​Bull riding means hard dying. Bull rider, Ty Pozzobon, found dead in his home, on a Monday afternoon, had suffered many concussions from this 8-seconds-of-hell sport. And those 8 seconds means success. You get a score and get to live another day. Tragic though this Canadian’s fatality is, thankfully because of his family, it will not be in vain. His brain will be literally studied, which may help uncover means to prevent depression from leading to deaths such as his.

Bull riding isn’t going to die. The sport has a concussion protocol (albeit figuring in 1 concussion per cowboy, not multiple) and we could surmise Pozzobon, the 2016 Canadian Professional Bull Riders (PBR) champion, who competed in the iconic Calgary Stampede four times, and who grew up watching his Dad and Uncle ride bulls, wouldn’t want his sport to be killed off – but...what is to be done?

Step 1? Change the sport from a pay-only-comes-from-a-ride fee structure to a salaried one so cowboy's wouldn't want to compete no matter the risk to their lives. Salaries could be based on previous annual earnings with newcomers at some agreed-upon starting benchmark.
​Step 2? Make cowboys not so tough. Currently self-reporting on disabilities to authorities is the norm and cowboys don’t want to talk and tell of weaknesses and ailments, real or imagined. (It has been said, for example, that Ty suffered more than a dozen concussions.

Well, you’d think that the introduction of helmets by the PBR back in 2012 would have been a good step, right? But this safeguard is not a catch-all panacea. Firstly, wearing helmets is optional - and a bull can crush a helmet like you or I can squash a grape. Secondly, in fact, Dr. Tandy Freeman, the Medical Director for the PBR, who checked out Ty for concussion symptoms in 2014, says that helmets DON’T prevent concussions. He says: "The primary mechanism of concussion is acceleration and deceleration or rotational force — in other words it's what happens to the brain inside the skull as a result of changes of direction,". He also avers concussions account for 15% of bull riding injuries. Thirdly, and most alarmingly, bull riders suffer “significant injury” every 15 rides, according to an HBO feature. Mixed Martial Arts may be, compared to bull riding, the proverbial walk in the park because, let’s face it - bulls don’t care a s—t for regulations - and don’t give a damn for Marquess of Queensberry Rules.

As it goes, so far Post-Concussion Syndrome and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy are thought to have been possible catalysts to Ty taking his life, but Ty had been discussing his ailments with a family doctor. Now his widow, Jayd Pozzobon, surely must wonder about the sport, concussions, love of the sport, and what may be an irrational affinity, by so many of us, for an event so dangerous...

Should something be done about rodeos generally? National Geographic news reported “The U.S. professional rodeo circuit averages one or two deaths annually. Several more riders suffer serious spinal or brain injuries each year, according to the World Health Organization's Helmet Initiative.”

(Recall that Scotland, England, and Wales banned fox hunting due to love and concern for foxes. Would the world consider humans as worthy as foxes and therefore ban bull riding? Not likely.)

Back to cowboys and Ty. How about this for a stirring - but scary - epitaph?

OneRideAtATime on Facebook penned:

“As I live the Cowboy Way, Protection is what I pray, I don't know my Fate, Outside of the gate. If my ride sees trouble, Send Angels on the double, For in you the Lord I rest, Let my life pass your test. By pure grace I am saved, Lord, ride with me. That's the Cowboy Way, And what bull riders pray.”

 As for Ty, the person, outside of his career in a sport so tough, as mentioned, 8 seconds is a victory and for a guy so tough, he rode in last November’s PBR World Finals WITH A BROKEN HAND (and finished fourth) - Pro Rodeo Canada sums him up best:

“And while all of us mourn the loss of one of our sport’s brightest stars, we are painfully aware that we have also lost one of the truly genuine people in this or any sport,” the organization said on its website. “The ever-ready Pozzy grin, the endless love and devotion to family and friends, his ability to pick up the spirits of those around him — those are special talents — as great, and maybe even greater, than his superstar ability to ride the rankest bulls in the industry.”

As for his competitors? Riders sported Pozzy 23 patches in honor of him. Finally his hometown, “...Merritt city council was mulling the possibility of adding “Home of professional bull rider Ty Pozzobon” to the city’s three welcome signs.”

Ty, when reflecting about golf and its millions of bucks awarded to its best, offered: “...Come on, put these boots on for a second...” His parents, in reflection, have asked donations go to Rider Relief, an organization that helps injured Bull Riders...take the necessary time, by clearing bureaucratic barriers, to get better...
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Tyrell Luke Pozzobon was just 25-years old when his life took a turn for the worse.

