"Asshat"

Unbelievable.

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) -- Robby Gordon accused Danica Patrick of having an unfair advantage in the Indianapolis 500 and said Saturday he will not compete in the race again unless the field is equalized.

Gordon, a former open-wheel driver now in NASCAR, contends that Patrick is at an advantage over the rest of the competitors because she only weighs 100 pounds. Because all the cars weigh the same, Patrick's is lighter on the race track.

"The lighter the car, the faster it goes," Gordon said. "Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier.

"I won't race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away."

If she were a 100-pound man, I bet he wouldn't be complaining.

No Black Owner for the NFL

A while back, I pointed out that the Minnesota Vikings would be getting its first black majority owner in Reggie Fowler. I guess I was wrong, as that deal seems to have gone down the drain. Fowler was essentially disqualified from majority ownership because he apparantly lacked the funding required to legitimate that role in the organization. From ESPN:

WASHINGTON -- NFL owners on Wednesday unanimously approved the $600 million sale of the Minnesota Vikings to a group led by New Jersey shopping mall magnate Zygmunt Wilf.

Wilf was given to go-ahead to purchase the team from Red McCombs, with the closing date expected to take place in June.

Wilf immediately pledged to work to build a new stadium to replace the Metrodome, but he vowed that the team will stay in Minnesota.

Which is unfortunate, because, as Len Pasquarelli points out, this certainly would have boosted the NFL's image which has been mired in controversy over the lack of minorities in positions of power throughout the league:

Funny thing about how the NFL operates. After the news conference in which McCombs announced his pending deal with Fowler, league staffers urged some media outlets to call people like Ozzie Newsome of Baltimore, the NFL's first black general manager, to cite his reaction to Fowler's candidacy. More recently, when Fowler's dollar deficiencies had become apparent, and after the ownership group was reshuffled to elevate Wilf to the top spot on the totem pole, the league-speak was that NFL officials hadn't necessarily championed Fowler because of his race.

Maybe that's the case but, truth be told, both league officials and individual club owners desperately wanted the Fowler deal to be consummated. That the purchase could not be completed by Fowler should not and does not diminish the fact that the Minnesota franchise is now more stable, albeit without a deal for a new stadium in place. But the failure of Fowler to pull off the purchase does mean the lack of minority ownership remains an issue in the league.

Think about how Wednesday's news conference here, and the implications of it, would have played out nationally had it been Fowler who was introduced as the Vikings owner or managing partner. Take it to the bank, it would have made front-page headlines in all the national newspapers, been a key story on all the network evening newscasts. Heck, consider how much attention was directed toward Tuesday's announcement that Sheila Johnson, a black woman, had purchased 5 to 10 percent of the WNBA's Washington Mystics and would serve as its team president.

Fowler getting the Vikings would have been exponentially more significant, and on any number of fronts. Instead, outside of the Twin Cities, the purchase of the Vikings by Wilf will merit about two sentences in the "sports briefs" section of most papers. Had it been Fowler who closed the deal, the news conference room at the hotel where the owners were huddling this week would have been jammed. Instead, there were plenty of good seats available for the Wilf announcement.

That's how the cookie crumbles I guess.

House Puts Women In Combat Nonsense to Rest

For now at least:

House Republicans Drop Provision That Would Limit Role of Women in Combat Zones
By LIZ SIDOTI Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON May 25, 2005 — The House on Wednesday rejected a Republican effort to put new limits on the role of military women in combat zones.

In a retreat, the GOP-controlled House voted to let the Pentagon continue deciding what positions women can serve in, as long as defense officials give Congress enough advance notice.

That proposal was among the amendments the House approved on a 428-1 vote and added to a bill that sets defense policy and spending for next year. The earlier provision on women in combat had drawn opposition from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and lawmakers in both parties.

However, I wouldn't really consider this much of a victory for proponents of women in combat, particularly as these new developments simply maintain the status quo. I am of the opinion that House Democrats should use this Republican misadventure as ammunition for proactive government policies which would expand the role of women in the military.

Georgia's Driver's License Controversy

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the situation, the Georgia state legislature recently passed a law that mandates some form of photo identification at voting polls. The idea, supposedly, is to stop voter fraud (that's the ticket!). Of course, the most commonly used form of photo identification is the driver's license. But what if there is a problem in the system that may cause you to lose your license? For the average citizen, that means trying to cut through some bureaucratic red tape in order to resolve the situation. But for Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, a vocal opponent of the measure, that meant a grand opportunity to get some significant media coverage on the issue. The AJC* reports:

While Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin was preparing last week to receive national recognition for political courage from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, she got a letter from Georgia transportation officials saying they didn't recognize her.

Franklin said the Department of Motor Vehicle Safety threatened Friday to cancel her recently renewed driver's license because her information didn't match its records.

