The thoughts of a journalist/libertarian–conservative/Christian husband, father, Eagle Scout and aficionado of obscure rock music. Thoughts herein are only the author’s and not necessarily the opinions of his family, friends, neighbors, church members or past, present or future employers.
Today in 1931, RCA Victor began selling record players that would play not just 78s, but 33⅓-rpm albums too.
Today in 1956, the BBC banned Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rockin’ Through the Rye” on the grounds that the Comets’ recording of an 18th-century Scottish folk song went against “traditional British standards”:
(It’s worth noting on Constitution Day that we Americans have a Constitution that includes a Bill of Rights, and we don’t have a national broadcaster to ban music on spurious standards. Britain lacks all of those.)
Today in 1964, the Beatles were paid an unbelievable $150,000 for a concert in Kansas City, the tickets for which were $4.50.
Thanks to the NFL schedule and the Packers’ suddenly developing a defense, blog readers get to examine another Packer win over an archrival from the archrival’s media point o’ view.
But first, here’s the sound of Vikings retreating:
Now start with the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Chip Scoggins:
The long list includes the Vikings’ horrendous start, Stefon Diggs’ overturned TD, a million penalties, OPIs galore, Dalvin Cook’s brilliance, the defense’s 180 and Kirk Cousins’ turnovers.
Cousins’ mistakes were killer, especially his final interception in the end zone with the Vikings in position to take the lead late in the fourth quarter.
Throwing into double coverage on first down was either a panicky or overly daring move that shouldn’t happen with a veteran quarterback in that critical situation.
Here are other key decisions that created an eventful game:
Scenario 1: Green Bay’s game plan early
Decision: Aaron Rodgers used play-action on the first play of the game to hit a wide-open Davante Adams for a 39-yard catch.
Reaction: Xavier Rhodes had coverage on Adams but released him so not sure if this was busted coverage/miscommunication or what. But it was the start of Rodgers’ masterful first half in which he exploited the Vikings’ thin secondary in building a 21-0 lead.
The Vikings were without nickel corner Mackensie Alexander and Mike Hughes, forcing Jayron Kearse to start at slot/nickel. Kearse gave too much cushion on a 21-yard completion to Adams on the second possession, which caused Mike Zimmer to insert Nate Meadors at nickel. Rodgers promptly went at him on a 12-yard TD catch by Geronimo Allison.
Rodgers completed eight of his first nine passes (the lone incompletion was a throwaway) for 119 yards and two touchdowns. …
Scenario 3: Cousins INT
Decision: Late in the first half, with the Vikings gaining some momentum, Cousins forced a throw to Diggs in the middle of the field with four Packers defenders around him. Four! The ball was deflected and then intercepted by linebacker Preston Smith, giving the Packers the ball back around midfield.
Reaction: That can’t happen. Period. Bad decision by Cousins. …
Scenario 5: Cook’s OPI
Decision: Stefon Diggs scored on a 3-yard TD catch at the end of the first half, but it was overturned when a booth review signaled Cook for pass interference at the goal line.
That pushed the Vikings back 10 yards and they settled for a field goal, cutting the halftime deficit to 21-10.
Reaction: Two thoughts: 1) I honestly didn’t know a PI could be called on a booth review in that situation; 2) I don’t agree with the call.
My colleague Mark Craig is the pool reporter and will get explanation from referee John Hussey after the game on the penalty.
Scenario 6: Diggs’ celebration penalty
Decision: Diggs caught a 45-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter on a beautifully thrown pass by Cousins. One problem. Diggs took his helmet off to celebrate. The penalty moved the extra point back, and Dan Bailey’s kick was blocked, putting the score at 21-16.
Reaction: I hate the rule, but it is a rule.
Scenario 7: Cousins’ INT
Decision: With the Vikings at the Green Bay 8 on first down, Cousins scrambled to his right and floated a pass to Diggs into double coverage in the corner of the end zone. Packers cornerback Kevin King made a leaping interception with 5:10 remaining.
Reaction: Another poor decision by Cousins.
