Rutgers Basketball Coach Mike Rice Fired!!!

It's important for each coach to be able to run his team as he sees fit. Some coaches are easier to get along with than others. Some coaches are famously intolerant of the slightest mistakes while others are more soft-spoken and try to teach via example instead of humiliation. Still, unless a coach happens to have recently won a national title or be related to or have embarrassing pictures of the Athletic Director and/or university President or Regents, there is usually some consistent pressure to "get things done".  Nobody has time for hurt feelings or thin skin. Results count.

This can make coaches act in disturbing ways and do things they might not have done if they knew the public would get a look at them. On the other hand, coaches are also supposed to teach character and leadership. And I was always taught that character is revealed by how you act when there is no one else around to see you or how you treat people over whom you have power. By those standards, Rutgers' basketball coach Mike Rice failed. Rutgers is joining the Big Ten next year. Rice was fired because of this video (and others) and the words and actions he displayed within. I could never allow any man not my father or a police officer exercising a lawful warrant to lay his hands on me without retribution but that's just me.

What do you think?

 

Phil Mickelson, Taxes and Fairness

You can pay Uncle Sam with the overtime
Is that all you get for your money
-Billy Joel "Moving Out"

During my time on this planet I've known several people who are doing much better financially than I am. I'm sure you have known people more successful than you are. Some of these people were born to it or inherited it. Others worked for it. Some were smarter and harder working than I was. Some have skill sets which I lack. Other people are just older and more experienced. Other folks simply happened to marry well. In any event very few of them liked giving money away, and certainly not to the state or federal government. I remember listening to a rant by a former friend, who having built an income in the high six figures, was outraged that to her mind, so much of it, too much of it was going to the federal government. It seems like it was a weekly event of listening to her whine about taxes and how it wasn't fair and blah, blah, blah.

I've also known a few wealthy people who made it a point never to complain publicly about their taxes because they considered it gauche and something not likely to engender sympathy. I certainly didn't feel much sympathy or empathy for the friend I mentioned. This lack of sympathy often occurs because when you're living paycheck to paycheck you don't see how someone making high multiples of what you make can have too many financial problems. I look at some people making more than I make and think they have it made. But I also know some people who earn much less than I do and think I have it made. And I assure you that is so not the case. It's all relative.

This feeling of "Buddy we've all got it tough" could be what golfer and California resident Phil Mickelson ran into when he complained about the high taxes he was paying, and specifically the increased taxes he would owe under the fiscal cliff deal and California's just passed 13% income tax rate.

LINK

“If you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and state, my tax rate is 62, 63 percent,” Mickelson said. “So I’ve got to make some decisions on what to do.”Mickelson, who lives with his wife, Amy, and their three children outside San Diego, his hometown, said he planned to elaborate on his comments in more detail this week when the tour stopped in his backyard, at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif.

“It’s been an interesting off-season,” said Mickelson, who cracked open a window into his thought process last week during a teleconference. Asked if he has considered following his United States Ryder Cup teammate Steve Stricker, another 40-something golfer, into semi retirement, Mickelson replied: “You know, I think that we’re all going to have our own way of handling things, handling time in our career, our family, handling what’s going on the last couple of months politically. I think we’re all going to have to find things that work for us.”

In December, Mickelson, who was part of a group that had bought the San Diego Padres four months earlier, abruptly announced that he was no longer involved in the business deal. His reversal came shortly after California voters approved Proposition 30, which imposed a 13.3 percent tax rate on incomes of more than $1 million.

Asked Sunday if the election results played a role in his decision to sever his ties with the Padres’ ownership group, Mickelson replied, “Yeah, absolutely.” "I'm not going to jump the gun, but there are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state and...it doesn't work for me right now."

Mickelson faced a backlash over his comments with some people claiming he should only be paying 52% of his income, not 63% and therefore should stop whining and take it like a man.

Mickelson frenemy Tiger Woods came to Mickelson's defense by pointing out that high taxes were one reason that he had previously left California. But perhaps not wanting to seem insensitive or place himself within political controversies any more than he already had, Mickelson issued an apology for his statements.

"I'm like many Americans who are trying to understand the new tax laws. I certainly don't have a definitive plan at this time, but like everyone else I want to make decisions that are best for my future and my family. Finances and taxes are a personal matter and I should not have made my opinions on them public. I apologize to those I have upset or insulted and assure you I intend to not let it happen again".

