Steve Nash gets woke

 I see where Steve Nash has fessed up to his White Privilege. I always thought there was a wiff of White Privilege behind his career. How else would a guy 6'2" get into the NBA?

There you go; White Privilege! 

But that's not what Steve was talking about. No, it's about his coaching gig. Seems he took the Whites Only fast-track to a head coaching job, which he obviously did.

So here's what bugs me about this. Steve, just like that school board superintendent who apologized for her white privilege a couple of years ago out in BC, is willing to spew a little woke-speak, but he won't follow through by doing the right thing. And if his remarks are even remotely sincere, renouncing his privilege has to mean declining the job, if it means anything at all.

Do the right thing, Steve, or live with the shame of being just another virtue-signalling hypocrite. 

What up with Sting @ NBA All Star game?

Whoa!!!... somebody had a brain cramp!

Sting doing the half-time show at the NBA All Star game?

Because...?

The fans want him?  Not!

Here's our theory - Adam Silver's been a fan for a long time, and they're neighbours in Manhattan, so why not?

BECAUSE IT'S THE DUMBEST IDEA EVER!!!

Patriotism for rent; the Pentagon payola scandal

I was always impressed by those US Air Force flyovers that you see at the beginning of every NASCAR race, usually between the anthem and "gentlemen, start your engines!"

That is so cool! Right on cue a squadron of F-18s or a stealth fighter swoops low over the track! Those patriotic NASCAR owners must pay a fortune for that blood-stirring fly-by!

Or so I thought.

Turns out I was wronger than wrong; those owners don't pay a dime. In fact, the US Air Force pays them!

And it ain't just NASCAR. The NFL, NBA, MLB, and even the lowly National Hockey League have trousered millions in Pentagon payola to demonstrate their "patriotism."

Yup, the taxpayer forks over big bucks so that the billionaire owners of America's sports-entertainment complex can dazzle them with demonstrations of taxpayer funded military technology.

That's not patriotism...

That's disgusting!

Country music super-star Blake Shelton inks multi-million dollar contract to shill for Canadian sweat-shop giant Gildan

Canadian sweat-shop superstar Gildan has a new spokesperson, country music superstar Blake Shelton.

Gildan's sweatshops in Honduras, Haiti, and a dozen other third-world destinations employ over 30,000 lucky brown people to make T-shirts for starvation wages. According to Forbes, Shelton pulled in $23 millions last year, which is not too shabby. Mrs. Shelton, aka Miranda Lambert, is apparently doing OK in her own right.

Gildan is a big deal, and they also have a social conscience. Those "I can't breathe" Tees recently sported by a whole lot of your NBA bigs (also doing OK) were sourced from Gildan, according to The Washington Post, although the claim that Gildan pays $6/day seems to overstate Gildan's generosity by a wide margin.

Not doing OK are those tens of thousands of Gildan employees in the global south.

But at least they have something in common with $20 million per year NBA all-stars; they can't breathe either!

"Innocent until proven guilty" is just a fading memory

I see where Adrian Peterson is the latest (black) dude to get the tar and feathers in this neo-Puritan era.

Thus destroying the reputation and the career of another iconic athlete on the altar of political correctitude.

It's not just the black dudes and it's not just the athletes, of course...

Look what happened to billionaire Donald "honcus blancus" Sterling when he ran afoul of the prevailing standards of justice.

Those prevailing standards have nothing in common with the old standards. Innocent until proven guilty has been augmented with "unless previously condemned in YouTube video." 

Nothing in American jurisprudence makes it a crime to be a misogynist or a racist pig.

Those are First Amendment banalities.

We're heading into uncharted territory here, the territory of "justice by social media."

Facebook can be the judge, jury, and executioner.

The inevitable collapse of professional sports in America

If I were a betting man, I'd be going short on any pro sports entity in North America.

Big time sports entertainment depends on a viable middle class market to buy the seats.

We'll always have the TMZ fodder filling the court-side seats at the NBA finals, but what's happening in the rest of the arena?

Geriatric racist Donald Sterling should grab that two billions on offer and run for the hills, because in a few years an NBA franchise isn't going to worth more than a KFC franchise. Maybe less, because we gonna have to eat long after we give up on b'ball.

And seriously, where is the PGA gonna find its market in ten or twenty years? Have a good look at the crowd at Pinehurst this weekend. What do you see? Lots of middle-class middle-aged retired white folks. That's an endangered species.

Going forward, middle aged white folks are more likely to be clerking at the A&P than spending a week at a PGA event.

That's because the "job creators" that the entire Washington elite has been championing with tax breaks and government contracts for the last fifty years has stashed the breaks in offshore tax havens and created only min wage jobs with no benefits.

The folks who find themselves in those jobs don't find themselves at professional sporting events; NBA, NHL, PGA, or whatever.

One of the most visible manifestations of the dwindling market for big time sports is NASCAR. Watch a race these days and you'll see vast swaths of empty bleachers. Ten years ago all those bleachers were filled with paying customers.

All professional sporting leagues in North America were premised on a middle class market with disposable income.

Absent that, those professional sports leagues will soon be as dead as the middle class.

American society is racist through and through

Spare me the faux outrage over Donald Sterling.

All the usual equality entrepreneurs like Al Sharpton are weighing in on the issue.

Fact is, 150 years after emancipation, white folks go to college while niggers go to jail.

Which is not to denigrate the achievements of those black folks who get to college, or to the NBA. But if one thing is true in America today, it is this; no matter how steep the climb from nothing to middle class "respectability", it's twice as steep for black folks.

So a white fat-cat makes some untoward remarks about black people, and everybody acts like this is some sort of deviation from a civilized norm. It isn't. It's merely a deviation from the norm that we don't talk about our systemic racism in public.

The NBA has produced more black multi-millionaires than any other business venture in American history. Maybe the NFL or MLB gives them a run for their money...  Let's celebrate that, but as we do, let's remember that's the exception.

The unmitigated stupidity of Sterling's remarks put paid to the concept of meritocracy. As far as I can tell, his Clippers are entirely dependent for their success on the black folks both in the stands and on the court.

As a not-too-bright white fat-cat, Donald Sterling may be biting the hand that feeds him, but what his racist ruminations reveal is nothing out of the ordinary in contemporary America.

Is the Linsanity for real?

The hype is real. What about the player behind it?

Remember the hype around Carl English? Set all kinds of records at the U of Hawaii. Cut short his college career to declare for the draft. Hired a video crew to come to his house on draft night.

Didn't get drafted. That had to be one of the most humiliating moments a wannabe pro ever inflicted on himself. Been kicking around pro basketball in various European leagues ever since.

So, I'm not much of a sports guy to begin with, and I hear about this Lin fellow, and even though I figure it's bound to be another English-style self- immolation, I just have to have a look.

The Knicks played Toronto last night. For three quarters Lin looked pretty average. Made some nice plays but gave away the ball a lot. Played against Calderon most of the time.

Lin got better as the game got closer. Made a couple of plays in the last five minutes that were exceptional. Then we get to the last possession.

Lin holds holds holds the ball till the last possible second. That was utterly masterful, a beautiful thing to watch. It was like time stood still.

With one second on the clock he does a vertical rise of about four feet, shoots over Calderon's head and sinks three points with .5 on the clock.

This guy is the real deal.

Linsanity rules!