Mark Byron

Draft Musings

I was busy earning my keep last night during the NBA draft. The Pistons merely picked D-league fodder, especially after trading away their first rounder, D.J. White, who looked like he could be Jason Maxiell Jr, for a pair of Seattle second-rounders. The first of the two, Walter Sharpe, is described as being "a bit raw;" he'll get the Amir Johnson Memorial Locker in the D-league. I would have hoped they grabbed Joey Dorsey, who looked a lot like a young Ben Wallace in Memphis' Final Four run; Portland grabbed him with the next pick.

The interesting thing about the Pistons in the post-season, other than bringing Michael Curry on-board as head coach, was the rumors of a Prince-and-Billups for Carmello Anthony trade. Denver turned it down, but I could see it helping both teams. However, the signal that sends is that Joe Dumars is ready to hand the reins over to his Mini Me, Rodney Stuckey.

I don't understand the Nets trading away Richard Jefferson to Milwaukee for two journeymen, unless it's a salary dump. I also don't understand the Bucks then picking  Joe Alexander with the 8th pick; you don't spend that high a pick on someone who isn't going to start, unless they picture playing a lot of small ball with both Jefferson and Alexander playing forward at the same time.

I have a hard time thinking of Michael Beasley without thinking about a Mrs. Beasley doll that was Buffy's sidekick on Family Affair; my sister had a talking Mrs. Beasley doll with (as per my motto above) a chatty ring. However, he'll probably turn out to be a nastier version of Luol Deng; he, Shawn Marion and D-Wade will get the Heat back in the hunt in a hurry, depsite Pat Riley's lusting for a point guard.

O.J. Mayo? Somehow, I see him being the next Harold "Baby Jordan" Miner, who was a fellow USC matriculator who never really blossomed at the pro level. I could wind up eating my words, though.

Swinging With Tony Kennedy

Conservatives were ripping Anthony Kennedy rather hard for being the swing vote yesterday in a 5-4 decision to strike down the death penalty for a non-lethal rape case; the guy on Death Row was there for repeatedly raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. However, one thing that we might want to remember in that case is that the standard for capital punishment since the 1960s has been that there has to be some sort of murder involved in the crime for the death penalty to be imposed; capital punishment for things like rape or bank robbery were thrown out. One of my favorite web sites has the motto "Stare Decisis is fo' Suckas" but Kennedy is one such sucka who tends to go with established precedent.

I'm not sure if that standard isn't a good idea after all.  Once we get past the murder-only line, what other crimes do we trot out the death penalty for? China's executed CEOs for fraud and a lot of Muslim countries dispatch homosexuals and adulterers. Even though Patrick Kennedy (not the Congressman, the Louisiana rapist spared by his namesake) looks to be on the Lord High Executioner's little list of folks "that never will be missed," I think the line is in the right place.

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Justice Kennedy redeemed himself today to a lot of those disgruntled conservatives by being part of a 5-4 conservative decision overturning the District of Columbia's handgun band, holding for the first time that people do have a right to bear arms as individuals, not just as members of an organized militia.

Police can't be everywhere; their job isn't as much to prevent crime as to track down criminals once a crime has been committed. Self-defense is one of the reasons the Second Amendment is in the Constitution; even in a 911-era, police aren't going to stop armed bad guys from doing what they want to do, and individual citizens have the right to defend themselves.

Christmas in June

Yes, it must be, because James Dobson is talking about fruitcake; Matt Brown has some good linkage on the issues at hand and here's a transcript of the 2006 Obama speech that set everyone's favorite Christian psychologist off.

I'm rather disappointed in Dobson's choice of words, especially since he is a professional psychologist; at least that's his academic background, with a Ph.D. in child development from USC; here's one Christian leader with a legit doctoral (from a well-regarded secular school, no less), Bene, no diploma mill here.

Obama's view of the constitution may be flawed, to be sure, but it isn't crazy. Calling the take of a Harvard-educated lawyer a "fruitcake interpretation" does a disjustice to folks who struggle with mental illness and does a disjustice to political discourse. The second definition of fruitcake is "nut," in the sense of "a foolish, eccentric, or crazy person."

Right now, Dobson's diatribe seems more foolish and eccentric than Obama's Call to Renewal speech. I don't agree with a lot of what Obama shared in that speech, but it was a level-headed look at how to speak a message of faith and hope in a multi-religious setting which has a lot to absorb, more level headed than Dobson's reply.

If Obama is foolish, it is the spiritual foolishness of merely looking at the Gospels in the absence of the rest of the Bible. Dobson has a tactical foolishness of overstating his case and saying things that might make sense in a narrow conservative audience but sound batty and multiple notches over the top to secular ears.

As both a caring follower of Christ and someone who's getting treated for depression, I don't like people unfairly calling someone crazy, which is what Dobson did with Obama. That's rhetoric that should be found on a Free Republic post, not on a Christian ministry show.