Monthly Archives: October 2010

Dwayne Wade, Eric Spoelstra, LeBron James, Miami Heat, Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen

The Heat’s Dis-Factor

Discombobulated. Disjointed. Disgusting.
Those are just a few of the words that were thrown around last night by NBA pundits and analysts after the LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, the Miami Heat’s “Big Three,” lost their opener against the Boston Celtics, 88-80, on Tuesday night.
And anytime you’re “dis-“ anything, it’s not good. In fact, with all the dis-ing of the Heat, I have expected the old “Oregon Trail” game to pop up and alert us of someone succumbing to dysentery on the wagon trail.
Let’s not overreact here. It was one game. The trio played a grand total of three minutes together in preseason. As Heat head coach Eric Spoelstra said, it’s going to take time to work out the kinks.
“In practice, it looked a lot different than this,” Spoelstra said. “There is going to be a process with this. There’s a lot of expectations and a lot of pressure out there, but we have our own timetable, and we knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”
Hold that thought. We’ll come back to it.
James noted that it was like they were trying to be too unselfish, which was a concern last July when “The Decision” was announced – who’s going to defer, who’s the alpha dog, what are their roles?  For one night, there was no alpha dog, just an ugly display of three guys who used to be “The Man” on their respective teams trying to figure out their spots, find their rhythm and when they should attack or defer.
Before we write it off as a massive failure, as some are trying to do, let’s give it time. For example, James did take over the game for a stretch in the third quarter with both Paul Pierce (who was hurt momentarily, as he always is in a nationally televised game) and Wade out. He ended with 31 points. During that time, it was obvious – at least to me – that he was playing the Scottie Pippen role perfectly.
If that came off as an backhanded compliment, well, it was.
Pippen used to do that perfectly. Defer to Jordan, create for Jordan, himself and others, then when Jordan was resting, take over for stretches. That’s James true calling now. Play the point-forward, create, slash, post-up. In fact, he’s better, talent-wise, in that role than Pippen. Essentially, however, that’s what James is going to have to be to make it work in Miami.
People forget how good Pippen was. During the year Jordan was out in 1993-94, Pippen was an MVP candidate that led the Bulls to a 30-5 record at the All-Star break. He averaged 22 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 steals per game. He was the All-Star MVP and though everyone remembers him that season for the freak-out during the Eastern Conference semifinals, when Pippen refused to play when Phil Jackson drew up a play for Toni Kukoc for the game winner, Pippen was basically what LeBron James was in Cleveland.
(Side note: Jackson doesn’t get enough blame for that issue. Pippen waited for years to be “The Man” and all that came with it, including plays for game winners in the playoffs draw up for him. Jackson slapped him in the face with the Kukoc play. Did Pippen overreact? Absolutely. Did Kukoc hit the shot, making Pippen look enough more foolish? Of course. But Jackson’s gotten a pass on the way he handled the situation for way too long.)
So we get it. It’s a work in progress. It will take time. As Wade said post-game, “Sorry if everyone thought we were going 82-0. It wasn’t going to happen.” His sarcasm aside, Wade is right.
Then why are people so…annoyed?
Perhaps it’s because we expected more from James. We are all witnesses, right? He’s the Chosen One. The King. And he chose to play with the best instead of beat the best. James is entitled to do what he wants, listen to whomever he wants and play wherever he wants. It’s his life, not ours.
