Hazing In the NFL

Link: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9904868/jonathan-martin-miami-dolphins-leaves-team

If you pay attention to sports or at least follow the news, you may have noticed the huge uproar that has taken place with the Miami Dolphins. In the past few weeks the coaching staff and management of the Dolphins have taken a hit from media and fans all over the world questioning the things that are allowed to take place in their locker room. Offensive lineman John Martin, a second year player from Stanford who suddenly dismissed himself from the team last week. It was found that he left because of emotional stress being cause on him between he and his teammates. It was later found that one of the ringleaders for the cause of his absence was his fellow offensive lineman Richie Incognito, people closely investigating the situation found that Incognito constantly harassed Martin which many believe lead to his decision to leave the team. However this wasn’t Incognito’s first time being accused of these things, it was found that Incognito was dismissed from a previous team because of these same kind of actions.

            Furthermore the media got hold of a vulgar text message Incognito sent to Martin where he calls Martin a “half nigger” and tells him how he would kill his entire family. It was also discovered that one time they Martin, Incognito and a few other players on the team went out to dinner together. When everyone was done eating all the players left Martin at the table to pay the bill, which totaled 40,000 dollars. This is a ridiculous amount of money for a guy who only makes the league minimum seeing that he was an undrafted free agent.

When the media asked players of the Dolphins about the incidents they said that all of it were jokes and its just part of owning your keep within the organization. Also it is very well known that when rookies come into the NFL they go through a hazing process where they are forced to carry another teammates pads, get a silly haircut or subsequently pay for meals. So should the traditional hazing culture of the NFL be kept in place and ignored or should the owners of the NFL enforce change amongst the teams.

Chris Brown In Trouble Again

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRB6AidHRwM

Chris Brown has gotten in trouble again, according to police reports in Washington DC he is being charged with felony assault on a man. As you might know his most notable crime was the assault on famous pop star and former girlfriend of his Rihanna, where he pleaded guilty to two counts of felony assault and was sentenced to five years probation along with 180 days of community labor and ordered to complete a year of domestic violence classes. Since this incident Chris Brown has been slayed in the media for any and everything he has done, it got some bad for him that the entire year of 2012 he decided that he wouldn’t speak with the media. However that didn’t mean he would stop the media from attacking him, throughout the year he was attacked for several petty incidents. He was criticized by the media for bashing rapper Jay-z for talking about how he sold drugs before he became a rapper. Then in February the paparazzi was following him so much that they caused Chris to total his Lamborghini. Assuming that it couldn’t get any worse with Chris Brown and his alleged bad luck, he was in a night club in New York city where he ran into his industry Foe Drake, the two formed a strong dislike for one another when rumors surfaced that Drake was dating Rihanna. Rumors that Chris didn’t take lightly, reports have it that all hell broke loose in the NY nightclub, where champagne bottles were thrown across the club between the two celebrities in attempt to harm each other. Now I pose this question, is Chris Brown a troublemaker or has he become a victim of yellow journalism?

Discrimination Amongst Athletes in the Legal System

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PvIPd-Ql04

If you're not a huge football fan then you may not know that over the summer of the NFL’s elite tight end was charged with 1^st degree murder along with two other charges of unlawful possession of a fire arm and unlawful possession of a large firearm. So I bet you are wondering ok another football player has gotten in trouble whats the big deal right?

Well if you do a little research on the case you see the unusual things that is going on in this case. First and most importantly the state not allowing him to make bail, now ask yourself how does someone with no prior criminal record gets his bail denied. If you watched the video it explains everything you need to know, the judge states how she considered Hernandez a flight risk simply because he is being accused of cold-blooded murder and because he has the means to flee. I thought in America you were innocent until proven guilty, I kind of felt that the judge was already convicting Hernandez of murder in the first degree.

http://espn.go.com/boxing/story/_/id/8049602/judge-rules-floyd-mayweather-remain-jail

         Now lets discuss another athlete being mistreated in the legal system, Floyd Mayweather a famous boxer known for his undefeated record in the sport of boxing and the amount of money he’s made in the sport. Mayweather was sentenced back in 2012 to 90 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to battery in a domestic violence dispute. After the judge sentenced him she stated to Floyd “no matter who you are, you have consequences to your actions when they escalate to this level of violence.” Now Mayweather like Hernandez is a guy who has no prior criminal record and was given jail time for a misdemeanor on his first conviction. Are you noticing any similarities in these two cases? But that’s not even the worse part Floyd was placed in solitary confinement the entire time he spent in jail because the he was considered a “special inmate” according to the Nevada Clark County detention center. Basically because Floyd is a famous boxer he wasn’t allowed fair treatment while incarcerated but instead he was placed where murderers, serial killers etc spend their jail time. The discrimination towards athletes must stop, they are normal citizens like everyone else.

Misunderstood Text

Here is the link regarding my blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OOjHrGP754

In the video you see the lady and gentleman discussing how texting someone can be misunderstood and it shows how women can over analyze a text message. This is common in everyday life, not only text messaging but text in general. In chapter 3 Rhetorical Methods talks about how text encourage people to understand certain meanings and how some text may be hard to depict the meaning of. For example in the video you see the lady reading text messages from fans of the show, one stated how a guy had sent her “OK.”, after reading it she replied back with a nasty message to him thinking that he didn’t want to talk to her. However it turns out that it wasn’t anything of the sort he just simply said ok and didn’t mean anything by it other than that. This is an example of what’s discussed in chapter 3 under critical attitude and method section; the author describes how messages can be hard for one to understand and he also about the complexity of texts.

            Not only in the video did they discussed discrepancies in text messages but they showed how even emails can be confusing, the girl on the video described how one day her boss had emailed her something about her job and in the email he sounded very upset but when she actually talked to him he wasn’t as upset as the email had made him seem. In conclusion we are only human and misunderstanding the tone of a text message or email is just apart of our everyday life.

Brumett, Barry (2011), Rhetoric Popular Culture- Third editi