The Soul of Adam Silver.

I have been estranged from my own country since the Fall of 2012: First, Benghazi, then a one-two punch, Egypt and the Snowden revelations on NSA. Obama had made me proud to be an American, now he made me estranged from him, who I thought I knew, and from America. America was being eaten from the inside and its soul was being consumed and mutated. A week ago Saturday was another hammer blow. I was so sad. Sick. It made me light-headed. And then Adam Silver Lining. He made me proud to be an American again. This is Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News:

Here was Adam Silver, new commissioner of the NBA, one who has officially been on the job for three months, showing you that there is never any job experience required to do the right thing, to offer the kind of character and clarity and anger and purpose he showed on Tuesday afternoon in banning Donald Sterling, the racist owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, for life.

In so doing, Silver provided one of the great moments we have gotten lately in professional sports in this country. You saw it from the very start of his press conference on this day, you could hear the quiet fury in Silver’s voice and see it in his bearing as he spoke right away of how it was Donald Sterling’s voice on that tape, that the “hateful opinions” were indeed Sterling’s.

Then Silver called those views “deeply offensive and harmful,” and spoke of his “personal outrage,” and how he was “personally distraught.” This was not the lawyer in Silver speaking to this room of media people and to the country, this was the humanity in the man laid bare for everybody watching him to see.

Then Silver did what the players of his league and the fans of his league and most of his owners wanted him to do, delivered the message the country wanted to hear:

“I am banning Mr. Sterling for life.”

Silver talked after that about how he will urge the other owners to provide him with the three-quarters vote that will force Sterling to sell the Clippers.

“I have their full support,” Adam Silver said.

And ours on Tuesday afternoon. He had ours.

Silver prosecuted Sterling for what he said on that tape that ended up in the hands of TMZ over the weekend. He prosecuted him for his hideous and hateful beliefs about not just the African-Americans on his basketball team but every African-American who listened to those comments or read about them. He prosecuted Sterling for his old man’s attack on decency and fair-mindedness.

Maybe Sterling thought views like his, up and out of the gutter, are somehow still acceptable because of his experience, in his America. Just not Adam Silver’s.
...
We constantly wonder how sports fits in our society, even in a country where Jack Roosevelt Robinson did not just change baseball by running out to first base at Ebbets Field one April afternoon in 1947, but changed the country as well. 
...
This all played out in real time, over these past few days when this kind of angry storm blew across the NBA and blew through every news cycle the way it did. But in the center of it was Silver, showing you his own character...
...

One of those watching Silver on Tuesday was Kimba Wood a federal judge now on senior status for the U.S. District Court in the Southern District, for whom Silver clerked as a young man.
“He was always this brilliant,” Kimba Wood said.

Silver showed you that on Tuesday when asked a question about Sterling’s right to express these 
kinds of view in a private conversation, as if somehow he was the one whose civil rights had been violated because of what he thought was a private conversation.

“They are now public,” Silver said, spitting out his words. “And represent his views.”
...

You wondered how Adam Silver would stand up on this day. Everybody found out.There have been so many great moments in the NBA playoffs so far this season, so many moments to remember. Never one better or more important than this.

If Sterling is going to come after this lawyer with lawyers of his own, he better bring an army.

Sporting news.

And now for the sporting news. Jameis Winston...

Whoa-oh-ohohohohoh, ohohohohoh, ohohohohoh!

...plays football and baseball for Florida State University.

Whoa-oh-ohohohohoh, ohohohohoh, ohohohohoh!

Jameis plays tackle football really, I mean really, really good--well. He won the Heisman Trophy...

Whoa-oh-ohohohohoh, ohohohohoh...Alright, enough.

...and the "Seminoles" won the national championship this year!

Whoa-oh...Shut the fff up!

Jameis and FSU's rise was not without controversy, however.

Oh?

Jameis was accused of RAPE! before the season even had started.

:o

The police however did one of these-here,

SHHHHH!

anddidn'treportittotheD.A. When the D.A. found out about it he was maaad but decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute Jameis in court...

Whoa-oh and Jameis and Half-Ass U ohohohohoh were allowed to finish the season and win the aforesaid Heisman Trophy OHOHOHOHOH and national championship.

OHOHOHOHOH!

The New York Times...

hiss pft-pft.

...did an investigation on the rape allegation and it t'weren't flattering.http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/16/sports/errors-in-inquiry-on-rape-allegations-against-fsu-jameis-winston.html?_r=0

Boo-ooh-oohoohoohoohooh, oohoohoohoohooh, oohoohoohoohooh.

The United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation of Florida State's handling of the rape allegation.

No-oh ohohohohoh...

Then on Tuesday night, it seems Jameis went to a supermarket and--ALLEGEDLY--helped himself to $32.72 worth of crab legs and crawfish without "technically" paying, like, the $32.72 on accounta he forgot. That is what is called the crime of "petit theft" and the local gendarme arrested Jameis...Wait a minute, wait a minute, it says they didn't arrest him...

WHOA!-OH OHOHOHOHOH! OHOHOHOHOH! OHOHOHOHOH!

