Sports is a contact politic

-- Keith Olbermann is back. And it looks like he's gotten the band back together.

The ex-MSNBC and Current TV host made his official return to ESPN on Monday night. Olbermann was a staple of ESPN’s SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997, before parting ways with the network in not the most amicable way. But the bridge is magically no longer burnt, and Olbermann opened his new show with, “As I was saying…”

Despite the new subject matter, Olbermann is still the same guy from the old Countdown days. His opening story -- about the New York Jets, coach Rex Ryan, and some sports writer -- was replete with his unique sense of humor, including silly voices while reading quotes and tongue-in-cheek graphics, including the now-infamous picture of Will Smith and his family staring at whatever the hell happened at the VMAs.

He couldn’t help getting a teeny bit political, though, mockingly wincing as he admitted he agreed with New Jersey governor Chris Christie about an “idiotic” Jets beat reporter.

His Monday night show also included “Worst Persons in the Sports World,” taken from his old “Worst Persons in the World” segment, with the same exact music.

You can watch the first ten minutes of last night's maiden voyage at the top link. KO explains here why he is burned out on talking about politics.

-- Speaking of ESPN, they got intimidated by the NFL out of sponsoring the PBS Frontline documentary on concussions. Here's the trailer for that.



-- Did Bobby Riggs tank the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" between he and Billie Jean King because Riggs owed gambling debts to the mob? The suspicions still linger.

Forty years ago in September, Billie Jean King struck one of the most decisive blows in women's fight for equality, and she did so with her weapon of choice: a tennis racket.

In a ridiculously hyped match, Bobby Riggs, 55-year-old former tennis champ and outspoken "male chauvinist," challenged King, then 29 and coming off a victory at Wimbledon, to a "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match in the Houston Astrodome. To the winner would go $100,000; to the winner's entire gender would go bragging rights for years.

Riggs had earlier that year beaten Margaret Court, the world No. 1, and a thrashing of King, then ranked #2, seemed all but certain. Oddsmakers favored Riggs, the 1939 Wimbledon champion, in an overwhelming tide. "King money is scarce," said another product of the era, gambling expert Jimmy the Greek. "It's hard to find a bet on the girl."

Anybody who did bet on "the girl" would have seen a huge and unexpected payday, however, as King absolutely thrashed Riggs in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. Everyone from announcer Howard Cosell on down could see that King was the superior player, running a clearly winded Riggs all over the court and forcing him into error after error.

But how? Perhaps the greatest women's tennis player ever, Serena Williams, has said she would lose 6-0, 6-0 to Andy Murray. Riggs was no Murray, but then again Williams is in a different time zone from King. How on earth could such a stunning defeat have happened?

The story, according to ESPN's Don Van Natta in a must-read piece, is painfully straightforward: the fix was in, and the Mafia was in on it all.

And here's a trailer from a recent doc of that.

Still no evidence of jars of feces at Texas Capitol

Warning: scatological puns ahead.

The controversy that engulfed the Texas Department of Public Safety in July after leaders said troopers had confiscated jars of urine and feces from abortion activists at the Capitol prompted the agency's chief to urge the release of photos to prove it was not playing politics.

"I am tired of reading that we made this stuff up," Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw wrote in a July 14 email to another top agency official. "Let's get the photos we have to members and the media. Does anyone realistically believe we would fabricate evidence to support a political agenda? Amazing."

Except that the document dump does not seem to include any photographs of jars or bags of feces or urine.

Records released by state police Monday reflect the chaos at a Capitol abortion debate last month — when state troopers said they discarded urine and feces they took from activists — but do not conclusively show bodily waste was actually found.

Very strange. Six weeks after the fact, the DPS releases e-mail conversations that says they found jars of feces, and photos of... something. That no one in the media who has seen them is ready to declare jars of feces.

"If we have photos, let's push them out," Robert Bodisch, assistant director of the agency's Texas Homeland Security arm wrote to McCraw in a July 14 email.

Poor choice of words there, Mr. Bodisch. Maybe this will get cleared up today, or in the days ahead, but for now it still, ah, smells bad. The only bag of poop I could be sure about appears in photo #9 of the slideshow at this link. But the HouChron and the SAEN didn't go there.

Back to the pressing question: how is it that there could still be an unresolved controversy over this matter? Let's go back to DPS Director McCraw, from the excerpt at the top.

"Does anyone realistically believe we would fabricate evidence to support a political agenda?"

Sadly, yes. We most certainly do.

Update: From the TFN Insider...

So after weeks of smears directed at pro-choice activists, we see that there is no evidence at all that anyone brought jars of human waste to the Capitol. Moreover, out of the thousands of activists at the Capitol — both for and against the anti-abortion bill – it appears that a handful of people brought several bricks and a can of paint. And who brought those few items (which DPS officers were absolutely right to confiscate)? No one knows.

We now know, however, that DPS and other law enforcement officers were listening a lot to religious-right activists making wild and unsubstantiated claims. And those claims were meant to discredit the thousands of concerned citizens who went to the Capitol to protest — peacefully — yet another attack on women’s health care services in Texas.

...and Wonkette.

The rumor of jars of feces and urine being carried into the Senate seem to have originated with one lone officer at one checkpoint the day of the debate. Since anyone with higher brain functions (this of course leaves out the vast majority of wingnuts) thought it sounded ridiculous, reporters have been pestering DPS for weeks to confirm the stories. DPS had actually petitioned Texas’s attorney general to keep files on the matter sealed, which seems to us something an agency would do if its members did indeed have a political agenda. Not that it matters, because as we keep reminding everyone, a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth shits in a jar.

