Rookie in the White House

Reading D Trumps rants about Lonzo Ball's dad and other rants about NFL football players, and pathetic needs to be acknowledged for every little things he does or says. Jeez! Fellows, does he remind you of an insecure free agent rookie at his first training camp. Just saying.

Speaking of Lonzo. I love the kids passing instincts. Gets the ball into teammates hands at exactly the right time for them to shoot in rhythm.

Sac Bee sports page got it right with this headline: Warriors Turn Every Game into a Big Deal. Opponents have been coming out in the first quarter with fire in their eyes. Warriors startled by the intensity. Better get used to it, Dubs. You've got a targets on the backs of your jerseys. Got to deal with it. It might take some ass-kicking ie: last night's romp by OKC, etc. for the light bulb to click on.

Still, how often will Warriors face three guys accruing 90% of total points. Steady Paul George, but not Carmelo, and not Westbrook.

Glad to see CJ Beathard will start for 49ers. My gut tells me he's a winner. Galapagos could be, but no telling about foreign islands. Bad pun, my wife says.

Looking back over a lifetime on this Thanksgiving Day, 2017, I am and always will be, as an immigrant and naturalized citizen of this great country, eternally grateful for sports, and for particularly for basketball that provided me with a pathway to identity. Let's hoop, not war; let's hoop, not casts slurs; let's hoop and cooperate; let's hoop and be generous of spirit; let's win a championship for the human race.

 Okay, so I'm a little sentimental this morning. I can't help but post this old quatrain, a lesson that I, perhaps, never learned well enough, hating losing the way I did.

Who Misses or Who Wins    by William Makepeace Thackeray

Who misses or who wins the prize
Go lose or conquer as you can;
But if you fall, or if you rise,
Be each, pray God, a gentleman.

Let's Get One Thing Straight

Whoever thought up the oft-said and dishonest, "It's not who I am," must be the winner of repetitive, sorry-ass, apologies for abusers, racists, and gropers in America, Donald Trump being the leading example in the later category.

This morning Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, used this statement to explain he is not a racist for a racist comment he made in 2013. Please note, not 1965, or 1980, but as recently as the first four years of Barrak Obama's presidency. By now, shouldn't you know better, or maybe not.

Let's get one thing straight, if you abuse anybody, you're an abuser; if you make racist comments or jokes, you are a racist; if you grab a women's genitals you are a sexual predator. It is who you are, not who you're not.

Here's Jone's statement made on video for a man who asked Jones if he'd tape a message for his fiancee. "Hey, Jennifer, congratulations on the wedding. Now, you know he's with a black girl tonight, don't you?" Joking, yes. But the color slipped out of your core prejudice, Jerry. In your mind, whether you knew it or not, the girl's skin color made your stupid notion of infidelity a greater sin, which was the point and beside the point of your message. Ha, ha. No one is laughing, except other racists.

So as not to end on a foul subject, here's a lovely poem about love and competition in the guise of a game we've all played.

Playing the Game      by Barbara Goldowsky 

You stick out your fist: stone
breaks my two fingers playing scissors.

You offer your hand, open.
I shred the palm: it's paper.
I am sill scissors.

Have you no heart? you ask.
But I am stone.

Your hand is still paper,
you wrap me up:
closer than blades,
harder than hearts.