A fighting style...
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting" -- Sun Tzu
In case we didn't completely grasp the brilliance of Sun Tzu's concept, the late Bruce Lee used it to create one of the most instructive scenes in his finest film, "Enter the Dragon":
This is the strategy the NBA should adopt in its struggle to get Donald T. Sterling to sell the Clippers. Rather than engaging in a scorched earth struggle in the courtroom, the league should simply state "you're suspended for life, you cannot attend games, control the team, or enter any league or team facility" and then take no further action.
Sterling could go to court to fight the suspension, but every legal expert thus far says that this action by the league is clearly within its authority as the league's constitution and by-laws are written. It may cost him fans, players, employees and drive the team itself out of business, but that's not the league's problem. Nor is it their fault.
Nine of the players currently under contract to the team are obligated to return next year. I can't imagine any of the remaining players choosing to return if Sterling still owns the team next season. After next season, nine becomes seven, and one of the two who would be free after 2014/15 is DeAndre Jordan.
Season ticket sales are down. Prices for the first round playoff games on sites like Stubhub fell drastically after Sterling's comments were initially released. Sterling is a really rich guy, but he won't hold on to the team if it's costing him a fortune to do so. He didn't get to be rich by making dumb business moves.
So please, NBA, follow the sage advice of Sun Tzu and Bruce Lee.
* * *
Shape is a women's fitness magazine. It's been around since 1981. At one point in my life, when I was living with a woman who was really into fitness, the latest copy was always to be found around our apartment. Before bifocals took away my love for reading, I would read almost anything I happened to find, particularly if I was about to be forced to spend a few minutes in the "reading room" as some prefer to label it.
I always turned to one particular feature whenever I picked up an issue. "Success stories" always featured before/after photos of people who had succeeded in meeting goals. I loved reading the stories about people who had succeeded in losing weight and adopting a healthy lifestyle. The photos were almost always amazing.
Brooke Birmingham got inspired by something and managed to lose 170 pounds. Shape contacted her and wanted to publish her story. She agreed and sent in before and after photos.
Brooke has a bit of excess skin from her dramatic weight loss that could be seen in the after photo. I don't see a problem with it, but in an age of photo-shopping away nonexistent imperfections on the world's most beautiful women; it's easy to see why idiotic editors for a fitness mag wouldn't want to run her after shot. Judge for yourself:
This after photo shows someone sans shirt.
Shape was wrong and I'm sure they'll be taken to task for their gaffe.
When I saw the copyright mark on the photo I was curious why she'd feel the need to do that. Turns out she is employed by Weight Watchers and writes a blog that is "her own". Good for her. She's turned her stunning achievement into a win-win.
* * *
People still don't get it. The two guys who were slated to host a TV program on the HGTV cable channel said something that offended people and now their show has been cancelled. Some are calling this a violation of the duo's First Amendment rights.
But I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised. Eugene T. Lee, Esq is the president and CEO of a firm that does athlete representation. He has an impressive resume, undergrad and law school at Notre Dame, Summa Cum Laude in undergraduate studies and so on. He was on CNN today to discuss the legal situation surrounding Donald Sterling, Shelly Sterling, the Clippers and the NBA.
In that discussion when he mentioned that there might be an issue involving Donald Sterling's rights under the First Amendment, I almost fell off of my chair. Do they not teach Con Law at Notre Dame?
The NBA is a private organization. If private employers can fire people for their remarks on Facebook, for video selfies taken in the drive-thru lane at Chick-Fil-A where they're harassing the innocent girl working the window and so on, then if the NBA's constitution and bylaws says the NBA can terminate Mr. Sterling's franchise, it is NOT a First Amendment issue.
I know, I know, I've ranted ad nauseam about this topic before. Unless government is doing the infringing, no one's First Amendment rights are being violated.
Let me pose a question. Suppose you founded a new religion. One where it was your duty, your sacred obligation to speak out about any issue where someone, anyone, is violating the tenets of your new faith. Even if they aren't a member of this new religion. And in your new faith, it's an abomination for a man and a woman to be married. If you're the host of a TV program and you start spewing about how horrific an abomination that heterosexual marriage is according to your religion, would your employer be within their rights to fire you? Of course they would.
Like it or not, the Constitution does not guarantee the right to be a TV host.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
I think that when you hope someone gets hit by a car, that would be an instance of wishing them bad luck. Maybe if you're Tommy Lasorda, it works differently?
Can't muster any sympathy for the man who celebrated his 90th birthday in a courtroom, listening to a judge sentence him to three years in federal prison for being a drug mule for a cocaine cartel.
French fries and pizza are not vegetables.
How dumb does a crook have to be to steal some woman's clothing and then wear it the following day near her home?
