DUMB AND DUMBER — From Football Firings to Fishing for Hookers
Plus, Wordle Saves Lives!
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I’ve spent the last week covering the run-up to the Super Bowl, and I don’t need to tell you how dumb the NFL can be. It’s a multi-billion dollar organization owned by 31 obscenely rich individuals or families. (I’m not going to count Green Bay because it’s owned by over 300,000 shareholders and may be the closest thing to a democracy in sports.)
Issues over race and equity were coming to a head long before ex-Miami head coach Brian Flores filed his lawsuit. But his accusations — that Black coaching candidates aren’t taken seriously in the hiring process, and that Dolphins owner Steve Ross wanted to lose games to land better draft picks — made the noise level ”go to 11.”
Brian Flores/Michael Reaves, Getty Images
The league has problems, but it is far from broken. After all, the Cincinnati Bengals made it to the Super Bowl, coming from a market that doesn’t have the same media dollars as Los Angeles. The Dallas Cowboys are the most lucrative franchise in the NFL, but Jerry Jones has failed to buy his way into the Super Bowl for 26 years. Perhaps the draft and salary cap work, mostly.
Things that should change will change, as long as fans apply pressure. In the end, those billionaires work for you.
Here are a few other things on my mind.
DUMB — Jeff Garcia, “Straight Out of 1995”
Speaking of football. A lot of people think San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo isn’t very good. ESPN’s Mina Kimes is one of them. “The dude is just simply not helping them win,” she said.
Kimes happens to be a woman. Former 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia went ballistic, criticizing Kimes for criticizing Garoppolo (warning: expletives).
Deadspin calls it a “rant straight out of 1995.”
When asked if he was possibly being sexist, Garcia doubled down. “Had it been a man saying the same thing,” he told the Steiny and Guru podcast, “I would have had the same response for that man who has never stood in the pocket, who has never delivered a touchdown pass, who’s never taken a hit to the head while trying to make a play in the pocket.” Here’s the whole conversation, and it’s a doozy.
Jeff Garcia/Getty Images
I guess Garcia missed all the men who criticized Garoppolo, like Stephen A. Smith, who’s been very vocal about the SF QB’s performance for a very long time. Just like Kimes, Smith has never thrown a football in the NFL.
Also, Garoppolo is most likely out of a job soon, a decision that will be made by... a man.
DUMBER — OMG THE CUOMOS AGAIN
These two won’t go away.
GO. AWAY. /Dia Dipasupil, Getty Images
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, accused by 11 women of sexual harassment, resurfaced by telephone last week. He spoke to Bloomberg’s Laura Nahmias, who reports that Cuomo sounded like he was calling from a pool hall.
Predator 1 (”Get to the choppa!”) told Nahmias he regrets resigning. “I never resigned because I said I did something wrong. I said, ‘I’m resigning because I don’t want to be a distraction.’”
He’s not ruling out a return to public office, even though Nahmias says Cuomo’s popularity in the Empire State “has plummeted.”
Nahmias writes that the former governor “is fixated on first clearing his family name and righting what he sees as wrongs done to him and his closest aides.”
Predator 2 is also back in the news. Chris Cuomo is suspected by former CNN co-workers of sticking it to his boss, Jeff Zucker. During the network’s internal investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by Cuomo the Younger, it came out that Zucker had failed to disclose he was having a (consensual) affair with a co-worker. “Chris blew the place up,” said anchor Jake Tapper, according to the New York Times.
So Zucker is out, too. Mission accomplished!
DUMBERER — Stormy Days for Michael Avenatti
When you believe you can rip off a woman who’s probably dealt with shady men her entire career, you’re not as smart as you think you are. The only thing dumber is representing yourself in court. The jury sided with Stormy Daniels over Michael Avenatti in her lawsuit claiming he stole $300,000 from her book advance.
Stormy Daniels and her former attorney, Michael Avenatti, in happier times/Getty Images
DUMBERERER — Russian Dopes
If a Ukrainian invasion doesn’t get us into a war with Russia, covering up the doping of a 15-year-old figure skating champion and robbing the U.S. of a gold medal certainly will!
DUMBERERERER — Elon’s Empire
Elon Musk has new fires to put out. First, at least 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites that SpaceX recently launched have been taken out in a geomagnetic storm. Fortune estimates the company faces a $20 million loss. SpaceX assures everyone the satellites will burn up entering the Earth’s atmosphere and “pose zero collision risk.” Let’s hope so. I wrote earlier that other satellite operators want more clarity on how SpaceX plans to avoid collisions.
