God Hates Spags

Awww steeznart say y’all heard of this sport called football?  It's pretty much like basketball but without the dribbling and you have to wear tights instead of shorts.  As a child I actually dreamt of being an NFL running back before experiencing an unfortunate growth spurt.  No one wanted a 7'2" 350 pound halfback so I had to settle for being the best basketball player in NBA history.  Anyway it's the middle of football season and I'm excited because my favorite team, the New Orleans Saints, are 6-2 and on top of their division.  It's a substantial improvement from last year's disastrous 7-9 record.  The biggest reasons for the Saints' success this year are the return of head coach/Juicy Fruit enthusiast Sean Payton and the arrival of new defensive coordinator/carbohydrate enthusiast Rob Ryan. 

The Saints got rid of last year's defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo, after just one season.  That might seem a bit rash but keep in mind that the Saints defense was statistically the worst defense of all time.  OF ALL TIME.  You know your shit is weak when Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church are protesting your defense’s ineptitude.  Apparently the 4-3 defense is an abomination in the eyes our Lord, so Phelps and his congregation picketed outside the Superdome before every home game last season, refusing to leave until Saints management promised to hire a new defensive coordinator and install a 3-4 defense.  

Now I'm no fan of Fred Phelps, but I gotta give him props for his role in convincing the Saints to bring in Rob Ryan.  Those Westboro Baptist Church folk may have some strange ideas about sexuality and funeral etiquette, but their church doctrine regarding NFL defensive schemes is surprisingly logical and well constructed.  As the Bible teaches us in Numbers 3:4,

“Nadab and Abihu, however, fell dead before the LORD when they made an offering with unauthorized fire before him in the Desert of Sinai.  They had no sons; so only Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests during the lifetime of their father Aaron.” 

I’m no expert of Biblical exegesis but even a layman can see that this passage prophesies that the switch to a 3-4 defense will lead the Saints to the promised land, i.e. East Rutherford, New Jersey for Super Bowl XLVIII where Rob Ryan, Sean Payton, and Drew Brees will direct the Saints to a dominant 38-10 victory over Jason Campbell's resurgent Cleveland Browns.  Sorry Browns fans.  I just don't think this is your year.     

Obamascare

Aww damn y'all heard how the gubmint tried to make a website but then it turnt out that the website they made wasn't really even that good of a website?  I hope Obama is impeached for this.  THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE IS UNCONSTITUITIONAL.  Also I don't really know what the word "impeach" means.  Or the word "mandate".  I get that the gubmint is all shut down and shit, but you'd think that they could at least manage to get one simple little website to stay up and running.  I mean, how am I supposed to sign up for one of those vaunted death panels if I can't even get on the website?  

Even though the Obamacare website has been up for less than a week and Obamacare itself doesn't begin implementation for another few months, Obamacare is an unmitigated nation-ruining disaster the likes of which haven't been seen since the K-T extinction event 66 million years ago.  I guess in this analogy Obamacare is the asteroid, the Yucatan Peninsula is America, and dinosaurs are freedom.  

Librul pundits are making a big mistake if they think that conservatives essentially agree with the underlying provisions of Obamacare and are acting out against the law due to being reflexively enraged by the "Obama" part of Obamacare.  The truth is that I as well as most of my conservative peers are actually most enraged by the "care" part of Obamacare.  Why should the government be allowed to FORCE me to buy health care?  What if I don't believe in caring for my health?  Is that not my God-given right?  JESUS IS MY COPAY.

More to the point, why should I have to pay for the health care of others???!!!  That's as ridiculous as making me pay for the education of others, or the maintenance of infrastructure that others use, or the military protection of others.  Where will it stop?  Will I be forced by the gubmint to buy my neighbor a birthday present every year?  Or to mow his lawn for him every weekend?  Or to stop sleeping with his wife?  THIS IS AMERICA Y'ALL SHAQ GOT NEEDS TOO.

And anyway our horrible health care system is the primary economic engine of this nation, helping to create millions of jobs for coroners, grave diggers, bankruptcy lawyers, funeral directors, eulogy writers, and facial tissue manufacturers.  Most people are happy that American car manufacturing has made a comeback, but few people know that hearses account for over 70 percent of all new cars sold in America, according to the 2012 car census.  

Messiah Complex

Damn y’all heard about this judge in Tennessee what ordered a 7 month old baby boy’s name be changed from “Messiah” to something more acceptable?  According to Judge Lu Ann Ballew, there was only one Messiah in history and his name was Baby Jeebus, so to subject a little kid to such grandiose expectations is unfair.  That’s probably right.  Can you imagine the disappointment his mother would feel if little Messiah didn’t grow up to be the Word made Flesh and resurrect the dead and lead mankind into the promised land and preside over his eternal kingdom or whatever it is that messiahs are supposed to do and instead become a teacher or a lawyer or something?  Or, God forbid, a businessman?  Eww.  

Being in the world of professional sports, I personally know of a lot of athletes whose parents had high hopes for them and who projected that hope into their names, only to be disappointed as their children chose to become athletes.  Doc Rivers, my former coach when I was with the Celtics, was halfway through his residency in neuroplastibiolinguistinformatics when he abruptly quit to pursue a career in basketball.  Sure, he went back to finish up and can (and does) proudly carry the title of “Doctor”, but to this day his friends and family think of him as a failure.  My frenemy Kobe Bryant was named after the choicest, most succulent kind of beef, yet his flesh is actually quite stringy and gamey and honestly not even worth eating at all really, except maybe slow cooked in some sort of stew with at least two other delicious yet criminally underrated ingredients to cover for his flaws.  And don’t even get me started on Metta World Peace.   

Some might say the judge overreacted, but she’s right that being named Messiah would open the kid up to ridicule and bullying from his peers.  The judge was correct in forcing the mother to rechristen –uhh I mean rename her baby.  After all, being named Shaquille, I know a thing or two about names that get you bullied as a child.  That’s why I had my name legally changed to “Shaq-Fu”.  Now hardly anyone gives me wedgies during gym.  Also keep in mind this judge’s name is Lu Ann, which I believe is Appalachian for “chronic ringworm infections”.  So unfortunately she didn’t have anyone looking out for her when she was a child.  She just wants to make sure no one else has to go through what she and I had to go through.  

As a public service, Judge Lu Ann has compiled a list of names that Tennessean mothers should NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE give to their baby boys: Messiah; God; Stigmata; Adolf; Osama; Satan; Thad Matta; Francis; Pope Francis; Track; Bark; Trig; Algebra 2; Lindsey; Pope Benedict (probably just steer clear of Pope-anything); Ludacris (“Ludicrous” is acceptable, however); Jebediah; Mohammed; Mitt; Newt; Splat; Charmander; Willard; Rush; Reince; Erick Erickson; P. Diddy; Bulbosaur; Tucker; Channing; Bubba; Tim; Bubba Tim; Larry Joe; Jermichael; Jermetrius; Endojermetriosis; North West; Southwest; Lufthansa; Delicious; Johnny Football; Yrotagrup (“Purgatory” spelled backwards, for some reason this one is all the rage); George Arthur; Blanket; Snuggie; Prince; Prince Charming (you will get sued by Disney); Apple (you will get sued by Apple); D’Brickashaw; Herbert; Prescott; Lemuel; Vernon; Ferguson; Linus; Chip; Skip; Chirp; Burp; Mantonio; Piyush; Ho Lee Fuk; Bang Ding Ow; Sum Ting Wong; Wi Tu Lo; okay well this list is kinda getting too big huh?  