In its brilliance, the Congress has mandated cuts at the IRS that will result in 100,000 fewer audits being performed next year, at an estimated reduction in tax revenue of $3 billion. One would think that hiring more revenue agents and giving them proper training so that they don't do stupid shit that gets overturned on appeal, would pay for itself.
QT will probably sue Gawker again when he wants to generate buzz for another film.
Leelee Sobieski (who I think is extremely talented) is having a second child? I didn't know she had one. Good thing that wasn't a trivia question.
If people are going to boycott businesses that are owned by people from nations where Sharia law is followed, there's going to be a lot of boycotting going on. Bank of America does business in Brunei and in Saudi Arabia.
Mel Brooks says he couldn't make "Blazing Saddles" now. He's right.
* * *
May 8th in History:
1450 – Jack Cade's Rebellion: Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.
1516 – Trần Cảo Rebellion: A group of imperial guards, led by Trịnh Duy Sản, murdered Emperor Lê Tương Dực and fled, leaving the capital Thăng Long undefended.
1541 – Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River and names it Río de Espíritu Santo.
1788 – The French Parlement is suspended to be replaced by the creation of forty-seven new courts.
1794 – Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, is tried, convicted, and guillotined all on the same day in Paris.
1821 – Greek War of Independence: The Greeks defeat the Turks at the Battle of Gravia Inn.
1842 – A train derails and catches fire in Paris, killing between 52 and 200 people.
1846 – Mexican–American War: The Battle of Palo Alto – Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the war.
1861 – American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is named the capital of the Confederate States of America.
1877 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.
1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.
1898 – The first games of the Italian football league system are played.
1899 – The Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin produced its first play.
1901 – The Australian Labour Party is established.
1902 – In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.
1912 – Paramount Pictures is founded.
1919 – Edward George Honey first proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I, which later results in the creation of Remembrance Day. In the United States it was called Armistice Day and is now Veterans Day.
1924 – The Klaipėda Convention is signed formally incorporating Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory) into Lithuania.
1927 – Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane.
1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast in protest against the British rule in India.
1941 – The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby
1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
1942 – World War II: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebel in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny is crushed and three of them are executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.
1945 – Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre.
1945 – World War II: V-E Day, combat ends in Europe. German forces agree in Reims, France, to an unconditional surrender.
1945 – The Halifax Riot starts when thousands of civilians and servicemen rampage through Halifax.
1945 – End of the Prague uprising, celebrated now as a national holiday in the Czech Republic.
1945 – Dissolution and surrender of Nazi Germany and all its forces.
1946 – Estonian school girls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial which stood in front of the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn.
1963 – South Vietnamese soldiers of Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem open fire on Buddhists defying a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis.
1966 – A plane crash at Connellsville, Pennsylvania kills Pennsylvania Attorney General, Walter E. Alessandroni, his wife, and other state officials.
1967 – The Philippine province of Davao is split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental.
1970 – The Hard Hat Riot occurs in the Wall Street area of New York City as blue-collar construction workers clash with demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War.
1972 – Vietnam War – U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation.
1972 – Four Black September terrorists hijack Sabena Flight 571. Israeli Sayeret Matkal commandos recapture the plane the following day.
1973 – A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.
1976 – The rollercoaster Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
1978 – The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.
1980 – The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.
1984 – The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
1984 – Corporal Denis Lortie enters the Quebec National Assembly and opens fire, killing three and wounding 13. René Jalbert, sergeant-at-arms of the assembly, succeeds in calming him, for which he will later receive the Cross of Valour.
1984 – The Thames Barrier is officially opened.
1987 – The Loughgall Ambush: The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland.
1988 – A fire at Illinois Bell's Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS network outage once considered the "worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history".
1997 – A China Southern Airlines Boeing 737 crashes on approach into Bao'an International Airport, killing 35 people.
Famous Folk Born on May 8th:
Nathaniel Dance-Holland
Carl Stamitz
William Henry Vanderbilt
Henry Dunant
Oscar Hammerstein I
Harry S. Truman
Francis Ouimet
In case we didn't completely grasp the brilliance of Sun Tzu's concept, the late Bruce Lee used it to create one of the most instructive scenes in his finest film, "Enter the Dragon":
This is the strategy the NBA should adopt in its struggle to get Donald T. Sterling to sell the Clippers. Rather than engaging in a scorched earth struggle in the courtroom, the league should simply state "you're suspended for life, you cannot attend games, control the team, or enter any league or team facility" and then take no further action.
Sterling could go to court to fight the suspension, but every legal expert thus far says that this action by the league is clearly within its authority as the league's constitution and by-laws are written. It may cost him fans, players, employees and drive the team itself out of business, but that's not the league's problem. Nor is it their fault.