"I got a letter [from DMVS] that said my Social Security number doesn't match the one they have on file, and they've had it for 30 years," Atlanta's well-known mayor said.

She said she recently used the number to pay her income taxes and had no problem. Her birthday was last week, and she renewed her driver's license by mail last month.
Franklin said the letter ordered her to fix the problem or face cancellation of her license on Sept. 6.

Without a license, she noted, under the new Georgia law requiring voter identification, she would be unable to vote in the upcoming November election — even for herself — unless she votes by absentee ballot.

You can read more about the law at BfD's repost of the original New York Times article. Classist injustice I say. Georgia's DMV facilities are notorious for being bureaucratic wastes of time; so much so that Governor Purdue proposed new measures to hasten driver's license lines in his State of the State address (of all places). Even a recent AJC.com poll made light of that fact (to paraphrase, you know a person is an out-of-towner when they think they renew their driver's license during their lunch break).

Working class Georgians certainly do not have the time it takes to wait in these long lines, especially with inflexible work situations and families. Even weekends aren't always available; in my experience as an employee in Lithonia Lighting's warehouse, we had to work Saturdays and Sundays because of "mandatory overtime." Not to mention that despite Atlanta's overwhelming traffic problem, those that live within the city of Atlanta, like most American large cities, still use public transporation as their primary means of getting about. They certainly are not likely to have a license, nor is it likely that they would be willing to go through the process simply to take part in a process that many of them feel does not work in their best interests anyways.

Its sickening legislation, but thankfully, the incident with Mayor Franklin's happened to someone with enough importance to make this an even bigger issue than it seems to be.

*The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requires free registration to read articles.

Bobby Brown Update

Hoping to redeem himself in the eyes of the public, everybody's favorite way-past-his-prime bad boy, Bobby Brown, is apparantly* doing a new reality show entitled "Being Bobby Brown." Why is he doing this, you may ask?

Brown admits the show is partly a bid to restart his career. "I'm just an entertainer, man, that is trying hard to get back in."

He also hopes the show will put to rest all the gossip about him based on his run-ins with the law. He says he's "sick and tired of being sick and tired of all the garbage that's out there."

His perogative indeed. Of course, as The Newlyweds and The Anna Nicole Show have taught us, signing on to do a reality show is the perfect way to boost one's image among the American viewing public.

Well, this isn't exactly the best way to go about improving that image. The headline speaks for itself:

Members of Bobby Brown's entourage stabbed during fight
Monday, May 23, 2005 Posted: 8:56 AM EDT (1256 GMT)

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Two members of singer Bobby Brown's entourage were hospitalized for treatment of knife wounds after a fight at a restaurant early Monday, police said.

Although Brown wasn't involved in the altercation, I find it damned amazing that this guy can't stay from negative publicity. He doesn't even have to be at the scene! More power to him though.

*The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requires free registration.

I Agree with Mac

So I'm watching Fox 5's pregame coverage of the Braves/Mets game earlier tonight, and who do I see? Non other than Rush Limbaugh. Although Mac says it much more bluntly, I wonder what is the fascination with Limbaugh as a sports commentator. Was he a star athlete before his punditry days? Was he a writer for Sports Illustrated? I mean, it's kinda random that Rush of all people keeps poppping up in the sports world.

Ass-Backwards

A while back, I wrote an essay about why women should be able to serve in combat roles. My principle argument was that because there is no "battle front" in the sense associated with WWII-era combat, and that the reailty sees battle occuring anywhere at anytime, then women should be allowed to serve directly in combat since they already seem to be doing so. House Republicans, keen on that reality, have taken the opposite approach, and now want to reduce the role of women in the military, which would ultimately reduce the likelihood of women seeing action. Meanwhile, the military is starving for more recruits in the clusterfuck that Iraq has become. Definitely not a good time for Washington to become self-righteous about protecting our womenfolk. *sigh* In the meantime, read this really good article written by Phillip Carter that appeared in the Washington Monthly.

Back... In More Ways Than One

Wow... I graduated from college this past Sunday, earning a BA in History from Denison University in Granville, OH. In order to earn that History degree, I had to write a Senior Thesis (okay, I didn't have to, it was the hardest of two possible routes for the degree, but I wanted the experience). My thesis, entitled "The Unlikeliest of Allies: The Dynamics of the Black Panther Party Alliance with White Radicals, 1967-1971," ended up being about 116 pages in total length. If you want to read it, click the picture below:



Strangely enough, Denison's History Department liked my research enough to award it with the William T. Utter Memorial Prize, which "is awarded to the best Honors project by a history major."

So on that note, I'm not only back in Atlanta, but I'm back to writing this blog. There is a lot to talk about.