I understand the left has issues with Murdoch, but his network has had the Simpsons on since the Eighties, employed Michael Moore, and has the Family Guy.
Commerce trumps ideology in much of Hollywood, not just from Murdock. Left leaning Hollywood types are some of the worst outsourcers. The Simpson's is drawn in South Korea as an example.
So the Lakers overcame their fobia of rockets...but kobe didn't shine...Gasol and Ariza came out to play...what say the TNC commenters...are they back in the saddle or are they in the last throws?
I'm still unsure about the Lakers. If they had taken game 6 in Houston - and they were in position to do so, but Kobe was on the bench for the first half of the fourth - I would be a little more confident about their chances to go all the way. The Nuggets will be tough, but they play more to the Lakers' style than the Rockets did. I shouldn't pick because I'm sure I'll end up eating crow, but I'll take the Lakers in - gulp - six. Because they should win.
The Lakers own Denver, so I would be very surprised if they don't take them down. People poopoo regular season, but it says something about matchups that doesn't change just because it's playoffs. The Lakers have been exposed, so even if they win it all, no one will take them seriously as a great champion.
Likewise, Orlando has a pretty good record against Cleveland who earned by their regular season record the right to play patsies in the first two series. If Cleveland wins, well, no doubt, Le Bron will have made his case, because outside of Le Bron, they look like a pedestrian team. Orlando came a long way to beat Boston; however, they should have beaten Boston more easily--no Garnett, no Powe, Perkins injured--they had no one in the paint; heart alone kept them in playoffs.
It looks to me like everyone will get the Lakers-Cavs series they want--Le Bron and Kobe, but I wouldn't bet on this being the beginning of a Magic-Bird rivalry, because neither of these two teams look like perennials to me--at least not yet.
you have several good points...im not going to argue with the dubious ones...but...for the sake of the game, don't you think that it's best that lebron wins the title this year?
I think the NBA is desperate for LeBron to win a title, but I think they'll simply be happy with Kobe vs. LeBron in the Finals, and let the best superstar win. LeBron beating Kobe for a title - in a seven-game series - would be gravy for the league.
Like many, I just want the Lakers to go down. I wish I liked Cleveland's overall game a bit more. If Denver were to beat the Lakers, they'd have a lot of fun to them. Orlando--meh. Howard should be a much bigger offensive force than he is--think Hakeem, think Shaq--he's as athletic as the first and almost as dominant as the latter were, yet he never scores even close to the way each were able to.
LeBron's the boss and will be for some time--there is no end in sight to the future of his game, but as a year for the NBA, I just don't think it was as interesting as last year. Houston and the Celtics have played the most exciting games in the tournament so far, and if Garnett had been playing, I'd take them in a heartbeat. But in the end, if they play to their potential, the Lakers should take it all, alas.
"Orlando came a long way to beat Boston; however, they should have beaten Boston more easily--no Garnett, no Powe, Perkins injured--they had no one in the paint; heart alone kept them in playoffs."
Dead on. Losing to Boston this year might have been ruinous for the Magic. Van Gundy may have been out of a job; Dwight Howard would start to hear unflattering comparisons to David Robinson. This series should have been won in five, but I still gotta give it to them. They grew up a little bit.
I was very impressed with the Magic last night. They took too many jumpers for my taste, but they kept hitting them, answering the Celtics again and again. I don't think the jumper-first approach is going to play as well against the Cavs, who rebound like beasts. The Magic will need to penetrate often to get those guys in foul trouble. I don't see it happening, though. Cavs in six.
Racefail '09 started much earlier, and involved an even larger section of F/SF fandom.
This section got called "mammothfail" because, in order to create an alternate American continent without natives to mess up the vast expanses of "megafauna" (mammoths and saber toothed tigers and shit) the author removed them from the history. So you've got a world with black people, white people, and possbly yellow people, but no "red" people, because
"I really hate both the older Indians-as-savages viewpoint that was common in that sort of book, *and* the modern Indians-as-gentle-ecologists viewpoint that seems to be so popular lately, and this seems the best way of eliminating the problem
(author's own words.)
No irony seems to have been intended in the use of the word "eliminating the problem" in regards to removing an entire race of people from a book that has all of the rest of them.
And see, that's just a small part of racefail '09.
That wasn't so much the problem as the inevitable outcry from her defenders that she wasn't a racist, and how dare anyone suggest that, anyone who had a problem with it was "lynching" the author and her defenders (that exact word was used) an that this was all the work of some sort of PC hit squad determined to ruin perfectly good books, and how dare they censor such a nice book.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Fox just put Wanda Sykes on its fall lineup. Yay!
Yikes! Sykes on Fox. Magic Wanda and The Hannity Inanity in one convenient location. The Cognitive Dissonance Express.
I understand the left has issues with Murdoch, but his network has had the Simpsons on since the Eighties, employed Michael Moore, and has the Family Guy.
