The Frog and the Scorpion

I could have been a professional playing member of the National Basketball Association, NBA, if I had different parents contributing to my genetic inheritance, different upbringing, any ability or aptitude at all for the sport combined with the training to cultivate the aforementioned skills and abilities. In other words, we could have all had ham sandwiches, if we had ham (and bread). Hold the mustard, especially if you can't cut it.

And in terms of cutting it, I am physically unqualified for the sport-ask anyone, I don't even have the legs for the shorts. I can barely stand to buy sneakers (that high-pitched whiny voice going 'is that American Dollars?" yep, that's me) and there's been no stampede among anyone who makes shoes to have an Air Kenny grace the store shelves (I actually prefer Luft Willibaldo but that would mean making the sneakers longer to accommodate the extra letters; I tend to trip over my own feet, so that's a non-starter).

Speaking of non-starters on the matter of Donald Sterling being voted off the NBA Ownership Island, you've read and heard I'm sure the polished polemic of Al "Super Narc" Sharpton and his polar opposite, Romulus to his Remus, chubby cubby wide-body buddy, Rush Limbaugh. Looking at both of them (though Al's done a nice job of slimming down, sadly without yet vanishing), all I can think of is The Band.

(Aside to Al: I would respect you more as a fellow-traveler on the Big Blue Marble if you'd explain the 'totally' part of 'totally outraged.' As opposed to what, partially outraged?)

This is who you need to read because if anyone knows whereof he writes from his days at Power Memorial in New York City through UCLA to an epoch-defining career in the NBA, it's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Time Magazine. We are Here at the Western World and it's Sterling's turn to be the madman, with a world of witnesses. Jabbar's diagnosis of IPMS deserves to be part of our permanent vocabulary and is truly masterful.

I guess, with all the reading I've been doing on this since Friday, maybe the only thing I don't understand is why so many people who saw the signs chose to not read them. Sterling has always been That Guy.

This is not a new news story but an old one, as old as time itself. It's a variation of the frog and the scorpion who both needed to cross a stream. The frog, despite assurances and promises, feared the scorpion would fatally sting him while they were both in the water.

Halfway across that is exactly what happened and the frog, with its dying breath, begged the scorpion to explain. The scorpion as it,too, was drowning smiled at the frog and replied, 'why are you surprised? You knew what I was when you picked me up.'
-bill kenny