Table Topics questions about names for sports teams

Table Topics is the impromptu speaking section of a Toastmasters club meeting. It is where members give a one to two minute answer to a question. A good topic category can generate a series of questions. On November 23, 2019 I posted on Table Topics questions about college team names or mascots. But much more can be said.

What are the most upsetting names for sports teams?

If you are a native American, either Braves or Redskins is offensive. Boise High School used to be the Braves, with the logo shown above. An article at KTVB7 on August 12, 2019 described how School board unanimously approves Boise High mascot change. Another article by Sydney Kidd in the Boise Weekly on July 29, 2020 discussed The voices of history’s unheard: Here’s what’s behind the recent removal of many indigenous-themed Idaho high school mascots.

Native Americans might say that a more suitable high school team name in a city like Boise would be the Lying White Devils. You can’t object to White Devils, since it is the name for an Army unit in the 504th Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. Their First Battalion is the Red Devils, the second is the White Devils, and the third was the Blue Devils.

What other names could be revenge?

The professional football team in Washington, D.C. used to be the Redskins. Right now they just are the generic Washington Football Team. 

Native Americans might say the Washington team deserve to be called the Treaty Breakers. 

Most people distrust politicians. Others might prefer the Politicians (lying is implied) or the Windbags.   

What are the least fierce names for professional sports teams?

Those which name their hosiery color – like the Chicago White Sox or the Boston Red Sox. The Cincinnati Reds once were the Red Stockings, and later the Redlegs.

The Los Angeles Dodgers moved there from Brooklyn (New York City). A Wikipedia page on the History of the Brooklyn Dodgers mentions they once were the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, and also the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers.

A devil and the politician (Richard Nixon) were adapted from cartoons at Wikimedia Commons. The treaty breaker and windbag were adapted from Puck cartoons at the Library of Congress.

Learning about designing PowerPoint slides (and other visual aids) by looking at islands in front lawns

Front lawns in subdivisions typically come with just a pair of cheap shrubs put in by the developer. Creative landscape designers instead put in an island or two to add interest. As shown above, on one lot at a corner there is an island with a tall shrub and several shorter plants. Another corner lot has an island with a tall shrub, a pot with flowers, and a couple of deer sculptures. A good PowerPoint slide or other visual aid also uses just a few elements to make a main point (or two). 

What should you avoid? Look at these two overstuffed islands on the same front lawn. There are enough concrete statues (six visible per island) for a catalog from Lawn Ornaments Are Us! Both have garden gnomes – one holding a lantern, and the other on a swing hanging from a tree limb.  

A cartoon about public speaking may have a different title than you expected, and be part of a larger scene

On January 9, 2019 I had blogged about how there were Free cartoon images of public speakers at Wikimedia Commons. The example shown above using nine would be useful for marketing  Toastmasters. Then on January 10, 2019 I had blogged about Free cartoon images of people presenting graphics at Wikimedia Commons. 

There are even more useful cartoons at Wikimedia Commons, as are shown above via four examples put into a PowerPoint slide, but you need to ‘think outside the box’ to find them.

The woman at the left holding notes was cropped from the cartoon shown above, which is titled A Cartoon Business Woman Filming A Corporate Video. The second one is a Happy Cartoon Woman Filming A Marketing Ad By Herself. The third one is a Cartoon Female Reporter Being Filmed by A Cameraman. The fourth one is a Cartoon Woman Asking for Another Take While Filming.  

Another four examples of men are shown above in a PowerPoint slide. The first man at the left was cropped, flipped horizontally, and recolored from a cartoon titled Cartoon Man Filming A Business Client For A Marketing Video. The second man is from another titled Cartoon Man Being Filmed For A Corporate Marketing Video. The third man is from yet another titled Happy Cartoon Man Being Filmed For A Marketing Video. The fourth is from still another titled A Charming Cartoon Man Filming A Business Client For A Marketing Video.

Those less than obvious titles remined me of a story that famous physicist Richard P. Feynman told about being a graduate student at Princeton. It is titled A Map of the Cat? and appeared in the 1985 book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!:

“….This and that muscle were named but I hadn’t the foggiest idea of where they were located in relation to the nerves or to the cat. So I went to the librarian in the biology section and asked her if she could find me a map of the cat.   

