Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog

Presty the DJ for Nov. 9

November 9, 2017

Music
The number one single today in 1974 promises …

That same day, the number one album was Carole King’s “Wrap Around Joy”:

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One year ago right now

November 8, 2017

media, US politics, Wisconsin politics
One year ago at the exact moment this was posted, the polls closed in Wisconsin.

This was about the time that the news media and political experts started to see evidence (NSFW language warning) that the predicted easy Hillary Clinton win and Democratic sweep wasn’t going to happen:

And how did the media professionals act? The Washington Free Beacon chronicles:

Esquire interviewed 40 people who either covered or worked on one of the campaigns during the 2016 presidential election. The individuals gave their personal stories about the unexpected election of President Donald Trump and the defeat of Hillary Clinton. Most of the reporters and editors who were interviewed expressed shock and horror at Trump’s upset victory.

Here are some of their stories.

For some reason, I feel compelled to add:

Rebecca Traister, writer at large for New Yorker Magazine, shared her feelings on being confident about a Clinton victory and how she subsequently felt “so alone” when it was apparent that Clinton would lose. She also observed Clinton supporters throwing up and crying on the floor, according to Esquire, which recounted the progression of her thoughts throughout the night.

They were serving, like, $12 pulled pork sandwiches [at the Javits Center]. It was nuts, people were bouncing off the walls. Everyone genuinely believed she was going to win. I don’t know if it made me feel more confident or not.

I felt so alone, I knew it was done. I was by myself on the floor. I started to cry.

I was thinking everything from, “I’m gonna have to rewrite my piece” to, “Can we stay in the U.S.?” I texted my husband, “Tell Rosie to go to bed. I don’t want her to watch.”

People were throwing up. People were on the floor crying.

In the cab home, the cabbie had on the news, that’s when I heard his acceptance speech, and I said, “Can you turn it off?” I couldn’t hear his voice. I was like, “I can’t listen to his voice for the next four years.”

I got back to Park Slope, I went to check on the girls. When I went to say goodnight, I looked at Rosie, and I had this conscious thought that this is the day that will divide our experience of what is possible. This is the day where a limitation is reinforced for her.

MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff said his thoughts changed from not believing Trump could win to “totally” believing Trump could win.

“I went from this feeling of, ‘Oh my god, wow. I can’t believe it,’ to, in a matter of seconds, ‘Oh, whoa, I can totally believe it,’” Soboroff said.

“Crooked Media” podcast host and former senior political correspondent for MTV News Ana Marie Cox recalled how some of her friends worried about their future.

“A Muslim colleague of mine called his mother. She was worried he was going to be the victim of violence at any moment,” Cox said. “A colleague who is gay and married was on the phone with her wife saying, ‘They’re not going to take this damn ring away from me.’”

Editor of the New Yorker David Remnick discussed his sudden revelation that journalists need to “put pressure on power,” once Trump was elected.

Not only did I not have anything else ready, I don’t think our site had anything, or much of anything, ready in case Trump won. The mood in the offices, I would say, was frenetic.

That night I went to a friend’s election-night party. As Clinton’s numbers started to sour, I took my laptop out, got a chair, found a corner of that noisy room, and started thinking and writing. That was what turned out to be “An American Tragedy.”

[…]

Jelani [Cobb] and I spoke around midnight. We were both, let’s put it this way, in the New Yorker mode of radical understatement, disappointed. Jelani’s disappointment extended to his wondering whether he should actually leave the country. He wasn’t kidding around. I could tell that from his voice.

We agreed that night, and we agree today, that the Trump presidency is an emergency. And in an emergency, you’ve got a purpose, a job to do, and ours is to put pressure on power. That’s always the highest calling of journalism, but never more so than when power is a constant threat to the country and in radical opposition to its values and its highest sense of itself.

Jelani Cobb, a writer for the New Yorker, was discomforted by the New York Time‘s headline “Trump Triumphs.”

“I saw the New York Times headline and I was very discomforted by it,” Cobb said. “For one, I knew that I had a child on the way.”

U.S. news editor for BuzzFeed News Shani O. Hilton remembered how quiet the train was from Brooklyn the night of the election.

“You get on the train from Brooklyn. It’s silent. And not in the normal way of people not talking to each other. It felt like an observable silence,” Hilton said. “I saw at least three people sitting by themselves, just weeping silently.”

New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro went home and questioned whether he should change jobs.

“I went home and woke up my husband, I think it was 4 or 5 in the morning, and asked him what the next steps should be journalistically. Should I move to Washington? Should I change jobs?” Barbaro said. “It was pretty disorienting.”

Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel opined that most of the people he saw at an Atlanta airport who looked like him—”a white dude with a mustache, fairly bloated by the campaign”—voted for Trump who, as far as they knew, was a a “bigot.”

“I was connecting through the Atlanta airport. I looked around and thought, well, for eight years, I didn’t really think about who voted for who,” Weigel said. “But as a white dude with a mustache, fairly bloated by the campaign, most of the people who look like me voted for this guy who, as far as they know, is a bigot. I remember feeling that this divider had come down, this new intensity of feeling about everybody I saw.”

Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos shared his plan for the Trump presidency, which is to resist and not be neutral.

