Call a spade a spade

I'm going to playa-hate two days in a row. That's alright because I'm much delayed in writing this entry. I wanted to write it up before I went on vacation.

I watched the NBA All-Star skills competition, three point contest, and dunk contest this year. I was channel surfing and found myself stopping on TNT. I ended up DVRing the event and watching most of "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey" live. I enjoyed the ability to skip TNT's very frequent commercial breaks when I actually watched the events.

One thing really bothered me during the telecast. TNT showed a fluff piece on Kobe Bryant. Kobe was shown meeting with a young boy who has been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Apparently Kobe has meet at least twice with this young child. Wow. What a great humanitarian. It probably took Kobe about 10 minutes combined. As I watched the piece I was pissed off because the last time I checked Kobe was still a damn rapist!

The only reason that the word "convicted" didn't appear in the previous sentence was because Kobe's defense team continually leaked information regarding the name and location of the victim to the media. His entire legal team should be debarred for repeatedly throwing the information to the press. The poor girl couldn't take the harassment and threats from blind Kobe loyalists so she had to bow out.

I've never understood fanatics. I am a fan of many people and things. I understand that the word "fan" is short for "fanatic". I'm not, however, dumb enough to believe that Michael Jackson is not a pedophile or that Kobe Bryant is not a rapist. I hate when people blindly defend their idols like lemmings over the cliff. Barry Bonds apologists fit in the same category.

TNT should be embarrassed and ashamed by the fluff piece. Kobe wasn't even participating in any of the events I mentioned on Saturday night. It was a cheap attempt by Kobe's people to clean up and polish his image.

It's time for the media to call a spade a spade and call a rapist a rapist. If you want to include "accused", that's your choice. I'm not going to.