Back in the late 50’s, way before NAFTA – we had braceros. Ceaser Chavez was just a loud mouth itinerant farm worker and every time he spoke they farmers that employed him – fired him. Then they would fumigate the quonset huts with the other loud mouth farm workers that wanted cleaner conditions, better food and in some case either more pay for overtime hours or less work to include a possible day off. In those days, they fumigated with DDT. When the Government said that DDT was seeming to cause cancers – they switched to Methyl Ethel Bromide which had the proclivity of sticking to drapes, furniture, bedding and other stuff and caused immediate cancer and birth defects within 365 days of application. Those loud mouth farm workers had to soon be replaced with a seemingly never ending supply from the hills and valleys of Mexico. These applications of fumigants have now been restricted to other Volitile Organic Compounds…like Vikane which you can find under almost any tented fumigated home or building. What are the effects of Vikane? Still to be determined after over 60 years of application. In those days…..college sports was still a game and nobody made a lot of money on any of it.
Fast forward to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. This is the governing body of one of America’s biggest industries – College and University Athletics. Football, Baseball, Basketball, Track and every else down to Tiddily Winks if performed at the college level. Undoubtedly, you have heard various news reports about “sanctions” put on by the NCAA regarding college athletes and coaches and administrators – including Athletic Directors. The Jerry Sandusky ordeal which spanned more than a decade and affected the very top of the heap; Penn State, Coach and AD and icon for over 50 years – Joe Paterno were nailed to the wall. The Penn State president and several others are still awaiting trials. The NCAA – had virtually NOTHING to do with criminal charges against Penn State, Jerry Sandusky or any of the Coaches and Administrators that knew about what Sandusky was doing….but didn’t do anything to stop it.
Fast forward to “Pretender to the Throne” Urban Meyer, Coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Ohio State picked up Meyer after he was slapped on the wrist for a variety of wrong doing at his prior Coaching assignment: University of Florida Gators, in Gainsville. Meyer had an epidemic of his players being arrested for everything from armed robbery to trading signed memorabilia for tattoos. Expensive tattoos…mind you. The program was so dirty that Meyer was sanctioned for two years……one applying at his new $7 million dollar contract assignment with the Buckeyes of Ohio State. Meyer went to Ohio State last year and had an undefeated season, but was restricted from the Bowl Championship Series (BCS)…because of his involvement with those players at the University of Florida. Again, it was law enforcement that forced the NCAA to respond with sanctions on players….some banned for life….and for the restrictions on Meyer for the 2012 football season. Urban Meyer is the odds on favorite to take the Ohio State Buckeyes to the BCS Title game…..perhaps against Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide. The money involved is mega-millions for each school and billions for the entire football programs affected by the NCAA.
As everyone knows – Penn State didn’t even get the NCAA “Death Penalty” which had been handed out to programs at Southern Methodist University back in the 1950’s and other schools…..the cabal at the NCAA “doesn’t like much”. But then there was the case of the USC Trojans, three National Championships removed,five years of scholarship sanctions, all of Reggie Bush records removed and he had to give back his Heisman Trophy. Pete Carroll, arguably the greatest coach in USC History had 30 wins erased from the record books. So, what hienous crime did USC commit? Reggis Bush was seen riding in a Golf Cart with a prospective Sport Agent. His mom & dad who were almost indigent were given a house to live in as long as Reggie was in school.
The questions are twofold: (1) Where is the NCAA Rulebook? Who has a copy and is it available for anyone to read? (2) Who are they and what are their names; the members of the Rules Committee of the NCAA? The truth of the matter of course is that this is a good ole’ boy network. They all sit in hardware store around a pot belly stove and decide who will be the next Collegiate National Champion today…..before the games are even played. These people are run by big money, corrupt gambling interests and politicians that lobby for wins. Oklahoma, Texas, Florida just for starters. The West Coast Teams are persona non grata in the NCAA. The members of the South East Conference are considered golden. Anyone else better start begging and sending huge checks to appropriate folks at the NCAA. The Federal Government needs a complete and full investigation into the NCAA.
For those that remember: Felix the Cat was a pornographic comic book that could be purchased in Tiajuana during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Maybe they still have it. Horny Felix spend endless time running around not doing too much until he finds a target. The NCAA does exactly the same thing. Do they test for Performing Enhancement Drugs? NO! Do they investigate relationships between players and illegal gambling operations? NO! Do they make every effort to be sure that college athletes are not intentionally injured? NO! Do they chastise, sanction and ban certain Colleges for purely criminal behavior? NO! Do they help offer part of those billions back to student athletes that suffer from long term traumatic leg, shoulder, back, brain injuries and concussions? NO!
So, the question is this: What does the NCAA do? Where is their rule book? Who are the members of the Rules Committee with the power to implement sanctions, bans and serious fines on players and colleges for bad behavior? This story has gotten out of hand. We implore Brant Gumbel or Real Sports to step up and help us all answer these questions. We implore Congress to step and Investigate the NCAA for wrong doing, RICO associations and find out why they do not protect America’s athletes.
Could it be time to simply – do away with the NCAA and have colleges make their own deal with Media Moguls, Television, Cable and Satillite operations?
It probably can’t be much harder than sitting around a pot belly stove in some far away hardward store. Filling that smoke filled room with cash from the folks that have arranged a time to drop off those bags – for each of them!