Yet when you take on the role of Chosen One and tell people you’ve spoiled them with your play, you’re going to get backlash. When you host a special called “The Decision” and spurn Cleveland for the beaches and bright lights of Miami, you’re making those people recall all the hurt and pain of losing big games and championship and years of futility. To make matters worse, it was a stone’s throw from your hometown of Akron.
Is it partly our fault? Fine, we’ll take some of the blame for it. We want athletes to act a certain way and do certain things and they don’t, so we get mad and turn on them. We can say that we would have done differently, but maybe that’s just because none of us have the option, so it’s easy to say how professional and classy we would have been.
I can tell you right now, without hesitation, if three or four of my friends and I played in the NBA and had a chance to join the same team, I would do it in a second. I play in a Y-League each winter with five good friends, who all played college ball, and we never had the opportunity to play real games together, due to the high schools or colleges we went to or our ages. It’s small potatoes compared to this, but we’ve won by 30 or more every time we step on the court. It’s really not fair, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Though the talent difference and situation are not relatable, the feeling completely is. When you break it down like that, I’m not only a witness, but probably a hypocrite. We want to see Magic vs. Bird, Jordan vs. Magic, etc. We don’t want James and Wade against Kobe. It just doesn’t seem like a real slugfest, superstar vs. superstar, so therefore we feel cheated. And that makes us not like James very much right now.
That’s silly, I admit. The man can do what he wants. And our selfish reasons for wanting true greatness and the next Jordan are a part of this animosity and venom we have for James.
But there’s another part, the part where James isn’t helping himself. The latest Nike ad, for example. Is it cool? Oh yeah – a minute and a half of pure retaliation to all the haters. Eating a donut, winking and saying, “Hi Chuck” – and obvious nod to Charles Barkley, who called “The Decision” a punk move. It’s basically a sarcastic “What Should I Have Done Differently?” to the masses and for a little while, you kind of feel sorry for what James has gone through.
Then you remember: he brought this on himself. Though the whole process, the recruitment, the comments, “The Decision” and even what could be termed “The Unveiling,” when Wade, James and Bosh all donned Heat uniforms, posed, high-fived Miami fans and did a little press junket in July – James has gulped up and enjoyed nearly everything until “The Backlash.”
James has selfish reasons too. And he’s allowed. Just remember, the more he plays into it and continues to even respond, the longer it will take for people to get over it and just watch this team mesh in a possibly better overall version of Jordan, Pippen and Rodman. It won’t be easy, as Spoelstra said. It shouldn’t be easy, championships are supposed to be hard. And that was our original problem with James taking the easy way out.
We wanted to witness the struggle and the resolve to win a title as an alpha dog. But that’s our problem. 
James’ and his cohorts problem will be to not play this up as something larger or more challenging than it is. They can’t make this seem like some great struggle to gel together, find their roles and win. It may take some time, but it shouldn’t take until February. We’ll deal with this “poor us, we have to learn to play together” attitude, but only for a short time. The Heat really should be good and fun to watch. Watching James become the greatest distributor and creator in a hybrid Pippen/Magic Johnson role should be fun. The joy is in watching that transition.
If we can’t enjoy watching all of that happen with James and the Heat and all we’re waiting for is a train wreck because we want to witness the downfall, well, at that point, there’s another “dis-“ word in mind.
Disinterested.
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Sudden Impact

