Dear New Orleans: We've Moved On

We move on. Our capacity to care, to really care, about the plight of strangers knows its bounds. It's human nature, I think. No one of us can be deeply concerned about every issue facing every segment of humanity. We would implode, go into psychological and emotional meltdown.

And, so, we have moved on, most of us, from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The haunting images of the huddled masses in the Super Dome, of the decimated homes of the Ninth Ward, of the rusting, abandoned cars, and the hollow eyes of worn out victims are fading in our minds.

We have moved on to other things more pressing, closer to home. We are concerned with rising gas prices, falling property values, a teetering economy, an impending election.

I am sorry to say that I had moved on. I was there, in New Orleans, just ten days after the event that would forever change the face of the city. I stayed there, lived and worked there, for nine months...as an insurance adjustor. Every day during those long months, I dealt with devastated people and their decimated properties. I saw the incredible resilience of some. I saw others reach the breaking point. I hugged an older woman while she shuddered and wept over her lost life. I listened while a young mother ranted about how little was being done by the American government to help restore her beloved city. I talked with some who declared they would never go back there; they just couldn't. Others said they would never live anywhere else.

I was there and it felt like I would always be there, if not in body, then in spirit. I would never forget the sights, the sounds, the smells of that place. But here I am...I've moved on.

Thankfully, not everyone has. Some cannot. Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson is one of those. He is a New Orleans native, and he is angry and frustrated at the lack of progress in the recovery and rebuilding of one of America's most unique and soulful cities. Can you blame him?

Me neither.

Read the Avery Johnson quotes as recorded by Phil Jasner of the Philadelphia Daily News here.

Read...and remember those who still cannot just move on.

Cuban's Missile Crisis

I have struggled for a long time with this question: Is Mark Cuban a genius businessman, in the vein of so many self-made billionaires, or is he the luckiest damned geek who ever lived? Is he just the computer nerd his hairstyle and twisted logic suggest? Is he crazy? Is he crazy like a fox?

One thing is sure: He can be annoying.

I have defended Cuban in these pages several times. I have lauded his success as an NBA owner. I have called out the Galloways and Bondys of the world for their incessant criticisms of the man.

But now comes word that Cuban's Internet movie company, Magnolia, is set to distribute a re-tooled verions of the controversial piece of trash called "Loose Change." This is the movie the Bushwhackers and conspiracy theorists love to tout. This is the movie that strings together a dubious chain of "evidence" to suggest that 9/11 was an inside job, that Bush and his cronies in a vast (and vast would be an understatement) conspiracy actually pulled off the attacks of 9/11 to give little George a reason to go finish the job on Saddam that big George started.

The suggestion is not just aberrant; it is abhorrant. It is dispicable. It is disgusting. It is a slap in the face to the American government, the thousands who died and/or lost loved ones on 9/11, and the subsequent thousands of American soldiers who have put themselves in harm's way.
Cuban may have some level of genius in him. But his decision to align himself in any way with this film proves unequivocally that he has no concept of the reality of public perception or the damage he may do his own cause as owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

It seems, with his failed reality show, his constant outcries, his frequent odd statements (remember, he said the Kobe rape thing would be "good" for the NBA), and his sundry ways of keeping himself in the news, that the man is an attention whore.

Well, he is bound to get some attention from this.

(Sigh.) Go, Mavs.

(See Mark Davis' opinion piece on the subject here.)

New York Writer Blasts Cuban.... YAWNNNNN!

The reading of the Filip Bondy article from the New York Daily News across local airwaves today may be generating a lot more heat than light. Bondy's article, titled "Cuban Is No-Rings Boss" is pretty much dead-on, but devious, and possibly destructive, nonetheless.
Bondy manages to draw a couple of Mavericks offside, namely Stackhouse and Jason Terry:
...If you talk to the players, they don't sound so thrilled with the man. Cuban has hijacked the national headlines. Sometimes it seems he is doing so at the expense of Nowitzki and his teammates. He is like George Steinbrenner, when The Boss was younger and at his Bossiest. A couple of the Mavericks worry that Cuban is coloring the perception of this team. Whenever Cuban screams about a call, the players somehow end up sounding like the chronic complainers.
"We don't want to give people the impression we're a whining team," Jerry Stackhouse says. "(Cuban) can be a distraction if you look at it that way. He's always going to be like that. He's not speaking for us. He's just like the fan in the 10th row. Some things are out of our control. Sometimes it does carry over.
We made a conscious decision as a team to lay off the refs."
Cuban will be there again tonight, fussing and screaming. Does the owner cost the Mavs a free throw or two?
"You get on somebody long enough, they're going to have a reaction," Jason Terry says.'

These aren't new revelations. Dirk had already, a good while back, suggested maybe Mark sit down and shut up. The players know the deal. In so many ways, Cuban is a great owner...among the best. He reaches into those deep pockets and spends the money necessary to put a talented, contending team on the floor. He gets emotionally attached, not just to his club, but to his players.
And, he's a flake.
Big deal! Give me a flaky, whiny, over-cheering, blame-shifting, ref-bashing, Stern-hating, national embarrassment Cuban over anything we have ever had in the Mav's owner's box in the past.
If the Mavs were cellar-dwellers no one would care what Cuban or his kids were doing. But they aren't. They are an elite team vying for a championship. So, everything is magnified. Their flaws, their quirks, as well as their obvious on-court dominance.
Look, I didn't grow up hating the Yankees because of Steinbrenner. Heck, I didn't even know who he was. I hated those damned Yankees because they were everything my Rangers never were. Namely, winners. Maybe New Yorkers hate it that the Mavs do what they do with flaky Cuban while their city-slickin' Knicks bring up the rear.
Why on the blessed earth would we in Dallas/Fort Worth allow national (read that, New York) perception to dictate how we feel about our teams or their owners? They don't live here. They don't want our teams to win. They still hold the whole damn lot of us accountable for JFK, for crying out loud. Does Cuban cost us a free throw? Give me a break! If he brings us a title, that is a small price to pay.