Nothing Aside

Kick Them Out

By now everyone has seen footage of the fiasco in Detroit.  Professional small forward hack Ron Artest came down intentionally hard on Pistons big man Ben Wallace, prompting Wallace to push Artest in the face.  Artest decided to make a drama out of the situation and laid down on the scorers table to emphasize how much of a victim he was in the situation. 

He was then hit by a beer thrown by someone in the crowd.  Wrong move by the idiot in the crowd, no doubt.  But then Artest jumped into the crowd!  You can't do that!  No matter what the fans do, players can not jump into the crowd and attack fans.  These players are machines - athletes with 4% body fat - against stumpy Pistons fans with 60% body fat.  No contest. 

I mention all this though, because I've been sickened by how it has been covered in the media and how much of a pass the players themselves have gotten.  All of the focus has been on the "problems with our society" and the "out of control fans."  Well what about the idea that Ron Artest is just a goon?  Has anyone thought of that? 

Yesterday CNN had a poll asking viewers if they agreed with the suspensions.  What kind of question is that?  Presumably everyone who says "yes" thinks Artest got exactly what he deserved with a year long suspension, while everyone who answered "no" was presumed to have thought it was too harsh. 

Well I have a new catagory: It was a slap on the wrist.  Only the remainder of the season?  Artest attacked - assaulted - a fan.  So did Jermaine O'Neal.  So did Stephen Jackson.  In my view, Artest and O'Neal should be banned from the league... indefinately.  That kind of behavior is completely unacceptable.  I'm sick of professional athletes making excuses about being "disrespected" by fans in this instance.  That's not what its about. 

Artest should be an example of what the NBA does not stand for, not what it puts up with.  Latrell Sprewell must be wondering what a guy has to do to get kicked out of the league.  Sprewell tried to choke his own coach.  He attacked someone in the league, and not nearly as harshly as what we saw the other night in Detroit from Artest and O'Neal.  Seriously, what would it take for a player to get kicked out of the NBA?  That's a frightening thought. 

All I've heard from commentators and former players is how to keep the players safe from the fans and how to maintain security between the players and fans.  Hmm.  Maybe get rid of the players who don't respect the game enough not to destroy it through a stupid act like this.

Artest is a goon and shouldn't be allowed to represent the NBA.  I don't care how good he or the others are, this is the sort of thing the NBA needs to come down harshly on.  Artest should be gone for good from the league and O'Neal should be about an inch from the same. 

And, both should be arrested for assault.  There is no excuse for them not to be.  There was no self-defense.  Beer won't hurt you.  The fist of a professional athlete will.  Just because they are on the court of a professional sporting event does not make them exempt from the law.  C'mon Detroit police.  I want to see some charges. 

No more pretending like this was all the fault of the fans.  That's just stupid and gives players an excuse to be irresponsible.  Artest gave a blackeye to the league on friday - not to mention the one he gave to several fans in Detroit.

A Pot Luck of Missed Posts

Wow, I've been really behind on posting. To catch up this will be a mixed bag collection of stuff I have meant to get to but haven't had the time to post about.

First, the second debate: I was en route to West Virginia on a service trip last friday night for the second debate at Wash U. in St. Louis. However, I was able to hear most of it on the radio. It seemed, at least on the radio, that Bush was almost yelling - as if he was so profoundly unclear as to how people could not understand his version of reality that if he said it louder people would understand better. It was like the classic moment between a Japanese tourist and an American host. The Japanese tourist has trouble understanding our English so instead of speaking clearer or simplifying our language, we just speak louder as if it would help. Same thing with Bush. On the whole, Kerry didn't do quite as well as the first debate (how could he, really?) while Bush I'm guessing came off a bit better than the first debate (how could he not after that horrible performance?). Unfortunately it seems as if the simple fact that Bush improved relative to his first performance and Kerry didn't really improve on perfection was taken by many as a "draw" between the two. Far from it: Kerry won.

