STARTING FIVE

There’s a new sheriff in town

1. From Guns to Radar Guns

Remember that scene in Hoosiers where Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) kindly informs the townie to hand him the basketball and that his help will no longer be needed? That’s kind of what took place yesterday in Ferguson, Mo., as Governor Jay Nixon announced that the Missouri Highway Patrol would, at least for the time being, replace the local police.

Some interesting info on Ferguson first and the militarization of police departments in general:

First, in 1970 Ferguson was 99% white and 1% African-American. Today it is 29% white and 67% African-American. However, 50 of the 53 police officers in the department are white, as is the police chief. You decide how that plays into the fact that 85% of the people arrested are black.

One suggestion going forward: If you’re not actually a minority, exploit that. There should be more blacks on the police force and in local government. They have the numbers to make that happen. That would effect change.

Second, and I got this off CNN while the TV was on “Mute” (although my remote also has a “Moot” button), but it said that militarized equipment given to police departments in the USA totaled $1 million in 1990. Last year it totaled $450 million. Thanks, Osama Bin Laden. Nothing like good old-fashioned unwarranted panic to stoke the profits of the MIC.

2. Another Bronx Beauty

The former Betty Joan Perske landed her first role, opposite Bogey, at the age of 20

Like Phyllis, Lauren Bacall was born in the Bronx and then married a dark and handsome fella who made his few words count. Unlike Phyllis, she was 20 and he was 45 when they wed –and her husband, Humphrey Bogart, was already married.

Bacall was more than just a pretty face. She played characters who were a little salty, who possessed just enough cynicism to be challenging without being crass. “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve?” she tells Bogart in To Have and Have Not. “You just put your lips together and…blow.”

(Although, technically, that’s bad information. You sort of pucker your lips and blow. This is why I was  not allowed on the set. That and my parents were at least a dozen years away from meeting.)

Here she is in 1952 giving marriage advice to Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable in How To Marry a Millionaire.

3. Hurry-Up Offense

Kyle Wilson said he joined Tinder because he “didn’t want anything too easy,” which is like moving to Chicago for the climate

Tinder is to Match.com what Chip Kelly is to Nick Saban. More plays with less time in between each one. So it’s sort of funny to learn that some of the New York Jets are using the speed-dating app while embedded (hello!) at training camp in upstate New York.

Two thoughts: 1) “Love” is not what these Jets are looking for, and 2) The ladies of the Finger Lakes region are thinking, Oh, sure, now that Tebow and Sanchize are gone, NOW they discover TInder.

4. Football! Football! Football!

Medium Happy’s pick for national champion. Show me a team that came close, is hungry, and has one of the nation’s top 3 QBs.

Here’s Sports Illustrated’s preseason Top 25 and The Big Lead’s Top 50 football players –as penned by Tyler Duffy (“Go Blue!”), which may have something to do with that dude at No. 50 (and no one from a school about 4 hours to the southwest being on the list). But, you can kinda see that.

You can always quibble with such lists –I’d have included Arizona State’s Taylor Kelly and Notre Dame’s Jaylon Smith –but there are no egregious omissions.

This list, though, of the “50 Best College Towns,” is indefensible. Austin, Tex., arguably the best college town in the country is not included. And Athens and Eugene, both of which are in my top 10 (and most others’), fail to crack the top 35.

5. Great Jones

C’mon, who does he look like? A l’il bit, as Robert DeNiro might say, a l’il bit. Hint: He’s from Chicago and wears No. 23 (but only because that’s the uniform that fit). This is Pierce Jones of the Jackie Robinson West All-Stars out of Chicago. Yesterday he jacked three home runs and a triple –in the first four innings–as his team won their LLWS opener, 12-2.

And then you have Mo’Ne Davis, the female flamethrower out of Taney Little League in Philadelphia (the local favorite). There are eight U.S. teams in the 16-team bracket in Williamsport, and while Mo’Ne and Pierce are not immediately on one another’s schedule, they could wind up meeting in either the winners’ or losers’ bracket in a few days.