‘A map of the cat, sir?’ she asked horrified. ‘You mean a zoological chart!’ From then on there were rumors about some dumb biology graduate student who was looking for ‘a map of the cat.’ “

Finger weapon gestures: gun, rifle, tank, ICBM

Zach Weinersmith’s latest Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon compares four gestures which use the fingers as weapons: the awkward gun (above), the menacing rifle, the difficult-to-parse tank, and the also awkward ICBM. Please don’t point any of those things at me!

An overblown Republican National Convention Celebration to be held in Jacksonville, Florida has been canceled

On July 16, 2020 I blogged about Is the 2020 Republican National Convention still being held in Charlotte? Yes and no. They had moved part, a Celebration, to Jacksonville. In an earlier post on June 7, 2020 I quoted an angry June 2, 2020 tweet from President Trump on why he had decided to move the Celebration elsewhere (having been told he could not fill up the arena):  

“Had long planned to have the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, a place I love. Now NC Governor Roy Cooper and his representatives refuse to guarantee that we can have use of the Spectrum Arena – Spend millions of dollars, have everybody arrive, and then tell them they will not be able to gain entry. Governor Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode, and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised. Would have showcased beautiful North Carolina to the World and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, and jobs for the State. Because of NC Governor we are now forced to seek another State to host the 2020 Republican National Convention.”

But in July there were concerns whether security could be provided, given a lack of detailed plans. An article by Alana Wise at NPR on July 20, 2020 said Florida sheriff warns that officers unable to provide security for RNC.

Then on July 23, 2020 the President announced that celebration was canceled, as shown above in a Fox News video. The official text  has a long-winded explanation that says:

“And I wanted to come out again today to share some additional news with you: This afternoon my political team came to me and laid out our plans for the convention in Jacksonville, Florida. It’s a place I love. I love that state. The drawings look absolutely beautiful. I never thought we could have something look so good, so fast with everything going on. And everything was going well – a tremendous list of speakers; thousands of people wanting to be there – and I mean, in some cases, desperately be there. They wanted to attend. People making travel arrangements all over the country; they wanted to be there. The pageantry, the signs, the excitement were really, really top of the line.

But I looked at my team, and I said, ‘The timing for this event is not right. It’s just not right with what’s happened recently – the flare up in Florida – to have a big convention. It’s not the right time.’

It’s really something that, for me – I have to protect the American people. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what I always will do. That’s what I’m about.

They said, ‘Sir, we can make this work very easily. We have great enthusiasm. Incredible enthusiasm. Even the polls say about the most enthusiasm they’ve seen. We can do this safely, and we can do it responsibly.’

And I said, ‘There’s nothing more important in our country than keeping our people safe, whether that’s from the China virus or the radical-left mob that you see in Portland’ – where I want to thank Homeland Security and others in law enforcement for doing a fantastic job over the last few days. They went in, and people were out of control for 51 days – a long time. And Homeland Security and other law enforcement with us went in, and they’ve done a great job protecting our property – the federal courthouse and other property – and, most importantly protecting our people. Or the senseless violence that you see in Chicago or New York or Detroit – a lot of other cities where so many people are shot, and so many people are killed. And people elected me to help and to protect.

So, I told my team. ‘It’s time to cancel the Jacksonville, Florida, component of the GOP convention.’ We’ll be starting in North Carolina for the Monday, as has always been planned. We were never taking that off. That’s remaining as it is. The delegates are going to get together. That’s where they’ll do their nomination. So, the delegates are going to North Carolina, and they’ll be doing the nomination. And we’re going to do some other things with tele-rallies and online – the week that we’re discussing, which will be really good. I think we’re going to do it well. And I’ll still do a convention speech in a different form, but we won’t do a big, crowded convention per se. It’s just not the right time for that.

I care deeply about the people of Florida and everywhere else, frankly, in this country – and even in the world – who would be coming into the state, and I don’t want to do anything to upset lt. They’ll be doing very well very shortly. We’re going to put up some maps up of the country behind me, and you’ll see that the area that we’re talking about is a hotspot. You will also see a lot of the country is – has no problem whatsoever- most of the country, actually. So, I’m always going to take care of you, so that’s the way we’re going to do it.

I’ve spoken to Governor DeSantis and informed other political leaders. I want to thank the Jacksonville community, and its great mayor. He’s a great - great guy. Really great guy. They wanted it so badly. And all of the other political representatives in Jacksonville and in Florida. And just very special people – a very special group. And they were there for us, 100 percent.”

