Kareem Abdul Jabbar:
Via a post on his Web site, KareemAbdulJabbar.com, the legendary Los Angeles Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks center said he will be selling his championship rings from 1980, ’85, ’87 and ’88. All of those titles were earned while he was a member of the Lakers. In addition, he will be auctioning other items including game-worn uniforms and jerseys. One such item is the game-used and signed ball from his final game in the NBA in 1989.
Why is this sporting legend unloading the tangible reminders of his glory days?
“My sports memorabilia also have a history. My history. My life,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “And, oddly, since my life is still happening and ever-evolving, I am less personally attached to those items than I am to my desire to create new history for myself — and futures for others. Much of the proceeds from my auction will go to support my charity, the Skyhook Foundation, whose mission is to ‘give kids a shot that can’t be blocked.’
“So, when it comes to choosing between storing a championship ring or trophy in a room, or providing kids with an opportunity to change their lives, the choice is pretty simple. Sell it all. Looking back on what I have done with my life, instead of gazing at the sparkle of jewels or gold plating celebrating something I did a long time ago, I’d rather look into the delighted face of a child holding their first caterpillar and think about what I might be doing for their future. That’s a history that has no price.”
Abdul Jabbar was an unfairly brilliant athlete. He has been an awesome post-athlete for a long time. This is just the latest in a story I hope goes on for many years to come.
I thought we could all use a story of a good human doing good. Open thread.
Abbot Handerson Thayer, Lunar Caterpillar, study for book Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, 1909, revised 1918.
Elizabelle
He is a very good man.
And I love an open thread to discuss non-miscreants.
raven
I posted this earlier and am glad to see it made it to the front page.
chris
This Konmari thing is getting out of hand.
Baud
A mench.
MomSense
He’s a treasure.
Mike in NC
He’s also a good writer.
MoxieM
That is inspirational (Ka-J); I’ve have come to expect such thoughtfulness from him. It’s a mercy to have such people among us.
On the other foot, I had a rare experience–rare for me, anyway. Some numbnuts on Facebook (yeah, OK) pointed out that, “St.Wilmer had not made himself a millyionaire at the people’s expense.” I asked how he could know that, given the paucity of tax returns, and, I said, besides, he yells at women and POC. The answer was just such a surprise./s “Whatever,” said the Wilmerite. So here we are. Straight to the point, and not worth the pixels.
Bruuuuce
He’s bright, articulate, and caring. Excellent post his athletic career.
And during his athletic career, nobody could post up like him.
?BillinGlendaleCA
So I’m driving down from Crystal Lake in the San Gabriels(couldn’t shoot the lake since the access road hadn’t been plowed, yes snow) and I see this large vehicle coming towards me from the opposite direction. I’m like WTF is that thing, as it passed I could see it was the Wienermobile. I guess Paul Ryan has found a new job.
Lapassionara
@MomSense: Ditto. I actually lived in NYC when he was a high school senior, playing basketball. What a talent.
SiubhanDuinne
Omnes Omnibus
LISTEN KID! I’ve been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I’m out there busting my buns every night. Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.
ETA: Darn you, Subaru Diane! Darn you to heck!
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: So close.
MomSense
@chris:
I’m not into konmari. I watched half of the first episode and it didn’t spark joy so I stopped watching. I did decide to do something very foolish and organize my closet, and my stashes of fabric and yarn. I may just close the door, declare my room the “junk drawer” of my house and sleep on the couch from now on.
trollhattan
@chris:
Heh. Sparking Kareem joy.
I found his 20 Things Boys Can Do to Become Men out of the blue and well before the #MeToo movement took off. It reconnected me to him after completely losing track. Definitely a mensch.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: A Bruin.
Tom Levenson
@MomSense: I’m with you.
MomSense
@Lapassionara:
I was a diehard Celtics fan but I respected him always. A most worthy adversary.
Wallis Lane
@?BillinGlendaleCA: First, foremost, and always!
chris
@MomSense: I haven’t watched any of it. Learned housekeeping from my mother. “Dust is good, if you lose something you can track it.”
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
He sounds like a really cool dude. I bet some people out there though are gonna scratch their heads and say, “Jabbar? Isn’t he that evil guy from Aladdin?”