...They gave him something called an "adult civil citation," WHOA!-OH...what the hell is an "adult civil citation?"

HOHOHOHOHO

And the police guy who told the media about the "civil citation" said of the civil citation defendant:

"He was very cooperative and he seemed fairly honest in that he did not pay for the item."

HOHOHOHOHO He was honest because he didn't pay for them! He was honest "in that" he didn't pay for them?!

HOHOHOHOHO!

This is so contrary to what has been written here recently that it is reprinted in full as rebuttal. From the Guardian, by Seumas Milne:

It's Not Russia That's Pushed Ukraine to the Brink of War.

The threat of war in Ukraine is growing. As the unelected government in Kiev declares itself unable to control the rebellion in the country's east, John Kerry brands Russia a rogue state. The US and the European Union step up sanctions against the Kremlin, accusing it of destabilising Ukraine. The White House is reported to be set on a new cold war policy with the aim of turning Russia into a "pariah state".

That might be more explicable if what is going on in eastern Ukraine now were not the mirror image of what took place in Kiev a couple of months ago. Then, it was armed protesters in Maidan Square seizing government buildings and demanding a change of government and constitution. US and European leaders championed the "masked militants" and denounced the elected government for its crackdown, just as they now back the unelected government's use of force against rebels occupying police stations and town halls in cities such as Slavyansk and Donetsk.

"America is with you," Senator John McCain told demonstrators then, standing shoulder to shoulder with the leader of the far-right Svoboda party as the US ambassador haggled with the state department over who would make up the new Ukrainian government.

When the Ukrainian president was replaced by a US-selected administration, in an entirely unconstitutional takeover, politicians such as William Hague brazenly misled parliamentabout the legality of what had taken place: the imposition of a pro-western government on Russia's most neuralgic and politically divided neighbour.

Putin bit back, taking a leaf out of the US street-protest playbook – even though, as in Kiev, the protests that spread from Crimea to eastern Ukraine evidently have mass support. But what had been a glorious cry for freedom in Kiev became infiltration and insatiable aggression in Sevastopol and Luhansk.

After Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, the bulk of the western media abandoned any hint of even-handed coverage. So Putin is now routinely compared to Hitler, while the role of the fascistic right on the streets and in the new Ukrainian regime has been airbrushed out of most reporting as Putinist propaganda.

So you don't hear much about the Ukrainian government'sveneration of wartime Nazi collaborators and pogromists, or the arson attacks on the homes and offices of elected communist leaders, or the integration of the extreme Right Sector into the national guard, while the anti-semitism and white supremacism of the government's ultra-nationalists is assiduously played down, and false identifications of Russian special forces are relayed as fact.

The reality is that, after two decades of eastward Nato expansion, this crisis was triggered by the west's attempt to pull Ukraine decisively into its orbit and defence structure, via an explicitly anti-Moscow EU association agreement. Its rejection led to the Maidan protests and the installation of an anti-Russian administration – rejected by half the country – that went on to sign the EU and International Monetary Fund agreements regardless.

No Russian government could have acquiesced in such a threat from territory that was at the heart of both Russia and the Soviet Union. Putin's absorption of Crimea and support for the rebellion in eastern Ukraine is clearly defensive, and the red line now drawn: the east of Ukraine, at least, is not going to be swallowed up by Nato or the EU.

But the dangers are also multiplying. Ukraine has shown itself to be barely a functioning state: the former government was unable to clear Maidan, and the western-backed regime is "helpless" against the protests in the Soviet-nostalgic industrial east. For all the talk about the paramilitary "green men" (who turn out to be overwhelmingly Ukrainian), the rebellion also has strong social and democratic demands: who would argue against a referendum on autonomy and elected governors?

Meanwhile, the US and its European allies impose sanctions and dictate terms to Russia and its proteges in Kiev, encouraging the military crackdown on protesters after visits from Joe Biden and the CIA director, John Brennan. But by what right is the US involved at all, incorporating under its strategic umbrella a state that has never been a member of Nato, and whose last elected government came to power on a platform of explicit neutrality? It has none, of course – which is why the Ukraine crisis is seen in such a different light across most of the world. There may be few global takers for Putin's oligarchic conservatism and nationalism, but Russia's counterweight to US imperial expansion is welcomed, from China to Brazil.

In fact, one outcome of the crisis is likely to be a closer alliance between China and Russia, as the US continues its anti-Chinese "pivot" to Asia. And despite growing violence, the cost in lives of Russia's arms-length involvement in Ukraine has so far been minimal compared with any significant western intervention you care to think of for decades.

The risk of civil war is nevertheless growing, and with it the chances of outside powers being drawn into the conflict. Barack Obama has already sent token forces to eastern Europe and is under pressure, both from Republicans and Nato hawks such as Poland, to send many more. Both US and British troops are due to take part in Nato military exercises in Ukraine this summer.

The US and EU have already overplayed their hand in Ukraine. Neither Russia nor the western powers may want to intervene directly, and the Ukrainian prime minister's conjuring up of a third world war presumably isn't authorised by his Washington sponsors. But a century after 1914, the risk of unintended consequences should be obvious enough – as the threat of a return of big-power conflict grows. Pressure for a negotiated end to the crisis is essential.