The NFL could soon start suspending players for dangerous helmet-to-helmet hits, vice president of football operations Ray Anderson told The Associated Press on Monday.
After a Sunday of violent hits and concussion inducing collisions, Anderson said the league might need to do more than fining players to prevent such hits.
“There’s strong testimonial for looking readily at evaluating discipline, especially in the areas of egregious and elevated dangerous hits,” he said in a phone interview. “Going forward there are certain hits that occurred that will be more susceptible to suspension. There are some that could bring suspensions for what are flagrant and egregious situations.”
Anderson said the NFL could make changes in its approach immediately, with Commissioner Roger Goodell having the final say. League officials will consult with the union, but he didn’t expect any opposition.
Philadelphia Eagles’ wide receiver DeSean Jackson and Dunta Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons’ were knocked out on the same play after a helmet-to-helmet collision, while Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison sidelined two Cleveland Browns players with head injuries after jarring hits.
“The fundamentally old way of wrapping up and tackling seems to have faded away,” Anderson said. “A lot of the increase is from hits to blow guys up. That has become a more popular way of doing it. Yes, we are concerned they are getting away from the fundamentals of tackling, and maybe it has been coached that way. We’re going to have to look into talking to our coaches.”
Retired safety Rodney Harrison, now an analyst for NBC, was fined more than $200,000 during his career and was suspended for one game in 2002 for a helmet-to-helmet hit.
“You didn’t get my attention when you fined me 5 grand, 10 grand, 15 grand,” he said during the “Sunday Night Football” broadcast. “You got my attention when I got suspended and I had to get away from my teammates and I disappointed my teammates from not being there. But you have to suspend these guys. These guys are making millions of dollars.”
If no one else will say it, Hall of Fame wide receiver Cris Carter will: how do you want the players to hit, then? In the knees? In the chest? They already are.
If you watch most of – repeat, most of – the hits that have caused a stir or drawn a fine over the last decade, most players lowered their shoulders and hit for the chest, in order to separate the man from the ball – as they had been taught. Yes, some players lead with their helmet – and those players are fined and suspended, rightfully.
But a player hitting the same way as they always have doesn’t beg legislation from the league. Something wrong happened that rarely does – a bad angle, too much or too little speed by one of the players involved. Carter said on ESPN’s Mike & Mike In The Morning that perhaps Jackson’s concussion was caused by him going too fast across the middle against a zone defense.
So should we have a no speeding zone in the middle of the field?
I, for one, never got riled up during the big push to protect quarterbacks in recent years. Stationary players standing upright and unprepared while someone tees off on them at full speed is just dumb. But moving players are going to collide.
Here’s the dirty little secret over the not-so-new issue regarding hard hits and concussions in football: we really don’t care, and kind of like it, as long as it’s not us or one of our favorite players.
There’s really no denying it. It’s one of the joys of football – hard hits.
Sound crass? C’mon, get off your high horse.
Tell me, how many of you haven’t shrieked in delight or let out an “OOOOHHHHHH” watching a replay of some guy getting de-cleated? There’s a segment on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” pregame show called “Jacked Up!” where the studio crew watch some plays, laugh and shout, “You got jacked up!”
