THOUGHTS About The News.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

Yahoo Sports: “2 former NBA players declared for the WNBA draft. The league says they're ineligible.” Of course, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White are just obviously rabble-rousing for media/public attention. Yet who started the fire? What has league commissioner Cathy Engelbert gotta do about this “defocus” from the actual game? All the culture war drama! 

       Anyhow, per that Chicago Sky/Indiana Fever incident the other night that gained another one-click brouhaha for Enes? This: Mr Freedom (ha!) clapped or applauded after the Fever’s Sophie Cunningham scored. Sky’s Natasha Cloud didn’t like that, and so she yelled at the dude: “She's not gonna sleep with you!" Okay now. Should pro athletes at play engage hecklers like that? Of course they do. Go ask Russ Westbrook and Draymond Green, for example. But is that smart at all? Nope. 

       Hecklers are, sadly, parts of the game. But let the arena/field security and officials deal with them. Of course, we know the mere presence of Enes in the crowd pissed off some of the WNBA players, but as long as the guy didn’t crash into the event or he paid to get in, let that be. You see, there’s a lot more infuriating heckles, for sure. 

       Meanwhile, can we just stick to this ball game-related news? Yahoo Sports: “Angel Reese sets WNBA single-game rebound record, 26.” That was last night’s Atlanta Dream/L.A. Lakers game. Okay? 🏀⛹️‍♀️🏀

ABC: “Family of Alex Pretti speaks out in interview.” They said: “The videos are pretty clear.” I do understand the grief of losing a loved one, especially in a violent manner that could have been avoided. Now let’s talk about the “videos” or the events that led to the tragic day.

      On January 13, Alex Pretti broke a federal immigration agent's vehicle taillight during a protest in Minneapolis. Alex shouted at ICE officers and kicked their SUV. Yes, the videos were “pretty clear.” Ergo, Mr Pretti was already sort of “marked” for any untoward shenanigan (sic). On the 24th of the month, he again showed up in a protest rally, with a handgun (concealed or not), and then he approached an active federal operation. Since he’s already on a “watch list,” what do you expect? What’d I expect? But Alex resisted attempts to disarm him. Whether there was a firearm involved or not, can’t activists simply chill? Comply.

      I was a longtime activist (and organizer) until the late 1990s. My obligatory reminder to my colleagues? Stay on our side of the line, yell but don’t engage. Don’t resist when approached by a riot cop. Don’t get hurt, don’t die. On top of these, no deadly weapon in your backpacks or hidden in your body. I was a Left-winger person from age 16 to almost 40. I never stopped “protesting” even after I gave up my Leftist “tag” to be unaligned in the late-1990s.

      Deaths in legit protests or civil disobedience won’t happen if we observe common sense. That’s all. ☮️🗽☮️

The Wrap: “Washington Post ordered to reinstate columnist fired over Charlie Kirk comments.” Whether the columnist or opinion-sharer maligns or mourns the death of Mr Kirk is an internal company (or organizational) matter. Employees and management agree on rules and regulations before a contract is signed. The editorial board decides. The First Amendment is a rationale, of course. 

       But reportage or news reports are a different matter. It has evolved into “cool murk-throw” that was unimaginable in my time. That is my problem with current journalism. News feeds aren’t 4 Ws and 1 H or “spade is a spade” anymore. News now is highly-opinionated, partisanship-bias, and mostly about disparaging or insulting the POTUS. ☮️🗽☮️

CBS: “White House set to unveil major Iran sanctions as Tehran warns countries not to join.” The gargantuan, bizarre stupidity of war! This is all geopolitical narcissism that Big Business (Wall Street, arms manufacturers, and oil giants) take advantage of. Oh well, yeah? Regional bilateral agreements are signed on the basis of “protection from security threats,” with emphasis on “threats.” Need I go on? Shall we discuss “arms for oil” that exponentially heightened from (Western) discovery of oil in the desert in the 1920s? Oil: The grand excuse for armed conflicts that are not that easy to erase, of course! 

       Yet the end of a war means the immediate obvious: Human (+ animal life) collateral damage and environmental destruction stop. Billions of dollars, or taxpayer money, saved for gut-level imperatives. “Reopening” of the Strait of Hormuz isn’t just good for the global humanity but good as well to Iran, whose economy has been in the pits for decades–the reason why Iranians were protesting in the streets (and then wasted by the IRGC in thousands early this year). Meanwhile, before this crisis, the region was hot and high with renewed business and fun (showbiz and sports), which is the Arab League’s major playbook. And didn’t Iran join the BRICS trade bloc in 2024? 🇺🇸☮️🇮🇷

NBC: “White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt will return to Trump super-PAC,” By now, in case you are paying close attention, that's President Trump's style. “You’re fired!” Then the “terminated staff” is moved elsewhere. Shuffling, reassignments, role modification. Nothing’s wrong with that. I would probably do the same if I were the POTUS, uh huh. Until you place an individual in a designation/assignment, you will never know if that person is effective or not. Or maybe they’d be better off somewhere? (Photo: CNN.) 🏛🗽🏛