About the offensive pass interference call (one of four in the game, the most I have ever seen in a game), the Strib’s Mark Craig describes what happened:
The confusion began with John Hussey’s open mike catching the referee asking the league office in New York, essentially, “What the heck’s going on?”
“Can you tell me why we’re stopping the game?” Hussey said after Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs with 1 minute, 8 seconds left in the second quarter of Sunday’s 21-16 loss at Lambeau Field.
Diggs clearly caught the ball. And he clearly crossed the goal line to presumably move the Vikings to within a touchdown of a Packers team that led 21-0 after 16 minutes.
But this is the NFL in 2019. Assume nothing. Delay jumping for joy or punching a wall. And put no points on the board until Alberto Riveron, the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating, checks to make sure there are no no-calls to be called.
When Hussey huddled in front of the replay monitor longer than usual, you knew Alberto had spotted an infraction.
“We saw clear and obvious visual evidence that No. 33 [Dalvin Cook] significantly hinders the opponent [safety Darnell Savage] while the ball is still in the air,” Riveron told this pool reporter after the game. “Therefore, we negate the score and call offensive pass interference here from New York and penalize them 10 yards.”
The Vikings settled for a field goal and a 21-10 deficit. Throw in Dan Bailey’s missed 47-yard field goal and a blocked point-after attempt from 48 yards — compliments of Stefon Diggs’ 15-yard personal foul for selfishly removing his helmet after a touchdown catch — and, well, the Vikings would have been leading with 5:10 left. And, who knows, Cousins probably doesn’t throw his second horribly forced interception of the day on first-and-goal from the 8.
But …
Don’t blame Riveron. Cook did help clear a path when he blocked Savage while the ball was in the air.
It was offensive pass interference, one of three on the Vikings and four in the game. And the new rule, adopted on a one-year trial basis, is PI calls and no-calls are reviewable from the booth when there’s a turnover, a score or the game is in the final two minutes of a half.
If you’re grumpy about the call, blame the Saints for getting hosed out of a Super Bowl trip on the mother-of-all no calls in last year’s NFC title game.
Coaches, of course, have been complaining about offensive pass interference on the goal line for years. As Star Tribune sports columnist Patrick Reusse points out, nobody complained more bitterly and regularly about pick plays on the goal line than Vikings Hall of Fame coach Bud Grant.
Sunday, the league office and the game officials weren’t shy about calling OPIs. Besides Cook, Diggs and Adam Theilen both were flagged.
“I feel like it was a point of emphasis this game,” said Diggs, who had an animated conversation with field judge Allen Baynes coming off the field at halftime. “I feel like they went the extra mile trying to emphasize it as a whole, so we’ve just got to watch the tape and figure out what’s what.
“I don’t know the call. I haven’t seen it on tape. I asked him at halftime. He said, ‘You can’t close [your] fist, use your shoulder. You can’t extend at all.’”
After the game, coach Mike Zimmer still wasn’t clear what happened on the negated touchdown. He said it was his understanding that it wasn’t on Cook but rather “the second guy that came through.”
But New York made it clear that it definitely was Cook. And that was news to Cook in the locker room after the game.
“That was the play call, we got out and I don’t know [what happened],” he said. “I can’t tell you. I didn’t even know it was on me, to be real. So I can’t respond. I can’t describe it.”
Welcome to the NFL, 2019. If you think you’ve gotten away with pass interference, just remember. Alberto is watching your every move from New York.
Whether it’s NRA protests, anti-gun protests, live-streams protesting gun violence Alyssa Milano is front and center, attending them all. What she hasn’t revealed until just recently, is the fact that she owns two guns for self defense.
The debate was held in Cruz’s Capitol Hill office, where Milano and Fred Guttenberg — whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Florida — pressed the senator on various gun control proposals.
Milano proposed universal background checks, restricting access to AR-15s, and background checks for bullet purchases, while insisting, “We all believe in the Second Amendment.” Despite that claim, she pleaded, “We have to try everything, and figure out what works. Isn’t that worth it?”
