​Fat shaming is a life-sentence offense. Columnist Alan Linda wrote for 30 years for the Daily Journal but in his last essay he had politically incorrect views about a fat fellow - so that was it - that was his last piece: he was had, he was axed from his post.

Granted, he was “privileged to work” for this august publication – to the tune of no wages...thus making his slave labor easier to jettison, but the editor and publisher, Tim Engstrom, said his firing of this guy was popular with folks.

So Tim - - - presumably a leftie because he’s politically correct in being against blaming and shaming fat people for their condition(s) - - - is a populist - just like President Donald Trump.

Tim, are you OK with that?  

Tim, truly - self-deport yourself from your ownership and editorial positions of this Daily Journal – for you've exhibited an ardent and atrocious case of ageism, opining that fat shaming could be “...a generational thing.”

For, surely, ageism is as egregious as fat shaming - basically bullying - it's an incorrect view, an ugly epithet, correct? And, in today’s American world, intolerance for any point that the left academic and news “elites” don’t agree with - must result in immediate disgrace and dismissal. So, Tim, you've gotta be cashiered out of town, like your former lackey-serf, Alan Linda.

Right?

Wrong.

Tim lives!

Fergus Falls lies in west lower central Minnesota. And if Tim’s thoughts are accurate, the bunch of the lot is one unadulterated set of particularly touchy folks when it comes to uttering ideas on body forms different from their own. But, if you take Alan’s take on fatties, well, it would seem everybody in FF would want to access and caress, and envelop, triple-wide load bodies on airplanes. For Alan’s article, titled:

"Taking notice of the size of people in today’s world”

(which has been excised from the Daily Journal’s website)

describes his plight as this.

Alan has the aisle seat. A stranger has the window seat. The middle seat was vacant until an enormous 300-pound guy approached. Alan wrote (and this should be a lesson to us all, if Alan’s case is any case - is that we’d best hold our true controversial feelings, thoughts, and ideas – in our heads – and  never put them to pen and paper, because, otherwise, crank-artist-perpetually offended-eternally aggrieved types will go nuts and demand ours be cut off.)  

Listen, we all know airlines have seat-widths so small – the starving, the skinny, the svelte, and the shapely, not to mention our super sized, can barely squeeze into them. Should all airlines, in discriminating and shaming against ALL-body shapes and sizes, using Engstrom’s logic, be fired?
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Rhetorical questions aside, what makes this town of 13,138 residents - as of 2010 – besides revering the rotund and round - tick? Wikipedia says its biggest economic claim to fame is its “108-bed hospital, cancer research center, assisted living community, and multiple clinics.

So basically, Fergus Falls is a caring community.

But Alan cared to write for 30 years in a Friday weekly column – but he proves loyalty and gratitude to the likes of his efforts were a mile wide and an inch deep. Clearly he had the wrong opinions on the portly. Fergus Falls proves the only proper stance is to love the huge and embrace the enormous.

That’s the lesson. View fat people, not as objects of criticism, but as victims whose personal environment is under control of unseen forces. They can’t help it if they are obese. And apparently psychologists, almost to a shrink, aver that fat shaming, rather than aiding the adipose to get fit, actually makes things worse, makes them eat even more...

It would seem, at a closer look though, that some heavy people could change their condition. They could exercise; go for a walk for 30 minutes a day. They could start a slow and steady stretching exercise program. Then they could start with the light weight training. They could cut back on junk food, eat more fruits and veggies, and perhaps not sit in front of the computer or TV for hours on end.

Unless there is a genetic or medical condition impinging on one’s ability to exercise and make proper diet and lifestyle choices, and unless the fat are kids or teens, who aren’t fully equipped emotionally to handle harsh criticism – though they’ll get it from their peers in spades - it would seem that those that critique fat adult people should not automatically mean they lose their career or reputation.

Should it?

By his own words Alan says he wrote 50 columns yearly, for 30 years. That totals 15,600 essays. At no charge. He muffs one, and they axe him?

WTF?

It looks like we have become totally intolerant of casual observations and opinions, if they’re not in the politically correct mold of the moment.

But, you know what? 

There is, in fact, a victim group – that still bears the brunt of jokes and aspersions – and this group, unlike our fat group DOES have inherent structural impediments to alteration and these are short people. Vertically challenged people are still made fun of and they can’t do a darn thing about their state.

Who speaks for them?

