Kansas-Kansas State Basketball Brawl Had A Lot Of Extras Action

By Tony Mangia

A frightening basketball brawl broke out near the end of No. 3 Kansas'  81-59 victory vs. Kansas State at Phog Allen Fieldhouse on Tuesday night. In what looked like some wild-west fight scene out of a movie, dozens of players, coaches and a whole cast of extras, excuse me, background actors, got caught up in the crazy melee on the court and in the stands.

All that was missing were cowboy hats and swinging saloon doors.

The fracas started after Kansas' Silvio De Sousa swatted DaJuan Gordon on a breakaway as time expired. After the play, De Sousa stood over Gordon and when Kansas State's Cartier Diarra approached De Sousa, the rumble was on. 

Besides the principal players, the action includes a curious mix of casting call fill-ins unsuspectingly making the scene seem like an almost surreal, stage-blocked film shot. 

Props department, make sure a metal stool is positioned so that De Sousa can grab it and cock it back above his head and start the scene.

Rolling ... background ... action!

An all-out brawl just happened. pic.twitter.com/73MBmr0RNf

— Riley Gates (@Riley_Gates) January 22, 2020

First, and out of nowhere, there was some dude in white skinny jeans getting involved and setting off a mad rush by players from both teams towards K-State's side of the court. The fight spilled into the stands and disabled section as players from both benches tussled and punches were thrown. 

Benches emptied at the end of the Kansas State-Kansas game. pic.twitter.com/zWv46h3RJC

— ESPN (@espn) January 22, 2020

Then, after Skinny Jeans Guy, a whole cast of odd background characters gets caught in the frenzy.

Terrified Girl was the first.

Cue the Male Cheerleader actually holding back A Stunned Cop.

And Guy in Yellow Security Shirt got some prime face time.

Finally, if that wasn't enough, Where's Waldo was even spotted in the scene.

De Sousa was given an unsporting technical foul and a future suspension seems inevitable. All players who left the bench were ejected and could face further penalties as well. 

The two schools will be featured together again Feb. 29 in Manhattan, Kansas.

And the extras ... well, they got their big screen breaks.

India’s Camel Culture Being Wiped Out By Advocacy Groups and Government Regulations

Article and Photos by Tony Mangia

It’s a cultural tradition dating back over 150 years with roots going back as far back as the 10th century when Muslim warriors made their way through the deserts of India on hump-backed beasts by way of the Middle East. Now the Pushkar Camel Fair is fighting for its life and basically the livelihood of thousands of families and their way of existing.

Every year, for the last century and a half, thousands of Raika camel dealers and their herds converge on the rural Indian city of Pushkar during an annual fair where they show, trade and sell the plump-lipped mammals with the fat-laden (not water) padding on their backs.

During the week long fest known as Pushkar Camel Mela, the holy city of Pushkar — located about 150 km southwest of the smoggy, congested streets of Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan — turns into a colorful and chaotic mix of camel traders, Hindu pilgrims and curious tourists.  While the fair has lost some of its majesty and commercial importance in modern India, the festival still attracts thousands of Raika and their herds of dromedaries along with thousands more foreign sightseers and local merchants.

The scene is almost hallucinatory, as throngs of camels — many adorned with bells, colorful necklaces and decorative straps to make them more attractive to buyers — lounge around chewing their cud and bellowing at the sky.

                                          

It’s hard not to notice the circles of peaceful Raika in their bright turbans talking among the braying camels — many of which are hobbled by ropes binding a front leg bent at the knee joint so they don't stray. But, these days, instead of making deals, the conversations lean more towards how they they can make ends meet. Sunlight from a dazzling blue sky illuminate the brown, weathered faces of the beleaguered tribesmen, but their futures don’t seem as bright.

Animal rights groups, technological accessibility and government intervention are all playing a part in the disintegration of the camel trade in India and specifically in Pushkar by driving many of these prideful men out of their generational territories through legislation influenced by politically correct movements.

Advocates of camel welfare reform accuse the Raika of animal culture "abuses" such as making the camels walk long distances, being forced into "stressful" commercial exploitation like tourist rides, the insertion of nose pegs, camel racing and general neglect of their herds.

While their deep-down motives are well intentioned, one has to wonder if these do-gooders are overstepping their boundaries?

The one-time friendly confines of social media which introduced the fair to computer screens worldwide — as well as more prying eyes — is now sometimes besmirching the event with accusations of animal cruelty and environmental destruction or by luring future generations away from the deserts to the cities with the promise of a more modern life. It’s not an uncommon phenomenon. Farmers and breeders all over India, China and worldwide have watched their agrarian and herding heritages slowly vanish because of the same cyberspace catalysts.

The Raika camel husbandry community has always been more like a large family than a merchant's association, and that includes the revered camels — who can live up to 20 years. And throughout their lifetimes, caretakers must provide medicine, food and training for each animal. It's a costly and round-the-clock occupation.

India, as a country, has the fifth largest population of camels in the world (estimated at around 300,000) and, although the camels' numbers are increasing globally, in India, that figure — as well as the the Raika's plight — are falling drastically. This downward slide in camel population and commerce trickles down from the breeders to the traders all the way to the artisans who utilize the wool, skin, bones and even camel dung to make blankets, leather goods, furniture inlays and paper.

The state of Rajasthan is where nearly 80-percent of India's camel population is. Gujarat and Haryana are the only other states where camel breeding is allowed.

Recent laws imposed by the government — driven and publicized by environmentalists and animal rights movements — are changing the Raika way of life by restricting tribesmen from traditional herding grounds and resources. Some of the restrictions includes less access to national parkland and stiffer grazing laws — limiting their migratory patterns and making their journeys to Pushkar and other locales more arduous for the camel herds. 

And there are other obstacles the modern-day Raika must overcome to make ends meet — including revising some ancient traditions and spiritual beliefs.

Historically, there was a ban on the selling of female camels to buyers outside of the Raika tribe and tradition forbade the slaughter of camels for meat entirely. Even selling the wool and the processing of camel's milk (drinking it fresh is okay) was believed to bring about a sort of bad karma and frowned upon. The only income for the Raika was really through breeding and selling.

However dire the Raika's sinking outlook from the quicksand of their circumstances came some flimsy lifelines — namely, new radical and pragmatic attitudes by the herdsmen.

Bull (male) camels — which were the only ones sold at the fair until 2000, when cows (females) were finally permitted to be put on the selling block — are now allowed to be butchered for meat by the Raika tribe, but not in Rajasthan where the slaughter of camels is illegal. 

The Catch-22 dilemma facing the Rajasthan-based Raika is that the Rajasthan Camel Act of 2015 provides penalties for taking any camels out of state for slaughter, castration or the insertion of nose pegs. That legal decree, like a camel's leg tether, basically restricts the Raika's ability to supplement their income by slaughtering their camels for meat.

All states have banned the butchering of any cows (female camels) outright to help sustain the camel species.

The Rajasthan Camel Act's strict maxims now drives some herders to illegally sneak them into Gujarat and Haryana for slaughter. And, in addition to avoiding authorities, the Raika also face the possibility of dealing with interference from animal rights activists who reportedly try and rescue the camels.

It's seems ironic, and almost blasphemous to the Raika, that the herdsmen have been reduced to killing their sacred camels — an act once considered barbaric in their beliefs — to salvage their culture of camel breeding.