China.

Three people have been killed and fifty injured in another train station incident in western China. An explosion occurred at the station in Urumqi, Xinjiang province on the last day of Chinese president Xi Jinping's visit to promote unity between ethnic Uighurs and the rest of China...Mission Not Accomplished according to Zhongnanhai, which is blaming Uighur separatists. Last month knife-wielding Uighurs attacked travelers at a train station in Kunming, Yunnan, killing twenty-nine. And Dr. Mo sent me an article that Official China demolished a Church, known as "China's Jerusalem" in Yongjia, Zhejiang ("my hometown province," wrote Weimin) because, they said,...the Cross was too high. So yeah, that's the latest from China. 

The Binding Moment: Adam Silver Press Conference Transcript.

ADAM SILVER: 

Shortly after the release of an audio recording this past Saturday morning of a conversation that allegedly included Clippers owner Donald Sterling, the NBA commenced an investigation, which among other things, included an interview of Mr. Sterling.

That investigation is now complete. The central findings of the investigation are that the man whose voice is heard on the recording and on a second recording from the same conversation that was released on Sunday is Mr. Sterling and that the hateful opinions voiced by that man are those of Mr. Sterling.

The views expressed by Mr. Sterling are deeply offensive and harmful; that they came from an NBA owner only heightens the damage and my personal outrage.

Sentiments of this kind are contrary to the principles of inclusion and respect that form the foundation of our diverse, multicultural and multiethnic league.

I am personally distraught that the views expressed by Mr. Sterling came from within an institution that has historically taken such a leadership role in matters of race relations and caused current and former players, coaches, fans and partners of the NBA to question their very association with the league.

To them, and pioneers of the game like Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper, Sweetwater Clifton, the great Bill Russell, and particularly Magic Johnson, I apologize. Accordingly, effective immediately, I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers organization or the NBA. Mr. Sterling may not attend any NBA games or practices. He may not be present at any Clippers facility, and he may not participate in any business or player personnel decisions involving the team.

He will also be barred from attending NBA Board of Governors meetings or participating in any other league activity.

I am also fining Mr. Sterling $2.5 million, the maximum amount allowed under the NBA constitution. These funds will be donated to organizations dedicated to anti discrimination and tolerance efforts that will be jointly selected by the NBA and its Players Association.

As for Mr. Sterling's ownership interest in the Clippers, I will urge the Board of Governors to exercise its authority to force a sale of the team and will do everything in my power to ensure that that happens. This has been a painful moment for all members of the NBA family. I appreciate the support and understanding of our players during this process, and I am particularly grateful for the leadership shown by Coach Doc Rivers, Union President Chris Paul and Mayor Kevin Johnson of Sacramento, who has been acting as the players' representative in this matter.

We stand together in condemning Mr. Sterling's views. They simply have no place in the NBA.

Thank you, and I'll take any questions.

The Binding Moment.

Adam Silver bound himself personally and his league eternally to justice today. This was not a business decision, the color of money never entered into it, this was a moral decision made by a man who felt the outrage viscerally as described in this article by Ben Watanabe for NESN:

Adam Silver’s Fury Shines Through In Lifetime Ban Of Donald Sterling

The first thing you noticed was the anger. There was fire in Adam Silver’s eyes as he took the podium Tuesday afternoon. He was nearly shaking with rage. He used the word “distraught” multiple times to describe his feelings — not at what he was forced to do, but that anyone under his survey could possibly hold such disgusting morals as Donald Sterling does. Silver was harsh and definitive, laying down a lifetime ban on Sterling as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers and announcing that he would seek approval from the other 29 NBA owners to force Sterling to sell the team. Minutes before Silver arrived to announce the league’s ruling in its investigation into the recorded racist rant that came to light last weekend, multiple reports indicated the NBA merely would institute an indefinite suspension and a $5 million fine. It merely would have been a slap on the wrist for a confirmed and unrepentant bigot. And Silver would have none of it. The lifetime ban was the only acceptable result here, plus the $2.5 million fine on top that is hardly worth mentioning. The fine was not the point. It was immaterial to both the mega-rich Sterling and to the punishment itself. The message was sent that Silver would not tolerate Sterling’s ideology in his league. Any amount of money pales in comparison.
...
But all that is secondary to the rage. You can’t be a fair-minded human being and have felt anything other than broiling anger while listening to that recording. Silver felt the same fury and felt little need to mask it Tuesday. As a commissioner, as a human being, he simply let that fury guide him to the right conclusion.

The Magic Moment.

Commissioner Silver thank you for protecting our beautiful and powerful league!! Great leader!! -Lebron James.

Commissioner Silver....STRONG...way to take charge and protect our great league.-Dwayne Wade.

I agree 100% with Commissioner Silvers findings and the actions taken against Donald Sterling-Mark Cuban.

Commissioner Silver showed great leadership in banning LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life.-Earvin Magic Johnson.

Way to go, Commissioner Silver! The NBA stands for everybody!-Shaquille O'Neal.