I guess the takeaway, women of Tennessee, is to stop having kids.  Just stop.  Don’t.  It’s simply not worth the hassle of potentially giving your child a name for which they may get made fun of.  This aligns perfectly with the government’s campaign to control every aspect of a woman’s reproductive system.  If women can’t be trusted to choose if and when to have a child in the first place, then of course they can’t be trusted to name the child.  I’d even go a step further.  I personally believe every female, upon entering childbearing age, should be issued a government-approved nickname for her ladyparts.  You know, something like “Ms. Thang” or “Princess Sparkles” or “Sasha Fierce” or “Easy Bake Love Oven” or "Shamesville U.S.A." or “STATE SANCTIONED FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE UNIT #223APC3023847500-2302”.  This would really help drive the point home that women don’t own their bodies.  Hopefully Judge Lu Ann Ballew will join the Tea Party, get elected to Congress, and write such a bill. 

Et tu America?*

Oh shit say y'all heard of this dude George Zimmerman?  That fool fatally shot Trayvon Martin and just got away with it.  It's weird to think that in this country an unarmed black teenager is considered fair game for a gun-toting adult, but I guess that's what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they designed our criminal justice system.  God bless America.  While I unequivocally disagree with the verdict, I can’t help but marvel at the effectiveness of the defense’s closing argument.  The picture that defense attorney Mark O'Mara painted was so precise, gripping, and evocative that I felt, as I'm sure the jury did, that I was right there alongside Zimmerman on that fateful February night in Florida as he fearlessly sacrificed his own safety to ensure the safety of his, yes his, neighborhood, a neighborhood beset by robbery and burglary and ebony, a neighborhood direly in need of a watch, a watch to be undertaken by a hero, not just any hero but an especially valiant hero who, not satisfied with merely watching, goes the extra mile and CAPTAINS SAID WATCH (our plucky hero presumably wears a tinfoil badge issued to him by the retired mall cop next door and has a neato decoder ring retrieved from the depths of a particularly foreboding box of Cap'n Crunch).  It was such a textbook example of compelling legal rhetoric that I just had to quote it in its entirety on this here blog of mine:

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, um, I mean ladies of the jury, look at my client.  Just look at him.  Do you really think that such a pudgy paranoid pants-pissing coward would stand a chance with anyone in a fair fight?  He had no choice but to use his gun.  I mean look at him.  Really look at him.  For fuck’s sake.  This is the same man, if you can even call him that, who once tearfully dialed 911 to report that he somehow got both hands caught in Pringles cans.  How he managed to dial the number, we’ll never know.  But that’s a matter for another time.  

"Trayvon Martin may have been unarmed, but he certainly had arms.  Two of them.  Which could be used to punch my client, or perhaps even poke his distended belly in an attempt to elicit a delightfully high-pitched squeal.  How was my client to know that the Skittles and iced tea Mr. Martin was carrying was not actually Mentos and Coke?  Can you imagine the carnage that Mr. Martin could inflict on my client if that were the case?  Surely my client, the pathetic loser that he is, and at this time I’d like to politely ask the jury to look at him one last time, just soak it all in, had reason to believe his life was in danger.  Now sure, if my client were charged with eating a marshmallow, I’d ask you to find him guilty of cannibalism.  But you cannot find him guilty of murder.  If you poke his stomach too many times, even the Pillsbury Doughboy has the right to stand his ground.  Or, if he’s too tired to stand, he can wallow in his unvacuumed ground, surrounded by Twinkie wrappers and empty Big Gulp cups, intently polishing his beloved gun/surrogate penis, visions of perp walks, shootouts, and car chases dancing in his head."  

 

*what Trayvon Martin’s brother tweeted after the verdict. 

Buttergate

Yo yo yo y’all heard of this TV chef named Paula Deen (sic)?  Her brother’s name is Earl, but that’s a bit too frou-frou for their target demographic (well it’s actually more of a Wal-Mart demographic), so he just goes by Bubba.  Well, Bubba Hiers is being accused of an assortment of unsavory acts against his workers.  I don’t really feel like going into detail.  Basically, imagine all the things you would expect someone named “Bubba Hiers” to do and you won’t be too far off.  Anyway, Paula was deposed as part of Bubba’s trial.  Her testimony revealed some pretty lurid details about her personal life, the creepiest of which was that she wanted to throw Bubba a wedding with a Southern plantation theme, replete with middle-aged black men dressed as slaves.  Yeah.  I’ve been to some weird weddings in my day, even one that was crashed by Dikembe Mutombo, but this one is a fridge too far.  

Understandably, Deen got fired from her Food Network shows.  It’s a disheartening blow to her fans.  I count myself among them.  She does some amazing things with butter, or "yellow gold" as some call it.  She truly was the Bard of Butter, the Laureate of Lard.  She displayed an artistic flair for cooking, a beautiful proficiency much like "Pistol" Pete Maravich, if basketballs were made of rendered bacon fat and hoops were made of diabetes.  She is pretty much my culinary hero.  If Mount Rushmore were made of butter, she’d be carved into it along with that hot Native American woman on the Land O’Lakes box.  

Her upcoming cookbook has been dropped by her publisher, which is a shame because it contained some of her most revolutionary recipes yet.  The book itself was rumored to be edible, with dangerously high levels of trans fats and split infinitives (recommended serving size: 2 chapters).  Its title was supposed to be Paula Deen's New Testament: 250 Favorite Recipes, All Lightened Up.  I’m not kidding, "lightened up".  Lightened up.  Though I do give her credit for not using the term “whitened up”.  Presumably it was intended to be the sequel to Paula Deen's Old Testament: Am I My Butter’s Keeper?   

Anyway I have high friends in places, and they managed to sneak me a copy of her manuscript.  Of course there are the old standbys like Butter Loaf, Country Fried Butter, Beer Battered Butter, Butters Foster, Butters Rockefeller, and Upside Down Butter Surprise.  But what's really notable is the startling boldness and creativity of some of the book's new recipes.  Take an appetizer she calls "Pretzelcoatl", for example.  That's when you take a big ole tub of butter, strip yourself and smear your entire naked body with it, grab a fistful of pretzels, and then set yourself on fire at the altar of Buttercoatl, the buttered serpent god of the ancient Olmecs (editor's note: this dish is meant to be consumed only on the eve of the harvest moon of non-Leap years, under the watchful eye of a temple-certified menstruating virgin).  Another tasty dish is the "Butterostomy".  That's when you fill a 55 gallon drum with equal parts melted butter and hog squeeze and have the contents delivered to you intravenously over the course of a week (only a week because that’s the longest the insurance company will cover your hospital stay, and even then it’s only insurable because you got your personal gastrobutterologist to claim that you were suffering from dangerously low blood butter levels).  And then there's the piece de resistance, the chef d'oeuvre, the coup de maitre, the fin du fin, the raison d'etre, the City of Light, the mouthwatering masterpiece that Paula calls "Buttered Houdini".  That's when you drain an Olympic sized swimming pool and fill it with butter, fly the Pope in to consecrate it in the name of St. Bartholomew, the patron saint of butter and angina, throw a shackled escape artist in, and then get the surviving members of the offensive line of the 2001 Super Bowl runners-up New York Giants to come and see if they can finish eating the butter before the magician can escape.  

