Rez

21 hours ago, BMTSoulja1 said:

It’s a factor,  it not important.  And you didn’t answer my question...

To answer your question "attendance" and "atmosphere" are not the same thing. Attendance can contribute to atmosphere. This assumes "atmosphere" is even something we can define. 

However, atmosphere is important. It isn't necessarily the most important thing, or even the second most important thing. But it does matter when it comes to evaluating something as subjective as a rivalry. "Atmosphere," as far as MCM goes, is extremely hard to produce, or reproduce. We've been working on MCM's atmosphere for about a century. If it wasn't hard to produce, every school in the area would have an "atmosphere" to speak of. Remember, we aren't talking about what wins games, we are simply talking about what factors matter for comparing one rivalry to another, and in the case of MCM, the atmosphere is an important factor. 8,000 to 13,000 people in attendance (and everyone knows that it would be higher with bigger stadiums), with who knows how many others tuning in on the radio, with people listening in from all over the country (and, on occasion, from all over the world -- I've listened to PNG/NED games with people emailing in from Korea, Europe, Iraq, and all over the USA, and that's just on the PNG side of the broadcast). And throw in the fact that both teams are usually among the stronger teams in the area, with absolutely rabid fan bases. Then throw in the fact that the communities are basically right next to each other and tightly intertwined. Then throw in the nearly year-round trash talk and the crazed roar of the crowd throughout every second of the game. It's a pretty good recipe for "atmosphere," and an important factor for comparing one rivalry to another. You can judge it based on the attention the game gets on this site alone. 

If we were talking about what wins games, the above wouldn't matter as much (though I'm certain it contributes to why other teams find it so hard to beat PNG and Nederland at home).

34 minutes ago, BMTSoulja1 said:

So is ‘atmosphere’ synonymous to attendance?

Why wouldn't attendance be relevant in comparing one rivalry to another? I'm not saying its the only factor, but attendance IS an important factor. 

14 minutes ago, BMTSoulja1 said:

‘Atmosphere’ does not count.  

PNG & Nederland:

The rivalry is coming up on 100 years old

Easily brings in the most attendance for any rivalry game in the area (and can certainly challenge other rivalries in the state for attendance)

Back-and-forth from year-to-year

Close, intense games (almost every year) usually decided by one score

Recognized as the best rivalry in the state 2x by Texas Football magazine

Silsbee will win. Vidor will do well this season, but Silsbee has some key starters coming back. They’ll be a well-oiled machine, favored to make a very deep playoff run.  

On 5/31/2020 at 3:52 PM, Realville said:

Probably the biggest concern is if this area gets hit by another  big hurricane or biblical rain storm. Hopefully we’ll be spared this year.

Knock on wood

On 6/1/2020 at 11:11 AM, SmashMouth said:

If I’m not mistaken, they’re digging a trough for a makeshift potty until they can get enough time to build proper restrooms. It’ll be akin to a litter box but for people. They’ll even leave some loose dirt for the potty-goers to cover their waste. Pretty efficient if you ask me. Cheap too! Perhaps I’ve been wrong this whole time. (Sorry folks...literally could not help myself.)

Aren’t you just describing the current bathrooms? 

2 hours ago, baddog said:

Didn’t I say, “that’s just me”?

I understand that -- I'm just throwing in my two cents. I hope it didn't seem like I was attacking you. 

15 minutes ago, baddog said:

Yes, you said it was illegal detainment. How can a show exist if this is true? The felony stops are done with pistols drawn. The suspicious stops are done until searches can be done. The lone officer will cuff for his protection, especially if there are numerous people in the vehicle. I have no problem with that. Grandma?????
 

I couldn't get all the facts from the video ( what was said or anything like that). Maybe he thought he was armed. I still don’t see the problem. I also know not all cops follow protocol. The way they have been “HUNTED and EXECUTED” lately, I give them a little leeway with their stops.....but that’s just me.