And you’re telling me we don’t celebrate the big hit?
There was an NFL video game for year’s called “Blitz.” The very premise of the game was hits. The sounds from the game were always bone-crushing noises and grunts on every play. Late hits and pass interference were allowed. Players often performed wrestling moves during the tackles. Literally. Like, body slams, leg drops, elbow drops, flying kicks to the face and DDTs. “Blitz” was basically made as a cross between Mortal Kombat, the NFL and NBA Jam’s video game series.
It was also one of the most popular and successful sports video game chains.
What relevance does this have to the discussion? Well, for decades we’ve celebrated football’s violence and gladiator style combat, while turning around and displaying shock and sadness when something bad inevitably happens.
They same guys jovially conversing about who got “Jacked up!” worse suddenly get somber and stoic when the topic turns to those same violent hits ending careers or the players suffering concussions. There is concern in their voices and it’s often addressed in hushed tones.
Many former players, like Carter, say it’s just a part of the game and a football reality. Carter’s suggestion: widen the field. Give the bigger, stronger, faster athletes of the modern area more freedom to move and create space.
You know what the next discussion would be, right? How much scoring is up, how it is too hard to tackle anyone and how football has lost some of its edge.
Watching replays at halftime of Indianapolis Colts – Washington Redskins game on “Sunday Night Football,” you could have heard me laughing three houses down as the kicker for the Seattle Seahawks got whacked like he’d wiped out on a wake board during Devin Hester’s return for a touchdown.
My son was watching the highlights with me. He just completed his first year of tackle football – and he played quite well, earning a selection to the All-Star team. He laughed at the silly kicker flying backward, too.
Just about an hour later, after my son had long been in bed, I wasn’t laughing anymore.
The Colts Joseph Addai had just taken a nasty hit (about the 10th NFL player of the day to take one). Addai’s was one of those where the player falls straight to the ground without moving on the way down, resembling the Apollo Creed death scene in “Rocky IV.”
He didn’t move for what felt like an eternity. When he finally did and the training staff had Addai back on his feet, he had that look of a stumbling drunk, eyes dazed and lids slowly moving up and down. Redskins linebacker London Fletcher, who had delivered the hit, tried to check on Addai the entire time he was being helped off the field.
NBC cameras showed Fletcher’s face perfectly clear: scared and regretful. You could tell he felt terrible.
So did I.
Down the hall slept an eight-year-old boy with some bruises on his arms and legs from two months of football, who hit hard and always got up. He still has six games left for All-Stars. Terrified, I thought about what if my son was the one on the receiving end. What if he was the one “jacked up”? I certainly wouldn’t be laughing.
I want him to play football as long as he wants to.
But, I’m too afraid we’re going to have to watch someone die on the field. Too afraid my son would see it and it would somehow affect the way he plays or approaches the game. Too afraid, of something I can’t even write.
You always hear there’s no room for fear in the game of football. And there isn’t.
But the room left absent by fear shouldn’t be filled with the darkness of disabilities, concussions and life-altering hits.
We can find some kind of room in the middle, can’t we?
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Jim Gray, Randy Moss, Reporting Sources, Tom Brady