Very proud of commissioner Silver for his leadership. Well done Adam!-Grant Hill.

Great job Adam Silver!-Jalen Rose.

To whom much is given, much is required. I commend Adam Silver, Commissioner of the GREATEST LEAGUE in the WORLD!!!!!-Bruce Bowen.

WOW #LIFE ? Welcome #commissionerAdamSilver glad he stepped up to the plate-Sean May.

Donald Sterling Banned 4 Life from NBA = #AWESOMEBABY -Dick Vitale.

Wizards staying at my hotel. Cheers just came from a room nearby after Silver made his announcement-Tracy Wolfson. Ms. Wolfson is referring to the nickname of Washington's team.

I wrote once of my Chinese friend Zhou Jineng's tearful apology in Red Art for his actions during the Cultural Revolution, "You have redeemed mankind's soul." Adam Silver redeemed the soul of the NBA today, and that part of America's soul.

The Binding Moment.

“I am personally distraught that the views expressed by Mr. Sterling came from within an institution that has historically taken such a leadership role in matters of race relations and caused current and former players, coaches, fans and partners of the NBA to question their very association with the league. To them, and pioneers of the game like Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper, Sweetwater Clifton, the great Bill Russell and particularly Magic Johnson, I apologize.”

           -Adam Silver. 

The Binding Moment.

“Effective immediately, I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers organization or the NBA. Mr. Sterling may not attend any NBA games or practices. He may not be present at any Clippers facility. He may not participate in any business or player personnel decisions involving the team. He will also be barred from attending NBA Board of Governors meetings or participating in any other league activity.”

“I will urge the Board of Governors to exercise its authority to force the sale of the team. I will do everything in my power to ensure that that happens.”

                                                     -NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. 

"There's something in my eyes..." It becomes my disagreeable duty to reveal that I am so happy..."There's something in my eyes..."

The Binding Moment.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced Tuesday that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been suspended for life from the Los Angeles Clippers and the NBA. He may not attend games, practices, or Clippers facilities. He may also not attend Board of Governors meetings. Sterling is fined an amount of $2.5 million, which will be donated to organizations promoting anti-discrimination. Silver will urge the Board of Governors to force a sale of the team.
                     -CBS News.

I cannot see why I should not be running back to the NBA elatedly. The league has completely dissociated itself from Sterling ne Tokowitz for his lifetime. Silver is going to try to force Sterling to sell. So what if that fails? Who cares? It's only money. Adam Silver has shown that there are more important things to the NBA than money. I...cannot see...a negative...in this report, the first one I read. If this report is not contradicted materially I cannot see why I should not be running back to the NBA elatedly.

The NBA's Racism.

Silver's holding a press conference later today. Nobody is predicting he is going to force Sterling ne Tokowitz out of ownership. Dallas' owner, Mark Cuban, has stated publicly Sterling should not be forced out. The reason, according to a former executive with another team, is that the most important color to Official NBA and owners like Cuban is neither black nor white but green. It is America's birth curse: the pursuit of happiness.

Very well. The NBA should be deprived of as much of that green money, as much of America's version of happiness, as possible.

I don't own a ticket, don't even own a TV. What can I do? I have no green to withhold, I can't do shit. My interest, that is the only thing I have. I loved the NBA. I have a sick feeling in my stomach I am so disappointed. If the NBA cannot kick Donald Sterling out of the league for this, then it wishes to continue its association with a virulent racist; then it supports racism. That NBA does not deserve to continue to exist.

More and more I have isolated myself over the years, withdrawing from this, withholding from that. Very well. I withhold my interest in the NBA, withdraw, walk away. Farewell to the NBA. 

Economic sanctions are the flavor du jour. America imposed more sanctions on Russia: seven additional individuals were targeted (asset freezes, visa bans) including two from Putin's "inner circle" and seventeen Russian companies will have their assets frozen.

Companies are imposing their own sanctions in Los Angeles. Carmax, State Farm, Kia, and Red Bull all are pulling sponsorship agreements with Donald Sterling ne Tokowitz' "Clippers" basketball team. They don't want to be associated with the man. Such cannot be said, as yet anyway, for the National Basketball Association. Everybody from the President of the United States to corporate sponsors to bloggers has concluded Sterling ne Tokowitz spoke the words on the tapes released by TMZ and Deadspin. Not the NBA. Adam Silver, you were on the clock, now your time is up. You and your league are a disgrace. Why don't the television networks cancel their sponsorship, why don't they refuse to broadcast any more NBA games until Quick Silver and the other team owners rid themselves of Sterling?

Jews and Blacks.

From the website Deadspin. DS is Donald Sterling; V is V. Stiviano, his ex-girlfriend:

DS: It's the world! You go to Israel, the blacks are just treated like dogs.

V: So do you have to treat them like that too?

DS: The white Jews, there's white Jews and black Jews, do you understand?

V: And are the black Jews less than the white Jews?

DS: A hundred percent, fifty, a hundred percent.

"This is a binding moment in the history of the NBA."