We’re back!

Here’s what happened: On Friday evening, as I left my weekly manicure and was phoning Ubercar for a ride to the heliport, I decided to visit Medium Happy to see if we’d reached our typical daily total of 100 comments yet. Instead, I got nothing. The site had vanished faster than Nora Durst’s family.*

And so I did what I normally do in moments of technological panic. I hurled epithets and phoned Tim “Oak” O’Connor, the genius who originally spoon-fed this site to me. Oak devoted a good portion of the next few days to correcting the problem while neglecting his son, “Acorn Oak,” a choice that will likely result in said offspring not being accepted into a reputable or even accredited college. As it turned out, our left axle was busted and the cam-shaft was also not firing properly (I have no idea if cam-shafts fire). So, thanks, Oak, for coming to my rescue. If I had any real skills, I’d offer those in exchange, but really, this is all I know how to do. And juggling. So, if you ever need a juggler.

For a while there, it looked as if the suffix to “Where in the World…” was “…did all my blog entries go?”

Anyway, I don’t know whom The Guilty Remnant is on this hacking episode, only that there are too many viable suspects to list. Also, I sort of enjoyed the three-day holiday, I’ll be honest. But we’re back. And we (air hug) missed (air smooch) you, too!

*What?!? A “The Leftovers” reference? Two of them?!? Really? 

1. Robin Good

Back when “working on a desktop” had an entirely different meaning…

So much may be said –and, as my brother notes, too much already has been (“Seed,” he tells me, “you must remind people how awful Popeye was”) — about Robin Williams, so I’ll just add three notes here: 1) this Golden Globes acceptance speech, in which he received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement,  perfectly epitomizes him in my mind. Why? Because there are a few moments of genius, just as many that have true warmth, and then there’s a few jokes that you just wish he’d edited out. The kind that make you squirm a little. In a 60 Minutes profile done on him in the 1980s, Williams even said that there were times where his brain wanted to pull him aside and ask, “Why did you just say that?”

I mean, sure, I’ll linger on Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting if they’re on, but does anyone stop what they’re doing to watch Jumanji? Hook? Patch Adams?

2) In the late spring of 1989, Dead Poets Society was released. At the time I was dealing with a very similar quandary that the character Neil was facing. In retrospect you understand that Neil’s choice between medical school and the arts, of those two alternatives, either was better than suicide. Fortunately, I didn’t have access to a gun and, much like my hero Rust Cohle, I lacked the constitution for suicide.

His best role

The dual irony here? Mr. Keating could not prevent Neil’s suicide –some at Welton Academy would say he precipitated it– and then Williams himself committed suicide. Also, that the actor portraying Neil —Robert Sean Leonard–grew up to stay employed as an actor whose biggest role, and he was very convincing, was as a physician.

3) This anecdote, courtesy of Norm Macdonald, is worth a read. I call this “the Vinny Klunk Act” after a childhood buddy who rescued me in a moment of terror and panic  (although we may need to update it as the “Tim O’Connor Act.”). People who perform deeds like this, well, they are all too few.

2. Put Your Hands in the Air/Like You Just Do Care

Hands Above America\

That’s some crazy stuff that’s going on in Ferguson, South Africa. I thought they’d outlawed aparthe–what? Ferguson, Missouri?

Even if you go to the far right and assume, if you choose, that Michael Brown was insolent to the policeman, why is a police cruiser pulling up to two young men at noon on a Saturday and is a cop invoking the F-word to tell them to walk on the sidewalk? Why are police dressing in camouflage gear like failed Army Rangers wannabes? Why is Michael Brown, who should be in the first week of college classes today, dead?

