Winnipeg is beside itself, the town ready to host Canadian football’s finale - the Grey Cup game - and fans are ready to go crazy, there - and everywhere - across Canada.

Not much unites this country. It's bigger than big geographically and is divided, pretty deep, linguistically. Only hockey, generally, and this Grey Cup game, immediately, will spur Canadians to link up. For one glorious day four million Canadian corneas will be glued to the TV, with brewskis (and snacks?) close by.

The Grey Cup finale, and week up to, is an often impromptu, what-have-you, heady brew - of brews and nuts - more hooting than soothing, more Screech than Scotch, but it is even more than that. Manitoba Premier, Greg Selinger, says it’s going to be a “...barnburner.”

And why not? In the East Semi, now 5-straight winners, Ottawa Redblacks, beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 35-28 and in the West, now 9-straight winners, Edmonton Eskimos, beat defending champions Calgary Stampeders 43-31. Lotsa scoring.

Bodes well for the big game affair this Sunday.

Grey Cup Gala dinners are affairs. And if affairs don't usually burst out from these sit downs, most assuredly long-term lay-down relationships do. (My parents met at a Grey Cup Dinner in Toronto. Mom came in from Vancouver, Dad from Winnipeg, and the rest is history.)

In a way, it’s a shame that the Calgary Stampeders didn’t make it back to the final this year: Karyn Drake and Quick Six won’t be performing. At McMahon Stadium, the Stamps home field, every time the team scores a TD, Karyn and her trusty Quarter Horse, Quick Six, scoot in celebration along the east sideline.

And sometimes, in the past, come Grey Cup week, Stampeders have horsed around. Remember the horse (Marty) and rider (Fletcher Armstrong) clip-cloping in the iconic Toronto Royal York Hotel, like they did during the 100th Grey Cup?

The Calgary Stampeders are like the New England Patriots. Both win, for years now.  But, there are some differences. Stamps coach, John Hufnagel, doesn't look resemble Bill Belichick un-made-bed ensemble and his team hasn't been accused of sucking air out of footballs. Hufnagel is, however, OK with his players getting nookie before a Grey Cup game. “To finish” is all important!

Sorry, got off track...

The first Grey Cup was played in 1909. You might recall that that was the year Serbia mobilized against Austria-Hungary and the Boston Red Sox traded pitcher Cy Young to Cleveland.
 
Since then, the Canadian Football League (CFL) has delivered a different, delightful, game.  For one thing, the end zone is as big as the ISIS Caliphate in the Middle East. For another thing, there are three downs, not four, but with a wider field, by 8.5 yards, and a longer field, by 10 - and with receivers and backs in motion before the ball is snapped, there's still plenty of action. A statistical analysis of the 2012 seasons of the NFL and the CFL, showed the CFL as more of a passing league, the NFL as more of a running one. (And CFL fans get 18 season games, versus 16 in the NFL!)

And who can forget the famously different “Sleeper Play" given to the gridiron world, OK, to Canadians, in the 1948 Grey Cup? It was subterfuge at best, a beauty at worst, and has since been outlawed. Booo!

Like the Canadian game, the actual Grey Cup trophy has gone through some weird and wonderful plays and days. It has survived two blitzes (one being of missiles) in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

It was stolen from a bar.

In another bar, the cup stretched the offense, when it was used to measure strippers' cup busts. And it has been broken almost as often as a politician’s promises...

Speaking of promises, Cy Addley is famous for his Grey Cup  attendances. As of three years ago, he had taken in 54 in a row. Cy, however, is but one of thousands that make the annual pilgrimage to the game...and while Canadian fans know that the Grey Cup halftimes (though headliners Fall Out Boy “Centuries” will try to change this generally-accepted fact) can’t quite compare to Super Bowl acts - and know game-time Grey Cup TV ads aren’t broadcast as wide as are Super Bowl commercials, they feel OK, saying; it’s kinda nice to emphasize the game and not the pomp, eh?

And Canadians do respect the silvery, smooth and sleek, Super Bowl Vince Lombardi trophy, but are proud of their traditional-looking Grey Cup hardware.

