Who are the adults in this mess?

If Congressman Joe Wilson's ill-tempered and badly-timed rant last night did nothing else, it reinforced the idea that this country is headed over a cliff, driven by partisans by both sides of the aisle.

Wilson, who scrambled to apologize and save face, has drawn predictable scorn and outrage from Democrats and Republicans. But really now, people: How was his conduct last night any different than what we hear on a daily basis around this country?

From talk shows to cable news programs to town hall meetings, the concepts of civility, respect and tolerance have gone right out the window. No sooner had Wilson tried to extract his foot from his mouth than Congressman Barney Frank was going from show to show insulting the intelligence of Republicans. And on and on it goes.

The result? Our system of government is dragged through the mud, and no one seems capable or willing to turn off the garden hose and to end the supply of water that causes the mud in the first place.

We've become far more interested in taking score and pointing fingers than getting things done.

At this point, it really doesn't much matter who started the food fight that marks what passes for political discourse in the U.S. The questioning of Reagan's understanding of government became the attacks on Clinton's character, which gave way to hits on George W. Bush's intelligence, which bring us to where we are today, with a significant number of Americans openly challenging the authority of Obama to lead.

And the way things stand, whomever follows Obama, whether it's in 2013 or 2017, will take control of the government with a substantial bloc of Americans mocking his or her legitimacy as a leader.

My fear is that it will take the occurrence of something cataclysmic (and you can figure out what that is) before people on both sides realize they've gone too far.

The question is what person(s) command enough respect from liberals and conservatives to lead the nation through a dialogue where all of our significant differences are laid out on the table and hashed out, so that at the end, we can agree to disagree without going at each other's throats.

We desperately need some adults in the room before the kids throw so much food that the mess can't be cleaned up.

Usually, the drugs are better when you suffer a blackout

Here's the script for this week's "Sports at Large," which, as always, airs live each Monday at 5:30 p.m. on WYPR, 88.1 FM in Baltimore. If you live outside the state of Maryland, you can catch the streaming broadcast of the show at WYPR.org.

By this time next week, the first week of the NFL season will be nearly complete.

By then, you'll probably have had your fill of those warm and fuzzy public service spots in which football players wander through the community, roughhousing with kids, all to remind us how much the NFL family gives to your family.

That family portrait gets marred when you peek inside the cameras to see what's really on the negative.

As the Sports Business Daily reported last week, as many as 12 of the 32 NFL teams are facing the prospect that some of their home games this season will not be televised.

That's because those teams may not be able to sell those games out in time to lift the league's television blackout.

Jim Steeg, the chief operating officer of the San Diego Chargers told USA Today that blackouts are likely there this season. Miami, Oakland and St. Louis may also see blackouts this year, while Cleveland and Kansas City have yet to sellout all their games for the coming season.

The issue is most acute in Detroit and Jacksonville, where a combination of the deep recession and bad play on the field may keep the fans away from the stadiums in droves.

The Lions, who lost all 16 games last year, may need divine intervention to beat last year's mark of five blackouts, while in Jacksonville, all eight Jaguars home games might be kept off local television.

Now, here's where that generosity of the NFL spirit should kick in. The league has for more than 30 years had a hard and fast rule that unless a game is sold out 72 hours before kickoff, it will not be shown on local television.

With thousands of fans not currently having the means to pay for pricey football seats, the NFL could relax the blackout rule in a variety of ways.

They could cut the deadline for sellout down to 48 or 24 hours. They could cut the percentage of tickets sold needed to waive the blackout to 75 or 80 percent, rather than a full 100.

Better yet, the league should have scrapped the entire blackout policy years ago. The NFL is the only sports organization, college or professional, that puts this kind of stipulation on when and how its fans can see games.

Imagine the goodwill the league would engender if Commissioner Roger Goodell said the blackout policy would go away for a year, if not for good?

Instead, a league spokesman told the Sports Business Daily that there is no consideration being given to changing blackout policy, that keeping the blackout is quote important to supporting the ability of the clubs to sell tickets and keeping our games attractive as television programming with large crowds unquote.

And that, my friends, is the real NFL family portrait. It may look like the Waltons are posing for the shot, but when the picture's developed, you find you're really looking at the Corleones.

Vick and his handlers

What follows is the script to this week's Sports at Large, , which airs on WYPR (88.1 FM) in Baltimore each Monday at 5:30 p.m. and again each Tuesday during Maryland Morning at 9 a.m. The show can also be heard live through streaming audio at www.wypr.org.

Michael Vick's return to the National Football League essentially ensures that his will be the dominant storyline of the upcoming professional football season.

But for as much attention as Vick will draw, there are four men who will be under the microscope as much as Vick, for his conduct and success will be tied to them.

Two of them, Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and his coach, Andy Reid, are directly affected by what Vick does this year.

It was Reid who made the call to pursue Vick, then convinced Lurie to offer a one year contract, with an option year, to a player who has been out of football for two years.

Even with the extended period away, the decision to sign Vick makes enormous sense, from a football standpoint. He is only 29 years old, and is blessed with tremendous speed and a powerful throwing arm.

Of course, there was so much more to the choice to bring in Vick beyond his 40-yard dash time and his ability to throw a 70-yard pass.

Vick's crimes against dogs were heinous and reprehensible. At each of the Eagles' 16 games, there will be a heavy presence of protestors, not to mention fans, asking how such a depraved individual could ever be allowed back on the field.

With all due respect to them and to those who love and cherish pets, the Eagles did the right thing.

Michael Vick has met all the requirements of the criminal justice system, and has pledged to speak out against the horrors of dog fighting.

His celebrity and his story could make him an amazing living example against animal cruelty and he ought to get that chance.

That's where Roger Goodell and Tony Dungy come in.

Goodell, the NFL commissioner, signed off on Vick's return. He is entirely correct to ensure that Vick understands that playing football is a privilege not a right.

To that end, Goodell, who has placed a premium on good citizenship among the league's players, put a hold on Vick's comeback, giving him as much as six weeks of the regular season to prove that he gets it.