I think we know who we really need to be afraid of

HBO’s Bill Maher was quite prescient on Michael Brown’s needless murder when, back on July 22nd, he ended his “New Rules” segment with a monologue titled “Blitzkrieg Cop.” Watch the whole thing, but here’s the gist of it, “Once you start dressing and equipping people like an occupying army, they start acting like one.”

“Don’t shoot me, either,” says Touchdown Jesus. “And can you bring back my grass?”

There are definitely moments when we need the police to use force, sometimes deadly force. Most of the time, though, good community police work simply involves keeping the peace…which involves relating to people at the same level. And a sense of humor.

My dad, an 18-year sheriff’s deputy, once had to break up a racial riot at a jail between two minority groups. He and fellow officers quelled he melee (he’d never use those words) and then he shouted, “I don’t give a damn what color you are. To me, you’re all green!”

My dad waited a beat. Then he said, “Now, I want the dark green guys on this side of the room and the light green guys on that side of the room.”

They all cracked up laughing. That was effective law enforcement.

Andy and Barney would’ve handled this better…

And I’m not sure if this is the best or worst possible weekend to release a film titled Let’s Be Cops, but I’m thinking it’s the latter.

Finally, take a look at this incredible photo essay by Scott Olson, who has taken the shot of the year.

3. Where There’s Smoke…

In Tony Stewart’s defense: Sprint cars are an entirely different animal than stock cars, and you actually use the throttle to steer….Kevin Ward, Jr., should have never left his vehicle and definitely should have never walked toward Stewart’s vehicle…the track is poorly lit on the backstretch, Ward was wearing a black suit and helmet, and this was dirt, not pavement.

On the other hand: Tony Stewart was by far the most skilled driver on the track that night at Canandaigua Motorsporks Park….the fact that Stewart-Haas Racing competition director Greg Zipadelli would even utter “Business as usual” following Ward’s death is indicative of how callous Stewart is. Zipadelli doesn’t say that unless his team’s prized driver has adamantly stated that he is driving on Sunday and Zipadelli does not recant unless someone higher up in NASCAR gets on the phone and asks, “What in the wide world of sports do you think you’re doing?!?”…Four other cars eluded Ward, Jr.; granted, he walked directly toward Stewart’s car, but probably only Stewart knows how much time he had to avoid the young man…If you’re the Ontario County District Attorney, I don’t see why you at least do not seek an indictment on manslaughter in the second degree. The only question here would be whether Stewart was “aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk.” As far as that issue is concerned, how can anyone involved say that it is resolved with 100% certainty.

Not one to lose his cool on the track

You know what I haven’t heard a lot of in the aftermath of Ward’s death? A slew of NASCAR drivers stepping up and saying what a great guy Tony Stewart is, how he would never intend to bully or harm anyone on the track. The silence is telling.

Is Stewart guilty of second-degree manslaughter? I don’t know. But I don’t understand how anyone is able to say for sure that he is innocent at this moment.

4. “From the Crap Part of Stamford…”

How’d they become network TV stars? Blame it on Rio.

This had to happen. Michael Davies and Roger Bennett, a.k.a. the Men in Blazers, were just too entertaining and far too British (I know, that’s redundant) on their ESPN World Cup podcasts and appearances to just disappear into the woodwork of an MLS season. The duo, both of whom now reside in New York (Davies has citizenship; I believe Rog is still waiting) belonged on a stage where they could opine on the EPL, and that meant NBC, which has the rights.

Because, let’s face it, compared to the EPL or La Liga, the MLS is tiny bananas. 

(Someone I know very well called for this to happen back in late June.)

So, I don’t know how exactly they worked it out with Grantland, but Sam Flood & Co. threw some money at them and now MIB will be part of NBC’s “sokkuh” coverage. And I do hope they find a way to lasso Ted, er, Lasso to regularly appear. Pro tip for Michael and Rog: Just tell Sam how much you love hockey every time you see him and all will be fine. Also, wear lots of Michigan Wolverine gear. #Courage

p.s. For me, this was the performance that took their act to a new plateau, from which they’ll never descend.