Now what of Winnipeg? The city is world famous for its Royal Winnipeg Ballet. It is also well known for its curlers, on ice, not on hair, and for its, ahem, pretty chilly winter weather. (And, like most stadiums, Winnipeg’s facility has a horribly boring name: Investors Group Field.)

Now, are Winnipeggers dismayed by a possible late-fall cold spell?

No. Firstly, it was the first city worldwide to develop the 911 emergency number. Secondly, if temperature records from 2003 to 2012 are trustworthy, the daily high for the November 29th game could be anywhere from (Celsius) 3 degrees plus to 15 degrees minus. (Fahrenheit: 37 plus to 5 plus.) Thirdly, if people grouch too much about the elements, they can take their beefs to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, located nearby.

Winnipeg is kinda like Green Bay. They are mid-west cities with a deep love for their football. But Winnipeg Blue Bomber fans, unlike the so-neat Green Bay Cheese-head rooters, have seen their city host, a few times, their national pro football championship. Green Bay, to the NFL’s shame, has not been deemed worthy to host Super Bowl...yet.

Here’s another great football-final-in-Canada play. Sometimes The CFL Pros, with the Grey Cup, and the college-amateur kids, with their Vanier Cup, settle scores the same weekend, and sometimes even in the same city. Very cool pigskin promoting.

In the end, of course, it’s the excellence of the teams that determines Grey Cup memories. Usually, the dueling duos, with octane offenses, and insane late-game back-and-forth momentum-play altering changes have left fans across the land gasping.
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The Grey Cup, in essence? Even when it’s cold to play out there, in Canada, deservedly, it’s hot everywhere.

Radical Muslims slaughtered 129 innocents in Paris and President Obama chalked it up to “extremism”, not radical Islam.

Is the President dense, in denial, delusional, or a liar? Let's go with liar - recall he lied about his own health plan.

Why does “BO” “BS?” A compelling theory as to why he lies and glosses over extremist Muslim atrocities is because he’s angling for the UN Secretary-General job and he needs to be a toady to Islam if he wants the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to back him.

It would be nice if the president could see the Muslim-macabre elephant in the room - instead of declaring the elephant, irrelevant, but the Secretary-General position fits. It’s a useless job, and he’s been useless, so he should do well - by United Nations standards.

For those that believe that Islam, 100% is swell, and that “terrorism knows no religion" how do they square the fact that ISIS stands for: Islamic State? It’s a shame such people, usually on the left, can’t connect the dots.

Obama, and other Americans in the Democratic Party blithely, insanely, or naively, assume that the name is a false flag; ISIS, in no way, is acting in an Islamic way.

(Note to all: ISIS is but one of a myriad of Muslim-terrorist groups that loathe Jews 1st, Christians 2nd, all other infidels 3rd - and non-correct Muslims 4th.)

Lefties - academics, liberals, progressives - always harp on us heathen regressives about how dumb we are. Geez, we ignoramuses should aspire to be smart, like Bernie Sanders, who, in the Saturday demo-party debate, said weather (climate change) was the biggest world worry, despite knowing of the Friday Paris Islamic-terrorist strikes.

Al-Azhar is a mosque/university, tethered in Cairo. It’s an A-list intellectual institution, so far as Sunni thoughts go. And in December, 2014 they said they don’t consider ISIS apostates but also said ISIS was NOT in lock-step with mainstream Muslims mores.

But not surprisingly, mainstream media stupidly took either the politically correct route, or the scaredy cat route, in giving radical Islam a pass for the Paris debacle.

Reuters pussy footed around, proffering non-defined gunman and bombers as culprits. The Canadian Broadcasting Network cited ISIS first, Marine Le Pen second, and the American Republican Party third, as concerns, in its initial take. Slate Magazine pondered: Why France Again, then talked tactics with “Urban warfare” tritely brandished and bandied up...

What?

NBC News missed the putt. They were flummoxed “...unknown motivations.” The UK Guardian surmised: “It is possible that the targets hit last night were chosen to send a particular message.”

You don’t say...

France 24 quoted the Islamic State’s bragging, but euphemized them as “militants” not terrorists.

Even French President Francois Hollande didn’t get it right in his reaction – though he could be excused of being a bit shell shocked as he was at the soccer game during the jihadists killing fields action – when he vowed to wage a "merciless" fight against terrorism.

