After I wrote my previous blog on the LA Clippers controversy, it seems there have been a few new developments. The perpetrator of the racial slurs captured on audiotape, Clippers owner Donald Sterling, got his comeuppance when the National Basketball Association banned him for life from attending any more of his team’s games; they fined him $2.5 million; and they took the first steps towards forcing a sale of the Clippers.
President V?
The woman in question – V. Stiviano – now says she is not “his girlfriend.” To add to the circus-like atmosphere, whenever she appears in public Stiviano is wearing a very outlandish costume of rainbow visor, t-shirt, and short shorts (the visor to hide her pain). In one of the oddest twists of all, she has even announced she is running for president!
And Sterling’s estranged wife Shelly (who is also infamous for her own exhibition of racism) has been a cause of controversy herself, because of posing unlawfully as a government official – a health inspector – when she visited the run-down apartment buildings that she and Donald owned.
All in all, this is shaping up to be a story that will drag on for months in the newspapers, on radio and television, and on the internet.
Ben’s view
What perspective can I bring to this, as a 308-year-old time-traveling newspaper publisher, patriot, and observer of the human condition? (During the 1700s, I had certainly encountered my own share of odd, twisted, attention-craving, less-than-honest, and thoroughly addled individuals during my many years, both in the colonies and abroad, in London and Paris).
Perhaps we need to remember that justice will eventually be served, despite the many odd twists and turns this bizarre tale may take.
It could even turn out, as one commentator has suggested, that the legal processes which will come into play (as Sterling no doubt will resist the NBA order to sell the Clippers) could last for many years.
This all leads me to remind the reader of one of my Poor Richard's Almanack quotes of a few hundred years ago, which could have been helpful to Mr. Sterling: "Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
Your humble servant,
B.Franklin
President V?
The woman in question – V. Stiviano – now says she is not “his girlfriend.” To add to the circus-like atmosphere, whenever she appears in public Stiviano is wearing a very outlandish costume of rainbow visor, t-shirt, and short shorts (the visor to hide her pain). In one of the oddest twists of all, she has even announced she is running for president!
And Sterling’s estranged wife Shelly (who is also infamous for her own exhibition of racism) has been a cause of controversy herself, because of posing unlawfully as a government official – a health inspector – when she visited the run-down apartment buildings that she and Donald owned.
All in all, this is shaping up to be a story that will drag on for months in the newspapers, on radio and television, and on the internet.
Ben’s view
What perspective can I bring to this, as a 308-year-old time-traveling newspaper publisher, patriot, and observer of the human condition? (During the 1700s, I had certainly encountered my own share of odd, twisted, attention-craving, less-than-honest, and thoroughly addled individuals during my many years, both in the colonies and abroad, in London and Paris).
Perhaps we need to remember that justice will eventually be served, despite the many odd twists and turns this bizarre tale may take.
It could even turn out, as one commentator has suggested, that the legal processes which will come into play (as Sterling no doubt will resist the NBA order to sell the Clippers) could last for many years.
This all leads me to remind the reader of one of my Poor Richard's Almanack quotes of a few hundred years ago, which could have been helpful to Mr. Sterling: "Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
Your humble servant,
B.Franklin