"Wisconsin Unveils New-Look Bucky Badger."

"We just felt it was time for something a little fresher and more modern," said University of Wisconsin athletic director, Barry Alvarez.

Alvarez said that Wisconsin officials wanted something "edgier," as well. "No offense, but the old Bucky was just a little too nice-looking...."

Cougar mascot rejected as offensive to women.

It was the students' top choice, but "principal Mary Bailey said carries an ugly connotation that is disrespectful to women."

Mary Bailey? Where have I heard that name before?



"She's an old maid... she never married... she's just about to close up the library."

Bucky in an ESPN commercial.

"[T]he feds have been creating various animated characters for materials intended to 'prepare' kids for disasters..."

"... and Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) reports that Washington could save $2.6 million over 10 years if the bureaucrats could simply settle on one mascot."

EcoKat backlash.

What's the matter with Kansas?  (Via Instapundit.)

Kansas State University recently introduced EcoKat, a special mascot to promote environmental causes -- and the fans are not thrilled. The Kansas City Star reported that, on Twitter, the #ecokat hashtag suggests considerable dislike, and that a #fakeecokat has also emerged on Twitter. Among recent tweets: "#EcoKat makes me want to leave my porch light on 24hours and drive two blocks to the gas station for a pack of gum," "EcoKat: The worst idea since the Power Towel" and from a University of Kansas fan "MY GOD. What is #kstate thinking? And you ask why you get made fun of ... #EcoKat. Please never change."

Oh, how bad can it be? Aaaah!

Sorry, I was totally distracted by the cat head. But that's Willie the Wildcat, which is apparently the school's regular sports mascot, their Bucky Badger, if you will. EcoKat is the lady: "played by a K-State student who auditioned for the role... outfitted in a costume made of 90 percent repurposed materials." They say her outfit is "sustainable." But it is not sustainable! Because people will not stand for it.... or wait. Is this a trick? So bad it's good? So bad it gets people to tweet and blog about how bad it is? Kind of like the Burger King king? But the Burger King king is passé. He's ousted. Dethroned. Get with it Kansas! Creepily bad is not somehow cool. Not anymore.

Entertainment at Miller Park.

I'm posting this 55-second clip because I got a request for more baseball posts. This video, shot by me, shows the end of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and that other song they do after that at Miller Park...



... and the introduction of the Chorizo,

"U R the lowest common denominator. 30+ Bernie statues??? Your greed disgusts me more than your profile picture."

Milwaukee Brewers promotion goes predictably wrong.

The solemnity of the Bucky Badger hat.

At Saturday's protest.

Partly visible sign appears to say: "I [heart] NPR/Actually Fair & Balanced."

"The new Purdue Pete, introduced Saturday, has been retired."

"Faced with mounting criticism about the sideline mascot's new look, Purdue officials Wednesday announced they would reinstate the previous big-headed Pete."

Abe Sauer — at The Awl — attempting disrespect toward Gov. Scott Walker, displays his ignorance of American military history and its great mascot Old Abe.

Abe Sauer thought he was insulting Scott Walker when he began his description of last week's budget address like this: "Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's budget address was delivered beneath a dead and stuffed eagle." Above that line is a photograph framing the Governor and the eagle. The simplest effort at Googling — e.g., eagle in wisconsin assembly chamber — would have gotten Abe to the story of Old Abe:

Old Abe (1861? – March 28, 1881), bald eagle, was the mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War and is the screaming eagle mascot depicted on the insignia of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division....

Company C named the eagle after President Abraham Lincoln, and designed a special perch on which they carried the bird into battle. Old Abe participated in the Second Battle of Corinth (in which the 8th Wisconsin lost half of its men) and the Siege of Vicksburg, among other battles. In battle, Old Abe quickly became legendary, screaming and spreading his wings at the enemy. Confederate troops called him the "Yankee Buzzard" and made several attempts to capture him but never succeeded. Several times he lost feathers to bullets and saw his handlers get shot out from under him. When passing by, Generals Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and William Rosecrans were known to doff their hats to the eagle.

