Jordan, Magic Serving Their Legacies In Dissing LeBron

It doesn't get much simpler than that. Jordan, Magic, and Bird (if he follows suit) have nothing to lose and everything to gain by calling out LeBron for taking less money to play with another superstar teammate in Dwyane Wade.

First of all, let's not give them points for originality. The talking heads of sports were saying it days before Jordan parroted the comments, and Magic said it days after Jordan.

Second, making a comment at all puts their names on websites, blogs, maybe papers, etc. and makes them more relevant. Of course, those names will never go out of style, but still, it's free press.

Third, coming out and saying they would never do what LBJ did, that they were only trying to beat each other, is self-serving. The statements mean "we were so good that we didn't need each other to win championships." While that may be true, the statement ignores and belittles the contributions of those they played with.

Now let me interject and state that I'm not an NBA fan and I certainly didn't watch Magic and Bird play in the primes, if at all. I did see Jordan. And I know all of these guys had good support. Jordan had Pippen and Phil Jackson. Magic had Kareem. Bird had some good guys, I just don't know their names.

OK, so none of their teammates were as good as Jordan, Magic or Bird (except Kareem, though I know he was past his prime at that point). But they were still good, really good.

Who did LeBron have? Guys playing out of their minds at just the right time, sometimes? He was stuck in a perpetually bad franchise in a city beset with perpetually bad franchises. His team wasn't doing everything it could to help it win, either because they didn't know what that was, or because they weren't working hard enough. If there was a Pippen available, they weren't getting him.

And Shaq doesn't count. He pushed Kobe to greatness, he did the same for Wade, he couldn't do it for Nash, and he doesn't have enough gas in the tank for LeBron.

I'm losing my point here, but it's this: Jordan, Magic and Bird played for franchises who knew what they were doing, who surrounded their stars with talent, albeit not on the level of another (current) superstar. That wasn't happening in Cleveland. LBJ gave them seven years but they couldn't bring it together.

His options were to go to New York (because they have a great track record with winning...), New Jersey (same, arguably worse), Chicago (possibly viable, hard to say), and some other places. Or, he could go to Miami where established stars are playing. If we follow the "wisdom" of Jordan and Magic, LeBron should have stayed in Cleveland, OR gone to a lesser franchise, all in the name of greatness? There are other terms for that: arrogance, selfishness, egotistical, etc. To believe that you have to be THE guy on a franchise or it doesn't have the same value is simply ridiculous.

Finally, a question out into the void, because I'm not an NBA fan and don't know the answer: Were these two making the same comments about Shaq and Kobe? Didn't they do exactly the same thing, only they brought it together with Phil Jackson? Did Kobe somehow get out of their sights by winning with Pao Gasol? If so, how much of a discredit is that to Pao? The biggest difference between Pao and Shaq is Pao is not a me-first hog. He's smart, he's European, he flops, and after trying to be a superstar in his own right, he knows where his meals and his money come from. Is he as good as Shaq was? Maybe not, but maybe he's better because he knows how to play his role and shut his mouth (most of the time, anyway).

Anyway, the long story is that Jordan's and Magic's comments only serve to increase their legacy, and it comes at the price of the reputations of their supporting teammates and coaches. Shame on them.

EDIT: My brother Nick chimed in on Facebook:

The NBA is about the individual marketing the individual (Jordan created this phenomenon). LeBron was setting himself up to be the talk of the summer. It is genius for his personal Brand and the Association as a whole. The NBA needs this type of hype during the off-season. When is the last time ESPN has ran multiple days worth of NBA coverage in July? Stern knows that any publicity is good publicity in the summer, and that the superstars run the Association. Stern knows he can't attack the hype before the hype is ignited into a frenzy.

Jordan and now Magic are both trying to serve themselves up to the public as the quintessential superstars that stuck through the good times and the bad times to create winning franchises. They were in great markets with great coaches and had team owners that spent the money to win. If Jordan went to Portland as the first pick in the draft we all know that he would have got out as soon as possible to go to a team where he had a chance to win.

