Latest news with #Eskimo
Global News
7 days ago
- Sport
- Global News
What's in a name? Elks vs. Eskimos debate returns to Edmonton football team
An issue some thought had been settled has been reopened in Edmonton, where the city's football team is reviving a discontinued name that was the topic of much debate and disagreement — something that continues to this day. In 2020, the CFL club's board of directors made the decision to discontinue the use of the word 'Eskimo' and launch a rebrand. The following year after consultations and a public poll, the team renamed the Edmonton Elks. Story continues below advertisement Prior to that, the CFL team faced criticism for its name over the years, with some people arguing it was racist, offensive and showed a lack of respect for the Inuit community in northern regions of Canada and the U.S. But not all felt that way — some in the Inuit community felt pride over the Eskimos name. The tipping point came when sponsors threatened to pull their support. Now, the team's leadership is bringing the Eskimos name back — well, sort of. 'We are going to be proud of the Eskimo era of this franchise,' said Chris Morris, 56, who was appointed the team's president and chief executive last year. Morris also wore the green and gold for 14 seasons, as a linebacker from 1992 to 2005. 'For one reason or another, over the last few years, the term 'Eskimos' internally here in this organization has been stricken further and further from how we talk about ourselves,' Morris said. The leader made the comments on Monday at an event welcoming longtime equipment manager Dwayne Mandrusiak back to the club, after he was sacked a few years ago. 'Over the years, we've forgotten elements of our history. And with Dwayne coming back here, that will return,' Morris said. Story continues below advertisement 1:38 Dwayne Mandrusiak back with the Edmonton Elks 'We are done hiding in the shadows from something that really isn't something to be afraid of: 14 Great Cup Championships, the most incredible fan support, and I apologize to our fans, for over the years somehow being villainized for being called the Eskimo fan base.' Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Morris stressed the team won't be ditching the Elks name on the gridiron, but rather is going to stop pretending the Eskimos name never existed. 'Internally, we will use the term 'Eskimos' because we are proud of that history as an organization that did some many great things,' he said, explaining he wants the Eskimos name to be associated with the excellence achieved under it. 'We are honouring the past of this organization. We … honour what was great.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We are honouring the past of this organization. We … honour what was great." Some of the changes include putting back up a sign over the entrance of the team's locker room saying, 'Once an Eskimo, always an Eskimo.' Story continues below advertisement 'It was a brotherhood, it was a way of doing things, it was the sign that you were part of something bigger than yourselves, which made a difference not just on the field, but in the community,' Morris said. The team's vintage fire truck that used to make laps around the field after a touchdown will also have the Eskimos name put back on. 'We are proud of that history, and we are going to embrace it moving forward.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We are proud of that history, and we are going to embrace it moving forward." 4:51 Edmonton's CFL team reviewing controversial name amid public pressure Reaction to the announcement was mixed. Lifelong football fan Kimberly Tologanak wants the team to ditch the name 'Elks' and return to its roots. 'Inuit that hunt polar bears and warriors, that's the strong people,' Tologanak said. 'Edmonton Eskimos are a strong team and I think it goes with who we are as Eskimos. Story continues below advertisement 'The team is strong and resilient like Inuit people.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The team is strong and resilient like Inuit people." The Inuk woman moved to Edmonton 25 years ago said the former name made her proud. 'To me, I grew up with being known as an 'Eskimo,' so that's what I knew,' the passionate fan said, adding people she knows up north were also proud of the name. 'It doesn't offend me.' 4:22 Len Rhodes says dropping 'Eskimos' name was inevitable for Edmonton football team But not all people of her heritage feel that way. Tupaarnaq Kopeck is Inuit and grew up in Greenland before moving to Denmark, where she first learned of the negative connotation attached to the word 'Eskimo.' 'It was used against me as a slur, as a dehumanizing word against me and my people,' Kopeck said. Story continues below advertisement She now lives in Spruce Grove and said her heart started racing when she heard the team would be using 'Edmonton Eskimos' again in some capacity. She said many in the Inuit community consider the word racist. 'Words have power,' Kopeck said, adding she was happy when the team changed its name in 2020, even while acknowledging amongst her own community members there's no consensus on how one should feel about the former name. 'I think they should invite a group of Inuit and hear their thoughts and talk to them, have conversations. That's important.' She said she understands there's great nostalgia attached to the former name for some fans, but argued it's a step backward for reconciliation with the Indigenous community. 'There's people in the Elks that have those beliefs — I don't think I want to support that, if that's what they truly believe. That makes me really sad and upset.' 4:20 Consumers push businesses for change when it comes to race, inclusion On Monday, Morris apologized to fans for being villainized. Longtime fan Troy Lutz said that comment resonated. Story continues below advertisement 'Any time you use the word 'Eskimos' on Facebook, there's people attacking you —people that didn't care about the game,' he said. Tologanak said she would love to see the team lean into the old name more by celebrating Inuit culture or hiring more Inuit people. But what she wants the most: a winning team that gets more people in the seats at Commonwealth Stadium. 'Our team hasn't been doing very well since the name change. The fan base has gone down, I think.'