The commissioner smartly also enlisted the assistance of Dungy, the former Indianapolis Colts, to help Vick repair his character

There are no perfect people, and the NFL is increasingly becoming a home for miscreant behavior.

Indeed, on the day Vick signed with the Eagles, Goodell imposed a one-year suspension on Donte Stallworth, a Cleveland Browns receiver who pled guilty to a March DUI in which the car he was driving struck and killed a Miami man.

But Dungy's track record of mentoring and molding players is long and impressive. If anyone can show Michael Vick the straight and narrow, it's Tony Dungy.

To be sure, touchdowns and interceptions will tell one part of Michael Vick's redemption story.

But if you never hear the names of Andy Reid, Jeffrey Lurie, Roger Goodell and Tony Dungy again in the context of Michael Vick, you'll know the quarterback has made it all the way back.

One more thing: the league wasted no time authorizing the sale of Michael Vick jerseys in Eagle green.

Both Vick and the NFL should donate a portion of the profits of his jersey sales to a Philadelphia area animal rights concern. It may be one of the few good things Michael Vick has done in a long time.

Should Art get the call to the Hall?

Here's the script from this week's Sports at Large, which airs each Monday at 5:30 p.m. on WYPR (88.1 FM) and again the next morning during the 9 a.m. hour. If you don't live in the Baltimore area, you can hear the show live on streaming audio at www.wypr.org.

You get the feeling that Rod Woodson was the kind of kid who would go around stirring up a nest of hornets, then would stand and dare the insects to sting him.

In his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech Saturday, Woodson, who anchored the defensive backfield at safety in the Ravens Super Bowl season, told the crowd that former owner Art Modell belonged with him in Canton.

That would be Canton, as in Ohio. That would be Canton, as in an hour south of Cleveland. And that would be Cleveland, the city where Modell once owned the Browns, before he moved them to Baltimore.

So, Woodson stood in front of a crowd of Ohio football fans and told them that the guy who ripped their hearts out of their chests deserved to be honored among the greatest figures in the history of the sport.

And when the predictable boos rained down on him, Woodson stood there and told the crowd they were wrong, that despite what their feelings told them, Art Modell was a football legend, and should be eternally recognized as such.

In a world of complexities, of nuance, of shades of gray, we come to sports for the simplicity they offer. The guys in our uniforms are heroes. The guys in the other uniforms are the villains.

The trouble comes when the roles change, when the saints become sinners.

That day, for football fans in Northeast Ohio, came in November, 1995, when Art Modell decided to pick up his team and move them east.

From that point forward, Modell became the Cleveland version of Cain, a man who couldn't go home because of one misdeed.

Of course, Modell didn't kill anyone. And unlike another son of Ohio, Pete Rose, Modell didn't commit an unpardonable sin against his sport. All Art Modell did was move his team.

Actually, Art Modell's record in the NFL is a remarkable one.

It was Modell nearly 50 years ago who approached his friend Wellington Mara, the owner of the New York Giants, and sold him on the idea of sharing television revenue among the league owners.

Without that, there would be no way that cities like Green Bay or New Orleans or Baltimore would be able to compete with New York and Chicago or New England for players. The rich in football would get richer the same way they do in baseball.

And without Modell, the longtime chairman of the NFL's television committee, there might not have been Monday Night Football, as he convinced ABC and advertisers to take a chance on a new concept.

But here's where that shading comes in. The Browns were highly successful when Modell moved them.

And for long suffering Baltimore fans who see Modell as a savior, remember he voted against granted Charm City an expansion team, then struck a quiet agreement on a private plane with former Governor Glendening for the same stadium deal he voted against.

On balance, Rod Woodson is right; Art Modell should be enshrined in Canton.

Putting him there, however, would stir up a mighty big hornet's nest, and the voters may wait until the ire of the hornets of Cleveland has died down, and Art Modell has left this mortal coil before they do what's right.

 

Erin’s plight

Here's the script for this week's "Sports at Large," which airs each Monday at 5:30 p.m. and again on Tuesday mornings during "Maryland Morning" at 9 a.m. on WYPR, 88.1 FM in Baltimore. You can hear the station through streaming audio at www.wypr.org.

There are many unknowns left in the matter in which a reporter for ESPN named Erin Andrews was apparently filmed surreptitiously while she was in a hotel room, up to and including who did it.

What we do know is the perpetrator is subhuman and deserves to be punished to the limit that the law will allow for robbing Andrews of her privacy and taking away her sense of security.

But we would do a terrible disservice to Erin Andrews and every woman who makes a living in sports, in front or behind a camera, if we were to casually move on to the next topic when the person or persons who filmed Andrews is caught and put on trial.

For those who don't know her, Andrews is a 31-year-old woman who serves as a sideline reporter during ESPN and ABC telecasts.

Her contributions to a telecast typically consist of asking inane questions to a coach trying to rush off the field or the court at halftime of a game or tossing in trivial tidbits about one of the participants during a lull in the telecast.

That, in and of itself, doesn't make Andrews unusual among sideline reporters. Generally speaking, it's a superfluous position, no matter who does it, male or female.

The camera loves Erin Andrews, and many people, OK, men, love her for reasons that have little to do with her knowledge of a cover-two defense.

Chat rooms and blogs and Twitter postings serve as testament that sports fans, the overwhelming majority of them male, find Andrews irresistible.

And it's not just fans. There's a YouTube clip of the Tennessee men's basketball coach enthusiastically grabbing Andrews during an interview. And then there's former Orioles pitcher Rick Sutcliffe who practically leered at Andrews on air during an ESPN baseball telecast last year.

The only surprise for me in this story is that it didn't happen sooner. What I'm about to say will not come as news, but the American culture objectifies women.

Sports magnifies that objectification. Think not? Then ask yourself why former tennis player Anna Kournikova, who never came close to winning a major tournament, yet dominated endorsements and magazine covers.

ESPN has barred New York Post reporters from appearing on the channel because the newspaper ran still images from the video of Andrews that appeared online.

