Kyyote’s Howl – Kyyote's Den

Rooting, Team, and Loyalty

When I was a kid, back in the “Olden Days”, we used to be able to tell you anything and everything you wanted to know about the players on our teams that we rooted for. As a matter of fact, we could tell you the same about our rivals. Think in terms of Hatfields and McCoys. Years of slowly changing players on teams meant that years of history and animosity towards opposing players and teams were built into the games and built upon with each game. And most importantly, they represented you, and your town.

All of you can remember back to the simplest times in your lives when the players on you elementary school classroom, or school were playing against the other classroom or school. It is very tribal, I suppose. We quickly become passionately invested in those players and teams that represent us. Heroes are born. Then, high school and bragging rights have our heroes competing against our serious rivals. For some, the passion may wane and for others it is intensified. Those who go on to college become part of a new team, a new family, the family of your school, and the teams are your representatives. When they win, we win and we are therefore winners and when they lose, we lose and we are losers. The players and coaches aren’t necessarily the kids we grew up with anymore, but they are our guys and we usually have them for a few years. That gives us enough time to get that whole knowing about them and who they are, after all, they are our new family members and it is harder to root for the brand new brother-in-law that you just met than it is to root for the family you have known for years. He’s family and he is welcomed with open arms, but only with a little time will we get to know and love the guy.

Now, back to when I was a kid. Back then, players basically belonged to the teams that signed them. Those teams invested in them, developed them, and hoped that they would get a great return on their investment. We fans were right there the whole time and we invested our time, energy, and passion too.

Then, the courts found that Roberto Clemente was right to claim that he was now a slave to his owners as far as his career was concerned and they gave him, and all other professional athletes their freedom and Free Agency was born. Clemente rejected the investment in his development by his employer and the fans of Pittsburg. Y’all don’t own me! This made him now available to the highest bidder for his services, he was no longer a family member, he became a mercenary. He rejected loyalty for money. So did every other professional athlete. Their loyalty was to themselves and money was the tangible reward for their loyalty to themselves. Teams, owners and fans were thrown under the team bus by the very players they had grown to love. That was the end of loyalty. Players waved goodbye to their fans with a middle finger and a fistful of Benjamins.

But, the feelings, passion and desire to have a team to root for and to represent us is strong. It has been bred into us forever. It is developed and nurtured during our formative years. So, we go along with the new way of putting together our team. It is no longer assembling family members, it is hiring the best mercenaries and keeping them together long enough to win. So what was once a passionate love of team and “family” is now devolved into rooting for your collected hired guns against the other guys gang. I went to Oakland Raiders games when they played on a junior college football field and sat on aluminum bleachers. Loyalty to the fans went out the door many years ago. They are my NFL team, but I don’t much give a rat’s ass about them and haven’t for years. It is Sunday sports. I may or may not watch. The NFL seems to be on a drive to eliminate whatever there may be left in y interest entirely.

The NCAA, the players, and college athletics are starting to look more and more like the pros with each passing year. The players are abandoning the idea of development being worth something that they get in return for some level of loyalty to their teammates and coaches and their school. College basketball is where it is most apparent. Transfers, hardship waivers, and a short one year of extra preparation sitting out are the equivalent of the college player’s free agency. It has made half of Division 1 basketball the minor leagues for the Big 5 Cartel schools. It has made coaching and recruiting a nightmare for the mid majors.

All of this sounds like an old man complaining about the good old days fading away and the dawning of the new day and new ways. It is, and that doesn’t mean I am wrong about it, though. The new day and new way is a way with no loyalty, no emotional investment, and no history or tradition. The new way boils down to either win and we all like that or lose and you are on your own. How long do you think that is really going to last? The NFL may be finding out just how quickly a fan will drop a hooker as opposed to leaving his wife.

Magic and Science Demonstrations

Just thinking out loud, here. As a science teacher, I loved the magic that science demonstrations could bring to science lessons. One of my favorite field trips was to take my 6th graders to see a pair of UTEP professors who did a Flying Circus of Physics and Chemistry. One old guy with crazy gray hair would come rolling across the stage in a Radio Flyer propelled by a fire extinguisher to start his show and the other guy was blowing stuff up and setting off chemical reactions, drawing oohs and ahs. It was very much like a magic show. The hope was that it would inspire students to get interested in science, possibly as a career. But sitting here this morning, it seems to me that very few people who go to see a magician decide to go into magic because of it. I have some ex-students who are seriously involved in scientific research and will have to ask them about their reasons for pursuing the careers they have chosen. . Liz, Matt, Anaisa, Ilse?