Update: #Poopgate ? No, I prefer Cacapocalypse. But Twitter is still getting over yesterday's hack by the Syrians, so I don't think my suggestion has much chance of trending.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes students, teachers, administrators, and especially parents a happy new school year as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff shows how the city of Pasadena and Galveston County are trying to take advantage of the SCOTUS ruling on the Voting Rights Act to push through politically motivated redistricting plans.

Olivia at Texpatriate laments living in a state where the lieutenant governor can attempt to manipulate the law with little to no consequences.

David Dewhurst put his ailing political career out of its misery with one phone call to the Allen Police Department, and it fell to PDiddie at Brains and Eggs to write the obituary.

Republicans have figured out the best way bring back “states rights”. It’s to rule over the country from the states, where they hold much more power. WCNews at Eye on Williamson calls it Neutering the federal government .

Make way for the Bushes! Specifically George P. Bush. Many people have already crowned him as the heir apparent for Commissioner of the General Land Office, but Texas Leftist thinks that if Democrats work hard, they can turn that into an "apparently NOT".

Neil at All People Have Value wrote about the taxpayer-financed life boats on the Bolivar Ferry that runs across Galveston Bay. There seems little difference between state-purchased life boats and Texas Legislature support of Obamacare that will help so many people get health insurance coverage. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com. Please check out the full NeilAquino.com site if so inclined.

========================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Walkable DFW draws a lesson in traffic management from the rail systems in Houston and Dallas.

The Texas Observer profiles Jessica Kuther, the Janie-on-the-spot organizer during the rallies against anti-choice bills in the legislative special sessions.

And along those lines, Jessica Luther informs us of a new crowd-funding effort to create an educational online game about abortion and access in Texas.

I Love Beer is looking for a few volunteers for the 2013 Texas Craft Brewers Festival.

Letters from Texas piles on David "I'm Kind Of A Big Deal" Dewhurst.

Nonsequiteuse wonders why we don't regulate bounce houses more, given the Legislature's oft-stated obsession with the health of women and children.

Juanita Jean points out that if Greg Abbott can't read all the way to the end of a Tweet, his interpretation of anything longer than that cannot be trusted.

Concerned Citizens calls on San Antonio council member Elise Chan to resign.

Grits For Breakfast documents the rise of futuristic technology in police work.

And former Texan Roy Edroso gives retiring blogger TBogg an appropriate sendoff.

A few cruise missiles fired into Syria ought to take our mind off his problems

When your spying comes to light,

And you're stymied by the Right,

A new puppy's not enough.

With the libs and cons a-screamin',

He can't be another Lincoln

When his shots all find the rough.

So relax. In a few days we'll be launching Cruz missiles into Syria, the week after that Egypt, and by this time next month everybody will have gotten over their outrage because football season will be in full swing.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled fantasy team drafts.

Sunday Funnies

Except if you do something really evil, like use chemical weapons, we might fire a few cruise missiles from our jets and battleships.

Fifty years later, a dream half-fulfilled

In 1963 the March was for jobs and freedom. Today... still jobs. And justice.

Fifty years ago, the goals of the March on Washington were simple: black people came together with enlightened white people to demand equal rights and the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

 But a half-century later, African-Americans have realized only half the dream.

Today, black people are free to move wherever their money can take them. But that right has become almost irrelevant because too many African Americans, black men in particular, can’t find legitimate work that would allow them to feed, clothe and provide for a family.

When you add in the mix the mass incarceration of young black men, urban violence, racial profiling and the dilution of voting-rights laws and affirmative action programs, it is not surprising that it will take two rallies to mark the historic march and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech.

On one hand, African-Americans have come incredibly far since King delivered his famous speech. On the other, a lot of black people in urban America face some of the same challenges they did when King moved into a dilapidated West Side apartment in the ’60s.

More on that from Charles Blow.

I’m absolutely convinced that enormous steps have been made in race relations. That’s not debatable. Most laws that explicitly codified discrimination have been stricken from the books. Overt, articulated racial animus has become more socially unacceptable. And diversity has become a cause to be championed in many quarters, even if efforts to achieve it have taken some hits of late.

But my worry is that we have hit a ceiling of sorts. As we get closer to a society where explicit bias is virtually eradicated, we no longer have the stomach to deal with the more sinister issues of implicit biases and of structural and systematic racial inequality.

I worry that centuries of majority privilege and minority disenfranchisement are being overlooked in puddle-deep discussions about race and inequality, personal responsibility and societal inhibitors.

I wonder if we, as a society of increasing diversity but also drastic inequality, even agree on what constitutes equality. When we hear that word, do we think of equal opportunity, or equal treatment under the law, or equal outcomes, or some combination of those factors?

And I worry that there is a distinct and ever-more-vocal weariness — and in some cases, outright hostility — about the continued focus on racial equality.

So far we have come, so far we have yet to go.

I want to celebrate our progress, but I’m too disturbed by the setbacks.

Update:

NBC News is asking all Americans to share their dreams as the nation celebrates the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic "I Have a Dream" speech. Beginning today through Wednesday, everyone is invited to take part in #DreamDay by completing the statement "I have a dream that _________." NBC News is spotlighting the messages across its shows and digital platforms, sharing the dreams of the nation with millions.

The video, photo and text messages can be submitted to NBC News using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine, with the hashtag #DreamDay. A curated collection of the submissions will be featured on “TODAY” and “NBC Nightly News” with thousands of dreams spotlighted on NBCNews.com/DreamDay. NBC's owned and affiliate stations will also be asking local communities to share their dreams.