I've been away but wanted to touch on a couple of week-old stories. First off, I both think Kanye West is (once again) a compete (if very talented) jackass and at the same time can't help feeling sorry for him, what with everyone booing him, his nearly teary apology on Leno (although what on earth was Jay thinking asking what Kanye's dead mom would've thought of his behavior!?), and, yes, even the president calling him a jackass (video below, here's longer audio in which the prez gets a little flustered about his choice of words):
Second, I watched the entire match live in which Serena Williams went off on the line judge, and I've been shocked at how many people have gone overboard in their disgust with her about it. While it wasn't her most poised moment, no doubt, it was definitely no worse than stuff McEnroe and other white men got away with, more and less, for years. And it was a horrible horrible call. Not only was it horrible, it was a call that just doesn't get made, like travelling on a last second shot in the NBA, or, what can I compare it to for the rest of us? Say you were to come home tonight (after a bad bad day at the office, as Serena was having) and find you were being not audited by the IRS, but flat-out fined $10k for that scratch ticket you won five bucks on and didn't declare. Kinda like that. Think you might go off on someone if that happened? When I offer this rant to people, some have come back at me with, but she threatened that poor woman's life! To those folks, I say that, first off, that they've been watching too much CSI and Order, or whatever it's called – people say "I'm gonna kill you" all the goddamn time, get over it. Second, would they be as horrified if a tiny asian woman had been screaming the same words at a large black female athlete?