Second, the third debate: I watched it all and thought that it was certainly Kerry's worst performance and it was Bush's best performance. Now, that's not to say that Kerry was anything below 'good,' but in comparison it was his worst. It's akin to saying that in the first debate Kerry was an 85 while Bush was a 40, in the second debate Kerry was a 75 and Bush was a 45, and in the last debate Kerry was a 70 while Bush pushed up to 50. It's that kind of thing. Again, unfortunately it appears that the media have declared the last two of these debates to be "draws" instead of the quite apparent wins that they actually were.

Third, my time in West Virginia: a group of students from Kenyon spent our fall break long weekend in Garrett's Bend, West Virginia helping the county director of parks with various projects that he is otherwise unable to complete due to a lack of labor. This time around we helped spread woodchips over a playground (a playground we had built 3 years ago). My point though, is about my discussion with Jim, our wonderful host. We try to avoid talking politics down there since it could cause some friction, but since my friend John had a "Sportsmen for Kerry" button he wanted to give to Jim, we pushed the subject. In the course of our conversation, Jim eventually declared that the reason he was going to "cross party lines and vote for Bush" was that he "didn't like some things Kerry has said about homosexuals." He justified this position saying, in effect, "The Bible is all about choices. That's their choice to be gay or lesbian or whatever. That's fine, but I don't agree with it." It's plain frustrating. Jim is somewhat of a born-again Methodist in the past few years and we have watched the transformation over the past few years. I didn't want to burn bridges or anything so we didn't push it much further, but I couldn't help but wonder a few things. First, does he really think being homosexual is a choice? If so Mary Cheney made one of the worst choices ever to be lesbian as the daughter of a very conservative Republican Vice President. Does that make sense? Second, no matter how we tried to steer the conversation, Jim kept bringing it back to how West Virginia needs jobs and, especially, how Lincoln county needs some revival in order to help the people. It was clear that jobs were the most important issue to Jim and he essentially said as much, but nevertheless, he was voting based on the wedge issue that Karl Rove had presented to him. Sigh.

Fourth, and this is part of the previous point: when can we stop calling opposition to homosexuality "social issues" and just call it what it is: discrimination. It's just a code word for limiting the rights of people who are who they are because they were born that way. I'm pretty sure that that is discrimination. Let's stop pretending like it's some moral, cultural issue and call it what it really is. Racism isn't a "social issue." Anti-semitism isn't a "social issue." And neither should the open double standard reserved for homosexual Americans in this country.

Fifth, I don't care about either the Yankees or the Red Sox beyond this simple fact: I can't stand either team and ideally would like to see both of them lose. The Yankees, for obvious reasons, are quite detestible. Every year they buy the top 25 players in baseball and then every year celebrate as if it's a God given right to win. Plus their fans are the most obnoxious in the world. The Red Sox because, well, they think they're tortured. Let me clue the Sox fans in on a little something: torture is not having year after year of winning seasons. "Oh the poor Red Sox haven't been to the World Series since 1986! Poor them!" I don't buy it. Look at the two teams that have gone the longest since winning a World Series. One of course is the Cubs. That's right. We know a thing or two about torture in Chicago. 1908. That hurts. Who is the other team that has gone longer than the Red Sox since winning a World Series? It's that other Sox team: The Chicago White Sox. That's right, both total losers reside in the Windy City. So, no more complaining from Boston. I don't want to hear it.

Sixth, this might in fact be the worst collection of teams ever assembled in the American League Championship Series and National League Championship Series ever. The Yankees? Can't stand them. The Red Sox? See above. The Astros? Guh. Where did they come from? Why did they have to ruin the Cubs' season by coming out of nowhere at the end of the season and grab that Wild Card spot? That was uncalled for. And finally, the Cardinals. Wow. The Cubs' arch rival. St. Louis - the city that wants to be Chicago so bad it can't stand itself. There is nothing to like about the Cardinals. These four teams make up the four reasons why the post-season is never any fun for Cubs fans.