On a more serious note, one thing I find strange in the aftermath of Deen’s firing is the cognitive dissonance being exhibited by the people coming to her defense.  Basically they're saying that every Southerner her age is racist, so why single her out?  But these are also presumably the same people who claim that racism in America is no longer a problem and get over it you libruls and I disagree with the president's policies not his skin color and some of my best friends are Marxist Kenyan Muslims and why can black people use the N-word but if I scream it at the dark-complected kid next door suddenly I'm the racist?!?!?  So anyway, which is it, geniuses?  You can't have it both ways.  Either racism is a pervasive enough problem that we have to take it seriously and try to counteract it, so let's not reflexively accuse people of playing the "race card" every time someone claims to be a victim of racism (and we can forgive Deen but use this as a teachable moment for her and others like her who are just symptoms of a pervasive racist culture) or racism is so rare that any public expression of it should be treated as a shocking violation of societal norms, so we can more or less safely scoff at any purported victim of racism since statistically you're more likely to milk a hermaphroditic unicorn than be a victim of racism (and Deen should be mercilessly lambasted for failing to conform to the same pluralistic norms that most Americans have no problem adhering to).  So, idiots, choose.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.  And if it's a chocolate cake, you can't dress it like a slave and expect it to work for beer.

Paula's Home Cooking may be off the air and Food Network may want nothing more to do with her, but her brand is still going strong in the American (clogged) Heartland.  If I'm her agent, I'm pitching potential new shows to every TV station under the sun.  If there's one thing America loves more than racism and butter, it's a comeback story.  You can't tell me there isn't a huge market for such shows as Welcome Back Butter, WKKK in Cincinnati, Deen & Deen: Butterneys at Law, Clarissa Enslaves It All, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Butter, and my personal favorite, Manumission: Impossible.

Semper Dry: UPDATE!!!

Aww sheeeeit y'all!!!  Turns out Obama isn't the only one who was once mired in an umbrella-related scandal!  That Persian dude Xerxes way back in the BC times was caught using his top-ranking palace eunuchs, Aspamitres and Aspartame, as umbrella attendants.  This foolishly arrogant act outraged Xerxes' subjects and in short time he was assassinated by Artabanus in 465 BC.  Obama is usually quick to learn from history so I'm surprised that he wasn't smart enough to not copy Xeroxes' folly.  

L-R: Aspamitres, Aspartame, Xerxes.  Not pictured: rain.

  

Semper Dry

Damn y’all heard of this outrage about Obama having a Marine hold an umbrella over his head during an outdoors press conference with the Prime Minister of Turkey?  First of all it seems impolite to refer to an entire country as a ‘Turkey’ but then Lebron reminded me that the Ottoman Empire lost World War I so as part of its punishment it must’ve had to rename itself.  Anyway, idiotic conservatives are all like "why can’t the man hold his own damn umbrella?"  But I think these people are missing the larger point.  Don’t get me wrong, I do sympathize with those who feel that people should hold their own umbrellas.  I myself, as a 7’2” black man, have found it near impossible to find a sufficiently tall and unracist umbrella attendant.  This forces me to take care of all my umbrella-related program activities myself, but come on people, Obama is the President of the United States!  I also mow my own lawn and clip my own toenails (though rarely at the same time), but do we really expect the POTUS to do such menial tasks himself?  And why do people care so much that it’s a Marine?  The Secret Service does all the President’s laundry, reads him his bedtime stories, and packs him his Lunchables, but I don’t hear anyone complain about that.  

Just imagine if the Obamas laid off all their staff and started doing simple everyday tasks for themselves, the unemployment rate would skyrocket!  The head umbrella dude over at the Marines has a family to feed just like you or me.  He gets laid off, and his little girl can’t go to college.  Is that what you monsters want?  He went to umbrella college for 4 years just to get laid off during a recession so the White House could save a few bucks?  HAIL NO.  He served his country nobly and protected his President from the rain, and now you want to leave him out in the rain?  I DON’T THINK SNOW.  I AIN’T DOWN WET THAT.  In the olden days a man and his umbrella jockey had a special relationship, almost like bloodbrothers.  They say blood is thicker than water, but nothing is thicker than rain.  Ponder that.  Most Americans hold their own umbrellas nowadays which may seem like a good thing, but that’s a lot of former umbrella attendants out of a job.  New Jersey is the only state that has a law against self-serve umbrella use.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that New Jersey also happens to be the most beautiful, prosperous, and happy state.  And anyway, every American President has had his own umbrella attendant ever since an un-umbrella’d William Henry Harrison caught a fatal case of the pneumonias during his Inaugural Address.  It’s an American tradition, just like baseball, apple pies, and wars in Iraq.  

Think about what happened to the last U.S. president who foolishly decided to defy proper parasol protocol.  

 

Never forget.

Even though George W. Bush presided over America’s halcyon days, and while history will surely remember him as the dignified, principled, capable leader he was, many misguided partisans stubbornly continue to define him by his sole mistake.  In case you don’t remember, in early 2005, in a rare departure from his usual practice of moderation and judiciousness, George W. Bush insisted on holding his own umbrella.  This bold demonstration of American strength was designed to strike fear into the hearts of Islamic terrorists, but it sadly ended in disaster.  The operation proved to be too ambitious, too complex, too demanding for one man to tackle, and thus had to be abandoned halfway through.  The mission left unaccomplished, an entire nation gasped in horror.  Though this was the one and only blemish on W’s legacy, a solitary turd floating along a vast tranquil pool of immaculate chlorinated glory, his reputation never really recovered. 

It's almost as though he's not that bright or something.

Umbrellagate is just proof that Obama has learned from his predecessor’s mistake, like Dubya himself who learned from Bill Clinton that one should never use an intern’s vagina as a humidor, and Clinton who in turn learned from Bush Sr. that Japanese ambassadors, contrary to certain videos you can find on the internet, do not enjoy being vomited on. 

Mission accomplished.