An Unconfirmed Report on Sources

To hear some reports, former New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss was going to be traded in the offseason. Then it was after Week 1 and his 17-minute “tirade” against the press. And then it was after he called Patriots quarterback Tom Brady “a girl.”
Yes, two guys who by all appearances got along fine, reportedly got into a tussle in the week leading up to the Patriots game against the Dolphins on Monday, October 4.
According to a CBS Sports report by former NFL general manager Charley Casserly, Moss and Brady had an argument and had to be separated. Casserly said that Brady had grown tired of the way Moss was behaving and at one point Brady told him to “shave his beard.”
“Moss countered, you need to get your hair cut. You look like a girl,” said Casserly, a former NFL GM.
Catfight!
Except, not really. No one will confirm the story. Now, no one would expect notoriously tight-lipped Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to confirm the story, and naturally, he did not, saying early this week that the alleged incident was “news to me.”
However, earlier today, Patriots defensive back Brandon Meriweather told Boston sports radio station WEEI that he also had not heard of anything as described above happening between Brady and Moss.
On NBC’s “Football Night in America” and in his SI.com column, “Monday Morning Quarterback”, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King noted that two highly placed sources within the Patriots’ organization called the report false. Then, Comcast SportsNet New England reported it as untrue as well.
So who do we believe? What’s the truth anymore? 
On the heels of the Brett Favre saga, which is now under a heavy NFL investigation, how are we to believe anything unless it’s from the people directly involved? Better yet, the question is, where do news sources come from these days? How credible are they?
To me, this isn’t about a shave and a haircut, but whether or not our news coverage, sports or otherwise, has turned into an ongoing grocery checkout lane of OK Magazine, Star and People.
What happened to hard news reporting, with credible sources? Earlier this summer, there was the Jim Gray – Corey Pavin war of words, based on Gray quoting Pavin as saying Tiger Woods would be on the Ryder Cup team. Pavin denied it, Gray called him a liar and said that Pavin “was going down.”
Woods ended up on the Ryder Cup team.
The lines have been blurred before between reporters and the subjects they cover. Gray, for example, is known to be close with both Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. On the night Bryant was accused of sexual assault in 2003, Gray went on ESPN and defended Bryant’s character. And of course, Gray was the only other man on stage in early July as James announced his basketball future on the special, “The Decision.”
Ahmad Rashad, a former athlete himself, was close with Michael Jordan and O.J. Simpson. Rashad often gave softball-type interviews of Jordan, despite whispers of gambling and infidelity. One of my favorite current writers, Jason Whitlock, is close friends with former teammate Jeff George and generally campaigns for a team in need of a quarterback to look at George, despite his advancing age. 
People play favorites all the time. Many politicians have had close ties with the media. One of my favorite stories is how John F. Kennedy kept the news of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 from leaking before he had a chance to address the nation by making a simple phone call to publisher Orville Dryfoos and urging him to hold the story. Dryfoos held the story, despite having held on the Bay of Pigs story a year earlier.
Friends tell friends tidbits of inside information all the time. It takes on new meaning when one is a reporter, or actively portraying one on television in between coaching jobs. Here’s the problem – the information received are basically bits and pieces of the truth.
Perhaps Moss and Brady were playfully talking to each other when the “shave your beard” and “cut your hair” comments were made. Friends and teammates playfully cut on each other all the time. If someone walks in and out of the room quickly, doesn’t get the context, the next thing you know, it’s on SportsCenter.
As Billy Chrystal depicted in the film “*61”, the newspapers often spoke of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle’s friendship falling apart during their pursuit of Babe Ruth’s single season home run record in 1961. TV reports would talk about how the two were at each others throats. Mantle and Maris would be simultaneously laughing at these bogus stories over dinner in the apartment they shared that season.
We should have learned this a thousand times before: we don’t know anything about these people. From Tiger Woods to Brett Favre, we don’t know who they are. But even more so, neither do the people covering them or interviewing them.
Most of the information we receive these days are “unconfirmed” reports appearing as news items. What happened to all of the primary sources? You know, actual firsthand accounts? At best, what we get in the current age of media are tertiary sources (compilations based on primary sources). Some are secondary sources, accounts based on evidence from primary sources.
What we all get now is “reports” or “unconfirmed reports” – naturally begging the question why we’d report on an unconfirmed report? If “details are sketchy” at the moment, then why are you on the air?
Just for fun, Google “Reporting unconfirmed reports.” You don’t get links on the first page to how to report or how not to report something that hasn’t been confirmed. Instead it’s stuff like this:
  • Missouri headed to the Big Ten – Apr. 30, 2010
  • Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z pregnant – Mar. 26, 2010
  • AP France Unconfirmed Report – Bin Laden Dead?
Turns out Bin Laden was just ‘very ill’, Nebraska went to the Big 10, not Missouri, and unless Beyonce is really good at hiding pregnancy weight for seven months, she’s not having a baby anytime soon.
We’d be better off with Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds, since our current news comes off like some combination of OK Magazine and TMZ. Just look at the screens of news channels: CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ESPN – rolling tickers on the bottom of the screen, sidebars; it’s information overload. Except it’s not information – it’s pieces of half-truths or used-to-be-true-five-hours-ago.
The lines have blurred between speculation and opinion, hard data and confirmed reports. And it’s everywhere. It’s a game of telephone, even in our own lives. I once met a friend for lunch and told him I had big news. He said he already heard: we were pregnant and moving to California.
That was news to me. The big news I had was about my dad and I scoring tickets to one of the last games in the old Yankee Stadium. I let the friend know I would be sure to let my wife know she was pregnant and that I should go, after all I had to start packing boxes.
In the current age, it seems we can trust voicemails, e-mails, texts, but we can’t trust a conversation between friends. And if we can’t trust those conversations, then think of the larger picture: where do you think what you see and hear on the radio, TV and in newspapers comes from? Conversations between friends, of course. It’s just these friends work in sports, politics and on Wall Street.
Better check your sources. Or perhaps your sources should check you.
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Wake Up, America