“I’ve been to wars, I’ve covered the most difficult situations in Latin America. But I needed to digest and to understand what had happened. I came home very late. I turned on the news. I had comfort food—cookies and chocolate milk—the same thing I used to have as a kid in Mexico City,” Ramos said. “After that, I realized that I had been preparing all my life for this moment. Once I digested what had happened with Trump and had a plan, which was to resist and report and not be neutral, then I was able to go to bed.”

Former CNN host Reza Aslan expressed his horror, describing how he had a panic attack when he heard the news that Trump won.

I thought, “Oh my God, how terrible are we that it’s even this close?”

My wife stayed up and I went to sleep, then she woke me up around 1 or 2 in the morning bawling and told me that it was over. My poor, sweet wife. She wanted to hug and kiss me but I went into a panic attack and couldn’t breathe.

I remember thinking, as clear as day, this is who we are. This is what we deserve.

You take your kids to school, you go to the store, you go to the post office, you’re looking around, and you’re thinking, “These people hate me.”

The Stockholm Syndrome reactions to Saint Hillary’s losing might be the biggest reason I’m glad Trump won, even though I didn’t vote for him. The examples of gross lack of professionalism should have gotten all of these “reporters” fired, along with their bosses.

Kevin McCarthy evaluates the past year, as RightWisconsin reports:

National Review contributing editor Andrew McCarthy says that even though President Donald Trump’s behavior can be at times maddening, we’re still better off with Trump rather than Hillary Clinton.

“While I was not a Trump person in the primaries, I was a Cruz person, I was always Never Hillary,” McCarthy said. “Even though I find some President Trump’s antics maddening, I still think we’re better off than had we been – by far – if Hillary Clinton were president.” …

McCarthy cautioned Trump supporters about talking about thwarting the president’s agenda.

“When they talk about moving the president’s agenda, I think they ought to bear in mind he is a president that won with a minority of the popular vote,” McCarthy said. “He won fair and square. But more people, substantially more people, voted against him, supported the other candidate.”

“Even within the tens of millions of people who voted for him, a goodly slice of them were more antagonistic towards his opponent than enthusiastic about him,” McCarthy said.

But McCarthy said conservatives were better off because they were not enthusiastic backers of Trump during the primaries, so they don’t “own” him.

“So I think we do what we’ve been doing, which is support him when does the right things and try to encourage him to do the right things,” McCarthy said. “And we can feel perfectly free to oppose him when he does, you know, when he strays.”

“I haven’t found life under Trump difficult at all from that regard,” McCarthy said. “I’m sure I might feel differently about it if I held elective office, because that’s when you have the complications of party discipline, but that’s not my problem so I haven’t found it too difficult.”
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If it’s Wednesday I’m in …

November 8, 2017

media, Sports
I am making my season college basketball announcing debut tonight when UW–Platteville plays Wisconsin in women’s basketball from the Kohl Center on http://www.am1590wpvl.com at 7 p.m.

This is a first for me because I have never announced a game for an opponent of my high school or college alma mater. However, it’s an exhibition game. It will also be the first time I have ever announced a game where the UW Band will play.

I have done two Division I games. The first was when Ripon College played at Utah (the defending national runner-up, coached by the entertaining Rick Majerus) in 1999. It was a great trip extended because the day of the game O’Hare International Airport in Chicago was hit by two feet of snow, pushing our departure three days back. About 18 inches of snow fell that night in Ripon, and since the game wasn’t on TV the radio station news and sports director said they probably set a listener record.

The second was when the UW–Platteville men played at UW–Milwaukee (then coached by former UWP guard Rob Jeter) in 2014. I sat courtside at the old Milwaukee (now Panther) Arena, the same place where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Sidney Moncrief played and Al McGuire and Don Nelson coached. That was a cool realization that I didn’t get to savor because after that game I had to run from Milwaukee to Green Bay to announce two days of state volleyball.

The great thing about doing college sports is that someone else does some of your work for you — compiling statistics going into the game (though that is now easier thanks to such websites as WisSports.net and MaxPreps), and statistics and other information during the game from sports information directors. That takes one big thing off your plate to allow you more time to report and observe. (Packers announcer Wayne Larrivee says the hardest sport to announce is high school football due to the need to generate your own information, along with sometimes, shall we say, interesting settings. I think a lot of high school announcers put into a major college or pro broadcast would probably sound a lot better just because they would have comparably less to do.)

Then, Friday night, I get to announce a Level 4 football game between Black Hawk and Fall River from Middleton on http://www.wglr.com. Level 4 is the game before state, so of course it is the most pressure-packed game of all.

Wait! There’s more! I am also making my public address announcing debut at UW–Platteville’s final football game of the season against UW–Stevens Point Saturday at 2 p.m. (If you listen to the game online here, you may be able to faintly hear me. I will not be doing any sort of impression of Michael “lllllllletsgetreadytorumbbbbllllllllleeeeeee!” Buffer.)
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When the elites don’t get it

November 8, 2017

Culture, US politics
Glenn Harlan Reynolds:

Even David Brooks is admitting it: “Our elites really do stink.” And he’s right. But why? In part because they’re inbred, and care too much about each other’s opinions.

I’ve been watching a lot of institutions fail, lately, from Hollywood, to the news media, to the NFL and ESPN, to political parties and academia, and I see a common factor. The problem is that whatever job its members are supposed to be doing at the moment, our ruling class cares more about what the rest of the ruling class thinks about it, than about the job it’s supposed to be doing. The result, quite often, is a debacle.

