Tag: finally

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NBC should finally call time on Tony Dungy’s amiable right-wing zealotry | NFL

NBC should finally call time on Tony Dungy’s amiable right-wing zealotry | NFL

No sports league does more than the National Football League to encourage the stereotype of the glass-chewing, expletive-spewing coach. Tony Dungy, though, was more Kenneth Parcell than Bill Parcells – a soft-spoken, clean-cut ex-defensive back whose winning pedigree and strategic ingenuity rightly earned him pride of place among the titans of his profession. That Dungy is also a Black pioneer makes him especially useful to commissioner Roger Goodell’s efforts to “protect the [NFL] shield” from the seasonal assaults on its undying legacy of racial and gender inequality. Since transitioning to a lofty post-retirement role as co-host of NBC’s top-rated NFL telecasts, it’s been on the 67-year-old to serve up even-toned reassurances of the league’s commitment to fair play. But when it comes to Dungy’s personal views, the coach will happily talk tough.

Last Friday, Washington DC’s National Mall was the site of the March for Life, a pro-life rally that kicked off in 1974 – a year after Roe v Wade was decided. Interestingly, the rally was conceived by anti-abortionists on the left – first as a one off, then as a protest that would annually recur until Roe v Wade was overturned. But it’s long since been taken over by the right and turned into a political football. In 2020 Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend the event in person. Dungy’s maiden appearance for the 50th edition of the March, the first since Roe was overturned, was no less noteworthy.

Reading from his iPhone, the coach, one of 20-odd keynote speakers, delivered a four-minute sermon on the power of prayer and its ability to compel nonbelievers to appreciate the significance of human life. He made a parable out of Damar Hamlin – the 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety whose heart stopped beating after a routine tackle. The real miracle, Dungy intoned, wasn’t the resurrectional medical care Hamlin received on the field and in hospital that put him on track for a full comeback. No, it was the TV cameras lingering on Buffalo and Cincinnati players knelt in prayer, the kind of devotion that the league once threatened to fine his teams for. It was that game getting canceled, despite its urgent on-field and financial impacts, because a life hung in the balance. “Even people who aren’t necessarily religious got together and called on God,” Dungy said. “Well, that should be encouraging to us.”

Dungy’s words, while cheered by tens of thousands of revelers, weren’t as enthusiastically received off the Mall – not least his wife, Lauren, waiting in the wings to follow him on stage and extol the virtues of adoption. Progressive sports pundits took particular exception to the coach using Hamlin’s near-death experience as a Trojan Horse for his views on the termination of unborn fetuses. Dave Zirin, the Nation’s venerable sports columnist, called Dungy’s speech “obscene”. Beforehand, Keith Olbermann, the foundational ESPN sportscaster turned NBC politico, beseeched his former employer to cut ties with the coach. “He’s using you,” Olbermann tweeted.

All of this came after Dungy lit a firestorm earlier in the week with a hot non-sports take. In response to a Daily Wire tweet about Minnesota house members pushing a bill that would put menstrual products in boys’ school bathrooms, Dungy snarked, “some school districts are putting litter boxes in school bathrooms for students who identify as cats“ – furthering a exhaustively debunked anecdote that’s nonetheless become popular with Lauren Boebert, Joe Rogan and other self-styled “free-thinkers”. Danny Kanell, a clipboard-holding QB turned sports-talk host, was one notable member of the NFL to publicly defend Dungy, calling him “morally upright” while bashing news stories suggesting otherwise as “hatred of Christianity”. But that wasn’t enough to stop the all-out social media blitz from overwhelming the Hall of Fame coach.

Tony Dungy
Tony Dungy made headlines by speaking at the 50th March for Life Rally on Friday on the National Mall in Washington DC. Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

After discreetly deleting his kitty litter jab and expressing contrition via a lawyered statement, Dungy returned to Twitter on Saturday to apologize anew and reestablish himself as a universal-loving Christian. And the extra effort might’ve resonated if the coach hadn’t also included a screenshot of the second sorry note in quotes inside a text message bubble that one can only presume was also generated by a spokesperson. Not surprisingly, the fumbled apology has given Dungy’s critics reason to pile on all over again. Worse, you’d never know this was the same coach who was once so masterful at doing things the right way.

As a pro in the 1970s, Dungy humbly accepted a conversion from quarterback to defensive back and became a key contributor on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Super Bowl dynasty in 1978. In the early ’80s, after a three-year playing career, he transitioned over to the Steelers’ defensive coaching staff, was promoted to coordinator, and took a demotion to defensive backs coach in stride after a hard losing season.

