Understand that it’s fucking Mordor.

It’s totally evil.

It really is.

Entertain for a moment the idea that the NFL might actually be nothing more than a flashy delivery system for gambling. The games are just accessories created to facilitate the exchange of a mind-bending amount of money. It’s impossible to calculate how much cash– both legally and illegally– is bet on the NFL each year, but it’s hundreds of billions of dollars. It might be a trillion. The NFL, and the owners of each of the the 32 teams that comprise the league, make pornographic amounts of money– so much so that even the pathologically greedy Donald Trump wanted in on the action back in the 80’s.

Working beneath these overlords are the players. About 70% of them are black, and the average length of a career is about 3 1/2 years. It is a brutal, collision-based sport, but beyond the mechanical failure of knees, hips and such, there is CTE, a brain disease that virtually every football player seems to acquire due to the concussive nature of the sport. And because the NFL is evil, they withheld this information from the players even as symptoms set in and raged amongst them.

Essentially, what the NFL does is hire people to engage in combat while America bets on who the winner will be.

It’s the bread and circuses we’re fed.

The game itself is about martial precision rather than athletic improvisation. The players are armoured and anonymous, strategically deployed by the technocrats on the sidelines, and whatever exuberance or individuality they bring to the game is swiftly crushed. When celebrating and dancing after a touchdown became a thing, the league outlawed it. It was considered “disrespectful,” ( but not in the same way that calling a team The Redskins might be “disrespectful”) which put another way means it was considered too black. In effect, they took an African-American product, subordinated it to the tastes of a conservative white audience, and profited obscenely from it.

Colin Kaepernick, a talented black quarterback, ( It was not that long ago that a black quarterback in the NFL was unheard of, the belief being that they didn’t have the “faculties” to perform the job) began the practice of taking a knee during the national anthem as a protest against against racial injustice.

He was subsequently black-balled from the league, even though his talents should have been in high demand. In his absence, others players stepped up to continue the practice, all of which came to a head when Trump started calling for the sons of bitches to be fired. This cynical and amoral manipulation of existing divisions in the nation forced the players and owners to respond.

Siding with those who are against racial injustice and for freedom of expression seems like a pretty obvious choice. I mean, this is a no-brainer, right? History is unfolding in such a way that it’s forcing people to make a choice, whether they want to or not, and many players took the knee. And the photographs–all so familiar, inevitable and urgent– were deeply moving. They gave me chills, and for a moment it was easy to believe that things might finally be changing for the good.

But then again, this movement was taking place largely within the pitiless machine that is the NFL, and so many sought a middle road that they hoped wouldn’t interrupt any revenue streams. The Dallas Cowboys, led by their owner, took a knee before the anthem, and then standing, locked arms as a team during the anthem.

It was a muddle of a message, one that managed to suggest the players had some sort of solidarity with ownership instead of a grievance with institutional racism, but that was the point. It was supposed to mean all things to all people. Ultimately, they co-opted the symbolism of Kaepernick’s protest to support the idea of “protest” without actually joining the protest. It was nothing more than damage control, a gesture as empty of meaning as a Pepsi commercial, and one more thing the NFL can add to it’s wall of shame.

************************************

The Citizens for Constitutional Freedom Press Conference, January 12th, 2016

Ammon Bundy: Our intelligence officers have informed us that David Bowie has passed away. After careful study we have confirmed this as true, and not some prepared government disinformation constructed to demoralize my patriots. The news came as an absolute shock to The Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, and we feel that we’ve lost a brother in our fight against tyranny.

Ryan Bundy: He was our Diamond Dog, may the Lord hold him in his sweet embrace! Swing low, sweet chariot!

Ammon Bundy: David Bowie was a formative presence in my life. It was difficult for many of us, confused young militia men marginalized by government tyranny, to come to grips with the strange and new feelings we were experiencing while growing up in remote Nevada.

Our constitutional urges were so strong and they felt so true, yet still, the mainstream shunned us for them.

David Bowie…. okay okay, just give me a sec. His passing there, guess it dug deep… Giving me feelings… You know how you put stuff in a closet and you don’t look in there, and then something happens one day and it all just comes spilling out in tears, gunfire and arson? That’s what this is like. I’m just a little emotional here, but let me tell you, if there’s one thing David Bowie taught me, it’s that it’s okay to be different, and I will be different for the Constitution, knowing that it is okay to enforce my interpretation of the Constitution on the nation by any means necessary.

Ryan Bundy: Hallelujah, they named a knife after the shape shifter! Bowie was the man!!

Ammon Bundy: As you might imagine, many of the men are shaken, some so much so that all of their resolve has left them. We lost five men to grief last night. Crippled by sadness, they drove home to their wives and families, and soon will be watching the NFL playoffs and listening to their favourite David Bowie songs. We wish them godspeed. However, the rest of us have rededicated ourselves to the struggle David would want us to fight. David Bowie, apart from being a creative genius, generous spirit, and fashion icon, was first and foremost a patriot, and he would want us to continue in our battle against tyranny.

Ryan Bundy: Anybody who slept with Susan Sarandon and lists Frank O’Hara amongst his favourite poets is okay in my books! He’s my starman in the sky!

Ammon Bundy: And so, until the government– stooge to the bird lobby– cedes to our demands and gives us, The People, all the land they own, we will remain, defending freedom.

We will be heroes.