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Hockey, too? Damn! I didn’t know Power even HAD a hockey team in the ’60s
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Badasses gotta badass.
raven
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Yea there are plenty of dumb motherfuckers out there.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: you got to get up pretty early in the evening to beat her
Steve in the ATL
@raven: such as Ohio state fans
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Omnes Omnibus:
Don’t you touch me, you darn dirty apes!
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Wonder if they know who Silk is?
RSA
Thanks for a story about a good person. Another that I ran across by accident the other day:
Apparently he lives a modest life now, taking public transportation and such.
SFAW
@Steve in the ATL:
Omnes, as with most lawyuhs, is up at the crack of noon every day.
Most of the time.
Or so he says.
Bill Arnold
Made me tear up, Tom. Thanks for the story.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: I got up at 8:30 this morning. It was horrible.
Lapassionara
@MomSense: Yes. I was sorry that he chose UCLA, but not surprised, as Wooden was such a great coach. I remember the game when someone (Elgin Baylor?) hit his eye, and he wore protective goggles ever after. Then on to the pro’s.
debbie
Clever mission statement.
Duane
@SiubhanDuinne: Jabbar was on with Walton during a Pac12 game recently. Great interview. Jabbar broke Walton’s jaw during a charity game several years ago. They both laugh now.
Baud
@SFAW:
But he starts billing hours at 6 am.
SiubhanDuinne
@chris:
Ooh, I like that! I have a friend whose instruction to family and close friends is: “You’re welcome to write your name in the dust. Just don’t put the date!”
I had another friend, decades ago, who was such an indifferent housekeeper that one year she actually had tiny mushrooms (or toadstools? — some kind of Trump-pëñíš-shaped fungus, anyhow) growing merrily between the tiles on her bathroom floor. In some fairness, it was in hot, steamy Florida, and I’m pretty sure she had neither A/C not a dehumidifier. But still.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@raven:
That, and people who don’t follow sports, myself being one of them. I’d never heard of Jabbar until now.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: I’m in house so I don’t start billing until 7 am!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: I don’t think UCLA fields a hockey team.
Kathleen
@Tom Levenson: @MomSense: Exhales with relief and knowledge I am not alone.
lamh36
Cool…so can we have a thread where we CAN talk bout miscreants…cause if you though Matt Gaetz was stupid before…now he’s REALLY stupid!!!
I’ll just leave this linky poo here for ya to gander at…click it at your own risk!
https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1100556852973236225
raven
Kareem is a great person but lets not get too carried away about UCLA.
The dark side of the UCLA basketball dynasty
‘Papa Sam’ was a father figure for UCLA basketball players, and his influence ultimately landed the program in trouble. Wooden opted to look the other way.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
HEY!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: That’s a bunch of BS.
Yarrow
@lamh36: Just saw that Janet Jackson is doing a residency in Vegas.
hilts
Baseball is my favorite sport, but Kareem Abdul Jabbar is my all time favorite post athlete. I also appreciate the class consistently displayed by LeBron James and Steph Curry.
JMG
Most underrated great player in basketball history. And he’s very highly rated.
SiubhanDuinne
@Duane:
Maybe, but I’ll bet Walton was careful to keep his distance. Not easy to laugh convincingly when you reconstructed jaw is wired in place.
raven
Fifty years ago he was the most dominant college basketball player America had ever seen. Between 1967 and 1969, he led UCLA to three consecutive national titles and an 88-2 record. Yet, his legacy transcends the game; in the age of Black Power, he redefined the political role of black college athletes. In 1968, when black collegians debated boycotting the Olympics, Lew Alcindor, as he was then still known, emerged as the most prominent face in the revolt on campus.
Why did Alcindor refuse to play in the Olympics? To answer that question we have to return to Harlem, New York, in July 1964, the first of many long, hot summers.
Basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (center), then Lew Alcindor, speaks at a news conference at the Power Memorial High School gymnasium in New York City.
The death of James Powell, a 15-year-old black youth from the Bronx, outraged Alcindor. On a sweltering July day in 1964, outside an apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Lt. Thomas Gilligan, a white off-duty cop, shot and killed James, piercing the ninth-grader’s chest with a bullet from a .38 revolver. Conflicting accounts grayed a story that many saw in black and white. Gilligan, a 37-year-old war veteran, claimed that James charged at him with a knife, but bystanders insisted that James was unarmed.
