1) Abercrombie and the Pro Bowl
Last week, Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie, has publicly stated that the state government should stop paying subsidies for the Pro Bowl.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/123582634.html
Gov. Neil Abercrombie said if he had his way he would stop the $4 million payments to the National Football League given to support holding the Pro Bowl in Honolulu.
Abercrombie, during a news conference this morning on early childhood education, said it is a matter of the state’s priorities.
The governor said the Pro Bowl was “an easy target.”
“This happens to be an easy target because it is so stupid. You can’t do things like give $4 million to a $9 billion football industry and not give money to children,” Abercrombie said.
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As you can see on the comments section of that website, this has gotten many people very angry! They mention that hosting the Pro Bowl brings in $31 million to the state and many have screamed that Abercrombie's statements would put all that in jeopardy!
Also, just doing a Yahoo search has shown that ESPN, Chicago Tribune and Forbes has reported on the issue. Yep,people in the continental US know about this.
Now, I totally understand people's concerns about having taxpayer's funds going to a recreational event, especially in these hard economic times where funding for education and other social services have been cut!
I also understand many people's anger at the NFL over the lockout, as well as NFL owners (billionaires) who keep begging for taxpayer funded salaries.
However, one commenter said it best
(from the comments responding to Dave Shapiro's "Govern your mouth, governor"
http://blog.volcanicash.net/2011/06/09/govern-your-mouth-mr-governor/#comments
el guapo Says:
June 10, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Neil should have had Mike McCartney quietly go to the bigwigs of the visitor industry and get them to put up part of the $4 million.
Thank you El Guapo! I do think a more behind the scenes approach to solicit more private funding for the Pro Bowl would've been a smarter move! That way, taxpayers are relieved of a burden, there's more funding available for social services, and the governor would've avoided needlessly antagonizing sports fan. And keep the Pro Bowl in Hawaii too!
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Abercrombie also said this Abercrombie told reporters that he discounted the importance of the Pro Bowl in comparison to other economic stimulus, such as civil union ceremonies being performed here.
"Please, we will get more out of civil unions in a weekend than we will get out of those guys," Abercrombie said of the Pro Bowl.
I doubt it! The NFL has a bigger fan base than civil unions do! While I'm for legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples, I don't think they'll bring in more tourists in a weekend than the NFL will!
And Abercrombie also needlessly making the issue "sports fans vs gays".
Here's a great letter to the editor on that issue
http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorials/letters/20110614_Letters_to_the_Editor.html
Don't belittle civil unions
Gov. Neil Abercrombie brings out the worst in his latest rant against the Pro Bowl. He states, "We will get more out of civil unions in a weekend than we will get out of those guys" ("Governor flays Pro Bowl deal," Star-Advertiser, June 10). Really — $30 million more?
And to belittle civil unions as a money-making scheme rather than the closest thing to marriage that gay couples have, and to knock the years of struggle to have it passed, is just wrong.
Abercrombie makes light of this situation but it seems like a slap in the face to people on each side who support either gay marriage or the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. Why the need to choose? Both would be welcome to the islands as they bring what is needed more than ever — more opportunities for the people of Hawaii to come together, make a little money and show why Hawaii is the best place to live, work and play.
Vanessa Matautia
Waipahu
2) LeBron James answers to the haters!
After losing the NBA championship game, Miami Heat player LeBron James was asked by a reporter about the haters who want to see him fail!
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/06/lebron-james-to-hating-fans-worry-about-your-own-lousy-life/1?csp=hf
LeBron James responded with this!
"All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. So they can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they got to get back to the real world at some point."
This got some people upset, saying that James is telling people "I might've lost, but I'm rich, you're not!"
But I do agree with LeBron James on this one!
Professional sports is entertainment! Whether the Heat win or lose is not going to make the biggest impact in your life!
From the comments on "The Quote Heard around the World" http://www.thenation.com/blog/161374/lebron-james-and-quote-heard-round-world
5. posted by: pam0012 at 06/13/2011 @ 4:50pm .First, I live in Dallas and am a die-hard Mavs fan--way to go, Champs!--and second, I watched the interview in which LeBron said the quoted text above. He was answering a direct question from a reporter: "What do you say to all those fans who were rooting for you to fail?" It was a jerky question to ask of someone who has just lost a championship in humiliating fashion. And granted, LeBron's answer seems harsh when you read it. But when he said it last night, I thought, "Well, he's right!" What good does it do for people to "hate" LeBron--someone they don't actually know--and root for his failure, as if their schadenfreude would change their lives in any way? It doesn't, and I think that was his point. Go Mavs.
The most silliest comment from all this came from Jalen Rose who said about Lebron James "He needs to learn to speak to the media. He puts his foot in his mouth time and time again,"
The same Jalen Rose who publicly admitted to considering Grant Hill "a bitch" and referring to African-American players who play for Duke as "Uncle Toms"?
3) Jalen Rose and "Uncle Toms"
The Jalen Rose comment I was referring to was part of a documentary of the University of Michigan's Fab Five team in the early 1990's. The team included Rose, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson. They were famous for bringing a hip-hop swagger to college basketball.
In the documentary (which came out in March of this year), Rose said this about Duke University's team and its star Grant Hill
http://espn.go.com/espn/print?id=6270285&type=story
Rose, as part of an ESPN Films documentary "The Fab Five" that aired March 13 (Rose was an executive producer), said black Blue Devils basketball players recruited in the early 1990s were "Uncle Toms."
"I hated Duke and I hated everything Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn't recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms," Rose said in the documentary.