Nine of the players currently under contract to the team are obligated to return next year. I can't imagine any of the remaining players choosing to return if Sterling still owns the team next season. After next season, nine becomes seven, and one of the two who would be free after 2014/15 is DeAndre Jordan.
Season ticket sales are down. Prices for the first round playoff games on sites like Stubhub fell drastically after Sterling's comments were initially released. Sterling is a really rich guy, but he won't hold on to the team if it's costing him a fortune to do so. He didn't get to be rich by making dumb business moves.
So please, NBA, follow the sage advice of Sun Tzu and Bruce Lee.
* * *
Shape is a women's fitness magazine. It's been around since 1981. At one point in my life, when I was living with a woman who was really into fitness, the latest copy was always to be found around our apartment. Before bifocals took away my love for reading, I would read almost anything I happened to find, particularly if I was about to be forced to spend a few minutes in the "reading room" as some prefer to label it.
I always turned to one particular feature whenever I picked up an issue. "Success stories" always featured before/after photos of people who had succeeded in meeting goals. I loved reading the stories about people who had succeeded in losing weight and adopting a healthy lifestyle. The photos were almost always amazing.
Brooke Birmingham got inspired by something and managed to lose 170 pounds. Shape contacted her and wanted to publish her story. She agreed and sent in before and after photos.
Brooke has a bit of excess skin from her dramatic weight loss that could be seen in the after photo. I don't see a problem with it, but in an age of photo-shopping away nonexistent imperfections on the world's most beautiful women; it's easy to see why idiotic editors for a fitness mag wouldn't want to run her after shot. Judge for yourself:
When she refused to provide another photo, she asked why one was needed and the reporter for the magazine told her there was a policy. All after photos require shirts. Just one problem with that specious claim:This after photo shows someone sans shirt.
Shape was wrong and I'm sure they'll be taken to task for their gaffe.
When I saw the copyright mark on the photo I was curious why she'd feel the need to do that. Turns out she is employed by Weight Watchers and writes a blog that is "her own". Good for her. She's turned her stunning achievement into a win-win.
* * *
People still don't get it. The two guys who were slated to host a TV program on the HGTV cable channel said something that offended people and now their show has been cancelled. Some are calling this a violation of the duo's First Amendment rights.
But I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised. Eugene T. Lee, Esq is the president and CEO of a firm that does athlete representation. He has an impressive resume, undergrad and law school at Notre Dame, Summa Cum Laude in undergraduate studies and so on. He was on CNN today to discuss the legal situation surrounding Donald Sterling, Shelly Sterling, the Clippers and the NBA.
In that discussion when he mentioned that there might be an issue involving Donald Sterling's rights under the First Amendment, I almost fell off of my chair. Do they not teach Con Law at Notre Dame?
The NBA is a private organization. If private employers can fire people for their remarks on Facebook, for video selfies taken in the drive-thru lane at Chick-Fil-A where they're harassing the innocent girl working the window and so on, then if the NBA's constitution and bylaws says the NBA can terminate Mr. Sterling's franchise, it is NOT a First Amendment issue.
I know, I know, I've ranted ad nauseam about this topic before. Unless government is doing the infringing, no one's First Amendment rights are being violated.
Let me pose a question. Suppose you founded a new religion. One where it was your duty, your sacred obligation to speak out about any issue where someone, anyone, is violating the tenets of your new faith. Even if they aren't a member of this new religion. And in your new faith, it's an abomination for a man and a woman to be married. If you're the host of a TV program and you start spewing about how horrific an abomination that heterosexual marriage is according to your religion, would your employer be within their rights to fire you? Of course they would.
Like it or not, the Constitution does not guarantee the right to be a TV host.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
I think that when you hope someone gets hit by a car, that would be an instance of wishing them bad luck. Maybe if you're Tommy Lasorda, it works differently?
Can't muster any sympathy for the man who celebrated his 90th birthday in a courtroom, listening to a judge sentence him to three years in federal prison for being a drug mule for a cocaine cartel.
French fries and pizza are not vegetables.
How dumb does a crook have to be to steal some woman's clothing and then wear it the following day near her home?
In its brilliance, the Congress has mandated cuts at the IRS that will result in 100,000 fewer audits being performed next year, at an estimated reduction in tax revenue of $3 billion. One would think that hiring more revenue agents and giving them proper training so that they don't do stupid shit that gets overturned on appeal, would pay for itself.
QT will probably sue Gawker again when he wants to generate buzz for another film.
Leelee Sobieski (who I think is extremely talented) is having a second child? I didn't know she had one. Good thing that wasn't a trivia question.
If people are going to boycott businesses that are owned by people from nations where Sharia law is followed, there's going to be a lot of boycotting going on. Bank of America does business in Brunei and in Saudi Arabia.