Nate Robinson comes out as first openly short player in NBA history

CHICAGO (AP) -- In a move sure to shock NBA fans the world over, an emotional Chicago Bulls guard Nate Robinson revealed that he is, and has been his whole life, short.  “I’m like 5’6’’, 5’7’’ tops,” Robinson tearfully admitted to a group of astonished reporters who had gathered near his locker Thursday afternoon.  “This has been eating me up inside for so long.  I knew it was time to be a man and stop living a lie.”  Asked when he first realized the truth about his condition, Robinson stated he had long suspected it but had hoped that it was “a phase [he] would grow out of.”  “I had my suspicions since I was a kid, looking at all the other kids, wondering why I was so different from them.  No one ever understood me.  Like literally, everyone stood over me because I was so much shorter than them.  Everyone looked down on me.  Like literally, they had to look down to make eye contact while talking to me, I was so much shorter than them.  At sleepovers my friends would all hang out in the pillow fort, while I’d be in the closet.  Like literally, I slept in the closet.  I was short enough to do so.”   

In an exclusive interview with Proceedings of the National Institute of Basketball, Robinson divulged more details.  In late August of last year, despondent from the stress of living a lie, a desperate Robinson attempted suicide.  “I tried to hang myself from a ceiling fan, but I couldn’t reach it,” Robinson candidly recounted.  “Then I tried to jump off a bridge, but I couldn’t clear the guardrail.  Then I stood on the El tracks hoping to get run over, but the train just whizzed by right over my head.”  The new relaxed, unburdened Robinson can see the silver lining in his suicidal predicament.  “[The train] did give me a free buzzcut, so I guess God really does have a plan for each one of us.”  Though life is often difficult, Robinson has developed ingenious ways to cope with his disability.  He shared his predicament with Chicago celebrity meteorologist Tom Skilling, who developed a state of the art device to inform Robinson of the weather.  Gushed Robinson, “I’m no longer the last to know when it’s raining, and that’s a big deal for me.”   

Robinson expressed hope that his confession would not pose a distraction as his Bulls team finds itself in the middle of a grueling playoff series against the defending champion Miami Heat.  “I know my boys in this locker room, on this team, we’re tight.  They got my back.”  “We love Nate, we know he’s so much more than just his height,” offered Bulls teammate Joakim Noah.  “He’s also his weight, speed, and jumping ability.”  Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau was supportive of his diminutive point guard.  “I think it’s great he came out.  The younger kids, this new generation, they’re a lot more open to these things.  And don’t get me wrong, I think that’s a great thing.  A great thing.”  Injured point guard Kirk Heinrich agreed.  “I don’t care if a teammate’s tall, short, white, black, green, [or] Jewish.  The only concern is ‘can he play?’  And Nate can play at times.”   

Robinson’s travails have hit home with fellow Bulls guard Jimmy Butler.  “I don’t tell people this usually, but Nate gave me the courage.  My dad was short.  Growing up, I really didn’t have any idea.  I didn’t even know what that meant.  But later my mom figured it out and they got divorced.  I didn’t have hardly any contact with him because [the divorce court judge] said that no short man could be a good father.”  Robinson’s brave admission comes at a time of increasing acceptance of short people.  “Nowadays a short person can walk down the street and no one bats an eye.  Some of my best friends are short.  Hell, my baby daughter is short, but I love her all the same,” stated Bulls forward Carlos Boozer, who signed with the Bulls two years ago after many seasons playing for the Utah Jazz.  “In Salt Lake, Nate would’ve been hassled.  They don’t take kindly to his type there.  The Mormon Church still considers shortness to be a sign of God’s disfavor.  So I’ve seen firsthand how hard it can be for people like Nate to feel welcome in society.”  Bulls small forward and native of Sudan Luol Deng, who has been hospitalized all week due to complications stemming from meningitis and a botched spinal tap, expressed pride in Robinson’s announcement.  “I come from a war torn country and almost died last week.  But when I see what Nate has been able to overcome, it makes me realize just how lucky I am.  He motivated me to play through the pain.  I knew I had to fight and represent my team.  I knew I couldn’t let Nate down.”  Bulls star Derrick Rose was unavailable for comment, as he bit his tongue five weeks ago and his personal doctor had yet to clear his mouth for speech.   

They call it the playoffs.  Perhaps it’s because, with the stakes so high, you can’t afford to take a play off.  Robinson understands this, and doesn’t shrink away from the pressure.  He has come up huge for the Bulls even while being under the microscope on this, the NBA’s biggest stage.  “The way I look at it is, you can’t spell ‘disability’ without ‘ability’”, Robinson astutely observes.  “The Chinese use the same character for ‘short’ as they do for ‘opportunity’.  It’s a blessing in disguise.  Only through adversity can we ever improve.  Yeah, so I’m short, so what?  Life is short.”  Short in stature but a giant of a competitor, Robinson is living proof that sometimes the best things do come in small packages.  Can Robinson lead his beleaguered Bulls to an upset series win against the Heat?  It would certainly be a tall order, but I for one am not about to sell him short.   

Rick Reilly contributed to this article. 

Ball is life

Aw man y’all heard about this gay dude was playing in the NBA all this time and he didn’t even tell anyone about it until just now?  That dude Jason Collins has come out of the closet.  He’s easily one of the tallest gays of all time.  And certainly he’s the best gay center in NBA history.  Seeing as how I’m the best straight center in NBA history, my fans have been hounding me to share my take on Collins’ announcement.  Of course I’m proud of Collins and impressed with his honesty and courage.  This is the most momentous event in the NBA since Oliver Miller came out as the first openly fat player (prior to Miller’s emotional 1995 press conference people had just assumed he was 2 moderately sized small forwards).   

Throughout the U.S. millions of people, even those with no previous interest in basketball, have been remarking on the significance of Collins’ revelation, and rightfully so.  Jason Collins is now a trailblazer.  Well, not a Trailblazer, he’s still a free agent although I’m sure he’d sign with Portland if they want him, but why would they with J.J. Hickson and an up-and-coming Meyers Leonard already on their roster?  But anyway, you know what I mean.  Collins has placed himself at the vanguard of the gay rights movement, a beacon of hope to extremely tall gay children everywhere.  He is now a civil rights icon, with an impact that will echo throughout history.   

I just hope that Collins’ newfound fame doesn’t overshadow the contributions of the civil rights pioneers who came before him.  People often forget that basketball, having been invented at a YMCA in Massachusetts, used to be an exclusively homosexual sport.  Teams of sweaty men wearing color-coordinated outfits consisting of sleeveless shirts and shorts as tight as saran wrap, running up and down the court whilst showing off their ball-handling skills.  It truly was a sport for men.  Men’s men, if you know what I mean (I mean homosexuals).  It wasn’t until 1956 that Jiminy Carbunkle became the first heterosexual allowed to play in the NBA.  Controversy and conflict ensued.  Teammate Fat "Sweetwater" Lipton refused to take the court alongside Carbunkle.  Carbunkle was inundated with hate mail laced with such devastating insults as “woman lover,” “breeder,” “lady toucher,” and “breast enjoyer.”  On one infamous road trip through the Midwest, fans in Fort Wayne, Indiana tormented him by throwing novelty rubber vaginas at him during the pre-game introductions.  Things got even worse in St. Louis, where a group of heterophobic pastors demanded that Carbunkle undergo aversion therapy to cure him of his heterosexual affliction.  It was only St. Louis star power forward Lavender Dempsey’s timely intervention that convinced the enraged crowd of straight-hating Baptists to let Carbunkle go safely back to his hotel room.  The press, as insatiable in its need to stir up gossip then as it is now, relentlessly hounded Carbunkle about his love life.  For his family’s protection, he had to hide the true nature of his relationship with his wife and child when they joined him on the road.  When asked, he would claim that his wife was actually his personal trainer and his 9 year old son was actually his dwarf valet.  Teammates “Jumpin” Whit Hogarth and Bruce Pepperton selflessly volunteered to convey the appearance that the trio was involved in a passionate, satisfying, and depraved polyamorous relationship to throw people off the scent of Carbunkle’s heterosexuality, but Carbunkle nobly refused to live a lie.  His career would suffer greatly for his integrity.   