Around 13 minutes into the discussion, Guttenberg said he was offended by Cruz’s argument that these gun controls would erode Americans’ rights to self-defense. “That’s a load of BS,” he said. “Nobody’s trying to remove your right to self-defense.”
“By the way,” Milano interjected, “I have two guns in my household for self-defense, just so you know.”
I guess she thinks she’s special because she’s a celebrity. She doesn’t have to practice what she preaches because she’s a celebrity. Gun control doesn’t apply to her because she’s a celebrity.
I’ve got news for you, Alyssa. It’s folks like you and David Hogg that continue to sky rocket gun sales all across the country.
Guttenberg claimed that “Nobody’s trying to remove your right to self-defense.” Which is not the same thing as saying “nobody’s trying to take your guns away.”
He almost certainly doesn’t realize it, but Beto O’Rourke is likely to be the worst thing to happen to the gun-control movement in decades — and, if he continues in this mode, he may turn out to be the worst thing to happen to the Democratic party in a long time, too. In Houston last night, O’Rourke abandoned his cloying euphemisms (“mandatory buybacks”) and delivered a deliberate, carefully scripted endorsement of gun confiscation, which, within minutes, his campaign began to sell on t-shirts. “Hell yes,” Beto said, “we’re going to take your AR-15.”
Thus, upon the instant, did two decades’ worth of Democratic rhetoric go up in a puff of smoke.
Beto’s increasingly unhinged rhetoric is not only at odds with political reality — is he unaware that the Democratic House failed this week to marshall enough votes for ban on the sale of “assault weapons,” let alone for confiscation? — it also chronically undermines the assurances on which the Democratic party’s more modest gun-control proposals have been built. For years, Democrats have insisted that “nobody is coming for your guns,” and they have used that line to explain why their coveted registry and desired licensing systems do not pose a threat to anyone but criminals. The current push for an expansion of the background check system rests heavily upon this assurance: “Don’t worry about the de facto registry,” advocates like to argue, “it won’t affect you at all.” With reckless abandon, O’Rourke just blew straight through that, screaming, “yes, it will!”
And in the worst possible way, too. When O’Rourke first decided that he was in favor of confiscation, he was at pains to promise that enforcement would be unnecessary because Americans would comply, and that the punishment would be a fine and nothing worse. With his “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15” language, O’Rourke has abandoned even that. And for what? So that he might increase a few percentage points in a poll that he is never, ever going to win, and then disappear from electoral politics forever?
A year from now, when O’Rourke is a contributor on MSNBC, the people who stayed in the arena are going to look back on this period and curse his name. “Did that guy help us?” they will ask. “Hell, no.”
Then there is this video …
… which was (occasionally profanely) rebutted by this video:
This is why I do not reflexively thank veterans for their service unless I know whether their service was honorable (most) or not (John Kerry). The soldiers in the first video did not serve their country; they served the government. They do not respect the Second Amendment rights of anyone besides themselves. Like other liberals they are perfectly fine with being armed themselves, but not with anyone with different views being armed.
Today in 1956, Elvis Presley had his first number one song:
Today in 1965, Ford Motor Co. began offering eight-track tape players in their cars. Since eight-track tape players for home audio weren’t available yet, car owners had to buy eight-track tapes at auto parts stores.
Today in 1970, Vice President Spiro Agnew said in a speech that the youth of America were being “brainwashed into a drug culture” by rock music, movies, books and underground newspapers.
Today in Great Britain in the first half of the 1960s was a day for oddities.
Today in 1960, a campaign began to ban the Ray Peterson song “Tell Laura I Love Her” (previously mentioned here) on the grounds that it was likely to inspire a “glorious death cult” among teens. (The song was about a love-smitten boy who decides to enter a car race to earn money to buy a wedding ring for her girlfriend. To sum up, that was his first and last race.)
The anti-“Tell Laura” campaign apparently was not based on improving traffic safety. We conclude this from the fact that three years later, Graham Nash of the Hollies leaned against a van door at 40 mph after a performance in Scotland to determine if the door was locked. Nash determined it wasn’t locked on the way to the pavement.
