I know our readers don't want a to read a lot about Tiger's latest sexpacades story and I'm not commenting on any of that here. I have been checking out the Sports Villagers to see how they have been handling it, and that's been pretty fascinating to watch, since golf makes so much money from Tiger. This post is a twofer and the first comment I have is that the new Nike ad really creeped me out.

How many focus groups were used by Nike on this ad for them to believe this was a good spot? Was it Ari Fleischer's idea to use his dead father's voice to try and convince people that they should have some pity and sympathy for Tiger after he crashed and burned. Using Earl Woods' voice to sell Nike products was really egregious.

Second, the holier-than-thou head of The Masters, Billy Payne, sounded like a teabagger when he blasted Tiger publicly too. A nice old white Master telling Tiger how bad he is. Jesus. This is the club that didn't allow blacks into their midst until 1990 and still doesn't allow women in. When you have a shred of ground on which to claim moral superiority, then maybe you can talk. Until then, please STFU.

George Vecsey ripped them apart.

They are worse than we knew.

The people who run the Masters are not just stubborn rich guys who don’t want female members cluttering up their precious fairways, although that is bad enough.

Members stood around Wednesday and listened to Billy Payne, the grand pooh-bah of the Masters, deliver a mean-spirited lecture about the private life of Tiger Woods. The other members in attendance did not rush up and sedate Payne, or slap duct tape over his rude mouth, or jeer him down. They let him continue. Ol’ Billy probably wasn’t saying anything the other men in the green jackets hadn’t thought.

Without being asked, Payne launched into a prepared statement at his annual pretournament news conference, saying Woods had “disappointed all of us, and more importantly, our kids and our grandkids.”

He added: “Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children.”

Remind me again why we are supposed to talk in reverent tones about the Masters. Because it stands for money and power and the exclusion of women and goodness knows what hidden messages in the public rebuking of “our hero,” who is part Thai and part African-American.

Just asking, but would Payne have been so quick to deliver his little sermon to a white golfer who was caught straying? My guess is that some kind of double standard whacked Tiger Woods on the backswing. How dare he stray after all they’ve done for him...read on

Is that the reason they call it "The Masters"? Or should it be "The Massuhs"?

Would more people pay attention to Afghanistan if we drafted Tiger Woods? Click here for larger image.

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Talk about ego and image control. Because of King James and the actions NIKE took, they've created a LeBron-Gate. It's so ridiculous.

The first mistake Nike made in the viral video mess that is LeBron-gate was trying to hide something from Gary Parrish. If you dropped Parrish in the middle of Afghanistan he'd emerge with Osama bin Laden's carcass in one hand, the details of John Calipari's new contract in the other, and a cell phone secured between his teeth. Nice work, Nike. Who did you think you were trying to fool, anyway? ESPN? The second mistake Nike made in LeBron-gate?

It underestimated the angry mood of the country toward arrogant mega-corporations who think they can do what they want, when they want. Nike believes that because it runs cute commercials and pals around with handsome athletes, it's no different from a sniveling credit card company or predatory bank.

To many people, Nike is the sports equivalent of those entities. By confiscating video of LeBron James getting his muscled-up head dunked on and subsequently acting like the release of the video is a threat to national security, the company confirmed what many have long believed: Nike is a ruthless corporation no different from other cutthroat companies.

Nike has, after all, been repeatedly accused of running sweatshops. More on that in a moment.

I mean, I'd like LeBron to sign on with the Knicks because they've stunk for so long, but this is Cheneyesque behavior.

There's something about James and Nike that makes this story more stringent than it ordinarily would be. There wouldn't be as much outrage if there were video of Dwyane Wade or Kobe Bryant getting dunked on. There'd be interest, of course, but James is the most arrogant and guarded superstar in the NBA and Nike is the most arrogant and guarded company in sports. That combination has turned this story from pedestrian to interesting and, until Nike releases the video, it'll stay that way.

It's Nike's corporate-ness which is at the center of this entire fiasco. It's not just the public enjoying watching a giant company feel the pain of stepping on the wrong end of a rake. No rational human being would ever be this angry over a simple dunk video. This isn't about the dunk. This is about rage over the actions of the wealthy and powerful.

What harm would it have done to King James' image? Nothing. Who cares if he got dunked on? John Starks had an incredible dunk on Michael Jordan. Who remembers that now?

Did that dunk hurt his marketing image? Of course not. People should not buy their products until they release the footage so they never do this again. It wasn't a crime scene. The way they handled this situation is Gestapo-like. Only NBA fans would watch it and nobody would care at all. It was just fine for James to have 60 Minutes film him doing amazing things and making him out to be, well, a King, but this is somehow unacceptable to him.

John Cole wrote a great piece: "... But the vast majority of people who are stranded, and, I fear, dead in the flooded parts of NO in numbers we have not yet begun to discover and comprehend, did not ‘choose’ to ‘ignore’ the warnings. They simply had no place to go, no way to get there, no way to afford living in a motel/hotel somewhere else, no relatives outside the region, no automobile....read on"

So much truth in those words. My father didn't make it past the ninth grade and we struggled to make ends meet all through my years living at home. As a ten year old, I would see other kids with new sneakers and I'd make believe I had an older brother who would magically whisk me down to the store in his shiny car and buy me a pair of the newest Converse. There was no Nike or Puma around then and the color didn't much matter.

via Think Progress :Right-wing activist David Horowitz has been leading an aggressive effort “to limit what teachers may discuss and to bring more conservative views into the classroom.” Now he’s taking his ideological campaign to elementary schools, middle schools and high schools....read on

What these fools are doing is pretty much the same thing that Nike did to the NBA. These sneaker company idiots started targeting younger and younger kids in middle and high schools with their swarmy tongues and lucrative deals. Turning promising talent into egomaniacs that can only dunk the ball. The NBA's virtually unwatchable now since they were allowed to infiltrate the youth. Instead of learning how to use the glass on a fall away jumper or take some time practicing free throws, these kids are pampered night and day until they become useless on the court. (Lebron James might be the exception to the rule). Just watch an NBA game and you'll know what I'm saying. The new cliche that kids are screaming about now and will get air-time on 24/7 is "I failed my test because I'm a conservative." If Horowitz is allowed with all the other buffoons to enter the schools by the education officials we'll surely have a true prozac nation. Maybe David is in league with the drug companies. That might explain it part of it.