Kathleen
Nice recap of his career, including his decision to begin yoga classes in the 70’s. I’ve read in other articles where he credits his yoga practice for longevity of his basketball career.
http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kareem-abdul-jabbar/
Yarrow
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Kareen Abdul Jabbar was on Dancing with the Stars a few seasons ago. Some non-sports people might have seen him there.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: @?BillinGlendaleCA: Horseshit, I was born at night but not last night. They were no different than anyone else.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
OT:
Rare recording of Sammy Davis Jr’s performance at the Disco Lifestyle Awards.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: He repeated it on the House floor because he thinks, mistakenly, if he does that, his earlier threat by tweet can now not be prosecuted because of the speech and debate clause. Gaetz isn’t very bright.
A Ghost To Most
I’m sticking with Pat Fucking Tillman.
There ARE atheists in foxholes.
Kathleen
@raven: Here’s a quote about the Olympics from the linked article (#51):
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: The Times has had a long and well known Trojan bias, that’s the reason I stopped my subscription.
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yea and you aren’t biased at all.
Brickley Paiste
Mr. Abdul Jabbar sounds like a wise man
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
What I like about you, Adam, is your mastery of understatement.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
Dancing with the Has-Beens, more like it. No offense to Jabbar, but that show is such is a transparent vehicle to reinvigorate/launch the contestants’ careers. Not to mention it blatantly panders to it’s target audience of soccer moms by having the male dancers rip off their shirts every five seconds. It’s a corny disgrace to ballroom dancing. Remember when Rick Perry was on a few years back? Palin’s daughter was too at one point. I guess anybody of sufficient notoriety can be a contestant.
Last season was apparently a shit show because some shock jock radio host most of the viewers didn’t like from the DC area won thanks to his fan base or something. Pissed a lot of people off. There’s no spring season because of it.
raven
@Kathleen: Avery Brundage was an Illini (as am I) and had a really ancient view of the Olympics.
“There are only two kinds of competitors. Those free and independent individuals who are interested in sports for sport’s sake, and those in sports for financial reasons. Olympic glory is for amateurs.”[78]
chris
@SiubhanDuinne: Haha! No mushrooms here but the burgeoning spring sun keeps illuminating corners of the hovel that I haven’t looked at for… a while. I’m sure the cobweb builders would prefer that I continue to look away.
SenyorDave
Kareem is a mensch.
Here is another good guy, no HOF but a pretty good player in his day. Chris Kluwe was a punter in the NFL for 8 years. He might have been fired/blackballed because he was outspoken in his support for gay rights, especially marriage equality. When the Access Hollywood tape came out and Trump and the GOP said it was just locker room talk, Kluwe wrote a letter that was published as op-ed. My favorite section was this:
Now, Donald, I’m sure you’re wondering just what it is we talk about in a professional locker room, if we don’t spend all our time regarding 50 percent of the population as mobile fuck receptacles eagerly awaiting our tiny-handed grasp on their love lapels. I shall educate you!
Here is a link to the entire letter:
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/10/10/13230346/donald-trump-locker-room-talk-chris-kluwe
If Trump does run again, I want ads to remind people of what Trump said. If Trump runs a huge portion of the campaign has to be his total lack of character.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: He’s kind of dumb. And not to be trusted. In addition to being buddies with Roger Stone,
Matt Gaetz Is the Trumpiest Congressman in Trump’s Washington
It’s a buffet of traitors!
lamh36
@Yarrow: Yas!!! I’m already trying to see when I can get a good deal…I’m in the fan club, so I can actually use pre-sale meaning I can buy tickets like 2 days before they go on sale…and I suspect they’ll sell out quick!
raven
My brother and Wooden at John’s camp in the 70’s.
A Ghost To Most
@MomSense: I get a lot of joy from the flotsam I’ve collected. The pieces and parts often get used in my latest creation. I wouldn’t let that woman near my pile of crap.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: They hire Daily Trojan alums, bias doesn’t come into play.
ETA: This may change with the new ownership.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Pithy Maxim is my middle name.
Barbara
Kareem Abdul Jabbar was my father’s favorite player, the epitome of a scholar athlete. I love reading whatever he writes.