Every thinking person knows the amorphous “terrorism” is useless as a description because it doesn’t pin point the source(s) or rationale(s) behind it. Are the Baptists or the Methodists to blame? Or possibly the secularists or atheists? As Bill Maher would say, it’s probably not the Amish.

Barack talked of the “universal values we all share.” It’s a throwaway line of his, and it’s totally wrong in ALL contexts. There are NO universal, planetary, global, local, or yokel values our world holds in unity. The Islamic terrorists, blowup-job-atrocitists, who wasted themselves and razed and ruined scores of others’ lives, share nothing of western, first world - Judeo-Christian – you know, decent - beliefs, credos, or values.

Barack, however, says he wants to help.

Excellent.

Start at home.
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Shout out Malik Hassan’s Fort Hood massacre as an act of terror. Right now your administration, in egregious error, calls it “workplace violence.”

Back to France. Despite the latest carnage there, it seems that that country, inexorably, if somewhat initially unwittingly, or unknowingly, is going to replace Gallic with Islamic, thanks to their acceptance of Islamic peoples via immigration and to those Islamic folks having high birth rates once settled.

Germany, in 40 years or so, could be a majority-Muslim country.
Merkel probably feels guilty for Nazi evils and thinks drowning Germanic peoples in Muslim cultures is the way to pool resources.

Until France, Germany, Sweden – no forget Sweden, their Islamic nuts are pretty happy with the Paris plot - America, and Canada - under the newly elected Justin Trudeau - admit publicly, that the battle is against radical Islamic-Muslim elements, such travesties in the west, third world - and Muslim-majority countries - will continue – despite UK’s David Cameron declaring Islam is a religion of peace.

British Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, warned of a rush to judgment, and then warmed to a rush of judgment - saying multiculturalism was wondrous...

French President Hollande said the attack was from elements outside of France, though at least five of the eight terrorists were French nationals. There are an estimated 1.7 million Muslims in the greater metropolitan Paris area. How many of these people are disaffected or disappointed in the French model?

How many would resort to, or abet, or silently support, terrorism against fellow citizens due to discrimination, French actions in Syria, or perceived decadence of the West-French?

27%.
That’s the percentage that approves of ISIS, in France, in the 18-24 year old group, regardless of religious affiliation, according to a poll taken in 2014.

For Barack Obama, however – in 2015 - he went as extreme as he could go – saying:
Paris was a setback.
 

Scotland has two huge, grave problems – the first, being the obese – the second, being the Neds. The obese are almost too big to bury, the Neds, certainly, are too young to be.

Neds is not a typo. Back to them momentarily.

Some dead Scots are so fat they can't fit into crematoriums. To bury the bulky, the funeral industry is changing equipment. Because refrigerators are raided morning, noon, and night - mortuary refrigerators had to grow. Because cars are driven morning, noon, and night - funeral cars’ rise-and-fall decks were strengthened. Because Scots laze on the couch morning, noon, and night - bariatric stretchers were expanded. Because Scots aren’t lifting weights, dead-lift equipment was bolstered.

Thus, the coffin business is literally growing. Some coffins are now 40% larger. Nowadays, in many cases, families may not be able to lower a loved one's coffin into the ground - the caskets are simply too heavy. Hoists are now, increasingly, the means in this last phase of burial.

In the Land of the Brave obesity rates rose because people exercised less and ate more junk food - or meals rich in “stuff” unique to Scotland, such as the Macaroni Pie, Munchy Box, and Square Sausage. These two factors nearly always explain the seemingly unstoppable rise in fat stats, with THE counter-intuitive fact being that primary school kids, from the most disadvantaged families, are the fattest.

From 1995 to 2013 Scottish obesity rates for those aged 16 to 64 increased from 17.2% to 25.6%.
Should the Scots ever unite enough to secede from Great Britain, one wonders if they'll have the energy to get their new country up and running.)

The third corpulence-causing factor is sitting.

Here, Scottish adults and children are quite united, what with the ungodly amount of hours the society spends watching TV or mousing around on the computer. Then, add in the sitting around that goes with school or work - and it is small wonder the Scots have a big problem getting people decreased in weight before they're ceased and deceased.

Is there any hope for a land that gave us the Deep Fried Mars Bar or is it doomed to be a Mike Myers’s Fat Bastard stereotype?