OK, that's all. I'll try to get back to regular posting soon.

Cubs Never Fail To Disappoint

I should have expected nothing more from them than this.

After being in a tight battle for the National League wild card pretty much all year, the Cubs decided to flame out in their last few games, therefore missing yet another post-season appearance. They lost a few to the Reds in their second to last series, leaving their playoff hopes in the hands of two other teams, the Giants and the Astros. You just can't lose seven of your last eight and expect to make it into the Big Show.

To their credit however, the Cubs did manage to win one more game (89-73) than they did last season (88-74) when the did make it to the playoffs and proceeded to (gulp) lose after being five outs away from the World Series. Sigh. We won't talk about that though....

What's most frustrating about all this is that this year may have been the peak year in terms of talent. When the Cubs picked up Nomar Garciaparra it immediately became clear that after the season the team would have some tough choices. They clearly could not afford to keep all of their stars so this year was the best shot at winning; it was the year when all the talent had aligned.

So what do the Cubs do now? They must choose between some great players. Do they keep Nomar or Moises Alou? If they somehow keep both, can they afford to keep Matt Clement? And what about the second base combo of Todd Walker and Mark Grudzielanek? All of these key players are free agents and in all likelihood half of them will be gone. It's a shame the Cubs couldn't pull out some wins in order to do something exciting with the current collection of stars.

Wait 'till next year, I guess.

The Olympics In HD

Just watched the Athens Olympics Opening Ceremony in HD on NBC. Great picture, great way to watch the historic event.

A few complaints:

- It started an hour later than the regular NBC station. What is that about? We don't need a recap of the 2002 Winter Olympics figure skating performance. I know how it ended: Kwan gets beat by the other little American girl and the Russian one. NBC seems to have forgotten that this is a summer Olympics. If there's going to be a recap they should show the 2000 Games.

- The regular NBC station got all the good analysis and graphics while the HD station just tried to dazzle its audience with the picture. That's great and all, but if you already have the HD you kind of already know about the great picture. Don't skimp on the population and athlete numbers which the regular NBC station got. Plus, regular NBC got Bob Costas while HD got some smuck who couldn't pronounce half the countries. Why was it a different telecast anyway?

- Why show the same commercial at every commercial break. And why was it the only commercial they had? And why was it an ad telling us the virtues of HD if we clearly already have HD if we're watching the ad. If I ever see that Sony commercial with a guy watching "the game" and suddenly hundreds of people show up outside his window asking if they can watch the game with him saying, "We brought chips... and salsa!" I may go insane. Seriously NBC needs to get more than one commercial for a four hour show.

- So we've got bad color commentary from the NBC HD announcers and a commercial that drives a person insane, so why repeat it? At one point in the parade of nations an entire segment was repeated. We saw Swaziland twice. We saw Sudan twice. Why would they do that to us?

For all the hype about HD, NBC really dropped the ball. It showed one commercial probably two dozen times, it repeated a segment and it couldn't even keep up with the quality of commentary on its regular station. Very disappointing.

Nomaaah

Huge move by the Cubs. Huge.

Playoffs here we come.

Six

Lance Armstrong is a machine. While everyone else was taking a break from training in the weeks after the big race, Lance was right back at it, racing himself on the miles of pavement in Texas. It has paid off once again.

I once heard a story about how Lance once got a call while he was out riding in Texas from one of his German rivals. His rival was drunk and was calling to tell Lance about the great time he was missing. Lance said he didn't have time to talk. His rival asked him what could be so important that he couldn't speak to one of his friends. Lance told him he was out training once again. At that moment his rival knew he had already lost the next Tour that was still more than nine months away.

Lance deserves all the praise he has gotten. He truely is an inspiration. Some people are more impressed than othersaaaaaaaaa, but Lance is indeed amazing.

Six. Wow. Well done.