By the mid-’90s, he was running the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and transforming them from a league doormat to a defensive dynamo with his Tampa 2 bend-but-don’t break defense. When he was ousted from that job in 2002, Dungy re-emerged with the Indianapolis Colts and turned that Peyton Manning-led juggernaut into a championship winner – the first directed by a Black head coach – with a 2007 victory in Super Bowl XL against Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith, one of a long line of Black sideline generals to descend Dungy’s coaching tree. A decade ago, the success of Dungy’s lineage was presented as the first and last reason to hire non-white coaches.

But somewhere along the way, something in Dungy snapped. After his oldest son, James, took his own life in 2005, the coach went from speaking at conferences for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to fundraising for a think tank that opposes same-sex marriage. When Michael Sam, pro football’s first out gay player, was drafted by the St Louis Rams in 2014, Dungy said he wouldn’t have wanted the University of Missouri linebacker on his team because of his sexual orientation and the potential distractions it might bring. Mind you, this is the same paragon of gridiron virtue who argued for Michael Vick to be rehired after the Pro Bowl quarterback was federally imprisoned for running a dog fighting ring; Dungy also said he’d welcome Ray Rice back into an NFL locker room after the Pro Bowl tailback was banished from the league for KO’ing his girlfriend.

All the while Dungy rates among the NFL’s worst television analysts, providing the least insight in the most monotone delivery. Only he could make the last minutes of Jacksonville’s wildcard comeback against Los Angeles about as thrilling as Ben Stein’s roll call in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. (Not even the great Al Michaels, clearly beaten down from announcing too many Thursday night games, could inject any more life into the broadcast.)

The low energy alone would be reason enough for NBC to at least bench Dungy. But he remains a prominent part of the network’s NFL coverage and figures to remain so next season. Sticking by dodgy NFL analysts is a routine play for NBC. Lead announcer Mike Tirico has a graveyard of sexual allegations from his ESPN days, and so does fantasy man Matthew Berry; Michele Tafoya, NBC’s longtime NFL reporter, made a full heel turn to anti-woke punditry after retiring from the sideline. It’s hardly a shock that Dung – a rich, platformed member of the jockocracy–would espouse conservative Christian ideology, or that he’d be tempted to draw sports analogies in his rhetoric. But as long as Dungy has the NFL for a bully pulpit, he’s no less polarizing a football man than Rush Limbaugh was during his brief ESPN stay. Dungy can speak his mind all he wants; you won’t read me telling him to stick to sports. But the NFL might want to think about finding a new human shield. This one’s lost his integrity.

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Opinion: Finally, good news that inspires some hope for climate change

Opinion: Finally, good news that inspires some hope for climate change

Editor’s Notice: Don Lincoln is a senior scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He is the writer of numerous science textbooks, together with the audio reserve “The Principle of Everything: The Quest to Demonstrate All Actuality.” He also produces a collection of science training videos. Stick to him on Facebook. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Look at extra viewpoint on CNN.



CNN
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If you look at the information right now, you’d be forgiven for imagining that we live in dark moments. Impending weather improve, overpopulation, political discord, conflict in Ukraine and threats of nuclear war all paint a bleak photo.

Don Lincoln

But this week delivered some refreshingly good information: The Environment Meteorological Organization released a quite hopeful report stating that humanity and all daily life on Earth dodged a bullet. The Montreal Protocol, an worldwide arrangement signed in 1987, controlled the use and creation of almost 100 chemical compounds called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that produced a gap in the ozone layer and endangered the planet’s complete ecosystem. A lot more than a few decades afterwards, the use of CFCs has reduced by 99{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502}, and the Earth’s ozone layer is on observe to get better in the coming a long time.

This achievements offers some of us hope that we may well use a identical tactic to mitigate today’s incredibly urgent danger arising from weather adjust.

In 1974, chemists Frank Rowland and Mario Molina located that carelessly recycled fridges and ordinary hair spray posed an existential menace to existence on Earth. The coolant in refrigerators and the propellant in spray cans were made of CFCs that, when blended in air, rose to the pretty prime of the atmosphere. There, the CFCs underwent chemical interactions that wrecked the ozone.

The layer of ozone gas substantial previously mentioned the Earth’s floor acts as a protect towards the most dangerous kinds of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sunshine. UV radiation can be lethal to daily life – humans use it to sterilize drinking water, destroy undesired pathogens in clinic operating rooms, and sanitize almost everything from toothbrushes to mobile phones.