Take the NFL protests. These have played badly with fans — you know, the people who actually attend the games and watch them on TV. But to Roger Goodell and the people who run the NFL, “social justice” and progressive views on race take a priority. So even though the player protests have been poison for ratings, the NFL so far has been unwilling to stop them.

And look at ESPN. As a sports network, its primary audience is white, often working-class men who want to watch and talk about sports. But ESPN’s on-air talent seems determined to pretend that they’re on MSNBC, delivering “woke” lessons about politics to an audience that wants to hear sports news. Again, the on-air talent and the management are heavily invested in looking progressive to other folks in broadcasting. The audience? They’re an afterthought. (ESPN finally suspended Jemele Hill for suggesting that people supporting the players start a boycott, but was okay when she called President Trump a “white supremacist,” and when host Michelle Beadle told white men to “shut up and listen for five minutes.” The fans aren’t so hot on being lectured, apparently; ESPN’s ratings are falling and its financial future is in doubt.

Hollywood was happy to talk about politics, too, and lecture the rest of America about how morally inferior we are compared to our show business betters — Hollywood is America’s moral conscience, according to Harvey Weinstein enabler George Clooney. Everyone in Hollywood posed and preened in support of various progressive causes, even as they were, in fact, covering for all sorts of sexual predators. On top of that, most of the films they’ve been making are terrible. (Mostly remakes, comic-book movies and, for variety, remakes of comic-book movies; when it’s something new it’s often a preachy bomb like Suburbicon.)

Of course, in my own field of higher education it’s the same. When students on campus went from simply protesting to disrupting events and classes and mobbing speakers (and fellow students), the leaders of higher education didn’t respond appropriately. Part of it is cowardice on their part, but that cowardice stemmed largely from an agreement with the protesters, because they shared the values of higher education administrators. (I’m betting pro-Trump student groups who shut down classes or assaulted speakers, if such existed, would have been given far less leeway). Now the schools where those protesters ruled, from the University of Missouri to Evergreen State to Reed College to Oberlin College, are in trouble. Had the leaders done their jobs, instead of trying to look good for their peers, the institutions they were entrusted with would be doing better.

The current hip term for this behavior is “virtue signaling” — the effort to demonstrate to one’s peer groups that one holds all the right views and positions. But of course, all humans virtue signal to a degree. What makes it worse today is that our ruling class is such a monoculture. In the words of Angelo Codevilla:

“Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the ‘in’ language — serves as a badge of identity.”

And it’s an intensely tribal group, one with great fear of ostracism. A century ago, America had different, overlapping ruling classes with different values: Corporate moguls seldom sought the approval of press barons who seldom cared what academics thought about them and vice versa. Now they’re all cut from the same cloth, which makes this phenomenon much more pronounced, and much more dangerous.

Our ruling class has a diversity problem. But I think it’s about to get more diverse. Which is good. Because the current one, as Brooks says, stinks.

Too many people in my own line of work crave attention, approval and to be seen as cool, particularly those who work in Washington and state capitols. We’re not. We shouldn’t try to be.
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Presty the DJ for Nov. 8

November 8, 2017

Music
First, today in history, from the National Weather Service: Today in 1870, one week after the creation of the meteorological division of the Signal Service (which became the National Weather Service), the first “cautionary storm signal” was issued for an impending Great Lakes storm. They’re called storm warnings now.

The number one single today in 1969:

The number one single today in 1975 …

… on the day David Bowie made his U.S. TV debut on Cher’s show …

… and Elton John’s “Rock of the Westies” debuted on the album chart at number one:

(more…)
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Единственный урок истории состоит в том, что он ничего не учит

November 7, 2017

International relations, US politics
Last week included this depressing news reported by Campus Reform:

More than four-in-ten U.S. millennials would prefer to live under socialism than capitalism, according to a new survey by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

When given the choice to pick a preferred system of government, 44 percent of millennials responded that they would rather live in a socialist country while another seven percent opted for a communist state. Capitalism, on the other hand, was preferred by 42 percent of millennial respondents, with the remaining 14 percent split evenly between fascism and communism.

Perhaps that’s because the New York Times has been publishing paeans to communism in its Red Century series.

Carthage College Prof. Yuri Maltsev has something different to say:

Russian President Vladimir Putin would like to ignore the Bolshevik Revolution, which marks its 100th anniversary next month. Putin reportedly told his advisers that it would be unnecessary to commemorate the occasion. He knows better—it is nothing to be proud of.

The horrors of twentieth-century socialism—of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, and Pol Pot—were the offspring of 1917. Seventy years earlier, Marx and Engels predicted the overthrow of bourgeois rule would require violence and “a dictatorship of the proletariat . . . to weed out remaining capitalist elements.” Lenin conducted this “weeding out” using indiscriminate terror, as Russian socialists before him had done and others would continue to do after his death.

The late Rudolph Rummel, the demographer of government mass murder, estimated the human toll of twentieth-century socialism to be about 61 million in the Soviet Union, 78 million in China, and roughly 200 million worldwide. These victims perished during state-organized famines, collectivization, cultural revolutions, purges, campaigns against “unearned” income, and other devilish experiments in social engineering.

