Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Israel Is Giving Its Position To The UN; Question Of Hezbollah's Strength Is Wrongheaded

The Wash Post reports on Israel's pullout of Lebannon and to the UN's force. But Chris Matthews of "Hardball" asked if Hezbollah had been weakened.

I think that's the wrong question. It seems to compare the organization to a standing army; the simple fact that such a query would develop shows how little we Americans really "get" the Arab / Israel conflict. Hezbollah represents a force in what is more a holy war than a common nation to nation battle. Thus, it's more a movement than an army.

Take a look at this video. Yes, it's totally anti-Hezbollah, but it underscores my point of how severe the differences are and why we as Americans must be careful.

George Allen - Jon Stewart's Take On The Senator's Meltdown

As to be expected Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, chimed in with a great segment on George Allen's meltdown:

Whatever Happened To Ex-49ers PR Man and "Videogate" Guy Kirk Reynolds?



What happened to Videogate's main fall guy Ex-49ers PR Director Kirk Reynolds?

He's resurfaced with NBX.com a kind of sports fantasy organization. I happened to spot this as I was responding to a comment link left by a guy named "Sweet Lou" with the same firm. He was commenting on Tom Walsh of the Raiders.

Check out the link to his contact page at NBX.com by clicking on the title of this post.

Who's Kirk Reynolds? Chris Bull wrote this account for ESPN, which is also linked to via the title of this post.

Diversity champion done in by insensitive mistake
By Chris Bull
Special to ESPN.com


You know Kirk Reynolds, right?

He's the former San Francisco 49ers public relations director who produced the bizarre video the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed "racist and sexist."

He's the bigot who indulged racially insensitive jokes, cavorted with topless blonds at a strip club, and mocked same-sex marriage – all recorded for posterity.

He's the jerk who the lost a dream job because of an episode "absolutely contradictory to the ideals and values of the San Francisco 49ers," as team lawyer Ed Goines put it.

At least that is how the brainy, brawny, balding Reynolds is being represented in much of the Bay Area after an adversary with ties to the storied franchise made a copy of the tape available to the Chronicle.


There is one problem with this picture: It is wrong.

This not the Kirk Reynolds that I know – or that the dozens of media types he's dealt with in his eight years with the organization have known. The Kirk Reynolds I know put his neck on the line for the very ideals of equality and diversity he now stands accused of sabotaging.

This is a cautionary tale of how style and substance get confused in the media whirlwind and how a good man can be brought down in the process.

In many ways, the story begins back in November 2002, when star 49ers running back Garrison Hearst declared, "I don't want any faggots on my team." The sentiment was sadly commonplace. For years, players across the league had been making similar remarks, both publicly and privately.

But the Bay Area boasts an admirable commitment to a level playing field, and Hearst's comments were the political equivalent of a flagrant foul, especially with owners Denise DeBartolo York and John York's courting city support for a new stadium at Candlestick Point. They determined to show a better face off the field – even as the once-great team struggled on it.

Last February, ESPN The Magazine published my lengthy profile of Lindsy McLean ("The Healer," Feb. 16, 2004), the legendary 49ers head athletic trainer. McLean had overseen Hearst's heroic comeback from a devastating ankle injury.

McLean also happens to be gay.

Apparently Hearst, well aware of his trainer's sexual orientation, would not play with a "faggot" but he was more than happy to have his career extended by one.

Having hung up his tape after nearly three decades in the trenches, McLean spoke for the first time about the sexual harassment he endured since the early 1980s, when his homosexuality became an open clubhouse secret. McLean, who has since become a friend, declined to identify his tormenters out of respect for trainer-player confidentiality. (They did not include Hearst, who treated McLean with utmost respect.)

Throughout the three-month interviewing and writing process for the article, Reynolds gently encouraged McLean – understandably nervous about the revelations – to cooperate. He coaxed Hearst to speak about the contradiction between his admiration for McLean and his feelings about homosexuals. The notoriously private Bill Walsh opened up for the first time about the death of his son, who succumbed to AIDS in 2002.

To be sure, it was Reynolds' job to cast the organization in an accepting light. Like every reporter, I have a complicated relationship with PR staffs. They bring access. But they also jealously guard material that strays too far from the company line, the stuff of which great stories are made.

