The Colts sacrificed their perfect season amid angry boos from a home crowd.  Like everything in sports it was trivial. Going 19-0 is trivial, winning a Superbowl is trivial, a ball flying through two sticks in the ground is trivial, etc.  So all’s relative in the ‘Caldwell’s a jerk’ versus ‘He did the right thing’ debate.  I think it was the wrong way to go, but that’s not what interests me about this mini controversy: I want to know why the fans weren’t even a part of the discussion.

Kudos to Howard Bryant for at least bringing up the fan factor.  He’s in the minority.  Last night I watched oh-so-serious football men Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison sagely opine that the Colts had no responsibility to anyone but the team.  Really?  What about all those angry people who bought tickets for that game? What about all the Colts fans who wanted a perfect season?  I understand Caldwell’s perspective on the matter, but the arrogance of the talking heads is staggering.

For all the daily sports jibber jabber about what team’s number one, what team’s a fraud, and which coach is on the hot seat, the fans get ignored with alarming frequency.  These all-important sports moments are presented as though they occur in a vacuum and that we intrinsically understand their profound impact on our lives.

I didn’t hear or read one argument like the following: Caldwell has a right to pull his players, but he should have informed ticket buyers ahead of time.  Or how about this one:  The Colts should have put their decision to a local fan vote, seeing as how the fans watch the games and buy the tickets.  Such arguments are considered subversive and deviant in the ultra corporate NFL, a league that can’t possibly fathom a world where Americans no longer care about football.  Hey, we’ll blackout your games in a recession, our coaches will intentionally roll over upon clinching playoff berths, and our sport will cripple your heroes for life…but you suckers will never turn away, right?

The NFL has an underlying assumption that Americans will do anything for pro football—as though it’s encoded in our national DNA.  That’s a mistake.  Football is popular here, but it’s continued dominance isn’t assured.  The United States boasts one of the fastest changing, most diverse populations in the world.  Not everybody wants to hunker down and watch the start-stop-timeout-challenge ‘action’ of the NFL.  I do, but most of my friends who emigrated here don’t.  Soccer and basketball have done far more to ride the globallization (get it??) tsunami.  I’ll still root for the Chargers, but part of me wants America’s other sports to overtake this self-important, fan-hating concussion mill.

I don’t wish to offend, but the point of this post is that such ruminations shouldn’t be offensive.  I’ll skip past the perfunctory statements about who Chris Henry was and how sad his early passing is.  I’m commenting on a related phenomenon:  When athletes die, sports kabuki follows.  In the wake of a wake, famous deaths get used by the less principled for sleazy ends (see: the aftermath of Reagan’s death).  Sports are no different.  Subconsciously or consciously the big sports leagues seek to maximize their benefit from tragedy.  And we’re stuck in the sand—frozen by social mores, and a powerful impulse to avoid the ‘Not cool, dude’ chide.

Last Sunday was disgusting.  Chad Johnson probably feels real pain for his lost teammate, but all of that is mixed in with a staggering narcissistic streak.  He cries for the cameras, claims he’ll wear Henry’s jersey, dress in his locker, whatever. Dude…it’s not about you.

Perhaps it’s Ocho’s way of dealing with the pain, but he certainly doesn’t hate the attention.  And neither does the NFL.  This is drama, a chance to further hype a marquee matchup between two top teams.  By all means, keep the cameras on Chad as he weeps on the sidelines! How compelling!  It’s also a chance for the NFL construct an alternate memory of who Henry was, and deflect the casual fan from thinking ‘human crimewave.’

Look, I hate when guys like Colin Cowherd jump into these stories as though someone rang a racial paternalism bell.  But I also hate how we scrub history clean in the name of sensitivity.  We don’t have to cruelly say ‘he deserved it,’ or dismissively say, ‘it wasn’t surprising.’ We don’t have to act as though (this is directed at Cowherd) a freak incident is the perfect template for shaking our fists at young black athletes—as if Henry is indicative of some grand social problem that must be solved right NOW.  What society should do is stop large corporations from manipulating our humanity. I wish some sportswriter would say, “Gee, NFL, CBS, it’s death, not a commercial for your game.”

The power of sports kabuki prevents us from doing this. We have to ‘mourn’ the loss, turn Henry’s life into an acceptable narrative (Chris Henry was reformed! Pat Tillman was a hero!), and help the NFL  squeeze as much good press as they can from the contrived emotion.  Any major figure who questions this dance will be chucked into the realm of deviancy faster than post-911 Bill Maher.  Perhaps it doesn’t matter, but I like veracity. Not ‘oh-so-serious’ NFL bullshit kabuki.  What I saw last Sunday just didn’t seem honest.