In its monstrosity, this terror is unrivaled in the course of human history.

Lenin’s coup on November 7, 1917, the day Kerensky’s provisional government fell to Bolshevik forces, opened a new stage in human history: a regime of public slavery. Collectivist economic planning led to coercion, violence, and mass murder. Marx and Engels had defined socialism as “the abolition of private property.” The most fundamental component of private property, self-ownership, was abolished first.

The Marxists’ biggest targets have always been the family, religion, and civil society—institutional obstacles to the imposition of the omnipotent state. With the Bolsheviks in power, Lenin set out to destroy them.

Murder of children became a norm after he ordered the extermination of Czar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children. Millions of families were rounded up and forcibly relocated to remote and uninhabited regions in Siberia and Kazakhstan. Hundreds of thousands of children died of starvation or disease during their journey into exile and were buried in mass unmarked graves.

In 1935, Stalin introduced Article 12 of the USSR Criminal Code, which permitted that children age twelve and older be sentenced to death or imprisonment as adults. This “law” was directed at the orphans of victims of the regime, based on the belief that an apple never falls far from the tree. Many of these kids, whose parents had been jailed or executed, were commonly known as bezprizorni, street children. They found themselves living in bare, dirty cells in a savagely violent gulag, where they were mixed with dangerous criminals and were brutalized and raped by guards and common criminals.

The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological and practical objective the elimination of religion or, in other words, physical extermination of religious people. With Lenin’s decree of January 20, 1918, nationalization of the church’s property began: cathedrals, churches, church grounds, and all buildings owned by churches were looted, and valuables (gold, silver, platinum, paintings, icons, historical artifacts) were either stolen by Communist atheists or sold to the West via government agents, communist sympathizers, and fellow travelers such as American business tycoon Armand Hammer, who met Lenin in 1921.

To be religious often meant a death sentence. The goal was the state’s absolute monopoly over thought by means of a secular religion, socialism. Almost all clergy and millions of believers of all (traditional) religions were shot or sent to labor camps. Seminaries were closed, and religious publications were prohibited.

Marxism-Leninism pretended to be “scientific socialism,” the universal explanation of nature, life, and society. However, deviation from its ideology, especially traditional “bourgeois” science, was punishable by death. The scope of the persecution of scientists was a real genocide.

After seventy-four years of mayhem and misery, the Bolshevik Revolution failed. The biggest country on Earth, with abundant natural resources of all kinds, could not meet the basic needs of its citizenry. The system had no means to rationally allocate resources in the absence of property rights and the market institutions that rely on them.

From my own life in the Soviet Union, which ended the same year that Vladimir Putin reported on the collapsing Berlin Wall for his KGB bosses, I can attest to the truth of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises’s statement that socialism amounts to a “revolt against economics.”

Yet, socialism still has sympathizers in the West. Many Americans believe that socialism is good, whereas communism, fascism, and Nazism (National Socialism) are violent and antidemocratic. A public-opinion survey published last year proved that general assumption: 43 percent of respondents younger than thirty had a favorable view of socialism; only 32 percent had a favorable view of capitalism. This is a powerful warning. The anticapitalistic mentality has brought suffering and mass murder in all socialist countries and has reduced standards of living and the quality of life in mixed economies.

The Soviet Union is now gone, as are the huge statues of Marx and Lenin that littered the East, but ideas have consequences, and no body of ideas attracted a greater following than Marxism-Leninism. A Russian aphorism says, “The only lesson of history is that it teaches us nothing.” For too many people this is as true as ever.
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Presty the DJ for Nov. 7

November 7, 2017

Music
Today in 1967, DJM Publishing in London signed two young songwriting talents, Reginald Dwight and Bernie Taupin. You know Dwight better as Elton John.

<!–more–>

The number one British album today in 1970 was “Led Zeppelin III”:

Today in 1987, Tiffany (whose shopping mall tour was beneath the dignity of two young newspaper reporters) was the youngest singer with a number-one single since 14-year-old Michael Jackson:

Birthdays start with Mary Travers of Peter Paul and Mary:

Dee Clark:

Johnny Rivers:

Joni Mitchell:
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On the latest outrage

November 6, 2017

Uncategorized
I have already written a response to the next instance when evil reveals itself in another mass shooting.

I am not generally paranoid, but note what is in common with the latest shootings — Republicans at softball practice in suburban Washington, people at a country music concert in Las Vegas, Walmart shoppers in Colorado, and now people at church in rural Texas. (And the attack on U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R–Kentucky) as he was mowing his grass.) All stereotypical conservative groups.

Facebook Friend Michael Smith adds important points:

One significant thing American mass shooters have in common is not access to guns, it is they all believe someone else is responsible and should be punished for their “problems”.

From Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, from Adam Lanza to Dylan Roof to Devin Patrick Kelly, all were killers who saw others as the root of their problems.

Which ideology preaches class warfare – that whites are responsible for the problems of blacks, males are to blame for the problems of women, straight people create all problems for gays, the rich are to blame for the issues of the poor, victims are responsible for terrorism and religion is responsible for pretty much every problem in the world?

Hmmmm. If there was only an answer to that question.

