This dude lost almost 1 BILLION dollars!?!?!

However, it must be nice to have a BILLION DOLLARS to lose. I can kinda feel his pain and then I kinda can't. I don't think his lifestyle is going to look any different tomorrow than how it did two days ago. It's paper money, so it's not the same as if somebody stole money from his savings account at Compass Bank, but still it is a BILLION DOLLARS.

Am I missing something here? What do I need to do in order to have a BILLION DOLLARS that I am free to invest?

Blue-ray teaches us about capitalism

It's not about the best or cheapest products flourishing in the marketplace. It's simply about supply and demand. Sony got the suppliers (read: Hollywood) to embrace their format and thus you can put your HD-DVD player in the pile where your Dreamcast, cassette tape player, and your rotary phone reside. Or you can store it somewhere special and hope it becomes a collector's item one day.

LeBron Inc.

He's not another dumb jock. It's crazy that a guy so young understands so much about the game (yes, it's a double entendre...every once and a while I like to flex my literary device swag).

Jay-Z and LeBron

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports wrote an intriguing article discussing the relationship between Jay-Z and LeBron. As I was reading it, the first thing that came to mind was the NBA rule against collusion and tampering, e.g. Owners and GMs can't talk publicly about their interest in players under contract with other teams. Apparently, even when Jay-Z, part owner of the Nets, spoke publicly about LeBron potentially coming the the Nets, the league didn't punish him. The second thing that came to mind was how fascinating and how statistically unlikely it is that a guy who grew up in the housing projects of Akron and a guy who grew up in the housing projects of Brooklyn could one day be collaborators with both operating huge media conglomerates. The third thing I thought about was how cool it was that two guys who "made it" through the conduit of entertainment (read: playing sports and rapping) have translated their on court and on mike skills into successful business ventures. So many young people see playing ball or rappin' as their only way out of their 'hood. It is nice to see that 2 guys who are amongst the few who "make it" from their communities aren't content with the currency of fame and notoriety with somebody else receiving the bulk of the profits from their abilities. They both seem to understand how to exploit capitalism instead of being exploited by capitalism.

Politics ain't the only thing that makes strange bedfellows

I find it quite amusing that Bob Knight, one of the most polarizing coaches in the sports media landscape, is now going to do a stint with the worldwide leader. I vividly remember the interview of Bob Knight by Jeremy Schaap where he punked Jeremey by saying he had a long way to go before he could measure up to his dad (the late, great Dick Schaap). I also have read articles from others in the ESPN family that have provided stinging analysis of Knight's character. And now is all forgiven? What happens when Bob Knight bumps into Pat Forde at the snack machine (hopefully the .com people office in the same building as the on-air talent)? I would love to see how some of the ESPN talent interact with Knight when he's up in Bristol. Do they stay away from him? Or do they glad hand and suck up to him? I guess there are at least two lessons here: 1)It's easy to critique someone from a distance, but do so with the understanding of one day that distance might shrink considerably and 2) politics ain't the only thing that makes strange bedfellows. Money is such a powerful motivator...capitalism - ya gotta love it!

Sacrilege or just good old fashion capitalism?

Is there a line where marketing or a TV show crosses into the realm of sacrilege? I was flipping between several TV shows and landed on an old Good Times episode where Fishbone the Wino was mistakenly thought to be dead and attended his own funeral dressed as a woman. When it was discovered that Fishbone was not dead, Willona, JJ and other cast members began clapping, jumping, and singing about Fishbone in a manner obviously parodying stereotypical black church exuberance (notice I didn't call it worship...that's a completely separate topic) in celebration of Fishbone not being dead. Was this sacrilege?

The second thing I came across to today was this post about the Christian imagery and themes used to promote LeBron James. Is Nike simply consistently using a transcendental motif to market and uplift "King James" to the rare, crossover, iconic status of M.J. and Tiger Woods? Or is it taking it over the line and prostituting Christian imagery and text for profit? Is Nike wrong for trying to do so? Or is this reflective of the ends that the producers capitalism will go in order to feed itself. Can Christians be upset at this infringement of their religion by capitalism when capitalism seems to be welcomed by Christians when people purchase their books, buy their sermons, attend their conferences, and watch their movies? There have been times in the history of Christianity where it has co-oped something pagan and made it Christian (Christmas and Halloween are two examples of such actions). Since Christianity has shown a willingness to lift from that which is pagan, sanitize it, and make it their own, how much of a problem should Christians have when the reverse happens?