the mix. We can be done grocery shopping and headed toward the checkout pushing a cart overflowing with groceries. After getting 65 things from our original list of 20, she'll stop and say we forgot toothpaste (or something else). I say ok and get in line with three people in front of me while she goes for the toothpaste. The next thing I know I am almost done checking out the full cart and she is still nowhere in sight. Sometimes she'll even get there at the absolute last second (I don't know how she does that) but with two tubes, wanting me to make the decision. Whichever one I pick (completely at random because I cannot even care if I try), she extols the virtues of the other one (but that is really a separate story which deserves it's own post).

She does a nice version of Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark too, but I'll go with this.

Nice. I don't know why Youtube never brought that one up with my search. That whole skit idea was great.

That's why I went with it. Other stuff preceded it but this is the lowest of the low.

OK it looks like it is time to wrap it up. RIP McLaughlin. Answers 1. Robert Woods is going to have a great year and will only be under the players I listed as potential Bills MVP (opinion of course). 2. There are a lot of bad trends these days but none are worse than The Real Housewives of (fill in the blank). It is it's own subculture and it is disgusting. 3. Taro T got it with Local Hero 4. A repeat of the blocked field goal return against the Broncos would be an amazing way to win a Super Bowl in the last second. The Ravens did it to the Browns just this year. 5. This was a bad question but I can explain. The answer was Seemingly uncivil discourse that was actually civil under the covers. I would have accepted similar answers. What I liked about McLaughlin's show was that although there were strong disagreements and even yelling, there was a level of respect and courtesy. At some level, they listened to the other person. Shows like Hannity and O'Reilly and MSNBC's lineup leave me believing the people do not like each other and are more into making the other person look bad than trying to make their own point. There are exceptions on individual shows from time to time but most of the discussion is pointless and antagonistic. I never got that from The McLaughlin Report.

1. WRONG!!!!!!! But I hope he has a good year too. 2. Most people have been close on this one. Not you. WRONG!!!!!!!! 3. Seek help in the musical taste category. Already answered and you are WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4. That would be a good way to get into the Super Bowl if the Patriots or Fish did the dropping. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5. Clearly. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Martina McBride, Telegraph Road is never technically wrong, but in this case the desired answer was On Every Street. I got to see him last fall and he had just started playing it again after 23 years. Below is a clip of the show I attended. Outro starts about 3:45. It throws in Speedway At Nazareth so enjoy. If you haven't checked out every bit of his post Dire Straits you owe it to yourself.

1. Bad hair, high winds and long extra points are a toxic mix. WRONG!!!!! 2. Yet another good but WRONG!!!!! choice. 3. WRONG!!!! and already answered. 4. It would be hard to win the Super Bowl on that play and I don't want to see Matt Cassel ever again. WRONG!!!!!!! 5. I don't want him to die but WRONG!!!!!! To recap 3 is Local Hero, 5 was probably a bad question so I may just give the answer soon, we're all around 2 but it hasn't been hit, I'm surprised nobody has hit 1, and 4 will be great if it happens, think hard about that one. A couple of hints might be that a play similar to 4 happened this year but it did not involve the Bills, 5 involves how McLaughlin's show was different from a lot of political talk you hear on shows today. I can't give hints for 1 and 2 without giving it away. 2 should be so easy.

1. That would be good news but is WRONG!!!!!!!! 2. WOW!!!!!! That was a long winded and philosophical way of saying you are too young to remember Renee Richards. WRONG!!!!!! 3. That song is constantly mocked in sitcoms. WRONG!!!! (and already answered correctly by Taro T). 4. Good one as many have been. Not heart stopping enough. WRONG!!!!! 5. NOPE! 3. WRONG!!!!! in so many ways. I didn't say he should die, he's just not the answer to that question. Maybe if I do another one I'll make him an answer. Maybe I can work him and Martina McBride into the same answer somehow. #3 is already answered, #1 and #4 are good but WRONG!!!! choices and agreeing with Dr. Who has thus far proven WRONG!!!! in this thread.

1. I hope not. I remember the days when Moorman was our best player. I'm an optimist. WRONG!!!!!!!! 2. There are so many to choose from for this question. So far everyone has chosen WRONG!!!!!!! 3. CORRECT. 1 point for you. Bonus question. Only Taro T can answer for a point and he only gets one try Which Dire Straits song would make a better radio talk show theme than anything out there today? Hint: Guitar outro. Hint 2: It would also make a great closing song for an episode of The Blacklist if you used the whole song. 4. Another question with a lot of great choices. Also all WRONG!!!!!! so far. 5. WRONG!!!!!! Dana Carvey makes jokes. This is serious business. This question is a little hard and probably not a great one. I may end up giving hints. Regardless of that I repeat WRONG!!!!!!! 1. Now way. WRONG!!!!!!!! 2. I said cultural symbol of cultural decay not cause of political and economic decay. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! (And lighten up if anyone was mad at that answer) 3. Are you 9 years old? WRONG!!!!!!!! 4. Yawn. WRONG!!!!!! 5. Explain this WRONG!!!!!! answer.

1. I hope he plays well but WRONG!!!!! The question us simply who will have the best year, not who is the most important. 2. Everybody Is WRONG!!!! here bust most are on the right track. I don't think Paris started it but even if she did it has gotten worse. And if you only last 10 minutes that doesn't mean the whole thing is 10 minutes. WRONG!!!! 3. Mozart Schmozart. WRONG!!!!! 4. If that is the way they win, although redemption for Norwood, it would not be as exciting as the answer so WRONG!!!!! 5. That would be cool but it is still WRONG!!!!!!! Maybe. WRONG!!!!!!!!

It has two Bills questions in it but move it if you have to move it. Sorry. WRONG!!!!!!