Mickelson was, according to Sports Illustrated, the second highest paid athlete in 2012. Floyd Mayweather was #1. So even by the elevated standards of New York or Hollywood, Mickelson would remain rich even if the federal, state and local governments really were shaking him down for 63% of his total (not marginal) income. Perhaps he really should just keep his mouth shut and pay up. Never complain and never explain is often really good advice for an adult to heed. If you're paying a lot of taxes, you're probably earning a lot of money so what do you really have to complain about when all is said and done? Mickelson's net worth is estimated at or around $180 million. So it's not like I'm ever going to see Mickelson on my homeward bound expressway exit forlornly holding up a sign that reads "Will putt for cash. Please help".

So this raises an interesting question. There are as stated, very few people who like paying taxes. People at all levels of income complain about the bites various governments take whether they're getting clothing at goodwill or going shopping for suits in Paris and Rome over the weekend. Presumably Mickelson and his wife know better than anyone not in the IRS, how much he pays in taxes. Whatever his tax burden is, by Mickelson's reckoning it's too damn much. He has a right to say so. California's 13% income tax is by my standards, too high and could well be a reason why some people who have the ability may consider departing California for more pleasant (lower tax) locales. You need not be a right-wing free market fundamentalist to recognize that there is a point where higher tax rates do not result in higher revenue. Because all else equal people can and do decide to leave the political unit where high taxes are imposed or failing that work less. For a high tax area to succeed, it needs to offer some other super high quality services to go along with the higher taxes-high quality schools, high income potential, clean air and water, great roads, open space, responsive police and fire service. Does that sound like California these days? I couldn't say...

But Mickelson should count himself lucky. Progressive talk show host and author Thom Hartmann thinks we should outlaw billionaires.  Mickelson doesn't make that cut yet but if he keeps whining I'm sure some people might decide that a 100% wealth tax on anything over 1 million might be a good idea. On the other hand I am shortly due for significant pay raises and bonus, though the increases are sadly somewhat short of $60 million. I imagine that I will be rather po'd when I see how much of the increase in income goes to the federal government. Last year I remember going to my boss wondering if the check was correct. NO ONE likes taxes!!

Questions:

Was Mickelson right to speak out? Do you have any sympathy?

Was an apology necessary?

Is 63% of income going to government too high?

How much of his own money should Mickelson get to keep?

Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax and Notre Dame

People will do anything to keep the hype going. That's the lesson I learned from the Manti Te'o story. Actually that's the second lesson I learned. The first lesson I learned about Manti Te'o was the one that Eddie Lacy delivered a few weeks back as he ran around, through, over and under Te'o in an Alabama a$$-kicking of the Notre Dame football team and especially of Te'o, whose job it was to stop the run. Ok well Eddie Lacy made Te'o look silly. But Lacy did that to a lot of people this year. No big deal, right? Te'o was still a character guy at a character school (Notre Dame) who had been through a lot of tragedy with his grandmother and girlfriend dying so close to each other (within 6 hours). Te'o was everything that was right about college football. He was classy, honest and hardworking. If he could persevere despite those body blow tragedies then surely we lesser beings could get off our keister, get out there and win one for the Gipper, right?

Well not so fast. Deadspin did some very basic fact checking of Te'o's story and started to find some discrepancies. The fact checkers found some very ugly and obvious discrepancies. Like no one had ever seen this Te'o girlfriend. Evidently Te'o had been dating Mr. Snuffleupagus. His girlfriend did not exist.

Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school's football program back to glory, Te'o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te'o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. 

Kekua, 22 years old, had been in a serious car accident in California, and then had been diagnosed with leukemia. SI's Pete Thamel described how Te'o would phone her in her hospital room and stay on the line with her as he slept through the night. "Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice," Thamel wrote.
Upon receiving the news of the two deaths, Te'o went out and led the Fighting Irish to a 20-3 upset of Michigan State, racking up 12 tackles. It was heartbreaking and inspirational. Te'o would appear on ESPN'sCollege GameDay to talk about the letters Kekua had written him during her illness. He would send a heartfelt letter to the parents of a sick child, discussing his experience with disease and grief. The South Bend Tribune wrote an article describing the young couple's fairytale meeting—she, a Stanford student; he, a Notre Dame star—after a football game outside Palo Alto.

