As we've come to expect, Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen often brings clarity and common sense to the forefront regarding painful challenges in the U.S.
Today's commentary addresses the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead.
"And here I thought guns don't kill...people do. Is this the people we are?"
Clip description: Bob Costas joined Bill Maher tonight to talk politics, guns, and the politically correct “bullshit” that both of them are getting tired of.
Maher brought up Costas’ infamous Sunday Night Football commentary about American gun culture, which Costas completely stood by. He told Maher that of course there are limits on what kind of weapons civilians should get access to, like “cop-killer armor-piercing bullets” or bazookas or tanks.
Maher then asked Costas if he thinks politically correct culture is “kind of out of hand,” citing President Obama‘s reluctance to say “Islamic extremism.” Costas said, “You need people on the left to call this bullshit out.”
Costas also said conservatives need to be calling out right-wing bullshit too, and lamented the selective nature of cable news where people just stick to their partisan corners. He asked, “Why can’t people with common sense hold two truths in their head at the same time?”
Last year, veteran sportscaster Dale Hansen of Dallas/Fort Worth's WFAA gained national attention when he addressed the issue of Michael Sam coming out before the NFL draft.
Hansen again brought his common-sense wisdom to the "Hansen Unplugged" segment of his telecast Tuesday in discussing a controversy in the Dallas suburb of Flower Mound.
At a recent basketball game against a rival, more racially diverse school, students were photographed last week holding up signs that read "White" and "Power." Hansen addressed the issue and it's origin.
Hansen chided the Flower Mound students' parents who dismissed the dustup as nothing more than an accidental pairing of signs alongside each other. He shared that his granddaughter recalled attending games at Flower Mound where students would chant "Welfare babies, do you know who your daddy is? Because we know ours."
He also reached back to his own upbringing in Iowa, where he said his mind was "twisted" by the contrast between his father's constant and casual use of the "N-word" with praise for the only black family in the county where Hansen grew up.
"Kids have to be taught to hate and it's our parents and grandparents, and our teachers and coaches, too, who teach us to hate," Hansen said. "Kids become the product of that environment. I was. And they are."
"The kids who hold the signs and chant their racist slurs — and it's not all of them. It never is," he said. "But their ignorance perpetuates the stereotype of all of us in Texas as a racist, ignorant people."
Watch Hansen's take-down below. And bravo once again, Mr. Hansen!
A teacher posted the essay above to Reddit, saying,
"One of my 4th grade students chose gay marriage as his topic for a
persuasive essay. This is the result. More sense than some adults."
"Why gay people should be able to get married
is you can't stop two adult's from getting married because there grown
and it doesn't matter if it creeps you out just get over it. And you
should be happy for them because it's a big momment in their life. When I
went to my grandparents wedding it was the happies momment.
As you can see gay people should have the right to get married and
you shouldn't judge other peoples lives because if you was gay you
wouldn't want people talking about you."
A US Senate committee just approved a ban on military assault weapons. The action sends the bill to the full Senate where, my thoughts are, it will have little to no chance of passing.
The legislation follows the tragic shooting of 20 school children in Connecticut last December.
"The greatest threat to our economy is neither corporations nor the government. The greatest threat to our economy is both of them working together. There are currently two sizable coalitions of angry citizens that are almost on the same page about that, and they're too busy insulting each other to notice."
