Some of what happened on my blog-vacation...

With the Olympic boycott and so much fail going on that I did not cover due to it, I decided just to take a while off of actually doing the blog.  There are several big stories which will get their own stuff, including:

• The Wells Report on Richie Incognito and the Jonathan Martin situation.  I get the feeling that, if there were any justice in this country, there would be one fewer NFL team and/or Martin would become a significant minority owner of a team/the Dolphins.  And then a Dolphins' official goes and makes it worse yesterday.
• The University of Missouri's SEC Defensive Player of the Year, Michael Sam, has become the first NFL draft prospect to come out as gay.  He is apparently not doing that well at the combine, but there are incidents indicating far more serious storm clouds on the horizon, including a tasteless idiocy by Steve Elkington on his Twitter and The Westboro Baptist Shitheads trying to disrupt the Sugar Bowl trophy presentation at the University of Missouri last Saturday.  The latter disruption was halted by a human chain of over 2,000 members of the U of Missouri community to stop that shit in it's tracks.  It was believed he'd be a mid- to late-round situation at best.  Now, it appears as if the predictions friends of mine are giving that he will be blackballed from the NFL for being gay will probably come out true.

A number of other things happened:

• The Jason Collins story continues, as the Brooklyn Nets signed Collins last week to a 10-day contract, and he became the first openly gay athlete to play in a North American Big Four sport when he played against the Lakers.  No one will confuse Collins for more than a good bench player who can eat minutes as a big (and those in the know also see this as an opportunity to groom Collins for a coaching position in the NBA when it's all said and done), but that he was finally signed and that the league and the Laker fans in attendance giving him a solid reception indicate that at least something is heading toward the 21st century in sports.
• The Washington Times undercut Brian Tuohy yesterday, bringing to the fore the first Ali-Liston fight and the FBI files (which Tuohy notes he put into his Larceny Games book which came out 5 months ago) which indicate only the worst-kept secret in sports.
• It will, as of next year, be a 15-yard penalty (and, I would assume, a fine) for any player to use the six-letter N-word racial slur.  I'm against this -- until the NFL decides to do the exact same thing for the six-letter homophobic slur as well.
• Prepare for the hissy fits:  Major League Baseball is going ahead with the ban on most home-plate collisions.  As many with any sense of history have pointed out:  About damned time.
• Speaking of baseball and idiot fans:  The two poster-children (emphasis on children) for American fan-hood, the two hoodlums who tried to kill Brian Stow three years ago were sentenced for the attempt.  And after three years incarcerated, neither showed even a gram of remorse.  After one jackass serves four years and the other eight, the Feds get their turn on gun-felon charges.  They need to fucking die, not only as a criminal penalty for actually trying to kill Stow (and failing), but also as an example that the bullshit needs to be cleaned up, and by lethal force when necessary.  Those two pieces of what one blogger on the subject have called "human debris" have been incarcerated three years -- not an ounce of remorse, regret, or regard.
• I could easily see a similar boycott of the World Cup, as Declan Hill has reported numerous human rights violations in Brazil to attempt to sanitize the World Cup experience this summer...

Michael Sam: The Good News, and The All-Too-Probable Bad News

February 9, 2014 should have been another one of those days that sports entered the 21^st century.

February 9 2014 should have been another one of those days where Football Nation America entered about the 20^th century.

On that date, a very important event occurred.

Unfortunately, it is about to be followed, by all accounts, by a predictably discriminatory one.

Meet Michael Sam. Defensive lineman from Missouri.

On February 9, 2014, Michael Sam came out, almost certainly becoming the highest-profile current American-football player in the country to announce his homosexuality. He is the first NFL Draft prospect in history to come out. He did so on his own terms. No one outed him.

This is important for a very real reason: Michael Sam is about to enter the NFL Draft. In his senior season at the University of Missouri, in leading that school's defense to aid in the SEC East championship in it's best season in many years, Michael Sam was voted the SEC's best defensive player, the conference's Defensive Player of the Year.

This is no Johnny-come-lately. Eight of the last nine SEC Defensive Players of the Year went in the first round.

He was projected to be drafted, and, even after he announced that he was gay, Mel Kiper, stating he did not believe that the announcement would impact his draft stock, said that there was much divisiveness anyway about Sam's accomplishments last season (for one example, some detractors felt that Sam had racked up statistics against lesser competition).

On November 7^th, 2013, Kiper chatted that he felt Sam could grade out into the 2^nd or 3^rd round.

Kiper believes that Sam is about a 4th-round pick, comparable to many similar players in the NFL currently, but there were identifiable issues with his size and his ability to go into proper coverage. Varying other predictions had Sam falling anywhere on the third day of the Draft (Rounds 3-7), before this announcement.

Don't fool yourself, Mel. Sam, at least, is a high enough prospect that we will know that 32 teams will collude to keep him out of the National Homophobia League.

But keep in mind the Jason Collins story. Even in an NBA that is clearly, on a corporate level, the most accepting of the major sports leagues to the GLBT commmunity, Collins has not entered his 12^th NBA season, and it is believed he is being shut out.

If that's taking place there, how does anyone expect, in the world of “The Gauntlet” for rookies at training camp and the like, that Michael Sam has a snowball's chance in Hell of making an NFL team?

I would put the odds better that we read Michael Sam's untimely obituary due to a “shocking accident” than hear of a successful pilgrimage onto an NFL roster, in which he would be the first openly gay active NFL player in known history.

Not only do I believe that 32 owners will gladly shut him out to make a statement, but I believe that, if Michael Sam does try to make an NFL team, that team will gladly take extra liberties, up to and including (if they can get enough “fixing” of the situation to keep it quiet) murdering him in a hazing ritual.

That's the reality of Roger Goodell's league. Even though Michael Sam's achievements should put to bed, once and for all, the perceived disjoint quality between heterosexual “manhood” and being a good football player, perception is much greater than reality.