In the late 1950s there was a pernicious yet regrettably widespread belief that the sweat of heterosexuals caused gay people to develop cancer.  Carbunkle was forced to play wearing a full body wetsuit lest he sweat his fellow players into an early grave.  The bulkiness of the suit severely hindered Carbunkle’s usefulness on the court and his career prematurely fizzled out.  His last appearance was Game 6 of the 1963 NBA Finals in which he played 2 minutes, amassing 0 points, 0 assists, and 2 death threats.  The next year a team of nuclear physicists at MIT demonstrated that the perspiration of heterosexual humans was harmless to gay mice.  After a decade of trials on humans, the destructive rumor was finally put to rest, much too late to help out Carbunkle. 

Moron Labe

Shit y’all heard about this tareist attack they just had over at the Boston Marathon?  Man I remember the first terrorist attack at a Marathon, that dude Darius got fucked up pretty bad that day.  This was before cell phones so Phiddipides had to run tell dat all the way back to Athens and dropped dead upon arriving cuz back then there wasn’t no Nikes.  But at least his message didn’t contain ricin, which is the new terroristical thing that’s been going around.  Maybe we should reinstate couriers to orally deliver messages in person, that way can’t no one put some poison in the letter and kill a Congressperson or some such.  Of course, the modern Phiddipides will have to be thoroughly vetted i.e. body scanned, cavity searched, irradiated, and racially profiled (in case of any brown skin related program activities).  Only then can we be sure that our nation’s Congressional correspondence is completely free from lethal toxins.  And before you say that it would be easier to just train carrier pigeons to do the same thing, keep in mind that North Korean tareists could easily just send weaponized pigeons infected with bird flu over to America (once they develop the range) and then we’d all be screwed.

So far the authorities haven’t been able to determine who’s to blame for the attack, but that sure hasn’t stopped people from making all kinds of wildly irresponsible accusations.  Of course, some liberals are saying that it’s domestic terrorists (i.e. right-wing nutjobs) who did it, and most conservatives are saying that it’s Islamic terrorists (i.e. Muslim right-wing nutjobs) who did it.  Either way, it’s almost certainly right-wing nutjobs who are responsible, and whether they play for the home team or the away team shouldn’t really matter.  Some Fox News contributor even tweeted that we should “kill all Muslims” but for all we know that could have been totally unrelated to the bombing in Boston.  It was most likely just a promo for Fox’s newest show, Kill All Muslims with Mark Levin.  I just hope the perpetrators don’t turn out to be 7 foot tall, 300 pound black men, else I’ll probably get profiled.

Alex Jones, everybody’s favorite cross between Yosemite Sam and Rush Limbaugh, claims that the attack was a false flag operation.  On the surface this seems like an unlikely, poorly reasoned, excessively paranoid, some may even say really fucking insane assertion but let’s not dismiss Jones as a delusional idiot just yet.  As I type this in solitary confinement in my meager tent at a classified FEMA internment camp, hooked up to a government-issued mind control helmet that, while uncomfortably bulky and unbearably loud as it force feeds an audiobook of Piers Morgan reading The Collected Works of Karl Marx directly into my ears, is at least mercifully protecting the open, unhealed head wounds I unrelentingly suffer at the whip of my Reptilian overseers from exposure to the acrid, stale air that permeates this desolate hellhole, I am begrudgingly reminded that Alex Jones has indeed been right in the past.  And though the lamestream media may refuse to connect the dots, certain facts do lend credence to Jones’ false flag theory.  The Vatican recently elected a new Pope; Kate Middleton is pregnant; Obama uses fluoridated toothpaste; Boston spelled backwards is “not sob”; Russian oligarchs have crippled the Cypriot banking system by overwhelming it with speculative capital; Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi; Kobe Bryant recently tore his Achilles tendon; Marathon spelled backwards is “Nohtaram” which happens to be the capital city of the Reptilians’ home planet of Alpha Rigel DQX-17.  The evidence is all out there, it’s just a matter of who’s willing to see it.   

Episode V: The Holy Roman Empire Strikes Back

Awww yeah y'all heard the news???  The Catholic Church's Papal opening has at long last been filled!  Sorry that came out a bit dirty, but I'm just so excited that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was just elected the new Head Pope of the World, narrowly beating out Rick Santorum!  Bergoglio's papal name will be Pope Francis, presumably because he lost a bet with the other cardinals.  Francis is the first Pope from Latin America, which is surprising considering Latin is the official language of the Holy See.   

As Head Pope, Francis is now the Lord and Master of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, and with their belief that contraception is a sin, expect that number to rise exponentially.  Francis is 76, or in Vatican years, LXXVI years old.  So no one really expects him to be popin’ it up for as long as, say, Pope Pius VII who reigned from 1800 to 1823.  However long he serves for, I hope he's successful in implementing some much needed reforms.  The Catholic Church has lately been mired in controversy and scandal, with many people wondering how a supposedly holy institution could have such a large moral blind spot regarding one of the most pressing issues of our day.  Y'all know what I'm talking about.  It's a disgrace that we're here in the 21st century and the Popemobile still isn't fully electric!  Can you believe that shit?  We're in the midst of global warming on a scale heretofore unknown in recorded history, and meanwhile the Pope is blithely jaunting along in his gas guzzling monstrosity?!?  For shame.  The Popemobile is responsible for 5% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  I beseech you Pope Francis, please do something to make sure that all Popemobiles are fully electric by 2025.  Fail to act now and soon you'll be living on Vatican Island.  

And while we're on the subject of Papal reform, is it too much to ask for the Vatican to come out with a new calendar?  The one we use now was instituted under Pope Gregory XIII all the way back in 1582.  That's a long time to stick to the same one and frankly I'm pretty tired of it.  It's got way too many weekdays and not nearly enough weekends.  We can do better.  Get on that, will ya Pope Frank?  Can I call you Pope Frank? 