Forbes
01-05-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
The Car Worthy Of Your Digital Trust
Trust is an ephemeral, amorphous descriptor of consumers' behaviors, which in days of old would've ... More been described generically by "quality" but now has multiple words to describe it. Thirty years ago, the word 'trust' was invoked in automotive realms only when gauging the vehicle's overall quality. Yes, reliability or quality were consistently amongst the top five drivers of purchasing decisions in 1995 (along with price, safety, brand, and styling), but there weren't multiple definitions of trust and few quantifications beyond JD Power's Initial Quality Survey (IQS) or recalls. Then in 1995, the mass-produced, connected car became a reality with the launch of OnStar, and both the opinion of trust and the nomenclature expanded. In a recent study by Perficient, manufacturers of connected products ranked trust as the absolute lowest of influential factors for a customer's purchase decision, whereas consumers ranked it the highest, and commercial users ranked it the second highest. 'It's alarming that the manufacturers and their customers don't value trust in the same way,' summarizes Jim Hertzfeld, the Area Vice President for Strategy at Perficient. And just like the number of words describing snow in Inuit and Yupik (a.k.a. 'Eskimo'), the societal focus on automotive trust is birthing a combination of prefixes to articulate nuances about how the noun feels. A few possible prefixes defined herein shall explain a portion of the perplexing landscape: Fail-forward (trust), Cyber (trust), Personal (trust) and Nightingale (trust). MARCH 2025: The OTA & Software Updates Guide graphs the global software reflash capability versus ... More the frequency it's exercised, thereby demonstrating a difficult balance between consumer experience, trust, safety and technology enablement. Genesis is the only brand in the corner marked 'Safe & Trusted'. In a now famous, previously-internal corporate mantra, Mark Zuckerberg (CEO and co-Founder of Facebook), coined the phrase 'Move fast and break things.' To some extent, this has been the mentality of Silicon Valley's influence on software development over the past 5-10 years: don't worry over pesky defects since more and more vehicles – just like cellphones – can reflash all of the software post-production and, therein, fix any launched mistakes. Fail forward. This Over-the-Air (OTA) capability of reflashing is arguably the most confusing of the trusts since it invokes one of two opposing reactions from consumers: faith in software prowess (e.g., the automaker has impressive development capabilities that will defend me) or misgivings about bad behavior (e.g., laziness of upfront rigor via 'We'll fix it later' mentality). 'There's still a wide span of capabilities in the marketplace for Over-the-Air updates and conscious choices to be made on how frequently each automaker chooses to exercise it,' states Jeffrey Hannah, Chief Commercial Officer of SBD Automotive, an independent automotive technology research and strategy firm that tracks such automotive reflashing. 'This is really an evolving area of confidence which sits between the manufacturer and end consumer.' 'We have seen a noticeable uptick in initial quality problems, especially in software,' states SBD's North American Director, Alex Oyler, 'It is enabling bad behavior. What's happening below the surface there is that [automakers] are trying to increase the cadence of product development to launch new products, but they haven't been able to simplify the complexity out of their business.' The global digital footprint continues to be hacked around the world with increasing regularity, yet ... More cyber trust remains an expectation of customers. The most ephemeral of the earned faiths is cybersecurity trust since all parties understand that new threats evolve every day, that any well-funded hacker can penetrate even the securest of designs, and that global automotive attacks continue to rise. And yet the customer's expectation is quiet, bulletproof protection. To sustain that confidence, the automaker must pivot by utilizing that same reflashing capability. 'You are no longer necessarily building a vehicle for all of what it shall be able to do for its entire life,' states Bill Mazzara, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Chairman of the Vehicle Electrical and Hardware Security Taskforce. 