bruin haters redux

no apology from the bruin hater. instead, he now claims he was complimentary and not sexist or dismissive of women athletes in general and of male athletes not playing football:

1) In the column, I wrote, "UCLA’s women’s teams have won 30 championships. That’s more than the total titles won each by Tennessee, Colorado and Nebraska." Period. That’s what I wrote. Folks, this was a compliment. Nothing more. Some thought I was mocking women and being sexist.

2) I also wrote, "The Bruins have been more successful than any other school in sports that don’t make headlines or money. But that’s not the worst development, particularly when mixed with 11 men’s basketball championships and that whole Wooden Era thing." Period. That’s what I wrote. Again, this was intended as praise. Nothing more. Do you really think someone would attempt to demean the contributions of John Wooden? No one, not even me, not even 10 of me, is that big of an idiot.

Given the tone of my column, it’s understandable how these points were misconstrued.

misconstrued? folks, this is called revisionist history. again, here is the original column entitled, "ucla's titles add up, but do they count?" hard to misconstrue that one.

and then i laughed again for his sorry attempt to re-write his original column.

adding mauritius to my "must visit" list

i recently learned that this tiny country off the east coast of africa is not only beautiful but an amazing melting pot.

most citizens have at least one of the following ethnic background: indian, chinese, african, french. most citizens have one of the following religious belief: catholic, hindu and muslim. the economy is strong, the percentage of people living below the poverty line (10%) is lower than in the us (12%), uk (17%) or canada (15.9%), the literacy rate is high (85.6%) and they all get along well. violent crimes are uncommon and some say, the overall crime rate is relatively low. what utopia.

perhaps we could learn from mauritians on how to embrace differences and diversity and still live well in a beautiful paradise.

king drew redux

this "new training" for staff was a little too late for edith isabel rodriguez. but, i suppose, it is better than nothing.

i am still appalled that after all the past fatal mistakes, gross negligence and incompetence previously unearthed at king drew (i guess, it is now king harbor), all of those things still continued.

one can only hope that the county supervisors, hospital managers, doctors, nurses and every other staff at king drew learn something about actually caring for patients. but then again, they should have already been trained.

another tragedy is that this hospital is supposed to serve an impoverished community. unfortunately, that service has not been provided.

in memoriam: edith isabel rodriguez

i read this very disturbing news story about edith isabel rodriguez, who died after writhing in pain from abdominal pains for 45 minutes on the floor of the emergency room at king drew hospital and where NO ONE - doctors, nurses or other staff - helped her. this is unacceptable!!!

one would think that this tragedy should never have happened. yet, it did. how can we avoid this tragedy from ever happening again?

bruin haters make me laugh

i recently read this sports column in the orange county register regarding ucla's place in history as the first school to win 100 ncaa national championships when ucla's women's water polo team won.

the columnist wrote:

Impressive, 100 championships certainly are. That's a nice round number. Then again, so is zero — the roundest of them all, in fact — and also the total number of football championships won by the Bruins since 1955.

Isn't that the real way colleges are compared on the sports pages, by who beat who on Saturday and who outranked who on Sunday? Especially in this town, where everyone knows the name of USC's backup quarterback even as the Bruins themselves struggle to name their starting quarterback?

Sorry, UCLA boosters. Sorry to mention the four-letter word USC in a story about Bruins brilliance. But it's hard to escape the shadow of Trojans football, especially with the season opener lurking only 108 days away.

the article was so filled with hate that my knee-jerk reaction was anger. then, i just laughed. because the columnist apparently is a fan of u$c and couldn't contain his jealousy, he ended up sounding petty and jealous of ucla's accomplishments in sports....

in addition, he sounded like a hater of title 9 and a hater of anything not involving u$c football when he diminished the accomplishments of ucla's female and male athletes who played on non-football teams. he said:

The Bruins have been more successful than any other school in sports that don't make headlines or money. But that's not the worst development, particularly when mixed with 11 men's basketball championships and that whole Wooden Era thing.