Did you enjoy the uplifiting story, the tale of a man who responded to adversity by becoming one of the top players of the game? If so, stop reading.

LINK

I don't know why a grown man felt the need to make up a girlfriend that didn't exist and continue to claim things about her, even after by his own admission, he knew she didn't exist. That makes no sense to me. All I will say for sure that Notre Dame and Te'o are full of crap, as is the entire NCAA system but that's a different story.  I think that both Notre Dame and Te'o knew the value of a good story and decided to roll with it, regardless of whether they came up up with the original con or not. (and I think Te'o did) And all I know is that as a Michigan Man I couldn't be happier to see Notre Dame and Te'o revealed as the lightweight lackadaisical lying lowlife losers I always knew they were. Please read the entire deadspin article and weigh in. 

Questions:

Do you think Te'o is telling the truth about being conned?

Is it possible to fall in love with someone who never existed?

Why would Te'o lie?

Should this give NFL teams pause before drafting him?

Royce White: Sick Man or Unrealistic Child?

Every job has certain requirements. Generally speaking the more difficult these requirements are, the better paying the job will be. The more important the job is, the more critical these requirements are. This is common sense. I'm a solitary personality. I'm not a particularly adept or engaging public speaker. I don't like traveling more than absolutely necessary. So I work in a career field and more specifically in a job class where constant travel and public presentations aren't huge requirements. I very rarely must do either. Looking back I can say that I probably consciously or subconsciously steered my career this way. It was my decision. I realize now that I must change to make more money but that's my cross to bear.

Let's say I applied for and obtained a job where I needed to be an enthusiastic extroverted IT manager leading cross-functional teams in different countries, traveling most of the year and selling work to various business owners. This job would pay two to three times what I earn now, not even counting bonus. That's good. Immediately after I got the job assume I told my new boss that I didn't want to travel, hated doing presentations, didn't like rejection, corporate rivalries and backbiting, and disliked being responsible for anyone's work but my own. But I still wanted the big paycheck. Well my new boss would probably tell me to leave. She would be upset. Unproductive or unhappy subordinates make her job more difficult, call her judgment into question and put her year end bonus and future promotions at risk. So before hiring someone at a high skill, well paid job, companies usually try to make sure that the person can do the work and will be happy doing it.

That's the situation that the NBA Houston Rockets find themselves in with their employee, rookie forward Royce White.

The Houston Rockets suspended first-round pick Royce White for ''refusing to provide services'' required by his contract on Sunday.General manager Daryl Morey said Sunday that the team will continue to work with White in hopes of finding a resolution.White will not be paid during his suspension. White refused his assignment to Houston's D-League affiliate a week ago. The 16th overall pick in the June draft has spent most of the season on Houston's inactive list while he and the team figure out how to handle his anxiety disorder and overall mental health.

White has been vocal on Twitter throughout this saga, and he continued to voice his opinions on the Web site after the announcement Sunday.''What's suspending me suppose to do. I've been away from the team for a month 1/2. Guess we want to give it a title to shift accountability,'' he tweeted. 

The 6-foot-8 White missed the first week of training camp to work with the Rockets to create an arrangement to deal with his anxiety disorder within the demands of the NBA's travel schedule. He and the team agreed to allow him to travel by bus to some games while he confronted his fear of flying and obsessive-compulsive disorder. He flew to Detroit with the team for the season opener and then traveled by bus to Atlanta and Memphis for games. But he soon stopped participating in team activities and said on Twitter that dealing with his mental health took precedence over his NBA career. Then came his decision last Sunday to refuse his assignment to the D-League. Despite that decision, he said then that he still hopes to return to basketball in the future.

LINK

Now the Houston Rockets knew that White had issues with travel when they drafted him. They went ahead and did so anyway. And presumably White knew that professional basketball players play half of their games away from home. I know some people with diagnosed and undiagnosed anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorders. Most don't like their condition. Most deal with it and are just as productive as anyone else. In some extreme situations they don't and the condition greatly damages their personal and professional happiness. This may be what's going on with Royce White. I am very sympathetic to someone who has mental health issues. You can't always just tell some people to suck it up or deal with it. That just doesn't work.