There is a correlation between the rise of progressivism from the 60’s on and the increase in violence in the public sphere. Americans had far more access to guns during the 40’s and 50’s than they do today – you could order them through the Sears catalog and have them mailed to your door – and yet the atrocities we see today were nonexistent then. The answer isn’t more control by government over our lives, it is the freedom to exercise our own control and a societal system that teaches that discipline and the worth of human life.

More government and more human laws cannot stop the trend to more violence – only individual self-governance and spiritual laws can.
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The Kittens

November 6, 2017

Packers
Tonight’s Packers opponent is cursed … by the Curse of Bobby Layne, a streak of unbelievable bad luck since the Lions traded away the NFL Hall of Fame quarterback:

The Humiliations

Almost immediately the curse took effect when Lion QB Tobin Rote was injured in practice days after the Bobby Layne trade and the defending champion Lions would finish 4-7 that year. …

If someone or something is truly cursed, no matter what they did, no matter how hard they try, something always keeps them from succeeding. Sometimes this bending of fate leaves behind an almost humorous bi-product that lingers long after the event. We decided to call these “humiliations” (rather than stench). Lets take a look at some of the most memorable ones.

Plum Did Dumb
1962

The Lions had been playing second fiddle to the Packers under Vince Lombardi and vowed to prove that they were superior to the Packers. It appeared that the Lions were on their way to defeating the Packers as they led 7-6 and had the ball at midfield with 1:46 to play. Lion Joe Schmidt instructed QB Milt Plum to continue eating time off the clock by running the ball. However Lion QB Milt Plum would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when he tried passing the ball. The Lion receiver Terry Barr fell down and the pass was intercepted by Packer Herb Adderly who returned the ball to the Lion 22 yard line. As the Lion defense came onto the field, Alex Karras was in a rage screaming obscenities at Plum. Paul Hornung kicked the game winning field goal with 33 seconds left and the Packers would go on to win the NFL Championship, finishing the season with only 1 loss, that being to the Detroit Lions when they had a rematch on Thanksgiving day. The 1962 Green Bay Packers would be remembered as one of the greatest teams of all time, outscoring opponents 415-148, yet had the Lions not passed the ball that fateful day and ran down the clock, it would have been the Lions playing for the Championship in 62. Joe Schmidt would never forget the pass call, calling it “dumbass” and a “blunder that could never be erased” and legend has it that Alex Karras threw his helmet at Plum after the game, calling him a “pipe smoking jerk”. As a further humiliation to the Lions that day, the water did not work in the visitors locker room and the Detroit players had to be ushered into the jubilant Packer locker room to shower down.

Schmidt Fined
1962
The Lions Hall of Famer and eventual coach Joe Schmidt and several Lion players were fined $2000 by Pete Rozelle for betting $50 on the 1962 championship game between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants. How powerful can this curse be to allow the NFL find out about a $50 dollar bet?

Karras Suspended
1963
Lion Pro Bowler Alex Karras and Green Bay Packer halfback Paul Hornung were suspended indefinitely for gambling. Alex Karras was also told to stay away from a bar called the Lindell Athletic Club (AKA Lindell AC) by Pete Rozelle who charged it was a center for illegal sports betting. In outright defiance, Karras bought shares in the bar and became bartender there during his suspension. One day, ex Green Bay tackle Richard Afflis (AKA Dick the Bruiser) wandered into the bar and challenged Karras to a wrestling match. Karras agreed and the two began hamming it up to promote the wrestling match. A patron mistook this as a real fight and broke a pool stick over “The Bruisers” head. A fight broke out seemingly everywhere resulting in one of the largest brawls in Detroit history. “The Bruiser” alledgedly broke some bones in a police officer and got a hefty fine. The fight caused national attention and the wrestling match proceeded with “The Bruiser” defeating Karras after Karras opened up a gash in “The Bruisers” forehead. Karras eventually got out of the bar business, apologized to the NFL, and was reinstated in 1964 after a year suspension.

Snowballed
1966
On the last game of a 4-9-1 season, head coach Harry Gilmer was pummelled by snowballs thrown from irate Detroit fans from the stands at Tiger Stadium. The fans then began chanting “bye bye Harry” as the snowball throwing continued. The Lions would go on to lose the game, 28 – 16 before the homecrowd. After the season, William Clay Ford fired his coach and hired ex Lion linebacker Joe Schmidt as new head coach.

63 Yard Field Goal
1970
The Saints had just replaced their coach and had only one win up to that point in the season. The Saints kicker was an anemic 5-15 up to that point in the season. They were not much more than an expansion team but they had the curse working for them when they lined up for the last play of the game. With the Lions winning by one point, Tom Dempsey kicked a 63 yard field goal, a record that still stands to this day. Tom Dempsey, was handicapped and born with only half a foot but with the help of the curse kicked 4 field goals against the Lions that day.

1st modern playoff game
1970
The first time the Lions returned to the playoffs after the Bobby Layne era was 1970. This ended a 13 year drought! 13 is not a good number especially when you already are cursed so who could have been shocked when the Lions lost to the Cowboys 5-0 in what is still the lowest scoring playoff game of all time.

Draft Fiasco
1974
Is it possible to trade your number 1 draft pick and not know it? The Lions did just that in 1974 when they traded Dave Thompson to the Saints for the Saint number one draft pick. They did not realize the deal was for Dave Thompson and their number one pick till they went to draft 13th overall and found out New Orleans had that position. It does not get much more embarrassing than this.