Someone has to win men's volleyball (UCLA has 19 times), men's tennis (UCLA has 16 times) and softball (UCLA has 10 times). So three of the school's past five titles have come in women's water polo. That's better than not winning three championships in a row.

what he doesn't understand is that these "non-money making" or "non-headline making" sports produce world class (female and male) athletes that make every american proud. think of those women gymnasts and softball teams winning medals in the olympics; think jackie robinson; think arthur ashe; think jackie joyner. i guess, to this guy, they don't count and were "the worst development."

considering that ucla swept u$c in basketball, football and baseball in the 2006-2007 season, i suddenly found the article funny. i also remembered that ucla has the longest winning streak against u$c in football (8 years). that made the article funnier.

by the way, i did not misquote the columnist when he said, "Sorry to mention the four-letter word USC in a story about Bruins brilliance." (emphasis added.) then, i laughed some more.

love is in the air

i know we are only about a month and a half removed from march madness but i can't wait for the next college basketball season to start. it took me a while to get over ucla's most recent and repeat loss at the hands of florida.... but, those losses are in the past now.

i have also moved on from arron afflalo's decision to bail for the greener pastures of the nba, where he can join other bruin alums baron davis (golden state), matt barnes (golden state), earl watson (seattle), jason kapono (miami), dan gadzuric (milwaukee), and former teammates jordan farmar (la lakers), ryan hollins (charlotte), and trevor ariza (orlando). (am i forgetting any other bruins?) besides, kapono's record as a 3-point specialist (with an nba ring to boot), golden state's inspiring playoffs performance in the nba courtesy of the plays of baron davis and matt barnes (albeit unsuccessful) and farmar's not-so-bad performance as a starter against steve nash in the playoffs (again, albeit unsuccesful), have eased the pain of afflalo's departure.

so why all the anticipation?

love.

kevin love is coming to westwood! finally, ucla will again have a legit center with nice, strong hands and smooth post moves. as much as lorenzo mata and alfred aboya have done for the program, i consider them to have either spaghetti (mata) or brick (aboya) hands. how many times have they been stripped under the basket, or worse, just couldn't hang on to the ball? i do appreciate their hustle and grit (and they are definitely way better than fey), but love will just take the program to lofty heights.

high expectations? hell, yeah! ucla went to the national championship game in 2006 with a ryan hollins just barely coming into his own and struggled his first 3 1/2 years at ucla as its 7'0 center. this year, ucla went to the final four with mata and aboya. with a true center like love, ucla has a legitimate chance to win it all. i am NOT going to jinx it by saying they will definitely win it all because there are so many unknown factors that come into play.

after all, josh shipp just had another hip surgery. but hopefully, he learned from past mistakes by taking rehab seriously this time so he can be ready to play come november. we still don't know whether nikola dragovic could play within howland's defense-first system. michael roll still needs to play better defense and gain confidence in his offense (and please, stop all the pump fakes!). and james keefe needs to be tougher. also, i don't know who howland will start as a 2 because of afflalo's departure (maybe westbrook?) and whether that person will have afflalo's defensive intensity. also, will howland's teams ever learn to play offense against a zone?

but then again, darren collison is back with a more experienced russell westbrook (who performed admirably though poorly during that ucla v. west virginia game) backing him up at point guard. again, mata and aboya will still provide much needed support off the bench. mbah a moute should be injury-free to regain his explosiveness, and chace stanback is coming in along with love. and finally, florida's big men are gone.... finally!

yes, love will bring much joy to westwood. he has the talent, skill and the athleticism. i saw a few youtube clips of him playing and the kid has a knack for throwing some nice passes. i can see him play within howland's system, and, he seems like a nice kid who is not all about fame and glory. all the pieces are there.

so, good luck in the nba, arron. bring much pride to the bruin faithful when you join your bruin bretheren in the nba. you were instrumental in bringing the ucla basketball program back to where it should be and pulling it out of the stench created by he-who-must-not-be-named.

welcome, love! ....and i am dreaming of banner number 12!

where to go next?

i need a long vacation badly. here are the candidates:
- australia/new zealand
- brazil
- morocco

australia/new zealand sounds like a fun place to go to and where i won't (presumably) have any problems communicating with people. perhaps i could even contact aussie/kiwi folks i met 8 years ago in europe while doing a contiki tour.

brazil... ahhhhh.... i was supposed to go there for new year 2 or 3 years ago but something came up and so i wasted $100 in getting a visa that i never used! ugh! that being said, i still want to go and going during their summer would be perfect!!!! i can just imagine getting around the amazon, checking out the rainforests, then beach bumming in rio.

morocco would be great too. i can just see myself riding a camel in the sahara, or visiting fez, casablanca and marakesh. plus, i have never been to any country in the african continent.

tough decision.