So anyway Pope Francis seems pretty cool and all.  His Papal motto is "Miserando atque Eligendo" which if I remember my high school Latin correctly has something to do with Jesus or God or something.  Whatever it means, it surely is more family friendly than Pope Paul VI's motto, "Cum in Ipso Monte."  Poor Monte, he must've been mortified to see the details of his private life revealed for all the world to see.  I have high hopes for Francis's Papacy, he seems progressive enough to try to shake things up a bit.  But seriously he has his work cut out for him because the Roman Catholic Church hasn’t been this unpopular since Titus Oates accused King James II of Popery… and scented candles!  Zing! 
 

With me playing center the Vatican dominated San Marino in the EIMSBA (Enclaved Italian Microstate Basketball Association)

SeQuester GOP

Aww shit y'all I'ma have to take a break from all this Papacy related program activity on account of some doings going on up in the Washington DC.  In case y'all haven't heard, them folks in Congress done passed some kind of Sea Quest or some such.  Now I don't know exactly what that means since I'm not a genius, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that now is not the time to insist on drastic across the board cuts to the gubmint's budget just so the GOP can afford go on some cruise.  

I can't have the fejrul gubmint reducing its funding at a time like this.  Being recently retired I'm more dependent than ever on government checks to survive.  Life is already hard enough without the fat NBA paychecks I'd been so accustomed to, now you expect me to live without my Social Security checks?  That's cold, President Obama.  And let me tell you, doing the halftime show of the NBA on TNT doesn't pay shit.  

I get that Uncle Sam has to pay down his debt, but I don't think that eliminating crucial government services is the way to go about doing that.  If the U.S. really is way over its salary cap, can't we just amnesty the entire South?  Jettisoning the contracts of all those underperforming Southern states would free up cap space so we could sign some better functioning democracies with plentiful natural resources like Canada or Belgium or I don't know Steph Curry is pretty good too.  At this point I'd trade Arizona for Nicaragua straight up, maybe even add a conditional 2nd round draft pick to sweeten the deal.  How about releasing Georgia the state and signing Georgia the country?  

I just hope President Obamacare reads my blog and takes my awesome budgetary advice.  The gubmint would run a lot smoother if it was run like an NBA team.  In the NBA if you're losing you can't just decide to cut back services and expect to start winning.  Back when I was with the Heat, we had one game where our point deficit vis-a-vis the Lakers was out of control.  We were down by like 20 in the 3rd quarter, with a projected 4th quarter deficit in the 40s.  We knew we owed it to our children and our children's children and also all of Shawn Kemp's children to erase the deficit so that they would not grow up in a world where the awesome Miami Heat had lost to stank ass Kobe Bryant and the pathetic Lakers.  So what did we do?  Did we beg Yao Ming to come bail us out?  Did we implement an across the board 10 percent reduction in non-essential bounce passes and alley oops?  Did we decide to go without sneakers and headbands to save a few thousand dollars?  Did we eliminate food stamps so that millions of Americans would go hungry just to save a few billion dollars?  HELL NAW!  On the contrary, Coach Stan decided to not only continue his pledge to feed me in the paint, he actually increased the rate at which I received assistance.  As you probably guessed by now, all that Dwyaneane Wade assisted stimulus helped both of us get double-doubles and of course we came back to win 124-119.  Boo-yah.

Compare that inspirational story with what the gubmint tranah do these days.  I even heard a rumor that the Post Office was thinking about not delivering mail on Saturday no more.  Sheeit.  Can you imagine the outcry if Karl Malone told the Utah Jazz he refused to deliver rim-rattling dunks on weekends?  Stern David and Jerry Sloan would have straight Sea Quested his ass to the Bobcats but they didn’t exist back then so I guess some other scrub team like the Clippers.  The point is, Mailmen, no matter if they work for the USA or the NBA, need to bring their A-game to the court 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 48 minutes a game.  Except from July to November.  They can do whatever they like then, whether it be starring in a classic kid’s movie or recording a hit rap album.  

Vatican Wars Episode IV: A New Pope

Say y'all heard this dude Benedict XVI done peaced out as Head Pope of the World?  So then on Tuesday them cardinals and robins up in Vatican City went to this thing called a Concave or a Batcave or something (I'm really not sure because it's been a long while since I've read the Bible) to elect a new Pope.  I wish I could vote for the new Pope but unfortunately I failed to register on time.  Damn Republican voter fraud laws.  

New Pope season is my favorite time of year.  It's much more exciting than March Madness. I can't wait to see who the next Pope will be.  If America is ready for a half-black president then who’s to say the Vatican isn’t ready for a half-Jewish pope?  That would be kewl.  Or maybe Sarah Palin will become the first female Pope?  I wouldn’t be down with that though.  I don’t think women should be Pope, or even be canonized for that matter.  God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and St. Eve.  We already let women be nuns.  Nunneries are like the WNBA of Catholicism.  I don’t care how old and retired I am, you put me in a nunnery and I guarantee I’ll dominate.  It’s a biological fact that women can’t pray as fast as men.   

And another thing, I’m sick of the Pope always being Catholic.  Y’all can’t seriously tell me there isn’t something fishy going on.  Surely it can’t be a coincidence.  I guess Vatican City isn’t an Equal Opportunity Employer.  There should be affirmative action for the position of Pope, or at least some kind of Rooney Rule or something.  So, does the Vatican engage in discriminatory hiring practices?  Uhhh, is the Pope (always) Catholic?

Love, Shaqtually

Hey y'all, y'all heard of this momantic holiday known as VALENTIMES DAY???  That shit is today so if y'all haven't bought y'alls honeys some flowers and edible arrangements and stuffed animals and edible underwears and what not then y'all best get on that quickly.  I wrote my special lady a romantic poem, check it:

Roses are red/
sometimes.    

Bottled Watergate

Shit y’all heard about the State of the Union?  That’s this speech what the president has to do every year in front of Congress and a bunch of esteemed guests such as war heroes, Supreme Court justices, and noted self-soiler Ted Nugent.  Of his nationally televised speeches in 2013, I'd rank Obama’s SOTU address a little bit behind his inauguration speech.  But say y’all noticed that Obama has developed a really bad habit of scheduling his most important nationally televised speeches on holidays?  The inauguration was on Martian Luther King Day and the SOTU was on Mardi Gras.  Damn, Obama, I’m tranah get my drink on and my throwcatch on, I don’t have time for all this political shit.   

Anyway, Obama said some stuff about political stuff and what not.  It was pretty standard fare.  The real star of the night was Florida senator Marco Rubio, who delivered the GOP’s rebuttal immediately after Obama’s speech.  The GOP has a storied tradition of allowing its most charismatic rising stars to give the rebuttal, and last night was no different.  Rubio was an excellent choice as he had already captivated America with his inspirational life story, from his parents' daring escape immigration from Castro's Cuba in 1959 Batista's Cuba in 1956 to his swift ascent through the ranks of the Florida Republican establishment, culminating in his 2010 election to the U.S. Senate.  Marco Rubio truly epitomizes the American Dream (and maybe the D.R.E.A.M. Act?).  More importantly, the fact that his family is from Cuba is proof positive that the GOP does not hate Hispanics, just as Mitch McConnell's high stature within the party is proof that the GOP does not hate turtles.   

