Saturday, December 11, 2004
SIL needs your photos!
Got any cool sports photos? Did you catch the fight at your local high school football game this weekend with your digital camera? Have some embarrasing footage of Jocks making fools of themselves at your local sports bar? Did you happen to get a picture when the cheerleaders were beating up the poor smart girl or the basketball players went wild and assulted the crowd?
SEND IT TO ME and I'll feature it here.
Help show the world what goes on near you. Don't stand quiet any longer! Expose sports Fanatics as the evil scourge they really are and help me inform the world of your late breaking sports news or the antics of your local jock heros.
To send your photos and news:
(All pictures become the property of Sports I lustrated and cannont be returned. By submitting a photo or news item you are agreeing you are the sole copyright holder to the material and that you give permission for us to use this material anyway we want too; now or in the future.)
SEND IT TO ME and I'll feature it here.
Help show the world what goes on near you. Don't stand quiet any longer! Expose sports Fanatics as the evil scourge they really are and help me inform the world of your late breaking sports news or the antics of your local jock heros.
To send your photos and news:
- Give me a link to the location of the picture or news story below or email: pictures (at) sports-I-lustrated.com with your .jpg, .gif, .png or videos.
- Include a short description of what your picture shows.
- Please include any details that are important like where, when, what team and so forth.
- Let me know of any news stories about the incident that might appear in your local press.
(All pictures become the property of Sports I lustrated and cannont be returned. By submitting a photo or news item you are agreeing you are the sole copyright holder to the material and that you give permission for us to use this material anyway we want too; now or in the future.)
Friday, December 10, 2004
What is Lustrating: how this rare word became my title.
What is lustrating, you ask? How did I come to write a blog titled with this strange and rarely heard word? Is it even a word at all or did I just make it up?
Yes, it's a real live word that has been around for centuries. Websters Dictionary defines it as:
Eric Brahm at beyondintractability.org had this to say:
Sounds like the perfect verb for a blog whose goal is to purify the sports world of it's evil fanaticism and change people's perceptions of and erode the immense power of this unfairly exhaulted minority in society. I wanted to do a blog exposing the often ignored dark side of sports and how some of our young people are humiliated and brutalized by by that small fanatical group we routinely call "jocks".
I didn't want to condemn all sports. I think sports are great. I enjoy playing them and sometimes I even enjoy watching them. I just don't understand how sports became such a cultural basic that we expect every person to love them, exault those who play them and base so much of our societal class structure on one's ability at or knowledge of certain athletic activities.
People riot and loot and destroy police cars over the outcome of these games and if you ask anyone who went to any public educational facility in America who the favorite kids are, the answer will always be "the jocks/preps". We even treat sports stars differently in the legal system and point to them as role models for our children without knowing anything about their true character or looking away when they are caught committing horrible acts against others.
When I was deciding on a name and a general theme for my blog, at first I thought "Sports Suck", but that's too juvenile and not really my intention. "Sports I hate" was also not right nor was "Jocks Suck" "the anti-Jock" or "the evil in Sports". I must have went through a few hundred different titles looking for one that was perfect. They all sounded stupid. I was stuck.
Then I decided to look for words that didn't have anything to do with sports. I was trying to cleanse sports of fanaticism and point out how dangerous ultra competitive and elitist attitudes can be to society. So I decided to search for things like "cleanse of evil".
BINGO! Lustrate. Perfect. It's got a catchy sound and it's a very unfamiliar word that will catch people's attention and help them to remember my publication. It describes the purpose of my writings exactly and even brings with it a suggestion of suppression by a brutally dominating group who attempt to force their own views on others with violence and intimidation. Sounds just like what I feel Jocks do to the rest of us every single day. Cleansing and oppresion all rolled up into the same verb!
This strange word will set me apart from the rest and gives the blog a certain academic flair that I was looking for. It just sounds intelligent and interesting, which is exactly what I hope my readers find my thoughts and opinions to be.