It's laudable that ESPN executives want to protect Andrews. Too bad they didn't take that approach a few years ago, when some of them bounced 50-something Lesley Visser from the Monday Night Football sidelines for a younger woman.

And what were they thinking this year, when they allowed an ESPN The Magazine writer to describe the size of basketball player Candace Parker's breasts in a story?

It's too late to give Erin Andrews her sense of security back. But that doesn't mean that we can't try to create a better climate for all the Erin Andrews to come.

A pointless gesture

I am a man and I am a big fan of women's basketball.

There, I said it and I'm not going to waste space explaining my interest to knuckle-dragging troglodytes who think that barefoot and pregnant is as much as women should aspire to.

That said, I don't understand why the WNBA continues to try to throw itself at the feet of people who couldn't care less about its product.

I'm speaking specifically about the "dunk" that Chicago center Sylvia Fowles threw down at the end of the league's All-Star Game Saturday. The word dunk appears in quotes for two reasons. One, the other nine players on the floor cleared out to allow the 6-foot-6 Fowles to flush it through. Second, Fowles missed the first attempt with a running start, before hitting the second.

Simply put, the dunk is not a part of the women's game, and hasn't been since West Virginia's Georgeann Wells because the first collegian to do it more than 25 years ago. The primary reason is there aren't many women who can do it, but I'd like to believe that even if, say, one woman per roster in the pro or major college game could, they would use it sparingly because there are other more fundamental ways to score. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate a nasty tomahawk as much as the next person. But, if I go to an NBA or men's college game and I don't see a dunk, I don't feel cheated.

To the larger point, Fowles' dunk just feels like one more attempt to make those aforementioned troglodytes pay attention. And they won't. As a matter of fact, I can practically guarantee that the ones who host sports radio talk shows and the ones who listen will bust a gut laughing at Fowles and the rest of the league as early as drive time tomorrow if they aren't doing it already. And if the people who run the league could simply live with the fact that there is a part of the American sports fan populace who will never accept the legitimacy of women athletes and nurture those who do, things would be fine.

Instead, the WNBA, in large measure, continues to ignore the professional women, the African-Americans, the families with young children, the older fans and yes, the lesbians, who embrace it, in search of the Holy Grail, the young men who drool over Erin Andrews, who tune into SportsCenter for bombs, home runs and dunks, and think boxing is too subtle.

At some point, hopefully before it folds, the WNBA's leaders are going to have come to grips with the notion that their product is better than a lot of the people they're selling their souls to bring in.

DT+DUI = WNBA Trouble

What follows is the script that aired on "Sports at Large," on WYPR, 88.1 FM in Baltimore. The program airs each Monday at 5:30 p.m. during "All Things Considered," and again during "Maryland Morning" Tuesday at 9 a.m. You can listen to the program through streaming audio at www.wypr.org.

Over the past 30 years or so, since the advent of Title 9, women athletes have become more than just competitors to their young fans, boys and girls. They've become flat out heroes, to be idolized and emulated.

So, what happens when one of these idols stumbles and falls? To what degree does her image take a beating in the public square, and just as importantly, should she be permitted the same latitude as a male counterpart.

Three weeks ago, Diana Taurasi, a guard with the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, scored 22 points in a 93-81 home win over the Seattle Storm. After the game, Taurasi and friends went out to celebrate.

Phoenix police said Taurasi's vehicle was driving 20 miles an hour over the 35-mile-per-hour limit, and that an officer saw the car drift out of a traffic lane.

When Taurasi was stopped at 2:30 a.m., she was driven to a mobile DUI van, where she gave a blood sample. Her blood-alcohol level was a point-17, more than twice the Arizona limit of point-08.

She has pleaded not guilty to the DUI and speeding charges, and Taurasi faces a minimum of 30 days in jail and a maximum of six months if she's convicted. She is to face a hearing on Wednesday.

Even to those who are indifferent or hostile to women's basketball, the name Diana Taurasi is a known commodity.

She led the University of Connecticut to three NCAA championships, and has been a key cog on two Olympic gold medal winning squads.

Men who hate women's basketball have been known to confer on Taurasi the status that she plays like a guy, based on her athleticism and brashness.

And by the way, men, that's no compliment.

Diana Taurasi was a driving force of the Mercury's league championship squad two years ago and currently leads the WNBA in scoring.

She's so good that a former competitor once named one of her adopted twins in her honor. The child is a boy and she named it Taurasi.

At any rate, the WNBA's All-Star Game takes place this Saturday in Connecticut, and Taurasi would normally be expected to be a part of the festivities back in the place where she became a star.

But should she be? Can a league that so depends on the goodwill of its fan base have one of its leading stars on display under these circumstances?

Save for a one-game suspension for mouthing off to officials, Diana Taurasi has never been in trouble before. Under normal circumstances, that might get earn her a pass.

But Diana Taurasi could have killed one of the little girls who idolize her with her thoughtlessness, and she deserves some punishment.

The Mercury, with the WNBA's blessing, gave Taurasi a two game suspension. That's a decent first step, but Diana Taurasi should take the next one by sitting herself down and taking herself out of Saturday's contest.

After all, All-Stars and heroes, males and females, don't just exist on the playing field. Their best and most lasting work comes when the jersey is taken off. It's a lesson Diana Taurasi won't soon forget.

ADDENDUM: Since this script was written and recorded, Diana Taurasi was selected to the Western Conference All-Star squad yesterday.

Freakin’ sweet

They tell you always to be careful when you're drinking so that your beverage doesn't end up choking you. That is useful and wise advice…provided, of course, you aren't startled by news you never expected to hear in mid-swallow.

That's precisely what happened in the midst of Thursday's announcement of the prime-time Emmy Award nominees. In went the coffee just at the moment that the Outstanding Comedy Series nominees, and in particular, Family Guy, were being revealed. Out went the coffee in a spit take worthy of Danny Thomas, father of Marlo and star of the sitcom, Make Room For Daddy.