McLean had told me about harrowing incidents, starting in the early '90s, when a 350-pound lineman would chase him around, grab him from behind, push him against a wall and simulate rape. "Get over here, bitch," he'd demand. "I know what you want." The lineman reprised his act whenever he could; even after he was traded to another team, he'd sneak up on McLean in the locker room or alongside the team bus.

Like every dimly understood social transgression, the episode, drenched in a toxic combination of misogyny and homophobia, became shrouded in secrecy and shame. Those who witnessed it, puzzled and aghast, preferred to pretend it had never happened or to write it off as the kind of "boys will be boys" behavior that occurs only in all-male environments.

McLean, bound by his oath, declined to name the perpetrator. Reynolds, however, was so incensed by what he had witnessed outside the team bus that he offered to give the guy up. (After much discussion, ESPN decided not to identify the player. The Boston Globe later named him.)

I recall discussing Reynolds' overture with my editor, Jon Scher. In the world of public relations, we agreed, it was extraordinary. In professional sports, it violated an unspoken code of silence surrounding the misbehavior of star athletes. How much easier would it have been to leave the onus on the victim than risk the repercussions of fingering a powerful and popular athlete?

Perhaps Reynolds made the offer because no one had stood up for McLean when he needed it most. "I saw [the athlete] chase Lindsy around the bus," Reynolds told me at the time. "It was so strange and so uncomfortable, I didn't know how to react. We all stood there watching. I think [the player] should be held accountable for what he did."

It is one thing to expose a moral wrong; another to work to right the wrong. The next year – right after Reynolds showed the team and coaches his homemade video – Reynolds, Goines and John York, inspired by the Hearst incident and their beloved trainer's ordeal, put together a mandatory diversity training program. Players who had long resisted the idea raved about how it had brought the team closer together. They now understood that by bandying around words like "queer" and "fag," they might unintentionally be offending a guy with a gay relative or friend, a guy they depended upon in the trenches.

"Lindsy helped us understand that it wasn't a healthy environment," Reynolds told me by phone from his East Bay home, where he is fielding calls and job hunting. "After the training, we broke players into teams of five, and they were nearly unanimous about how helpful it had been. After all we had been through, it was truly gratifying to feel like we had made a difference, even in this small way. This is not an easy audience to reach."

The Niners' program is considered a model. But now it has been forgotten, overshadowed by "the tape." I've watched excerpts; I won't defend it, and I can see why some took offense. But I will say the skits exemplify a kind of crude, insider humor that my teammates on my mostly gay softball team would consider tame.

"My judgment was just awful," Reynolds explains. "After I played the tape, the guys were laughing, I stood up and said something along the lines of, 'I hope I didn't offend anyone.' Ironically, I was really thinking that maybe the religious guys in the room would be offended by the nudity. But the fact that I had to make that statement at all should have been a red flag for sure."

So go ahead and find Reynolds guilty of a boneheaded indiscretion, of violating public relations rule No. 1: Never put anything on paper or tape that you wouldn't want repeated publicly.

But Reynolds is innocent of the far more serious charge – intolerance. He made a mistake, but like all such mistakes – including Hearst's "faggot" comment – it created a teachable moment. In a time when pro athletes are managed by agents and handlers to avoid saying anything of substance, such moments have become all too rare.

"What's on that tape is not the true me," Reynolds says. "The true me is the guy who supported Lindsy. The true me is the guy who promotes diversity training in our organization and in the league. Before this is over, I want to get that back."

So let's not lose sight of what really matters – making the NFL a more comfortable, accepting place for gay athletes and employees. Thanks in part to Kirk Reynolds, now paying the price for his good deeds, we are one step closer to that elusive goal.

Chris Bull is editor of PlanetOut.com.

Amanda Congdon Watch - She's With Jude Law (Sort Of)



According to her blog at Amanda Unboomed, she's signed with Endeavor and will be annoucing her new gig soon.

Endeavor is a talent agency located in Beverly Hills and represents Jude Law, amoung other notables.

Clinton Portis Out But Shawn Springs Lost For Six Weeks - Washington Post



According to the Washington Post, it seems like the Redskins are dropping like flies before the season starts, losing Clinton Portis and his nutso costumes and Cornerback Shawn Springs, who will be out for six weeks. Plus, they just traded wide receiver Taylor Jacobs to the San Francisco 49ers. With all of this, the Redskins are in need of players.

