NFL owners take air out of protest against racism
NFL owners have apparently decided that the best way to kill the controversy surrounding players who take a knee during the national anthem is to smother the protest with support.
They concluded they had to act after President Trump’s over-the-top call for players to be fired transformed a lonely protest against racism and police brutality by Colin Kaepernick into a national referendum on freedom of speech. And everyone is for freedom of speech. All of a sudden, more than 200 players were protesting — and most of the owners joined them, either in spirit or literally. The Dallas Cowboys’ conservative owner, Jerry Jones, locked arms with his players and took a knee before the anthem,
and then, in a clever twist, they all stood up for the song itself.
It was a mixed and ultimately diluted message. Jones’ prime-time “protest” blew the whole issue right out of the water, because there’s nothing like the official sanctioning of a protest to guarantee it loses its steam.
Now there’s no more oddity about taking a knee. There’s nothing unusual about it.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear someone came up with the script and everyone signed on.
Wake-up call: The Public Policy Institute of California’s poll this week that had 50 percent of the state’s likely voters saying Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein should not run for re-election could not have set well with our senior senator.
Feinstein had less than 50 percent support among white people. Only with black voters was her support above 50 percent. I don’t think the numbers will have any impact. If she decides to run, she wins no matter who runs against her.
Still, after so many years in Washington, waking up and reading numbers like that would make it hard for anyone to get out of bed.
Especially if you’re the politician, because you want to be loved by everyone. Schumer schlog: Someone please get Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer some acting lessons. Take his response to President Trump’s tax plan. He reads one sentence at a time. He looks up, then reads another sentence, then looks up again. He can’t even handle an entire paragraph. The result is a series of what appears to be disconnected statements with no central theme or rhythm or sense of message or authenticity.
It sounds and looks contrived, because it is. Pak-ing it in: It was a great turnout for the first Rose Pak dinner. I counted seven San Francisco supervisors on hand to help raise money to do what Rose did so well, make small, helpful handouts to the Chinatown community.
We raised about $850,000, and the first recipients were five kids making their way through college. They’ll each get a $5,000 boost.
The best line of the night came from Supervisor Aaron Peskin, whom Rose dubbed “the Napoleon of North Beach” — because of his short stature.
“When I said Rose and I were seeing eye to eye on something, they always took it to mean that we were in agreement. But what I really meant was that we could physically see ‘eye to eye.’ ”
No shadows here: St. Mary’s Hospital celebrated its new surgery room by inviting a host of folks who have been patients back for a reunion. Arts maven Denise Hale, Delancey Street Foundation head Mimi Silbert, former Tosca Cafe owner Jeannette Etheredge and my wife, Blanche, were all on hand. But the real stars were the surgery room and the $2 million robot assistant that came rolling across the floor.
The lighting system was also amazing. They have somehow come up with a system that eliminates shadows being cast on the patient, including shadows from the hands of the surgeons.
Movie time: “Battle of the Sexes.” You may have thought you knew the story of the tennis showdown between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, but Emma Stone, Steve Carell and a great supporting cast take you behind the scenes for a real scorcher of a story. The result is a complicated, at times tender, at times brutal, love story involving gambling addiction, extramarital affairs and clown marketing. And they have captured the look and feel of 1973 perfectly. But block out some time. It runs a good two hours.