Don't get me wrong. For years now, I've been telling people that Family Guy, the animated adventures of the Griffin family of Quahog, R.I., is the funniest, take no prisoners show on television. So, how the hell was I to believe that Emmy Award nominators, of all people, would actually listen? These are people, after all, who gave a nomination and then an Emmy to the late John Ritter for his seminal work as Jack Tripper on Three's Company.

But there was Family Guy, the first animated show to land a Best Comedy Series nomination in 48 years. Amazing stuff, this. Perhaps this portends a new, hipper day in the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Of course, this was the first step in the proverbial journey of a thousand miles, meaning the Academy ain't quite so hip yet. The nomination panel missed some good stuff along the way.

To wit:

*The wonderful Pushing Daisies deserved more than a Supporting Actress in a Comedy nomination for Kristen Chenowith as it pushes up daisies after it was cancelled by ABC.

*The Big Bang Theory should have joined Family Guy and How I Met Your Mother among the Comedy Series nominees. At least Jim Parsons, as the delightfully socially inhibited Sheldon, snared a Best Actor nomination.

*How in the name of all that is holy could Friday Night Lights be left out of the Outstanding Drama Series category? Again? And Connie Britton, who portrays Tami Taylor, turned in the most amazing single scene of work last season by an actress during an episode when she spoke frankly and honestly with her daughter about sex. And Kyle Chandler, as her husband, Coach Eric Taylor, was similarly brilliant in a scene where he spoke evenly, but firmly to the object of his daughter's lust, his starting quarterback. Yet, both were shut out of the acting categories.

*HBO's No.1 Ladies Detective Agency was apparently the only show on the pay channel not to get a major nomination, though CCH Pounder did snare a Guest Actress nod, and the show got a couple of minor nominations. The show, which stars singer Jill Scott, could use the attention a nomination and a win could provide.

*Tony Shaloub? William Shatner? Kyra Sedgwick? Charlie Sheen? Tina Fey? 30 Rock? Again? Really?

A big thumbs up for HBO's Generation Kill, which snagged 11 nominations. I know a very special person who slept a lot better Thursday night after that news came down. Way to go, K!

The air around McNair

What follows is the script for this week's "Sports At Large,'' which airs each Monday at 5:30 p.m. and during "Maryland Morning" each Tuesday at 9 a.m. on WYPR 88.1 FM in Baltimore.

It's well more than a week since Steve McNair, a married man with four sons, and his girlfriend were found dead in a Nashville condominium, and frankly, I still don't have any concrete thought on what to make of it all.

I first heard about a strong-armed quarterback named Steve McNair in the early 1990's. Back then, he was "Air McNair,' leading Alcorn State out of the obscurity most historically black colleges and universities labor under.

In the process, he set passing records for Division 1-Double A for a season and a career that still stand.

Despite the grumblings of so-called experts who claimed that the football he played at Alcorn wasn't the same as the football played at major schools, McNair finished third in the 1994 Heisman Trophy voting.

Taken third overall in the 1995 NFL draft, McNair learned on the Houston Oilers bench for two years, but when the franchise relocated to Nashville in 1997, he became the starter.

From then on, McNair became a symbol of efficiency, toughness and cool. Time after time, he would take massive hits, only to get up from virtually all of them, dust himself off and make his way to the huddle for the next play.

Trailing the St. Louis Rams late in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl 34, McNair led the Tennessee Titans in a furious late game drive that ended one yard short of the goal line, seven points short of a tie.

McNair went on to share the league's Most Valuable Player trophy in 2003. When he came to Baltimore in 2006, McNair's best days were behind him, but he immediately gave the franchise credibility at quarterback, something the Ravens had never had to that point.

McNair retired after the 2007 season, and left football as one of only three quarterbacks to throw for 30,000 yards, while running for more than 3,500 yards in a career. The other two, Fran Tarkenton and Steve Young are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and so should McNair someday.

In addition to all of his playing field exploits, McNair was a force in his community, whether it was Nashville or his native Mississippi, where he personally loaded and paid for trucks filled with relief supplies after Hurricane Katrina.

In a two-dimensional sense, Steve McNair was the kind of man whose jersey you'd be proud to wear or whose poster you'd want to your kid to have hanging on the wall.

It's that third dimension, the one with human frailties, the one that emerged with his death that gives me pause about how to review the Steve McNair movie that just ended.

While Steve McNair was competing in that Super Bowl in 2000, Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis was being charged with double homicide in connection with an incident outside an Atlanta nightclub.

Lewis' coach, Brian Billick famously told the media the next year that they weren't qualified to pass judgment on Ray Lewis.

Right at this moment, I feel similarly about my qualifications to stand in judgment of Steve McNair or anyone else for that matter.

How are your qualifications?

‘They Won’t Go When I Go’

If you were one of the hundreds of millions around the globe watching Tuesday's memorial tribute to Michael Jackson, you heard Stevie Wonder deliver arguably the musical highlight of the day, first with a quick instrumental line of "I Can't Help It,' a song he wrote that Jackson covered on "Off The Wall." Then you heard Wonder sing "Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer," a haunting song that ranks among his very best, if not well known.

Finally, you heard another song, the title of which appears at the top of this blog entry. It's a track from his 1974 Grammy winning album, "Fulfillingness' First Finale," and it is a withering indictment of false prophets and misplaced spirituality. The album is my favorite of Wonder's, and "They Won't Go When I Go" is a brilliant piece among a masterwork.

Yet, I'm willing to bet that unless you are a Wonder devotee (which I certainly am), you didn't know that song (which is understandable). But the fact that none of the networks and the nation's leading newspaper bothered to note it, much less comment on its inclusion in the program, speaks to a particular pet peeve of mine, namely the utter disregard mainstream African-American popular culture receives in the broader media.

For all the sizable contributions that Black artists make to the broader culture, they are routinely ignored in mainstream publications and telecasts. Music and television and movies that are of great import to African-Americans are blithely dismissed by E!, and Entertainment Tonight and People and the like.

