I think every American is guilty of something that, at some levels, seems very innocent. When you have a favorite sports team, it can be hard to see anything that doesn’t reflect your favorite team in a negative light. When you have a favorite band, you are more likely to dismiss negative reviews or negative feelings about their songs and albums. If you have a favorite movie, anybody’s negative opinion of that movie is automatically discounted.
These examples are all innocent enough that you may have gotten a chuckle out of reading that because you realize that you do one of the things I listed above.
However, I am noticing a trend similar to this that is a danger to our discourse and something that is very troubling. Political tribalism is something that I have noticed becoming very prevalent in today’s society. I scroll sites like Twitter and Facebook on a regular basis and see statements like, “If you support Donald Trump you must be a racist and a sexist.” Similarly, if you support Joe Biden you want all babies to die, you want my taxes to go up by 500%, and issues like this. These statements have me asking, “What happened to working together or seeing the other side?”
I ask this knowing that the vast majority of people in this country do not exist on social media and do not reliably post their opinions on social media. That said, I think this is a still a troubling trend to be watching on social media.
The cause of this isn’t down to one concrete thing, but I think that the main driving force behind polarization on social media is partisanship in our politics. Politics today have become so far apart that getting any person to vote down the middle is next to impossible. Votes routinely go down party lines so much that you can predict the voting result before deliberations have even been started.
How does this polarization and partisanship impact the public? How does it impact millennials and Generation Z? I’ve seen this have a negative impact on the people that participate in our voting process. My wife, Erika, is participating in her first Presidential election of her lifetime and, right now, she has no interest in voting for either candidate due to the polarization and partisanship she’s seen.
“The way I see it, Republicans and Democrats are on two opposite sides of the coin, and, frankly, I don’t want any part of the coin,” said Ver Steeg with a laugh.
This does reflect the feeling of many people, and it could be a major impact in our political election system in the future. Nobody wants any part of the coin if the two sides are not willing to come together and be united to make the country a better place for all to live.
I believe there is no greater sport than the sport of baseball.
Before I explain, I must ask, what makes a sport great?
Is it the sport’s competitiveness? Is it its athleticism? Is it the strategy behind the sport?
Let’s break those down piece-by-piece.
Baseball’s competitiveness is unmatched by any other sport. In a sport where not a lot of runs or points are scored, every hit, every play, every pitch matters. All 9 innings matter. Every aspect of the game matters when you don’t have a lot of wiggle room for error when the right move can get you out of an inning, and the wrong move can give up 3 runs.
The athleticism of baseball is also something that can’t be underestimated. Think about how quick the sport moves once the ball is in play. The reaction time needed in baseball is unmatched by any other sport. For instance, it takes only a couple of seconds for a ball to be hit out to the outfield, the outfielder to run under it and make the catch. It takes less than a second for a 3rd baseman to react to a hard-hit ground ball down the line. And it takes 300 ms for a batter to see a pitch, decide whether or not to swing, and then swing the bat across to plate to make contact.
How about the strategy behind baseball, or, as I like to call it, the most intricate game of chess in the world? Every single pitch leads to multiple different strategic choices. Do you throw a fastball or an off speed pitch? Should I swing away or bunt? Does the defense implement a shift? Should the runner steal? All of these decisions and more are made on every pitch.
When the coronavirus shut down sports such as the NBA, March Madness, and, locally, the NAIA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in March, there were questions as to what the future of athletics looked like in a pandemic. One of those questions was, “Would it be viable to try and play sports during a pandemic?” For Morningside College’s head football coach, Steve Ryan, it has been great to have things seem a little more normal for a few hours during practice.
“It has been incredible to practice, and it’s just been fun to have the guys out there and not that many people are playing football, but as of today we still are,” said Coach Ryan.
Morningside College and the NAIA are in a minority group of institutions that are playing the bulk of their 2020-21 football season in the fall. A few conferences in NCAA Division I FBS and a few conferences in the NAIA are all that remains of a fall college football season.
This year’s football regular season will look pretty similar to prior years for fans of the Mustang football team, except for one major change. Once the team is done with their GPAC schedule (scheduled to end on Nov. 14 at home vs. Doane), they will have to wait until April 17 to participate in the NAIA postseason. The NAIA’s Council of Presidents voted to move all fall sports championships to the spring to allow institutions more flexibility with their regular seasons. On the field, however, Coach Ryan says things feel almost normal.
“They always give great effort, great energy, and enthusiasm. It’s just like any other year, except I’m wearing a mask.”
The effort, the energy, and the enthusiasm were something that junior quarterback Joe Dolincheck knew he needed to have ready at any moment due to the uncertainty of the pandemic.
“Our coaches said it from the start, it’s all unknown, but we’re taking it as if we’re having a season. Get it out of your mind that there’s a possibility that stuff might get canceled, just forget about it. We’re taking it every day that we’re having a game coming up on September 12th. So, that is what we’re working for,” said Joe Dolincheck.