In talking to several NFL officials, Sports Illustrated found, to a one, that Michael Sam has obliterated any real chance of an NFL career.

• "I don't think football is ready for [an openly gay player] just yet," said an NFL player personnel assistant. "In the coming decade or two, it's going to be acceptable, but at this point in time it's still a man's-man game. To call somebody a [gay slur] is still so commonplace. It'd chemically imbalance an NFL locker room and meeting room."
  
• "I just know with this going on this is going to drop him down," said a veteran NFL scout. "There's no question about it. It's human nature. Do you want to be the team to quote-unquote 'break that barrier?'"
  
• “Sam's announcement did not come as a surprise to most NFL teams. Sam's sexual orientation was considered an open secret in his college town of Columbia, Mo., and the assistant personnel man said he believed "90 percent of teams" were already aware that Sam was gay and had dropped him on their draft boards. He estimated that of the 32 NFL franchises, only two or three didn't know prior to Sunday night's news. He projected that it will impact Sam's draft status "quite a bit."”
  
• "There are guys in locker rooms that maturity-wise cannot handle it or deal with the thought of that," the assistant coach said. "There's nothing more sensitive than the heartbeat of the locker room. If you knowingly bring someone in there with that sexual orientation, how are the other guys going to deal with it? It's going to be a big distraction. That's the reality. It shouldn't be, but it will be."
  
• From the February 9, 2014 MMQB article on Sam: ““Should I really care?” one GM said. “Is it going to be that big a deal? Aren’t we beyond this?””
  
• “It’s not a shocking thing to me, and it won’t be to our organization,” another GM said. “You’ll have old-school guys on your team saying, ‘Are you kidding, putting this guy on our team?’ And you’ll have other guys say, ‘Who cares? I knew two gay guys who came out in college.’ ”
  
• One GM who already knew about the story told Peter King that he believes Michael Sam will not be drafted in the 2014 NFL Draft.
• Sam came out to the entire Missouri team before his senior season. Asked them to keep it secret, and it sounds like they did.

Deadspin had a couple more gems from the National Homophobia League:

• Herm Edwards basically mirrored most people who believe Sam will never play in the NFL. Homosexuality brings too much “baggage” to an NFL locker room, Herm said, and very poorly at that.
• The NFL fraternity's Twitter reponses. The ones listed were supportive. Will you be as supportive come May or August?

I'm left with several thoughts here, none of them good:

• Especially after the Richie Incognito scandal, and doubly so after it seemed the country came down on the side of that piece of shit, how can Sam's announcement be designed as anything but a retirement from football?
  
• How did he make it that far in football as an open (and known!) gay player in the world of Chris Kluwe being blackballed, Richie Incognito, etc.? As reprehensible as the thought is, it is shocking (to the positive) that Michael Sam got as far as he did with his sexuality being no secret whatsoever, in such a culture of sport in which rape-level power-over is a common manifestation of supposed “manhood”.
  
• After realizing what some rookies have had to go through at NFL training camps, how does anyone not see Michael Sam becoming a murder statistic? If you don't think every NFL team has some players who would openly do in the first homosexual active player in the game to make a statement as to a “real man's game”, etc. and so forth.
  

Please, tell me I'm wrong. I want him to succeed to shatter the barrier, and get the sport at least past 1950 or 1960.

But this just reads “This ends badly, on so many levels.” so obviously.

I will state it openly: I believe it's more likely that Michael Sam will be killed before Opening Day of the 2014 NFL season than it will be that he ever makes an NFL roster.

I hope I'm wrong on this one. The world will be a lesser place if I am right.

Another Example of the Complete Madness of Current American Sport

You've almost certainly seen the video by now. Almost every conceivable media outlet has carried it, if you haven't been basically so Olympic-centric that you've chosen to ignore reality.

It stems from an incident late in the February 8, 2014 contest with Oklahoma State travelling to Texas Tech.


This is probably one of the elite NBA prospects in present college basketball, Marcus Smart of Oklahoma State. At least one mock NBA draft has him well into the lottery, ranked sixth. There are many, however, who believe that it was a mistake that Smart stayed at Oklahoma State a second season.

Grave controversy now surrounds him after he shoved a Texas Tech “superfan”, Jeff Orr, in the stands.

Now, from experience, I can tell you the line between “superfan” and “stalker” or “dangerous individual” is, sometimes, a very close one. There are at least three times in my life that I could probably have been viewed as a “superfan”. The first ended with me barred from everything having to do with my first school, the second ended with me being barred from my second school's men's basketball arena, and the third, I did time for, as I've previously discussed.

The reason I bring this up is that it appears that much of the argument in this situation comes down to exactly what prompted Smart to shove this “superfan”.

I'll address my feelings on that in a moment, but there has been significant conjecture that Orr used the N-word as a racial slur against Smart, with an alternate scenario proposing Orr told Smart to "go back to Africa". A statement by Orr the next day claims that he simply referred to Smart as a “piece of crap”.

Let's look at this from both sides of the argument.

Marcus Smart has been suspended by the team for three games. In my honest opinion, that is a joke of the highest order.

For those who do not know, I was one openly calling for the permanent banishment of Ron Artest/Metta World Peace from the NBA after the infamous “Malice at the Palace” in Detroit. The comparison has been made, and Mr. World Peace has actually given some advice to Marcus Smart.

I want people to understand something: How much of it was due to Artest/World Peace's reputation and how much was otherwise, even though it was clear that World Peace had been sufficiently calmed down as he was prone on the scorer's table before the drink was thrown by the idiot (who I openly e-mailed to the Michigan Attorney General's office should've also been prosecuted for inciting a riot), Metta World Peace was banned from the NBA for the balance of that season.