Flashy experiments were a great way to get into learning, but in teaching, making lessons meaningful and relevant are the key. When I was able, I tried to set up business type environments into which the learning would be very meaningful and relevant.

So, imagine a magician who wasn’t on stage performing his magic for an audience expecting magic tricks, but throughout the day, at the appropriate time, making his tricks meaningful and relevant what an amazing thing that would be. Word would spread quickly. That right there is worth further contemplation. But, that is what a science teacher should strive for. The magic is there, and the impact could be so much more powerful if the magic was used in the context of meaningful and relevant learning experiences, without it being presented as a magic trick. I used to try to do this, but I have to admit that I used the magic of science as a magic trick more often than I should have. So, please if you are a science teacher, realize that you have the ability to create magic, but a magic trick in a show is a magic trick. A magic trick in the right situation in real life is a miracle. You scientific magic has the same potential impact if you use it wisely.

Some Clarity On Some Terms For Discussion On Firearms

When listening to people discuss firearms, there is an enormous amount of disconnect from accuracy. If the discussion were represented by a bulls-eye target there would be very few shots in the bulls-eye, a few more in the nine and eight rings and on out, with lots of shots barely on paper, and plenty of shots taken by the legs of the target holder, feet below the target itself. So, I am going to take it from the very basics on up to sophisticated systems. I say that with a bit of my tongue in cheek, and I hope by the time I’m finished you will know why. Please excuse me, you gun guys if I go too fast and am not as nuanced as you would like, but I am not doing this for you. I am doing it for the overwhelming majority of the people out there whose knowledge of firearms ranges from almost nothing to the range of knowledge getting to where you gun guys feel like I have giver the average guy a better idea of how things work and what is being talked about.

Here we go. Take a piece of pipe. We will now call that a barrel. there are two ends on our barrel. One of them will be where our projectile being fired exits the barrel. That will be called the muzzle end of our barrel. Now, a bit of physics. Gun powder, when it burns, creates hot, expanding gas with a relatively great amount of energy. As you know, gases expand in all directions. Alright, we are going to close the other end of our barrel. In this case we are going to screw a end cap on it. Then we drill a very small hole in the end cap. Now we have a barrel. Imagine a cannon on a pirate ship, and all our barrel needs is some way to hold it and point it. That handle of our very basic fire arm will be called the stock. I want to point out that I have not made any mention of size of our now complete barrel and stock. We have a barrel, and a way to hold it and point it, a stock. This is a firearm. That simple. All we have to do now is put some gun powder in our barrel to create the hot expanding gases and our projectile on top on it to be propelled down the barrel and out in the direction the muzzle is pointed. That little hole we put in the end cap is how we will be able to get a bit of fire, or spark, from the outside of our barrel to the waiting powder inside. When that happens, the projectile is forced out of the barrel by the gas.

What I have described is called a muzzle loader. Ways to get the fire to the powder evolved. Eventually, a little bit of powder was put into a little metal cap that could be put over that hole in our closed end of our barrel. When those caps were hit by a little hammer, they sparked and the powder in our barrel would “fire”. So, at this time I want you to know that everything that we will be talking about are called firearms for this reason. There are many types of firearms. Firearms worn on or near one’s side are called side arms and those that are longer and carried in our hands, are called long arms. Generally speaking think one hand to hold is a side arm.

So, our fire arm we have made is a muzzle loader. It fires one time and then we have to “reload” it. Pouring gunpowder down the barrel and then pushing a projectile down on top of the gunpowder takes a little bit of time. So, someone decided it was easier to put the powder and projectile/bullet into a this paper “cartridge” that could be pushed down the barrel. So, I want you to remember that word, cartridge.

