Sittin' on blades like Christie Yamaguchi

- Some Crazy Schitte: Click here for craziness: If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, you will only see one color, pink. If you stare at the black + in the center, the moving dot turns to green. Now, concentrate on the black + in the center of the picture. After a short period of time, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see a green dot rotating if you're lucky! It's amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot, and the pink ones really don't disappear. This should be proof enough, we don't always see what we think we see.

- This Blog and “Racism”: I’ve noticed lately how irresponsible I’ve gotten with throwing the term “racist” around on this blog. I don’t think my tendency to point out potentially “racist” stuff is “irresponsible” because I’m wrong or anything—I do still feel that everyone I’ve called out on this blog as displaying “racist” behavior was indeed performing “racist” behavior—but several recent comments-section discussions have pointed out to me how fruitless these efforts have been. To be sure, I’m calling out “racist” behavior on this blog as an attempt to point out how “racism” is still quite pervasive in every day life. Unfortunately, it seems like the most common reaction to my posts hasn’t been unanimously positive but has been more along the lines of folks saying “Oh come on! Lighten up!” type remarks, or the age-old, privileged boy complaint of “Can’t we even mention ‘race’ without talking about ‘racism’”? Well, the short answer to that question, as far as I’m concerned, is “no.” If we’re talking about “race,” I think we absolutely need to talk about “racism,” too. And, yes, while I do think it’s “racist” for Joe Pa to say that scoring is up in the Big Ten from last year because there are more black kids playing, I am not saying that Joe Pa is incapable of talking about “race” without being “racist” and, what’s more, I don’t think Joe Pa is himself “a racist.” As Ken importantly pointed out, “People can’t be racist; systems are racist.” And, believe it or not, my incessant tendency to say “That’s racist” on this board was a misguided attempt to make that very same point. When I refer to the racism involved with the NBA dress code or about the age limit or about Joe Pa, I’m not suggesting that the type of “racism” at work here is one of individual hatred of black folks a la the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists. I’m talking about the systemic white supremacy that is perpetuated, nourished, and promulgated in overt ways like public school zoning policies as well as the more subtle expressions of the racist system that pop-up in instances like Joe Pa’s ridiculous statements or the NBA dress-code. I’m not here to chastise individuals for being “racist.” Instead, I am simply attempting to illustrate how racism still operates on a day-to-day basis in seemingly innocuous ways. I suppose I should apologize that my method has been so ineffective, and I will attempt in the future to be much less chastising and reactionary, and perhaps more inquisitive about this “racism,” how it manifests itself, and what—if anything—can be done about it.

- AI Assist to Turnover Ratio: I firmly believe that the key to the Sixers success this year will be AI’s assist to turnover ratio. If the ratio stays above 3:1, I think the Sixers will do just fine. If it hovers right around the 2:1 mark or below, we’re in trouble. So far this season, the Sixers have been pretty good about turnovers. In their win over the Pacers on Saturday, they only had 11 turnovers and Iverson had 12 assists and only 3 turnovers. In the ugly, ugly game against the Bobcats, the Sixers only had a total of 13 turnovers, but Iverson had 5 assists and 4 turnovers. Likewise, in the opener—a game the Sixers really should’ve one—the team only had 8 total turnovers and AI had 9 dimes and only one turnover himself. Basically, if Iverson is assisting and not turning the ball over, that basically indicates that the rest of the team is playing pretty well, too. Most of AI’s turnovers aren’t directly his fault (usually, it’s a matter of AI sending an unsuspecting pass into the fumbling hands of big men who clunk the ball out of bounds or simply aren’t aware that AI is passing to him) but no matter who’s fault it is, they really hurt the Sixers. So, this humble blog is going to go to great lengths to closely monitor AI’s assist to turnover ratio and if it starts to start looking bad, I’m gonna have to make a few phone calls and try to get the Sixers some more black players so we’ll score more points.

- Ass Man: This might only be funny to people who are at least somewhat familiar with the TV tragedy/victory that is known as Laguna Beach, but holy hell the dude KC has killed it. That schitt had me dying the first time I read it. KC’s old blog (KC a Jew) is dead, but he’s got a new group blog poppin’ off at Kosher Crack. Cute.

- Vincent Gallo’s Sperm: The dude Vincent Gall is pretty crazy. This is cute little publicity stunt. Vincent Gallo gets a little bit too much pleasure out of pretending to be racist though (much like how I get a little bit too much pleasure out of constantly calling people “racist”).

- The Music of Galt MacDermott: Go here to see the trailer for “Ear of the Heart” a documentary that “will be a survey of Galt MacDermot's life and musical career, as well as a performance of many of his songs.”

-e