As for Alan Linda, perhaps he’s inherently wealthy and doesn’t need to work for money. But, if not, he’s hopefully, probably, got a line of work that actually pays. He’s a family man, he’s gotta pay the bills somehow. Let’s hope he doesn’t lose his other job...
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 And as for ageist, Tim Engstrom. He’s been run out of town on his own accord. He and his family are moving to the Twin Cities “...to be closer to our relatives.” 

​Who willingly hurtles themselves into the air, for 100 yards or so, at 99 mph, but has the flight – not go right – in fact, go awry - to then torso twist and land slam-bam on their tailbone and not only survive - but get up...to then, a scant two weeks later, set the world alive – by setting an all-time sports record?

Unmatched.

EVER.

No one.

No one except Erik Guay.

So, who is this guy, Guay?

He’s a skier, a Canadian, 35 years old. He, for the last 9 years, has raced downhill and Super-G. He looks 25 – and this despite being the doting dad of three young girls. Heck, his beautiful smile can move mountains. Yet, theoretically, despite his self professed drive and determination; he’s human. The man from Montreal, Quebec who lives in Mont-Tremblant, missed all of the 2015 season. In 2011, however, he won the World Downhill Title.

But he hasn’t missed getting bested by ski courses everywhere. Prior to his stellar, mind-blowing Super-G win in early middle age, a couple of weeks ago, he’d faced, and come back from 6 – SIX - knee injuries.

Nobody does that.

Except Erik Guay.

And let’s put Lindsey Vonn in this special: no-matter-the-harm-no-matter-the-hurt-or-WTF-happenstance...category she, and Erik, are the cream of the crop, that somehow, through perspicacity and a little insanity do magnificently, to us awe-struck observers, forcefully and inevitably, rise to the top. (And, astoundingly he believes he has a cautious approach to skiing. And he credits that trait to having helped him become Canada’s best alpine skier.) 

Check out his wipe out in the downhill in the German Bavarian Alps just prior to his Super-G win and his silver in the downhill at St. Moritz.

Still alive? Unbelievable, huh?

And what’s most incredible is his revelation that he’s been ailing with pains and ailments since 2011. That’s 6 years. Most of us wilt after a 2 week cold, never to return to our full form – but this guy?

Ok, so, really, who is this guy?

Nobody knows. Ok, Wikipedia, doesn’t know, or at least - in its listing of oldest professional athletes by sport – doesn’t even cite skiing, let alone slot Erik Guay.  That’s how tough, how unusual, how risky, elite alpine skiing is.

And, at 35 years old, Erik Guay is the king of the castle.  

Yet Erik’s down to earth. He praised, not surprisingly, his physiotherapist(s) and doctor(s) for getting him back on the straight and narrow path to victory – and most importantly, helping him boost his confidence to find his line, and belief he could win again - after his titanic tumble in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and, he’s probably got a god somewhere to have blessed him with powerful legs, legs that even Canada’s cyclist, Curt Harnett, would respect – all of which factors mattered in his climbing back up  the steep slope to stardom in the Super-G.

And he’s erudite, polite, and a great interviewee.

Generally, he probably takes lots of sustenance and surely some succor from his younger brother who coaches him - and from his mom, a ski instructor - and from his dad, a ski coach. So he’s got that going for him as well.

He’s also a team player, attributing his amazing Super-G win on the Team Canada 2017.  

Good looking, intelligent, athletic – none come better than he, in Canada – yet he still has to earn a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. Olympic champion Nancy Greene of the 1960’s...and the Crazy Canucks of the 70’s - 80’s have that distinction of being the only skiers so honored.

Guay trains with the B2Ten group. OK, factually, he started skiing at 18 months, navigating the Poma lift at Mont-Tremblant. What’s the B2Ten? It’s a force organized back in 2006 by Canadian businesses to spend big bucks (30 million so far) on nurturing Canadian athletes – individually - to help them singularly, realize their dreams, whether they be skiers, rugby players, or high jumpers.

In fact, the only thing missing from Guays’ resume is a medal from the Olympics. Oh, he’s come close, with two fifths and a fourth, but as he points out it’s tough to peak for one race that happens but once every four years and it’s tough not being allowed to practice on the course, and it’s tough not being able to control the weather that day and it’s tough not having a say in your starting slot...He says he values World Cup victories more than Olympic successes. In fact, he called the Olympics “...a Mickey Mouse show.”