Cartridges made reloading muzzleloaders much quicker. But still, if you are being attacked the time it takes to reload is life or death at times. In 1835, a man named Sam Colt applied for a patent for a new sidearm. He had put a cylinder of metal at the end of the barrel where our cap had been. The cylinder had holes drilled into it which could hold powder and a round, lead bullet. one was “loaded” at time, until it was full, and it had six places built in to it. Caps were placed on each, at the ready. This pistol was called a revolver. Each time the trigger was pulled, the hammer came down and fired. When the hammer was pulled back another of the six positions came into align with the barrel and the now “cocked” hammer. All of a sudden, a man could fire six times as fast as he could cock the hammer and pull the trigger. THIS IS IMPORTANT! This is the first firearm to put another loaded “round” into place simple by cocking and pulling the trigger. It wasn’t completely automatic, because the hammer had to be manually pulled back first. But, the “fire power” a man could hold in one hand was a giant leap forward. This was a Single Action pistol. With the single action of pulling the hammer back, it was ready to fire with the next pull of the trigger. It didn’t take long to figure out how to make the pulling of the trigger able to make the hammer cock and release. The two actions combined made this type of pistol called a Double Action pistol. It could shoot 6 times as fast as a person could pull the trigger. THIS IS IMPORTANT! A firearm that fires once for every time the trigger is called a semi-automatic(NOT AN AUTOMATIC!). The Double Action revolver is a semi-automatic weapon, but isn’t called that because of it’s original design, and revolver gets close enough in the minds of people who know.

Before I get any further, those “cartridges” improved, too. Instead of paper, the were made of brass that could be reused. They poured at little extra easy to spark powder into the bottom of the brass cartridge that went around the inside bottom rim of the brass. When the brass cartridge was struck, it began the fire completely inside the cartridge. Eventually, as cartridges became more powerful they used a place built into the bottom of the brass case into which a primer(like the caps described above)was pressed These are what are called Center Fired cartridges. So, a cartridge today for a high-powered cartridge is the brass(usually) case, the primer pressed into it, containing a specific amount and type of gunpowder, and a bullet pressed into place.

In 1911, a man named Browning designed a new way of automatically loading another cartridge very quickly. It was ingenious to say the least. It used the same energy from the hot gas of the cartridge to kind of push our end cap in our basic barrel me had made at the beginning backwards at the same time the bullet was being pushed forward and out of the muzzle end. When the barrel was pushed back the empty brass case was allowed to be blown out of the firearm and a spring pushed it back to its original position, but with an unfired cartridge pushed into place from a “magazine”(a place to hold more unused cartridges) below. It Automatically fired each time it shoved a fresh cartridge into place. THAT IS WHAT AN AUTOMATIC WEAPON IS! You pull the trigger one time and it fires AUTOMATICALLY until the supply of cartridges runs out, or the trigger is released. When the trigger is released and returned to the forward position it stops the firing of the weapon. So, he put a switch on it to allow you to fire it each time you pulled the trigger by automatically putting another cartridge into place to fire. That is called SEMI-AUTOMATIC fire. The other position on the switch was AUTOMATIC FIRE. As you can imagine, armies all over the world lined up to buy AUTOMATIC weapons. But, they burn through cartridges and are not exactly pinpoint accurate when firing that way that automatic fire had very limited usefulness. Hunters had no use for automatic fire as it pretty much takes the aiming and skill out of the sport. There was another group that could see the advantage of automatic fire. Gangsters. It quickly became apparent that allowing gangsters, murderers for a living to have automatic weapons was a problem. So, automatic weapons were made illegal for civilians unless they had a specific reason for having such a weapon. Basically impossible for the average person to get.

But, the ways to make the trigger pull quickly are limited only by imagination. For those thinking that any device that does that can be outlawed, I want you to know that the same backwards and forwards action, with a little practice can be used to do the same thing using a belt loop on a pair of pants. The sliding butt stocks used by the murderer in Las Vegas used the backwards action and a spring to provide the way to pull the trigger quickly. SO, the murderer had legal to own SEMI-Automatic weapons. The bump stocks and other mechanical devices used to pull the trigger quickly have not been banned. As you can imagine, they rush to ban these will be made quickly.

I have given you some basic knowledge of firearms in order for you to better understand what is being talked about. I do this because you will hear the word automatic weapons used a whole lot by people who are wrong. Watch for it, and if someone is using Automatic to describe a semi-automatic firearm they are either not informed or they are purposely misleading for a reason. One is ignorant and the other is deceitful, both are not to be trusted.