Need proof? Think of the number of times Tyler Perry movies have opened to sizable box office figures, if not the very top spot in weekend figures, yet reviews of his works often require magnifying glasses to find in major papers and magazines. If you live in a major American city, chances are a gospel-flavored musical will come to your town at some point. But don't hold your breath looking for profiles of the actors/singers in your town's mainstream press.

Heck, Entertainment Weekly, the bible of American popular culture, effectively dismissed Michael Jackson's entire body of work with The Jacksons after the group left Motown in their recent retrospective of his career. That means, for instance, "Triumph," a platinum selling album, the group's first album to chart No.1 on the R&B charts in nine years, went without comment. It was as if the magazine wasn't interested in anything Jackson did from his days as a little boy until "Thriller."

During Tuesday's telecast on ABC, Martin Bashir, whose fame is due largely to his 2003 interview with Jackson, dropped in the bombshell that Jackson alone sang the vocals on the Jackson Five's "I'll Be There," a fact that will no doubt come as a surprise to Jermaine Jackson, who shared the lead with Michael, not to mention the millions of people who have heard that song over the past 28 years. Yet, to my knowledge, Bashir hasn't been corrected. Ask yourself if a correspondent at a major television network could have made a similar gaffe about a Beatles or Bruce Springsteen song without drawing heavy fire.

Look, I don't expect the nation's Big Media to suddenly start quoting Stevie Wonder album tracks as a matter of course. But it would be nice to know that someone in Big Media knew where to find those cuts and what they mean when they are important.

Providing a full account

It was frankly painful as a Black man to watch the Michael Jackson tribute service on the various broadcast networks and cable channels Tuesday and to see few people who looked like me who could explain what was happening and provide a framework beyond the historical.

Though the service was non-denominational, what America and the world essentially got Tuesday was a peek inside the Black church. They got to see how we worship and how we send our departed onto the next spiritual realm.

Yet, until ABC's Robin Roberts, one of network television's few prominent African-American faces, declared at the end of the telecast that we had been to church, we got no sense of that from the nearly three hour broadcast.

ABC was hardly the only offender; CBS dumped out of the telecast at 3:50 p.m., after Michael's daughter Paris offered a moving tribute to her daddy, but before the pastor could provide the closing prayer. What was the rush?

Even worse was the absence of context, which led to errors of omission and commission. ABC's Martin Bashir, who owes his meteoric rise to an extensive 2003 interview with Jackson, told Charles Gibson that he and Jackson had spoken extensively about the reporter's ability to play the signature bass line of "Billie Jean."

Just after the first musical number of the tribute, a duet of "I'll Be There," with Mariah Carey and Trey Lorenz, Bashir observed that while Carey and Lorenz had to split the lead, Jackson had done the song solo, a monstrous error that completed ignored Jermaine Jackson, who was sitting in the front row of the Staples Center.

Any casual observer, much less devoted fans, knew of the mistake, yet Bashir was never corrected. Ask yourself how quickly Gibson or Bashir would have backtracked if they had committed a similar error on a Bruce Springsteen or Paul McCartney song.

Why didn't anyone speak to the incongruity of Motown founder Berry Gordy declaring Jackson to be like a son, when he wouldn't let Michael and his brothers keep their name, the Jackson Five, when they left the label? For that matter, where was the person to ask why Gordy didn't let the boys write their own songs and play their own instruments while they were with Motown?

Perhaps anchors and producers who remembered that Michael Jackson didn't fall off the face of the earth between the time he was an adorable moppet and when "Thriller" shook the world by its collective collar, might have been able to tell a complete narrative.

I used to think that a conspicuous African-American presence on stories that involved or were centered in and around the Black community did more harm than good. Now, I'm not so sure. I just wish I got the feeling that more people who make those decisions gave a damn.

Broadmindedness under the rainbow

In the midst of the observation of the 40^th anniversary of the Stonewall uprisings in New York, as well as the ongoing national discussion over same sex marriage and President Obama's seeming reluctance to champion issues of interest to gays comes an interesting storyline from, of all places, soap operas.

From Soap Central.com comes a story that actress Patricia Mauceri, who has been a member of the cast of One Life To Live for 14 years, was bounced last month because of her objection to how her character, Carlotta Vega, was to be portrayed.

Specifically, according to Soap Central, the longtime soap is planning to romantically pair two male characters in an upcoming storyline. Mauceri believed her character, who is Hispanic, would not endorse the pairing, though OLTL's writers are going to write her that way.

The piece goes on to say that Mauceri, who was recently seen in an episode of the new hit USA Network drama Royal Pains, had been dissatisfied with another OLTL storyline and that this new plot development was the last straw for both sides.

What makes this so fascinating is that soaps, though considered low on the television food chain, have traditionally been in the forefront of storylines that addressed controversial topics way before they were taken up in prime-time.

The soaps handled abortion, domestic violence, homosexuality and discrimination well in advance of anything seen at night. Indeed, it was OLTL that introduced a groundbreaking story in the late 1960's about a light-skinned Black woman who attempted to pass as White. The topic was so hot that, according to a history of the show, a station in Texas dropped the show for a time.

I've always found it amusing when actors are asked to comment on what they believe the characters they play would do or feel, as if the characters are real people. However, if the to-date anecdotal stories from California that majorities of Blacks and Hispanics voted to outlaw Prop 8 are accurate, Mauceri might be onto something.

On the surface, it would seem that Mauceri badly overplayed her hand, and got fired because of it. But that doesn't mean that we all shouldn't remember that true tolerance should be extended in all directions.

Fehr strikes out? Hardly

Here's the script from this week's Sports At Large, heard each Monday at 5:30 p.m. and Tuesday mornings in the 9 a.m. hour on WYPR 88.1 FM in Baltimore.

Ever since former President Reagan routed the air traffic controllers 28 years ago, labor unions in this country have been taking it on the collective chin.

If, in the best of economic times, one union after another has been forced to give things back to management, imagine what the auto workers had to surrender this year to keep Detroit afloat.