I have to agree for several reasons, but mostly because Nick knows more about basketball and the NBA than I do.

Not Guilty!

I've done a total of two trials so far, and I won my second trial! My client was accused of six counts in total. One was dismissed per a Rule 20 motion after the state rested. The jury found my client not guilty of the remaining five counts at the conclusion of the case. Those counts were Aggravated DUI x 4, and Criminal Damage (a misdemeanor).

I never expected to win a trial so soon in my career, especially an Aggravated DUI trial. But this is very exciting and very emotionally rewarding. I already felt like my decision to attend law school was validated when I got this job, but this reaffirmed that.

Banned Books and Advanced Placement

Not recommended (and note that the quality of writing goes down when passions are up and time is short).

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/censored/Content?oid=1092825

That's old news. What's changed? "Another Country" was on the 2010 Advanced Placement (AP) exam again, a year and a half after Empire High School* pulled the book from its curriculum.

I don't practice Education Law, and I only took one course in the subject area. So at the time this happened, I believed that the Pico decision controlled this issue, and that the district failed to contact their lawyer before taking action.

Well, I was probably wrong about both things. What happened in Vail School District is distinguishable from Pico, and probably only because the district sought legal counsel, who advised them to make changes to keep them nominally distinguishable from Pico. In Pico, the school board yanked the book out of libraries. In Vail School District, the principal* yanked the book out of the curriculum, but it was still available in the library.

Not being an Education Law scholar or practitioner, I don't know if that difference is meaningful. And anyway, this happens all the time: only 20% of books pulled for the wrong reason are ever challenged. This most likely occurs because one must have constitutional standing to bring a claim, only students have standing on these issues, and no one educates them about their rights.

Does it matter that the banned book appeared on the AP test this year? Probably not, but it should. The book already appeared on an AP test before, and it didn't matter when this decision was made. It didn't matter because the decision was not made based on the educational value of the book, per the standard set in Pico. In fact, the decision was made for the reasons expressly forbidden in Pico. Google Pico, 457 U.S. 853, and look at some of the passages from books that were banned but that were found to have educational value.

What's the point, Herb? The point is, if I were a student who was kept from reading and discussing "Another Country," and I was unprepared for the AP Exam as a result, I would feel robbed of the fruits of my education. The responsible parties should make amends for future generations.

Things I Learned Off Facebook Today

Not an ongoing series, and definitely not recommended.

Thing 1: Being a lawyer is hard. That's not new information, but I got several reminders today (and yesterday). Unfortunately I cannot go into too much detail about what actually occurred, but I can say how I felt. During two hearings, I felt small and foolish, even though I was sure my argument was correct. In fact, I received confirmation that I was correct from a moderately unlikely source. My boss reminded me that the outcome of the hearings was next to null; even if I'd won the argument, it wouldn't make a meaningful difference to my clients. Still, it's strange to feel right, but foolish at the same time.

Those feelings may have stemmed from a meeting that occurred just before the hearings. I wasn't fully prepared for the meeting, in part because I didn't realize I needed to be, in part because the agenda for the meeting was not formalized ahead of time. I allowed a comment to cloud my vision and judgment, which deprived me of the full benefit of the meeting. My condition was apparent to at least two of my colleagues and the matter was addressed, but it had a dramatic effect on my day.

There were really good moments in the morning, but I can't relate them, except to say that they were unexpected and a good way to start the day.

Anyway, my career is hard, and it should be. Not bragging that my career is harder than yours, by any stretch. I have a tendency to show off but I do my utmost to suppress it. I fail often. But anyway, take my word for it: I don't believe I'm better than you, because of my job or for any other reason.

Thing 2: Star Trek: The Next Generation managed to write a compelling episode about homosexuality... without actually using or referring to homosexuality. And they did it all in 1992.

