Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Goats & Contacts
Thursday
October 16, 2003
Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 7, tonight at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. What a fantastic post-season it's been for Major League Baseball. The 162 game regular season is long and rather boring to me, but the post-season is filled with some of the more exciting, dramatic moments this side of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
|  | | The "Curse Of The Goat" lives on in Chicago. |
Meanwhile, Big Dick from 98 Rock, my friend Dennis Goodman, and countless other Cubs fans remain in a horrid funk/suicide watch. And as for the fan who hit the ball in Game 6 that Cubs outfielder Moises Alou tried to catch in the stands... I hope he goes into the Bud Selig Protection Program...
If you want to reach me, e-mail makes that possible. Drop me a line at LouPickney@hotmail.com. An e-mail from someone using the alias Betty Rubble pointed out to me that my contact information was very much lacking from this page. You had to do some searching, but it was there (like on my résumé page). By the time you read this, I should have added my address to the main page and start incorporating it in more places on here. Anyway, Betty Rubble sent me the following e-mail:
My thought on your commentary about Warren Sapp is very simple.. I am not in agreement with the statements made by either Warren Sapp nor Rush Limbaugh. However, to compare the two doesn't make sense, not because one was racist and the other not. Warren Sapp did not get a "pass" because he is black. He got a "pass", as you state, because of the acceptable forum in which he chose to make his statements. Rush Limbaugh has said hundreds of semi-racist and sexist remarks on his radio show. There is always an eye brow raised but no big hullaballoo because it HIS show with HIS listeners that share many of his views. Unfortunately, the forum in which he chose to make the statements about Donovan McNabb was not his show but a network show that targets males, many black. Rush's mistake was not knowing his audience. Things don't play the same on radio as they do on TV. Both of these men are known for being opionated and crossing the line a bit. Rush has gotten many "passes" on things he has said but unfortunately you don't mess with a network's money tree. Warren wasn't messing around with anyone's money...
It's an interesting take that it's the forum utilized, and not the statements themselves, that dictate the acceptability of the respective statements. Actually, it might be more accurate to state that Sapp got a pass because he spoke as Warren Sapp, Tampa Bay Buccaneer -- not Warren Sapp, ESPN Commentator. Maybe that's where the distinction should be drawn.
Now, Sapp's comments have been played out on both radio and TV since they were made. But it was Sapp as a player, not Sapp as a network commentator, who said what he said.
Far be it from me to give lectures about racism and perceptions of bias from the vantagepoint of a victim as a white male. Race and racism is one of those issues that can be very tricky to address, for even broaching the topic on anything more than the most superficial of levels can lead to potentially being labeled as racially divisive. It's quite a quandary for people wanting to address racism and the realities therein without themselves being judged.
I can't speak for Rush Limbaugh or Warren Sapp or anyone else. But speaking for myself, I find racism to be an abhorrant, disgusting, ignorant bane on society.
Meanwhile, my friend Neal Boling at Channel 10 wrote in agreement on what I had to say about Sapp.
Just a quick note to say that I agree with all your thoughts on Sapp. Especially the Transition Tag. That would be the best of both worlds.
|  | | This is the proposed design of the "Liberty Dollar Bill". |
It's hard to argue the Transition tag idea... at all. Even the most adament Sapp supporters would have to admit that the chance to see what other DTs will be on the market, coupled with the extra first round pick that would be gained, makes slapping Sapp with the Transition tag the only logical move at this point. As it is, with Booger McFarland emerging as a solid DT on his own, it's not as if the Bucs would be required to replace Sapp with an all-world DT in his place (though, to be sure, that wouldn't hurt).
While waiting at the doctor's office on Monday, I flipped through a magazine that had an ad for the proposed "Liberty Dollar Bill" (pictured above and to the right). Visit libertydollarbill.org to find out more. Imagine that, legislation that would actually help to educate the American public about its individual liberties. Though I can imagine that a few smartasses out there would mark through the 19th Amendment with a Sharpie as a rib...
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