Nevertheless, despite his impolitic talk, he’s willing to have another go at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. But, he avers, if he gets but one more knee injury between now and then, he’ll retire.
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But no matter how, or when, he retires from skiing, he’ll forever be a champion and an inspiration – that’s what you get when you are the oldest man EVER to win an alpine skiing event.

​Sex parties. Orgasms with strange people. Cost $75,000 per year.

A) Should an ostensibly decent conservative-leaning publication, in this case the NY Post, run stories such as this?
B) Should an ostensibly decent public, in this case excluding the likes of me and you, OK - me: fondle unfamiliar humans – and spend big bucks to do so?
C) Hey! This is the internet right? Everything on first-offer is for free. Where’s the participants’ cop-a feel freebie demonstration? And where are the conservatives that back the NY Post – aren’t they supposed to shun sex for fun, only partaking in it when it’s necessary to inflict the world with more Republicans?

So what’s on tap if you’ve the lucre? Wild monthly sex parties. 
 
Looking at the pictures, one must research, right?! - shows black-colored lingerie in vogue, with way more women in the photos than guys.
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Elizabeth Lippman, of the aforementioned NY Post, hopefully did not bend over backwards to detail these doings. This is not to say the NY Post is a one hung horse, one trick pony, offering nothing but salacious smut. The next tab on its on-line serving reported on Afghan woman training in Shaolin martial arts.

Generally, we with no lives wonder: How many sexual soirees are open (for big f’---bucks) to the public? Is this where we, as a society, want to descend to? And, if it be so, how soon can we, society’s also rans, horn in on this action?

And what’s with the bunny ears some of the girls are wearing? Are rabbit ears inherently sexy? I mean, if the 90% nakedness and the 10% lingerie don’t do the trick, how can bunny ears help?
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Okay. Let’s forget the questions and pretend we’re ready to go randy, ready to spend the money to have sex with unfamiliar folks. But, we gotta ask this: should we not worry that a sex party website, like pseudo-porn websites, are crooked and skanky, just waiting to hoover up your money for nothing in return or are, worse yet, hooked into bandits from faraway lands, waiting to take my buying credentials and suck my identity out of me, right in front of my eyes?

Tell you what, here’s what I did see...when finding out about the sexual monthly party festivities on the internet, I discovered Google led to a whole bunch of links that go nowhere – or at least go somewhere, but not to what your search should result in. I typed:

Wild monthly sex parties for $75,000 per year

– and the first link gave me a photo of the bunny rabbit ladies and one lucky man, and the link under sent me to Yahoo News which then provided a link telling all at www.inusanews.com , which, when opened, told me the full story was in the NY Post, which, when selected, brought back the photo of the rabbit girls and lucky guy again.

But this New York Post link actually works. It publicizes “Sanctum, an LA based high-end sex party.” Strangers having sex. They sign a blood oath - not sure why that is...But for those too shy to partake, they can watch the carnal carnival. But paying $75 big ones a year to look at other people having fun, doesn’t sound like a good use of one’s money or time, does it?

Heather Hauswirth wrote the piece. She does point out that if one wants to pay as they play, they (men) can go à la carte, and fork over $1,850 per party. So that’s something.

Women, not surprisingly, get to go for free. And not surprisingly a lot of men want other women to have sex with their wives...

Men. Who needs ‘em?
​
Anyway, Damon Lawner is the impetus and maestro behind these parties. No doubt Damon’s life has gotta be pretty-out there, but while effusive about some details behind Inner Sanctum, he’s tighter than a clam when asked about what the blood oath involves. Oh well, it’s his party and he can shut up if he wants to...

But Damon is adamant that his sex galas are not sex or swinger parties.

Ok, then.

He says, as reported by pretty, but pretty-odd, Gwyneth Paltrow, or at least by her GOOP website, that Snctum (and no, that’s not a spelling mistake) “...is about exploring the boundaries of what sex means, and how it inherently makes us all feel.”

Ok, then.

Damon says he struggled with the tussle between monogamy and

"...also desiring to fully actualize my authentic self.”

Monogamy lost out -

but seriously, he seems to sound like a nice guy. And he likes sex. That’s gotta be worth something...

Worth, definitely, in having Snctum now entering its 4th year of operations, no doubt a testament to his likeability and a testament to the kinda classy offerings on the buffet table. (And here, women make the first moves, I think it’s a law, or golden rule there...)

Probably, that should be the golden rule everywhere.

Hey, perhaps Snctum is on to something, that we, as a decent public, should adopt after all !?