Bit the Dust
1980
The “Roar was Restored” for the first few games in 1980 when running back Billy Simms joined the club. After winning their first four games the Lions Jimmy “Spiderman” Allen did a musical version of the Queen song “Another one bites the Dust”. As the season progressed, the curse kicked in so strongly that the Lions did not even make the playoffs after their great start. Fans began singing their own lyrics to the song, “Another one beats our Butts” and once again the “Snore was Restored” for the Lions. …

Short Overtime
1980
First the Lions let the Bears score late to send the game into overtime, then they lose the toss and allow a 95 yard kick off return on the first play to end what was then the shortest overtime game ever – 21 seconds (now the record is 14 seconds, Jets over Buffalo in 2002) . Naturally the Lions performed this feat in front of their home crowd, something to tell the grandkids about for all who attended.

25 Year Drought
1982
Thanks to a strike shortened season, the Lions made the playoffs with a 4-5 record. They then lost to Washington 31-7 in the first round of the playoffs which marked the first time in a quarter century the Lions scored a point in a playoff game.

The Prayer
1983
Only a few years back the 49ers and Lions had been battling for the first pick in the draft, now several years later these two teams meet in San Francisco in the first round of the playoffs. With the 49ers holding a 1 point lead, the Lions lined up on the last play to kick a field goal that would win the game. Along the sidelines was the Lion coach Monte Clark praying that he succeed. The usually reliable Murray missed the field goal which would send the Lions and 49ers in different directions for the next 20 years.

Fontes Arraigned
1987
Defensive Coordinator Wayne Fontes is arrested and eventually arraigned in a Rochester Hills Courtroom on cocaine possession and two drunk driving charges. Wayne pleads not guilty and eventually is promoted to Head Coach.

Seeing Red
1987
I am guessing on this date, Coach Demers of the Red Wings was riding high in Detroit and his team was doing well. He did a commercial where a fan asked him for tickets, and he proceeds to give him some, but they are not to the event that fan wanted (such as theatre or ballet tickets). The point of the commercial was you don’t always get what you want or expect (I do not even remember the product he was peddling). Well one of the commercial showed the fan looking at his tickets with a real sour look on his face, exclaiming disappointedly, “The Lions”. After a couple weeks the commercial was pulled at the request of the Lions.

May Day
1988
Chuck Long only quarterbacked here for 23 games but perhaps the funniest example of futility in history happened during his reign as quarterback. Lions were leading 14- 12 with the ball on Detroits 12 yard line and 4th down coming up, the punting team came onto the field. However right before the ball was snapped, one of the Saints defensive players yelled “MayDay” which was the Lions receivers code word that the defense was not covering them and to fake the punt and do a pass play. Needless to say the punter (Jim Arnold) did not punt, but instead threw the ball to his receiver (rookie Carl Painter ) who had no idea it was coming and hit him on the back as he ran down field. The Lions lost the game 22- 14 but created one of the all time funniest moments in history.

Redskins Bitch
1992
The lions best post Bobby Layne era season had to be 1992 when they went 12 – 4 and made it to the NFC Championship game. However the season would end as all other seasons during the cursed years, poorly. Washington (who beat them 45-0 in the opening game of the season) defeated the Lions 41-10 in one of their worst playoff performances ever!

Lomas Guarantee
1995
Lomas Brown guarantee of victory turned ugly in Philadelphia when the Eagles scored 38 points in the first half (second most points scored in one half during a playoff game) and cruised to a 58-37 victory over the Lions in what many call the worst game of all time. Also, just to rub salt in the wound, discarded Lions quarterback Rodney Peete was the Philly QB that day!

Shared MVP
1997
In 1997 Barry Sanders rushed for an all time second best 2,053 yards. He carried the Lions on his back to get them into the playoffs and had 14 straight 100 yard rushing games. However he had to share the MVP with Brett Favre thanks to Curt Sylvester, a sports writer for the Detroit Free Press who decided to vote for Favre then had the nerve to write a column about it. I have not had a Free Press in the house since!

Barry Quits
1999
On the brink of eclipsing Walter Payton’s all-time NFL rushing record (currently held by E. Smith), Barry Sanders retired. His representative, David Ware, stated that Barry would sign a check returning his bonus money immediately of the Lions were to trade him. Sources close to Sanders stated several reasons for the retirement including the teams awful 5-11 performance the previous year. Sanders also did not believe the organization was committed to winning and allowed too many key veteran players (such as offensive linemen Lomas Brown, Kevin Glover and Zefross Moss) to depart as free agents. He also grew weary of Coach Bobby Ross and his “tempermental personality” which was in much contrast to Wayne Fontes, his earlier coach. Imagine how proud Lion fans must have been when one of the greatest talent in history is willing to pay millions not to play for you and would rather retire just 1,457 yards shy of Payton’s rushing mark than play another season as a Lion.

Fontes Sues
1999
The Lions have a history of coaches who never coach again in the NFL after leaving Detroit, however only one, Wayne Fontes actually sued for damages. Wayne set out to prove that due to injuries sustained while he was coaching the Lions that he has been unable to coach anymore. Magistrate John Hurbis was not impressed with Waynes evidence and put forth this statement “Fontes has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he has a disability, which arose out of, and in the course of, his employment with the Detroit Lions”.