5. Coming Up on the SEC Network

And tune in next week for “Honey Badger, I Shrunk the Kids”

The SEC Network, ESPN’s latest foray into world domination, makes its debut today. A programming guide:

10:00 a.m. Wuerffel House: In which a former Florida quarterback samples the South’s finest fare.

10:30 a.m. My Three Sunseris: Watch as a heralded and well-paid assistant coach raises his lads who play football at different schools.

11:00-11:01 a.m. The Vanderbilt Minute

11:01 a.m.-1 p.m. SEC Network Original Movie: Sumlin Wicked This Way Comes

1 p.m.-2 p.m. Cosmos with Les Miles: Watch as a distinguished SEC coach attempts to explain uncharted mysteries of the universe such as the Northeast, Midwest, and any place west of Dallas.

STARTING FIVE

Long ago, Cade McNown threw up while also throwing for 355 yards in a 41-38 defeat of the Ducks

1. Throw Up For Grabs

I don’t have a singular photo of it, but watch The Big Lead’s video of Cincinnati Bengal QB Matt Scott tossing his cookies just moments before tossing a touchdown last night during an exhibition win against the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s promising to see that Scott hasn’t lost the touch he displayed back in college in Tucson…

Perhaps the question should be whether the position of quarterback lends itself more to regurgitation. Do quarterbacks, both actual and figurative, just endure more stress during a performance, which leads to spewing? Maybe. You say Cincinnati Bengals, I say Barden Bellas. “I saw the sign…”

Audrey Posen also returned stronger from her regurgitation display

2. “Outlined Against a Blue August Sky…”

the One Horseman rode again. In dramatic lore his name is…”

I love it. Ninety years ago (October 18, 1924) Grantland Rice was a famous sports writer who wrote a lede –after a halftime talk with a Notre Dame student media relations assistant during an otherwise desultory contest at the Polo Grounds–that inspired one of the most iconic staged photos in the history of sports.

Harkening back to Niedermeyer arriving for ROTC training. “P-p-pledge pin?!?”

Today, Grantland is a web site (I wonder how many of their staffers can recite the lede verbatim; that should be mandatory, no?) and Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly rode a horse onto the practice field at Culver Military Academy in Indiana.

UPDATE: Half an hour into practice, Kelly subbed out the first horse and brought in a fresh horse from the sideline that he has dubbed “Tommy.” All part of his Next Mane In credo.

3. Tiger Beaten

On Tuesday I wondered whether the question of if Tiger Woods could win this week’s PGA Championship from Val-HOLLA! was even the pertinent inquiry. To me, it was more to the point to ask how many holes he’d even play, because never for a moment did I think he’d play 72. Would he miss the cut and drop out after 36 or would he voluntarily retire –again–due to back spasms?

It looks as if it’ll be the first option. Tiger, three-over-par after the first round, tees off later today and is currently two shots behind making the cut. I find this “Far Side” cartoon illustrates Tiger’s current predicament better than anything I might say. Yes, he’s “gifted”, but he’s trying too hard and he’s definitely working against himself. And as poorly as his back aches, I still believe most of his problems are between his ears. Go away for awhile, even a year or two, and then come back in a proper frame of mind.

I believe my old colleague Sally Jenkins agrees with me.

4. The Return of Coach Lasso

And have you seen Ted Lasso’s wife?

In six minutes of delightful parody, Jason Sudeikis makes a film that is about eleventy billion times funnier than “We’re The Millers.” And cost a lot less to make –and view.  The purpose, of course, is to promote NBC’s airing of the English Premier League, which begins its season on August 16th, which as you are well aware, is the second birthday of Medium Happy (and th 60th of some other publication).

Best line? When Lasso tells Tim Howard, over beers, “I think I literally have a better understanding of who killed Kennedy than I do of offside…it was the mob.”