​The Detroit Red Wings are remarkable, holding the current, longest consecutive playoff string, of any North American sports team. 

While some dynasties have won a three-to-five-peat, an incredible feat, invariably these franchises disappear in to the loss column, and their fans are left twiddling their thumbs, wearing paper bags over their heads, waiting for...what?

Take the sweet and steady Red Wing 25 years of clutch play, any day.

The Red Wings – with their cool, classy uniforms – have, since the 1990-91 season, given fans superlative performances, great efforts. The next best NHL streak in this past quarter century is that of the Pittsburgh Penguins at 10 seasons.

Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe, number nine, from the mid-forties to the end of the 60’s led the Wings but then saw, afterwards, his team drip to the bottom of the barrel: it became known as the “Dead Things” in the 70’s and 80’s.
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Then the team drafted Stevie Yzerman in the mid-eighties and the team improved during Stevie’s early years.

This franchise has seen it all – and has nearly surpassed all franchises.

(Okay, the Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks, with consecutive playoff-bound, 29 seasons and 28 seasons respectively, are ahead, but Detroit is the best because it has won 4 Stanley Cups during its streak while Boston won just 2, and the Black Hawks won an embarrassing 0.)

Moreover, the Wings bravely put on their game faces and give yeoman efforts all the while watching their beloved, what was once an iconic, city...turn into nothing more than a poverty-tour town, hollowing out faster than have the cheeks of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Yet those few fans that still live there, do pack the Joe Louis Arena pretty near every night.

And don’t forget the NHL penalizes good teams, in the cause of parity, for putrid teams. Draft choices, barring trading up or down for picks, go to the most decrepit squads. In 1990 the team drafted 3rd, taking Keith Primeau. The next year it drafted Martin Lapointe in the 10th spot. But since then they’ve had a few picks in the first round, after almost all the other teams took the best, higher up in that round, or have drafted starting in round 2 through round 4!

(And like so many outfits, some of their picks never amounted to more than the proverbial cup of coffee.) But many of their picks did play for the Red Wings – and helped them become that year in-year out, consistently competitive team.

Prashanth Iyer, writing for The Hockey Writers, has two tables chock-full of facts proving the Red Wings's drafting prowess. But here’s the easiest stat to understand, a number we (who weren’t paying as much attention in school as Mr. Iyer was) can all appreciate.

Detroit ranks #1 at 61.6  

That’s the number of points - by average - a Red Wings's pick tallied in the NHL.

Considering the number of years of drafting, the number of rounds, the number of years where the team took its first pick after 95% of other teams..(Montreal came second in this measurement, Pittsburgh third) Detroit's drafts have been primo, majordomo.

And what makes the Red Wings consistent excellence a marvel (and all other teams face this conundrum too) is knowing that their players – like all NHL players – are independent contractors. They play for themselves, their contract(s), their specific futures. Team play and cohesion occurs, but it isn’t the first, no pun intended, goal for its individuals. 
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Nevertheless, the team, from its minor league affiliates – the Grand Rapids Griffins and the Toledo Walleye - to the big club - play “Detroit Red Wing hockey.”

One facet of Red Wing hockey, is having had great coaches like Scotty Bowman and Mike Babcock. They served the longest during this decades-long successful span. Another is in the tutelage of players to play as a team, not as those aforesaid independent contractor individuals. (Weirdly enough, the Griffins do not have a GM, the Red Wings handle those functions for that team.)

Detroit is Hockey Town. And an Octopus: tossing-on-the-ice town. Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, may blather on about Chicago being THE Hockey Town, and the Black Hawks, with three Stanley Cups in six years have been amazing – but murder city is its moniker and makeup and stellar teams there, no matter the sport, won’t change that fact.

Toronto likes to think of itself as a hockey town, but the folks there should know, the "Buds", as a professional outfit, left the vicinity of accomplished play in 1968 and haven’t been seen since.  Sure, this 2016-2017 season, they’ve got Mitch Marner and Austin Matthews – great rookies – but they are still scrambling to make the playoffs. The team is so awful it’s made the post-season once in the past 11 years. (Their team is why sweater tossing came to be.)

Meanwhile the Red Wings have made the playoffs for a quarter century in a row! In 1990 when the team started rising to the elite levels of the NHL, that year also saw the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope - for you kids who weren’t around then, or for you adults who’ve forgotten what happened way back when.