Can meditation melt off the fat? Tiffany Cruickshank, a yoga professional, says yes. She’s got more than anecdotal proof. And one doesn’t need to go all-weird and sit still for hours, trying to get into a lotus position only the ultra-flexible can get into. Three to five minutes could just do the trick - and you can sit in a chair. But palms must be up, and the spine must be straight.

Don’t laugh: comedian Jeff Garlin says meditation helped him lose weight.

We can do three to five minutes...

Trick, perhaps, isn’t the correct word. Meditation, as a balm to what ails us, has been around since at least 1500 BC. It’s no gimmick. But how can it really in weight loss? Perhaps the better question, notwithstanding we might not be able to understand a mumbo-jumbo response to the weight loss question - is: what have we got to lose (except fat, and perhaps stress) in trying it?
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Yes stress: too much of it wrecks one’s body and blows one’s mind. Too much stress aids in weight gain, by messing up one’s metabolism. So if stress is reduced through meditation, it stands to reason that fat will be lost also. But there are other facets of meditation that play into making a more perfect-physical me and you.

For one thing, for those five minutes of sitting still, you’ll feel more serene and confident afterwards - and peace of mind and confidence help boost a healthy self-image.

And a healthy outlook is WAY better than a depressed or stressed one, with respect to curbing a binge-out-comfort-food EMOTIONAL EATING attack. The stress hormone, cortisol, triggers junk sweet and sugary-food fridge raids, while another hormone, insulin – of higher amounts – is associated with stress - and insulin contributes to the body deciding to store fat.

And fat cells get bigger. (Losing weight will cause fat cells to decrease in size, but unfortunately will not decrease them in number. Once you’ve added new ones, they’re yours for life.)

Back to meditation.

Another benefit is that it helps induce sleep and helps lower hyperarousal. And getting adequate sleep also helps the body to lose fat. It also leaves one more refreshed upon waking.  And as Cruikshank has noted with her clients, meditation has reduced their self-criticism. Self loathing, as we all are sadly too familiar with, increases our stresses, thereby increasing...you get the idea.

Moreover, Cruickshank has discovered that adopting mediation as a lifestyle habit helps stymie, abate, reduce, or eradicate unhealthy habits. More wins.

Ok, who the heck is Cruickshank? Not to be a shill, but she has lots of credentials: Outside of her acupuncture and sports medicine schooling (and there could very well be other disciplines she has studied also) and yoga practices, the latter of which she has been calibrating with for 20 years, she “has been featured as an expert in numerous publications including Yoga Journal, Prevention, Self, Marie Claire, Fitness Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Fox News, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Mantra, Thrive, More Magazine, OM Yoga, YogaLife and many others.”

Surely, the BEST thing about mediation as a weapon to lose body fat is how little time it takes. Substitute meditation’s 5 minutes per day – 35 minutes weekly – for let’s say 2 workouts of an hour each – and add 30 minutes per workout for commuting – we’d save some, wait for it:

5.23 days per year.

Huh?  Two workouts per week dropped equal 180 minutes (2 x 60 + 2 x 30).          Take 180 less 35, you get/save 145 minutes per week. Annualize that; divide that by 60 to get your hours; then divide by 24 to get your days and voila, 5.23 days of time to do something else. (Don’t fill the time stuffing yourself, it will defeat the purpose.)

But you get the point. What a huge time saver!

But wait, there’s more! OK, that sounded shillish. One study purports that meditation has at least 76 benefits – and that study was based on hundreds of other studies to back up that claim.
Apart from the pluses listed above, mediation is said to, in this paper at least:

Increase brain gray-matter; reduce panic attacks; reduces sleep-need, which sounds somewhat contradictory to the earlier stated advantage of inducing sleep, but let’s glide past the what’s-and-wherefore’s of each and get to the next bonus...

Meditation reduces alcohol and drug abuse;

Now about that five minutes per day. Yes, we can do that, but Giovanni Dienstmann of Liveanddare.com - says it could take at least eight weeks of meditation before benefits are noticed. Two months. But 60 days at 5 minutes per day, isn’t the end of the world and the boons to this simple practice – you don’t need religion, special clothes, monkish tendencies, or a guru – sounds like the beginning of a rebirth.

Should we delight in or disdain that fact that celebrities (Hugh Jackman, Madonna, Katy Perry, even tough guy Clint Eastwood, and many others) folks we love, like, or loath...meditate? Depends on whether the celebrity is an air-head or an accomplished smart soul – but these descriptions are based on opinion.

Not facts.