Now, I couldn't watch Star Trek: The Next Generation when I was growing up, because it didn't air until after my bedtime. I was able to watch reruns if they ran earlier or on the weekend, and sometimes my stepdad would record an episode. When I did watch it, I usually enjoyed it, even if I didn't understand it. The long term effect of this is, there are a lot of episodes I haven't seen, and I'm generally unaware of the quality of the show, especially since I didn't watch them as an adult.

So I was quite surprised to watch "The Outcast." The episode features a humanoid race that is androgynous. The main representative explains that its race used to have gender--male and female, of course--but they have evolved. In fact, they see races with gender as primitive, unevolved. Later, this character reveals that some members of its race are still born with predisposition as male or female, that these members are ridiculed and even beaten, and that her race puts them through some kind of "psychotectic" treatment to "fix" this "sickness". Later still, it tells Riker that "she" is predisposed to being a she, that she doesn't see it as a sickness, that she's felt this way all her life, and that she is attracted to Riker.

Throughout this dialogue, the language and rhetoric she uses is very similar to descriptions of homosexuality: that a person is born with it, that it's not a disease or illness (ok, that language is definitely dated, but the episode is almost 20 years old now), that it's perfectly natural, etc.

I'm doing a horrible job of describing it; the Wikipedia page does a better job (just Google "Star Trek The Outcast" to find it). It also confirms what I felt: the episode, while pretty good, didn't go far enough. All the actors of the androgynous race were played by women. Jonathan Frakes (Riker) stated, and I agree, that the main representative who falls in love with Riker should have been more masculine, even played by a man, to further drive the point of the episode.

I won't tell you how the episode ends; you should watch it.

Anyway, I found the episode interesting and compelling, mostly because of the air date. And I stayed up too late to watch it.

Thing 3: There's an episode of Food Wars with El Guero Canelo! I'm recording it.

Thing 4: The Star Trek episode made me forget Thing 4. I don't think it was that there should be a National (or International) Fart Day, the day when we can all fart as loudly as possible and not be ridiculed, etc. It would be a celebration of farts. I imagine there could be a contest with multiple categories. I don't think that was the thing I was going to share, mostly because I haven't done the proper research to see if there is already a National Fart Day. I don't want to take credit for someone else's idea, and something as brilliant as this has to have been thought up before now. I guess the real research is why this either didn't take off, or why it exists but remains relatively unknown.

Thing 5: Something's wrong with my appreciation for sports. The normal "sports me" would hate that Duke and UConn just won national titles in NCAA basketball. Yet, I found a way to rationalize their wins, even though their sports empires are akin to that of the Yankees (ok, not really, because they didn't spend their way to victory) or anyone else who dominates for too long.

With Duke, it's the respect for Coach K and his job with a less-than-talented Duke squad that wouldn't be favored if the remaining #1 seeds were still around. There is either one or zero future NBA first round draft picks on this team, yet they won the title. Also, Coach K took some heat for coaching Team USA in the Olympics because it distracted him from coaching the Duke team. But he managed to win gold (that's why they're called "The Redeem Team"), and two years later he won his fourth title. Like him or not, you can't deny his credentials, especially considering the stark contrast between his current Duke squad and Team USA. Some like to argue it takes a completely different mindset and coaching style to coach college vs. a team of superstars (partly how Phil Jackson gets credit for coaching his Jordan/Kobe star-studded teams--others haven't been able to pull it off with nearly as much success, even though one would think it would be simple). Coach K can do both.

With UConn, I have no rational reason. I don't really care for basketball, I care even less for women's basketball, but whenever a person or team is dominating the rest of the competition, it's compelling, even if it's negative publicity. I don't care about tennis, but I felt I should watch the end of the match where what's his face passed Sampras on the grand slam victory list. Why? I guess it's quasi-historical (every stat in sports is vulnerable and it's going to be beat later (if its even possible, some aren't, like Cy Youngs win total), so whether a moment is "historical" is subjective), so I feel obligated to watch. UConn just won a billion games in a row and had two undefeated seasons in a row, which includes two titles. I didn't watch a second of one game in those two seasons. Yet, their undefeated streak caused me to think about women's basketball for 10 minutes more than I would have under any other circumstance (which would be not at all). So, I suppose if a win streak can make me think about a team and a sport that I would otherwise ignore, that must be somewhat compelling.