Los Angeles "Clippers" players showed up today for their game. For the pre-game warmups they turned their jerseys inside out so that neither Los Angeles nor Clippers was visible. Looking at them there, hurt, seared, embarrassed, confused, proud, it is hard to criticize their action. But not impossible. They should have refused to play the game. Once they played the game they got crushed, 118-97. Impossible to fault that performance.

The National Basketball Association is composed of players 80% of whom are African-American. Charles Barkley said yesterday "It's a black league," and it is, for the players. The owners however are not black. Many are Jewish: Sterling, Dan Gilbert, Mark Cuban, Bruce Levenson/Michael Gearon, Jr., Bruce Ratner, Joshua Harris, Herb Kohl, Micky Arison, Jerry Reinsdorf, H. Irving Grousebeck, Robert Sarver, Bruce Ratner, Paul Guber/Joe Lacob, Leslie Alexander, Herbert Simon, Larry Tanenbaum: that's sixteen out of thirty, 53%. The commissioner Adam Silver is Jewish, as was his predecessor, David Stern. Fifty-three percent plus the commissioner, that's a Jewish-owned league or close to it. There is one black owner, Michael Jordan. It is fifteen-times more a Jewish-owned league than a black-owned league.

So, there are dual racial or ethnic concerns here. Blacks and Jews have had a strained relationship in America, since at least the 1960's. I do not know the origins of it. So far, this blog is the only "media outlet," if I may be so presumptuous, that I am aware of, to mention directly this other racial/ethnic issue: How Jews treat black people. I guarantee others are thinking and talking about it privately. Donald Sterling ne Tokowitz is the worst but there is also Dan Gilbert with his religion-inspired, hateful screed against LeBron James.

We have an undeniably black league of players employed by owners who, by a majority are Jewish; a Jewish owner exposed as an ugly racist, and a new Jewish commissioner, beholden to those owners, charged with disciplining that ugly, racist Jewish owner. The owners and Adam Silver should have acted by now. It is a binding moment in NBA history for Jews and African-Americans.

Sterling nee Tokowitz' birthday was Saturday.

Donald Sterling ne Donald Tokowitz.

"This is a binding moment in the history of the NBA."
-Earvin "Magic" Johnson.

That is a perfect statement. 

Stella Elizabeth Williamson.

That's amazing. That little corner hasn't changed much. I guess that's pretty common in old, rural towns. Carmen helped me find the current photograph, from a real estate site. Carmen can do anything. When we first looked it up on Google Earth we got a distorted, distended street view that both of us thought showed a vacant lot. That wouldn't have been surprising, I would have understood if the burghers of Gallitzin, Pennsylvania had just decided to raze that damn house. Baaad karma in that house, Hooo-doggie.

I would love to see that house today, go through it, go up to the attic. But I could never live there. That would creep me the heck out, man. Do you think the people who live there know? I read one time that sellers have to tell buyers about an infamous history to a house but I'm sure there's a "statute of limitations" on that: Five years...Eh, I'd think longer, maybe ten. I can't imagine it's forever. Now it has been almost 34 years. Would still piss me off if I bought it and then found out. If I had lived in that house in blissful ignorance for, say, ten years and then found out...I don't know, I still think I'd move. Would definitely not be happy. Would definitely be listening for strange noises at night.

That's an olddd house, too. At least 1923, the earliest date on the newspapers used to wrap the babies. Williamson grew up in that house, she was born in 1904; her mother lived in that house, she died in 1942, if memory serves. That house is close to 100 years old at least. Really: time to demolish and start over; put a nice split-level or something there. C'mon Gallitzin, not the same goddamned house! Maybe it's fun on Halloween or something. Real haunted house. C'mon people, that is just creepy.

How could the mother not know? The neighbors? Five live births. One lived up to nine months! How in HELL do you conceal five babies from your mother living in the same house! "Stella, the baby's crying!...Oh no, he stopped, never mind, dear."  Williamson was supposed to be obese. Okay, you can conceal a pregnancy. Okay, let's stretch credulity and say that an obese woman can conceal five pregnancies. Okay, fine! How the hell do you conceal five live births! Wtf, W-T-F***! How about old Howard Drass, the proud papa, he knocked that fat girl up FIVE TIMES in ten years and hadn't a clue? Come ON. How about Guy Schrack, the...guy who found the letter, the guy who lived with Williamson for years, years and years. Devoted to her.

Yeah. Was buried next to her fat self in 1991.

Investigators did talk to him...How many times? For how long? Polygraph him? Thorough interview(s)? Hours, right? Days? Not minutes, right? Please. How about his family, associates?

When I told the story to Carmen (lambasting the "investigation") she immediately saw through my
righteous indignation and said "What were they supposed to do, everybody was dead?" and I then
told her that Howard Drass was senile when the "investigators" went to talk to him in 1980, but Carmen then immediately said, "But how could no one know?" EXACTLY, thank you Carmen. Drass' wife? Drass's family, associates? Williamson's neighbors? Friends? Relatives?...Countrymen? Nobody on Earth, God's Green Earth, Google Earth, nobody anywhere knew? Come on, Pennsylvania.

