middle finger gesture

On Baseball Players Flipping “The Finger” To Obnoxious Fans

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

No, Bill Maher isn’t a professional athlete, but that’s my favorite graphic of a celebrity middle finger. Besides, it reveals Bill’s essential ugliness.

Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran talked about his 2022 suicide attempt in a Netflix docuseries about the Red Sox released last year. He received a lot of praise for his openness, which he said was intended to increase awareness among others struggling with depression and mental health issues.

But jerks reign supreme, especially in sporting event crowds. Last night, as the Sox played the Twins at Target Field in Minneapolis, a Twins fan sitting in field box seats shouted at Duran that he should kill himself after he grounded out in the fifth inning.

The player responded with the obscene middle finger gesture. “I shouldn’t react like that,” Duran said after the game. “That kind of stuff is still kind of triggering. It happens.“

Flipping off a fan during a game is typically an automatic suspension and fine. Should it be in this case?

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Now THIS Is Bad Lie…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

"Help!"

“Help!”

…bad, as in “if you can’t come up with something better than this, why bother?”

Adding useful data to the time-honored debate over whether police frequently lie under oath comes this decision from 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reinstated a 6-year-old civil rights lawsuit filed by a Vietnam veteran and former pilot John Swartz, who contended that he was unconstitutionally stopped and arrested after expressing his displeasure by extending his middle finger to a cop.

After the stop, he and the officer, Richard Insogna, got in a headed argument that culminated in Swartz’s arrest for disorderly conduct. Insogna said in a deposition that he regarded Swartz’s gesture as an attempt to get his attention, not as an insult, and he that he only followed the car to ensure the safety of passenger and driver, who, he surmised, might be embroiled in a domestic dispute.  The 2nd Circuit was, we are told, “skeptical of the explanation.”

Ya think? Continue reading →