The NCAA Rulebook..brought to you by Felix the Cat! It can’t get much better than that – or can it! Listen! Can you hear that Government Oversight coming? They say that those with the gold….make the rules. OK NCAA….let’s see that Rule Book….right now!
“Back in the late 50′s, way before NAFTA – we had braceros.”
Do you remember the large green covered 1 1/2 ton trucks with benches on both sides that would haul the braceros to and from the fields?
I think the field workers have their own cars now.
*Well, they have one pick-up or mini-van for about 12 folks…that is for sure.
Funny…eh? The next thing you know you are going to remind us of those annual reports that aliens had to file about their where-abouts. You could pick up those forms at any Post Office….all the way up into the middle 70’s maybe?
Don’t bring up how many stopped in the day for S & H Green Stamps and later
Blue Chip stamps for every gas station.
*Today “Yonny Fooseball” Manziel again proved how ugly Sports figures can become. They have absolutely no concept that they are anything but “a ego gone wild” They could care less that their sickening behavior is affecting other high school and PeeWee league players. Very unattractive.
Felix the Cat was a porn cartoon? Do I have to revise my understanding of “The Master Cylinder”?
Dr. Greg, you are too young and probably of finer moral fiber than to have ever visited Tiajuana and bought any of those Felix the Cat comic books in Spanish…from a street vendor. You probably never went to the Blue Fox and you probably never bought wharachies or serapes, bota bags or cheap guitars, bull paintings, sculptures of the Virgin Mary, giant paintings of Elvis and Marilyn or Mariachie somberos…either. The tour guides in Tiajuana were actually cab drivers in the old days. They could even take you to the Bull Ring where you could throw up and throw your bota bag at the toreadors and matadors. You might ask our buddy Gustavo…over at the OC Weekly to write up a cool article that he can discuss on the OC Insider with Rick Rieff. Maybe you come in….compardre?…”Come on in …we got the best good cheap junk in town!” Miss those days….too bad the young kids can’t experience it the way we did. Now all we get is Johnny Manziel…….brutal.
You’re only partly right — I did have huaraches and a serape from there, but mostly I went down there for cheap blankets, tequila, and Kahlua. No, never bought a porn comic book there. How was I supposed to follow the plot line in Spanish?
*Actually, the Bacardi Rum in Gallon Bottles, along with Jose Cuevo Tequila Gallons were very big hits. Everyone got a bottle of that frosted bottle with the worm in the bottom….what was that called again? They also had the boogleg Ricea …ever clear 200 proof…stuff that caused blindness. We also never mentioned the bogus Spanish Fly that was always in evidence……that no one bought….just looked at.
*Here it is…of course….not frosted bottle…that was the Gilbey’s Gin.
Mezcal……..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezcal
OSU was penalized because their former coach, Jim Tressel, neglected to tell the university about players’ — including Terrelle Pryor — trading OSU memorabilia for cash and tattoos. Urban Meyer, for whatever he did at Florida, wasn’t involved.
wharachies? Mariachie somberos? Doesn’t the Orange Juice Blog employ a copy editor?
Anita, for a few weeks when I was first here I tried to edit the Winships…. but the problem was always, where to stop?
If the question begins “doesn’t the Orange Juice Blog employ…?”, you can stop right there, because the answer is “no.”
*OK folks…..apologies are in order…….but there is a technical reason for some of these egregious spelling malpropisms. Yes, we have an excuse: Here goes our best shot at it. When you are writing a Reply or Comment on the OC Juice and you discover (oh my!) that you need the correct spelling to a specific word – you either have to go to another computer…which we do many times or have to look up the word in a Dictionary. It is very inconvenient because we cannot just simply go to Google……put in the proscribed word…get the answer and go back to writing our response. If we employ Google during our comment entry what happens is – we lose the entire entry up to where we got the stop. OK, it isn’t much of an excuse….laziness is not next to godliness and we understand that we have some very Virgo/Gemini types that virtually go ballistic when they see a spelling error in print. We grasp that and as we said: We apologize! However, foreign words such as juaraches and Mariachis and such….well, for Danes and Swedes that speak four languarges, even we have our limitations.
Meanwhile, our Ruby’s on the Balboa Pier got hit this morning by a bunch of foreigners on a 50 foot yacht that ran out of gas at 8AM and slammed into the pier…..luckily the damage it did to the pier wasn’t terrible and the pier re-opened at 10AM. Now we can rest up for the winter storms and start our prayer network …..right now.
Meanwhile, some lady got shot to death on the Bay Bridge last night and was
found under the bridge this morning also. Things like this usually don’t happen right here in Newport Beach…….so both events were very surprising. Our spelling errors…..not so much!
*”Free at last….free at last….great God Almighty…we are free at last!” Time-Warner Cable and CBS are back on line…….and we will have Charley Rose
and NFL Football……It is early Christmas in September!
Yes, where to start? Indeed. I’d start with the plague of ellipses and finish off with a dictionary; I mean a book, not a Web site. And notice that “dictionary” isn’t a proper noun, hence not capitalized. “Proscribed” means forbidden. I don’t know what “malpropism” means. Perhaps they meant “malapropism,” but at this point it scarcely seems to matter. And they wonder why few people take them seriously.
No, my essential problem was always just trying to figure out what they were trying to say, and then to make it clearer… but I think it is just generally impressionistic pictures of things they know and people they have known or heard of.
And I couldn’t help make that any better. ..or weirder..than what they had already managed.
It’s a style. You either accept letting it wash all over you or you jump into a different pool. I find it entertaining and sometimes illuminating.