MomSense
@A Ghost To Most:
I’ve got tons of fabrics and old textiles that I’m cutting and turning into other things. Sooo much fabric.
lamh36
Watching Finding Your Roots on PBS. Tonight’s guest: Micheal Moore (bleh), Laura Linney (yay) and Chloe Sevigny (yay again)
Heidi Mom
@Mike in NC: Indeed! I really liked both of his Mycroft Holmes novels.
chris
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: And Speaker Pelosi is on the case!
Young Congressman Gaetz is going to be spending some time in detention.
lamh36
Awww shit…Laura Linney’s Great Grand-daddy…was living the single life in NC…so Granny in Florida told folks he was dead…
well damn!
Yarrow
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I wasn’t commenting on the show, just that he had been on it and people who aren’t sports fans may watch it.
A Ghost To Most
@MomSense: I hoard leather and brass. And walnut. They are my primary mediums .
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
You ever heard of the Fallout series? Just be thankful it’s not Elder Maxson
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: It’s a repeat, Chloe Sevigny turns out to be Michael Moore’s great grand aunt.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
Oh I know! I just couldn’t pass up a chance to bash on it though. Want to hear my thoughts on the Bachelor/Bachelorette? ; )
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: Also, why is X-23 having her DNA sequenced. We already know she’s a clone!
https://www.marvel.com/characters/x-23
Martin
A good friend of ours dated Kareem for a while sometime after his divorce. She speaks glowingly of him. Lots of good/funny stories.
lamh36
I’m glad that at least Laura Linney wasn’t surprised about her family owning slaves or being a confederate
I’m just saying any white person with ancestors in the South, should just expect it by now #findingyourroots
Yarrow
@lamh36: Cool! I saw a piece on it on and they said it’s going to be sort of a history of her life, from being a little kid in the shadow of her older brothers to breaking out on her own to now.
Adam L Silverman
@chris: That’s just being mean to vegetables.
kindness
I know it isn’t but that caterpillar looks suspiciously like a tomato worm. Without the hook on it’s head. Still, too close to not make me have to subvert my instincts with such critters.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
lamh36
Laura Linny’s anscetor died as a Conferderate soldier from “a musket ball through the bowels”
DAMN!
Laura was like…”oh…well…”
She just shrugged..BWHAHA
#findingyourroots
hilts
@Adam L Silverman:
But compared to Donald Trump, I’d place him somewhere between Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
A Ghost To Most
I don’t get the DNA ancestry thing, but then my mother was a genealogy obsessive, and I spent too many summer vacations in cemeteries.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Hey, clones still technically have biological parents, or at least the original did.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
Also, please get the icky girl cooties out of my comic books and stop replacing male superheroes with them // Comicsgate
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Nancy SMASH!
That sentence definitely sparked joy!
Gin & Tonic
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: No.
lamh36
Wow shortage of brides in Canada back in the day… 6 men for every 1 woman…
Sevigny’s ancestor, was one of the “Filles du Roi” in Québec could choose who they married. There were not arranged marriages.
She had 6 children under the age of 11 and she was ONLY 28!!!
Wow…2 months to the day of his death…married another dude and had 8 MORE!!!!!
I’m exhausted for her!!!
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Nancy SMASH is the best!
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Not really, no. Those shows are drama and eye candy for people who like that sort of thing. Once in awhile a relationship works out and people get married.
Adam L Silverman
@hilts:
Mike S
I was lucky enough to see many of the Showtime Laker games and a number of those were in the championships. I was also fortunate enough to be in a long line with Magic during the Obama/Hillary battle. I asked him why he wasn’t out door knocking for Hillary and he said “I did my part now she has to do hers.” I told him I supported Obama and we both agreed that we were lucky to have two fantastic people to choose from. Magic was the most gracious athlete I’ve ever met. We talked for a half hour and I never felt like he wanted to be left alone. Once we were through the line he took pictures with and signed autographs for anyone who asked. It took him an hour to get from immigration to the doors of the airport. He and Kareem are LA treasures.
Yarrow
@lamh36: That sounds exhausting!
Martin
@lamh36:
Maybe just a lot of gay Canadians?
I went to a college that was 8 women to each guy, but it wasn’t exactly what a male college student might imagine as the college had a quiet reputation (in the 80s) for being a safe space for lesbians, and so many chose to go to school there for that reason.
Jager
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
They do its a club team
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
I was being kinda flippant, Yarrow. Just joking. My guilty pleasure is Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares tbf, so I get it.