As Americans, we’re sleeping through the biggest war in United States history.

Except it is not being fought on foreign soil, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Europe or Vietnam.

It’s closer.

Except it does not involve soldiers, guns, nuclear weapons, planes, tanks or warships. In fact, there’s nothing physical about the greatest war in United States history.

It’s a war of philosophies, of minds and of sheer will.

And we are asleep. We’re asleep in our foreclosed homes and reduced salary positions as our very infrastructure crumbles around us. If we’re not careful, we will wake up one day to find that the United States are gone, living on in name only.

Remember that we must learn from the lessons of history or be doomed to repeat them?

We could be already.

Many speculate the Roman Empire fell, over the period of 300-plus years, due to overexpansion and inflation.

Due to the growing size of the empire, a massive budget was required to maintain many key components essential to its survival. This included roads (required for communication, transportation, and the moving of armies) and aqueducts ( as many of Rome’s cities relied on the water that it provided).

At the time the empire was fighting enemies on all sides due to its expansion into its territories, it was also contributing huge sums of silver and gold to keep up its armies. To try to combat both problems, the empire was forced to raise taxes frequently, causing inflation to skyrocket. This in turn caused the major economic stress that some scholars attribute as one of the causes for Rome’s decline.

Um, anything seem vaguely familiar here?

Projecting ourselves as the world’s watchdog and beacon of light has left us with enemies on all sides. This is not a product of President Bush alone, or President Clinton before him, whose policies placed a great deal of venom into the minds of the Middle East.

When you look out for everyone else, often you lose sight of your own problems and issues. By growing our national debt so much in the last 10 years that it equals what it took 250 years to build up, we have become that guy – you know, the one who goes ahead and buys stuff they can’t afford, puts it on the charge card and figures they will deal with it later?

Well, it’s later.

We’ve ignored our infrastructure – our educations and our economy, namely. The BP oil spill happened because we quit paying attention. Katrina happened because we ignored the fortification of New Orleans to natural disasters. Naturally, the first reaction is to blame what was not done to fix it – but that is America’s biggest problem, we want things fixed, not solved. There’s a big difference between the two.

Early on, and part of the philosophy that this country was found upon, American political leaders and average citizens logically thought through issues that faced us. We identified the problem, noted multiple options for solution, implemented, then tweaked those solutions as necessary.

Was it perfect? No, as anything rarely is perfect. But it was an enlighted, educated and rational method of republican (small r) values. We’re not a democracy – we’re a republic, or have we forgotten the pledge of allegiance?

Perhaps that is the biggest problem facing the United States – we’re forgotten our pledge, most likely because we can’t repeat it out loud anymore. We’ve become so concerned with being politically correct, we’ve become apathetic to everything.

It’s not about health insurance and gay marriage or equal rights, it’s about the entitlement that people feel. It’s about what’s mine, not what’s ours.

We always shared very little in common with each other, but now, we don’t even share the same concept of liberty, freedom and what American Revolution stood for.

We’re at a tipping point. It’s the point in the roller coaster ride where you’re just about to drop. And the crazy carnie with the drop lever is our current President.

While it’s tactically and fatefully wrong to blame one person – you just can’t – it’s hard to notice there’s a drastic difference in the philosophy of President Obama and pretty much everyone who took the oath of office before him.

Obama promised change, and for certain, he is making good on that promise. It took a while, but his landmark change, the healthcare reform, must be looked at through a different scope. It goes beyond just revamping the healthcare industry in the United States and directly to core values of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, to the depths of the principles and foundation of this country.

President Obama is a huge practitioner of the Alinsky Method. He spent years teaching workshops on it.

Basically, the Alinksy Method is concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people. It’s core idea is to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace through revolution.

Remember Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2008?

She said, ‘Barack stood up that day,’ (talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods), ‘and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about ‘The world as it is’ and ‘The world as it should be…’ and, ‘All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to, fight for the world as it should be.”

They are powerful, moving and motivating words. Remember carefully that we are a nation of problems and we want those problems fixed. What we need is problems solved.

The larger question from Michelle Obama’s quote is simple: who and whose values determine the world as it should be?

The Alinsky Method, a form of Neo-Marxism, suggests that a “Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage – the political paradise of communism.” (1)

President Obama is currently doing this, first with healthcare reform – it’s a guise to end capitalism by taking healthcare into the hands of the government. But it doesn’t stop there.

Obama constantly blames the current Washington landscape for lack of change. He blamed the system for not reacting quickly enough to the BP oil spill. How is this crisis any different than Hurrican Katrina, in terms of how quickly it was dealt with?

It’s easier for most citizens to forgive President Obama because he’s so likable. He says all the right things, wears all the right clothes. He smiles and is engaging. He fills out NCAA tournament brackets, knows his sports and pop culture and even petitions on where he would like to see LeBron James play next season. He’s adept at dealing with the media and crisis and has a strong vocabulary.

In other words, he’s the opposite of President Bush, who lacked the verbal skills and was not as strong in crisis. Heck, when Bush owned the Texas Rangers, he even traded Sammy Sosa, losing major sports points there.

None of that matters or makes one a better or worse leader of a nation, though.