And meditation – no matter what you may say about current adherents and past practices, seems to factually suggest that it is a good recourse to try out - for losing weight and shedding fat. For darn near whatever ails you.

Gotta go. The five minutes of meditation start now - - - with Sting, Martin Scorsese, Paul McCartney, and Eva Mendes right alongside.

​Is the Human Fly, Rick Rojatt, hanging out with D.B. Cooper?

Rick used to walk, or stand, on jets, while D.B. skyjacked at least one. Neither of these guys has been seen since the 70’s. While the FBI has closed the case on D.B. many wonder why Rick - who aspired to be the best daredevil on the planet, which meant pushing Evel Knievel off that ledge - left the limelight.

Could be Rick may have planned his amazing vanishing act all along for he never, while capturing the world’s imagination as the Human Fly, ever took his red mask off. For all we know the bloke next to us, if he’s tall and unmasked, could be Rojatt, “the wildest superhero ever...” hiding in plain sight.
​
Perhaps the most startling, stunning deed of the Canadian-born Human Fly’s was when he decided he had better be perched atop a DC-8 while it flew around at 250 miles per hour. To prevent the Human Fly from blowing away in the wind what with a takeoff that featured 3,000 pounds of air pressure - he, wearing a cotton outfit, mask and goggles, was strapped into a vertical case, which itself was fastened to the plane by 4 cables.

The Human Fly and his predilection for fooling around on things-jetty is especially noteworthy because usually it is air-force pilots trained in flying their own machines that perform stunts, or is, of late, a Russian fighter pilot buzzing (barrel rolling) an American jet that takes care of this aeronautically-nutty stuff. Ordinarily a fly - human or otherwise - or a human - buggy or otherwise - could not best a jet.

In 1977, when attempting to beat Knievel’s motorcycle jump of 13 buses, by clearing 26 buses, he did so, but horrifically pranged up the rocket-powered Harley-Davidson XL 1000 Sportster motorcycle (top speed capability 300mph) and his person...about 4 buses short of the down ramp. His stunt-caper literally crashed his career (this was just 1 of 38 accidents/operations over 4 years, he says) and, thus, started his disappearing act, right after being taken away by stretcher, having busted a few bones including at least one ankle, from the almost-made-it jump.

He had hoped to shock and awe his fans with a rocket-propelled jump from Britain to France (or France to Britain does it matter? – anyway, over the English channel) but that, alas, was not to be...

Of course he might not have disappeared so much as passed away. But you’d think that that news would have come out, ferreted by an investigative reporter. Surely family and friends wouldn’t have, if Rick had passed, decided to deke out the world and put another name on a death certificate. To what, no pun intended, end?

So let’s assume he lived through the 70’s and may still be with us today. So why the vanishing act? Sure it is a good publicity angle but after a few decades most public interest in his whereabouts has lessened. Did family or friends, for whatever reasons or rationales, convince him to clam up, turn turtle? Did a shrink diagnose him as a reckless publicity hound, and recommend he turn down the ego-thermostat and bunker in? Perhaps his injuries from the beat-Evel escapade have embarrassed him, or, worse yet, have limited his abilities to communicate.

His fly-by-height act made an impact, all the more remarkable for social media had not really kicked in – and that’s the straw that stirs the drink allowing so many to ride the waves of insta-recognition these days – for feats far less significant than Rick’s. A comic book, The Human Fly, produced by Marvel, was based on his exploits. Unfortunately it was a short, 20-issue, run.

What is it, with daredevils like Rojatt, skyjackers like Cooper, or sky-walkers like Kane Petersen, for example? Is it the thrill of danger, the proximity to death, the craving of attention, a lack of something in the core of their lives – or an absence of common sense - that drives them to these supremely risky adventures - or is it just that they are simply wild and crazy guys at heart?
​
Jeffery Werner of People Magazine profiled this guy back in 1976 and ended the piece, summing up Rojatt’s take on existence perfectly. “I don’t have a death wish. I have a life wish.” Let’s hope that he hasn’t disappeared like Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters leader, did in the 70’s - let’s instead hope - he’s alive and well, but has opted for anonymity, has chosen just to be a fly on the wall.

​Adam Silver’s got balls. The commissioner of the NBA wants NBA players to hector President Donald Trump for his incorrect views. Has Trump complained about the lack of diversity within the NBA – a league where 75% of players are black? Has he wanted to put blacks at the back of the bus, behind illegal aliens? What the heck is Adam Silver dribbling about?

We’ll get to the NBA dunk of Trump momentarily.

Up until now, Adam has handled race-based, concerning African-Americans, political issues with aplomb.