This Uncle Tom stuff was the pre-Obama-era stereotype that any African-American that lives an upper-class lifestyle is a "suck-up to the white man", someone who "abandoned African-American culture". Because Grant Hill grew up in a rich family, he was tagged as an "Uncle Tom" and a "bitch" by Jalen Rose, who grew up in a ghetto community in Detroit.
I think it's silly to expect everyone of an ethnic group to be the same! It was silly to question Grant Hill's "blackness" just because he doesn't fit the ghetto hip-hop culture. You can't expect every African-American to be the same!
Former Duke player Jay Williams responds
http://espn.go.com/espn/print?id=6270285&type=story
Williams also said that there is a debate in the African-American community on what it means to be "black." He said he lived in a black neighborhood as a kid but went to a predominantly white school. When he played basketball in his neighborhood he was razzed for "talkin' white."
"How is it to be less black?" he said. "If the definition of an Uncle Tom is me coming from a dual-parenting home where my mother and father worked harder for me to receive a better education; if the definition of an Uncle Tom is for me going to a prestigious school like Duke or Harvard or learning how to flow from being in the inner city and also being on TV and in the corporate world, I'll be an Uncle Tom all day long."
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However, I do relate to some of what Jalen Rose was feeling, but NOT about the "Uncle Tom" stuff. Like Jalen Rose, I did have some resentment towards the suburbs during my younger years. (Though I've grown out of it)
You see, I spent the first 14 years of my life living in a small housing complex (Puahala Homes aka Lanakila Housing), then my parents decided to move to a suburban community in the western half of Oahu. I WAS PISSED OFF!
Even though that housing complex would be considered a "ghetto", I actually liked growing up there. Sure, things happened, but it wasn't like living in Gaza Strip or Somalia. I (as any other human in my situation would) was ANGRY that I was taken away from my roots at a young age.
I go into more details on that issue on that issue in Part 5 of the following blog post at
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-first-3-decades-of-life.html
This caused me to have resentments to the suburban life. I was thinking "shit, everyone is telling me to be "more of a man" yet I'm being moved to the sissy-ass suburbs"
Yes, I know, that is VERY offensive! I truly apologize to all my suburban friends for admitting having those thoughts when I was younger. I hope it can be forgiven.
But that's how I felt at the time! I felt that environment was sucking the manhood out of me, just when I'm supposed to grow into a man.
That's why I felt I could relate to Jalen Rose being disrespectful to the suburbs, though I do think it's silly for him to question someone else's "blackness".
And ironically, I have spent the last school year working in an upper-class suburban middle school, though this one is in the eastern half of Oahu!
And Jalen Rose is a multi-millionaire who is raising kids in an upper-class community instead of the inner-city Detroit he grew up in.
4) Sugar Ray Leonard on being sexually abused.
Legenday boxer Sugar Ray Leonard has recently publicly admitted that he was sexually abused by his trainer when he was training for the 1976 Olympics
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/06/13/sugar_ray_leonard_sex_abuse_memoir/index.html
Sugar Ray Leonard is a boxing legend. Like many professional athletes, he has smoothly transitioned in his later years into a likable sports commentator, "Dancing With the Stars" contestant, and now, bombshell memoirist. Early on in his new book, the former champ, who has had to be public in the past about his failed first marriage, his incidents of hitting his wife, and his struggles with cocaine, reveals a secret he says he's kept for decades: sexual abuse at the hands of a "prominent Olympic boxing coach."
[warning: the next paragraphs has graphic details]
Leonard says that he first suspected something unusual about the much older coach when, during a boxing trip when he was 15, the man had Leonard and another boxer bathe together while he watched them from across the room. Years later, likely sometime in his late teens, Leonard says he sat in a car with the same coach discussing his prospects for the 1976 Olympics. Then, he says, "Before I knew it, he had unzipped my pants and put his hand, then mouth, on an area that has haunted me for life. I didn’t scream. I didn't look at him. I just opened the door and ran."
Of course, there are people out there who have difficulty believing that a young male boxer (the symbol of toughness) can be sexually abused.
But as the story showed, this was a SURPRISE ATTACK!
The Element of Surprise is the most powerful weapon out there! It is more powerful than a gun, sword, knive, big muscles or fighting skills!
Once someone catches you off guard and violates you, by the time you figure out what to do, it's too late, the damage is done!
Mary Elizabeth Williams made some good points in refuting those who doubt Leonard's story
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/06/13/sugar_ray_leonard_sex_abuse_memoir/index.html
What, then, about the theory that the coach wouldn't make such a blatant overture to someone who could potentially physically retaliate? How about because people do illogical things all the time? People, in fact, do horrible, career-threatening, criminally risky things in the name of their own pathologies every day. And sexual abusers don't just prey on their victims' bodies, they play with their trust. They know that if their victims speak out, they will be doubted. They'll be asked if they fought back, or fought hard enough. The onus of blame for what happened will be on them. Abusers count on silence and shame, knowing well how young people are raised to be polite and deferential to authority and not make a scene.
[skipped paragraphs]
So let's clear a few things up. Someone who is big and strong can be abused. Someone who doesn't scream can be abused. Someone who doesn't talk about the abuse until years afterward can still have been abused. In fact, anyone who doesn't conform to any convenient notions of how a victim is supposed to look or behave can be abused. In an interview on CNN last week, Leonard said, "I had to get that out. Because it was killing me inside. I was dying inside. I told no one ... A guy don't talk about those things, especially me, as a fighter."
It's entirely possible to be one of the greatest fighters in the world and still, just like any other victim in the world, in a moment of shock and shame and fear, not know how to fight someone you trusted not to hurt you.
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So yes, the Element of Surprise is a huge factor in this. Also this macho attitude of "real man can't get hurt by others" make many males ashamed to admit they've been victimized! Especially those who practice a sport that emphasizes toughness!
