To Military Rifle shooters, the guys with the brand, spanking new .300 Winchester Magnum rifle with the Hubble Space Telescope’s younger cousin mounted atop its chromed receiver firing at targets only 50 yards away are extemely lame*- even more so if they’re wearing Camouflage gear or “Tactical” clothing of any kind.
Having said that, the guys with the .300 Winchester BlingMaster rifle and AllSeer scope regard the guys firing century old rifles- without scopes, the horror!- at targets 100+ yards away as being uber-lame for the opposite reasons, with extra lameness for wearing helmets, equipment belts, or making references to the film Zulu whilst at the range.
*For military rifle shooting purists, anything less than 100 yards is considered “Bayonet range”- ie, you may as well fix bayonets and charge the target rather than wasting ammo shooting at it, since it’s not exactly hard to hit a target at 50 yards even with a Boer War or WWI vintage rifle.
Hey, I’m not about to disparage people who know a lot more than I do, but if I’m ever in a gunfight with someone, I hope he puts on a bayonet and starts running as soon as he’s within 100 yards. I’m willing to bet I can put him down long before he reaches me.
I am, of course, speaking strictly in relation to target shooting- actual combat is another kettle of fish entirely, but FWIW, it was standard practice in the British/Commonwealth military from the time of the Boer War right through WWI, WWII, and Korea that when the enemy was within 200 yards, the soldiers would fix bayonets with the expectation that they would have to engage in bayonet fighting as well as shooting at the enemy.
Interestingly, the sights on the Lee-Enfield rifles are all calibrated for the use of fixed bayonets at the 100 and 200 yard distance settings marked on the sights as a result. Since most ranges don’t allow the use of fixed bayonets when shooting, modern Lee-Enfield shooters have to compensate for this when shooting at targets in “Bayonet range”.
Ignoring the “pop” part, 50 years isn’t really a stretch. She made her first album in 1960 (I had to look that up), BUT she was singing gospel in church before that (which is still “making music,” no?).
Recently, one of the local radio stations played a song or two from the 1956 recordings mentioned in the Wikipedia article, and they were amazing. I’m not really an Aretha Franklin fan, but it was a Holy-CRAP-that’s-good-who-is-this-woman? kind of moment. She was 14, but she had a great Voice, even then.
Keller Krusaders? I hope to Og that wasn’t in the South. Because you know who else used to respell all sorts of “C-” words with “K” in their ceremonies and internal communications? The KKK. Given the pseudo-Christian fanaticism that the KKK displayed at times, I’d find it hard to believe that they didn’t also use the Krusader moniker at some point.
Sometimes it’s hard to find a name that is appropriate. The LAUSD banned all Native American related mascots; my old high school had to change from Warriors to Wildcats. My reaction at first was, well, it seems to be a noble and positive image, not an exploitive one, for one thing, and moreover, not all warriors were Native Americans. OTOH, my school did play up the Native American motifs on this basis, and sometimes the cheerleaders even wore leather fringed skirts. I think I have to admit they were right on this one.
I remember when this was news. Many people in these parts were up in arms about having the name of the FSU Seminoles changed, but the leaders of the Seminole tribe said it was perfectly all right. They didn’t mind, they gave the university their permission and blessing to use the name and image a long, long time ago, and were not upset in the least. The university carried on using it, and life went on as before.
Were any other schools allowed to keep their Indian names, or did they all have to change?
UNC Pembroke has an Indian motif. When they were told that they had to change it, they pointed out that they were a public school founded for, and attended primarily by, native americans. For them the motif was actually applicable. I think they got to keep it.
The schools that had to give up their “Native American” mascots were, for the most part, schools that didn’t align themselves tightly with an individual tribe. FSU and Utah, for instance, both have a tight relationship with their respective tribes. They have programs to preserve the oral history and cultural preservation programs. They go as far as to have actual tribe members perform actual ceremonial dances during athletic events.
Schools like Illinois had to give up their mascot because they simply had a generic Dude-off-the-street dressed as a “Native American” performing a made-up dance to made up music. And to me, That was lame. Good riddance.
Now, what do we do about the Washington Redskins???
San Diego State was allowed to keep its team the Aztecs, mainly because they couldn’t find living tribes closely related to them. They did have to change the mascot from a cartoony Monty Montezuma to a more dignified Aztec Warrior guy.
Now, what I really want to see is a Ferrari with a “PORSCHE” plate. Something along the lines of the “Not only do I have a ludicrous amount of money; I have such a ludicrous amount of money that I can afford not to take it seriously.” sort of humor.
I never understood why some schools choose mascots mostly famous for being defeated, such as the Aztecs or the Trojans. And why are there many Spartans but no teams called the Thebans or Athenians? Lizard, who knows the actually answer to the question “What is a ‘Cleveland Brown’?”
Oooh, that reminds me of when I saw a fellow white substitute teacher at Lynwood High (neighboring Compton, CA) demonstrating his rapping for students in the hall.
My students tried to refuse to believe the story, and asked me if I meant he was talking, but he wasn’t.
I think it would be really cool for a team to be called the Sacred Band or The Immortals, but most people wouldn’t get it.
WAG: most people miss the whole Seven Against Thebes story, and when someone says Athenian, they think philosophy, drama or art. Spartan or Trojan (I died a little inside typing that) OTOH has very definite connotations in the collective mind of America.
Doesn’t matter, really. Those wings are usually living in the mostly separated airflow behind the rear window so they’re not doing much, and the cars don’t go fast enough for wings to make a noticeable difference. But yeah, if it were in clean air, the wing would be stalled and just adding a whole lot of drag and not much downforce.
Anyway, about custom rims, I don’t mind anyone putting a nice set of rims on a nice car, but if your wheels are worth more than the rest of the car, that’s lame.
The lamest car I’ve seen belonged to a neighbor when I was living in an apartment about 7 or 8 years ago. It was a red Civic Del Sol. One day I came out to the parking lot to find him painting his brake calipers bright yellow, including the drum brakes on the rear, with a brush and a can of paint that appeared to have been purchased from a hardware store. He then installed a muffler that made it sound like a two-stroke chainsaw. Later on, I found he had dialed in a huge amount of front wheel camber. Seriously, the wheels must have been tilted in 15 degrees. Finally, he had completely gutted the interior of the car, including removing the passenger seat. I thought to myself that it’s a good thing he doesn’t have a girlfriend, because then he’d have to carry around the extra weight of another seat. At least this last “mod” would have actually helped performance a bit, almost enough make it as good as stock again.
Reminds me of back when the rage was all for the bumperstickers/license plate holders saying “My other car is a [whatever]” - the best one I saw was on a red truck saying “My other truck is a Tonka.” That I liked!
