One Stop Football 2012

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Fala ae Gurizada,,

na paz??

Meuw fds de sol hein,,, tesão!

de olho no lance,

curto mto domingo por conta do futebol na TV

e pq as ruas estão cheias de pessoas cuidando da saúde

não sou ligado em fds para sair pra balada ou beber tds

prefiro,, ver um bom filme, dormir cedo

e aproveitar o sábado e o domingo para colocar a vd em movimento

vms q vms néh

mto bom néh Brow

espero email de vcs

Abs

Soccer

Saturday, January 28, 2012

On Joe Paterno's passing and news media remorse.

The day of Joe Paterno's death, many in the sports world who knew him speaking to the media said they thought he died of a broken heart. Lou Holtz said it. Bobby Bowden said it. Brent Musburger said it. Todd Blackledge said it. But none of that is true. Joe Paterno had more heart dying than all of his critics had living. So, aside from the ravages of cancer afflicting a man of 85, it had nothing to do with a broken heart. But a case can be made that a contributing factor were the injuries he sustained from the beating he took in a back alley from a gang of punks otherwise known as journalists.

The reason the journalistic punks attacked Paterno is for the same reason punks anywhere attack anyone. Because they felt he was vulnerable, that it was safe for them to attack, and the biggest reason and most importantly of all, because of what they knew he had and going after it was for their own benefit.

A gang of punks would never attack anyone if they thought there was a risk the person they are attacking would fight back and cause them real harm. And of course they never attack anyone unless they feel they have something of real value they can take.

That's why it was Paterno who was jumped on by the punks in media and not Steve Turchetta, the coach at the high school where Sandusky's shower victim was a student even though Turchetta, even after complaints objections by the boy's mother , continued to allow Sandusky to take the kid out of school over the mother's objections. Its why Karen Probst, the principal at the boy's school, and other school offcials, didn't have their picture on the front of page of the Philadelphia Daily News with the words "Shame" even though when told of Sandusky's abuse, according to the mother, tried to talk her out of going to the police.

Ray Gricar was also left alone. He was the DA who the mother went to with the same complaints about Sandusky as far back as 1998 and decided he didn't have enough to prosecute. And without ascribing any negligence at all to the Penn State police, it has never been adequately explained why, when the mother went to the police in 1998 and detectives set up a sting ,eavesdropping on a conversation between Sandusky and the boy's mother where Sandusky allegedly confessed, nothing further was done.

But the roving gangs of punks in the news media ignored all of them. Because none of them had anything worth taking. None had anything near what Paterno had. And what Paterno had that was worth taking was the whole point.

Everyone knew Joe Paterno was a rich man, rich in all of the values he taught and inspired, and all his contributions and accomplishments that made his life and those who came contact with him as rich in their own way. If you're a journalistic punk like Sean Gregory at Time magazine or Jason Whitlock at Foxsports.com and you want to make a name for yourself, you want attention, you want to elevate yourself, who are you going to go after? Steve Turchetta? Karen Probst? Time Curly or Gary Schultz? What did they have of value worth ?

So the roving gang of journalistic punks they left them alone. For the most part they even left Jerry Sandusky alone. And went after Paterno. Because that's where the money was.

The media's excuse, their cover story for their attacks was they were sticking up for children and standing up against child abuse. No one should be fooled by that. Or believe a word of it. They weren't. As has been pointed out before, none of them, including the Philadelphia Daily News ever took on the Catholic church or the present Pope, who, as a cardinal knew about countless instances of sexual abuse by priests and made not reporting it to the police official policy so he church could handle it in house. And it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to know that the reason the church wasnt attacked is because those who say they care about child abuse felt it wasn't safe enough for them. There might be backlash, retribution, the church, even in a weakened state could hit back. There also might be financial damage in the form of boycotts in attacking the church.

So instead of going after all of the people who didn't report or act on Sandusky's abuse, they went after the one person who did Joe Paterno. And said it was because he didn't do enough ( it seems to escaped all these people that even if you wanted to believe that Paterno didn't do enough, it would only be because everyone else did nothing).

Okay, so how ludicrous really was the media's narrative and reporting?

The mantra of the media that Joe Paterno "didn't do enough" was the fiction used to justify their attacks for their own self-serving reasons. But this is how ludicrous their empty fiction was. ESPN reported:

"Tim Curley and Gary Schultz have been indicted for perjury and failing to report a crime after being informed of the allegations of Sandusky's child sexual abuse." Anyone notice what they left out?

ESPN conveniently omitted three crucial words, "by Joe Paterno".

Was it because pointing out that two Penn State officials were indicted for failing to report a crime of which they were informed of by Joe Paterno would make the media's attacks on Paterno look idiotic? How could Paterno not have done enough when a grand jury handed down two indictments based on what Paterno did do? If what Joe Paterno did was inadequate, if what he reported was inadequate, how could a grand jury indict these officials for a felony for failing to act on inadequate information?