Moeller Contract
2000
A couple games after taking over for a “dejected” Bobby Ross, Coach Moeller was given a 3 year contract, then fired at the end of the season. Moeller had to be laughing all the way to the bank as he got paid for the next two years while his replacement, Mornhinweg, would only win 5 games and lose 27 during this same stretch. Despite the poor performance of the team during those two years, Mornhinweg was given a guarantee that his job was safe after the season. A month after getting his job guarantee, Mornhinweg was fired. Screwed up coaching deals like these would be the norm rather than the exception as Millen’s hiring practice of only interviewing one person would result in league fines and condemnation by minority leaders such as Jesse Jackson.

Belly flop
2001
The Lions were down by 3 and had the ball with 2:12 to play in the game when the Lions 370lb Aaron Gibson decided to do an ugly late hit by belly flopping on a Bengal player. The late hit created a 3rd and 28 situation in which Quarterback Charlie Batch threw an interception and the game was over. Gibson was pulled from the game immediately after the incident then released later on in the week. People to this day discuss which was the biggest flop for the first round draft pick, his career with the Lions or his belly flop on the field.

Kissing Ass
2001
The Lions 0-10 start caught the attention of Jay Leno making for some memorable monologues and skits. Each Monday my wife and I would snuggle by the TV and listen for the joke that we knew was certain to come. Sometimes the Lion fans would get in on the fun, displaying banners such as “This Isn’t Funny” on Thanksgiving to a national audience. Finally the Lions beat the Vikings and while leaving the field, Johnnie Morton exclaimed “Jay Leno can kiss my ass”. That Monday Jay brought in a live donkey and kissed the donkey while Johnnie Morton watched on a split screen in Detroit (He also said the Vikings were on suicide watch after losing to Detroit, the last jab at Detroit at least for that season).

Overtime Toss
2002
Everyone knows the value of winning the toss in a sudden death overtime game. On this November day, Lion coach Marty Mornhinweg won the overtime toss and elected to kick off. Needless to say the Lions never even got a chance to go on offense as the Bears scored on their first possession.

Road Losses
2001-2003
The Lions went 3 entire seasons without winning a road game, shattering the old record and adding another prized piece of tin to their collection. The streak ended at 24 when the Lions beat Chicago at Soldiers Field in 2004. With salary caps creating parity in the league it is very doubtful that another team will ever break this record.

Millen Mouth
2002/2003
Matt Millen released Johnny Morton after the 2001 season (Morton caught 77 passes for 1,154 yards that year). 2 years later (2003), the two reunited when Morton’s new team, the Kansas City Chiefs, beat the Lions in a “close” 45-17 blowout. After the game Morton told Millen to “kiss his ass” to which Millen replied “You faggot, yeah you heard me, you faggot!” Millen later apologized for his outburst. One year earlier (2002), Millen had insulted his own players by referring to one of them as a “devout coward” during a radio interview.

Turkey Days
2004/2005
Thanksgiving day is a tradition in Detroit as the Lions take center stage around the Nation and perform for all to see. The combined scores of the 2004 and 2005 Thanksgiving Day losses by Detroit are 16 -68 (52 point spread) which beats the 1966/67 previous Thanksgiving record also held by the Lions (51 point spread).

A Proud Moment
2005
Lion fans had to be proud of their team when television camera’s captured Lion security chasing an individual with a “fire Millen” sign throughout the stadium. Each time the fan eluded security the crowd would cheer. Occasionally the fan would pass the sign to other fans in a make shift form of keep away that must have really irked Ford Field security. Once the Fan was apprehended, the crowd began chanting “Fire Millen” to the obvious dismay of security. The incident would cause an uproar in the Detroit area and garnish National attention as the chant “Fire Millen” became the fans battle cry. “Fire Millen” chants were heard at Michigan State Basketball Games, Detroit Pistons Games, Detroit Red Wings Games and “Fire Millen Signs” have shown up on ESPN broadcast and Gil Thorp comic strips. Meanwhile “Keep Millen” signs would pop up wherever the Lions played on the road.

Millen Man March
2005
A local radio station organized an “Angry Fan March” at the last Lion home game of the 2005 season. The protesters were well organized and equiped with protest signs and orange shirts (the colors of the opposing team) and peacefully demonstrated and marched outside of Ford Field. One sign read “There are a Millen reasons why the Lions can’t win” and another sign read 20-57 (Millens record with the Lions at that time, in 2007 his record improved to 31 – 81, 50 games under 500).

Phantom Safety
2006
With the score tied mid fourth quarter, Green Bay was backed up at their 1 foot line. On the first play the ref’s called two penalties in the endzone on Green Bay and awarded Detroit a safety. Despite the fact that penalties are not reviewable, Green Bay threw a review flag. The Ref’s never even looked at the film and reversed their call giving Green Bay back the ball at the 1 foot line. The Lions would lose in overtime marking the 15th consecutive lost at Lambeau Field for them.

Billboard
2005
A local radio station (WDFN) held a contest where their listeners could send in their design that would be used on a public billboard. The winning entry was “Not This Millenium” with the words “Rebuilding since 1957” below it. The sign was up in time for Super Bowl 40 and became another proud monument to the curse.

