All anyone could talk about yesterday afternoon was the scandal surrounding Notre Dame’s Mani Te’o and his fake girlfriend.
Deadspin.com broke the story — and it was all over the Internet with every major news outlet — including Sports Illustrated, which had previously put Te’o on its cover — reporting what they should have reported the first time around.
That Te’o, the Notre Dame standout and Heisman finalist, said he had a girlfriend named Lennay Kekua who, about the time his grandmother had passed away, died from leukemia, except there was no record of Kekua — as a student at Stanford, about her death, anything.
Which means she didn’t exist.
And that all came out yesterday.
Too bad the news of this hoax overshadowed the real news of the day. And I’m not talking about Lance Armstrong admitting to Oprah that he lied about doping. (Old news.)
I’m talking about President Obama proposing a package of measures intended to reduce gun violence a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook. The proposal, which will take Congressional backing, includes strengthening criminal background checks for all gun sales, restoring the 10-round limit on ammunition magazines, banning armor-piercing bulletins, allocating money to hire more police officers and — wait for it — reinstating the ban on assault weapons.
He then followed this proposal with 23 executive actions that will be take immediately such as providing better training to first responders and school officials and directing the Centers for Disease Control to research gun violence.
This is the news, people.
Sure, the hoax is awful. But what Te’o went through — or what he was part of — isn’t as impactful as, say, a ban on assault weapons. And yet, there’s more chatter, particularly on social media, about whether or not Te’o met Kekua in person, whether his family was in on it, whether it was even a scam and Te’o was the victim.
I guess it’s better than watching “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” But where’s our focus?
You tell me: Te’o a bigger story than Obama’s proposal? Or will you be watching Oprah’s interview with Armstrong, too?
8 Comments
Interesting divide in this country. There are those who think Obama is a dictator. There are others who think he is the best President ever. As for the football thing, belongs on some stupid reality show. Then there is Lance… belongs in the Hall of Fame where you find Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and others. And they wonder why people are falling off the radar on sports. NBA can’t get people in the seats if they give away tickets. People have lost faith in their ‘sports stars’ and frankly I am one. Don’t watch sports at all anymore. I did the healthy alternative and went back to playing. Got no time for the jacked up cheaters… NONE. Got plenty time to school some playground wannabes.
Hello Cat!
I don’t get all caught up in this kind of news. I really don’t care.
CAT: The Manti story will have plenty of spins…the NRA will definitely have more. If all the victims’ families gathered at NRA headquarters, they could probably take over the building. Alas, they would need to be armed in order to do it.
The assault weapons will not work! Case in point, when the assault weapons ban was in place, what happened in Honolulu in 1999? We had the Xerox shootings.
The assault weapons DID NOTHING to stop the Xerox shootings. It did not work!
If we’re going to talk about Notre Dame football. This is more of a concern than a person who isn’t dead.
https://www.thenation.com/blog/172042/notre-dame-and-penn-state-two-rape-scandals-only-one-cry-justice#
https://ncronline.org/news/accountability/reported-sexual-assault-notre-dame-campus-leaves-more-questions-answers
After reading the pieces linked above. The response about the T’eo hoax isn’t surprising.
“Notre Dame acknowledged Wednesday that it did not encourage the player to set the record straight before the title game. Instead, officials sat silent while reporters blindly prepared stories about Kekua’s fake death, fake leukemia and fake Stanford degree.
‘We encouraged him to try to focus forward and focus on the game,’ Swarbrick said.”
https://www.latimes.com/sports/college/football/la-sp-0117-mantiteo-hoax-20130117,0,1139297.story
Yes, this is history in the making: bypassing the Constitution to give a failed ban a 2nd try, and create a new huge group of “criminals” by decree. All this under the guise of “saving the children”. Finding a scapegoat, to avoid the real problem, is a tried and true tactic being overused now.
I’m sure if they reinstate the “assault weapon” ban all the criminals will happily turn in their guns. You do realize the first ban did nothing. Law abiding, intelligent, and reasonable citizens have every right to own what they want.
“Assault weapon”, what is it? Nothing but rifle that has a flash suppressor, bayonet mount and a custom stock. It does nothing to change what any firearm does, shoot bullets. It’s like saying to reduce speeding on the highways we need to ban spoilers, mag wheels and racing insignias on cars. It’s all perception nothing relevant to reduciing firearm tragedies.