By the way, Ted Lasso’s wife has gotten some major press lately…

…and also in that booth…

The best excuse to say, in a NYC diner, “I’ll have what he’s having,” since When Harry Met Sally

5. Bill Boredom

A two-day suspension for this? Lighten up, Norby.

Just want to make sure of something: ESPN gives Dan LeBatard his own weekday afternoon show and titles it “Highly Questionable” and then is abashed when he pulls a highly questionable prank? And it wasn’t even highly questionable. It was actually mildly amusing (which may be a better title for the program?).

All I know is that 1) you reap what you sow, Bristol, and 2) I’ve canceled my “You’re Welcome, Scalabrine” billboard that was actually going to be a lawn sign in Roxbury, Mass.

Here’s The Sherman Report on it…

 Reserves

Roone and OJ. When you take the OJ out of Trojans, you get Trans. I have no idea if that’s significant.

I love this idea by Sports Illustrated to publish the “60 Greatest Stories” of its first 60 years, one per day for next 12 weeks (my math calculates that to mean only weekdays). The first one is Steve Rushin’s epic –literally, since I believe it to still be the longest piece ever to run in the mag– “How We Got Here” that ran on the occasion of the mag’s 40th anniversary. And here’s a terrific Q&A with Steve, a “Behind the Music” of how the piece came about.

At least a dozen Rushin pieces belong on this list, as does Jeff MacGregor’s rattlesnake piece, Franz Lidz’s profile of Don King, Bill Nack’s elegy for Secretariat (“Pure Heart”) and Gary Smith’s “Crime and Punishment” piece on Richie Parker.

What does concern me is that this list will neglect many wonderful pieces that were either written on a tight deadline (the story of ND ending UCLA’s 88-game win streak was terrific, as were Alex Wolff’s numerous NCAA basketball tournament championship pieces that had to be written on the tightest deadline imaginable, since the mag normally goes to press at about the time the game tipped off) or by writers who are no longer GFOPs.

Tim Crothers’ piece on Red Klotz, for example, is not only a classic but Crothers, then a fact-checker, penned the story on the sly –he knew that if he suggested it that it would be given to a senior writer–spent the cost of one Metro North ticket and a hot dog reporting it, and then turned in a 3,000-word piece that was just so captivating that the editors were forced to run it. The story behind that story is nearly as good as the story itself.

Red Klotz, who lost more than 14,000 times to the Harlem Globetrotters and died earlier this summer. So, no “Where Are They Now?” piece

(Years later, Crothers, no longer at SI, pitched a story to the mag that they turned down; he then took it to ESPN, where it was nominated for a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Feature Writing, then turned into a book, and Disney even now has the movie rights to it. Some people never learn.)

***

Where in the World?

Previous: Chalk Pyramids, near Oakley, Kansas

Hint: It’s in Europe

STARTING FIVE

What’s a banker gotta do to get thrown in jail? (that’s a trick question)

1. $hame on U$

A Florida woman (oh boy) is headed to jail for six months (what’d she do?) for having sex in the town square, actually in the gazebo (that’s not a euphemism). The woman, who is 68, a grandmother of 14 and has been married for 50 years, is about to become the post-menopausal Piper Chapman.

Meanwhile, the Bank of America has just settled with the U.S. Government for the sweet, sweet price of $17 billion for its MAJOR role in precipitating the sub-prime mortgage crisis that basically helped put millions of people either out of work or their homes or both in the 2000s. But, you know, that’s just the cost of doing business. No Bank of America executives will do even an hour of jail time.

This country’s priorities are simply F”ed up.

2. The Pooh Grass State

Johnson: Drops bombs before, after, and during interviews

A refreshingly candid interview with University of Kentucky freshman football player Cory Johnson, who weighs 280 to 300 pounds. Asked how come his weight fluctuates so markedly, Johnson replied, “Because I poop so much.” My heart warms to know that the Don Yaeger School of Canned Quotage –the former SI scribe actually travels to schools and teaches players how to give boring, canned answers, and schools pay him for this service;  it’s like a former fireman teaching you how to set fires; Do I seem a little feisty today? Yes,  I have feist) has yet to corrupt Johnson’ s glib and candid soul. Poop on, my man! Poop on!