I don't give cops any leeway. The Constitution always trumps their feelings. In any official interaction between law enforcement and a citizen, the cop has a gun to your head, whether the gun is drawn or not. They don't get to abuse my rights simply because they get nervous or angry. We, as citizens, trade a little bit of our freedom to law enforcement in the name of safety and protection. In exchange, law enforcement is permitted to use force to secure its objectives, including and especially deadly force. I can't use deadly force against cops, and it would be extremely hard to prove to a jury that a person was using deadly force against a cop in self-defense. So cops have all the power in relation to the person they are stopping. In a routine traffic stop, you might find yourself billy clubbed , or killed, over a cop's misunderstanding. There are plenty of video-recorded examples of citizens being gunned down for absolutely no reason, simply because the cop got scared. I don't care if they get scared, at least as far as my attitude toward them not murdering people goes. So I don't give them any leeway at all, and none of us should. They are to be held to a far higher standard than the rest of us, because their failure to rise to that standard is often deadly. If that is too stressful or too difficult, or too Constitutionally limited, they need to choose a different career. That being said, I am a strong supporter of law enforcement in general, and fully respect many of those who choose to pursue it -- It is an honorable profession. However, I reject any tendency to treat them as if they are above the law because their job is hard. A lot of jobs are hard, but that doesn't mean they get to be trigger-happy over it. 

On 5/22/2020 at 11:59 AM, tvc184 said:

That isn’t correct for the gas salesman unless he knew that they were going to commit a crime with it. It is intent. 

 The video guy took intentional action as part of the incident. He wasn’t a guy on the porch who happened to catch the action. In the example I gave it was two guys breaking into cars and one guy selling it to a third who knew the property was stolen. They all knowingly took part in crimes. 

 The guy selling gas had no clue. 

Zimmerman complied with the dispatcher (who has no authority to give him an order). Legally it wouldn’t have mattered but Zimmerman complied. 

i don’t think the state is reaching however without actually knowing the evidence, it is a complete guess. Let’s play what if.....  what if 3 guys see Arbery prowling around. It is suspicious but not a crime. So the three get together and say, let’s teach this guy a lesson. Or perhaps they say, we don’t know what he is up to but maybe he is the guy that has been committing crimes in this area. In either case they have no probable cause to arrest. I read the GA citizen arrest law and it says witnesses a crime, not suspects a crime and can detain like an officer. So the video guy in either case says, great and I will video and tell you where he runs. 

 Under that scenario, video guy is directly involved in the outcome. If so, it sure isn’t reaching. If “all” the guy did was video and took no part in the attempted detention, it is a reach. 

Some thoughts:

The video guy is "involved," but he did not, by taking the video alone, participate in furtherance of a crime. Taking a video of anything, as you know, is protected free speech, unless there is some statute saying you can't do so (such as in areas that contain sensitive national security information). If there was evidence that the video guy had entered into a conspiracy with the other two there would be a reason to indict him (as you have noted). But the video by itself does not evince his intention to further a crime. All of the evidence made available to the public indicates that he and the other two thought they were in the process of a lawful citizen's arrest. The video is only evidence of his intention to record the event. 

I'm worried that charging this guy will discourage private citizens from taking videos of crimes. The video he took is crucial, valuable evidence, without which the world would have to rely on only the testimony of the shooter. In other words, there would have been no charges without the video. So we are charging a guy for providing the only evidence upon which the state's case is based, evidence which he voluntarily turned over. I'm not trying to paint him as a saint. But I am arguing for an extremely liberal approach to the right to film public events. We need people to do so. My gut feeling is that the fewer videos that are taken of events like this, the more it benefits either one of two groups to the detriment of the public: (1) criminals and (2) public officials who wish to hide things. We should encourage people to take such videos.

All of that aside, I think he is being charged, not for taking the video, but for "moving" his car in a way that blocked Arbery. I have some concerns with that. If the citizen's arrest law was triggered, moving the car in a way to block Arbery to further that arrest was arguably a lawful action. However, even if the arrest law was not triggered, it is extremely difficult to tell from the video that he did anything at all, so I think the prosecution is grasping at straws. My guess is they are using this charge to get the video guy to spill on the other two in exchange for leniency. 

Also, on a somewhat unrelated note, the Georgia citizen's arrest law does not require that the citizen doing the arrest "witness" the crime. See Ga. Code 17-4-60. It is sufficient if the crime occur within the citizen's immediate knowledge. The question then becomes what qualifies as a "crime" within "immediate knowledge?" In this case, there had been multiple reports of trespassing (and apparently reports of theft) and Arbery was seen sprinting out of the house (as well as being caught on video multiple times). Importantly, if the suspected crime is a felony, the citizen doesn't even need to have "immediate knowledge." Where the crime is a felony, it is sufficient only to have "reasonable and probable grounds for suspicion." Burglary is a felony in Georgia. The important thing is that the citizen doesn't need to know that the person suspected of the crime has committed a felony. So when citizens see a guy sprinting out of a home that was not his, and had been caught on video multiple times in that dwelling that was not his, it was at a minimum reasonable for the neighbors to suspect that the felony of burglary had been committed, thus triggering a citizen's arrest under Georgia law. And, even if burglary were not the crime, trespassing is a crime, and they had "immediate knowledge" of it. Under both types of crime presented in the statute, the citizen's arrest law was triggered, or it is at least reasonable to argue that it was. 