1. I think if we were taking bets he'd be the favorite. Never bet the favorite. WRONG!!!!!!! 2. Do I say you are getting warm or your are wrong? Let me think. WRONG!!!!!!!! 3. I have no idea what you mean by the Ted Cruz part. The other part seems like a hint toward a fantastic but WRONG!!!!!! soundtrack. Please elaborate. I looked up "Ted Cruz Inconceivable" and learned something. Cruz likes good movies (at least one) with great soundtracks. In fact, this soundtrack is the reason I put the term all instrumental in the question. Does the video below sound instrumental to you? WRONG!!!!! 4. I think there will be many choices that could be good in this spot. I would settle for any of them or even anything else )please before I die). Your choice is WRONG!!!!!! 5. When it comes to Martina the W word can never be invoked because if Martina McBride is wrong I don't want to be right. I'll just say I was looking for something else. Also you know you've been around here if you remember that Martina played a big role in these. She isn't the answer to any of these questions today (Well maybe 1, 3, 4 and 5 in some way, but certainly not 2).

Posted on the main board (2 Bills questions)

I haven't done much more than lurk (and a few music threads) for quite a while but some of the old timers may remember the McLaughlin threads. I haven't done one in forever but I saw that John McLaughlin passed away and it reminded me so I thought I'd do a tribute thread to say RIP. Basically, I ask 5 questions and you try to answer them. I'll then let you know if you're right or WRONG!!!!!! McLaughlin SNL style. I try to be as mean as possible so don't be offended. Whoever answers any question correctly first gets the point for that question. Questions 1. If you excluded Sammy Watkins, Tyrod Taylor and Gilmore, who would be the Bills 2016 MVP based on what McLaughlin thinks will happen this season? 2. What is the worst symbol of American cultural decay in decades (so many to choose from lately)? Be specific or you'll be WRONG!!!!!! 3. What is the greatest all instrumental movie soundtrack in the last 40 years? The winner of this question will get one chance at a bonus point. 4. You can pick a play from Bills history to be the winning play in the Bills first Super Bowl victory. What play do you choose? (Note that it does not have to happen against the same team and that it could even be a play that the Bills lost on but they would win this time). Do NOT pick the Home Run Throwforward or you will be suspended from this game. 5. What should not die just because McLaughlin did?

I lurk from time to time. I've posted in a few music threads. When I saw McLaughlin died it reminded me. (RIP John) I think I'll do a McLaughlin thread as a tribute. It takes some time to think up good questions. I'll try for something tomorrow afternoon (tied up all morning). I don't know whether to do Off the Wall or the main board but if any of the questions are Bills related I'll go to the main board so be on the lookout. I'd love to start posting again but don't feel like I have much to offer about the Bills and have pretty much given all I have to offer on PPP (although this year sure is crazy).

It took me a while to find this (although it shouldn't have) because I was looking for a thread with Dallas in the name. I don't really know where to start. I can't bring myself to watch video from La., Mn., or Dallas. There is a lot to this that I find very disturbing. Maybe the most disturbing to me is the loss of the individual. At the end of it, the deceased are (were) people. Whether they were shot by police, or they were police, they will have people missing them. These people will remember them long after we have forgotten "those victims" or "those police". You don't have to take a side to realize that. Dehumanizing these people is dangerous and it is natural for it to happen when we feel a need to take a side or simplify things by thinking of others as part of a group. When it does happen, facts go ignored (like if the victims were totally innocent, about to shoot the cops or anywhere in between, or if the shooters in Dallas turn out to be part of some larger organization or just a few terrible people or something else). I think it is fair to say that some believe police have categorized black people and are more prone to harass them (by harass I mean everything from speeding tickets a white guy wouldn't get all the way to shooting them and everywhere in between). If true, or true in certain categories or locations, this needs to be stopped. The question is how. A bad way to go about stopping it is to categorize police (the mirror image of the same problem). This is a simplification that won't lead to a viable solution. As Tom points out, the problem hasn't even been properly defined (another disturbing point). If the individual black guy getting a speeding ticket was going 95 in a 40, he deserves it. The black guy going 42 is the one that has been victimized. The reverse is no better. A cop who is corrupt needs to be brought to account, but a cop shot while guarding a protest march in a city far from the event under protest, is plainly and simply a victim. Because he is an individual. It is not right to treat him as a cog in some gigantic machine with which you are at war. I could probably go on and on here and I'm trying to figure out a way of wrapping up. I guess the top thing for me is what I see in our country as a loss of respect for any individual except one (me me me). It seems to me that people in 2016 have an incredible ability to discern the impact events have on them as an individual, but when it comes to other individuals they are far far removed from reality. Everyone else falls into a group of good guys or bad guys. Nobody else is an individual. The initial suspect was carrying a rifle at an event where cops were targeted and shot by people with rifles. His outrage at even being questioned (although he was very quickly released) focuses completely on himself and how he feels he was treated unfairly. Police lied to him as part of the interrogation? Maybe they were trying to trip him up into admitting something? Shocking. The 30 minute detention period tells me that they pretty quickly realized he had nothing to do with it and they let him go. He said he feels the system is out to get him. If so, he is using the wrong example. His brother, an event organizer, laments being a suspect and a villain. Well, a suspect is just that, and the dismissal indicates that time is over. Nobody that I have seen was calling him or his brother a villain. Our country was founded on the worth of an individual and I think our solution had better come from that mindset. If people are lumped into categories as blacks, whites, cops, criminals, and whatever else, it won't work. I have my opinions about what our political leaders are doing, but I'll keep them out of this particular post.

Nothing else from anyone here? I'll try another.

I was searching for an old thread and it went to the archive, So Im starting a new one.