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, nobody asked you ?
hilts
@lamh36:
Q: How will Trump feel after Michael Cohen delivers his public testimony tomorrow?
A: Not as bad as Laura Linney’s Confederate ancestor, but I expect his bowels will be in a considerable uproar.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Are you familiar with Fallout at all?
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I had the basic CBRN response training, including how to get the suit out of the special foil packaging, before I deployed to Iraq.
Yarrow
@lamh36: That sounds like a tough way to go.
I think it’s weird when people like Ben Affleck didn’t want his episode aired because his ancestor was a slave owner. Dude, it’s what happened. Learn about it. Learn from it. I don’t get why anyone would go on that show and then try to hide the results. Talk about lack of character.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SenyorDave:
Also, a Bruin.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
You have a closet like Monica on Friends. Apt is beyond spotless, everything has a place and everything is in that place. Her closet though…….
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
What is it with you and the Broons? Was Bobby Orr one of your heroes? Coulda picked worse, that’s for sure.
Jay
@Martin:
The French Colonies in Canada were rather perilous, for a long time, and tended towards attracting single men, ( often retired French soldiers already in the Colonies), and few families or women.
It’s why we have Metis.
Bobby Thomson
My all time favorite player. I consider him the GOAT. His autobiography Giant Steps is sensational, which you would expect from a history major.
hilts
@Adam L Silverman:
I believe Trump’s IQ is considerably lower than Mariano Rivera’s career ERA.
Amir Khalid
How did the ESPN story manage to mention Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s achievements in basketball but leave out that he is also an acclaimed writer and an outstanding example of A Good Person?
lamh36
@Martin: this was like way back in the day in Canada in Quebec when in was still a ruled by France
Adam L Silverman
This is my favorite post athlete!
joel hanes
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Want to hear my thoughts on the Bachelor/Bachelorette?
No.
raven
@Amir Khalid: It’s a short piece that was telling this story specifically. Most people with a pulse (especially “progressives) are familiar with his work.
scott alloway
@MomSense: A Celtic fan here, too, but a KAJ fan since way back. Remember the Elvin Hayes/KJA matchups in 1968? Although I’m only four years younger, my youth passed when he retired. A great person.
lamh36
@Yarrow: no sense. and not for nothing, but Skip Gates can be a bit problematic when romanticizing some things, so Ben not wanting it shared is stupid anyway, it’s not like Gates would hold it against him.
And besides which, many times they find something so intriguing that owning slaves, amazingly, is the LEAST interesting thing about each guest’s ancestry.
Ben was an idiot
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
LOL. This Fallout
As for Elder Arthur Maxson, he’s basically Adolf Hitler when it comes to synths (AI androids that look and act like humans) and other sentient mutants.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@joel hanes:
See comment 104.
geg6
@MomSense:
I was a diehard Lakers fan back then, due solely to Kareem. I adore him and always have.
Raven
@scott alloway: He’s 2 years older than me. He was a freshman at UCLA when I went in the Army. The impact of people like him and Ali was incredibly profound in the military of that time.
Martin
@lamh36: What, you think Harvey Milk invented gays in the 70s? Maybe Canada was unspoken gay haven back then – a place they could go without having their mothers nagging them about settling down. “Sorry Mom, there’s like 4 women up here so it’s really tough. I’ll just keep hanging out with Guillaume for now.” Maybe this is why Canadians are nice – people got to move there and be themselves.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Paul Ryan’s new ride.
Raven
Bill Russell (front left), Jim Brown (front middle) and Lew Alcinder (front right) take part in a meeting of top African-American athletes on June 4, 1967, to show support for Muhammad Ali’s refusal to fight in Vietnam.
Mary G
Kareem is a class act all the way down. I was lucky enough to meet him after he retired and some male fans were getting all chesty and pushy and he politely but completely shut them down and talked to a couple of 9-year-old twins for a good 15 minutes. His columns in Time have been must-reads for me.
Yarrow
@lamh36: We’ve certainly found out that Ben is an idiot in several ways. I remember when that made news and it was just so dumb. I mean, white people, the South. Gonna be some slave owning in there somewhere. I got the impression Ben thought it would make him look bad and maybe negatively affect his career, which is just so dumb. It’s his ancestor, not him. How he reacts to it and deals with it is how he’ll be judged. I guess we learned how that worked out.