Of course, if Butler or Stanford won, that might have equally caused me to think about basketball. But a hero is only as compelling as his villain. Without villains like Duke and UConn--if indeed they are villains, and let's face it, they probably are--no one would care about even a potential Butler or Stanford victory (except their students and alum, of course). If that's the case, I'm OK with my happiness/respect/whatever towards Duke and UConn, in just the same way that it's OK to like Magneto and the Joker.

Well, now it's definitely time for bed.

The Civic and the Citadel

Not recommended.

I own a 1994 Civic VX hatchback, teal in color. My good friend Tedd is helping me maintain and tinker with it. So far we've added a rear sway bar and rear lower control arms, though I've bought parts to do more. I managed to install a front tower bar, Del Sol seats, speakers and a radio by myself. No credit to me--that's how easy it is to work on a Civic.

Anyway, I have plans to do more. I have a front sway bar and a power steering system to add; it's just a matter of finding time to do it. I also want to buy new tires. The tires I have now are the correct size for all Civic hatchbacks made this year except for the VX, which uses smaller tires to achieve it's ridiculous MPG--it should get between 45 and 50! Right now it's been 40 and 42. It needs the tires and probably the correct spark plugs before I can try and figure out what else can change. Of course, in AZ I use the air conditioner 7 months out of the year so I can't expect to get 50 MPG then.

I digress. Tires--the tires I have are still good, but they're the wrong tires. Katie finally pseudo-agreed to allow me to buy tires, and even though she wasn't totally on board, I got a coupon for $50 off a set of four and decided to act. Long story short, Discount Tire didn't follow through like it said it would, so I have no tires and the coupon is expired. Maybe that's for the best, but still.

Another goal is to get a new gas tank. The stock gas tank holds 10 gallons. At 50 MPG, that's plenty; at 40 MPG, it's definitely good enough. The aftermarket tank, however, holds 13.5 gallons! So even if I'm stuck at 40 MPG, that's still over 500 miles of range, which is probably enough to get from Tucson to Anaheim without stopping for gas. Is this important? It depends on your perspective. On one hand, if I'm ever driving to California, I'll have Katie with me, and we're going to have to stop to pee. On the other hand, if I don't have to worry about finding a gas station, we can stop anywhere, including the super fast food complex in or near Indio (?) that DOESN'T have a gas station. Anyway, that's why I want a bigger gas tank.

Today I was poking around and discovered I can replace my old filament lights with LED lights. I thought it would be more complex, like I would have to rig something myself to keep the OEM lights with LED bulbs, but there are more than a few companies that sell LED lights that fit in the normal sockets. There's a lot of crap out there, though, and unfortunately I don't have the tech skills to tell the crap from the good stuff. However, there's at least one brand that seems to be trusted by everyone who has gone through them (so far), so I'm considering changing over all my car lights (except for the headlights, cluster lights, and dome light) to LEDs. Why? Practically speaking, they can be brighter and use less power, which converts to more efficiency and safety. But really, it's because it's a modification I can probably do myself that will be fun.

Finally, the Citadel. Sadly, I am speaking of Icecrown Citadel, the final raid zone in the current World of Warcraft expansion. Ten of us in my guild managed to beat the Lich King and complete the zone this past week, which is sort of like beating the game, if such a thing were actually possible. Even so, it's a big deal for me, because I wasn't playing WoW before the first expansion, and I came nowhere near to beating the "last boss" in the first expansion. It made me happy. OK? Fine then.

Things I Learned On Facebook Today #2

Part Two in an ad infinitum series. As always, not recommended.

Thing 1: It can be misconstrued if you "like" that Jaime Escalante passed away. Mr. Escalante is the real person portrayed by Edward James Olmos in "Stand and Deliver." Probably people mean that they like Mr. Escalante, but you know, context and whatnot.