Among the sports players unions, hockey players gave back 25 percent of their salaries a couple of years ago. Basketball players have been operating under a salary cap for more than 20 years, and football's union is as weak as a newborn kitten.

Only one group, baseball players, have seen their lot improve over the years, and one of the driving forces behind that improvement announced his retirement last week.

Sometime before the beginning of the next season, Donald Fehr will step down as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, a post he has held since December, 1983.

Fehr will leave with a winning percentage that any pitcher, any manager, any franchise would kill for, as he will retire virtually undefeated in important showdowns with baseball management.

Fehr, who replaced the fired Ken Moffatt, the former air traffic controllers union chief, effectively won five collective bargaining negotiations with baseball owners during his tenure.

In addition, the union charged the owners with banding together to artificially depress free agent salaries in 1985, 86 and 87. The players won a $ 280-million settlement of a suit.

Perhaps the biggest mark of Fehr's dominance of the collective bargaining process: When he took over from founding executive director Marvin Miller, the average player salary was $289-thousand.

Last year, the average ballplayer took home a yearly salary of 2-point-9 million. Nice work if you can get it.

Now, beyond the fact that he was representing rich athletes, whom are hardly seen as warm and cuddly by the public, Fehr was imperious and single-minded in his focus toward improving conditions for the players.

Fehr's detractors say his desire to get the most favorable conditions for the players kept him from doing what was best for the game, namely authorizing a salary cap and permitting steroid testing before 2002.

Those criticisms are about 75 percent wrong. Baseball owners have historically restrained player movements as well as their pay.

A union leader who would allow management to cap salaries given the owners track record would be derelict in his duty.

The steroid charges stick to Fehr more thoroughly, but only to a point.

Yes, Fehr should have been more diligent about steroids as a health issue, but again, his first obligation was to protect his membership from the unreasonableness of management.

If Donald Fehr were a player, his career stats would give him an easy ticket to enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.

However, the record of his mentor, Marvin Miller, is even better than Fehr's and he isn't in Cooperstown yet.

As it is, Fehr will probably have to be satisfied with merely paving the way to the Hall. That's probably all he wanted in the first place.

The King is Dead; Long Live the King

I guess it's only fair that I start by saying that Michael Jackson was "The King of Pop" only in marketing terms, or at least for me. I have always found Stevie Wonder a more gifted and inspiring musician, and Jackson's death won't turn me into a liar.

But, for as much as I love Stevie's music, I also know that he hasn't, to date, produced any moment so magical as that night in the spring of 1983 when Michael Jackson literally grabbed a nation by the throat and demanded that they watch and listen, as they were about to see and hear something the likes of which they would never see or hear again.

I was in my dorm at Maryland on that May night when the NBC special marking the 25^th anniversary of the creation of Motown aired. The usual soundtrack of Annapolis Hall was rock or metal, but on this night, the sound emerging out of every room was the R&B music that had marked my childhood.

There were the six Jackson boys – Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Michael and Randy -- together for the first time in about six or seven years (thanks a lot Berry Gordy). They went through a medley of their hits, "I Want You Back," "ABC," and the haunting "I'll Be There."

Then, the other five left Michael alone on the stage. He talked for a moment about how much fun it was to do the old songs, but the time had come to do new stuff. That's when the unforgettable bass line of "Billie Jean" kicked in, and Annapolis Hall fell eerily silent, save for the unison of the song coming out of every room.

If all there was to the moment was the lip-syncing of the song, then that would have been amazing enough. But then Michael upped the ante by performing the moonwalk and popular music, heck, the American culture, would never be the same.

From there, a guy who had been a musical prodigy became arguably the world's most recognizable person, if not the most troubled.

I'd prefer, at least for a while, not to think about the eccentricities that marked Michael Jackson's last years, but rather dwell on the remarkable artistry he achieved. And, to be honest, I have never cared much for music videos. I think they've distorted the music industry, so while I appreciate the imagination of "Thriller" and "Beat It" and "Leave Me Alone," Michael's videos were never selling points for me.

Everyone has their favorite Michael Jackson song. I find it hard to limit to a couple, so I will quickly run through some of mine.

I have always loved the Jackson 5's covers of "Who's Loving You," and "Standing in the Shadows of Love," from their first album. Their version of "The Little Drummer Boy" from their Christmas album is gold, as is "Never Can Say Goodbye." And if you never thought you would hear soul and tenderness in a song about a rat, well you never heard "Ben."

The Jacksons' catalogue when they left Motown gets strangely overlooked, but "Blame It On The Boogie" and "Shake Your Body Down To The Ground" are brilliant dance pieces.

And if you have to get Michael Jackson work that you probably didn't already have, be sure and get "Triumph." It's the album with "Can You Feel It," "Lovely One," "Heartbreak Hotel,' and the suddenly ironic "Time Waits For No One."

There's one more song you ought to get. It's called "You Can't Win," and it's from the soundtrack of "The Wiz." The movie has been branded a flop, but it still resonates for many 30 years after the fact. Michael Jackson was introduced to Quincy Jones through this film, and all they did from there was collaborate on "Off The Wall," "Thriller," and "Bad." Nice productive friendship there, huh?

At any rate, "You Can't Win" is our introduction to Michael, the Scarecrow, and it is a rollicking tune that hints at the amazing work to come. The song opens with the lyric, "You can't win/You can't break even/And you can't get out of the game."

Alas, Michael Jackson got out of the game Thursday, having played it at a level few could ever aspire to. RIP.

 

Whither Brandon Marshall? Not in Baltimore, thank you.

What follows is the script for this week's "Sports at Large," with the standard admonition that you can hear my dulcet tones deliver this Mondays at 5:30 and repeated Tuesdays during "Maryland Morning," on WYPR 88.1 FM in Maryland. If you live outside the state, you can catch the streaming audio at www.wypr.org.

The Ravens are scheduled to play Denver in November, but the Broncos can do the Baltimore football team and its fans a tremendous favor months before that game.

The Broncos will help the Ravens tremendously either by making their wide receiver Brandon Marshall happy or by trading him somewhere other than here.