Super Bowl XL
2006
Anyone who doubts the validity of the Curse would become a believer when the only Superbowl ever hosted by the city of Detroit was won by the team who Bobby Layne was traded to. Many might write this off to coincidence but those who know the truth of the curse know better. Many claimed they could hear ghostly laughter from the rafters as the Steelers were handed the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Thanks to Steve who reminded us in the Guestbook of this fact.

Americas Most Wanted
2006
Does it get any worse than when one of your past quarterbacks shows up on Americas Most Wanted? Jeff Komlo, ex Lion quarterback, was featured on the popular television show. Apparently the cops have been chasing him since May of 2005. Komlo tells a reporter that he can’t believe he is being lumped in with the criminals but still refuses to turn himself in at this time. Perhaps he feels his time with the Lions is punishment enough.

World Series
2006
The Tigers should have known better! After defeating the Yankees and sweeping the Athletics, they were heavy favorites to win the 2006 series against whoever came out of the NL. During a week layoff before the series, the Tigers practiced at the Lions Ford Field where the curse was waiting. The heavily favored Tigers would lose in 5 games to a less than stellar Cardinal team. Can an entire magical season be ended because a team practiced on the Lions home field for a couple days? Many say coincidence but anyone watching that series and all the pitcher thowing errors have to admit that something about the Tigers just wasn’t right.

Naked Coach
2006
Which is worse, a Lions assistant coach driving drunk? Or a Lions assistant coach driving naked? How about both! Believe it or not, Coach Joe Cullen pulled into a Wendy’s drive thru naked and ordered a meal. A week later the assistant coach was busted for drunk driving. The last time an active defensive coach got into this much trouble the Lions promoted him to head coach (Wayne Fontes, Cocaine and DUI charges)! Will history repeat?

Joey’s Revenge
2006
Just when we thought the Thanksgiving Day humiliations could not get any worse, Joey Harrington returns to Detroit and leads his new team (Miami Dolphins) to a brilliant 27-10 victory over the hapless Lions. After the game Joey was voted MVP of the game and told interviewers it was the most satisfying win in his career. The Lions traded Joey for a conditional draft pick, most likely a fifth rounder. Believe it or not, the Lions actually led in this game 10-0 in the first quarter, but would be shut out and completely bore the holiday audience for the last 3 quarters.

Kitna Prediction

2007

Before the start of the season John Kitna predicted the Lions would win 10 games. Kitna looked like a genius and many thought the curse was ending early as the Lions jumped out to a 6 win and 2 loss start! However the curse would kick in with a fury in the second half of the season where the Lions would win only 1 more game and not only miss the playoffs but end up under 500 and joined another infamous list (teams who started 6-2 and missed the playoffs). Lion Offensive Coordinator Mike Martz, hailed as an offensive genius, was fired as a result of the collapse, another victim of the curse.

Draft Pick Drafted
2008
Lions draft pick Caleb Campbell’s dream was to play for an NFL team. Unfortunately the curse likes nothing better than to shatter dreams so on the eve of Lion training camp, with helmet in hand and everything, the Army came a calling for this Lion draftpick who will have to serve 2 years in the military before being allowed to play pro sports. …

Lions First 08 Lead
2008
It looked like the curse was ending a couple weeks early as the Lions came roaring back from an early 21 – 0 deficit in their home opener and actually took their first lead of the season (25-24) with only 7:41 left to play. As the Detroit stadium erupted with applause, the curse kicked in so brutally that before the 2 minute warning would sound, the Lions would be down 48 to 25 thanks to 3 consecutive interceptions thrown by Detroit QB John Kitna.

Mike Martz Revenge
2008
After being fired as a scapegoat by the Detroit Lions, Mike Martz and ex Lion backup QB JT O’Sullivan soundly defeated the Lions 31-13 giving the Lions an 0-3 start after going undefeated in the pre-season. Detroits defense started each game going down 21-0, 21-0, and 21-3 respectively to 3 quarterbacks who had never started a game prior to this season. The awful start would lead to the firing of Matt Millen leaving him with an NFL record of 31-84 (10 more losses than any other NFL team over the same time frame). To fully appreciate the humiliation of this moment one has to remember that JT O’Sullivan was Lion QB John Kitna’s backup the prior year.

0 – 16
2008
The steady decline of the Lions over the past 50 years would result in the un-thinkable. In the final year of the curse, the Lions would go winless at 0-16, putting them in a category of their own and officially ending the reign of the Curse of Bobby Layne. It was at this time the Lions attempted their own quirk of fate to stop the curse, by drafting with the first pick of the first round a player from Bobby Laynes own High School-Matthew Stafford. Coincidence?

6 Straight Turkeys
2009
The curse seems to be continuing as the Lions continue to break and create new records. The latest is the longest losing streak during the Thanksgiving Day game. The Lions are currently 0-6 in the last six games, being outscored by double digits each time giving the Lions a total of 213-74 point spread. That means the average score on National TV for the last 6 Thanksgiving Day games has been 36-12. Can their be anything more humiliating than being the turkey on Thanksgiving each year?
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Presty the DJ for Nov. 6

November 6, 2017

Music
Today in 1814, Adolph Sax was born in Belgium. Sax would fashion from brass and a clarinet reed the saxophone, a major part of early rock and jazz.

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