Rubio showed that he was up to the task, giving an unforgettably stirring and patriotic speech that will no doubt catapult him to national prominence and secure a place for him in the pantheon of GOP rising stars, right next to Bobby Jindal (first Indian –American governor of Louisiana and winner of the 2010 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Musical for his work in 30 Rock) and Michelle Bachmann (first Woman-American Head Counselor at the Marcus Bachmann Institute of Not Being a Gay).   

Unfortunately, most of the lamestream media will remember Rubio’s speech not for the golden-tongued eloquence of his rhetoric or the irrefutable soundness of his fiscal ideas, but for a fleeting faux pas.  Rubio interrupted his speech in mid-sentence to crouch off frame and retrieve a bottle of Poland Spring and take a tiny sip of it, all the while never failing to maintain eye contact with the camera.  This was a surprisingly unpolished breach of television decorum, one that some liberals have even dubbed “Watergate”, presumably as a reference to the Clinton-era real estate scandal Whitewatergate.  I’m not so sure that the whole –gate suffix thing as boilerplate to denote a political scandal will catch on, but whatever. 

Conventional wisdom is saying that Rubio unintentionally made an embarrassing mistake, but I challenge that.  Rufio is playing political chess here.  He wants the media to think he made a gaffe, when really he was just slyly reaching out to an important foreign ally.  Think about it: the water he was drinking was Poland Spring, which is of course a reference to the recent wave of pro-democracy demonstrations sweeping through the former Soviet bloc, demonstrations that no doubt owe much to other contemporary grassroots movements that have spread around the world, from the Arab Spring to the Irish Spring to the Silent Spring.  This was a subtle but no doubt very effective way of expressing our gratitude and validating the support of our most crucial ally in the War on Terror, Poland.  As George Dubya repeatedly reminded John Kerry during that debate in 2004, DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE FORGET POLAND MOTHERFUCKER WHAT?  John Kerry proved you can't forget Poland and win the Presidency.  As Poland goes, so goes Murka.  With Poland now at his side, Marco Polo has positioned himself at the head of the pack in the 2016 presidential election.  

 

Psycho Willard, qu'est-ce que c'est?

Aww man y'all heard of this election about to go down tomorrow?  This nation of America finnuh elect a President!  Also a Vice-President, I think.  And various other state and local  offices and initiatives.  But the main thing is the presidential election.  Who do y'all think will win?  As of now it's basically a two-man race between Barack Hussein Obama and Willard Mitt Romney.  I bet y'all prolly want to know who Shaq-Fu is gonna vote for, but I gots to keep that shit under wraps since as we all know if you say your wish out loud it'll never come true. 

Now I'm no political science guru, but seems to me that in order for Obama to remain president he needs to win at least 270 votes in the Electoral College.  If the Electoral College is staffed by liberal elitist eggheads like most other colleges I know of, then this shouldn't really be a problem for him.  Romney is already facing long odds, and to make matters worse, his campaign continues to show itself to be remarkably gaffe prone.  We all know about the infamous "47%" and "binders full of women" comments, but those blunders pale in comparison to his most recent mistakes.  At a controversial campaign rally in Ohio, Romney lambasted President Obama for not declaring Hurricane Sandy an act of terror.  He then tried to create buzz in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state with 20 electoral votes, by partnering with its flagship university to rename its football team the Penn State Mittany Lions.  Pundits are still divided as to whose reputation was damaged more by the ill-advised partnership. 

I haven't been following this election too closely, but both candidates seem flawed to me.  Obama, of course, is a Kenyan anticolonical Muslamic atheist Marxist Jew, and Romney is... well, that's actually hard to say.  Who is Mitt Romney?  The 'Etch-a-Sketch' candidate and consummate political chameleon (or is that chamillionaire?), it's hard to pin him down.  Arguably, his two defining qualities are his deeply held Mormon faith and his immense wealth.  Most people know that cars exist, and that elevators exist, but did you know that car elevators exist?  It's true.  There are these things called car elevators, and Mitt Romney has one.  Can't Romney's cars just take the stairs like the cars of the 99 percent?  Apparently not.  When I was a kid, my car had to walk to the garage uphill in the snow both ways, it didn't have the luxury of an elevator.  The concept of car elevators is so absurd that if a foreigner trying to learn English were to hear the phrase "car elevator" he would just assume it was one of those crazy, inscrutable English idioms like "let the cat out of the bag" or "by the skin of your teeth" or "spill the beans" or "throw the baby out with the bathwater".  I wouldn't be a bit surprised if, in addition to car elevators, countless mansions, and numerous offshore tax havens, Romney had a fleet of butlers ready to attend to his every need.  It seems difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile his professed religiosity with such immorally ostentatious displays of wealth.  What would Jesus do?  He'd bus his own damn dishes, that's for sure.  God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Jeeves.  So, who is Mitt Romney?  Well, if brevity is the soul of wit, then Sotheby's is the soul of Mitt.

Shaq-Fil-A

Damn y'all heard of the First Amendment?  That's the one that says God hates fags.  But anyway, them liberal elitists been boycotting this fast food establishment Chick-Fil-A just because its President and Chief Operating Officer has donated millions of dollars to anti-gay groups.  So what if Chick-Fil-A is against gay marriage?  God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.  Marriage is between a man and a woman, not Amanda and a woman.  Whatever happened to freedom of speech?  If conservative Christians want to devote their time, energy, and money to making the lives of millions of their fellow humans miserable, then that's their right and of course they shouldn't be questioned or challenged in any way whatsoever because they are truly doing God's work here on this giant blue teardrop known as Urf that's hurtling around and around in space like a drunk driver, damned to eternally be in pursuit of a destination it'll never reach.  And also the moon is its sidecar, I suppose.  Anyway, the point is that Christians shouldn't be penalized for exercising their right to believe in freedom and Jesus and the freedom to Jesus. 

Now, some people might think that eating greasy fried chicken isn't exactly the most important part of being a Christian.  Might someone's faith be better expressed by accosting people outside an abortion clinic, protesting a soldier's funeral, or creating a profile at Christian Mingle?  Sure, but we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Even a cursory reading of the Bible makes it clear that God wants people to eschew the heathenous liberal abomination of hamburgers served at such dens of iniquity as Arby's and Five Guys, with their Satanic red meat and blasphemous horsey sauce.  Of course God wants people to eat mor chikin.  God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Beef. 

So conservatives are swarming into Chick-Fil-As all over the country, temporarily casting aside their impeccably healthy lifestyles in order to indulge their greasetooth in Jesus' name.  Good for them (I guess gluttony isn't a sin anymore?).  Maybe some liberals will want to boycott the delicious artery clogging holiness of Chick-Fil-A due to Chick-Fil-A's supporters raising such a fuss about defending "traditional family values", to which I say don't hate the dinner, hate the din.  Just because Chick-Fil-A is full of hateful bigots, that don't make the chicken any less greasy and fattening and therefore delicious.  By boycotting Chick-Fil-A, you're really just boycotting your cardiologist and liposuctioneer.  A better reason to boycott Chick-Fil-A is the horrible example their beloved cow mascots set for our children.  Their atrocious spelling is reason enough for me to forbid little Shaquilla from eating there.  Really Chick-Fil-A, how hard is it to find literate cows for your ubiquitious ad campaigns? 