I have tried to give you straight information without any bias. I hope this has been of some service in helping to make discussions just a little more accurate. I would like to think that if you paid attention you could at least hit the target and score some points, speaking accurately.

The BLMNFL

When Colin Kaepernick took his knee during the playing of the National Anthem it was his way of saying that he wouldn’t stand in respect of, or to honor a country in which the group Black Lives Matters says is racist, and cops are killing black men without just cause pretty much all of the time. His wearing of socks depicted as pigs was very out of uniform and designed to do exactly at it did, to draw attention to his thoughts about police in America. So, he said two things at the same time.

When other players began joining him in kneeling during the National Anthem, they were saying that they were willing to join him in what he was saying. That simple. But, it also added the idea of solidarity. Here is why that is important. It allowed players to say that there agreement with the first two things might be less than as committed as his, but they were with him in raising the whole discussion. This is perhaps the most critical part of the progression of the current situation. It allowed them to move the situation from being in solidarity with a Police hating America hating, disrespectful Kaepernick to joining the whole Freedom of Expression movement by the left that physically attacks anyone who dares to speak out against them.

The majority of football watching Americans, I believe tend to lean toward rejection of hating police, belief that police are hunting black men, the Black Lives Matters narrative they believe was based on a police officer defending his life and not an innocent black man being murdered. I also believe most Americans reject the Antifa and the rest of the Left’s attempt to silence others in a ridiculous claim of defending Freedom of Speech, and using the right to peaceful protest to organize physical attacks on fellow Americans.

When, the football players chose to dishonor their country in England, the statement was huge, and most patriotic Americans had had enough. That was over the line. The NFL knew the shit was going to hit the fan, but I think even they may have been jolted by the amount of distaste Americans had with more than the players. The owners of the businesses called teams had thrown in with the Kaepernicks. By evening, America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys had made it clear that they would all stand for the National Anthem. America waited, tuned in to see if there would be a team that didn’t throw in with the America Hating Kaepernicks. The Cowboys came out, linked arms together and led by their owner, Jerry Jones, he joined the Kaepernicks and they all in unison took a knee. But, they tried to hide it by standing back up for the Anthem and the giant flag. Then they asked the people in the stands to join them in a show of unity. Trouble is, the standing straight, with hand over heart is American’s way of showing unity, not linking arms in unity with the Kaepernicks. It was not only wrong, but it counted on the people being stupid. It counted on the fans, fellow Americans to know even notice that they had joined in the Kaepernick movement. Bad move, compounded by a really insulting move towards their customers.

It is easy to understand why the NFL, the players and coaches, and the owners, have united, but it is a stick in the eye of their own customers. At least half. Well, they have decided they can live off of the business they get from those willing to continue doing business with them. They have every right to do so. It may work out well for them. It may be a brilliant move. Time will tell.

But, here is the thing. Our country has become more divided than I have seen it since the 1960’s and even then Americans still believed in America and disagreed about what America was doing. Now, the entire institution is being attacked as being illegitimate. It must be torn down to the ground. rebuilt on the backs of whites this time, for some “social justice”. Naturally, for many Americans, proud of their country even though it has never been perfect, not those who turn their pride on and off depending who is president, that doesn’t sit well.

That is a really, really sticky situation. Unlike most businesses, NFL owners and teams, ergo players and coaches, are financially subsidized by the tax payers and voters. Stadiums are built and paid for by taxpayers and the keys are handed over to the owners to make money while the taxpayers pay all of the bills. It is supposed to be because of the revenue the games bring in. Cut that in half and there are quite a few teams that will be allowed to go somewhere else. But, the bidding will drop.

I waited until this morning to write this to see if anything had changed over the past week. It didn’t. They did it again, in England, and most of the players have chosen the chicken shit cowards way of standing, with arms linked in solidarity with the Kaepernicks, rather than putting their hands over their hearts as they should and would in their respect and honor for their country outweighed their allegiance to their team. It comes down to a choice between being on the American team or the Kaepernick team. Sunday’s will be great days to go fishing and getting things done around the house.