Mel Brooks says he couldn't make "Blazing Saddles" now. He's right.
* * *
May 8th in History:
453 BC – Spring and Autumn period: The house of Zhao
defeats the house of Zhi, ending the Battle of Jinyang, a military conflict
between the elite families of the State of Jin.
413 – Emperor Honorius signs an edict providing tax
relief for the Italian provinces Tuscia, Campania, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia,
Lucania and Calabria, which were plundered by the Visigoths.
589 – Reccared I summons the Third Council of
Toledo.1450 – Jack Cade's Rebellion: Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.
1516 – Trần Cảo Rebellion: A group of imperial guards, led by Trịnh Duy Sản, murdered Emperor Lê Tương Dực and fled, leaving the capital Thăng Long undefended.
1541 – Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River and names it Río de Espíritu Santo.
1788 – The French Parlement is suspended to be replaced by the creation of forty-seven new courts.
1794 – Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, is tried, convicted, and guillotined all on the same day in Paris.
1821 – Greek War of Independence: The Greeks defeat the Turks at the Battle of Gravia Inn.
1842 – A train derails and catches fire in Paris, killing between 52 and 200 people.
1846 – Mexican–American War: The Battle of Palo Alto – Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the war.
1861 – American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is named the capital of the Confederate States of America.
1877 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.
1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.
1898 – The first games of the Italian football league system are played.
1899 – The Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin produced its first play.
1901 – The Australian Labour Party is established.
1902 – In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.
1912 – Paramount Pictures is founded.
1919 – Edward George Honey first proposes the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I, which later results in the creation of Remembrance Day. In the United States it was called Armistice Day and is now Veterans Day.
1924 – The Klaipėda Convention is signed formally incorporating Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory) into Lithuania.
1927 – Attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off aboard The White Bird biplane.
1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast in protest against the British rule in India.
1941 – The German Luftwaffe launches a bombing raid on Nottingham and Derby
1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end with Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
1942 – World War II: Gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebel in the Cocos Islands Mutiny. Their mutiny is crushed and three of them are executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.
1945 – Hundreds of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Sétif massacre.
1945 – World War II: V-E Day, combat ends in Europe. German forces agree in Reims, France, to an unconditional surrender.
1945 – The Halifax Riot starts when thousands of civilians and servicemen rampage through Halifax.
1945 – End of the Prague uprising, celebrated now as a national holiday in the Czech Republic.
1945 – Dissolution and surrender of Nazi Germany and all its forces.
1946 – Estonian school girls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial which stood in front of the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn.
1963 – South Vietnamese soldiers of Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem open fire on Buddhists defying a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis.
1966 – A plane crash at Connellsville, Pennsylvania kills Pennsylvania Attorney General, Walter E. Alessandroni, his wife, and other state officials.
1967 – The Philippine province of Davao is split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental.
1970 – The Hard Hat Riot occurs in the Wall Street area of New York City as blue-collar construction workers clash with demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War.
1972 – Vietnam War – U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation.
1972 – Four Black September terrorists hijack Sabena Flight 571. Israeli Sayeret Matkal commandos recapture the plane the following day.
1973 – A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.
1976 – The rollercoaster Revolution, the first steel coaster with a vertical loop, opens at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
1978 – The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler.
1980 – The World Health Organization confirms the eradication of smallpox.
1984 – The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
1984 – Corporal Denis Lortie enters the Quebec National Assembly and opens fire, killing three and wounding 13. René Jalbert, sergeant-at-arms of the assembly, succeeds in calming him, for which he will later receive the Cross of Valour.
1984 – The Thames Barrier is officially opened.
1987 – The Loughgall Ambush: The SAS kills eight Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and a civilian during an ambush in Loughgall, Northern Ireland.
1988 – A fire at Illinois Bell's Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS network outage once considered the "worst telecommunications disaster in US telephone industry history".
1997 – A China Southern Airlines Boeing 737 crashes on approach into Bao'an International Airport, killing 35 people.
Famous Folk Born on May 8th:
Nathaniel Dance-Holland
Carl Stamitz
William Henry Vanderbilt
Henry Dunant
Oscar Hammerstein I
Harry S. Truman
Francis Ouimet
Roberto Rossellini
Mary Lou Williams
Robert Johnson
Bob Clampett
David Attenborough
Don Rickles
Mike Cuellar
Peter Benchley
Ricky Nelson
Toni Tenille
Bill Lockyer
Gary Glitter
Bill Legend
Philip Bailey
Mike D'Antoni
David Keith
Stephen Furst
Lovie Smith
Ronnie Lott
Bill de Blasio
Melissa Gilbert
Bobby Labonte
Jamie Summers
Enrique Iglesias
Elizabeth Whitmere
Kemba Walker
posted by me at 2:49 PM
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