That's a conundrum the news media would rather not deal with, so in reporting on Curley and Schultz's indictment, let's just forget that the root of their indictment is based onwhat Joe Paterno told them and what they failed to do with it.

Here is something else for the non-thinkers in the press to think about. If Curley and Schultz had acted on what Paterno told them, there would be no stories about Joe Paterno having "not done enough".

Instead the press kept their narrative going, even so far as to twist and distort Paterno's own words, saying that "even Joe Paterno said he hadn't done enough". Joe Paterno said no such thing, at any time anywhere. What he actually said was " with the benefit of hindsight I wish I had done more".

Saying "I wish I had done more" is what anyone would say who looks back on an event and wished they could have done something to prevent it or fix it. Its not an admission of guilt. Its an admission of humanity. We have heard it from parents going through the heartbreak of losing a child because of bullying wishing they had seen the warning signs and wishing they could have done more to prevent it.

One further thing to keep in mind about the fiction of how Joe Paterno "didn't do enough". After almost three months later there hasn't been one person anywhere who has actually said with any specificity and detail what they think Paterno should have done. They haven't because they don't know. And never did.

Now that Paterno is gone, and the damage was done, it seems that journalistic reflection and remorse is starting to set in.

Jim Litke, who has a byline as sports writer for the Associated Press wrote on the day of Paterno's death:

"On the other end( after speaking highly of Paterno's legacy) was John Surma, vice chairman for a Penn State board of trustees that couldn't muster enough courage or decency to fire Paterno in person."

Litke went on to write " Now all those people who rushed to judgement (italics mine) about Paterno's role in the Sandusky case will have to find their way out from under the sordid scandal without their longtime coach".

The problem with all this is that every word of it could have been written two months ago when it all happened and when it might have had an influence, when it might have done some good when it might have thrown some water on the fire the news media had set and continued to fan. Writing it now is saying it after the fact, after Paterno is gone, after the injustice and damage was done

Brent Musburger, in an ESPN interview on the day of Paterno's death, was now referring to what he characterized as "a slight lapse in judgement" on the part of Paterno. So what Musburger is saying is even if you wanted to believe Paterno should have done more, ( and there is no evidence that he or anyone else in his position should have or have been reasonably expected to), not doing more was now a " slight lapse in judgement".

So the revisionism, the corrections that newspapers always put on page 63 are starting to appear. Maybe they'll decide it's a matter of better late than never. Maybe.

But one can only wonder after Paterno's death, if Jim Litke and other members of the press who are now writing the truth, almost three months later, and seeing the attacks on Paterno for what they really were, aren't now thinking to themselves, "with the benefit of hindsight I wish I had done more".

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Gould on the 2011 NBA Lockout

Stanford Law Review Online has published an essay by William Gould on the 2011 NBA Lockout. Gould is a former chair of the NLRB and a leading scholar and advocate on sports-and-labor issues, (H/T: Concurring Opinions). Worth a read.

Obama's State of the Union: From the 4th most accomplished president or single most accomplished liar?

In the wake of President Obama's State of the Union speech the real question is, does anything Obama say matter? The only honest answer is no. Because Obama has proved, not just over the first 3 years of his presidency but throughout his entire political career, that he never means what he says, will say anything to anyone at anytime for his own political benefit, and has reneged on more promises and pledges and lied more brazenly about them than any president in history as the videos below will show.

When Barrack Obama used the word "audacity" for the title of his book in relation to his political ambitions it was probably the only time in his life he actually told the truth. Not because he had audacious ideas. He had no ideas that were his own. Not because he dreamt of audacious accomplishments -- he never accomplished a thing in 16 years of elected office going back to his days in the Illinois state senate where he spent 11 years doing nothing to such a degree his lack of accomplishment and initiative became a joke during the presidential primary campaign in 2008. But when it comes to audacity, he is without doubt the most dishonest and audacious liar to ever sit in the White House surpassing even Richard Nixon for that dubious honor. And so nothing he has to say, especially about his vision for the future, matters. It's nothing but in-the-moment politics to Obama.

Obama has always been a man of hollow political ambition, wanting elected office for the sake of having it not for sake of accomplishing anything and to that end, he lies consistently about almost anything of significance to appease whoever needs appeasement at the time, and has done so during his entire political career.

So while "progressive" groups are praising Obama's pledge to investigate and hold accountable the financial practices of the big banks that caused the economic crisis, one has to keep in mind that one of his most significant and damaging lies was about the single most important Democratic issue of the 2008 election and probably the last 40 years -- healthcare reform.

Obama lied more about health care reform than any president has lied about any one single issue since Nixon and Watergate as the videos below will show ( though George W Bush is not far behind in his self serving lies about why he couldn't prevent the 911 attacks when he had enough information to do so).

