RSSIranian, ESPN, and Collegiate Fruitcakes
Gene Lalor | August 27, 2011
The humorist Will Rogers is famous for saying, among other things, ”I never met a man I didn’t like.”
I feel certain Rogers was speaking generally and wasn’t excluding the fair sex when he said that, just as sure as I am that he had never met certain Iranian Muslims, ESPN producers, and Goshen College President John Brenneman, all of whom are eminently dislikable for various reasons and all of whom are certifiable fruitcakes, dependent, of course, on one’s definition of a “fruitcake.”
I’m not attempting here to further demean almost universally-despised, Christmas fruitcakes. I’m referring to loonies, people who have earned universal disapprobation via violent hypocrisy, (Iranian Muslims), racial agitation, (ESPN), or downright stupidity, (Brenneman).
The Iranians sort of have an excuse for being fruitcakes, sort of, since their duly-elected leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, virtually defines the term. Nevertheless, Islamic Iranian clerics have now outdone themselves in outlandish fruitcakery by seizing and burning every bible in their sorry land or, at least, every bible they can get their grubby hands on.
Still not recovered from the Crusades, which ended 720 years ago, Iran’s Mohabut News is reporting that Iran’s Ayatollah Hadi Jahangosha is worried about “the spread of Christianity among our youth” as disseminated by Christian satellite television and books, principally that nastiest of all books, the Bible.
Ayatollah Jahangosha doesn’t seem concerned a whit over Iran’s nuke program or his nation’s rogue status in the world or supplying weapons to every Muslim nut in the Mideast or promoting worldwide war or eradicating Israel but Christians are a problem. Reflecting his paranoia, the Islamic Republic of Iran is seizing and burning every Bible they can. (http://bit.ly/nSJnZs)
Someone should remind the good cleric of how upset Muslims were over an American pastor burning a few holy Korans last year. Maybe Pastor Jones didn’t burn enough of them?
Quite a few people are upset over ESPN’s coloring NFL quarterback Michael Vick white.
Vick was convicted and jailed for staging and engaging in dog-fighting, a bloody “sport” in which man’s best friends were trained to maim and kill other best friend’s for man’s entertainment.
Whether to mitigate Vick’s offenses, to stir the racial pot, or just to get viewers to tune in, ESPN created a digital mock-up of the African-American Vick as a white man and an ESPN reporter asked the less-than-burning question, “What if he were white? . . . You have to ask that question,” he said, though we really don’t have to ask it unless he was implying rampant racism in American.
That implication, the moronic suggestion that if Vick were caucasian, white America would have given him a pass and winked at his enterprise of torturing animals and allowed him to organize dog fights and profit from dogs maiming and killing other animals to his heart’s content, is insulting and ignorant.
ESPN responded to the uproar over its racist stupidity by deceitfully claiming the network was simply “trying to create a meaningful discussion about race in sports,” as valid a disclaimer as saying OJ had to murder Nicole Simpson because she was white.
See a video report on the controversy and the photo-shopped picture of Michael Vick here: http://huff.to/oMjnPs
Depending on one’s perspective, Goshen College’s President Jim Brenneman could very well be the leader of today’s fruitcake pack, surpassing intolerant Islamic bigots and shameless ESPN race-mongering. Muslim’s are known for their intolerance and ESPN hyped race for ratings but American institutions of higher learning are expected to permit divergent opinions, and the national anthem, no?
Apparently not so any more.
Last year, Brenneman’s mini, Indiana, Mennonite college absurdly banned the lyrics of “The Star Spangled Banner” at school functions. This year it outdid its unpatriotic self by forbidding its band to even play the melody. Reason? Too violent.
I guess all that perilous fighting, rockets glaring, and bombs bursting could frighten pacifist Mennonites although Brenneman didn’t exactly explain the ban that way. Rather, he said, “I am committed to retaining the best of what it means to be a Mennonite college, while opening the doors wider to all who share our core values. And I invite others to join us at Goshen College as we make peace in all of its forms, even with the national anthem.”
Why even Mennonites would find it necessary to “make peace” with the “Star Spangled Banner” is as much a mystery as the necessity of forbidding Goshen College students to hear the anthem’s musical strains. They must all be Democrats.
Non-Mennonites should free to read the full text of our offensive anthem here http://bit.ly/2Wv0LI.
As one observer noted with regard to Mennonite history of non-allegiance to any nation,”I suppose we could have followed the example of the Mennonites and simply fled, giving the nation back to the British. But then we’d all be playing cricket.” (http://bit.ly/oJw9Db)
President Brenneman would probably be fine with that, too, as long as the cricket players didn’t strike one another with their bats or hurl beanballs.
Considering that whole motley bunch, I think I’d opt for a stale, tasteless holiday fruitcake and not invite Iranian Muslims, ESPN commentators, or President Brenneman to share the treat. If he were still around, I would invite Will Rogers. 
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