The British Medical association is pushing back. They advocate for free fruits and vegetables in Scottish primary schools. This isn't a bad idea. Getting the kids used to healthy foods early - bodes well for their eating habits later.

And a mile a day could help keep some of that fat away. Scottish health and education ministers would like to see each kid walk or run a mile daily, while at school. Another good thought...

Alas, Scotland's dilemma with unhealthy people is crystallized with the "Glasgow Effect."

There, both men and women, by years, have a lower life expectancy than do folks in all other cities in the UK. This has stumped experts but some reasons ventured deal with facts of cold winters, lack of sun, vitamin D deficiencies, poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, stress, and a lack of self worth individually, and collectively, due to de-industrialization.

The reason, “only” 24% of adults there are obese, as compared to the rest of Scotland at 29%, is because most of the adults in Glasgow are too busy fighting - and fighting burns calories.

Meet the Neds.

The Neds are knife-carrying young men, who, on any given Friday, will be slashing away, cutting and carving what is known as the “Glasgow smile” onto others. They die early: needing a bigger coffin is the least of their problems.

(As the saying goes, in Possilpark Glasgow, a possil boy one may be - but prematurely dead he will also be, dead, usually, at 54 years old.)

Ned is slang in Scotland for a hooligan but it could rightfully be an apt short form for non-educated delinquent. It’s a terrible story of young men who start the evening early, mixing it up with drugs and drink, with Buckfast Tonic wine being the favorite libation, in the quest to get blootered and ratarsed. Then comes the ultimate goal. They mix it up and have "a square go" (fighting – and slashing) with others of their type.
 
In 2005, Glasgow was named the Murder Capital of Western Europe. The aforementioned knives, booze, and drugs - plus razors, hatchets, and machetes - fuel the city’s bewildering number of gangs, a proliferation that knows no boundaries, save for the tiny - but horrific - territorialism (and sometimes protestant-catholic sectarianism) of the park, patch, building, block, street, and scheme, which gives Glasgow a murder rate DOUBLE the national average.

The weak die young. The tough die young. Everybody dies young. And those lucky enough to survive wear scars, literally and metaphorically for the rest of their lives.

Sigh. Wouldn’t it be great for Scotland if the deceased of Glasgow were well into their eighties or nineties, and not in their fifties?

There is some hope on the gang front. University of the West of Scotland’s Johanne Miller studied 60 kids in 21 Glasgow gangs. Notwithstanding that kids as young as 12 are drawn to gangs, after about three years members want to leave those gangs, realizing that these offer nothing but a dead end. And Karyn McCluskey of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit thinks “they are turning a corner...” Since 2008, Glaswegian violent-gang offenses have lessened by 46%.
 
And there could be hope on the reduction-of-obesity front if the idea of fruits and vegetables, and the idea of a mile-a-day of walking or running are implemented.

Could Scotland, simultaneously, lessen these two huge, grave problems?  

What should the Cleveland Browns do with Johnny Manziel? Tom Brady alluded: Manziel’s a “turd.”
Turd or no, with the Browns at 2-7 this year, the Browns must pray this rambling, troubling college QB winner, can rebound.

‘Cause, so far, Johnny’s been a professional loser.

But against the 7-0 Bengals, in Cincinnati this Thursday, after the Browns played just this past Sunday, Manziel showed plenty of promise – in the first half. He was engaged, got the running game going, was pretty deadly throwing out of the pocket, made his teammates better – and had his team close, behind 14-10 at the half.

The second half? Fuhgeddaboudit.

The Bengals romped in the 2nd half and won going away 31-10. You know, if they could keep Manziel on the field and away from his life off it, Cleveland might have a someday-star on their hands.

The only reason Johnny started was because regular QB, Josh McCown, with his wonky right shoulder and sore ribs, could not move the team a lick in the second half of their losing effort (34-20) against the Cardinals and needed to heal. He didn’t even dress against the mighty Bengals.
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So short term Manziel’s a keeper. But long term, do the Browns need Johnny’s lifestyle loony distractions, the latest disaster being his public-whilst-driving-erratically fight with his girlfriend? No charges were laid  and so far the NFL has not taken disciplinary action on the “domestic incident.”  Johnny tweeted he was embarrassed by it all, said it wasn’t serious...despite the 911 call a 3rd party made.