I found my verb for the title and it is a good one! My old writing teachers would be proud.
"Lustrating Sports!"no wait, that's not right. The sports are not lustrating, I'm lustrating them. "Jock Lustration", no that's sounds more like a fairly unpleasent medical procedure and will definitely get a giggle out of everyone. "Lustrate Athletics", no that's boring and sounds weird. So I started playing around with different titles and tenses of the word. "Regman Lustrates", no that sounds like what I might do into a toilet after attending an all night jock beer bash.
"I lustrate". That's not bad. Catchy and if you ad an "L" it becomes illustrate which also goes with my intention of illustrating the points I have. "Lustrating Me", no, that sounds like I'm evil and the one in need of help, although it would be a good title for a sitcom. "ILL Lustrated Sports", ok that just sucks. So I took a break and decided to come back fresh in a few hours.
While I was resting I kept thinking about the nature of blogs. How I can easily post my opinions and people are free to come and read or not. I'm no genius and I'm often wrong about things, just like everyone else, so I blog to share my thoughts with others and have them share their thoughts with me in the hope we can all learn something about the peculiar ways we each look at life and gain some sort of understanding and respect for each others views. People can comment and build a dialogue where some debate between me and all my readers will eventually bring the truth of any issue to the fore.
One reason I love blogging is that I can post my thoughts now and you can come and read and give feedback and offer discussion until the end of time. You can comment on anything I've said in the past to prompt useful discussion in the future. How paradoxically wonderful.
And it finally hit me... the past. Everything you read here is something I wrote in the past. So, I thought about "I lustrated" for a long while. But that is not right. This is not just me mindlessly bitching about everything in the world like some prefer to do with their web logs.
This blog is specific to sports fanaticism and even more specifically to exposing and cleansing it of it's negative attitudes and effects on the rest of us, just like eastern europe is doing with the communist scourge they allowed to sweep across their own cultures by letting an undeserved yet powerful few dictate how the rest should act and behave while the weak and oppressed kept quite for fear of violent or publicly humiliating retribution. If communist leaders can be lustrated, why can't we break the stranglehold jocks have over many aspects of our society?
Then I thought: "Sports, I lustraded." Wow, that's good. Sounds like the perfect title for a diary of my opinions and feeble attempt at fighting evil. So, I settled on "Sports I lustrated" and started working out a logo.
Red, Blue and Yellow/Orange are the most popular sports colors and I immediately settled on this as a color palette. Since most sports publications tend to be somewhat flashy and use dark colors for their designs, I decided on a black background with a soft grey test area and black type. It seemed easy to read and attractive. It was also somewhat of a parody on all the sports magazines and websites I had seen and I planned on having images spoofing what you might see on a popular sports news site.
Impact is the obvious choice for a title font since it has pretty much become a western cultural standard for anything sports related and one of the few fonts that everyone on the web can enjoy. Web designers are still limited in their choices of type face if they don't wish to use lot's of graphics and Impact is useless for anything smaller than titles and headings, although it remains one of my personal favorites for it's high contrast.
I thought the Georgia font for the "I" looked a lot like a steal 'I' beam and would serve as a symbol of pure strength and the stability society should aspire to work towards. It was reminiscent of the greek and roman columns associated with western philosophy and logic. It's also a nice font for titles and headings and could complement the logo to give the site an attractive theme without having to use the Impact font in smaller sizes. The type face and orange color helped to balance the design and contrast the harshness of the other letters.
The "Sports" in bold and red signified the strong stance and extreme presence sports has taken as modern society's "right hand" and the confrontational attitudes it's fanatics take whenever their beloved pastime is challenged. You see this type style in everything sports from jerseys to their team logos. It worked perfectly.
The "lustrating" in lowercase and italics appeared to be falling away from the fold, cleansing if you will, and purifying the solid beam of society while clearing the way to a new and better future.
