Unbelievable article up right now detailing the final despairing days of a Sonic employee. The money quote:
I didn't see how we'd get an arena deal led by men who couldn't conceive of it as anything but a rich man's boondoggle, perpetrated on behalf of other rich people. Average people would shoulder the costs of making sure that the Puget Sound's affluent—suits at Boeing, executives at Microsoft—could be coddled at a sporting event that average people would no longer be able to afford to attend.
See the rest at Deadspin. No, really, see the rest at Deadpin, like, right now. Story by Jeremy Repanich.
"But [the Maloofs] don't deserve [Anthony] Davis. They don't deserve a team."
-Steve Kelley, Seattle Times, May 2
Let's get one thing straight - deserve's got nothing to do with.
You want to talk about deserve? Does Jerry Buss - a Class A philanderer - deserve Kobe Bryant?
Does Donald Sterling - a racist skinflint - deserve Blake Griffin or Chris Paul?
Does Aubrey McClendon - a top-class con artist who has swindled his own company out of hundreds of millions of dollars - deserve Kevin Durant?
Does James Dolan - a top-notch jerk who seems to flounder from one disaster to the next - deserve Jeremy Lin?
For crying out loud, who does deserve Anthony Davis? As it stands now, Michael Jordan and the Bobcats will get Davis, even though they forced their customers to pay first-class prices for third-class service the entire 2011-12 season. Do they deserve Davis?
The answer, of course, is no. As much as Steve Kelley would like to get free tickets to NBA games again, and as scandalous as the NBA's departure from Seattle was, we don't deserve an NBA team any more than anyone else. And the notion that David Stern will now - after 30 years of being a condescending and selfish twit- suddenly morph into a benevolent dictator and hand us the keys to the Sacramento Kings, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not holding my breath about that happening anytime soon.
David Stern is going to do what David Stern always does: Get the best deal he can for his owners and let the chips fall where they may. If he can keep the Maloofs in Sacramento and get a new arena he will, but if not, it will be up to the Maloofs - not David Stern, not Steve Kelley, not anyone else - where the team will go next.
Aubrey McClendon Must Be Stopped Shareholders must demand accountability and vote to throw out McClendon. If any pocket of justice exists in our ambivalent world Aubrey
McClendon will be forced to exit Chesapeake and walk the long plank of
disgrace.
Did I crib this from Mother Jones? Or perhaps Utne Reader? Or Supersonicsoul?
Nope. It's from Forbes, and it's written by an investor from Houston whose most recent piece in the magazine was titled “Some Tips For The Simpletons of Occupy Wall Street.” Worth a read, if only to revel in the coming financial apocalypse headed Aubrey's way.
Good ol' AM, still an a**hole after all these years.