'Instead, you're now building for [intended, future functionality] one day. We're headed towards a world where products will get updated, grow, and live their life. Of course, good intent never leads to actual security. Hackers will hack you for your faults in implementation rather than your cult of intent.' Consumers have an inherent, unspoken assumption that corporations will safeguard their private ... More information, however historically this has not been universally true. The most obvious trust issue is 'Will the corporations be good stewards of my personal information?' For instance, one recent vulnerability discovered within twelve brands permitted employees and possibly hackers to understand exactly where a vehicle has been over the past year within the accuracy of a parking space. Some 2024 vehicles from BYD, a leading Electric Vehicle (EV) automaker in China, had internal SIM cards that could transmit audio from inside the vehicle (e.g., the Atto 3) without the driver's knowledge. And a portion of OnStar's service that enables an insurance discount based upon drivers' habits for safe behavior shall be discontinued in 2025 since numerous privacy complaints, lawsuits, and a Federal Trade Commission ban (for providing precise geolocation data and driving behavior without adequate, affirmative consent) have made the business prohibitive and likely strained trust with some General Motors's customers. These are just a few examples from the past year, let alone the last thirty. On the positive side, digital information has the ability to provide an additional safety value. OnStar had a long-standing ad campaign called 'Real Stories' – and still has a devoted website – which featured customers' real-world accounting for technology saving their lives. Additional, innovative post-crash services have been birthed using digital information to improve the outcomes of the crash's victims. Even from a preventative standpoint, a whole sector of product development called Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) relies upon digital information going to and from the cloud to improve maps, algorithms, responses, etc. Yes, akin to Florence Nightengale, the social reformer, statistician and founder of modern nursing, the vehicle's flow of information can provide a heathier outcome and, therein, improve the digital trust. This discourse probably confuses and frustrates the reader even more. 'Which ONE vehicle can I trust? How do I parse through this to make a buying decision?' I'd love to give you the decoder ring or point you to the window sticker's 5-star rating for trust. But they don't exist. And it would be outdated tomorrow. Here's my best advice: watch the number of software recalls. If a brand has to keep cleaning-up its messes, it obviously hasn't figured out how to prevent the messes.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
The day the stew got through
1978 was one of the snowiest years on record in Daviess County. Snow started falling on Nov. 27, 1977. By Jan. 24, we had seen 21.5 inches of snow. By the time it finally stopped in late February, 41 inches had fallen, including the city's first official blizzard in more than 20 years on Jan. 25-26, with 5-foot drifts and 50 mph winds. Snow stayed on the ground for 46 days that winter — until Feb. 11. Only an Eskimo would consider that winter normal. The Green River District Nutrition Program had trouble getting meals to homebound people in rural areas. So, people like the Green River Bushwhackers Four-Wheel Drive Club pitched in to help get food to those in need. They had to make sure the chicken stew got through. That was in the days when almost everybody had a CB radio and a handle (nickname). Randy 'Purple Flash' Cowan and Wayne 'Caveman' Montgomery invited me to ride along as they delivered food to homes between Sorgho and Delaware on Feb. 1. The snowbanks were higher than the roof of the purple Jeep Renegade we were in. And there was still an inch or more of snow and ice on the roads. But they said on Jan. 17, the last time they had made the trip, the roads were covered with 14 inches of snow. This was a picnic in comparison. The food baskets they were delivering included orange and grapefruit juice, crackers, tea, oatmeal, pudding, chili con carne, chunky vegetable soup, spaghetti and meatballs, mac and cheese and chicken stew. Members of the Bushwhackers made 70 food deliveries in the county that day. It was a long day. But the gratitude on the faces of the people who got the food that day kept a warm glow in the Jeep all day on that day so long ago.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Yahoo
Family of missing man with schizophrenia plead for community's help finding him