This will test just how good the coaching staff is at compensating for loss. Stay tuned.

George Will Officially Declares War On Iraq War



In his recent column which you can read with a click here on the title of this post, Washington Post Senior Columnist George Will declared war on the Bush Administration's rhetoric behind the idea that sustaining the Iraq War is a fight against terrorism and terrorists.

When a good Neo-Con like Will goes against the Bush Administration, you know they're in political trouble. The problem is so are the thousands of men and women fighting over there, and their lives hang in the balance.

It's time to get them out.

When Robert Reich said "This President just doesn't get it" on "This Week," Will not only did not disagree with him, but added this...

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Oakland Raiders Should Fire Tom Walsh - Offense Is Terrible



When Art Shell was named the Raiders new (returning) Head Coach, there was speculation regarding who he would select as his offensive coordinator. Some journalists pointed to a person "lurking around" Raiders Headquaters named Tom Walsh, and whom has not coached NFL football since 1994.

Shell hired Tom Walsh (pictured), who ran a bed and breakfast and was mayor of the Iowa town it was in.

Great.

It's this long time away from the pro game that made Tom Walsh-Not-Bill a big question mark for the Raiders. I immediately wondered if Walsh was brought in because he would faithfully install the old Raiders offense of the 70s and without question -- or the desire to place in new ideas all his own. Only time would tell.

Well, time's talking and what it's saying isn't good at all. It's saying that Tom Walsh's system -- even in its watered down pre-season fashion -- is a failure and the weakest link of the team.

Why?

Well, take a look at this video summary of the Oakland Raiders this year, and pay attention to the passing game:



Watch how the Raiders offensive line pass blocks in plays that don't have play action -- where run-like blocking is used. The Raiders linemen retreat, read, then hit. That's not the style that's considered "in vogue" in today's NFL. The league's full of o-line blocking techniques where the line actually fires out as if the play were a run, when it's a five-step or even seven-step pass. Fomer Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons line coach Alex Gibb is best known for this style of blocking. A variation of it was used as far back as with Don Coryell when he coached the San Diego Chargers. And it's a basic part of Bill Walsh's offense.

The point of this style is to create separation between the quarterback and the offensive line and thus keeps the defenders off the QB. The idea is simply that the defenders don't get that running start they're used to.

Well, not so with the 2006 Oakland Raiders.

Watch the video and you will see example after example of Raiders offensive linemen retreating and having defensive line people crash into them -- and collapse the pass pocket, resulting in hurries, sacks, and interceptions. It's the reason why Raiders QB Aaron Brooks completed 2 of 9 passes and Raiders Second QB Andrew Walter was intercepted twice.

Also watch the video and you'll see the Raiders force-feed a steady diet of deep passes to the Vikings, with only the occasional pass to the running back in the flat, and even then after the wide receivers have been scanned by the quaterback. All the Viking have to do is play their zone six-yards deeper than normal -- just as opponents did against the Raiders and the LA Rams in the 70s.

It's these aspects of the Raiders offense that need to change, and before the season starts. I will go a step beyond that and assert that the Raiders need to fire Tom Walsh and hire someone like Hue Jackson, whom I've written about.

My call for Tom Walsh to be fired is not popular with some Raiders fans , (well, not all of them) but as the season wears on, I'll have a lot of voices joining me, including that of Randy Moss, himself. In fact, Adam Schefter of the NFL Network has already commented on what others in the league are saying about Walsh.

Just watch and listen.

"Macaca" - Senator George Allen Brings A Shameful New Word To American Culture



With the mere mention of one word, "Macaca" Senator George Allen introduced a new and terrible word into American Culture -- and a new personality in S.R Sidarth, the man he insulted (pictured) -- and as much as Mel Gibson will be associated with anti-semitism, Senator Allen will be joined at the hip with this new term. It's a terrible contribution to American Culture by one who should know better. Given the video, and the ease with which Senator Allen made the remark, and the fact that he's a politician, it's fair to ask if Senator Allen had a few cocktails before he got up and ran off at the mouth.

It certainly seems so.

Senator Allen issued this statement to CNN:

"I'm concerned that my comments at Breaks Interstate Park on August 11th have been greatly misunderstood by members of the media.