Back here on Earth, Tesla is being accused of the kind of racist behavior reminiscent of 1965. The Los Angeles Times reports the state of California is filing a lawsuit that claims, among other things (warning: explicit slurs):
— “Tesla segregated Black workers into separate areas that its employees referred to as ‘porch monkey stations,’ ’the dark side,’ ‘the slave ship’ and ‘the plantation.’”
— Graffiti in restrooms and on lunch tables included “KKK” and the N-word.
— “Only Black workers had to scrub floors on their hands and knees.”
Whaaaaattttt?
Tesla calls the lawsuit misguided, and says in a blog post that the state already investigated 50 employee complaints and closed them all “without finding misconduct.” The state denies this.
Prediction: Tesla relocates to Texas.
Honorable mention in the auto industry:
Hyundai and Kia are telling a half million drivers in the U.S. to park their cars outside because they could catch fire and they don’t know why.
DUMBERERERERER — Pricey Dinner Tab Inflation
New York “culinary palace” Eleven Madison Park went vegan a few months ago, to harsh reviews. If you’re paying $729 for a meal for two (before booze), it’d better be exquisite.
The taste may now be downright sour for customers. Eater NY reports the restaurant has decided to no longer include the tip in the bill.
However, the restaurant is not lowering prices. Same meal, same $729 price, but now add an extra 20% for service.
Eater explains, “The change, the restaurant claims, will result in ‘more competitive’ wages for its dining room and kitchen staff during the going pandemic.”
Also, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength.
Honorable mention: What is Mexican food?
A Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas has withheld rent from its landlord because it claims another restaurant in the same strip mall is also serving Mexican food, violating the terms of the first restaurant’s lease.
The second restaurant serves a salad topped with black beans and something called a “Chopurrito,” a bowl filled with all the things that would be in a burrito, without the tortilla.
The case has been clogging up the court system like week-old guacamole for two years. The landlord’s lawyer told the Wall Street Journal, “I don’t know, and frankly I don’t know who does know, what legally defines Mexican food… they can fight it out.”
This is why we can’t have nice things.
DUMBEST — From Hooks to Hookers
People in Hudson, Ohio, thought it might be nice to allow ice fishing in local parks. But the mayor expressed concerns that the activity could lead to a specific type of crime. In a leap of logic that even Evel Knievel would’ve balked at, Mayor Craig Schubert said, “If you then allow ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem: prostitution. Just some data points to consider.”
YOU MUST WATCH THE VIDEO:
He later told a local Fox station’s investigative team that his comments stem “from my experience as a former television news reporter covering law enforcement agencies, which have made arrests for acts of prostitution in ice fishing shanties.” He did not provide specific examples.
The “I-Team” (a nickname that never gets old) took the ice-fishing-leads-to-prostitution bait and did some digging, but it couldn’t find anyone in law enforcement who’d ever heard of such a thing. “I don’t think an ice fishing hut would be ideal for that type of activity,” said the local sheriff.
This is what happens when you vote in as mayor a former television news reporter. I know these people. I am these people. "Tonight at 11: From hooks to hookers! We go live inside an ice shanty and talk exclusively with the parka-clad prostitutes working the docks!"
SOMETHING WONDERFUL — Wordle Saves the Day!
Here’s my latest favorite feel-good story to end the column, one that also comes from local news but needs no ratings-boosting exaggeration.
Denyse Holt, an 80-year-old Illinois grandmother who lives outside Chicago, was taken hostage last week by a naked man who broke into her home in the middle of the night. She says he threatened her with scissors and two knives, made her take a bath with him, then barricaded her in an unheated basement bathroom for 17 hours. ”I didn’t think I was going to live,” she told the local CBS station.
Her daughter on the West Coast became concerned when Holt didn’t send an email with her daily Wordle results. The daughter called police, who rescued Holt.
Today’s Wordle should be LUCKY.
By the way, I always share my Wordle results in a group text with my family, but I didn’t this week because I was busy on the road covering the World Ag Expo and the Super Bowl.
No one noticed.
You’d notice, right? Leave a comment below to let me know, and please share this link with like-minded snarkers: https://janewells.bulletin.com.