Actually Silver demolishes, not dribbles, when it comes to racism against blacks. When NBA owner, come on down, Donald Sterling - spoke racially and odiously off the cuff privately to V. Stiviano about black people, well, Adam, in only his 88th day as commissioner, atomized Donald with a jolly good ban of him from the NBA - for LIFE - and tacked on a 2.5 million dollar fine for good measure – based on this one incident only.

Wow.

The power.

Power, however, that was lauded by NBA icons Charles Barclay, Kenny “The Jet” Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal, in hearing of Silver’s slam dunk of Sterling.

Power. Put to proper use.

Perhaps, however, instead of targeting President Trump, Silver, who looks EXACTLY like the farmer carrying the pitchfork in the American Gothic House painting, should use that power, as a white guy, to resign and let a female black take his job. Or let Mark Tatum, a black deputy commissioner vie for his spot. Apparently blacks in NBA management are almost as low numerically as are Asians playing in the NBA, although blacks, Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson, do hold team-ownership positions in the league, albeit in piddly amounts. Robinson has 1.88% in the San Antonio Spurs while O’Neal has 2-4% with the Sacramento Kings.

Or Silver, do a double. Step down, but before you do, arbitrarily set quotas for Asians to start on NBA squads.

No? 

Oh.

So you plead for blacks in a league replete with them against The Donald whose Trumpian Empire in his casinos and hotels had diverse staffs. Yet your understanding of presidential player development is nil. Think basketball player’s development. A performer, new to the job, doesn’t hit his, or her, stride for many months, maybe a couple of years – at least. Yet you want your brood to carp and castigate against The Donald in, what, his three-some months of tenure?

And hasn’t Silver seen what Colin Kaepernick’s politics has done to NFL fan attendance? Does he want the NBA to go all political? With the country evenly split between left wing lunatics and right wing wackos, no matter what stance on the issue of the day the NBA takes, will piss off half the populace. (One fortunate fact is that the NBA mandates players to stand for the anthem.)

Oops, a bit late. The NBA has gone over-the-top-and-below-the-belt political, deciding it didn’t like North Carolina’s law(s) on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, believing them discriminatory – so Charlotte won’t get the All-Star game in February. North Carolina Governor, Pat McCrory, said that the people of North Carolina should use washrooms based on their genetic sex. If perception is reality, the NBA looks like it supports boys using girls’ washrooms.

The NBA is fouling out here...

And even if the NBA isn’t going all partisan, its performers of arms-length have. Remember Denasia Lawrence, the singer who did the anthem in a pre-season game? She knelt and opened her jacket to show off a T-shirt extolling Black Lives Matter.

This is a controversial group.

While BLM can’t control its members and can’t be responsible for their biases and thuggery, it has followers that praised the killing of three Baton Rouge police officers. So the NBA, like it or not, is tainted by association to a collective that many, like the Dallas Police Department’s Demetrick Pennie, who is President of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation, and who is suing BLM for inciting race riots - feels is racist and anarchist. Pennie is black so it would be hard to construe his motives as skin based...

Now, for sake of argument, let us say the players are right to debate with The Donald and, moreover, that their arguments are completely correct too.

This can play out in a few ways.
​
First, they make their arguments and Donald listens without reaction. Second, they make their arguments and Donald disagrees with them completely. (This scenario isn’t likely.) Third, he agrees with some of their points, says others need study, and disagrees with the rest.
(((Third-point-A, Donald Trump does whatever Donald Trump does to confound us all once again.)))
Forget Third-point-A for now. For our sanity and safekeeping.
There’s a fourth option. Let’s call this the nuclear option. As we all know by now Trump has broken every conventional political rule in getting himself elected. He just might decide to cancel the tradition of NBA champions visiting the White House because, given his busy schedule - - -  although Saturday Night Live has VP Pence handling all the tough stuff - - - why would he want to preside over an event in which he is harangued and lectured? Didn’t he just face such treatment from the mainstream media while electioneering? Why go through it again? What’s in it for him?

But there’s a fifth possibility that might send the NBA-complaining stars back to the bench. Suppose they tout reforms to policing and more community involvement in nurturing wayward kids in gangs to go straight. Now suppose it is the Cleveland Cavaliers that win again in 2017 and Trump listens to the arguments and agrees with the players and volunteers and asks them to go out into the troubled communities to help try to fix things up. For sure LeBron James, with his history of giving back on Akron, will rise to the challenge but will others? And will some doing the caterwauling be shown by Donald’s response to be nothing more than virtue signalers?

What would President Trump, in agreeing to the NBA player pleas be doing? He’d be calling their bluff.
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Tip off.