Moo didn't build that!

 

Marbury v. Medicine

Say y'all heard of this thing called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as OBAMACARE???  The Supreme Court just ruled that that shit was constitutional the other day.  As a conservative, I'm against all medicine, especially antibiotics and the like.  Why should doctors administer medicine to boost sick people's lazy, shiftless immune systems?  Your white blood cells should pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and not rely on an antibacterial handout.  If your white blood cell count is too low, then you need only blame the multicultural, pro-diversity PC liberal lie that says red blood cells are just as important as white blood cells.  White blood cells are already the minority, pretty soon they'll be overrun by all kinds of illegal bacteria and other assorted swarthy pathogens that the PC liberals insist on letting into our bodies.  THIS IS AMERICA SPEAK ENGLISH.

The Surpeme Court got it wrong.  Obamacare is undoubtedly unconstitutional and should be repealed post-haste.  I don't want my taxpayer monies to go to federally funded abortions.  I think the Republicans should pass a law forcing women to name their fetus before being able to get an abortion.  I also don't want my taxpayer monies to go to contraception.  Life begins at conception, therefore abortion begins at contraception, therefore contraception is wrong.  The penalty for having sex should be pregnancy because life is a miracle and children are the future. 

If I were a short black kid*

I am not a short black kid. I am a 7'2", 350 pound, middle-aged former NBA center and current actor/rapper extraordinare. So life was easier for me. But that doesn't mean that averaging 2.3 blocks per game over a 19 year NBA career and having a debut album that goes platinum are impossible goals for those short kids from the inner city. It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. And technology. And littering your inane Forbes op-ed with sentence fragments. Especially sentence fragments. Because people who are incapable of writing a sentence with more than one clause are precisely the type of people who should be dispensing life advice to kids.

If I were a short black kid I would use all the technology at my disposal to become taller. When I was in 9th grade, I was barely over five feet tall. Can you imagine me becoming a Hall of Fame caliber NBA center if I had stopped growing at age 14? Well, luckily I took the advice of my guidance counselor (a learned white man, by the way) and decided it would be good for my future basketball career if I grew a couple of feet. By feet, I mean the unit of measurement, not the body part. I already had two of the body part. Like my parents before me, I was born with them. Anyway, with lots of hard work and dedication, and of course an assist from study websites such as TED and the Khan Academy, I eventually grew to 7'2". And thanks to the free online calculators my guidance counselor informed me of, I can also tell you that 7'2" is 218.4 centimeters. I used Skype to practice with other students from my school who also wanted to get better at basketball. When possible, my family and I got our food and shelter for free from Project Gutenberg. I "became expert" at Google Scholar and my drop step improved dramatically.

If I were a short black kid I would get technical. But not technical fouls. Coach would bench me for those. I would learn software. I figure most kids who want decent jobs just go to the decent job fair or whatever and the Wizard of Decent Jobs is all like "Do you know software?" and then the kid goes "Yes sir, I learned software on the intertubes." Then the Wizard would ask "What about homework tools? How familiar are you with those?" to which the kid would reply "Very, sir, very. I go to my public library everyday and watch relevant teachings on the interweb." Then of course the Wizard would give the kid a decent job because that's just how easy it is.

When I look at all the short black high school kids throughout our nation's inner cities, my heart aches. It saddens me to see an entire generation of black youth sitting idly by while their peers in Europe and China, the future Dirk Nowitskis and Yao Mings of the world, are growing taller by the day. If only they had my tenacious work ethic and nonstop dedication to becoming a better, taller person. Technology can help these kids. But only if the kids want to be helped. Yes, there is much inequality. But the opportunity is still there in the NBA for those that are tall enough to go for it.

*c.f.

I have an impressive history of mentoring at-risk youth.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Aww man y'all heard of this thing called hockey??? That's this sport that people from Canada and Russia like playing. Being American, I'm not too sure about the rules, but from what I've observed it's basically a cross between figure skating and boxing. There also seems to be a racist subtext to the whole thing, after all it's essentially a bunch of violent white dudes chasing around a black object with sticks. So that prevented me from becoming a fan until I found out that there's this black dude named Wayne Simmonds who actually plays in the NHL! I don't understand why any black person would want to play hockey in the first place, but I still have to give props to Wayne Simmonds for defying the bigoted Gym Crow laws that have plagued the NHL for its entire existence. He is to hockey what Jackie Robinson was to baseball, what Flip Wilson was to cross-dressing, and what the DC Sniper was to serial-killing.

Now that the NBA doesn't exist anymore and all the best basketball players have moved to Turkey and Italy, I figured it would be a good time to cultivate an appreciation for some other sport and decided that hockey was as good an option as any other. And what better way to become a hockey fan than to plant myself in my La-Z-Boy and enjoy the NON-STOP ACTION AND HEART-STOPPING SPECTACLE THAT IS THE NHL PRESEASON?!?!?!?! My boy Wayne was doing really well, scoring in the 3rd period to tie the game up and send it into overtime (sidenote: I was really confused by this, but I guess NHL policy is to skip the 4th period in preseason games? Maybe the NBA should look into this. It would keep players fresh for the rigors of the 3 month long postseason). Anyway, no one scored in overtime so the game then went to a shootout. My boy Wyane (I will spell it that way from now on as an homage to my other boy Dwyane Wade) set up to take the first shot when, and y'all will not believe this, A MOTHERFUCKING BANANA was thrown at him from the stands! Yes y'all, in 2011, in Canada of all places, some idiot racist sports fan (Chris Moorhouse is his name according to police... the name is sort of ironic, isn't it?) threw a banana at a black hockey player. WTF? Oh, and before someone says something about how it's not necessarily racist and that maybe Moorhouse was just trying to ensure that Simmonds' potassium level was adequate so that he'd make the shot or conversely that he wanted Simmonds to miss the shot by slipping on the banana peel, let me remind y'all that, according to the 2011 NAACP Racist Fruit Index, the banana is the third most racist fruit, trailing only the watermelon and the unfortunately named negroberry. So there.

Of course I can't bring up Wyane Simmonds without also mentioning what he did a few days later, when he called renowned metrosexual and gay-rights activist Sean Avery a "fucking faggot". Avery is also a notorious asshole, even by hockey standards, so it may be difficult to feel sorry for him, but Simmonds was targeting Avery not for his assholeness but for the fact that he doesn't exactly conform to the narrow ideal of masculinity expected of NHL players. There are much better ways to retaliate against assholery than to resort to using hateful Kobeisms. Simmonds should have known better. And anyway, so what if Sean Avery were gay? I think that would be cool. He would be what John Amaechi was to the NBA, what Rob Halford was to heavy metal, and what Marcus Bachmann may one day be to presidential spouses.