Panty Waste
The Jan. 4 issue of Folio Weekly featured an article by AG Gancarski about the “lingerie league” and the championship game being held here. He spent the entire article ripping the lingerie league, and rightfully so, because that isn’t true football. I agree that the [league] does nothing but degrade women and especially women’s sports/women athletes in general. If Gancarski wants to see REAL honest-togoodness female football players, then come on out and see the Jacksonville Dixie Blues. They are the city’s women’s semi-pro football team (full pads and no lingerie!). They play
I can guarantee that the Dixie Blues would knock the lingerie girls behind the woodshed, with ease! in the WFA (Women’s Football Alliance) and have won three national championships since 2001. They have only lost two games in the past three years, so that should tell you about these women and their ability to not only play “real” football, but excel in it as well. It is a shame that Jacksonville has such a successful team here and you very rarely get any media recognition. I can guarantee that the Dixie Blues would knock the lingerie girls behind the woodshed, with ease. So if Gancarski would like to write about some great female football, then come on out and watch the Dixie Blues. They start their season April 2 and the first home game is April 9 at University Christian High School at 7 p.m. I promise you won’t be sorry when you see these athletes play. I know I’m not. I saw them for the first time two years ago and was impressed right away. Come see for your own eyes and then maybe you can let the city of Jacksonville know that we have a legit female football team here in town that can play AND win! Thank you for your time and, as always, great job. Matt Walch Jacksonville via email
It is really amazing to me how Folio Weekly will print anything AG Gancarski writes even if it makes him look like a jackass! Really, just because someone would watch lingerie football does not make them a date rapist, a loser. Like everything else AG does, no[t] research a topic just opens his big mouth and inserts his foot. Also AG writes this league is a scam. What I think is sad is to get the media to notice them and for people to take women playing football for real is that they have to reduce themselves to playing in lingerie and hot outfits, but in the real world would you pay attention if they did not? I think these women should be proud they display a beauty about themselves and are involved in athletics, and make themselves vulnerable to people like AG who just see them as sex objects and not as athletes. Why is it OK for men to watch other men play on the field against other men wearing spandex and a jersey, but not for women to play in a hot outfit? Micheal Tomsik Jacksonville via email
Left Out
The local liberal fish-wrapper for pinko commies (Folio Weekly) has been running a number of stories about civil rights for folks of all sorts and colors. So far they have left out Martians. Last week they were describing how local GLBT folks have been discriminated against, but then go on to discuss problems only for gay and lesbians here in Jacksonville (Commentary, Jan. 4). Transfolks were entirely ignored in the article. Denial of equal housing and employment has been a hallmark here in Jacksonville for transfolks. I was told point blank by the manager of a big insurer here, “You will never work in insurance here.” Transfolks murdered, and no investigations, or only a superficial investigation. Unspecified traffic stops. Muggings, etc. The outrages against transfolks and GLBs not only continue here in Jacksonville, but throughout the entire country. This week Folio Weekly goes on to discuss the civil rights issues in St. Augustine back in 1964. As a result of the racial division in the South, LBJ and Dr. King became deeply afraid about the entire country unraveling in open civil conflict. In St. Augustine, which had been a hotbed of civil rights issues, the city had some money earmarked to hire a black policeman; instead spent the money to buy 15 German shepherds for crowd control. The sheriff deputized 28 additional people, most of whom where members of the KKK. Many local blacks were placed in jail for participating in lunch counter demonstrations. Today those people are in their late 60s and they still bear the scars of the thinly disguised hate and prejudice which is the norm here in North Florida. Jacksonville had a day marked as “Ax Handle Day” when the local sheriff ’s office handed out ax handles to white men to help subdue rioting. Many heads and bodies were busted and broken because of the church and socially supported ignorance which give rise to prejudice and hatred. While the Civil Rights Movement has accomplished much in the last 50 years, the rights movement for GLBT folks is stalemated and stymied. The same church and socially supported hate and fear-mongering that caused problems in the Civil Rights Movement still plague society today in the GLBT community. In the South, the concept of “right to work” means that if the employer doesn’t like you for any reason whatsoever, you are history, and you have no redress in the courts. There is no overriding social contract or responsibility “droit de seigneur.” While we have accomplished much since the Stonewall riots in NYC many years ago, we have much more to accomplish. Rosa Parks Boulevard in Birmingham Alabama is considered by many as Ground Zero for the Civil Rights Movement. I wonder, will there ever be a Ground Zero for GLBT rights? Harriet Hammell Westside via email
Surf Report
Re: “Pier Pressure” (Cover Story, Dec. 7, 2010): I was on the pier recently, watching a veteran fisherman attempt to cast his line off the end of the pier. As he casts, his sinker snags/hits the railing and causes the rod and reel to jerk out of the fisherman’s hands. He curses loudly as everyone gasps, watching the rod and reel tumble into the ocean. After several moments, the rod starts bobbing in the surf, kept afloat by the cork handle. I call over to a nearby surfer,
JANUARY 25-30, 2010 | FOLIO WEEKLY | 5