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Was wondering if you’d gotten a picture.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW:
Broons are in Boston, Bruins are in Westwood.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: Capture from my dashcam video.
Yarrow
@Mary G: He’s such a class act. I love the story in the original post. Things are just things. He wants to help people.
MoxieM
@Adam L Silverman: Only we Scots we throw phone poles around for sport. But then, we also eat haggis. (Yes, “we Scots” loosely speaking; yes, I know it’s a caber.)
Jay
@lamh36:
And the French Colonial economic model was that “settlement” was to facillitate the trade with the Indigenous tribes, and provide food security and military security for the colonies. It was kinda an anti-colonial policy.
Much like the later HBC policies in Ruperts Land.
Yarrow
@?BillinGlendaleCA: One time I rolled up to the laundromat I did my laundry at to find the weinermobile parked out front. That was kind of fun. I met the two folks who were driving it around the country. They gave me a wienermobile whistle I still have somewhere.
Kayla Rudbek
And more Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the National Trademark Expo in 2018
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: And what happens next? Intimidating witnesses should have serious consequences but Republicans seem to get away with pretty much every dang thing.
A Ghost To Most
@Martin:
Oh, I’m a lumberjack
And I’m ok
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I still have no idea what you’re talking about. But I’m okay with that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yarrow: The reason I was really surprised to see the wienermobile is that this is a really twisty mountain road and the only thing at the end is a campground and a general store*.
*For SoCal locals, it’s highway 39 that goes up the San Gabriel canyon.
Adam L Silverman
@MoxieM: The wee Scots aren’t really built for tossing cabers…
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It was hijacked!
Kayla Rudbek
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Lois McMaster Bujold has quite a bit to say about clones, starting here, Brothers in Arms (Although the first book I picked up in the series was the next one, Mirror Dance). Myself, I say we go with Betan-style laws/ethics rules for starters
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: One of my Frog-Canuck ancestors was a Filles du Roi. I even found her name on the list at my link.
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Weiner roast.
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: Jim Brown, first team All-American in lacrosse. Can you imagine him running at you holding a stick?
I hear he had a decent gridiron career too.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Honestly, it was was just some silly reference I was trying to make since “Maxim” reminded me of “Maxson”.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: She would have been, of course, a Fille du Roi.
/pedant
Raven
@Gin & Tonic: My old man used to have a fit because he got up slowly and walked back to the huddle! he hated Ali too.
hilts
More Kareem Abdul Jabbar from C-SPAN
Kareem discussing the book he co-authored, Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII’s Forgotten Heroes. The book chronicles the all-black tank battalion of Patton’s Third Army in intimate detail.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?181775-1/brothers-arms
Kareem discussing his children’s book, What Color Is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?305487-7/what-color-world
Mr Stagger Lee
I hope those rings end up with some one who would donate them to the Basketball Hall of Fame or the National Museum of African American History and Culture not in some scumbag Wall St Sports Collector like what tragically happened to Jesse Owens’ Medals.
lamh36
OOOH
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle:
@Jay: I’m just glad that former Speaker Rayn has found some honest work.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I did the course and could attach the alpha-numeric to my 13A MOS if I remembered it. Oddly, I do remember the 05P one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: What if there was a lot of her?
Mr Stagger Lee
@Gin & Tonic: Jim Brown is also in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
Gin & Tonic
@lamh36: Why was his hearing classified? He doesn’t hold a clearance.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Only if there were many of her.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Omnes Omnibus:
Since you took the course, did they teach you how to somehow survive a nuclear detonation/it’s after effects?
hilts
@Gin & Tonic:
While I have great respect for Jim Brown’s achievements on the football field, he lost me with his support for Trump
h/t https://www.thenation.com/article/understanding-jim-browns-ugly-support-of-donald-trump
lamh36
HHS docs show thousands of alleged incidents of sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors in custody @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2Ezm5Ry
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was tempted to ask “As opposed to a Limey-Canuck?” but I realized that’s a null set.
rikyrah
Waiting for the results from today’s primary. Could be that we have two Black women as the final two candidates for Mayor of Chicago.
Mary G
The whole post Kareem wrote about his decision to sell is fascinating:
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: You went inside her head, were you? There could have been lost of people there.*
*Okay, I thought it was easier to copy and paste from lamb’s comment and I fucking forgot to delete the ‘s.’ Are you happy now, you monster?