Basically, before this Bengal-Browns game, in the two years with the Browns his glory, short story, has come from 3 TD passes thrown earlier this season. (He didn’t throw any his first year.) Lotsa hype, definitely flashes of lift-fans-from-the-seats potential, but so far, based on performances and professionalism (save for a Cleveland Clinic Children’s Camp and other hospital and school visits) he should be a second stringer, not a starter.

The long-suffering Browns’ fans drool over his highlight clips from his days at Texas A & M, sprinting out of busted plays to end zones...But that was then. He’s been, since turning pro, a slightly above-average quarterback and a below average in-maturity man.

The Browns picked him 22nd ( a first rounder) because as a college freshman, he broke the mold winning three awards: the Heisman Trophy; The Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award, and the Manning Award. When asked what the “Dawg Pound” could expect he replied: “Man, I’m going to pour my heart out for this team...”

But since then...

He could circumvent college defenses, but his greatest escaping act as a pro might be him circumventing his team’s stated desire for him to lose his girlfriend, Colleen Crowley.
But the team should know it’s easier to poke at the periphery with respect to Manziel’s hanky panky, but centrally, ultimately, she ain’t the problem, he is.

Johnny’s on a four-year contract. If he can play as well as he did against Cincinnati, and if his behavior markedly improves, going forward, perhaps Cleveland should exercise the option on the 5th year. But if he screws up again outside of football...He’s a big boy. He’s made his bed. He can sleep on it - in another NFL city.

The Browns could trade him. Remember that rumor of his going to the Eagles for their QB, Sam Bradford? The trade died on the vine. Still, Manziel’s not out of the woods yet. He’s got to mind his P’s and Q’s and learn those X’s and O’s.
 
But here’s why the Browns might keep him A) Coach Pettine thinks Manziel’s still respected by teammates; B) he’s a FIRST ROUND draft pick; C) he shows more than flashes of living up to his promise; D) the organization is now slightly irrational on Johnny, given their big emotional, promotional, and financial investment in him; E) Because Manziel’s two long bomb TD passes to Travis Benjamin – the first in which he threw from the pocket - in Johnny’s start, and win, against the Titans in week 2, has to have them dreaming of Manziel as a complete, confident, quarterback, and not just as a mad-dasher-scrambler...

Yet, yet...yeah, while the Browns have had trouble drafting star quarterbacks (Brandon Weeden and Brady Quinn, first rounders didn’t pan out) and while in jettisoning Johnny, they’d add to that sorry record in picking pivots, nevertheless, if he has one more off-field snafu, get something for him.
“Johnny Football” is in no-man’s land. If the Browns do keep him, they gotta keep him on a short leash. Johnny has football smarts, but street smarts...aren’t in his repertoire.

Remember he entered rehab this past winter? (A rolled-bill in his hot little hands set the voluntary rehab idea into motion.) So what was he doing having a couple of drinks with his girlfriend in his latest scuffle? Shouldn’t he be staying away from alcohol like crazy?

The Browns, therefore, face a tough decision with Manziel because he’s Kentucky Fried Chicken: people either love or hate him - but his polarization is a small worry. Their biggest worry is whether, apart from the awful flurry of off-field publicity he brings to the team (save for his hospital and school visits – and they were part of his rehab treatment) is whether his lousy judgments in life will mean lousy judgments on the gridiron.

Do they want to return to winning ways, with a guy leading the way, the “Quarterback of the Future” who seems to have no perspective, or memory – a fellow who, apparently, can’t learn from his mistakes, his past? A guy who talks the talk about professionalism, platitudes perfectly, but can’t walk the walk?

Johnny may end up being a drop out. He’s stopped flashing his “money sign” because he knows it grates. He could, however, take some small solace that if the Browns clean house, and he flops elsewhere, his money sign is now immortalized as an emoji on SportsManias. Not much, but something.

It could be the longest lasting keepsake of Johnny Manziel, not the expected Manziel mania, but a miniscule jot of Johnny trivia...unless he can conduct himself off field - sharply and smartly - like he did against the Bengals in that first 30 minutes of football.
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The ball’s in his court.