Ironically sports are all about emotional manipulation.  They are totally trivial without our collective feeling irrationally poured in.  But a ‘NBA on NBC’ Marv Albert-narrated montage gooses your feelings in a positive way.  The NFL appealing to your sensitivity for the sake of its own ratings and image just erodes your capacity for sympathy from a distance.  If media companies constantly gun for our empathy, we become a cynical, silly people.  I don’t have the Hollinger stats to prove this, but Jacko death hysteria+Tiger Woods hysteria+ongoing wars+feudal healthcare system = a country without emotional perspective.

I look at the CNN electoral map, and confusion ensues. Perhaps it’s just not updated, but the wisdom of these metrics eludes me. Here’s a breakdown of the strange CNN cartography:

Safe Obama-153 (CA, IL, NY, VT, MA, CT, RI, MD, HI)
Safe McCain-125 (AZ, UT, ID, WY, ND, SD, NE, KA, OK, TX, MS, AL, KY, TN, SC, AL)

Leaning Obama-37 (OR, WA, ME, NJ)
Leaning McCain-69 (MT, NM, AK, LO, GA, NC, WV, IN)

Toss Up-154 (NV, CO, MO, IA, MN, WI, MI, OH, VA, PA, FL)

First off, what separates “toss-up” from “lean”? It’s currently blurrier than the line between “gaffe” and “flub.” Obama is ahead by 13% in the latest Wisconsin poll, but somehow Farvetown is completely up in the air (Yes, I know that Kerry took WI by the slimmest of margins, but still, 13 points!). The same can be said for Meen-ah-soh-tah, where Obama leads by 15 points in the latest Rasmussen.

New Mexico is probably a T-up, though Obama leads by 9% in the last Rasmussen poll. Somehow it lies in McCain’s lean column. Some of McCain’s safe states seem quite poachable. South Carolina, and some of the oft forgotten plains states are currently competitive (It’d be nice if I could actually find recent polling from the urban futurevilles of North Dakota).

And there is one big decision that helps Obama’s numbers. The gator state is in the T-up column, when it should really be spotted to McCain—maybe even as a “safe” state.

So what does this all mean? Is CNN trying to augment the argument for a close ‘horserace?’ Are they just lagging on their numbers? Are they over-relying on the 2004 map? Do I need to get out more?

For some reason I thought Camille Paglia was no longer writing at Salon.com. Turns out she has been for a while, and she published an article just yesterday. The reason I continue to read her is that, unlike most critics of mushy, humorless, politically correct brands of leftism, she isn’t a reactionary conservative (as her critics would claim). She’s smart enough, for example, to see that the Iraq War has been dismal and has no chance of genuine success:

If the “surge” is really working in Iraq, all my fellow Democrats should rejoice, because it’s one more step toward getting U.S. troops the hell out of there. Let Bush have his face-saving claims of victory — who cares? Just bring this stupid, wasteful war to an end. Our brave soldiers and their families have suffered enough.

No matter how popular she gets, she’ll always be outspoken and fun:

Oh, I remember the New York Review of Books — it’s something I subscribed to faithfully in the 1970s and ’80s. I had to jog myself to recall that it’s still being published. The NYRB is now a fringe periodical that I never see anywhere and hardly hear mentioned. When one of its articles ends up posted by chance online, my eyes cross at its dreary, archaic verbosity. What a small, incestuous world its readers and writers inhabit.

Of course, I could say that about the New Yorker too — another publication I literally never see anywhere except in airports. I’ve never been a fan of the New Yorker (except for its cartoons) in any of its incarnations. All that precious, fussy, gassy prose. I listen to real American voices all day long — on sports radio, political talk radio and 24-hour news. And ever since the birth of Salon in 1995, I’ve been a creature of the dynamic Web. Those people at the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books are living in an airless cultural void.

I quote the above passage specifically because I’m getting a subscription to the New York Review of Books (along with Reason Magazine) for this (past) Chanukkah. Yes, she’s right about the NY Review of Books. It’s a stuffy, irrelevant intellectual clique nourished by Edward Said and imported cheese from France. But the fact remains that, unlike Salon, it’s a great place to hear smart people talk about good books.

A break from politics to appreciate the greatest man alive…Oh, Stephen. After reading this, I feel inspired. Many players fall off the national consciousness a mere half-decade post retirement. Quickly, they are forgotten altogether. We see the legions of good players in blurred, grainy narratives. The narratives are about guys like Chamberlain or MJ–not dudes like Charles Oakley or Sam Cassell. And certainly not dudes like Stephen Jackson. God I hope we don’t forget about Jack. There’s something about him that transcends basketball. It’s almost as if he embodies the spirit of the East Bay. The tough guy. The underdog. The “misunderstood” eccentric. Who better to represent Oakland than a loveable nutcase who constantly teeters on the precipice of violent eruption?