Even with the mitigating factors, and there being obvious mitigating factors, the fact that Artest/World Peace broke that barrier and went into the stands was sufficient for the stiffest on-court suspension in the history of the league.

And it should've been. My position, even with all the mitigating factors, is that he should've been banned from basketball, as well as other members of the Indiana Pacers who also went in the stands.

That said, Detroit should also have been forced to play the better part of (if not) the remainder of that season under closed doors. But too much money would be lost, so, of course, money talked and bullshit walked.

The fact is simple: The mere fact that Marcus Smart went and made violent contact with a fan of any stripe is sufficient grounds, in my mind, for not only his permanent termination from college basketball, but his permanent termination from Oklahoma State University. And that statement is independent of what Mr. Orr said.

The only question regarding what Mr. Orr said to draw the reaction is the question of how long further should Smart be banned from basketball. If Orr's story is shown correct, then Smart should be arrested for assault and battery and banned from basketball for a minimum of one season further than this one, if not permanently. No NBA, no D-League, no NCAA, no foreign teams, nothing.

However, if Orr openly used racial slurs against Smart, then basically accepting the reality that Smart is probably NBA-bound and terminating his college career would probably be, begrudgingly, sufficient, and Orr should never be allowed to spectate another basketball game at any level.

And that gets to the other part of the story.

I've said before on this blog that fan conduct, across the American sports spectrum, is out of control. I have even seen open interference in games by fans aid (at least in small ways) determining playoff situations and the like.

The first thing we need to do is larger than just addressing fan conduct. When you decide that the economic ramification of attempting to control an out-of-control manifestation of Howard Cosell's “Sports Fan Syndrome”:

“The fan is sacred, even as sports are. He pays the freight, thus he is an entitled being. The media people tell him this every day. Therefore, once within the arena, his emotions whetted by the Sports Syndrome, the fan adopts what John Stewart Mill found to be the classic confusion in the American thought process, the confusion between Liberty and License—a natural and probable consequence of which is fan violence.”

… then you have no prayer of getting any semblance of control over the fans, which will then have, as a similar “natural and probable consequence”, violence by the players against those fans, in the very same principle.

This is what happened here. Especially with the likes of NCAA basketball and the money it makes ESPN and the NCAA, the result of forfeitures and the like will never happen – like it did not happen with an open case of fan interference in the Arena Football League playoffs in 2011.

I'm going to tell you another story about how I got involved with a coach on my days as a “superfan”:

It was the annual Wisconsin-Eau Claire Holiday Tournament in late 1991. Eau Claire, then the #1 NAIA team in the country, is hosting the University of Hawaii at Hilo. I do not know if it was the head coach or an assistant, but he was up on his feet questioning a call, and I yelled “SIT DOWN, COACH!”

Unfortunately, I did so a little late from the hubbub of that call, and the coach looked right at me, said “Oooo-key...” and sat down.

I knew, at that moment, I had crossed the line. I was not disciplined, nor even told to do what I did later: After Hilo's third-place game, I went over to said coach, shook his hand, apologized, and hoped we would see them at the national tournament.

Contrast that to what is believed might have been said at Texas Tech, or what was done in response.

Let me make no mistake: We need to find out what the guy said. He needs to be punished accordingly, should what he said merit.

But we need to go further than that, as Mike Greenberg has noted in a couple of tweets the next day.

First: “The behavior of some fans at sporting events has become a serious issue. To me, that's the discussion worth having today.”

This is beyond obvious, and needs to be addressed. We are showing many signs of descent in the sports fandom to the hooliganism we decry in European and South American soccer.

(There may be, in the intermediate future, a Guest Post on this subject as to why sports fans are going so berserk. But that is a maybe at this point.)

Second: “I've heard things yelled at players at games that, if they retaliated, I would have testified in their defense.”

Then report it to the stadium security, and name names, Greeny.

The fact that sporting competitions are going on under this kind of abuse cannot continue without the games degenerating into small-scale warfare. That we have not had numerous Malices or Miami vs. Florida Internationals is nothing short of blind fucking luck.

And it needs to stop.

So here are some suggestions:

• The overriding principle that sports exists to make money and as an economic construct must end. Yesterday. It is clear that too many events (sporting and otherwise) simply exist for profit, and that profit basically overriding all semblance of common sense. Neither on the player side nor the fan side will incidents like this subside until we cease this.
  
• We must give the referees, leagues, and other relevant parties the authority to end contests, forfeit contests, prevent contests from taking place, etc. should the circumstances require, and those circumstances need to be far stricter than they are now and very well publicized.
  
• We must have safeguards in place to allow fans to cheer, but also the protect the players. Make it a 100% criminal offense to be the aggressor in any fan/player altercation. Make it a forfeiture offense (if the fan can be identified) to be a fan aggressor against a sporting contest (be it “Idiot on the Field” or a person running out onto the court to fight a player).
  
• Any such aggressor is not only disqualified from that venue, but all relevant venues.
  
• Racial or homophobic slurs = Game Over. And it doesn't matter whether it's Pop Warner or the NFL, high school or the NBA.
  
• Any franchise or school unable to keep reasonable control of their fans loses the right to have them attend contests, either by forfeiture of future contests or the soccer solution of being forced to play those contests in empty arenas.
  
• And a big one no fan will like: It is time to fully reexamine the sale of alcohol at sporting events, further than it is now. Many of these incidents are started by fans with what is called “Liquid Bravery”. You abused the privilege? You lose it.
  

I once asked a person whom I greatly trusted on the subject of fandom, “How far is too far?”

The answer I, after years of searching, got (and, unfortunately, too late by the time I actually received it) was to the effect of “People know in their hearts when it happens.”

From my own personal experience, and my viewing of sports, that statement, though meant well, is a categorical falsehood. People need to know where the lines are, and that the consequences apply to far more than just themselves.

It's time for the bullshit to stop.