Ryan Bundy: Please, American patriots, do not forget to send in food and snack donations, keeping in mind some of the warrior’s dietary restrictions, such as nuts and gluten! Nuts and gluten are weapons of tyranny! Just press Donate on the Donate tab on our Facebook page. Long live our Space Oddity and death to tyranny!

The team was stripped of federal protections for six of its trademarks, including that of their cheerleaders, the Redskinettes. Now this doesn’t mean that the team is going to have to change its name any time soon, but it is one more example of the ever-gathering disapproval that’s raining down upon them. Apologists can argue all they want about the true etymology of the word Redskin, or that the name is meant as an honorific rather than a slur, but it’s irrelevant.

The Native American community, a small and not particularly powerful minority in a vast and powerful nation, have made it clear that they find it an offensive racial pejorative, and that in and of itself should be sufficient motivation for Daniel Snyder, the white, billionaire owner of the team, to step into the world the rest of us live in, or at least the world we hope to live in, and change the name.

I have come up with a few suggestions, which I now offer:

1. The Washington Cherry Blossoms

2. The Washington Indigenous People

3. The Washington 1%

4. The Washington Spooks

5. The Beltway Snipers

6. The Washington House of Lies

7. The Washington Interns (Defensive line known as The Stained Blue Dress)

8. The Washington Anthrax Attack

9. The Washington Department of Doom (Defensive line known as Homeland Security)

10. The Washington Freedom Fighters

Day 1

Firstly, I just want to thank Mikhail Prokhorov for flying me over to beautiful Sochi to report on the Olympic games for a publication as respected as The Beating! Mikhail is a class act and a great example of what the free market can accomplish and why traditional family values must be upheld!

I want to say how much I love Russia and their culture. I really get it. It’s just a great party, 24/7, and the sensible restrictions they impose on the media are something that Canada, Toronto in particular, desperately needs. There is a lot we can learn from Russia, and not just about drinking! (LOL)

I’m a straight shooter, so I have to tell you that the Opening Ceremonies are not really my thing. Personally, I find them a little airy-fairy, more for the wife than for me, so I have to admit I didn’t watch them, choosing instead to take in some MMA with staff and new friends. I tell you, you Russians are warriors! You wouldn’t know it from how you fight in hockey, but in the Octagon? Ass kickers!

Day 2

No blog post.

Day 3

That guy, Johnny Quinn? Fucking awesome! He is the hand’s down star of the Olympics. Not only does he have a movie star/astronaut/ fireman name but he played in BOTH the NFL and the CFL, AND just broke down his own bathroom door when it wouldn’t unlock!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself in the same friggin’ position and responded with exactly the same kind of rage, confusion and entitlement that Quinn showed. This guy is not just the Olympic spirit stuffed in an athlete’s body, but is a shining example of how capitalism bashed through the walls of communism to bring freedom to the great people of Russia!

Day 4

Simply cannot believe how gross Bob Costas’s eyes have become. They make me want to puke.

Day 5

I haven’t seen any beggars here in Sochi. In Toronto they cover downtown like a disease, always asking for handouts. I’ve only given money to a beggar once, a lady one who was wearing a Denver Bronco’s hat, my favourite team. I will always give money to a Broncos fan, but never to anybody else, because of the free market.

There should be football in the Winter Olympics. You know, a big, huge snow bowl. A women’s game, too, because I am entirely for equality of the opposite sexes.

Day 6

No blog post

Day 7

I got to say, the athletes here are freaking beautiful. Super sexy. Justine Dufour-Lapointe? Holy fucking shit. I’ve gotten my staff to get me that Tinder dating App– which is what all the athletes are using to hook-up ( http://sochiontinder.tumblr.com/ )– and am hoping maybe to get the opportunity to party with her and  the Jamaican bobsled team, who I bet get tons of tail. Anyway, I’d also like to meet some of the Dutch girl speed skaters. Those outfits, the superhero ones that cover them like skin, are dead sexy.

P.S: So far, I’ve only seen four dead dogs, so I don’t know why the LIBERAL media was making such a big deal about that.

At any rate, Rob officially registered to run for re-election on January 2, being the first and so far only candidate to do so. It was at this time that Rob unveiled the official campaign slogan for the October 27^th election: Ford more years!

This is where the mayor and I run into a disagreement. I think it’s a bad campaign slogan and that he should have gone with one of the suggestions I made to him during one of our late night brainstorming sessions:

1. EVERYTHING IS FINE
2. ROB FORD: BRINGING THE NFL TO YOU
3. ELITES MAKE ME PUKE
4. ROB FORD: THE DARK KNIGHT
5. FORD TOUGH

6. ROB FORD: FOR A BIRDLESS TORONTO

7. MOVING FORWARD AND FORDWARD.

8. GET LUCKY.

9. IN FORD WE TRUST

10. ROB FORD: A FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

11. FORDING OUR STRUGGLES TOGETHER

12. ROB FORD: WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND

13. FORD YOU!

14. ROB FORD: SHOOTING THE PAST IN THE HEAD

15. IT’S ROB’S JOB, DAMMIT!

16. A PUSSY IN EVERY POT

17. HOPEFULLY CUTTING THE WASTE/WAIST

18. FORDAPALOOZA

19. ROB FORD: TOO LEGIT TO QUIT (This one has theme music and signature campaign parachute pants)