Since, hockey in Detroit has been heaven. And if we pray just a bit, the team this year, with its slightly below the equator playoff-eligibility record - might come up with a good trade or two at the NHL Trade deadline, March 1st - and overcome a difficult finishing schedule - to just find a way to make it to the post season again.

​Let Lindsey Vonn ski against men. The alpine ace wants to meet and beat the guys at Lake Louise in 2018. And who is against this delightfully, delicious idea? The FIS Women’s Race Director! Will Lindsey be beat back by a bureaucrat? Of course – no oddly enough - he’s a guy, but of course, being a man maybe’s he’s got a weird form of penis envy going on.

Hold it. What’s a guy, one Atle Skårdal, doing running that organization? Surely a woman can do this job. He’s been doing it for 12 years. (It took Vonn a scant 9 years - 2008 to 2017 - to become the best woman skier ever.) It took him but a few seconds to become the biggest dunce, with less imagination than a sleeping turtle when it comes to stirring interest in his sport - ever - when he said:

“It doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, just because it’s of interest to one racer.”

One racer? Is that the best he could do to describe Lindsey Vonn, SKIING ICON, ruler of skiing’s citadel, the ungodly athlete who has run the table in the 5 skiing disciplines and who has trained with men, knows their times, respects them for making her an even better skier; one racer - that’s it from this bloke ?

Listen, does one also-ran-man’s jealousy bring him to such a low-ball depiction? Sure the guy, with two Super- G world champion winning seasons and a World Cup Super-G winning season, is no hack, but his career, compared to Lindsey’s, wouldn’t allow him to wax her skies. Geez, Louise.
He then goes whole hog and digs a deeper hole:

“I haven’t heard on any other sport being dragged into this kind of position.”

Dragged? We’re talking the best skier, other than perhaps Ingemar Stenmark, of all time. She’s done all she can do against women, why not take a run at, and with, the men?

As a marketer, Atle makes a good skier...As a skiing promoter he makes carbon out of diamonds.

Which brings us back to Louise, Lake Louise – Lake Lindsey. The course for men and women is the same. Vonn knows her strengths (18 wins there will give one those insights) can obviously pick her spots and Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada, in the Canadian Rockies, is HER PLACE. She absolutely kills there. Back in 2015 she pulled an ace out of her sleeve with her 3rd hat-trick, two downhill wins, with one Super-G victory.

A week or so ago, she notched her 77th World Cup win. While this is incredible, what makes it unbelievable is that it was notched in her second outing after coming back from a left-knee injury and a badly broken humerus bone in her right arm, the latter occurring just this past November. She followed up her win with a fall “I’m happy to still be in one piece” - DNF - in the Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italian downhill.

She’s got to be disappointed, especially because this site is where she got her first podium position 13 years ago, but found solace in the fact that Tennis’s Roger Federer took his 18th Grand Slam, winning the Australian Open, beating Rafael Nadal. Both men, like Lindsey have scratched, crawled, and climbed their way back to the elite ranks after suffering injuries. If they can do it, she’s gotta figure she can do it.

Sure, there’s a very good chance Lindsey won’t race faster than top-notchers like Dominik Paris, Aksel Lund Svindal, or Peter Fill - should her 2018 test against the best be realized. She knows this. But for sure, what probably is more guaranteed to happen will be an outflow of hurt and shame amongst those men who race against her – and are beaten.

Back to Lindsey, singularly. Who does this? Who comes back from multiple injuries, survives and thrives after a relationship with Tiger Woods, all the while keeping her cool, keeping calm, while somehow stoking that burning furnace of desire and hunger to come back and be the best again?
Nobody. Nobody other than Kildon, Don Don, The Don, Lindsey Vonn.

Atle, be a somebody, back her in her quest to vie against the guys – give your sport, whose popularity is sliding – no pun intended – a BOOST. Normally Lake Louise hits a worldwide TV audience of 173 million people. Imagine the reaction, and potential viewership, should Lindsey go against the men. She deserves the chance. If not her, who? If not in 2018, when?

Lindsey’s intent in this instance may fit the bill where her desires outmatch what she can accomplish. But so what? What’s wrong with dreaming big and shooting for the moon? George Bernard Shaw once opined: “As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.”

And, as Lindsey says: No Excuses. You Can Always Find a Way.
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Atle, find the way. Make her aspiration come true. Let her seek new fans for the sport and have them bestow accolades and applause upon her. Let her try for yet another possible podium finish and let her put skiing as a sport once again, at the very top of the Vonn-vaunted hill.