Day Zero, and the Russians Are Already Showing Their Cards

Day of the Opening Ceremonies, and the Homophobe-Lympics are off to a disturbing start.

St. Petersburg:  4 LGBT activists arrested in protests.  Homophobes left untouched.

Moscow:  Ten more arrested.

(Source)  (Video article from The Advocate, leading some to believe that the instant the Games are over and the world turns it's back, the REAL ugliness begins.)

Google protested by making it's daily Doodle for the Opening Ceremonies, though in honor of the Olympic athletes, with a rainbow background.

They then stated this from the Olympic Charter, which no one should be left to believe after this boondoggle:

"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play."

Chevrolet's Olympic ads have gay couples in them as well.

Special Report Two: Propaganda in the Real World: How Putin Will Help Finish Off the Olympic Movement

(Author's Note:  I will not be, for the most part, covering the Sochi Games on this blog.  Unless a violent incident (which many people I've talked to believes will happen) occurs during the Games, I have been asked to boycott them on the basis of Russian bigotry.  This story, and the Vanderbilt story, will remain on top for the balance of the Games.  Any stories which come up over the course of the Games on subjects other than the Games will go below them.  So the date stamp on these posts will move.)

I was asked to do this post a number of months ago.

It was in direct response to the first reports of GLBT human rights abuses, under the color of an absurd law in Russia that makes the distribution of “propaganda” promoting GLBT persons to be illegal in Vladimir Putin's nation.

Now, on the eve of what almost-certainly appears, on a myriad of levels, to be an overpriced, corrupt, dangerous Olympics that Russia certainly is not prepared for, the world needs to take a look at this idiocy and grow a set.

First, the law itself:

On June 29, 2013, the Russian legislature – the State Duma – passed without a dissenting vote a new law prohibiting the dissemination of materials promoting “non-traditional sexual relations” to minors.

This is clearly a broadside against a GLBT community in a nation which, outside the Muslim world, has few equals as to the hostility toward said community.

Foreigners can be jailed for up to 15 days, fined up to 100,000 rubles, and then tossed from Russia.

Then, some of the Russian backlash against world criticism of this garbage:

According to the Wikipedia page on the subject, Vitaly Mutko, the Sports Minister, states that international criticism of the law in the face of the Sochi Olympics is a Western invention.

Oh really, Mr. Mutko?

Really???

Let me lay some ground work here.

President Obama, in response to the growing international backlash against the law, though falling short of the needed response (As most athletes have said on the subject: The Show Must Go On, after all...), decided to add Billie Jean King, Brian Boitano, and Caitlin Cahow to the American Olympic contingent for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies in late 2013.

I would have to think, in 2014, that the only people who still do not believe that the Olympics are a major propaganda exercise for most (if not all) of the major-medal countries, as well as the hosts (Vladimir Putin is seen as the most controlling head of state over an Olympic Games in it's modern history.), simply choose not to pay attention to the reality of the Games since at least the summer of 1980, if not further.

The possible inclusion of Johnny Weir on the 2014 figure-skating team placed a further spotlight on the law, but Weir retired from competitive skating (*cough*So the show can go on unabated in Sochi?*cough*) in 2013, and will broadcast as an analyst for NBC during the Games.

These realities (and others) lead me to one conclusion: The entire US Olympic delegation, by the correct acceptance of GLBT athletes and broadcasters, is an illegality under Russian law. The Olympics are a propaganda exercise (though not always with the negative connotations of the word – which see Jesse Owens), and the power of GLBT athletes has been used as a promotional propaganda for both nation and community in the past (which see the likes of multiple gold-medal winner Greg Lougainis).

The participation of the United States in these Games should not stand – neither by this idiotic Russian Law (which several lawyers in this country indicate mirrors similar laws in eight states, including 2002 Olympic host Utah), nor of the myriad of GLBT people worldwide who live in constant fear for their lives, and that allowing these Games to remain in Russia may not only empower attacks on their own lives, but, in the worst-case scenario, lead to a replay of Munich in 1972.

I attended those Salt Lake City Games for the first week. Surprisingly, the only anti-gay rhetoric I heard or saw in the Mormon city was the Westboro Baptist Idiots on the rise toward the main temple on the day of the Opening Ceremonies.

With many ominous political storm clouds brewing over Russia, no such assurance exists in Sochi.

Not in a Russia where:

• An actor who ran for President of Russia, Ivan Okhlobystin, last year called for the extermination of all gays, Hitler-style.
  
• In case you think some of the reports of anti-gay violence are overstated, the Gawker blog and Human Rights Watch have this to show to you.
  
• In a continuance of a farcical meme which has polluted all discussion on the subject, Vladimir Putin likened gay conduct to pedophilia, less than a month before the Games.
  
• In 2012, before these laws were made national, one of the music industry's greatest supporters of the LGBT community, Madonna, was threatened with arrest under a preceding law in St. Petersburg, where she was on tour at the time. She still insisted on making supportive comments to the community.
  
• In more anti-Madonna news, it now appears that Madonna will be charged with violating her Russian visa by using her concerts to promote such propaganda. Lady Gaga faces the same fate. (Source: ABC News.)
  
• Several polls in Russia show that support for the national “anti-propaganda” law runs between 85-90%.
  
• The mayor of the host city, Anatoly Pakhomov, proudly declared last week that the city was completely eradicated of all gays – that the only gays who would be in Sochi for the Olympics would be the foreign athletes and such. (Which should then be followed by the immediate question of where the bodies were left...)
  
• Particularly ominous is this quote from Pakhomov: "Our hospitality will be extended to everyone who respects the laws of the Russian Federation and does not impose their habits on others," he said. (Hence, the assurances Putin has given to gay athletes is an absolute lie.)
  