Obama's lying is so brazen that even his new campaign literature claims as one of his big accomplishments "getting health insurance for 32 million uninsured". It should be remembered that Obama's health care bill is the same one former DNC chairman Howard Dean said should be "junked". And the bill Tom Harkin,and other congressional Democrats could only say was "better than nothing".

The audacity of Obama's lie that he "got health insurance for 32 million uninsured", is nothing short of an insult to the intelligence of every voter in the country but its only one of many that Obama has gotten away with time and time again especially in the press who, from the beginning have decided to look the other way when confronted with outright lies coming from Obama because they didn't want anything to interfere with their narrative of electing the " first black president".

What Obama's healthcare bill actually does get is 32 million new customers for the insurance companies, the lobby he sold out to when he made a back room deal at the White House (as reported by the New York Times) with the for-profit health care industry to dump the public option. Though it is still an open question as to whether his mandate that the uninsured buy insurance will survive a Supreme Court challenge.

Not long ago, in a recent "60 Minute" interview, in a head shaking display of the audacity of lying, Obama essentially declared himself, based on what he called his "accomplishments" the 4th most accomplished president in history.

The right wing went ballistic as the right wing always does and with the usual lack of credibility because they would blast Obama if he said the sky was blue, but the real criticism should have come from Democrats, liberals, and so called "progressives", that political group that used to be called liberals but instead of standing up to Republican attacks on liberalism, changed their name.

With healthcare reform having been on the Democrats agenda for 60 years, and with Obama having the biggest congressional majority of any president in 60 years, and with having promised a public health insurance plan in his speeches and campaign literature since 2007, and with a public option being overwhelmingly supported in every poll by a huge majority of the American people, passing it should have been a snap. For any other president except Barrack Obama.

After making his backroom deal to dump the public option, Obama continued to publicly support it in speech after speech, including his 2010 State of the Union message, and in televised town hall meetings. Privately he instructed Harry Reid to dump it from the final bill even though 55 Democratic senators had publicly proclaimed they would vote for it in reconciliation.

After the bill passed, Obama claimed in an interview with Jim Lehrer on PBS that he had gotten "95% of everything" he wanted in the bill. When Lehrer pointed out the bill had no public option Obama replied, " I never campaigned for a public option".

That audacious lie set off a barrage of indignant responses from Democratic commentators. But not enough to matter because the same groups who attacked Obama for that audacious lie didn't have the guts to stop supporting him, hold him accountable and pressure the DNC to encourage Democratic challengers to Obama in the 2012 primaries. Instead the DNC has embraced Einstein's definition of insanity -- doing the same things over again and expecting different results.

Health care reform isnt the only one of Obama's outright lies. One could easily fill a book with them. He lied incessantly during the 2008 Democratic primaries about what he knew about Jeremiah Wright's anti-American diatribes until You Tube videos started to surface proving that he was lying. Having his political back to the wall is what motivated giving his "major speech on race," a vacuous,self-serving and empty speech only the most easily conned, which usually includes news media, didn't laugh at it. At the time, former Democratic New York city Mayor Ed Koch commented that Obama threw his own grandmother under the bus in the speech.

Obama has been caught lying almost from his first days in office. When the public was outraged to learn about the huge bonuses AIG executives were going to receive after taking billions in tax payer bailouts Obama publicly said " I share the public's outrage". What he didn't say was that he not only knew about the bonuses more than a week in advance, he actually approved them. Making his "outrage" as dishonest as his claimed ignorance.

And during the 2008 primaries in Ohio, he was caught in a lie so outrageous and manipulative it would have ended the political career much less presidential candidacy of any other candidate.

That happened in Ohio where Obama told the unemployed in a state that had lost 280,000 jobs before the economic crisis that NAFTA was at the heart of their problem ( something Politfact.org said itself was a lie) and he promised the unemployed in Ohio and those afraid that they might next, that he would get rid of NAFTA if he were elected. At the same time, he sent Austan Goolsbee his economic advisor to the Canadian embassy in Chicago to tell them to ignore everything they were hearing about Obama getting rid of NAFTA, he has no intention of getting rid of it, that what he was saying publicly was just politics.

It is now 2012 and Obama is up for re-election, and lying about his "accomplishments" and making statements and promises that mean nothing. There are very few Democratic and independent voters left who are gullible enough to believe anything he says and whether they will vote to reelect him will depend on who the Republican nominee is. Assuming that its Romney Obama has virtually no chance of re-election.

Even Democrats know that Obama has been a president who has conducted his presidency with less conviction and principle than probably any other president in history, as the videos below will show. Something more important to remember than anything Obama had to say in the dog and pony show known as the State of the Union message. And now, after the State of the Union, is as good a time as any to be reminded.