NASCAR

NASCAR is where free speech crashes and burns

It’s Cinco de Mayo, and if you so much as think about using this day to indulge in Chili’s Margarita of the Month, I will have you undergoing sensitivity training faster than you can say “extra salt on the rim.” You see, applying a firm image to a person, thing, or group is wrong (even if it means massive profits for our Mexican neighbors by way of 335,000 gallons of tequila consumed on a single May 5). Or at least NASCAR thinks so, as the corporation plays politically correct whack-a-mole with drivers who say things they don’t like. The latest victim of almost-cancel culture is Denny Hamlin. Last Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway ended with Kyle Larson “battling for the win approaching the start-finish line,” reports the Charlotte Observer.

Let’s Go Brandon takes the charts by storm

It won’t surprise you to learn that Cockburn does not, generally speaking, listen to hip-hop. But he has been forced to make an exception for a new song by New Jersey rapper Loza Alexander. “Lets Go Brandon” [sic] has rocketed up the charts and now sits at number two on iTunes, sandwiched just between country star Walker Hayes’s “Fancy Like” and professional sad English lady Adele’s “Easy On Me”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr_F_XQrukM It was the song’s title that caught Cockburn’s eye: three words that he had seen all over the internet and heard chanted from the bleachers in recent weeks. Fortunately, Cockburn’s nieces were on hand to explain the meme’s origin.

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