But if those symptoms interfere with your job so much that you can't do your job, you should take a different job. I don't think that Iowa State did White any favors by attempting to cater to his disorders. You can't be a professional basketball player, and a rookie at that, and have problems with flying. It's not a question of being unsympathetic to White or making fun of him. That's not my intention. It's just a question of job requirements. If you're claustrophobic, coal mining isn't the job for you. If you have body image issues, exotic dancing might not be the best fit. If you truly despise math and arcane business rules, don't be an accountant. I agree that dealing with serious health issues should always take precedence over your job. Most definitely. I just see White's situation a little differently. It's one thing to have a health challenge a decade after you've been doing your job, especially if that health challenge arose in part because of your job. It's something a bit different to take a job you know you can't do, refuse to do the job and then demand to get paid anyway. The world doesn't really work like that, especially if you're just starting out in your career. This isn't a case where a heartless corporation is uncaring about someone's health. At least not from what I can see. It's just not a good match. 

Questions:

1) Were the Houston Rockets right to suspend Royce White?

2) Is White correct to refuse assignment to the D-League?

3) Should the Houston Rockets find White alternative modes of transportation?

4) What's the best outcome here?

Jason Whitlock Racially Insults Jeremy Lin

If you don't keep up with the NBA you might have missed this year's current feel good story. The Knicks, in a fit of desperation after injuries, absences and players that weren't quite working out, turned to the end of the bench and started playing Jeremy Lin, a journeyman guard that was about THIS close from being bounced from the league altogether.


However Lin so far has not only shown that he belongs in the NBA, he's shown that he's someone other teams need to plan for and worry about. The undrafted Harvard grad is playing with (and outplaying) people like Kobe Bryant. Time will tell if he can keep up this pace but right now he's handling his business.

Of course anytime someone is successful there will shortly be along someone who feels it's their duty to bring them back down to earth. Enter one Mr. Jason Whitlock, previously best known for making insulting comments about Serena Williams' looks, physique and work ethic.
Mr. Whitlock felt it necessary to go to twitter to drop this knowledge on the world immediately after Lin scored 38 points in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers.

Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.

Oh that's a laugher that is. Yup. I wonder how many times Lin has heard that stereotype before.

This brings up a few things which really amaze me.

Unless he's been living under a rock, Whitlock just saw another black male celebrity journalist post something stupid on twitter and get chin checked hard. Now, regardless of whether you thought it was right or not that Roland Martin got the reaction he received, it seems that you would have taken notice and adjusted your public utterances accordingly. I mean really, Whitlock, how hard is this? Don't make insulting references to people's gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality in public and ESPECIALLY don't do it over twitter. Because unless you happen to be a new Facebook multi-millionaire/billionaire and thus just don't care, chances are you're putting your job at risk.

Of course Whitlock made a half-hearted apology :

I then gave in to another part of my personality — my immature, sophomoric, comedic nature. It's been with me since birth, a gift from my mother and honed as a child listening to my godmother's Richard Pryor albums. I still want to be a standup comedian.
The couple-inches-of-pain tweet overshadowed my sincere celebration of Lin’s performance and the irony that the stereotype applies to pot-bellied, overweight male sports writers, too. As the Asian American Journalist Association pointed out, I debased a feel-good sports moment. For that, I’m truly sorry.

SOURCE
Who knows what's in Whitlock's heart. But this should show us a few things.
Black people are not by definition more sensitive to other people's issues.
Black people have ingested stereotypes just like anyone else. The "good" ones we like. The "bad" ones we reject.
It is quite possible for some Black people to be threatened by non-black excellence in traditionally Black dominated sports the same some whites are in the reverse (remember Fuzzy Zoeller's comments about Tiger Woods??)  I think Whitlock should be fired, primarily for stupidity. But I'm interested to hear your take.

QUESTIONS
1) Should Whitlock be suspended or fired for his comments?
2) Are you impressed with his apology?
3) Are stereotypes ever ok to joke about in public?

Like and Equal are not the same thing at all!

Let's say that Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Duane Allman, Eddie Hazel or BB King,after picking up a guitar and passing through an arduous 10,000 hours or more of constant practice, repetition and study which put them on the verge of greatness, had then been told that they needed to forget about their music dreams and go drive a truck because there weren't enough women that were interested in playing the guitar. Assume this was backed up by law.