If the ozone had been to disappear, perilous photo voltaic ultraviolet gentle would make it to the Earth’s area. In individuals and animals, it would induce melanoma and cataracts. In crops, it would impact the potential to improve and produce fruits and vegetables. Perhaps most dangerously, it would kill phytoplankton in the ocean. Provided that phytoplankton is the basis of maritime food stuff chains, much of the daily life in the ocean would also die.

In the confront of this risk, the international neighborhood took notice and, in 1987, signed the Montreal Protocol. The protocol, which founded simple targets, controlled the two the output and consumption of ozone-depleting substances, gave states adaptability in how they would meet up with those people goals and created a fund that provided fiscal and technical help for establishing international locations to comply with the settlement.

Given that then, researchers have been monitoring the measurement of the ozone gap, which is shrinking. The success of the Montreal Protocol displays that world leaders can handle worldwide, existential issues by doing the job alongside one another toward a typical target.

CFCs, of course, are not the only way humans have endangered the Earth’s ecosystems. In fact, the emission of carbon dioxide now poses a much higher risk. By burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and all-natural fuel, individuals are pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a fee of about 35 billion tons for every 12 months. The boost in carbon dioxide focus around the previous several many years has raised it to stages not noticed about the past million yrs.

Carbon dioxide is called a “greenhouse gas,” since it acts like a greenhouse, trapping heat below it. This triggers the surface of the Earth to warmth up, primary to modifications in the local climate. Previously habitable spots turn into drier or wetter. A hotter Earth potential customers to glaciers melting, rising sea amounts and the flooding of minimal-lying coastal locations. Island nations like Kiribati could vanish completely.

These disruptive local weather modifications are getting a considerable influence on humanity, which include droughts in the American West, with rampant wildfires and emptying reservoirs. A lot more warmth in the atmosphere is also creating far more extreme and damaging hurricanes, with attendant damage to homes and organizations.

Carbon emissions are not due to any one country. Whilst traditionally the most important emitter was the US, these days it is China, with the US, the European Union, India, Russia and Japan becoming other leaders in this unwelcome ranking. No a single region can resolve this dilemma. What is essential is worldwide negotiation and agreement to transfer humanity to other sources of energy beyond fossil fuels.

Absolutely, the governments of the earth have tried using. In 2015, virtually 200 nations signed an accord signed in Paris, agreeing in basic principle to handle the carbon dioxide emission problem. Underneath President Donald Trump, the US withdrew from the pact in 2020, while it rejoined in 2021 when President Joe Biden took office environment. Nevertheless, velocity bumps like these should not discourage the nations of the entire world. We know the dilemma and we have demonstrated that we can cooperate when there is an existential risk to civilization. The example of productive CFC mitigation supplies a blueprint – at minimum in spirit – for humanity to do the job alongside one another for the superior of us all.

Carbon dioxide is an tremendous danger to humanity and civilization. It is an worldwide difficulty, requiring an intercontinental alternative, and the achievement of the arrangement banning CFCs presents us some hope that humanity will after once more rise to the situation.

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Elon Musk is finally running out of gas at Twitter

Elon Musk is finally running out of gas at Twitter

Elon Musk, Twitter Inc.’s new owner and right up until not too long ago the world’s richest human being, has put in most of the previous two months pouring his time, power and finances into the maximum-profile social network on the online. But at last, Musk appears to be to be operating out of gas.

On Tuesday evening, he declared programs to come across an individual else to operate the company. He was adhering to the success of his very own Twitter poll, which showed pretty much 58{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502} of voters needed him to stage down.

For the duration of the 12-hour window that the poll stayed open up, Musk tweeted relentlessly, coming across like a male worn down and skeptical that the organization he paid out $44 billion for just two months in the past can even maintain functions.

 

“The problem is not acquiring a CEO,” he wrote soon after the poll begun Sunday afternoon. “The query is locating a CEO who can keep Twitter alive.” When Lex Fridman, the popular AI researcher and podcaster, available to operate Twitter on Musk’s behalf, the CEO replied that Fridman “must like soreness a good deal.”

“One capture: you have to make investments your lifetime financial savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to individual bankruptcy given that May,” he extra. “Still want the task?”

Musk joined Twitter Spaces, the company’s live audio assistance, after confirming that he would phase aside and described the economical squeeze. He claimed Twitter had been facing negative hard cash movement of about $3 billion future 12 months for the reason that of its shelling out options and fascination payments, which is why he spent the earlier several months “cutting expenditures like outrageous.” Now he stated the company need to be capable to get to roughly funds circulation breakeven next year. “This will be complicated,” he explained.

Musk has tweeted incessantly during his tenure, taking the news cycle with him. He picked fights with the media and leaked his individual employees’ personal messages and emails he sparred with Apple Inc., reinstated former President Donald Trump’s account based on the effects of a Twitter poll, and lately started off talking about the chance of his individual assassination.