What matters is how well that leader upholds our values and the Constitution of the United States. That’s what they were elected to do. Every President was brought in to monitor and mitigate issues, to use those core documents as a way to solve problems.

And so what’s frightening is this:

“The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves….The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means…The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be.” (1)

That statement is found on pages 25 and 26 of Sal Alinsky’s book. Notice anything, say, about the world as it is or the world as it should be?

Rationing from some to give to all teaches nothing. The only thing gained from that approach is a lazy, apathetic society that expects things to be handed and given to them. Once upon a time, we had to fight to gain our freedom. Now, we take that freedom so literal that we’re blindly giving it up.

President Obama has us right he wants us. We’re awake, but we’re oblivious to the infiltration. He wants to makes us feel as if we know him and we can trust him. In turn, that builds up his innate ability to communicate the unreasonable into the believable. The slogan “Change We Can Believe In” takes on new meaning. It’s not the change part – it’s the belief part.

He wants us to believe. In other words, put faith in him.

That is more than a slightly dangerous proposition, as true faith is and has always been reserved for religion. The simple fact is, President Obama is becoming a kind of cult, a religion if you will.

That was never the intent of the President of the United States, the office or the one holding it.

During moments like this, and there have been several in the past 20 months, I’m reminded of this:

“Whether by innate character or the oath you took to defend the Constitution or the weight of history that falls upon you, I believe you to be an honorable man, sir.” – Ben Gates to The President in “National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.”

That’s not even the best quote of that scene really. The follow-up is even better:

The President: “Gates, people don’t believe that stuff anymore.”
Gates: “They want to believe it, sir.”

And we do want to believe it, as in oaths and innate character. Not in a person, but in ideals and principles that ground us and unite us.

Alinsky’s tactics were based, not on Stalin’s principles, but on the Neo-Marxist strategies of Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist. Relying on gradualism, infiltration and the dialectic process rather than a bloody revolution, Gramsci’s transformational Marxism was so subtle that few even noticed the deliberate changes.

And that’s the fear.

Or it should be.

We’re asleep – and it’s time to wake up.

  ** Citations – (1) Pg. 10, Sal Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals.” 1971.

(Note: This was originally written June 4, 2010.)
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Favre Pic-d Off