3. Lollapaloser

Bite victim Ben Lenet.

Yes, a “zombie” bit a fan in the arm during the Arctic Monkeys’ set at Lollapalooza in Chicago last weekend. And just because of that I’m going to post this awful Eighties tune…

4. Spurs and Heels

Gregg Popovich is one sneaky radical. First, he becomes the first NBA coach to build the nucleus of his team around not one but a trio of foreign-born players, and now he becomes the first to hire a female as a full-salaried assistant coach. Kudos to Becky Hammon, who played high school ball in South Dakota and was not even selected in the WNBA Draft out of Colorado State. Hammon, 37,  is now in her 16th WNBA season. She perseveres. Pop obviously respects that.

5. Plumb Loco

What was the El Pollo Loco motive for going public?

I can honestly say that I’ve never dined at El Pollo Loco –but then, I would never tell you that I am dishonestly saying something, would I?– and I bet many of the people who have invested in it since its IPO less than two weeks ago have, either.

But they do watch the markets. And they have noticed that Chipotle (CMG) has seen its stock rise about 700% since it went public in 2009. So when El Pollo Loco, which is only in California, Texas, and a couple of other western states and specializes in fresh grilled chicken with a Mexican accent, issued its IPO two Fridays ago, the stock (LOCO) went, well, loco. From a start price of about $19 it rose all the way to $42, or more than 100%, in about four days. It’s currently just over $38, or still above 100%.

I think the money that was there to be made in LOCO has already been made, for now. Meanwhile, when will In-N-Out Burger go public?

Wait, you say, no Starting Five? Quel est le probleme? Well, I do have a bunch of items lined up (I fear my friend Keith Arnold has not listed Jesse Bongiovi in his Top 25 Notre Dame Football Players of 2014, for example) but I’m tight for time this a.m. and I wanted to discuss one topic that I think, as the kids say, will get some burn. Hence, our inaugural installment of The Daily Harrumph. 

Our topic: The kerfuffle that was sparked by Screamin’ A. Smith’s unfortunate statements on domestic abuse, Michelle Beadle’s rapid and enraged public response, and the fallout. Here, then, are an Unknown (at this moment) Number of Things I Think I Think About the Screamin’ A. Smith-Michelle Beadle Kerfuffle. 

1. I think that unless she is about to shoot you or stab you (the famed “Fatal Attraction Dispensation”) that there is never an appropriate time to strike a woman. Not even, if she uses her fists, in self-defense. I think we can learn a lot from Jay-Z on the latter part of this statement.

Too Close for comfort

2. I think that Screamin’ A. Smith (heretofore, SAS) actually had good intentions with what he said, which is what made it all the more offensive. He was basically trying to help women by saying not to provoke your man, but by doing that, unwittingly, he was blaming the victim. I personally have some empathy for SAS on this issue because he was actually coming from, in his mind, a protective place. His intent was benevolent, though misguided. Your mileage may vary.

Life was simpler when all you had to worry about were Cheezy Doodles

3. I think that Michelle Beadle (heretofore, Beadle) came from a very personal place in her response. Far be it from me to upbraid someone for going off all emotive and half-cocked on Twitter (been there, tweeted that), but the immediacy and anger of her her tweets tells me that this wasn’t an argument about global health initiatives. She has been in that woman’s hypothetical position –was it a hockey player? –and, as she alluded, has intimate familiarity with this issue.

A Texan displaying her right to “open carry.”

4. I think that SAS never gets suspended if Beadle never tweets. Hence, his suspension is only partially about him telling women not to provoke men. It’s more about ESPN taking Beadle’s side. It’s a power play and Beadle won.