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
Some have considered him the greatest college lax man ever. Don’t know if I agree, but I hear he was pretty damn good.
And from Long Island! Lacrosse capital of the U!S!A!
JanieM
@Duane:
Seriously? I thought Walton could barely walk after having his ankles surgically fused years ago.
Kareem did break Kent Benson’s jaw a long long time ago….
lamh36
Jay
@Patricia Kayden:
Meuller Time for a start.
Omnes Omnibus
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Not really. I did learn that not being there when it happens is a good plan – as is not being downwind. The rest gets very technical very fast and is also so classified that, if I told you, Adam would have to kill you.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: We got a bargain basement version. I basically learned that by the time I got the protective suit out of the foil packaging and got it on I would have been dead for at least nine minutes.
SFAW
@lamh36:
Actually, what she said was “Yes. I learned that Matt Gaetz is a witness-tampering asshole who better lawyer-up PDQ if he wants to stay out of jail.”
Well, OK, maybe she didn’t use those exact words. But I know it’s what she meant to say.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: The classification nature of the hearing didn’t have anything to do with Cohen having a clearance, which he doesn’t and never did. It was classified because the material he was presenting to the committee is information that the committee feels needs to be classified at this time.
hilts
@Raven: @Mr Stagger Lee:
Jim Brown has moved a very long way since 1967:
h/t https://www.newsweek.com/nfl-great-jim-brown-backs-donald-trump-i-find-myself-pulling-president-1084355
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: So you were pretty quick with the suit then…
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Speaking of basements, how fucked would someone be in the normal basement of a wooden residential house within the air blast radius of a typical ICBM in the Russian arsenal? Would the house just collapse on top of them into the basement?
SFAW
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I believe the phrase is “well and truly.”
opiejeanne
@lamh36: I now her name but can’t remember why.
Is her loss good or bad?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Omnes Omnibus:
Did you ever see the film of US soldiers from the 1950s walking towards a mushroom cloud? I can’t believe the US Govt did shit like that to soldiers then. That just couldn’t happen today, not without serious backlash.
Anyway, what’s the matter? Have to have Adam do your dirty work for you?
Omnes Omnibus
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: @SFAW: SFAW pretty much nailed it.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Zima will take care of that soon enough…
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure, sure…
Omnes Omnibus
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha!!!!! Gasp, gasp! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha….
I am lazy.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: That’s a question for Cheryl. And I’m not joking – that question is well out of my area of expertise.
Jay
@opiejeanne:
“Nomiki Konst is an activist and pundit. She worked for The Young Turks and Our Revolution, a progressive political action organization developed from the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign. Konst is a candidate for the 2019 New York City Public Advocate special election.[1]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomiki_Konst
How was the driving today?
Adam L Silverman
@opiejeanne: One of Bernie’s catspaws. He put her on his group of delegates to the DNC’s Unity Commission last year with Nina Turner and James Zogby. All three of them wore out their welcomes really fast. She’s a fraud, has never been able to hold down a job, and is largely obnoxious.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
Evil Azz Demons ???
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
If you google nuclear tests, structures, you will get lots of photos of suburban housing getting completely destroyed by the air blast.
So, if you are hiding under a table in the basement, in a few microseconds you will become more wood than flesh.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Omnes Omnibus:
Surely you’ve been subjected to “Thank Your For Your Service” many times before. Our culture tends to venerate active military and veterans, no matter how shallowly. If something like this got out, and it would, there would be massive outrage.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
No problem. I know it would depend on a lot of factors, such as the number of megatons in the nuclear device, the distance from ground zero, etc.
Adam L Silverman
@opiejeanne: @Jay: This Politico article provides a thorough review of the Nomi Konst experience.
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2019/02/21/who-is-nomiki-konst-865219
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Reminds me of a safety briefing we had before taking a brief cruise on Lago Argentino. When they told us where the PFD’s were and how to put them on I turned to my wife and said “why bother?” You’ll be dead before a rescue vessel gets near you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Oddly enough, in a previous profession, I got to see a bunch of things like that. And nice, pretty images of chemical warfare casualties from the Iran-Iraq War too.