That sounds ridiculous yes?

That is the state of college athletics today.  It is one thing to do outreach to people, remove barriers and confront stereotypes, or from time to time give a nod to someone who is equally qualified but underrepresented in a given field. I support that. I support affirmative action and expanding the field of applicants.

But to rule as a matter of law that everyone must be doing the same thing in the same proportion is something I don't support. In fact I think it's insanely misguided. This is current policy thanks to Title IX.

The recent NYT article on Title IX implementation made it clear that many colleges are having to cook the books to meet the requirements.

Ever since Congress passed the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX, universities have opened their gyms and athletic fields to millions of women who previously did not have chances to play. But as women have surged into a majority on campus in recent years, many institutions have resorted to subterfuge to make it look as if they are offering more spots to women.

At the University of South Florida, more than half of the 71 women on the cross-country roster failed to run a race in 2009. Asked about it, a few laughed and said they did not know they were on the team.

At Marshall University, the women’s tennis coach recently invited three freshmen onto the team even though he knew they were not good enough to practice against his scholarship athletes, let alone compete. They could come to practice whenever they liked, he told them, and would not have to travel with the team.

At Cornell, only when the 34 fencers on the women’s team take off their protective masks at practice does it become clear that 15 of them are men. Texas A&M and Duke are among the elite women’s basketball teams that also take advantage of a federal loophole that allows them to report male practice players as female participants.

This law and its proportionality based interpretation and enforcement are based on both faulty assumptions about men and women and increasingly just good old fashioned bigotry.

If a female athlete can show that she or other young women suffer from unequal training facilities or discrimination in making a team or staying on a team then she may have a case that she should pursue to the fullest extent of the law. I would completely support her in doing so.

But what Title IX means in practice is that because only X number of women is interested in collegiate sports, then only X number of men can be interested in sports. This is unfair. Men and women (on average) have different interests. We can argue for decades about the extent to which this is biological or environmental but trying to pretend that it doesn't exist is downright silly. In order to pretend that young men and women have the same interest in sports we are preventing young men from playing sports and then congratulating ourselves on our ability to be sober and fairminded.

The flip side of this is that the supporters of Title IX virtually never seem to be interested in "fixing" those areas of endeavor where women outnumber men. The news that women now outnumber men in colleges and earn more degrees invites cheers from this crowd, not reflection. Hmmm..

 

No one is seriously arguing that college English, Art History, Women's' Studies or Sociology Departments must turn away qualified interested young women students in favor of attracting less qualified barely interested young men. Imagine if a qualified female nurse were told "I'm sorry you can't study/work here because the male/female nurse ratio is not where the government thinks it should be".

Now many colleges need federal funding. No one wants to get sued. So colleges have gamely tried to square the circle. But if female athletes are so few and far between compared to the number of males that colleges are double counting women or mislabelling men , one would hope folks would realize things have gone DRASTICALLY wrong with this law.

Again, men and women are not identical. They do not necessarily share (on average) proportionate interest in the same hobbies or professions.  And that's okay!!! This is so egregious in college athletics because you are literally stopping people with a strong interest from unpaid participation in their chosen activity while trying to shanghai people with less interest to participate. How is that logical, fair or efficient?

The time is long past due for a fair, intelligent common sense approach. Just because more males than females are interested in a given activity doesn't automatically indicate discrimination or mean that the state needs to intervene.

I grew up playing fantasy role playing games and collecting a vast number of fantasy/sci-fi books. Most (not all) of the people I knew who were doing the same thing were also males. I guess to make things "equal" someone should have prevented us from enjoying our hobbies.

On this issue feminists are like King Canute trying to hold back the tide. Like him they will fail.

The big problem with Title IX is that having tasted "success" in the field of college sports, some of its partisans see no reason not to extend it onwards to college and high school academics  Not surprisingly they are interested in any field where young men dominate (engineering, computer sci, physics, economics ) the usual suspects. It's the camel's nose in the tent or as Peter Clemenza said in The Godfather, "You gotta stop them at the beginning".

Eventually this will lead EXACTLY to what Kurt Vonnegut described over 40 years ago. Of course Vonnegut was a noted liberal and radical. Today Vonnegut's story of Harrison Bergeron reads like hyperconservative fear mongering. Go figure. I read this story back in eighth grade but never thought I'd see us slouching along that path.

