Another NFL team has been shopping at the Terrible Uniform Store. The Pittsburgh Steelers occasionally appear in a uniform that makes them look like bumblebees. If you’ve seen it you know what I mean. I’m pretty sure it was designed by Dr. Seuss. A week or two back the Tampa Bay Bucs played the St. Louis Rams. Both teams played in top-to-shoes, solid-color uniforms — the Bucs red, the Rams gold — that made them look like they were wearing children’s pajamas, complete with footies. Today’s offense to the eyes comes courtesy of the Miami Dolphins, who are wearing solid green outfits, tending to aqua. Geez, it’s hard enough to try to deal with the New England Patriots when you players don’t look like tall bottles of mouthwash.

With my pancakes and coffee Sunday morning I ran across an Associated Press story in the Tampa Tribune sports page on how the 117 bowl games played Saturday enjoyed uniformly low television ratings. How could this happen in a football-happy country? The AP writer speculates the lack of interest may have something to do with the fact that the average margin of victory in these games was nine touchdowns. Hard to maintain interest in the fourth when your team is down 73-0.

But it’s still a puzzlement. I mean, who wouldn’t want to watch the Honey Boo Boo Bowl, which pitted the fighting Cumquats of South-East by North-West Louisiana Teachers College against Craters-of-the-Moon State. Okay, the Moonies lost all of their games this season and didn’t score a single touchdown. But they had some tough opponents, including Smith and Vassar (those babes aren’t big, but they stick like a bur).

Singer Natalie Cole passed away on Thursday of congestive heart failure. She was 65.

Cole, of course, was the daughter of legendary singer Nat King Cole. She would achieve fame in her own right a decade after his death with a string of r&b hits during the mid to late 1970's. Drug abuse would curtail her career during most of the 1980's, but she would get back on track late that decade. Cole is probably best known for a 1991 vocal re-mix of her father's classic hit "Unforgettable". During this period, Cole mostly recorded jazz music. 

In recent years, as a result of her earlier drug abuse. Cole struggled with Hepatitis C, liver and kidney diseasse. In 2009, she underwent a kidney transplant. Those health problems accelerated in December forcing her to cancel a series of concerts before eventually being hospitalized.

The Natalie Cole song with which I am most familiar is "This Will Be" which was her first big hit and would earn her a Grammy Award. You can watch this video of her performing the song on British TV in the 1970's.

Yesterday, I learned that Hillary Clinton had described ISIS' barbarism towards Christians and other religious minorities as "genocide" while reading a post by NRO editor-at-large Kathryn Jean Lopez who said, "Thank you Hillary Clinton."

It is a significant development because until now the Obama Administration has been unwilling to use that word where it concerns ISIS treatment of Christians and other religious minorities

Over at the WaPo, Michelle Boorstein writes, "Hillary Clinton’s use of the word “genocide” to describe the Islamic State’s treatment of Christians could change her political profile among some voters — conservative Christians in particular."