Wow, that's pretty deep and fairly attractive if I do say so myself. Looks like a movie title. I was pretty proud of my professional looking logo for my little spot in the Blogsphere.
But I also don't want to copy anyone or steal someone else's name. So far I've seen no one doing anything like this, but again, I'm no genius and was not sure someone else had taken the name for something. So, to be sure, I did a free title search, a trademark search and a library of congress search and was not surprised to see few entries containing any form of the word lustrate.
Lustrating is not a popular word and is not in the title of many publications, corporate names, or anything else for that matter. Then I tried to go to sportsilustrated.com to see if I might secure the domain name since I was sure it was not being used.
Ok, I know most of you are laughing hysterically by now and I do admit to being a little dense while building my beautiful logo and developing my wonderful title. I'm also surprised I didn't see this in any of my searches, but I had concentrated on the word 'lustrate' as a keyword.
I hit enter on my keyboard and you guessed it, I hit a cybersqatter site advertising Sports Illustrated! They took off the "l" so people who searched for the misspelled "sportsilustrated" would find them instead of the magazine and then bought the domain to host advertising for magazine subscriptions. I hate that and have never subscribed to that type of marketing. I could have made a fortune selling domain names in the mid 90s, but I just always thought it was unfair and somewhat underhanded.
I felt like an idiot. I had been staring at this title for hours and never once did it occur to me that if you ran everything together and added an L it looks just like the name of the most popular sports magazine in the world? Good Lord, I need to start reading the sports page a little more often!
Well, that settled that. Yet one more reason to believe I was onto something here and had a great title for my blog! Purifying, cleansing, getting rid of evil oppressive ideals and the misspelled name of the most popular sports magazine ever all rolled into three small words! That is one good title and will definately make for some interesting parody possibilities.
And that's how "Sports I lustrated" was born, although I had to settle for this domain name because some cybersquatter selling magazines has mine!
Some have asked: Am I worried about getting sued? Read my thoughts on that here.
Yes, it's a real live word that has been around for centuries. Websters Dictionary defines it as:
So what is a proptiatory offering? WordNet says:Lustrate(Lus"trate) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Lustrated ; p. pr. & vb. n. Lustrating ] [L. lustratus, p. p. of lustrare to lustrate, fr. lustrum. See Lustrum.]
To make clear or pure by means of a propitiatory offering; to purify.
"We must purge, and cleanse, and lustrate the whole city. Hammond. "
propitiatory A adjective 1 expiatory, expiative, propitiatoryBibliomania goes on to give us more with their entry about Lustration:
having power to atone for or offered by way of expiation or propitiation; "expiatory (or propitiatory) sacrifice"
2 propitiative, propitiatory
intended to reconcile or appease; "sent flowers as a propitiatory gesture"
This word is not used much in modern times. It has become popular in Eastern Europe, but is usually used to refer to the act of throwing out old communist leaders. Check out this story. And it seems there is a lustration law in Poland requiring an extensive background check of political candidates to expose any communist associations.Lustration(Lus*tra"tion) n. [L. lustratio: cf. F. lustration.]
1. The act of lustrating or purifying.
"And holy water for lustration bring".Dryden.
2. (Antiq.) A sacrifice, or ceremony, by which cities, fields, armies, or
people, defiled by crimes, pestilence, or other cause of uncleanness, were
purified.
Eric Brahm at beyondintractability.org had this to say:
The term "lustration" derives from the Latin for "purification." In the transitional justice literature, it refers to a means by which some countries deal with a legacy of human rights abuses: through the mass disqualification of those associated with the abuses under the prior regime. The practice acquired notoriety in post-Soviet Eastern Europe where most countries have adopted some form of lustration to exclude from public office for varying periods of time former communist party functionaries and those who collaborated with secret police forces. However, the practice described as lustration has occurred in other contexts from post-World War II purges in Europe to American-led de-Baathification after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Sounds like the perfect verb for a blog whose goal is to purify the sports world of it's evil fanaticism and change people's perceptions of and erode the immense power of this unfairly exhaulted minority in society. I wanted to do a blog exposing the often ignored dark side of sports and how some of our young people are humiliated and brutalized by by that small fanatical group we routinely call "jocks".