In 1864, Old Abe returned to Wisconsin with several veterans who did not reenlist. Nevertheless, he remained famous and was invited to, among other events, the 1880 Grand Army of the Republic National Convention, and the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When not at public events, his caretaker kept him in the Wisconsin State Capitol.

That storied creature is for Abe Sauer just some absurdity that Awl readers should laugh at. Laugh at the stupid people in Wisconsin who think there's some meaning embodied in the carcass of a bird.

Crushing ignorance from Abe Sauer.

IN THE COMMENTS: "But Old Abe's carcass indeed is gone."

"Dan Snyder, Owner of a Team Named After an Ethnic Slur, Sues Over Perceived Anti-Semitism."

"That’s anti-Semitic? That looks to me like a public figure with devil horns drawn on his head. I mean, I’m a guy who has gotten into bar fights over how The Smurfs are anti-Semitic (I mean Gargamel. Really?), but I can hardly fathom how drawing devil horns on a photo conveys any ethnic malice."

Writes Elie Mystal, making a point but also displaying some surprising ignorance about iconography.

"Teach Me How To Bucky."

Background:

"All these other schools or people are asking how can we be as cool as U-W, so i guess that's what Teach Me How To Bucky is," said co-creator Quincy Kwalae.

"You could hear it, when it premiered at Randall, the stadium went nuts, it got such a great response," said co-creator Logan Cascia.

Wenlock and Mandeville.

No, I don't understand. Wenlock looks dangerous and Mandeville seems to have wet his man-da-pants.

"Having a black man hobbling around on national TV in an Indian costume trivializes both of America's original sins — the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of indigenous peoples."

"At least get him out of the public eye. Those who want to keep the team's racist name are quick to say it's honorific, a term of endearment that shows respect for Native Americans. And yet, inadvertently though it may be, Chief Zee stands as pitiful proof to the contrary. How can supporters of the name claim to care about indigenous peoples when they care so little for the Indian caricature of their own making?"

Your mascot is a nut! Your mascot is a meaningless puppet!

Andy Van Sistine wants to know what's wrong with you schools.

Does it say something about a university when they invent a mascot, give it a name and then trail off when someone asks what the hell that thing is?

Speaking of meaningless puppets, the Western Kentucky red blob thing still boggles my mind. He is like a short, red version of Grimace, the McDonalds character on Happy Meal boxes....

Big Red’s sad blue cousin from Xavier is no better. Affectionately referred to as “The Blue Blob,” I cannot figure out why the Musketeers choose to have this guy roaming around their sports arenas as opposed to a swashbuckling swordsman. He looks like an oversized Cookie Monster who got a bucket of hydrochloric acid dumped on his head. What it is and what relevance it has to Musketeers or the greater Cincinnati community, I would sure love to know....

I have no answers to these questions. I don't follow sports. But I'm going to theorize that somewhere along the line, a lot of people watched way too much Muppets and smoked too much pot. And isn't this the original culprit?

I'm quite serious about replacing the depressing Father Time/Baby New Year with the New Year's Tick.

I like to frontpage comments, you know, and now and then, I need to frontpage my own comments. This is one of those times.

There was that "tick" post on New Year's Eve Eve (i.e., last night):

"New Year to arrive a tick later."

Oh! A tick!

Ricpic waxes poetic:

The New Year came in wobbly.
A tick or two behind.
It threw off lonely sticklers.
The rest? They didn't mind.

And Stephanie says:

?retal kcot a evirra ti t'nseoD

(Wait a sec, I have to do this.)