That being said, I think the Georgia citizen's arrest law is stupid. Citizen's arrest laws in general are mind-numbingly stupid. They should only exist as a protection against a charge of kidnapping or false imprisonment in cases where citizens seize a person out of necessity where the crime is grave and has been committed in their presence, to protect life, or in other serious circumstances where the urgency of the moment requires private citizens to take action by holding another person. They should not exist as a proactive open door to citizens to take the law into their own hands, particularly where there is no immediate threat or urgency, as was the case in Georgia. Citizens arrest laws as written invite the profound stupidity we've witnessed in Georgia, where any dummy thinks the law allows him to turn into Batman. The problem is, the law actually says you can be Batman, without providing any guidance or limitation as to how such action should be taken (For example: Can you use a gun? How long can you hold the person? What force is appropriate?). So among the people we should blame are stupid legislators writing stupid laws, the effects of which will never accrue to them but cause untold damage down the road. 

21 hours ago, CardinalBacker said:

I haven’t seen anything that would make me believe that Mr Arbery was targeted because of his race. I would have no trouble identifying this incident as racial if there was some evidence of such... past social media posts, memberships in supremacist groups, etc.  When people complain that the victim is being dehumanized by exposing his past, I’d argue that those past behaviors on the part of the two shooters are also completely relevant in establishing their character and predispositions.

BUT.... if you’ve been conditioned to believe that the majority of police in America are inherently racist, the the fact that the Father is former LEO is all of the evidence a prejudiced person would need to identify this incident as a work of racism. 

I live on a dead end road with a couple of other houses. I know when somebody is in here that “doesn’t belong.” I’m going to guess that Mr Arbery stuck out in that neighborhood, and I’d be curious how “diverse” the area actually is. I’d like to point out that a person’s skin color CAN indicate that a person is up to no good. If you see a white dude slow-rolling around on Simmons Drive in Orange in the middle of the night, you can bet he’s there for drugs or a whore. 
 

Both the father and son called 911 during that incident that day. If they’d set out to “hunt down and murder” Mr Arbery, I doubt they’d have contacted law first... the father was literally on the line with 911 when the shooting occurred. 
 

There are legitimate cases where people single out others for purely racial reasons. James Byrd, Jr comes to mind, and that kid that shot up the black church in SC.  Hate crimes, plain and simple. Throw the book at them. Unfortunately most aren’t so cut and dried. 

I agree with your sentiment that we should look for solid evidence of a person's background an intentions before drawing conclusions about their motivations.

My disagreement is in the highlighted portion above.

I can't think of a single scenario where a person's skin color, all other things being equal, is sufficient indication that a person is up to no good. The example you provide applies equally to any skin color. If you see anyone slow rolling in an area known to be a place to replenish one's supply of drugs and prostitutes, it is reasonable to assume they might be there for such things, but they might also be lost, or particularly interested in the scenery, or having a heart attack, or a million other things that might cause someone to drive slowly. I know I'm splitting hairs, but your statement requires hair-splitting. The fact that would make you think someone is looking for illegal activities by slow rolling is that they are slow rolling in that specific place, not the skin color of the person slow rolling. Unless Simmons Dr in Orange is closed to non-whites? 

On 5/19/2020 at 3:47 PM, A BUC 77 said:

Is it going to be a bulldog or a "N" at mid field?

It will be a picture of a mud puddle, in a stirring reminder of and honor to the stadium's deeply rooted traditions. In the center will be placed a commemorative golden sprinkler, which will ceremonially water the turf before every game. 

If Vidor comes up with a defense that can defend the pass consistently, they have a chance to go deep in 4a this year. I think it is extremely difficult for Vidor to prep a pass defense because they can't simulate a strong pass offense in practice. So it's an uphill battle. The players can do it if someone will teach them. 

The strange thing is the number of teenagers who have even been seriously affected by covid is close to zero. I’m not sure any have died. They likely have a greater risk of dying playing football than dying from covid. They certainly have a greater risk dying driving to practice than they do of dying from covid. And by the fall it is likely that much of the herd immunity we need to achieve will have happened. We need to protect the elderly (who are almost exclusively the only ones who need protecting), but we can do so without imprisoning an entire generation of children. 