• Among other things, the inclusion of GLBT members in the United States delegation (as well as a suicide bomber actually making it on an Olympic site a few weeks ago) has led to enough risk against the United States Olympic Team that the State Department has instructed the American team that they should not wear their uniforms outside of relevant Olympic competitions and events.
  
• The personal boycott of numerous Western leaders of these Games, including President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande was roundly slammed by IOC President Thomas Bach as excessively political. (Yet Putin is attempting to politicize these Games at every turn to his benefit, and those of his insiders, perhaps at the cost of GLBT (and other) blood... Home-field advantage?)
  
• Just three days before the Sochi Games, CNN and other media sources report that two female members of the Austrian Olympic team have been threatened with kidnapping. This is the latest of a number of letters sent to a number of countries -- including the US delegation -- but it is not known who sent this one (all that is known is that it was written in German) or why.
  
• Forget about having any electronic privacy at these Games. NBC has already reported that everybody even using their cellphones anywhere in the Sochi area is hacked effectively the instant they start using them. Anyone even thinking of posting supportive material is probably going to get a visit – real quick.
  
• They are not ready to host these Games. Recent blog pictures posted to the Gizmodo blog indicate that the athletes' village is nowhere close to completion, three hotels which were built for the Games will never be completed, the plumbing in many of the facilities is a joke, several of the Olympic “Parks” are complete disgraces (including one named after Putin), and the Games are $40 billion over budget.
  

These, among other things, leave only one conclusion:

Something is going to happen in Sochi, Russia, in the next three weeks.

They are leaving the door wide open for an incident. And if it's an incident to basically harm, torture, or even kill a GLBT-community supporter or even athlete, it certainly will score points for Vladimir Putin, especially with a Russian public who supports his bigotry to the extent of about 85-90% of the population. It is no secret that Putin is using these Games for political gain, as well as embezzling billions of dollars to his supporters.

There is no way they can “test-run” any safety precautions for athlete, official, delegation, or spectator for the event. They have no chance. There is still believed to be a very strong possibility that at least one “Black Widow” is at large who could suicide-bomb the entire mess.

To me and to many I've talked to on the subject (including several who have reviewed this post before publication), it is effectively certain (whether we find out about it or not is another matter!) that someone, for their orientation or belief system, is going to pay a heavy price in Sochi, perhaps up to and including their life.

For that reason, I have been asked to, and I agree to as the official stance of this blog, simply decide not to take part unless such an incident occurs. Anyone who knows me knows that I take great pleasure poking holes in the five rings that constitute the circus which most any modern Olympic Games and exposing the farcical nature of anything I can find with respect to the Games. (If you doubt me, go back about 18 or so months on this blog to my coverage of the situation in London.) And I believe there will be many more holes to poke here.

That said, the problem here is simple: We've got probably the closest thing to a Cold War leader in Russia since the Berlin Wall fell. He's not afraid to rattle sabres, and he is openly looking at being belligerent. (For another example, there's talk Putin may be preparing to annex the Ukraine.) This, combined with this idiotic law (which can basically extend to anything – a person has been known to be fined for using the Internet in a manner in which the authorities determined was propaganda), turns what I called “Salt Lake City, with a Russian twist” into smatterings of the tragedy of Munich in 1972.

Even though we can only hope that a massive winner in these Games turns out to be more a Jesse Owens moment like Berlin in 1936, the world should not have taken this chance. As such, the Five-Ringed Circus will have to go on with other people documenting the farce. And if what I fear will happen happens, then I default back to the motto of the country of Chile:

“By reason or by force.”

Special Report One: There Are Certain Things You Do Not Do

“You don't tug on Superman's cape.
You don't spit into the wind.
You don't pull the mask of the ol' Lone Ranger
and you don't mess around with Jim (/Slim)!”

                                                                  -- Jim Croce

I hope starting with that quote will not make the message surrounding this sports story glib, because it really is the first of two special stories I will be doing for this blog on similar subjects.

It is time that the world accepts the GLBT population, by reason or by force.

(And “reason” is quickly leaving the playing field.)

To show how far we have to go, two “Special Report” stories this week on the blog.

For the first one: Let's take an extended look at an incident on ESPN's Grantland site which has raised more than a few negative eyebrows.

It all started rather innocuously: An January 15, 2014 article written by Caleb Hannan on a “Dr. V” who had created a putter which appeared to significantly enhance one's putting game.

The creator, a Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt, had put up a YouTube video (in the linked article) with no less than former CBS golf commentator Gary McCord singing the praises of a new putter he had discovered from Dr. Vanderbilt.

(And, believe you and me, with as long as McCord has been around the sport of golf, his endorsement has to carry some degree of weight.)

Dr. Vanderbilt was a physicist, who had been researching golf patents going back to the 1950's, and appeared to make a putter that could be saleable in a sport which even most smaller companies now believe may be about to die in the United States, with a rapidly aging demographic.

So, the person from Grantland wanted to interview her. The response, at best, indicated that much of what was going on was secretive, at best.

From the article:

“I have no issues as long as the following protocols are followed because of my association with classified documents,” she wrote. “Allow me to elucidate; I have the benefits under the freedom of information act the same privileges as federal judges, my anonymity is my security as well as my livelihood, since I do numerous active projects … If the aforementioned is agreeable to you, please respond to this communique at your convenience so we can schedule our lively nuncupative off the record collogue.”

I can tell you that I associate with certain people who have connections with various well-known parties, who have asked me to keep any information (given to them in confidence) I get from them, similarly, secret. So, though I find this uncommon, I do not find anything outside the verbage used to be particularly unusual.

So he tried to go through McCord to try to smooth the waters a bit. Hannan found out, from McCord, that Vanderbilt was not joking about classified documents – we're talking Department of Defense here.

The first mistake Caleb Hannan made was trying to make was going beyond the science to the scientist.

She was a tall woman, a bit of red hair, and a Vanderbilt. A lot to study there.