Thing 2: The radical right is more likely to create domestic terrorists than the radical left.

Thing 3: No one takes you seriously when your status is "Dying. Please help."

Thing 4: People tend to post a lot about their children. Will this cause anti-Facebook backlash in the next generation? "I refuse to take part in social networking--or society at all--because my parents subjected my entire life to the entire Internet."

Things I Learned On Facebook Today #1

Part One in an ad infinitum series. As always, not recommended.

Thing 1: Picking up hitchhikers can be fun, exciting, and rewarding. However, if there is one fear that most people seem to cling to, it's the fear of picking up hitchhikers. A casual "this is what happened to me today" status update turned into a torrent of harsh scoldings with short breaks of praise for the original poster (hereafter, "OP"). The OP stuck to her guns, which I found inspiring. Will I pick up a hitchhiker any time soon? Probably not. But I'll at least consider it more than I did before.

And in general I agree that hitchhikers get a bad rap. I mean, I've watched an unknown number of Criminal Minds episodes, and there are tons of creepy dudes out there, but very few of them have been hitchhikers. And since art is holding the mirror up to life, it must be that there are very few hitchhikers who are also serial killers/rapists.

Might I remind you that analysis like this is why you either came here in the first place, or ignore this website like hitchhikers. Please reread the warning before you proceed.

Thing 2: It's OK to argue the Wal-Mart broadcaster's right to free speech should bar him from arrest, then join a group that is petitioning to get another group kicked off of Facebook for exercising their free speech rights. If you can do it in the same session, kudos to you.

Thing 3: Health care: people care about it. There are all these... um, opinions, or something, floating around. I don't even know what's going on. I can't tell if it's one more thing to throw on the pile of evidence that proves "Obama is evil, he will destroy this nation, he eats shakes composed of children for breakfast and lunch, then has a hearty child for dinner, and I swear I saw some stray hairs form the mark of the beast on his forehead," or if it's something I should seriously be concerned about.

(Sidenote: it's ok to hate Obama with the fire of a thousand suns, for the same reason it was ok to hate Bush with just as much intensity. But you should know that your hatred muddies the real message (if any) and you lose credibility. I think I've posted about this before, though I don't know if that was here or elsewhere.)

Thing 4: Nancy Pelosi is a zombie, and it's always ok to make fun of zombies, especially if they hold political office.

Thing 5: There is some uncertainty as to the true definition of MILF. I didn't check Urban Dictionary to verify; I can only imagine it will only make the issue worse. Anyway, don't just go throwing around the term MILF and expect everyone to know precisely what you mean. I guess there are variables to consider.

I guess those are all the things I learned on Facebook today.

But don't take my word for it!

More Posts For The Post Throne!

That will make sense to about 10 people; hopefully none of them waste their time here.

Anyway, I said I'd post more so here it is. Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to say. Things have happened to me and around me, but I don't have anything clever to say about them. I guess. Or whatever.

My office sent me and three other attorneys to Phoenix for training. This is the fourth such training, and each of them have been quite good. Even better, each time we go we make new friends. The first time, well, we met each other, because we had all just started working in our office. The second time, we met a delightful young fellow named RJ. He's just super. The third time, I didn't go--this was when we lost Hope. The fourth time, I got to know some other folks a little bit better than the last one or two times, such that I feel comfortable talking to them again.

Unfortunately, the Phoenix training is finished. However, because we're all indigent defense attorneys, we will have lots of opportunities to run into each other again, specifically APDA. Something to look forward to.

"Jesus Thinks Farts Are Funny"

I am not the theologian behind this statement, but I subscribe to it. More later.

(Incomplete thoughts and incomplete posts, all part of the new Res Ipsa Loquitur!)

Lowering Quality, Increasing Quantity

My posts on this blog are too sparse. I am so demanding of myself; I only allow perfect posts to slip through here. So, from now on, I'm lowering the quality of my posts so that I can increase quantity. More posts! More drivel! Less thought! Less editing! Which means, more opportunities to offend others and embarrass myself!