5. I think that if I’m Sage Steele’s agent, I consider an exit strategy. Beadle loves the NBA, has a glomance (a guy-girl bromance) going with Bill Simmons, and is an avowed Spurs fan. She just went all in with a pair of sixes and won. Now her chip stack is even bigger.

She’s really good on SportsCenter. The NBA Countdown transition has been a little like watching Carmelo and Amare on same team.

6. I think ESPN Suits (heretofore, Norby), with their abysmal track (and field) record of sexual discrimination and harassment, had to decide whether the greater good was to punish a high-profile on-air talent for using social media to admonish a high-profile on-air colleague, or whether to “side with Cheryl” and thus not throw any gasoline on the domestic violence fire. Norby chose the safer bet and Rob Parker’ed SAS.

7. I think there are a whole lot of ESPN talent who ain’t happy with how this went down. SAS is paid to bloviate, he bloviated, and he got suspended. A public on-air apology was not sufficient?

No, it’s not even okay to strike her…if you’re a dude.

8. I think that, if she’d taken a breath and counted to 30, and then maybe asked, “WWBLD?” (What Would Bob Ley Do?”), Beadle would have realized that, like SAS, she appears daily on weekdays on her own nationally televised show on ESPN. And that maybe the appropriate response would be to ask her producer –ahem, tell her producer– that she wanted to take a moment at either the top or bottom of the show (the A Block or the…F Block?) to revisit SAS’ comments and to respectfully tell her colleague where he got it wrong. I think she might also phone him to warn him that she would be doing this before she did so.

9. I think that Peter King is a good egg but that he may be just a little intoxicated on his own bug juice. Did Cam Newton owe it to Peter King to approach him? Or might it not have been better the other way around? This is one King who really does expect you to bend the knee.

10. I think that deep down in places that you don’t talk about at parties, the brothers –and sisters– are laughing at white folks trying to tell them how relationships should be handled. Should a woman ever be struck? Of course not. Is the world that SAS grew up in a little different than the one Beadle was raised in? Yes. Should I say that domestic violence transcends racial boundaries? Yes. Is that what happens in actuality? I don’t know.

11. I think that Jason Whitlock’s comment on “Olbermann” that “Canadians just don’t have it’ (a hunger to win) was in many ways no less offensive. It was an ignorant statement that ascribed a qualitative trait to a demographic en masse. But maybe because we think of Canadians as white, and maybe because John Saunders did not rip Whitlock a new one on Twitter, he escaped scot-free. Whitlock was referring to Andrew Wiggins, who is Canadian…and black. What if a white panelist had said that the Cavs can afford to part with Wiggins because, well, blacks are known to be lazy? Yeah, then you’re getting Rob Parker’ed.

Between one fern

12. I think that, given that SAS’ comments and Whitlock’s comments happened within days of one another, that Norby should’ve meted out the same punishment or non-punishment to both. Didn’t happen.

13. I think that this would be an excellent topic for Keith Olbermann to lead with on his eponymous show because right now, in the first week of August, it’s the most intriguing sports media topic on the horizon. And the essay would be more articulate, and certainly not enumerated. But Olbermann cannot touch this because all involved are ESPN personalities, which is the essential flaw of his otherwise brilliant and incisive program. It’s what keeps the show from approaching greatness.

Keith, Urban

14. I think we need more Bob Costas in this world. He basically missed Sochi and these are exactly the types of issues that he’d handle with insight and eloquence, and he wouldn’t do it at halftime of your Sunday Night Football Game, which a few of you seem to take as a personal offense. How dare he, trying to edjumicate me!

What about Bob? And is he seeing Dr. Marvin?

15. And finally, I think women are going to continue to allow men to hit them as long as they don’t think they (and remember, sometimes kids are involved) are better off without them. And that men are going to continue to hit women when they grow up in a household that is devoid of a real father showing you how a woman deserves to be treated. Which is not an excuse. But, alas, I fear it’s the truth.