So The China Virus (right next to Roy Cooper) now is the culprit for the very latest Wheel of Blame.To me the description looks like a fairy tale about a 'pipe dream' that  had never really come together. When I looked on the convention web site I found no tremendous list of speakers, or even details of precisely what would occur (or where) on August 24 to 27. The web page about the convention only had promised “a five-star convention celebration.”

An article by Jim Morrill in the The Charlotte Observer on July 24, 2020 is titled After Trump cancels Jacksonville events, RNC is back where it was – in Charlotte.

Now that it is scaled down and back in Charlotte, it hardly can still be described as a five-star event. As shown above with my reimagined newest logo, it is down to two stars (and no blue queen crown). Instead of trumpeting with his trunk raised the elephant now has his head down (and his tail between his legs).  

During another event described in Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing on COVID-19 July 27, 2020 (in Morrisville, North Carolina) the president got the following question (which simply could have been answered with either a yes or a no):

QUESTION  Zachary Eanes from the Raleigh News & Observer. Now that you’ve canceled the Jacksonville portion of the RNC, do you think Governor Cooper made the right choice in limiting attendance in Charlotte?

But instead we got this non-reply:

THE PRESIDENT Well, we’re actually coming to North Carolina, as you know. We’re having a very major – I guess that would be the nomination night, so that’s Monday. That’ll be Monday – they’re going to be here. And the rest we’ll do in a different form. We could’ve done it many different ways, but I think we did the right thing. And I’m really happy that we’re going to be having a piece of it at least - and a very important piece - in North Carolina.”

The pipe dream bubble image was adapted from a 1902 Puck magazine cover I found at the Library of Congress.

Phony phishing email was not from LinkedIn

I received a new type of fraudulent email shown above. It was meant to get me to click on two links (boxes highlighted by me in red) that did not really come from LinkedIn. Three things are wrong with it. The sender is not LinkedIn (perhaps KinkedIn?), it was sent to the email I use for this blog (not another I use for LinkedIn), and it has the singular You appeared in 4 search this week rather than in 4 searches this week. That spelling  and grammar error with singular instead of plural was the first thing I noticed. It stopped me from clicking. LinkedIn has a web help page about Phishing Emails.

What title is on your business card?

Business cards are an important part of personal marketing. As shown above, the Star Wars character Darth Vader’s is Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet. No contact information is supplied since he will call you.

At W. L. Gore and Associates there is a flat, lattice-like organizational structure where everyone’s official title just is Associate. But to impress outsiders they can put another title they like on their cards. Sara Clifton picked Supreme Commander, as was described in a Management Review article back in August 1985, What’s in a title?

In Shark Tank at Computerworld there was an article on July 20, 2020 titled Memory-Lane Monday: It’s in the cards. When a person began a position at a company owned and run by a wealthy but quirky financial trader, he initially was given the title Manager of Unix Operations. His boss had refused to pay for printing business cards. So the new person got some card stock, and printed his own at ten per page. But the first time he got introduced to a big client the boss instead referred to him as the Director of Software Development. He took some card stock, and printed cards with that title.

Not long after that, in a meeting with another client, the boss referred to him as the Vice President of Software Development. Then he took some more card stock, and printed cards with that latest title. As a gag he also printed some titled Master of All Computational Knowledge. Naturally one of those accidentally got handed to a vendor who had a good laugh, and would not give it back.

There was another article by John Rentoul in The Independent on July 12, 2020 titled Top 10... grand titles that in reality diminish the holder. He said Editor-in-Chief is less powerful than just The Editor. And Deputy Chief Sub-Editor is a roller coaster.

If you don’t understand the hierarchy in an organization, then you may not be properly impressed by a title. For example, as shown above, a Captain (O6) in the U.S. Navy is way more impressive than a Captain (O3) in the U.S. Army. (The five-star O11 ranks were last used way back in World War II).

My first job was in the Ann Arbor lab of the Climax Molybdenum Company as a Senior Research Associate. Their job titles started with Research Associate, followed by Senior Research Associate, Research Metallurgist (or Chemist), and Senior Research Metallurgist (or Chemist). Then I worked for a while at an Exxon lab in Houston as a Senior Research Engineer, where Research Associate instead was the title for a very much higher rank.   

At TV Tropes there is a web page titled Try to fit THAT on a Business Card, which gives a Game of Thrones example:

“You stand in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains.”

Wow! In the 1977 comedy film Oh, God! George Burns (God) instead handed John Denver (Jerry Landers) a card with only one word on it – God.

My version of Darth Vader’s card uses a Death Star balloon image by Adam B. Morgan from Wikimedia Commons.