McCord cautioned the Grantland author not to do so, and basically warned him to “hang on” when he finally was going to be able to contact Dr. Vanderbilt.

And McCord didn't leave his endorsement of Dr. Vanderbilt's putter to YouTube. A PGA professional had picked up the club and was using it in the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship, and McCord was singing it's praises in the tournament. A clip of that is also on the original Grantland article, linked above. The golfer, Aaron Baddeley, would quickly transition to another putter, even though his performance significantly improved with Dr. Vanderbilt's club. No true reason was given.

So that led Hannan to finally weave through the web of Dr. Vanderbilt and actually get to talk to the mysterious doctor. Accent, deep voice, migraines if she ever spent more than a couple hours outdoors – the last precluding any personal use of her handiwork.

She also revealed a dark side to her invention. In a six-month period, her golf company's office had been broken in to NINE TIMES, presumably to attempt to either steal the plans of or completely discredit the club which she had created.

The next step was actually to get the club and have Hannan see it for himself. It worked wonders immediately, and he found out that McCord had been information by Dr. Vanderbilt that she had worked on government projects like the Stealth Bomber.

But an e-mail to Dr. Vanderbilt which sang the praises of the putter was met... coldly.

“As I clearly stated at the onset of your unsolicited probing, your focus must be on the benefits of the Science for the Golfer not the scientist, however, at this juncture you are in reversal of your word, as well as neophytic in your modus operandi of understanding the science of Yar. If you were observant or should I state; had the mental aptitude of ratiocination you would have gleaned or inquired about the advantages of the Inertia Matrix … If you are what you presented yourself to [Gary McCord], as a golf nut, then you should be in shock and awe that someone has given the golfing milieu a scientific breakthrough as revolutionary as the two-piece rubber core golf ball was a hundred years ago!!!”

This created the second mistake Caleb made: Hannan's experience with the putter had piqued his interest so much that he decided to dig into Dr. Vanderbilt's story. Finding no record of any such person as a Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt until about 10 years ago or so, he dug further.

It was a lawsuit that was filed by Dr. Vanderbilt for sexual discrimination in Arizona that finally unraveled the mess.

She lost the lawsuit when the judge ordered her to sign an affidavit so that the city could (like Hannan) explore Dr. Vanderbilt's background – that she'd always been Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt.

I think you can tell where this is going, especially from my initial statement: She had not. The person from the city sued who was contacted all but tipped off the whole mess by using “she” and “her” as if the quotation marks I just threw around those two pronouns were verbalized.

And then, Caleb Hannan showed his hand, and outed Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt as a transsexual who had never attended the colleges or anything else which she had indicated.

But the deception on the colleges was not the point: Hannan crossed the line, cleanly, when he outed Dr. Vanderbilt as a transsexual in a country where only being as different as “THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT ALABAMA!” after the Iron Bowl is a death penalty offense – or being considered a bandwagoning 49ers fan would've been one had the bullets found their intended target.

There are still many locations in this country that are so backwards that they would have no problem executing anybody different than them in such manners if they could get away with it. As a result (and I speak from nine years on the streets of San Francisco with common knowledge of the Castro District), many members of the GLBT community – especially the T – live in constant fear of their lives, and, in many cases, not the least from their families.

Once Gary McCord got word Hannan had found out and exposed Dr. Vanderbilt's identity, he (and almost certainly quite angrily) stopped speaking to him.

The ensuing communications from Dr. Vanderbilt became much angrier, much less stable, and much more indicative of a person who was being bullied (and she felt, as well, by Hannan, as well as others) for being who she was.

On October 18, 2013, Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt killed herself, and it appeared to the pleasure of at least one in-law in the family, who contacted Hannan with the news.

-

To say the shit hit the fan on the Grantland article would be kind.

Within 48 hours, Grantland's lines were lit up by people outraged that the article made print.

On Monday, Bill Simmons, the editor of Grantland, attempted to take to his own defense.

It took Simmons only a few hours of the outrage he read to realize that Grantland screwed up.

Speaking with my knowledge of the GLBT community, I almost have to say it should be fatal to the Grantland column.

Why?

Let's start with a very interesting web series that TSN (the Canadian ESPN) ran on “Reorientation: The Culture of Casual Homophobia”.

It has three parts. The videos are linked here: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Homosexuality (and being a transgender even more so) is a death knell in sports which makes one considered lesser and not worthy of participation, if not basically being injured/killed outright.

Anyone who has not read of the numerous people murdered for being LGBT in this country – and the innumberable additional human beings who kill themselves at the literal direction of bullies for being LGBT – either is ignorant by choice or by a very large stroke of blind luck.

The final mistake Hannan made was that the author had outed Dr. Vanderbilt to one of her investors – before she killed herself when that investor pulled any further involvement as a result.

Frankly, that should expose the author (and Grantland/ESPN) to money damages for the wrongful death, and probable criminal charges for Hannan. The suicide now becomes a wrongful death situation, and, the “numerous lawyers” for Grantland and ESPN aside, there will be a lawsuit. This was actually going to be discussed on Deadspin for a period of time, until it was decided that a lawsuit was ultimately the best way to proceed.

And Simmons makes some very valid points in his attempt to apologize:

• The high suicide rate of transgenders. It should come as no surprise that most of them are encouraged by forces around them to conform or die – often choosing the latter out of frustration, pain, bullying, and the inherent internal conflict transgenders have. According to LiveScience, no fewer than two out of five of all transgenders are believed to have attempted suicide.
  
• That it was never clear in the article whether Hannan was going to out Dr. Vanderbilt.
  
• And that it was never discussed before her death as to what was going to happen in that regard at Grantland or ESPN.
  
• That the second cardinal sin against a transgender was also violated – not getting the pronouns correct. GLAAD publishes a style guide on how to properly deal with that.
  
• That Hannan had a “chill down his spine” also could be read the wrong way.
  