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I tend to doubt that.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Don’t need to read it. Just saw all the “Ususal Suspects” orgs in the wiki to know that she’s poison.
Gin & Tonic
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: This is why, if you move to DC, you want to live in the city and not in the suburbs. You’ll have a lot fewer things to worry about when the time comes.
Gin & Tonic
@opiejeanne: She’s a Bernie-bot who ran for NYC Public Advocate and got her ass handed to her.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
Could be worse, apparent the safety briefing at CFB Alert starts out with “don’t let the wolves lick you”,
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Pretty much.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
You won’t have time to worry when the time comes. Like the old bug/windshield joke.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@SFAW:
Yup
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah. Global nuclear war wouldn’t mean the end of life on Earth or even humanity, but it would mean the end of modern civilization. Hundreds of millions would die in the initial exchange, but a few billion would die in the months and years afterwards. Would probably be better to be vaporized.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay:
Now you tell me.
Gin & Tonic
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The semi-famous quote that JFK incorrectly attributed to Krushchev was “the living will envy the dead” (it was actually Herman Kahn in Thinking the Unthinkable and phrased as a question.)
These people were all long ago.
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Nope. Everybody dies. Some in the blast, some from radiation, most from starvation and disease.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Artic Wolves are small, very very fluffy, bright white, with deep dark black eyes and a button nose. It’s how everything kills you in the arctic, with cuteness.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jay:
Nuclear winter has been discredited. It’s known now that wouldn’t likely happen. A billion or so dead and most of modern civilization destroyed would be a bad enough outcome.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Gin & Tonic:
Just think, a nuclear war in the 1960s wouldn’t have been nearly as bad as one in the 1980s. Not sure about today, but it would be awful.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Cuteness?! There is a reason my Frog-Canuck ancestors moved to the tropical climate of Wisconsin.
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Nope, read the link. It’s as real as Climate Change.
divF
@Adam L Silverman: Here is a classic in the field.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yup, cuteness. Arctic Wolves are cute, Polar Bears are cute, Arctic Hares are cute. Did you know they eat meat?
Gin & Tonic
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Read Kahn.
StringOnAStick
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve been licked by a wolf, it was surreal. She was mostly tame, I was right by her human, and she was stunningly beautiful with sparkling eyes. The last one may be because she liked the appetizer.
Jay
@StringOnAStick:
That’s how they get you.
Maybe just one little pet won’t hurt,….
Skip, ship, bounce. Why don’t you pet me over here?
Where did all therse wolves come from?
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: I would still trust them over the common house cat.
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
Not those Bruins. The University of Common Little Adults.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nope. House cats are easy.
There’s actually a study done, dogs over the years have learned to mimic humans, cat’s don’t. When a reposed cat makes eye contact for a few minutes, it’s their way of expressing love.
North American wolves vs. Cougars, different story. I have been hunted by cougars.
Suzanne
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Holy shitballs, for reals?
I am not a sports fan, I am not THAT much older than you…..and even I adore Kareem.
One of the GOAT.
TomatoQueen
Kareem just gets better and better, wonderful man. And yes I’m a Bruin daughter, but still, I know great when I see it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq: Ah, a comment from one of the Spoiled Children.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay:
If you find that to be a problem, you should find a different bar.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Different cougar.
Now adays most of the “cougars” you are referring to, I call charming young women.
Kayla Rudbek
@Gin & Tonic: or even parts of the suburbs depending on what size of bomb they drop on the Pentagon, my onsite colleagues and I would be gone in fairly short order if the strike simulator is correct. I really hate the nightmares I have about a stray missile heading through my office window, and the one about my metro stop being a post-apocalypse ruin. If I survive until retirement, I am going to sell and move out of here. It will be interesting to figure out where to move that’s large enough to have certain stores and small enough to not be a nuclear target, and avoiding flooding from climate change.
Searcher
I know the show isn’t in vogue nowadays, but I loved his guest spot on The Big Bang Theory.
Jay
@Kayla Rudbek:
Don’t worry. You probably won’t feel a thing. One moment you will be cleaning spam out of your email folder, the next, gone.
JustRuss
I’ve been reading Jabar’s autobiography for the past couple weeks, great stuff if you were into the NBA in the 70s or 80s. Met him for a few seconds years ago when he was promoting Black Profiles in Courage, he spoke and signed books.