ROUND ONE
BONER CANDIDATE #1: DARK SKIN, DARK UNIFORM, DARK BALL…WHAT? WHAT?
The 49ers have suspended Tim Ryan, their radio color analyst, over comments he made on a Bay Area sports talk radio show Monday in which he said Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who is black, is exceptional at faking handoffs because of his “dark skin color with a dark football.” The comments came in the first couple of minutes of Ryan’s weekly segment with KNBR’s “Murph and Mac” morning radio show as the hosts asked the San Jose native about Jackson’s performance in Sunday’s 20-17 victory over the 49ers. Jackson, a front-runner to be named NFL MVP, rushed and passed for more than 100 yards in a game between two of the league’s top teams. Jackson gained most of his yards running a zone-read type offense, in which he frequently fakes a handoff to a running back before keeping the ball to run himself. “He’s really good at that fake, Lamar Jackson, but when you consider his dark skin color with a dark football with a dark uniform, you could not see that thing,” Ryan said on air. “I mean, you literally could not see when he was in and out of the mesh point, and if you’re a half step slow on him in terms of your vision, forget about it, he’s out of the gate.” Team officials said in a statement to The Chronicle on Wednesday that they are “disappointed” in Ryan’s comments and are suspending him for the upcoming game. Read More
BONER CANDIDATE #2: WE HAVE A NURSE ON STAFF
At Chipotle, it’s not just the guac that’s extra. Some of their employee procedures are, too. Take, for example, the fact that they have a nurse check if employees are actually sick or just hungover when they call in sick to work. Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol explained the procedure at a conference, according to Business Insider. “We have nurses on call, so that if you say, ‘Hey, I’ve been sick,’ you get the call into the nurse,” he said. “The nurse validates that it’s not a hangover—you’re really sick—and then we pay for the day off to get healthy again.” Now this isn’t a way to just expose or embarrass employees, it’s actually done to make sure Chipotle restaurants have the cleanest and healthiest conditions possible. Back in 2017, there was a norovirus outbreak in Virginia that was linked to an unenforced sick policy at the Tex-Mex chain, CNBC reported. Managers were letting Chipotle employees work while they were sick which spread to customers. The on-call nurses are meant to make sure that every employee is healthy enough to be working when they’re on the clock. Although, it’s a challenge to make sure restaurants remain safe and clean no matter how many preventative measures are taken. Read More
BONER CANDIDATE#3: WELL OF COURSE HE WAS FIRED…HE SAID THE NAME OF HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED
A former U.S. diplomat says he was fired from his job as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in London just for mentioning Barack Obama in a speech. Lewis Lukens spent three decades in the U.S. foreign service, including stints as the U.S. ambassador to Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and the acting ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2017. However, GQ magazine reports that Lukens was fired in October 2018, after his boss learned he had included an Obama anecdote in a speech to university students in England. At the time of the speech, President Donald Trump had recently attacked British leaders like former Prime Minister Theresa May and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. But in his talk to students, Lukens emphasized that allies can disagree in a positive manner. To that end, Lukens related an anecdote from Obama’s 2013 visit to Senegal, when a reporter asked the president if he had discussed LGBTQ rights with the Senegalese leader. The topic could have been dicey, considering the African country criminalizes same-sex relationships as “unnatural.” But Lukens explained that Obama was able to deftly answer the reporter’s question without causing an international incident. However, a week after the speech, Lukens’ boss, U.S. Ambassador Woody Johnson, a Trump political appointee, fired Lukens. It was just seven months ahead of when Lukens was scheduled to leave for a new assignment. Read More
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ROUND TWO
BONER CANDIDATE #1: SIDEWALK SEX
A 70-year-old woman and her 60-year-old mate are each jailed on a felony charge after they allegedly had sex on a Florida sidewalk in view of a 12-year-old child, police report. According to investigators, Susan Roscillo and Robert Kellogg trysted around 8:45 PM Thursday in front of the Capitol Theater in downtown Clearwater. They were both subsequently arrested on a felony charge of lewd and lascivious exhibition for allegedly engaging in sexual conduct in the presence of the minor. Pictured above, Roscillo and Kellogg are each being held in the county lockup in lieu of $10,000 bond. The victim, Clearwater police say, saw Roscillo “on her back with her legs up in the air and no pants on.” The septuagenarian was “actively masturbating Kellogg’s penis with her hand,” according to an arrest affidavit. After being read his rights, Kellogg reportedly admitted to having sex in public with Roscillo, adding that she “did have his penis in her hand multiple times.” Kellogg, cops reported, apologized and said that he knew the Thanksgiving night encounter “was wrong.” Roscillo was “extremely uncooperative and continued to scream that she wanted a lawyer,” according to the affidavit, which indicates that both defendants showed an “indication of alcohol influence.” Read More
BONER CANDIDATE #2: GEORGE IS NOT DONE YET
Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, is suing the teen’s parents, family attorney, the attorney’s book publisher and prosecutors who tried his case, claiming he was defamed when they allowed a witness to give false testimony in an attempt to incriminate him. Zimmerman’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday, said a trial witness pretended to be the last person to talk to Martin by phone before he was killed when the witness was actually the half-sister of the caller. According to the lawsuit, Brittany Diamond Eugene didn’t want to testify that she had been talking to Martin before he was killed. So her half-sister, Rachel Jeantel, pretended that she was talking to the teen before he was fatally shot. Jeantel ended up testifying at Zimmerman’s 2013 trial in Sanford, Florida. Martin was killed during a struggle with Zimmerman, who was a Neighborhood Watch volunteer. Martin was black. Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is Hispanic. Zimmerman’s trial raised questions about race and Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law which allows people to use force without retreating if they feel threatened. In a statement on Wednesday, Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump called the allegations “unfounded and reckless.” Read More
BONER CANDIDATE #3: THE COUNTRY DOES NOT WANT TO SEE UTAH
If Paul Finebaum’s to-do list Wednesday included “Offend Utah” and “Trend nationwide on Twitter,” well, the ESPN commentator got his day off to a splendid start. A bombastic, disparaging and condescending comment Finebaum made about the University of Utah football team on ESPN’s “Get Up” isn’t making him any friends with fans of the Utes — or people who think college teams outside of the SEC and a few select other traditional powerhouses deserve a chance to play for a national championship. Finebaum was asked to state his opinion on who will claim the fourth and final spot in the College Football Playoff semifinals if No. 2 LSU beats No. 4 Georgia in the SEC championship, No. 6 Oklahoma defeats No. 7 Baylor in the Big 12 championship and No. 5 Utah downs No. 13 Oregon in the Pac-12 championship this weekend. Finebaum didn’t hesitate to anoint the Sooners as the fourth program in the CFP. “Let’s be honest,” Finebaum said, “the country does not want to see Utah in the College Football Playoff. I’m sorry. It’s Utah!” (Narrator: He wasn’t really sorry.) When it was suggested that Oklahoma might not fare any better than the Utes, Finebaum retorted, “They might not be any better, but they’re going to look a lot better.” Read More
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