• And the fact he pulled the trigger on the ultimate cardinal sin, outing Dr. Vanderbilt, destroying her livelihood as a result, and directly driving her to her suicide.
  

As a result of these errors, Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt is dead. And ESPN and Grantland should be held liable for that death.

This would be no different than if ESPN had outed an athlete, previously in the closet, on the current US Olympic Team, and something happened to him or her in Sochi, Russia. (Why that might very well be a problem will be addressed in my second “Special Report” on the farcical Five-Ring Circus in Russia (and the bad need for a GLBT Jesse Owens Moment) this week.)

This is no different than an athlete being outed in a college or high school, and eventually bullied, at minimum, out of sports, or the school, or the community he or she lives in, or his or her life outright.

Again, as often happens with inexcusable penalties like the zero-tolerance penalties against clear tributes to dead friends in the end zone, etc. and so forth, ESPN (especially, since it seems to glorify homophobia in various forms and fashions – whether it chooses to or not (and it certainly does not do so universally)) needs to understand the culture of sports in this country: Where “Power Over”, even (and often) to the point of rape and worse, is the ultimate goal.

Even a straight woman can no longer, in my honest opinion, expect appropriate conduct from a man, especially in a culture which glorifies absolute power on the part of said man over everyone in his path (we've even had a Congresscritter call for the concept of “legitimate rape”). It, at best, has to be enforced through the law – criminal AND civil. (And, usually only when the woman is considered economically important. I speak from experience in this regard.)

Moreover, it's 100 times worse when you start talking anybody in the GLBT community.

This is why Chile's motto -- “By reason or by force.” – applies. Either this world needs to recognize the right of GLBT human beings to pursue whatever form of athletic or other endeavor without fear of bullying or worse, or the Anakin Skywalker Effect needs to take hold, and that right needs to be forced on the rest of the world.

I fear we are very close to that latter situation. “Reason”, in this subject, has finished off Dr. Essay Anne Vanderbilt in a manner in which much of our American culture finds the desired result.

“Reason” has allowed an International Olympic Committee, for the second time in twelve years, to award a Winter Olympics to an openly homophobic city. (More on that after the Super Bowl.)

-

I have received a number of sources (from a number of parties) on this subject, in addition to the two initial Grantland pieces.

The women's issues sister blog to Deadspin, Jezebel, ran a story on January 18^th, three days after the initial Grantland article.

Deadspin, itself, ran a catalogue of many of the issues surrounding the article on the 19^th.

Another sister Kinja site, Uppercutting, went so far as to call Hannan a coward.

Much of the rhetoric of some disgust and a lot of discussion of the Grantland pieces overlaps between the three articles, and many others on the subject.

However, most stunning is that Grantland had somebody who could well have easily stopped all this.

Christina Kahrl is a baseball writer for ESPN. She could easily have seen this article, and seen all the problems she delineated in a scathing piece against Hannan and Grantland.

Why do I say this? She serves on the board of directors for GLAAD. On top of that, she has been known to be transgender herself since her days on Baseball Prospectus.

Essay Anne Vanderbilt died because she, in this homophobic/transphobic world of sports, did not appear to have the human right of decency of self-identification.

For this, ESPN, Bill Simmons, Hannan, and Grantland should pay through the fucking nose – and tack on jobs and the entire Grantland project while you're at it.

It truly appears that ESPN, as a “corporate citizen”, is guilty of a felony here – a hate crime, no less. And Caleb Hannan should honestly be charged with something, if the laws on the books exist in the relevant state.

We live in a sports world, today, where being only as different as not a big enough fan, a fan for not long enough, or even just not willing to throw oneself off the cliff for the team's latest loss is grounds for murder.

We live in a sports world, today, where being only as different as not as elite of an athlete as others is grounds for assault, battery, and dehumanization.

We live in a sports world, today, where taking time out for one's own life out of sports is no longer allowed – not only in the 24-hour news cycles of ESPNFS1NBCSNCBSSN...

We live in a real world where being different is grounds for death, whatever the manifestation of “difference” is. And when, in the interest of “getting the story”, an overzealous report exposes those differences to the point where it basically opens the gates of Hell, they should expect to be burned.

I add two further perspectives (which are good enough to stand on their own merit – adding my own thoughts, except on rare points, is almost pointless) on the subject along the lines of Christina Kahrl:

First, I add this piece from Maria Dahvana Headley, to which I only make one further comment: If the story is the entire thing, then there is only one option: Don't run the story, in any kind.

And then this article, short and sweet, from Melissa McEwan at Shakesville.

McEwan called it “careless, cruel, and unaccountable”.

And, until those three things are changed, it's time for heads to roll at ESPN and Grantland.

Super Farce XLVIII: One of the saddest human displays ever...

I saw about a half of yesterday's game before I walked out in disgust.

I thought about a team which had literally spent a half committing unsportsmanlike conduct on basically every major defensive/special teams hit it committed.  It was not enough for our new "champions" to just make the play, they had to tell you about it and be physically separated from ever-escalating incidents by the referees.

But no flags came out.

I thought about a fanbase that would spit at the concepts in the very Declaration of Independence FOX wants to ram down our throats now every time the Super Bowl is played on FOX.  (Nice propaganda stunt there, gentlemen.  Surprised you allowed the First and Second Ladies to take part...)

I thought about a fan in that fanbase who has no problems worshipping football and her precious fucking thugs in Seattle to the very expense of the lives, fortunes, and sacred honor of everyone around her -- and now she gets fucking rewarded as a fan of a "champion" for this?

I thought about a team that said "FUCK YOU!" to everyone around them -- the league, the rulebook, the opposition, the media, everybody.  A disrespectful lot of thuggery, almost certainly drugged out of their minds (they looked on another level than any team I've ever seen on the speed end -- one of the derogatory names for the team is the "Seattle Adderalls", and I do believe it after that display), coached by the most corrupt coach in football the last 15 years, and lauded to be our "champions" now.