Everyone wins.

OK, obviously quality was never the issue, and it would probably take more work and thought to make the posts worse than they are. Ending sentences with "are," however, is a good start and foreshadows what's to come. Nevertheless, expect more.

Yearbooks, Memories, Etc.

Last night, I looked through my senior year yearbook, reading what people wrote. The messages varied dramatically: profound, bland, seemingly insightful, definitely forced, passive, bored, inspired, flirty (!), heavy-handed, and in one case, illustrative (thanks Kevin). I did get an anagram of my name, describing how promiscuous I am (was).

I realized a few things. First, I am in contact with only a handful of the people who wrote in my yearbook. Yet, somehow most of us were aware of the fact that we weren't going to see each other again. Did we really know? Did we really believe it? I did, but only because I was going away from Mesa for college, and maybe that's why I got those kinds of comments in my yearbook.

Next, reading through these comments made me wonder what I wrote in others' yearbooks. Mostly, I'm afraid of what I might have written, that it did not truly reflect how I felt about that person, that I was more concerned with what they were going to write about me that I did not truly focus on how great they are. I can recall at least two yearbook messages of which I am deeply ashamed. As far as that goes, I have to remind myself that I was a desperate love fool, only eighteen years old, and I took advantage of having the last word. Thankfully, I haven't seen either of those people since then, and I don't expect that, once I do, they will remember my awkward messages. Or perhaps they will remember, have a quick laugh, and move on. Anyway, I can't live in fear of any of that, it won't do any good.

I mentioned the varying levels of quality of the messages, and I don't want to spend too much time in case some of those authors are wondering if I'm referring to their message. Don't worry; even if I am, anything I say is unfair judgment on a number of levels. You should properly ignore me and move along.

Some messages were direct and revealed truths that, like my awkward messages, would not have come out in any other way but in this final message of all messages. One girl thanked me for reminding her (through my intense crush on her, though this was not stated directly) that she was valuable after she endured a rough breakup. That had actually occurred more than a year ago, but there's no way we would have ever discussed it. In fact, we didn't discuss it--she left it as a final goodbye, something she wanted out in the nether, but not something to converse over.

I'm pretty sure whatever I wrote in her yearbook was not as insightful, and if it was, it probably is a message I don't want to remember. Let's put the total to three awkward, regrettable messages (and counting).

Another guy wrote a lot of "final message" truths, but I expected to see him on a regular basis after. His motivation was not to say things he was too embarrassed to say if we were to see each other again. Rather, he wanted those awkward truths memoralized for years to come as a testimony to his state of mind at the time. I got a couple of those, that I recall. I don't think I did as good a job as they did, but I wish I had, if only so they knew how much I appreciated them.

Another guy, anticipating future contact, wrote nothing of substance. In fact, he shaped his paragraph into a penis. Perhaps that was a more telling truth than anything else he could have written.

Some girls wrote quasi-flirty messages. I have to imagine they did that because it's fun, not because they meant it. One may have meant it. Several decidedly did not. The most promising flirty message was given to me by a complete stranger, not in my yearbook, but in a note I found buried in a box of junk. She meant it. I followed up. I failed miserably. I'm really glad I didn't follow up on others.

One guy wrote a message that made me laugh out loud nearly eleven years after the fact. And it wouldn't make sense to anyone else, or at least, it wouldn't make them laugh.

A couple of folks I barely knew wrote very nice things about me. I wish I had taken the time to get to know them better, because I'm sure they were very nice people who deserved such nice things written in return.

Some folks I knew a little bit better didn't have much to say. One in particular was quite morbid, especially regarding our chances of seeing each other again.

I guess that's all the insight I have. In any event, reading through these messages made me wonder what I wrote to others, and it gave me the idea for a silly Facebook status trend (the annoying ones that go around like "post a memory of us LOL", etc.) (yeah, I'm going to be one of THOSE.). So, I'm going to post that in my status and see what happens.

I'm sure I'll regret it. But here I go anyway.