I didn't want to condemn all sports. I think sports are great. I enjoy playing them and sometimes I even enjoy watching them. I just don't understand how sports became such a cultural basic that we expect every person to love them, exault those who play them and base so much of our societal class structure on one's ability at or knowledge of certain athletic activities.
People riot and loot and destroy police cars over the outcome of these games and if you ask anyone who went to any public educational facility in America who the favorite kids are, the answer will always be "the jocks/preps". We even treat sports stars differently in the legal system and point to them as role models for our children without knowing anything about their true character or looking away when they are caught committing horrible acts against others.
When I was deciding on a name and a general theme for my blog, at first I thought "Sports Suck", but that's too juvenile and not really my intention. "Sports I hate" was also not right nor was "Jocks Suck" "the anti-Jock" or "the evil in Sports". I must have went through a few hundred different titles looking for one that was perfect. They all sounded stupid. I was stuck.
Then I decided to look for words that didn't have anything to do with sports. I was trying to cleanse sports of fanaticism and point out how dangerous ultra competitive and elitist attitudes can be to society. So I decided to search for things like "cleanse of evil".
BINGO! Lustrate. Perfect. It's got a catchy sound and it's a very unfamiliar word that will catch people's attention and help them to remember my publication. It describes the purpose of my writings exactly and even brings with it a suggestion of suppression by a brutally dominating group who attempt to force their own views on others with violence and intimidation. Sounds just like what I feel Jocks do to the rest of us every single day. Cleansing and oppresion all rolled up into the same verb!
This strange word will set me apart from the rest and gives the blog a certain academic flair that I was looking for. It just sounds intelligent and interesting, which is exactly what I hope my readers find my thoughts and opinions to be.
I found my verb for the title and it is a good one! My old writing teachers would be proud.
"Lustrating Sports!"no wait, that's not right. The sports are not lustrating, I'm lustrating them. "Jock Lustration", no that's sounds more like a fairly unpleasent medical procedure and will definitely get a giggle out of everyone. "Lustrate Athletics", no that's boring and sounds weird. So I started playing around with different titles and tenses of the word. "Regman Lustrates", no that sounds like what I might do into a toilet after attending an all night jock beer bash.
"I lustrate". That's not bad. Catchy and if you ad an "L" it becomes illustrate which also goes with my intention of illustrating the points I have. "Lustrating Me", no, that sounds like I'm evil and the one in need of help, although it would be a good title for a sitcom. "ILL Lustrated Sports", ok that just sucks. So I took a break and decided to come back fresh in a few hours.
While I was resting I kept thinking about the nature of blogs. How I can easily post my opinions and people are free to come and read or not. I'm no genius and I'm often wrong about things, just like everyone else, so I blog to share my thoughts with others and have them share their thoughts with me in the hope we can all learn something about the peculiar ways we each look at life and gain some sort of understanding and respect for each others views. People can comment and build a dialogue where some debate between me and all my readers will eventually bring the truth of any issue to the fore.
One reason I love blogging is that I can post my thoughts now and you can come and read and give feedback and offer discussion until the end of time. You can comment on anything I've said in the past to prompt useful discussion in the future. How paradoxically wonderful.
And it finally hit me... the past. Everything you read here is something I wrote in the past. So, I thought about "I lustrated" for a long while. But that is not right. This is not just me mindlessly bitching about everything in the world like some prefer to do with their web logs.
This blog is specific to sports fanaticism and even more specifically to exposing and cleansing it of it's negative attitudes and effects on the rest of us, just like eastern europe is doing with the communist scourge they allowed to sweep across their own cultures by letting an undeserved yet powerful few dictate how the rest should act and behave while the weak and oppressed kept quite for fear of violent or publicly humiliating retribution. If communist leaders can be lustrated, why can't we break the stranglehold jocks have over many aspects of our society?