Make no mistake, Brandon Marshall is a hell of a wide receiver. He has amassed more than 2,500 yards in the past two seasons, and has more than 100 catches in each of those two years.

For a Ravens franchise that has historically struggled to develop a top-flight pass catcher, Marshall, who is only 25, could give quarterback Joe Flacco a quality deep threat for years.

But make no mistake about this: Brandon Marshall, who wants a new contract, is a toothache of a person. He has more than earned his nickname of "The Beast,' just from his off-field behavior.

To wit, his name has come up in 13 incidents involving the police in the past five years. They include a DUI charge in October 2007 in connection with getting caught driving the wrong way down a Denver street after a game.

There was also an incident nine months before that where Marshall claimed his father tried to hit him with a car, while the father maintained that Marshall had fired a gun.

And there are reports of domestic violence allegations against Marshall. The reports are so numerous that ESPN devoted a full half-hour show to those charges three weeks ago.

Watching Marshall stammer his way through a defense of battering multiple women was cringe inducing.

We've long passed the point where we can realistically expect our athletes to be choir boys. If you can find a sports star that you feel comfortable with your child wearing his jersey in this day and age, consider yourself lucky.

But it is not too much to expect athletes or anyone else in the public eye to simply obey the law and to have respect for someone other than themselves.

Over the years, Charm City football fans have had to root for players who allegedly drove drunk, lied to police during a murder investigation and gone to jail on drug charges.

At some point, Ravens owner Steve Bischotti and general manager Ozzie Newsome ought to give the fans players that if they can't be proud of, they, at least, won't be embarrassed by.

A member of my family will be a Ravens cheerleader this year. She is understandably pleased with her accomplishment in making the squad and proud to wear the purple and black.

I can promise that if the Ravens get Marshall, I'll find something other than watching him or the team or my relative on Sunday afternoons this fall.

My relative is smart enough to not to have anything to do with the likes of Brandon Marshall. But that's not a guarantee that other well-intentioned area women won't get hurt.

That kind of assurance can only come from Bischotti and Newsome, who ought to declare unequivocally this beast in sheep's clothing won't get to prey on anyone in Baltimore.

When a simple ride home isn’t

What I have found in my own life is that the things that disturb me the most, that cause me to lose the most sleep, that alter my outlook aren't what I consider the out-of-the-way things, like whether North Korea or Iran have nuclear weapons or if Jon or Kate are getting a divorce.

Frankly, until a few weeks ago, I had no idea who Jon or Kate or their eight were, and beyond a vague concern about what happens to putting eight kids into the spotlight without an apparent worry over the effect of said action, I really don't care about them or any reality show contestant.

No, the things that cause me the most worry are the things that disrupt life's normal pattern, the things that get in the way of A proceeding to B.

My cell phone rang off the hook yesterday afternoon as friends and family called to find out if my wife was a passenger on the Washington Metro Red line train that crashed into another in the middle of rush hour. Thankfully, she wasn't, but 48 hours before that, I had been on that very line, heading into the city to take in a basketball game with a friend. The story, sadly, is different for the families of those who expected that life would continue on the way it does every day, with their loved ones arriving home, no doubt, from a full day of work. I mourn for them and I hope they know that millions of us, in the Washington area and around the nation and the world, share, in some small way, in their pain and anguish.

The days of recriminations and finger-pointing about what went wrong on the Red line will come soon enough. For now, let's all pray that the disconsolate discover that Earth truly has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal, and that they and the rest of us return to whatever normalcy is as soon as is possible.

“Elections have consequences”

The headline quote was uttered by our former president, George W. Bush, and provides living proof of what my father used to say, that a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while.

The aphorism, loosely translated, means that even the intellectually challenged stumble onto the truth every so often. Say what you want about our former president, but it's safe to say that no one would ever catch him running a Mensa meeting.

Yet, his statement about elections having consequences, spoken just after the 2004 election, is a valid one. It means that, following elections, the winners get to govern as they see fit.

You would think that after having been in power for 20 of the last 28 years, Republicans would understand that concept, but they seem to be operating under a premise that the events of last November didn't happen.

How else to explain their intractability on any number of issues, from health care to the budget to fixing the nation's fiscal mess? Playing the role of loyal opposition is one thing; Democrats have done that for most of the last 30 years. But Republicans have taken this to what feels like an unhealthy extreme, and to the contrary of what the American public wanted, as evidenced by their granting control of the Executive and Legislative branches last fall.

Take the Supreme Court, for instance. It was ludicrous for Republicans to think that Barack Obama, the first truly progressive president this nation has had since FDR, would use his first nomination to the highest court in the land to select someone from the right. Obama was always going to take someone who, if not a complete liberal, certainly was left of center, just as Bush 43 went rightward, in the same manner as his father, Bush 41, and Ronald Reagan, all tapped conservatives.

The Republicans, who now have placed seven of the nine current Supremes, have attacked Obama's nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, saying, among other things, that she will bring her personal feelings, life observations and experiences to the bench. Are they kidding? Of course she will. She wouldn't be human if she didn't. Are we really expected to believe that the majority – all conservatives -- didn't bring their views to Thursday's ruling that convicts don't have the right to obtain DNA to prove their innocence?

Those five justices (Chief Justice Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Thomas and Scalia) are there, in large part, because Presidents Reagan, Bush and Bush appointed them to represent a particular point of view that was expressed in the elections that selected them. And now, barring something unforeseen, the election of Barack Obama will have a consequence as well.

When a joke isn’t just a joke

David Letterman's apology to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughters last night was the inevitable consequence of the flap that has ensued since he first told a joke last week. So much heat and noise had been expended and it threatened to distract what Letterman, a television icon in a way that Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel or Craig Ferguson could never be, had or would accomplish going forward. Already, there were comparisons to radio host Don Imus, and there's supposedly a protest planned today in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Letterman tapes his show each day.

But should Letterman have apologized?