Stella Elizabeth Williamson.

That's the house, that is definitely the same house. Has not changed much in 33 1/2 years. The shed-like structure to the right of the house is still there, the tree to the left is still there. The house is three stories. The first set of windows at the top would be to the attic? Attics don't usually have windows though, right? 

Hey, NAACP says they will not honor Sterling. Cooler.

Hey, check this out: Donald Sterling is set to receive a "lifetime achievement award" from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Los Angeles chapter, on May 15. Cool.

Malaysia has a king! Get outta town! No really, King Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah. Maybe he'll play golf with Obama. I don't know. Big tipper, the King. I bet.

No, I don't know why he's in frigging Malaysia. He has landed safely, hasn't he? Part of his "pivot" to  Asia? Or did he get "pivot" mixed up with "divot?" Golf courses in Malaysia, I bet. Their air traffic controllers could help him find his balls. I bet.

President Obama is in Malaysia. 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has said that he will investigate the authenticity of the recording and that Sterling is entitled to due process. A Clippers' spokesman said they too are investigating.

This is bullshit. All Silver and Official Clipperdom had to do is pick up the phone and ask Sterling if he said the things on the tape. That is the only "process" Sterling is "due." Sterling has not denied. Held: Sterling's non-denial is an admission.

We now move to sanctions and there can be only one, Sterling's removal.

Very disappointed that the members of the Clippers team voted to play their next game, tomorrow. A player boycott would have been the next best thing to banning Sterling tonight. The players voted to play. Very disappointed in that.

L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling's racism.

It it determines that this is, as represented by website TMZ,  the voice of Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, the leadership of America's National Basketball Association should--must, somehow--kick this man out of their "association." If the NBA cannot do that, it is going to be seriously hurt. The league is going to have a news conference shortly. 

Farewell to Russia.

The church bells everywhere were ringing for services, just as on an ordinary Sunday.  No one, it seemed, yet realized what awaited the city.

Farewell to Russia.

It was a clear, bright morning, a Sunday.

Farewell to Russia.

Moscow's last day dawned.

Farewell to Russia.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren: "I can confirm that on several occasions in the last 24 hours, Russian aircraft have entered Ukrainian airspace."

Sporting news.

It is an exceedingly rare thing for an elite athlete suddenly to lose his competence. The instantiation of this phenomenon is baseball pitcher Steve Blass.

I have never heard of it happening to a team. Until now.

This was to have been the year for the Indiana "Pacers," the year they finally displaced the Miami "Heat" as the best team in America's National Basketball Association. Indiana won 68% of its eighty-two games this year. However, through fifty-nine games they had won 78%; they have only had a 10-13 won-lost record since. Now in the playoffs Indiana, the best team in their conference (better than Miami) are losing a first-to-win-four series two games to one to the eighth "best" team in the conference.

What has happened? Roy Hibbert, 7'2", suddenly cannot catch a ball, make a basket or get a rebound, just as Blass suddenly began throwing the baseball six feet over the catcher's head. Hibbert was benched for a game earlier in the season because, his coach said, he was exhausted. It is all mental with Hibbert, as it was with Steve Blass. The entire team has not played well in the last two months. Two of Hibbert's  teammates got into a fight recently in practice. The Indiana "Pacers" have had a mental breakdown. It was with Blass, it is with Indiana, excruciating to watch.

This is like Harvard grad Jeremy Lin lighting up the NBA on Broadway. That book, translated from the French, on economics, is the numero uno best-selling book-o on Amazon. And that gets a big fat cornball shock emoticon. :o Every so often, an academic book lights it up: Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Wolfram's New Kind of Science. Got those books, will get this one too :)

That's a good man right there, that big red-headed guy. Good man. Breaks my heart what they did to him. Just about breaks my heart.

MH370

"Debris Found on Australian Beach Not Linked to Missing Malaysian Jet."-Wireupdate.

"Sub Completes 90% of Search for Missing Plane."-KTVN.

"Tough Choices Ahead in Hunt for MH370."-Global Times.

It will have been seven weeks Saturday. So, yeah:

"The Question No One Wants to Ask: What if Flight 370 Is Never Found?"-CNN.

Then there is this headline. Look where it's from:

"HOAX OF THE CENTURY?"-Malaysia Chronicle.

Cherchez le Malays. It is not a hoax. What could that even mean? The plane didn't land in Beijing. Or elsewhere. The people aren't alive somewhere. That Malaysian headline is over a TIME article, that, of course, says nothing about the disappearance being a hoax. Why would the Malaysia Chronicle put out such a headline? To misdirect. It's disinformation, what we've been getting all along from Malaysia. It's an attempt to misdirect investigators.  Cherchez le Malays.

"Best Selfie Ever? NASA Astronaut Snaps out-of-this-world Spacewalk Selfie."-State Column.

Isn't that cute! No.

Asshole.