Brett Favre seems to have been intercepted again.
This time it was a different kind of pick though, one that will and should cost him his already tarnished image. Deadspin.com broke another part of a story today about an alleged set of incidents where Favre sent text messages of his junk to former Jets sideline reporter Jenn Sterger.
According to Deadspin and Sterger’s comments to the Web site, Favre began to call her early on during his 2008 season with the Jets and leaving strange, friendly messages. Apparently Sterger didn’t want to act on it because Favre is Favre, he was married and Sterger worked for the Jets, so she was afraid she’d lose her job.
Then things got a little weird. And by a little weird, I mean Woogie’s foot fetish from “Something About Mary” weird. In an ironic twist, Favre was in that movie.
Sterger started receiving picture texts, of um, certain areas Brett shouldn’t really be exposing. Apparently, he knew all about “Pants on the Ground” before he started doing that ridiculous locker room act with the Vikings last year.
Again, according to Deadspin’s report, the pictures kept coming, one of Brett taking care of some personal business, another of him holding his junk in one hand, his wristwatch he wore during his first retirement in the other.
Now, the problem is no one can actually confirm if it’s Brett. The Jets won’t talk and apparently Brett got Sterger’s number for an intermediary. And Sterger won’t comment on it, the voicemails and pictures Deadspin has were acquired through a third party. Basically, the story is breaking, but not to the national media like ESPN. It’s possible it could be someone trying very hard to appear like Brett Favre – which, as Deadspin points out, would require voice lessons, a Mississippi cell phone number and implicate people with the Jets for no other reason than to mess with a sideline reporter who worked Jets games but wasn’t employed by the Jets?
I wanted to cover all that (to give proper credit and cover my rear) before I got to this: If it’s indeed Brett, prepare for a scandal of epic proportions. Tiger Woods scandal got so big, involved so many women and so much weird information about his preferences and quirks we became numb to it.
“Oh, Tiger’s number might be triple digits? Huh, interesting. Can you pass the sugar?”
But Mr. Wrangler? He’s comfortable in Wranglers and apparently comfortable sending naked pictures of himself to a 25-year-old who’s just a few years older than his oldest daughter. His wife had breast cancer a few years back. And even weirder? Jenn Sterger looks a lot like a younger Deanna Favre.
This could ruin Favre’s season. It could ruin Randy Moss’ return to the Vikings. It could turn the whole Brett Favre saga into something more than just his indecisiveness. And certainly, that’s a story in and of itself.
It could also ruin his family, his children’s lives and his marriage.
Hey Brett, Bumblebee Tuna.
Is it our business? Is it our job to care that a nearly 40-year-old man sent pictures of his twig and berries to a young sideline reporter two years ago? I really don’t know. But you put a story like that out there, for a nation of sports fans and consumers, we’re going to laugh for a few minutes (c’mon, it’s just funny Favre would even do it), before we turn our internal thoughts to how weird it is. And stupid.
It’s not necessarily to debate if you can get away with it, but why you’d even contemplate it?
Jason Whitlock said on Twitter, “Think about it: do we really wanna live n a society in which a middle-aged man can’t showcase his junk n pursuit of a younger woman?”
Perhaps Whitlock was being sarcastic, which I would imagine. But in the larger scheme of things, what’s going on here? Why is this even a discussion. Yes, it’s inappropriate. Don’t give me this nonsense about the old days and how many athletes cheated on their spouses or got drunk and made bad decisions. It’s not 1960. You can’t tip a bellman $20 to keep it quiet. Everyone’s got a cellphone. Messages are saved, sent and posted.
A lot of my friends could have cared less about Tiger Woods extramarital affairs. It was a joke. Woods gave new meaning to the word “foursome.” We’re just numb to it because we hear it all the time, right? It’s not so much about morals and values as it is common decency and common sense. Well, it may be about those things to me, but I’m not getting on a soapbox and proclaiming they behave.
Just do us a favor: just stop getting caught so we, in turn, can stop hearing about it and having to explain to children younger than 12 why everyone’s now weirded out by these guys.
My son, who’s 8-years-old, asked me if I liked Tiger Woods during Ryder Cup highlights last week.
“He’s a talented golfer,” I said.
“Do you still like playing his video games, Daddy?” he replied.
“Um…haven’t bought one in a while, bud,” I answered.
“Why not?” he continued.
“Just haven’t…hey, let’s hustle up, we gotta get to school,” I said, doing my best to change the subject.
If you don’t have kids, you might not get it. It’s just that it becomes our business when the media break the story and then cover it like it’s the only thing to talk about for three weeks. Word gets around and suddenly your kid’s asking why you don’t play Tiger Woods Golf anymore.
And it’s not just the seedy sexual stuff. We live in a world where Daunte Stallworth can run over and kill another human being and spend less than a month in prison. And we’re all OK with it. Now I’ve got to explain to the boy why the TV announcers are talking about how this wide receiver for the Ravens ran over a guy, killed him and is still playing football.
There’s no right and wrong, morally or just in general, anymore. It’s all just various shades of gray.
We shrug this stuff off, but then get mad, bitter and angry when it seeps into youth athletics or just high school. Why cry foul at coaches who yell at our kids and don’t coddle them on the playing field or in practice, but it doesn’t bother us when Latrell Sprewell chokes his coach and simply gets traded to another team?
Go look up how many NFL players have DUIs or DWIs in the past 12 months. Then go tell your kids or if you’re a coach, tell your players, “don’t drink and drive.”
Yeah, but they do it – and nothing bad happened.
We tell our kids to be honest, to do the right thing and then laugh when Derek Jeter pretends to get hit by a pitch so he can get on base. That’s just good baseball, right?
Is there a difference, or is it all just various shades of gray?
Let’s find out and see what happens with Favre. And let’s watch how America reacts.
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