Then blogging cockroach says...

tou ieduv siht kcehc einahpets yeh

... and links to this:



That drives reader_iam to poesy:

i do love the backwards elements of the cockroach nature
as don't we all
or at least should
if not ought

Blogging cockroach responds in kind:

that should be tuo
which proves i ve had too much
spilled cheap merlot tonight
to be hopping around backwards
lookout when the champaign flows
tomorrow night wheee
which i hope doesn t turn into
eeehw
anyway here is tick tock gone bad
and too long
but you can stop it when it
ceases being funny about 40 seconds in
hey they can t all be gems
and i promise never to trip
trippingly to reader s ear
a cockroach doing that would
freak some people out
but just don t sleep on the kitchen floor
and we ll all be fine

Chip Ahoy says:

.diputs era stac yhW

dnuora gnifoog tsuj s'ti swohs swollof taht oediv etunim 4 ehT .yllaer toN

The cockroach continues to inspire reader_iam:

ah but cockroach
your trips are tweets to the ear
like birds in dawn of spring s own dawn
here here see here they sing
back again as always are we
so wake up
if only, and to ...

The cockroach skitters on across the keyboard again:

not having the vers libre poet in me
i fear my prosaic nature sometimes
misses the subtleties of
dear reader s lovely lines
which is not to say
reader should not write
a lot more of them
because you always want more
when someone doesn t quite
write enough rather than when
they write too much
which is also true about food
but i m not as appreciative when
the cook has cleaned up
too well afterwards

Then, when everyone is nestled all snug in their beds, I am awake. It's 2:23 a.m.:

And where is everyone? Last night, you guys were talking all night, and now here I am with insomnia and no one is around.

Were you afraid of the tick?

Thanks for all the poetry, but it was all before midnight. If you can't stay up until midnight tonight, how do you expect to celebrate New Year's Eve tomorrow night?

I think I'll try to draw a picture of the New Year's Tick. Or see if I can get people to send pictures of the New Year's Tick. And I'm going to push for the adoption of the New Year's Tick as the new New Year's mascot, replacing that stupid — and frankly depressing — Old Man and Baby mascot. Or the Ball. What the hell kind of symbol is a Ball?

I hope that doesn't offend blogging cockroach. You must understand that we can't have a cockroach as a holiday symbol. Not for New Year's anyway.

This insomnia is giving me grandiose thoughts, but I really think this New Year's Tick thing can catch on. Perhaps if we draw it the right way. I think Santa Claus wasn't such a big deal until those Coca Cola ads got the character drawn just the right way. People loved him once his attributes became appealing and standardized.

Help me do that with the Tick.

Also, that "Night Before Christmas" poem helped with the popularization of Santa Claus, so maybe some of you poets can write something similarly beguiling about the annual arachnid.

Inside the kitty cat wall clock he hid/Our eagerly awaited arachnid.

See? I can't do it!

An arthropod/From God/Trod...

No... I need help with the poem. And with the drawing. And with the sleeping.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds/Not knowing the Tick crept so close to their heads....

(Links added.)

In the cold light of morning — and it's 0° — I can see these are not mere insomniac ravings. I really do want drawings — or photoshoppings — of the New Year's Tick. I will reward you with frontpagings and tags. More poems too. I love the poems and the depictions of ticks — detickshuns, if you will.

We went out in the icy snow and celebrated last night. Tonight we stay in. I'll be live-blogging New Year's Eve, so please join me. I will reward you profusely with frontpagings and tags... and ticks.

"Top 60 popular Japanese words/phrases of 2008."

Including "sabupuraimu" -- get it? Another one like that is "Arafo."

Then there's "hime-den" -- which is this...



... can you even see what that is?

And there's "ea-gei" -- "air performance":

This refers to a recent twist on the Japanese art of monomane (impersonation). Unlike conventional monomane artists who do voice impressions, air performers lip sync their imitations to recordings while incorporating well-timed dance moves, gestures and facial expressions.

"Saiban Inko" -- combining saibanin (juror) and inko (parakeet) -- will help people understand the new citizen jury system:



Lots more -- obviously, there are 60 -- at the link.

(Via Metafilter, where they are especially amused by "morning banana.")