I don’t mean to make violence seem endearing. But his lack of common sense is just so damned loveable. Jack’s more benign outbursts (non-violent referee squabbles, mostly) have such a child-like petulance to them. When you see that pleading, crazed grimace… Well, it’s impossible to really hate the guy. Ironically, only Tim Duncan has a similar aura when it comes to call-arguing. His questionable forays into packed lanes, his bad shots at the beginning of possessions, these are the things that would make you hate a player. Jack somehow rises above the bad decisions. Paradoxically, they seem to almost fuel his unique game. The lack of common sense befuddles the opponent. If Jack folds on pocket aces, then what the hell is he going to do next?

And like Baron, he has a rare ability to feed off a crowd. In the Bruce Lee spirit, Jackson is not one to think–he’s one to feel. SJ tapped into Oracle’s crazed spirit en route to hitting a gazillion consecutive robotic threes against the Mavericks. Maybe I’m getting a bit hyperbolic here, but that game was one of the most awesome experiences of my life.

Well Jack has played a big part in keeping me attached to the NBA. David Stern’s senility threatens to destroy everything I love about the game, but this Warriors team is a reminder of why I fell for basketball in the first place. The squad’s spontaneity, charisma, and character would not exist without the Strip Club Shooter. As a UCB student, I should be lauding the efforts of Nobel laureates. Screw that, I’ve found few famous figures more compelling. It’s why we dumbly incorporated him into a fucking political cartooning website. Thanks, Stephen. You make the Bay proud. We won’t forget ya anytime soon.

This was originally posted at the most unstoppable website of all time.

A big high-five goes out to James A. Thomson. The man is credited for single-handedly ending the war on embryonic stem-cell research. (Although, it shouldn’t be overlooked that he was the one who started the moral debate in 1998 when he first experimented on human embryos. But hey, even spider-man killed someone in his early days.) Now, only human skin cells are needed for stem cells, and we’ve got a whole layer of that.

“A decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote.”

Think about it: No more embryonic stem-cell research and no more moral ambiguity. Christian fundamentalists can stop lamenting over could-have-been babies. Stem-cell research can reach unrestricted heights. U.S. Presidential candidates can stop sweating about scientific knowledge. Everyone wins, right? Wrong, at least for now.

    The debate on embryonic stem-cell research is arguably one of only two science-related issues for U.S. Presidential candidates. (It plays second fiddle to global warming.) Truth be told, it’s not even a debate—most candidates supported embryonic stem-cell research as long as it is within reasonable limits. But with Thomson’s new findings, we just might see stem cells disappear from political agendas for good.

    Let’s hope not. Science seems to be increasingly marginalized, and this is bound to lead to unknown dangers. Remember, it was only recently that we realized global warmingis real (and many people still don’t believe it). Worst yet, nanotechnology is slowlyclimbing the things-that-could-kill-you ladder. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a Presidential candidate to know his/her science, and sadly, we just might lose one of the two qualifiers. Sorry, James A. Thomson, but I’ll take that high-five back.

Religion has been losing ground lately, especially with all the bad press circulating.  For the most part, Christians are pedophiles, Muslims are terrorists, and Jews…well they’re just Jews.  

Not surprisingly, many people are finding themselves questioning their religion more and more and as a result, the atheist population is growing. Not until recently, people are making an active attempt to remove themselves from religion. For myself, I left religion because I find its foundation a little weak.  (Not to mention, I get the added weekend time and the removal of guilt.) But there is a bigger reason that I and many others are becoming more adamant about our atheist views, and thats depowering the church.  I’m tired of the pope speaking for me and I’m tired of religious groups dominating politics, even at the world level.  Atheists simply want to see their view represented too, so they’re uniting more than ever.

However, its come to my attention that in the world perspective, maybe being Atheist isn’t such a great idea.  With more power in the hands of a corrupt few these days, everyone fears that radical muslims will be the decider of the future.  And, believe it or not, what do they fear more than christianity?  Atheism.  Apparently, my muslim practicing friends tell me that muslims actually despise people who believe in no god MORE THAN people who “corruptly” believe in the same god.  (My friends tell me this with their guarantee of certainty.  On a scale of not sure to very sure, they unanimously were very sure.  Not the most scientific study, I admit, but I believe them!)

Now, it’s clear where this is headed.  A simple chain of events might look like this: America shifts towards Atheism -> Radical Muslim terrorists hate Atheist America more than they hate Christian America -> Radical Muslim terrorists find access to nukes (probably one of our own missing nukes, or they get it from George Clooney) ->  America nukes Muslim terrorists first (you probably thought it was the other way around, but remember, we belong to a preemptive America that is dedicated to stopping evil-doers) -> Nuclear Warfare escalates -> We go the way of the dinosaur.

So next time you question you’re religion, realize that religion just might be for the greater good.  As for me, I’ll take my chances.