I came to a fairly immediate analogue:  "The U".  The University of Miami, especially with it's zenith/nadir in that one Cotton Bowl against Texas that I compare this Super Bowl to.

For a good example, the first half of the game is below:


If Roger Goodell wants this (and, though I think he relishes the thought of a heel "champion", he did not look pleased as to the game on the field when the cameras cut to him late in the second quarter, Hags up 22-0), you will see this from every team within 1-2 years.  It will no longer be enough to make the play, now the chirping becomes full-scale.

This, of course, gives Goodell the power to ensure the winner and loser by who gets called for unsportsmanlike conduct when this occurs.

I also think of a Peyton Manning who is being increasingly seen as a paper tiger.

(I better quickly Edit To Add:  Yes, many other players were responsible, but Manning had zero poise at Met Life Stadium from anything I saw of him from before the game or during it.  This is NOT to bow to the ESPN Mantra about "It's all about the quarterback."  But when your quarterback looks pissed off and scared from 45 minutes before kickoff, and looks so completely out of sorts even before Seattle begins to pressure him, then one has to wonder if his 59 touchdowns were only accumulated because of inferior opposition and the like.)

If we are to believe that he was told he was going to throw the Super Bowl to New Orleans before the game, and didn't like it, then I have to conclude, from what I saw in a cut-in 45 minutes before kickoff, that not only was this the case again this time, but Manning, at that point, refused all pretense.

(Another edit to add:  And I think no secret was made, at that point, that attitude running throughout the team:  an attitude of "Fuck you.  We lay down, and you won't get your close game.")

The biggest Super Bowl rout in decades was the result, and a game which completely belied the Roger Goodell Cliffhanger Principle which allows companies to pay $4,000,000 for a thirty-second spot.

Manning threw two of the most embarrassing ducks in history in the first half.  One was picked off, the other should've been for what would've been his second pick-six of the half.  (A third which appeared to be a duck -- the pick-six -- was on a throw that his arm was struck.)

But I should've known 45 minutes before kickoff.  Those eyes were a pissed-off man who knew his legacy was, rightly or otherwise, about to get spit on -- again.

Those 59 touchdowns and that record passing yardage mean nothing, because a bunch of fucking trash-talking thugs with a trash-talking fanbase make more media for the NFL.

Even at the expense of any semblance of a contest...

I do believe that, at least for a short time, this offensive explosion is over, unless the league does what the NCAA did with Miami and takes the entire highlight reel and basically says that the clutching and grabbing and yakking and the like will be flagged -- and then they actually do it.

But, make no mistake.  In the day and age where the last three seasons have led to record scoring, this is the ONLY feasible way to stem the trend.

So fuck you Roger Goodell.

Fuck you 12th Man.

Fuck you Seattle Seahawks.

And fuck you to the NFL.

Repeated Facepalms Are In Order This Super Bowl Sunday

Just a couple thoughts before I check out (in more ways than one) this afternoon:

• If you're a columnist for an uninvolved team, please look like you're giving a damn. (Deadspin)
• If you get this doctor, you might want to ask a second opinion.  He actually said that the Patriots defeated the Broncos two weeks ago on Fox News...  (Deadspin)
• I've seen a lot of people stating this game might not be close.  Let's understand that only one Super Bowl this century has been any degree of a blowout (2003's Bucs-Raiders, and even that had a 4th quarter comeback of some sort.)  I can give you 4,000,000 reasons every 30 seconds as to why this phenomenon happens.  (I posted about this last year about the last six.)
• $6 for a bottled water???  If I'd had one in my room at the Mirage in the mini-bar, it'd have only cost me $4!!  (Deadspin)
• Don't expect the fans to make it by kickoff.  (JT The Brick had this for his followers about 3 PM Eastern about NJ Transit in Seacaucus.)
• Declan Hill has had his site hacked, according to his Twitter.  (Collective facepalm.)
• Key stat, according to Brian Tuohy:  Penalties.  Since it is long believed the Seahags' #1 pass defense is as dirty as their drug tests ("We'll interfere with you on every play.  They won't flag every one."), he may be right.  Perfect way for the league to be able to control the outcome, one way or the other.

And one from outside football to file away for a month or so.

Arizona was beaten in California last night to finally wrest them from being undefeated.

Probably shouldn't have happened, at least to an extent.

Court was stormed with .9 seconds left and Cal up 2.

Arizona had no timeouts, but the game should've been stopped and Arizona awarded two free throws and the ball at mid-court.

Just file that when you fill out your brackets.

(Another Deadspin article.)

SuperFraud Official Super Bowl XLVIII Prediction

I've been really going back and forth on this one.

On the one hand, you have the 12th Man, the proto-typical Roger Goodell fanbase.

On the other, you have Peyton Manning.

And I guess my prediction comes down to just what I said three weeks ago when Mr. "Fuck the NFL" was debunked:  Since it should be obvious that continuous tests have to be done on Peyton Manning's neck (and we've seen how those tests can force people to retire), why do we have to know about the post-season tests at that particular time unless the seed is being planted that Peyton Manning will be forced to retire in the 2014 off-season?

I'll make it clear:  If this is Peyton Manning's last game, Denver wins.

If it's not, Seattle wins.

That in mind:  With a TD pass in the dying seconds:  Denver 24 - Seattle 21.

(EDIT:  If you haven't already, read Brian Tuohy's take on Super Bowl XLVIII.  It basically almost mirrors mine to the letter.  The only two things working in the Seahawks' favor are the number of bets on the Broncos (read the insert Tuohy provides), and the fact that the league-leading defense is 3-1 in Super Bowls where it meets the league-leading offense.  I do really fear that one of the Seahags is going to go after that neck directly.)