I've always believed that a person should always only say what they mean and feel, so as to attach the maximum value to their words. As I watched Letterman's apology last night, which followed a rather ham-handed attempt at an explanation last week, I thought I was watching a guy who truly meant what he said, but was also confused by how much of an issue this has become.

I'm not. In the current polarized political climate, where vultures on both sides of the aisle hover over the landscape waiting to pounce on whatever dead meat might be left in the desert, Letterman, who made sport of Palin during the campaign and since, was bound to be prey if/once he made a misstep. We've reached the point now when activist groups of all sides just move from topic to topic, subject to subject, hoping to pick up publicity and money off the backs from someone who has said or done something stupid.

To wit, you have the ridiculous specter of the National Organization for Women placing Letterman in its Hall of Shame for his initial joke as well as joking reference to Palin having a "slutty flight attendant look." That's right; NOW took the side of an avowed anti-choice political figure over a comic. I'll wait for a moment while you chew that one over.

As I said last week, the joke probably shouldn't have been told, but I am still waiting for Palin and NOW and all the other conservative commentators and the tea-baggers to heap the same scorn on Leno and O'Brien for telling essentially the same joke Letterman did during the presidential campaign. In fact, O'Brien, whom I actually like, is guilty of far worse, using the standard being applied to Letterman, for telling this joke:
"Sarah Palin is going to drop the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers hockey game. Then Palin will spend the rest of the game trying to keep the hockey players out of her daughter's penalty box."

The daughter O'Brien was referring to was an eight-year-old, who accompanied the governor to a Philadelphia Flyers game. The silent outrage for O'Brien is deafening.

One last thing: I have an apology to make. I apologize to myself for having a Hilton Honors frequent traveler's card. Embassy Suites, my favorite hotel chain and a part of the Hilton corporate family, announced Monday that they would pull advertising on CBS' website as a response to the calls they were getting over the Letterman flap. I didn't call them then, but I will call them today to tell them that I will be moving my points and my corporate loyalty to another brand, though I will miss that free Embassy Suites breakfast.

Lighten up, Sarah

David Letterman's joke about Sarah Palin's daughter, whichever it was, has drawn fire from the Alaska governor and the right wing. It wasn't one of Dave's Top Ten jokes ever, but it certainly wasn't worth the kerfluffle that it kicked up.

Well, it turns out that Letterman wasn't the only late night type to crack wise about Palin's daughter. The most recent host of The Tonight Show, the seriously unfunny Jay Leno, told a similar joke last September, about Bristol Palin, then 17, unmarried and pregnant and John Edwards. And if one of the Huffington Post's readers is accurate, the new Tonight host, Conan O'Brien, told a variation of the joke Letterman told, about Palin's daughter needing to be protected from the Philadelphia Flyers. And, if memory serves, the daughter who accompanied Palin to the Flyers' game was seven, and even younger than Bristol or Willow, the daughter who came to New York with Palin last week.

To be clear, Letterman's joke was about New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez and the reference was to Bristol Palin, not 14-year-old Willow. And he probably shouldn't have told the joke, but if he's going to get heat for it, so should Leno and O'Brien.

That is, unless, there's a political agenda afoot, and we all know that's not possible.

Right?

Take the foul/Call the foul

A few NBA Championship Series thoughts:

*OK, allowing for the tendency to overanalyze games and plays within a game, and also allowing for the axiom that hindsight is perfect sight by a damn site, how in the world do the Magic allow Derrick Fisher to get that open on the Lakers' final possession of regulation last night?

While Jameer Nelson gets the lion's share of heat for leaving Fisher alone, Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy must take some blame for electing not to foul with a three-point lead and 11 seconds to go.

Van Gundy's post game explanation, that there was too much time on the clock given how poorly his team was shooting free throws, is, to my mind, weak. Let's assume that Fisher or Trevor Ariza or Kobe Bryant, for that matter, hits one or two foul shots in that instance, leaving about six or seven seconds on the clock. If you're Van Gundy, you call time out and get your five best free throw shooters on the floor. If that means that Dwight Howard, who had just missed two, has to sit briefly, so be it. As former Jets coach Herm Edwards so famously noted once, "You play to win the game.' If Howard's ego gets momentarily bruised, you have two days to salve his psychic wounds, with a 2-2 series tie, rather than where the Magic are now, down 3-1.

Said Hedo Turkoglu afterwards: "We had it but just kind of slipped away because of our stupidness." You get no arguments here, and let's hope that the careers of both Nelson and Van Gundy aren't defined by one horribly stupid lapse on the biggest stage in basketball.

*Again, the Magic made this moot by their play down the stretch, but can someone explain to me how Bryant could plant an elbow into Nelson's jaw on the overtime play where Fisher hit another open three to give Los Angeles the lead and not get called for an offensive foul.

I despise the conspiracy theory shorthand that follows the NBA. I believe the league is on the up-and-up all the time, and I share David Stern's fury whenever he has to answer questions that never get posed to Bud Selig or Roger Goodell. But, by essential allowing Bryant and other stars to run roughshod without consequences, the NBA practically invites that kind of talk.

*I can't let this series end without expressing my disdain for the 2-3-2 format of this series. Actually, disdain is what I feel for beets. I really hate, hate, HATE that format that grants home court for the first and last two games to the team with the best record, with the middle three games going to the other team.

In every other series, the breakdown goes 2-2-1-1-1, with the team with home court advantage hosting the first two games, Game 5 and Game 7. In this scenario, the team with the advantage still has an advantage, but not so much of one that the other combatant can't overcome it, say, by splitting one of the first two games on the road, winning Games 3 and 4 at their place, then clinching the series at home in Game 6.

With the 2-3-2 set-up, the advantaged team need only win two of the first five games to ensure having the last two games at home. In order to clinch at home, the disadvantaged team must either win the series in five games (unlikely) or win twice in the other guy's place. That hardly seems like the best way to crown a champion.

The change was made in the 80's when CBS complained of having to move camera crews across country as many as four times in a seven game series rather than twice. It's time to go back to giving both teams a reasonable chance to win a title, though it may be too late for the Magic.