The above asshole doesn't know his name. He calls himself now "Frazier Glenn Cross" but was hatched as Frazier Glenn Miller. Jr. He calls himself a "white supremacist" but doesn't know others of every color are supreme to him. He murdered three people while yelling "Heil Hitler!" at Kansas Jewish centers, not knowing that his victims were Christian. And, it has come to light today, he doesn't know a man from a woman nor a black person from a white person as in the 1980's he was caught paying for sex in a vehicle with a prostitute, a black man dressed as a woman.

What
  an
    asshole.

"Wretched muscovites." That was good.

"What for did you give Ukraine to wretched muscovites?"

Ukraine has not yet died,
The glory and the freedom!
Still upon us brave brothers,
Fate shall smile!
Our enemies will vanish
Like dew in the sun;
We too shall rule
In our country.
Soul and body we will lay down

For our freedom

And show that we brothers

Are of theCossack nation,

Hey, hey dearest brothers

Onward take to battle

Hey, hey, time to rise,

Time to gain freedom!

Nalyvaiko,Zalizniak
And Taras Triasylo
Call us from beyond the grave
To the holy battle.
Recall the famous death of
Chivalarious Cossacks
Not to lose vainly
Our youth.Soul and body ...

Oh Bohdan, Bohdan
Our great hetman
What for did you give Ukraine
To wretched muscovites?!
To return her honor,
We lay our heads
We shall call ourselves Ukraine's
Faithful sons!

Soul and body ...

Our Slavic brothers
Already took up arms
No one shall see
That we should stay behind.
Unite together all,
Brothers Slavs:
So that enemies perish,

And freedom comes!

Soul and body ...

(Original lyrics by Pavlo Chubynsky, 1862.)

Our enemies will vanish Like dew in the sun;

They called this type of fighting "guerrilla warfare"...always successful as history shows...

Quotes from War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy.

Our enemies will vanish Like dew in the sun;

One of the most palpable and advantageous departures from the so-called rules of warfare is the action of scattered groups against men compressed in a mass.

Our enemies will vanish Like dew in the sun;

The battle of Borodino, with the subsequent occupation of Moscow and the flight of the French without further engagements, is one of the most instructive phenomena in history.

Our enemies will vanish Like dew in the sun;

"What is the use of that, when one third of their army has melted away in the road from Moscow to Vyazma without a battle?"

Our enemies will vanish Like dew in the sun;

He could not tell them what we can say now: "Why fight, why block their road, losing our own men and inhumanly slaughtering the poor wretches?"

Our enemies will vanish Like dew in the sun;

"Moscow must be abandoned. The army must retreat, and the order for it must be given." 

Our enemies will vanish Like dew in the sun;

One terrible question absorbed him, and to that question he heard no answer from anyone. The only question for him now was: "Have I really let Napoleon reach Moscow, and when did I do this? When was it determined?...When, when was this appalling business decided?"...

David Moyes was fired today as manager of Manchester United. The club made the move with five games left in the season and United out of all cup competitions. Perhaps most importantly United are in seventh place in the EPL and will not qualify for next year's lucrative Champions League tournament. The American Glazer family owners are huge pursuit-of-happiness types and not being able to pursue in the UCL makes them unhappy. Hugely unhappy. Curls their ponytails.

Farewell to Russia.

#Lavrov: Russia is increasingly called upon to save southeastern #Ukrainefrom chaos. We are in a very difficult position @osce_ru @RF_OSCE

10:02am - 21  Apr  14

That tweet from that twit would normally be posted here under the title, "Ukraine Has Not Yet Died," and Ukraine is going to get carved up--at best. But Ukraine will survive (at least a carving up) as it did Stalin's famine, the rape by the Nazis, as a satellite of the Soviets. Ukraine will live to fight another day. Post-Cold War Russia will not. There is no going back from 2014. Russia will never be trusted again, never be invited back to the Big Boys table. So this is another "Farewell to Russia" post.

If Vladimir Putin follows his hallucinogenic vision of "Greater Russia" into the Balkans it may be literally Farewell to Russia (But I hope not.). If Putin follows it into Poland, yes, that will bring war, war with NATO, war with the United States, nuclear war. From the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine, Russia has been marked, war in the back of American policymakers minds.  The Rape of Ukraine has slightly edged the obliteration of Russia forward. There is no going back, Russia is marked. Farewell to Russia.

Scholars.

A round of Pomp and Circumstance for these recent visitors to Ye Olde Bloge per Sitemeter:

"UCOP" has been here before, the China posts of course, and me thinks there is some association with mystery author "Sonia Song," Donkey Baby.

Defence Research Establishment-Ottawa (No logo :o)

Weili Ye taught, or teaches, there. 

Not an option.

Russians take. 

Austrian women, suicides, anticipating the Red Army, and rape, near the end of World War II.

"...the Russian zone where the Prater lay smashed and desolate and full of weeds, only the Great Wheel revolving slowly over the foundations of merry-go-rounds like abandoned millstones, the rusting iron of smashed tanks which nobody had cleared away, the frost-nipped weeds where the snow was thin."

Eerily uncanny. Two "Russian zones:" the amusement park at Chernobyl and occupied post-war Vienna, Graham Greene, The Third Man.