"In singling out the Webb campaign's cameraman, I was trying to make the point that Jim Webb had never been to that part of Virginia -- and I encouraged him to bring the tape back to Jim and welcome him to the real world of Virginia and America, outside the Beltway, where he has rarely visited. I also made up a nickname for the cameraman, which was in no way intended to be racially derogatory. Any insinuations to the contrary are completely false.


"Yesterday, I apologized to anyone who may have offended by the misinterpretation of my remarks. That was certainly not my intent. On every stop on my Listening Tour -- I have talked about one of my missions for this country -- to make it a land of opportunity for all. I have worked very hard in the Senate to reach out to all Americans -- regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity or gender. And I look forward to continuing to advocate this important mission for America's future. I never want to embarrass or demean anyone and I apologize if my comments offended this young man. Even though he has signed onto my opponent’s campaign, I look forward to seeing him on the trail ahead.


What Senator Allen doens't explain is just how he came to use the term Macaca. I'll bet he got it from someone else at a party, and I will bet that someone was using the term in a racist way. The question of what Senator Allen knew about this term and when he knew it isn't going away anytime soon...

Well, just as I wrote that, I went over to the Daily Kos and learned that George Allen's own Mom may have used the term.

Here's a taste of the over 300 comments on this matter over there:

"There's some good authority around that American good ole' boys of a certain class, such as one indubitably can find in Virginia, have been using the term privately for several centuries. Do not fall for the mush-mouth act (or assume it had to be the exotic mother). Allen took a chance in order to send a signal, thinking the plusses beat the minusses and that crypto-racism is the new order of the day. We shall see."

If Allen was doing it to "shore up his base" then why doens't that work for Mel Gibson?

Just a question.

Senator George Allen's Case Of "Mel Gibson" - Video and Washington Post



Senator George Allen may have hurt his chances for the post of President of The United States, when he decided to pick out the only person of color at one of his rallies and insult the guy, using terms others say are racial slurs. I write that because I've not heard of the term he used before.

The man at the party who was filming Allen is of Indian decent and an American. Allen pointed to this person and called him a "Meccau" and said "Welcome to America" -- and then says, "Well friends, we're in a war on terror."

What bothers me is that I know what happened: Allen got around a group of older Southern White people and thought it was ok to let his hair down. The result: another Mel Gibson style meltdown done without the aide of drink.

Have a look for yourself:



This is CNN's report on the George Allen problem:

Carolina Panthers v. Buffalo Bills Game Highlights - Video

The Carolina Panthers won this preseason game 14-13

Clinton Portis Out For Season - Questions Logic Of Preseason - Miami Herald

NFL ROUNDUP

Portis out rest of preseason
From Miami Herald Wire Services

Washington running back Clinton Portis is out for the remainder of the preseason and his status for the Redskins' opener was uncertain Monday, one day after he partially dislocated his shoulder in an exhibition game.

Portis flew to Alabama for another MRI exam and further examination of his right shoulder.



Coach Joe Gibbs said Portis' shoulder was sore, and that the back, who ran for a club-record 1,516 yards last season, would begin rehabilitation once the soreness has abated. The coach essentially ruled out the possibility of Portis playing again in the preseason and instead focused on the Sept. 11 game against Minnesota.

Gibbs also defended the use of Portis and his starters against the Bengals.

After the game and again Monday, Portis questioned why he should have been playing in the first preseason game. The starting offense was on the field for 13 plays.

''If you back off that, you hurt the preparation for your team,'' Gibbs said. ``It's the toughest thing in football. It's a balancing act.''

Portis was hurt when he launched himself into an upper body tackle of Keiwan Ratliff, who had run 52 yards down the sideline after picking off a pass from Mark Brunell.

After the game, Portis criticized the NFL's preseason. Portis said that four exhibition games were too many and that if there's one good thing to come out of his injury, it's that it ought to keep him sidelined until the regular season.

San Diego Chargers Phil Rivers Passes Against Green Bay Packers

Phil Rivers started at QB for San Diego in his first game as starter last weekend. This video is a highlight clip of his passes -- but notice the timing of the passes and the offensive line blocking. Rivers gets the pass away and there's always a good space between he and the pass rushers -- a nice pocket that does not collapse due to timing problems.

That's not something one can say for the Oakland Raiders.