25 minutes ago, 5GallonBucket said:

Who runs at a person that has a gun in hand and they don’t have one?

he wasn’t fighting for his life if he ran at the man who was holding the gun.

not one person on here is gonna run unarmed at someone who is armed!!!!!!

If you turn a corner and a guy has a gun and seems to want to use it on you, your only (slim) chance of survival is taking it away. Without expressing an opinion about the overall situation, I think Ahmed did what any reasonable person would/should do. If someone comes at me with a gun and they are only a few steps from me I'm assuming they are going to use it on me and I will spend what will probably be my last moments on earth trying to take that gun away.

I read "Roughnecks" about 20 years. Fiction. Aimed more at high school kids than adults. I remember it as a good read. The whole story is a first-person view of a high school football star's thoughts in the last few days leading up to the state championship in Louisiana. 

On 5/8/2020 at 10:16 PM, prepballfan said:

I read playing for pizza it was a great book

I read "Bleachers" years ago. It starts out as a good read, but it follows the plot of "Varsity Blues" so much its an entirely unoriginal book. I enjoyed the writing though -- Like all John Grisham books, the story is presented very well. But if you haven't seen "Varsity Blues," it's a relatively short book with a pretty good football story. 

On 5/3/2020 at 1:24 PM, Aledoalumni said:

My perception of R3 is high powered offenses with lots of points. But which teams would y'all say have a good defensive reputation?

What is this “defense” you speak of?

On 4/29/2020 at 4:57 PM, Aledoalumni said:

It will be interesting how FBM does without their big 2. Probably their best QB/RB duo in program history. Maybe they are able to reload but who knows. They have played 12 playoff games these last two seasons. Thats a lot of extra practice. I thought A&M had a big senior class but I am not certain on that. Another team I forgot to mention is Huntsville. 

I forgot about FB Marshall -- Call it PTSD after they ran us into the ground two years in a row. I also forgot about Huntsville. Unless there is a drastic drop-off, I see no reason both won't be solid this year. Huntsville was more vulnerable last year than the year before, so I don't know what direction they are trending. And FB Marshall is missing their Big 2, but they had a Fast 22 -- Unless it becomes legal to blitz before the ball is snapped, it will be hard for any of us to slow that team down. Even the guy running the flag down the track in front of the fans was faster than everyone on the PNG team. Tier 1: FB Marshall, Marshall, and A&M Consolidated, Tier 2: Hunstville. Tier 3 and down is everyone else, in whatever order you want. Barbers Hill, Crosby, PNG, and Nederland should be near the top of Tier 3. Barbers Hill had an extremely balanced, complete team last year. I don't know what they bring back, but they are going in an upward direction. I know they lost their star offensive lineman. He made a huge difference. Their QB last year was fundamentally good, but not flashy, world-ending great. Nederland was young last year and will probably have six to eight starters back on both sides. PNG brings back a lot of big pieces -- If the QB/WR connection can improve, and if the defense continues its year-to-year improvement we've seen the last two seasons, we are going to make some noise. Crosby started to look dangerous halfway through the season, but they aren't the Crosby of 2012-2013 anymore -- I don't know what that means they are becoming. They are in their second year with a new coach and system and all indications are that they are going to be, at a minimum, a solid team with a dark-horse high ceiling. I'm sure I'm leaving some region 3 powers off, but I'm not familiar with any other teams. Texas City used to be quite good -- They seem to have dropped off lately, so I think they are something of a dark horse. 

For Region 3: I’d expect Marshall and A&M Consolidated to be at the top. Crosby looks like they are heading in an upward direction, but there is a lot left to prove there. Barbers Hill lost some key players, but I think they should be considered at least the favorite in their district, with hopes to win the region. Nederland and PNG are going to be in the thick of it. PNG and Crosby are dark horses, in my opinion. I don’t know anything about where Texas City is these days.

1 hour ago, Mr. Buddy Garrity said:

We'll have a season, i just hope Hurricane Season is quiet. 

Knock on wood. I can't even imagine dealing with a hurricane in the coronavirus context. What a mess. 

Anyone know who PNG is bringing back, other than Bost? And any good underclassmen coming up? 

PNG won state in baseball 

1 hour ago, prepballfan said:

Maybe my Hallmark day hasn't come yet???

Mine hasn’t - I’ve never watched one. They just seem to be universally loved.

13 minutes ago, prepballfan said:

I never figured you for a Hallmark guy

Everyone is hallmark guy, even those who don’t know it yet. 

2 minutes ago, Bigdog said:

Travel is going to suck for a couple of those games too.  I think they should put TC and SF in a district closer to the schools.

Absolutely.