Then I thought: "Sports, I lustraded." Wow, that's good. Sounds like the perfect title for a diary of my opinions and feeble attempt at fighting evil. So, I settled on "Sports I lustrated" and started working out a logo.
Red, Blue and Yellow/Orange are the most popular sports colors and I immediately settled on this as a color palette. Since most sports publications tend to be somewhat flashy and use dark colors for their designs, I decided on a black background with a soft grey test area and black type. It seemed easy to read and attractive. It was also somewhat of a parody on all the sports magazines and websites I had seen and I planned on having images spoofing what you might see on a popular sports news site.
Impact is the obvious choice for a title font since it has pretty much become a western cultural standard for anything sports related and one of the few fonts that everyone on the web can enjoy. Web designers are still limited in their choices of type face if they don't wish to use lot's of graphics and Impact is useless for anything smaller than titles and headings, although it remains one of my personal favorites for it's high contrast.
I thought the Georgia font for the "I" looked a lot like a steal 'I' beam and would serve as a symbol of pure strength and the stability society should aspire to work towards. It was reminiscent of the greek and roman columns associated with western philosophy and logic. It's also a nice font for titles and headings and could complement the logo to give the site an attractive theme without having to use the Impact font in smaller sizes. The type face and orange color helped to balance the design and contrast the harshness of the other letters.
The "Sports" in bold and red signified the strong stance and extreme presence sports has taken as modern society's "right hand" and the confrontational attitudes it's fanatics take whenever their beloved pastime is challenged. You see this type style in everything sports from jerseys to their team logos. It worked perfectly.
The "lustrating" in lowercase and italics appeared to be falling away from the fold, cleansing if you will, and purifying the solid beam of society while clearing the way to a new and better future.
Wow, that's pretty deep and fairly attractive if I do say so myself. Looks like a movie title. I was pretty proud of my professional looking logo for my little spot in the Blogsphere.
But I also don't want to copy anyone or steal someone else's name. So far I've seen no one doing anything like this, but again, I'm no genius and was not sure someone else had taken the name for something. So, to be sure, I did a free title search, a trademark search and a library of congress search and was not surprised to see few entries containing any form of the word lustrate.
Lustrating is not a popular word and is not in the title of many publications, corporate names, or anything else for that matter. Then I tried to go to sportsilustrated.com to see if I might secure the domain name since I was sure it was not being used.
Ok, I know most of you are laughing hysterically by now and I do admit to being a little dense while building my beautiful logo and developing my wonderful title. I'm also surprised I didn't see this in any of my searches, but I had concentrated on the word 'lustrate' as a keyword.
I hit enter on my keyboard and you guessed it, I hit a cybersqatter site advertising Sports Illustrated! They took off the "l" so people who searched for the misspelled "sportsilustrated" would find them instead of the magazine and then bought the domain to host advertising for magazine subscriptions. I hate that and have never subscribed to that type of marketing. I could have made a fortune selling domain names in the mid 90s, but I just always thought it was unfair and somewhat underhanded.
I felt like an idiot. I had been staring at this title for hours and never once did it occur to me that if you ran everything together and added an L it looks just like the name of the most popular sports magazine in the world? Good Lord, I need to start reading the sports page a little more often!
Well, that settled that. Yet one more reason to believe I was onto something here and had a great title for my blog! Purifying, cleansing, getting rid of evil oppressive ideals and the misspelled name of the most popular sports magazine ever all rolled into three small words! That is one good title and will definately make for some interesting parody possibilities.
And that's how "Sports I lustrated" was born, although I had to settle for this domain name because some cybersquatter selling magazines has mine!
Some have asked: Am I worried about getting sued? Read my thoughts on that here.
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