QUESTIONS:

Why is this law (Title IX) constitutional?

What does "gender equity in sports" mean to you?

Is it really fair or prudent to create a zero-sum game between male and female college athletes?

Does equal mean equal opportunity or equal results?
Do you think Title IX should also apply to academics?

Do you recognize the book that this post's title is drawn from?

Mouth Meet Foot: WNBA/Former Rutgers Player Cappie Pondexter Disses Japan

You might recall the Don Imus controversy some years back where your boy Imus lost his natural mind and said that the Rutgers women's basketball squad were some "nappy headed ho's."  There was a national outcry.  Imus lost his job for a few weeks.  Sharpton marched.  The Rutgers coach co-signed.  And, not to be left out, Cappie Pondexter had this to say:

"I am confident that Coach Stringer and the Rutgers Women's Basketball team will handle this situation with class as always. Coach Stringer does a fantastic job in adverse situations. I know that the state of New Jersey, the university, family and friends will refuse to let this ignorance soil their achievements. These young women played their hearts out during the NCAA tournament and I thought they represented Rutgers University with the utmost class!
"Imus' racial comments are unacceptable and inappropriate. The fact that this is not the first time that improper comments were made concerning Black athletes shows where Imus stands. Not only were the comments racist, they were also misogynistic. Therefore, I do not feel that an apology or the two week suspension is ample punishment. It is my understanding that his show is supposed to be comedic. Who does this humor?
Nonetheless, I believe that MSNBC/CBS will make the right decision." 

Just so we're clear, those kind of comments are "unnacceptable," and any apology or two week suspension for those kind of comments is not "ample punishment."  Got it.  Just wanted to be clear on that point.   And for the record, I agree with that general sentiment that was expressed here against Imus.  Of course, we didn't need all the glamor, glitz, fan fair and other oportunistic side effects that tend to come along with a public denouncement of this calliber, but nevertheless the underlying point made here at the end of the day against Imus was a legitimate one.  If only this story stopped here...but unfortunatley it doesn't.

Cappie Pondexter.  Open Mouth.  Insure Foot.  Close Mouth.

A New York Liberty guard and former Rutgers star, Pondexter, 28, saw the images and was inspired to send a text message on Twitter: “What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes.”

For good measure — and perhaps egged on by her Twitter followers — she also texted: “u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can’t expect anything less.”

On Monday, apparently after being told that she had offended a nation and embarrassed herself, her league and her team, Pondexter issued the obligatory apology.

She said she was sorry.

“I wanna apologize to anyone I may hurt or offended during this tragic time,” the Twitter message said. “I didn’t realize that my words could be interpreted in the manner which they were.

“The least thing I wanted was to hurt or offend anyone so again I truly apologize. If you’ve lost respect for me that’s totally fine but please don’t let me or my words lose the respect of u the WNBA and what it stands for.” 

- NY Times, March 15, 2011

I just have one question for Pondexter:   What the HECK was you thinking???

Not only did you disrespect an entire nation of people who are going through one helluva crisis right now, but you also managed to discredit yourself, Coach Stringer, Al Sharpton and anybody else who co-signed to the comments you made regarding Don Imus.  There are certain people who spend their entire existence looking for any modicum of illegitimacy in anybody who dares to stand up and tell them that they can't be as racist as they want to be in public, and by adding yourself onto the list of racially insensitive people you have now successfully given them ammunition to discredit anybody else who stands up for the cause in the future.  Congratulations.  And the icing on the cake:  it wasn't even necessary for you to comment on Japan in the first place!  All of a sudden you're the Secretary of State now?  Again, what the HECK was you thinking???

And to add insult to injury, Cappie Pondexter did NOT recieve any suspension whatsoever, let alone the two weeks suspension that she said was not enough for Don Imus.

Here's a tip: the next time a country gets hit by multiple natural disasters, nuclear meltdowns and loses over 4,000 human lives and you get the urge to comment on it, do us all a favor:  don't.



Questions:
What the heck was Cappie Pondexter thinking?
Is there a racial double standard here?
What should happen to public figures who make offensive comments?
Does Cappie Pondexter have any credibility to ever call out another "Don Imus"-type event?