Well, ideology is one thing, but to Murdoch commerce trumps all.
Commerce trumps ideology in much of Hollywood, not just from Murdock. Left leaning Hollywood types are some of the worst outsourcers. The Simpson's is drawn in South Korea as an example.
Fox the TV network, not Fox News!
deep like the mind of Farrakhan, a motherfucking rap phenomenon
So the Lakers overcame their fobia of rockets...but kobe didn't shine...Gasol and Ariza came out to play...what say the TNC commenters...are they back in the saddle or are they in the last throws?
I'm still unsure about the Lakers. If they had taken game 6 in Houston - and they were in position to do so, but Kobe was on the bench for the first half of the fourth - I would be a little more confident about their chances to go all the way. The Nuggets will be tough, but they play more to the Lakers' style than the Rockets did. I shouldn't pick because I'm sure I'll end up eating crow, but I'll take the Lakers in - gulp - six. Because they should win.
The Lakers own Denver, so I would be very surprised if they don't take them down. People poopoo regular season, but it says something about matchups that doesn't change just because it's playoffs. The Lakers have been exposed, so even if they win it all, no one will take them seriously as a great champion.
Likewise, Orlando has a pretty good record against Cleveland who earned by their regular season record the right to play patsies in the first two series. If Cleveland wins, well, no doubt, Le Bron will have made his case, because outside of Le Bron, they look like a pedestrian team. Orlando came a long way to beat Boston; however, they should have beaten Boston more easily--no Garnett, no Powe, Perkins injured--they had no one in the paint; heart alone kept them in playoffs.
It looks to me like everyone will get the Lakers-Cavs series they want--Le Bron and Kobe, but I wouldn't bet on this being the beginning of a Magic-Bird rivalry, because neither of these two teams look like perennials to me--at least not yet.
you have several good points...im not going to argue with the dubious ones...but...for the sake of the game, don't you think that it's best that lebron wins the title this year?
I think the NBA is desperate for LeBron to win a title, but I think they'll simply be happy with Kobe vs. LeBron in the Finals, and let the best superstar win. LeBron beating Kobe for a title - in a seven-game series - would be gravy for the league.
Like many, I just want the Lakers to go down. I wish I liked Cleveland's overall game a bit more. If Denver were to beat the Lakers, they'd have a lot of fun to them. Orlando--meh. Howard should be a much bigger offensive force than he is--think Hakeem, think Shaq--he's as athletic as the first and almost as dominant as the latter were, yet he never scores even close to the way each were able to.
LeBron's the boss and will be for some time--there is no end in sight to the future of his game, but as a year for the NBA, I just don't think it was as interesting as last year. Houston and the Celtics have played the most exciting games in the tournament so far, and if Garnett had been playing, I'd take them in a heartbeat. But in the end, if they play to their potential, the Lakers should take it all, alas.
"Orlando came a long way to beat Boston; however, they should have beaten Boston more easily--no Garnett, no Powe, Perkins injured--they had no one in the paint; heart alone kept them in playoffs."
Dead on. Losing to Boston this year might have been ruinous for the Magic. Van Gundy may have been out of a job; Dwight Howard would start to hear unflattering comparisons to David Robinson. This series should have been won in five, but I still gotta give it to them. They grew up a little bit.
I was very impressed with the Magic last night. They took too many jumpers for my taste, but they kept hitting them, answering the Celtics again and again. I don't think the jumper-first approach is going to play as well against the Cavs, who rebound like beasts. The Magic will need to penetrate often to get those guys in foul trouble. I don't see it happening, though. Cavs in six.
If Cleveland makes it to the finals, I'll be rooting for them. As a Steelers fan, this is midly disconcerting. Still, LeBron's the real deal.
Nerd alert - Nalo Hopkinson just compiled a great essay on race, fantasy/science fiction, comic books, and fandom.
If anyone's curious, here's what led up to that post, and hopefully many others.
They commented on this over a Racialicious:
http://www.racialicious.com/2009/05/18/unfinished-business-the-racialicious-roundtable-for-heroes-412/
I think they call it Race Fail '09
Racefail '09 started much earlier, and involved an even larger section of F/SF fandom.
This section got called "mammothfail" because, in order to create an alternate American continent without natives to mess up the vast expanses of "megafauna" (mammoths and saber toothed tigers and shit) the author removed them from the history. So you've got a world with black people, white people, and possbly yellow people, but no "red" people, because
(author's own words.)No irony seems to have been intended in the use of the word "eliminating the problem" in regards to removing an entire race of people from a book that has all of the rest of them.
And see, that's just a small part of racefail '09.
That wasn't so much the problem as the inevitable outcry from her defenders that she wasn't a racist, and how dare anyone suggest that, anyone who had a problem with it was "lynching" the author and her defenders (that exact word was used) an that this was all the work of some sort of PC hit squad determined to ruin perfectly good books, and how dare they censor such a nice book.