The Brief Loved ones of a missing Rockdale County man are seeking the community's help finding him. The 39-year-old father of two was reported missing on February 24th after leaving his mother's home. He has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and recently became non-verbal. ROCKDALE COUNTY, Ga. - The search is on for a missing man believed to be suffering from a mental health episode. Loved ones of the 39-year-old Rockdale County father are now desperately asking for the community's help bringing him home. What we know Brandon Sistrunk was last seen on Feb. 20. According to his mother, the 39-year-old father of two walked out of her home on Old Covington Road at some point that day. Four days later, he was reported missing. An investigator with the Rockdale County Sheriff's Office has since been assigned to the case. The GBI also issued a Mattie's Call, Georgia's emergency missing alert for disabled or elderly persons, for Sistrunk, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder two years ago and is considered non-verbal. What they're saying For Paula Lewis, sleep has been difficult to come by in the 11 days since she last had any contact with her son. "We just really want him back home," she told FOX 5. Lewis says his mental health condition worsened to the point he could no longer speak within the last 6 months and that he'd previously been reported missing from his own apartment in Snellville as recently as this past December. Snellville police found him days later behind a building. He was taken to the hospital for treatment before being released into his mother's custody. Despite efforts to gather family and friends for search parties this time around, there haven't been any sightings of Brandon. Lewis fears without his meds and unable to communicate with others, he may be in serious danger. "We have been vigorously looking for him…riding around putting out flyers…my concern is without that medication, somebody's gonna hurt him," she said. What you can do Brandon is about 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 160 pounds and was last seen wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, gray jeans black gloves and an Eskimo hat. He's believed to be somewhere in the areas of Rockdale, DeKalb, Newton or Gwinnett Counties. Lewis says they plan to hold another search party this weekend. If you see him, call 911. or reach out to detectives with the Rockdale County Sheriff's Office. The Source FOX 5's Joi Dukes spoke with family and friends of Brandon Sistrunk as well as the Rockdale County Sheriffs' Office for this article.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Undertaker Recalls Questioning The End Of The Streak, ‘Brock Didn't Need It'
The Undertaker has revealed that he didn't think Brock Lesnar needed to be the one to break the streak. Time stopped in the Superdome in 2014 when the referee counted to three during the Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker match at WrestleMania 30. Defying all logic and 21 years of WrestleMania wins, The Undertaker lost after a third F5 as Brock Lesnar was announced as the winner. This ended The Undertaker's legendary 21-0 winning streak at WrestleMania. However, 'The Deadman' didn't think Brock Lesnar, a former WWE and UFC Champion, needed that accolade. While speaking with Busted Open Radio, The Undertaker explained how Vince McMahon told him he was losing at WrestleMania. He revealed that up until the day of WrestleMania he was supposed to win that match. When Vince McMahon told him of the result, he questioned it, arguing Lesnar didn't need to win the match. He named Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt as stars who needed the accolade more. 'I didn't feel like Brock needed it, right? Brock was… he was an attraction all to himself by that time. And people, you know, all the internet geniuses, they're saying, 'Well, he had lost this and he didn't do this and he didn't do that, he needed a win.' But Brock didn't need it. Would it have helped Bray? Obviously, it would have helped Bray. Would it have skyrocketed Roman? Probably, if they'd gotten that juice. But again, it wasn't my call. I questioned it,' The Undertaker said. 'I said, and you know, the thing that was most disturbing for me was when I got to the building that day. I was going over everything, so you know, it's early afternoon in the Superdome, and I'm in a room completely by myself. And then the old man walks in. And that just doesn't happen. As soon as I saw him, I knew right away, like, 'Okay, I know what's coming.' And you know, I've said it a million times: Vince can sell ice to an Eskimo, and he can. But this time, I questioned him. I gave my points, just wanted to make sure that he was sure. Because through the buildup, it had gone back and forth. It was like, 'Okay, Brock's going over.' No, no, no, no. 'Taker needs to keep this going for a little bit longer.' So it had gone back and forth. 'I'd been home. We'd finished. We'd done the last TV. I went home for a few days, no call, nothing. So now it's in my head. Now, you know, I'm putting the match together in my head. I'm visualizing things. Then again, he walks in, and I knew exactly why he was there. So it was just me questioning him: 'Are you sure this is what you want to do?' And to his credit, he said, 'Mark, if not him, who?'' The Undertaker added. RELATED: The post The Undertaker Recalls Questioning The End Of The Streak, 'Brock Didn't Need It' appeared first on Wrestlezone.
