Tamas Vasary, insert acute accents where appropriate (I think it’s Vásáry). I have I think his Chopin polonaises from hhe ’70s with “99c” written on the sleeve with grease pencil.

Sonny Jurgensen also died. I had no idea he was atill alive. He dud radio broadcasts for the Redskins with Frank Herzog and the late Sam Huff for decades and he was noticeably slipping towards the end, but that was years ago.

Speaking of the Redskins, they changed their name four years ago Monday. I had resigned myself to their changing the name and expected the Commanders name to grow on me. If anything it’s grown even more off of me, with a fantastic 2024 season in there. The Washington Commanders still have no history and no fans. I was 11 when the Bullets changed their name and “Wizards” still hasn’t grown on me. I’ve never been a big fan of pro basketball so the Commanders’ prognosis is even grimmer.

Redskins isn’t even a slur. The people who insist it’s a dictionary-defined slur are ignorant of how dictionaries work. It’s not an authority handing down definitions from on high; it’s not the Academie Française, even if the Academie worked as intended – it doesn’t, because you can’t legislate human nature. Dictionaries describe a language as used by its speakers at a particular point in time, and “Redskin” has meant nothing but “a Washington football player” for the last 50 years, very conservatively (I’d say century but the team is only 94 years old). For a common word to be a slur it has to be used as a slur, and “Redskin” isn’t and hasn’t been widely in many decades. You don’t hear people bitching about “cakewalk” or “[x] sucks”.

If you object to humans being used as mascots, just say so. It’s a lot more intellectually coherent than ipse dixit, especially when you can’t articulate your position.

It could be worse. Cleveland Spiders forever.