Morningside has a long history of program success and leaders that step up when they are needed. One of those leaders is senior running back Arnijae Ponder. He says that a good group of guys have stepped up to make sure that the Mustangs are doing the right things when it comes to COVID-19.
“We all, as leaders, told the team ‘Hey practice like we’re having a season, practice to be champions like we are’ and then from there on we set that mentality, that standard of leaving no doubt, and from there we just took off,” said Arnijae Ponder.
Coach Ryan knows that there have to be pros and cons to every situation, and he has found one major pro as the veteran head coach enters his 20th season.
“The players have made it very clear to me, they say that I am much better looking with the mask on, and so that’s pretty good right?” he said with a chuckle.
A fun and relaxing Friday night turned into a frustrating experience for Abby Koch and her mother. After taking a 15 minute drive downtown for pizza from Mardo’s, the Koch’s drove back to their house to enjoy their wood-fired Andouille sausage and pepper pizza with a cauliflower crust.
Abby, after enjoying some pizza, went to the bathroom to relieve herself before sitting down to enjoy the show Dr. Oakley with her mom. When she finished she went to flush the toilet, and heard a loud pop sound. The toilet would not flush. Realizing the issue, she went out to the living room, and had to confess to her mother. She nervously told her mom that she thinks she broke the toilet. Her mom asked, “how did you do that.” Abby simply replied, “I just flushed.”
Normally, a situation like this would not be a big issue, they would call in Mr. Koch, the handyman of the house, and he would be able to fix it. That, however, was not an option. Mr. Koch was away at his parents to help take care of them for the weekend. In this scenario, it was Mrs. Koch who became Bob the Builder and attempted to fix the toilet.
Her mother opened the back tank of the toilet and sticks her hand into it to find that the chain connecting the flush lever and the arm to pull the drain plug had snapped. Her mom then uttered what both of them were thinking, “well, that’s a pickle right there.” They tried to find something to replace the chain for the time being. They used some artis wire, typically used in jewelry, to try and McGyver their way out of this situation. The wire successfully allowed them to flush the toilet and let it be functional before they could get an actual fix for it. After all of that, it was time for some Dr. Oakley.
Morningside College junior quarterback Joe Dolincheck knew that there was unknown coming up with this 2020 football season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but had a support staff to remind him to stay on track and get prepared for the season. “Our coaches said it from the start, it’s all unknown, but we’re taking it as if we’re having a season. Get it out of your mind that there’s a possibility that stuff might get canceled, just forget about it. We’re taking it every day that we’re having a game coming up on September 12th. So, that’s what we’re working for.”
When I was assigned this story, I was not sure how I was going to distribute the fruit snacks initially. Then, before I could come up with how to distribute them, my wife Erika noticed the box sitting by my backpack in my apartment. She asked me, “what’s that for?” I had to be honest and said, “it’s for a project.” This put me in a pickle. I had to decide whether she was going to be a part of the project or not. I decided to give her a fruit snack pouch, but I gave it to her a few days after she asked. Immediately when I asked her, “would you like some fruit snacks?” she responded with, “what is the project for?” She seemed confused by my wanting to give her some fruit snacks. She said they tasted good, but were “weird.”
I gave away three other pouches to my co-workers at KTIV. I first gave one to our evening director Trevor. When I set the pouch in front of him, he looked at it very suspiciously. He wasn’t sure what feeling he should be having towards being given fruit snacks. I also gave a pouch to our 5 PM director Larry. He asked me if I had “poisoned them,” and I simply said no and moved on to my next victim. He said that they tasted really, really good. He also mentioned a couple of unique aspects of the fruit snacks. He made a comment about the smell of the fruit snacks and how he wished they were a candle. Then he mentioned how he has never had an apple flavored fruit snack before. The final person I gave to was our master control operator Don. Don made an audible exclamation when I asked him if he wanted some fruit snacks. Within a couple of seconds of setting them in front of him, he had ripped them open and began eating all of them.
It seems, overall, that people appreciated the act of giving them a little bit of a snack. I think the skepticism comes from the fact that I have never spontaneously given a snack to my coworkers or to my wife. This led to some of the amusing responses and reactions.
The lead draws me in by showing the gravity to which Venus’s impact on the sport of tennis was felt. The lead tells me that her impact on the sport has been greater than any other before her. It grabs your attention by telling you about how important Venus was to the sport of tennis.
1. How a girl from Compton brought a new look to the sport of Tennis 2. Venus Williams: A name from out of this world that brought stardom to the world of women’s tennis 3. How Venus Williams paved the way for many more like her to enjoy the sport of tennis.
Write a little something about the author of this website here. You might also want to link to the about page from here. This text is completely editable in sidebar.php.
