The perfect ambassador for pro sports?

Yes, I'm talking about Donald Sterling, of course.  How so?

Well, we have a man who, like a large portion of professional athletes--like the one he didn't want photographed with his ex-girlfriend--is not faithful to his wife.  As a former divorce lawyer and slumlord, he has numerous ethical lapses in his business career--just like the "pay to play" and "get richer quick" schemes that have impoverished so many retired athletes.   Like all too many athletes, he's flashy in his personal style, spends enormous amounts of money on entertainment, and his thinking leaves something to be desired.  To wit, he apparently objected to his girlfriend's taking pictures with Magic Johnson, but apparently he would have had no problem if she'd slept with the HIV-positive basketball legend.  Like many professional athletes, he (move to LA from San Diego) seems to be something of a financial mercenary.

And, like all too many professional athletes, he's got some repugnant personal views that are ignored in the name of the game until those views get too obvious to ignore, and he even had (like many pro athletes) organizations like the NAACP conned in this regard--again, at least until his views became too obvious to ignore.

In other words, he's the perfect representative of the game, at least until the NBA decides to get serious about the moral and ethical lapses of its owners, players, and office staff.

It boggles the mind

Apparently, the owner of an NBA franchise has been caught yelling at his partially black girlfriend because he didn't want people close to him being photographed with African-Americans.

In related news, the owners of the Edmonton Oilers and the Maple Leafs told their families they didn't want them seen with Canadians, seven NASCAR owners told their teams not to give high fives to rednecks, and half of Congress and the chief resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue told their families they didn't want them photographed with lying thieves.

That last one's got promise, doesn't it? 

A thought for November

....is that the GOP could do little better than to take populism back.  President "Aragula is so expensive at Whole Foods" Obama talks it well, at least with TOTUS' help, but let's be serious.  He's a man of the people in far less degree than are Warren Buffett or Bill Gates.  Can't the GOP make these arguments:

Please tell me why the poor and middle class should be subsidizing hybrid and electric cars for the rich--especially when they're not environmentally sound at all?

Please tell me why the poor and middle class should be subsidizing entertainment--PBS, NPR, the NEA, and the NEH--for the rich?

Please tell me why the poor and middle class should be subsidizing windmills owned by the rich, solar companies owned by the rich, and the like?  Again, especially when one considers that the environmental "benefits" of these are far exaggerated to nonexistent?

Please tell me why the poor and middle class ought to subsidize corn farmers who own tens of millions of dollars worth of land, and ethanol refiners whose use of water requires them to drill new wells for many of their neighbors?  (real example from Janesville, Minnesota, by the way)

Please tell me why the poor and middle class ought to be subsidizing college professors through the 50% of Pell Grants and student loans granted to students with no serious chance of graduating?  We're victimizing the poor twice this way--first by taxing them to pay for this, second by saddling their children with student loans.

One can go on and on, but you get the picture.  Many of the most egregious offenses in the federal budget fall, directly or indirectly, under the banner of "programs which tax the poor and middle class to benefit the rich."  If we can't get some of these programs killed, we more or less are giving up the republic.