Musk has a knack for turning out to be Twitter’s most important matter of dialogue, even when he does not intend to be, like when he was booed at comic Dave Chapelle’s present in San Francisco before this thirty day period.

If Twitter’s user development has improved considering the fact that Musk took in excess of in late Oct, a assert he often repeats, it is easy to assume people are there to see what Musk does up coming. The consequence is akin to Trump’s presidency — but even Trump took a working day off to participate in golfing each and every now and then.

Functioning Twitter is a uniquely pressured work, involving creating conclusions vital to worldwide political discourse in one particular second, and creating a contact on the merchandise vision in the up coming minute. Previous CEO Dick Costolo when equated it to “dog years” – a one yr managing Twitter was like doing work seven many years at the helm of some other corporation, he said.

Less than Musk, while, time feels even a lot more compressed, with chaos sparked all day, and on evenings and weekends. In the small time Musk has controlled the firm, nearly every thing he’s decided has spurred powerful discussion, frequently ensuing in his reversal of those people exact controversial decisions.

People who have worked with him these previous two months explain a leader who is impulsive, erratic, and in the end unwell-organized for the worries Twitter delivers, which contain dealing with net speech and a user foundation whose power consumers expend a great deal of their time crafting and commenting about the enterprise alone.

Inspite of months to prepare for the eventuality that he would in the long run have Twitter, Musk showed up largely without a prepare, they say.
That considerably is evident when you examine Musk’s method to Twitter’s business, which was financially rewarding at the beginning of the calendar year but somehow dropping $4 million per day by early November, Musk promises.

Musk’s personal antics have worried off Twitter’s advertisers he has tweeted misinformation, posted masturbation jokes, and bungled Twitter’s verification software by enabling imposter accounts to pose as important models.

Include in the credit card debt that Musk took out to obtain the organization — resulting in $1.2 billion in believed annual payments for Twitter — and the firm could in truth be in the “fast lane to personal bankruptcy,” as Musk has called it.

Component of the issue may be that Musk just does not have the time desired to operate a business with as several challenges as Twitter.

“We are observing any individual who is a technological genius who is at the stop of his tether — he’s overstretched,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of management reports and administration at Yale who has adopted Musk’s profession closely. Prior CEO Jack Dorsey captivated activist investor attention for keeping two positions. Musk, by contrast, has at least a few, and various other time-sucking hobbies.

Tesla Inc., by significantly his most important holding, has experienced mightily. Its shares have tumbled by much more than 60{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502} this yr, including an 8.1{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502} fall on Tuesday.

Musk has been both equally impulsive and self-damaging during his brief time in cost of Twitter, Sonnenfeld included, a mixture that has led to a reduction of believe in among the advertisers. Musk’s response has been to distract people from Twitter’s difficulties, a talent he’s mastered at his other businesses in which he tends to make all sorts of claims that go unfulfilled but go away folks optimistic that items will shortly increase.

“From flame throwers to leaf blowers, he’s in the enterprise of distraction,” Sonnenfeld claimed. “With Twitter, he’s flailing about even worse than at any time, like a wounded animal in the corner.”

Whilst Musk’s role as CEO has produced all varieties of uncertainty for Twitter, so as well does his conclusion to phase down. It’s achievable that Twitter will obtain a more predictable and secure chief govt who can woo again afraid advertisers and roll out considerate material policies that took much more than a couple of several hours to compile.

The full stage of taking Twitter personal was to permit the business to make changes without the need of the pressures that appear from Wall Road. Possibly the exact same could be mentioned about preventing the scrutiny that comes with acquiring a CEO who is also one particular of the most renowned and polarizing men and women in the earth.

Getting the right leader will be key, though, and Musk’s tweets about probable personal bankruptcy counsel Twitter doesn’t have a ton of time to determine it out. Some of Musk’s supporters believe that the poll was all just component of his learn prepare, although Musk himself instructed otherwise. “No a single needs the occupation who can truly hold Twitter alive,” he tweeted Sunday. “There is no successor.”

For Twitter, the place the personnel foundation has been decimated, the prospect of a “mystery” CEO may possibly be just as confounding as leaving Musk in cost. Although Musk has figured out the difficult way that jogging Twitter is an infuriating job, he’s also created the enterprise as buzzy as it is ever been. With Musk in cost, Twitter at minimum has that likely for it.

That will most likely go on. Musk says he’ll remain on to enable Twitter with computer software and servers, “as soon as I can locate an individual silly enough to acquire the job” at the top rated.