Three VERY Fouled Up Stories Today

Eesh...

• Castor Semenya is back in the news.  The IAAF is refuting a report that they have declared Caster Semenya male and are attempting, in court, to change the rules such that she is no longer declared, because of her testosterone level, to be allowed to run with women. (BBC)

Good grief.  Get off her back already.  Used by homophobes and transphobes as a whipping post to try to impose bigots' will on the rest of us, Semenya has been forced to challenge the IAAF's expansion of rules on athletes such as her who are female but may have more testosterone than most females.  It is, now, likely that, even should she win, she's out for most of 2019.

So it really doesn't fucking matter, IAAF, if you call her "male" or not -- the fact is you ARE doing so by imposing those new restrictions on what the IAAF is terming athletes with "differences in sexual development".

The appeal will continue to be heard in courts in South Africa and the Council for the Arbitration of Sport.

• David Stern is back in the news.  And it's his mouth about Colin Kaepernick...  (Deadspin).

Reports today that, had the NFL bowed to the right wing and suspended Kaepernick, he'd be in the NFL today.

Two things about that:

First, the NBA does have a requirement for players to stand for the National Anthem -- unlike the NFL.  But history appears to indicate the NBA has it's own blackball stories.  The Deadspin article points out the most famous case to show for it:  Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf -- banned one game, fined $32,000, and not allowed to play in the NBA again until he certified in writing he would stand for the Anthem.

That was in March of 1996, the same season Abdul-Rauf led the Nuggets in scoring.

The Nuggets exiled him to Sacramento that summer, and he was blackballed from the league two years later.

Second, there's always been a question in people's minds as to how Donald Sterling could've gotten away with all he did in the NBA.

That smirking-ass moron of a commissioner for so many years probably is a good case for why.

• And speaking of NBA Commissioners in the news...

Real interesting story coming out today about Adam Silver.

Silver, on NBA All-Star Weekend, is reported in ESPN to have no real consideration of a story which has come out which is...  interesting to say the least.

Silver has now been NBA Commissioner for five years, and is, ironically, celebrating it in Charlotte, North Carolina at the NBA All-Star Game -- the site of one of Silver's greatest victories as Commissioner, as he threw his weight behind efforts to expel a transphobic law from the state of North Carolina.

North Carolina held it's ground for a time, and Silver expelled the 2016 event from the state as a result.  North Carolina rescinded the law, at least partially, and enough for this year's event to be held in Charlotte.

That said, there's an interesting report out there that ESPN discovered that a confidant of an NFL owner actually reached out to Silver to try to get Silver to be Commissioner of the NFL.  Obviously, Silver declined.

And now reports have come out that this has been a continuing process since Silver became NBA Commissioner five years ago.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...  Maybe the game-fixing has gotten too close to the surface?

How would Silver's inclusive nature (imposing race- and LGBT-friendly decisions on parties within the NBA who have refused such) be treated by the #NFLBoycott crowd?  (And (see above) his predecessor???)