There was no Easter truce. Five dead in a shootout near a checkpoint manned by Russian separatists near Sloviansk. So much for last week's Kerry-Lavrov deal too. The Russian's don't want a deal, they don't want peace. They want Ukraine. Looks like more sanctions next week.

It becomes our disagreeable duty to announce that there is a successor to DeAntae Prince for the Public Occurrences award for "Worst Writing on the Internet Not on a Blog."  "Bryan" "Rose" of fansided, I think it is, wins it for this embarrassment:

"The Indiana Pacers might be one of the most shaky one seeds ever entering the NBA’s postseason and the hope is that Indiana will be able to exercise those demons and have a productive playoff campaign.

...

Both George Hill and Paul George are signed long term and neither is likely to go any place via a trade, so that leads to speculation that it could be a player like David West or Roy Hibbert (both of whom have been very vocal about the Pacers struggles) could be on the chopping block if the Pacers struggle."

Professor Putin's History Class.

In his 2005 class lecture Professor Putin said:

"Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century."

Teacher! Teacher! For whom? Not for Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Germany, etc. etc. & etc. I'm missing others Teacher, but for those mentioned and those not mentioned, I'll mention one more, Russia, the fall of your totalitarian predecessor was the lancing of a  boil on the anus of mankind. The pus of the contamination that is the Russian people was drained from the world body. The world was, and is, a healthier place and would be still healthier if the Russian people had never existed. Would be healthier permanently if every Russian-speaking person disappeared, preferably in a nuclear fireball, which may come teacher!

 "Above all else Russia was, is and will, of course, be a major European power. Achieved through much suffering by European culture, the ideals of freedom, human rights, justice and democracy have for many centuries been our society's determining values.

For three centuries, we – together with the other European nations – passed hand in hand through reforms of Enlightenment, the difficulties of emerging parliamentarism, municipal and judiciary branches, and the establishment of similar legal systems. Step by step, we moved together toward recognizing and extending human rights, toward universal and equal suffrage, toward understanding the need to look after the weak and the impoverished, toward women's emancipation, and other social gains.

I repeat we did this together, sometimes behind and sometimes ahead of European standards."

Teacher! Teacher! Your country did not participate in the Enlightenment, your vodka-besotted people's hands were on the bottle, filled with essence of rye or petrol; your Molotov cocktail is your signature contribution to world culture. While the Western democracies mastered the "difficulties" of parliamentarism, the Russian people's hands were on rifles and pistols and bayonets, shooting, stabbing, and bludgeoning your Czar and his family in Yekaterinburg and burying their mutilated corpses in a mine shaft. From there Professor Putin you and the Russian people constructed your monstrous Soviet blot on mankind's history, man-making the famine in Ukraine, "extending human rights" via typically creative Russian enterprises like the gulag archipelago, and giving the benefits of steel to the humans in Eastern Europe. You and the Russian people were "ahead of European standards" only in the extension of the human right to slavery.

Very soon, on May 9, we shall celebrate the 60th anniversary of victory. This day can be justly called the day of civilisation’s triumph over fascism. Our common victory enabled us to defend the principles of freedom, independence and equality between all peoples and nations.

From 1939-1941 your predecessor and your people tried to win the heart and the friendship of 

Herr Hitler. It was to be ten years of peace between the freedom-loving peoples of the Third Reich 

and the people of Marshal Stalin's Workers Paradise. On May 9 Professor Putin will you also be remembering August 23, 1939? Here your historical ancestor celebrates with Herr von Ribbentrop.

Professor Putin have you ever seen Stalin so delighted? This May 9 will you and the Russian 

people be celebrating the "secret protocol" of that happy occasion in 1939 when Romania, Poland,

 Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland were divided between you and Hitler? I'll remind you.

It is clear for us that this victory was not achieved 
through arms alone but was won also through the strong 
spirit of all the peoples who were united at that time 
within a single state.

"Welded," into that "single state" of your predecessor, in the words of your national anthem when you were a
KGB colonel. correct, Professor?

We consider international support for the respect of the rights of Russians abroad an issue of 
major importance, one that cannot be the subject of political and diplomatic bargaining. We 
hope that the new members of NATO and the European Union in the post-Soviet area will show 
their respect for human rights, including the rights of ethnic minorities, through their actions.

A threat Professor. In 2005 when you made this 

speech "the new members of NATO, admitted in 2004, included...1939 victims Romania, Latvia, 

Lithuania, and Estonia. You know, Professor, that 

many people in America, including the undersigned, did not then and do not now want to go to war with you over those countries. I would refuse to war with

you over those countries, would abrogate the NATO treaties with those countries, rather than war with you over them. You are counting on that. But, Professor, there are many others, infinitely more influential than this writer, who will honor those treaties and who will war with you over those countries. If war comes between you and your despicable people and America you and the Russian people will be blotted from the anus of mankind permanently, your territory given to other peoples, 

your country outlawed, as was Prussia after World War II, your ugly language banned. And as the 

corpses of your race burn, Professor, I would not 

debase myself to piss on them to extinguish the
flames.

Enjoy your Easter, Professor Putin. Perhaps it will be the last for you and for the Russian people.