It just isn't fair.  If you peruse, say in Forbes, a gallery of America's wealthiest, the faces seem devoid of hue.  So many aging white guys, with a couple of Asians tossed in, presumably for "diversity".  Where are the black guys?  Is Oprah an "affirmative action" inclusion?

In the late Spring I look in our local newspaper at pictures with bio captions (by high school) of the top grads.  There are about five schools represented each day.  You can look daily for weeks without seeing hue.  Lots of fresh-faced white kids, with a couple of Asians tossed in, presumably for "diversity".  Not that it's relevant here, but another thing that has struck me is that in the little bio captions these kids always seem to have listed both a mother and a father.

I was looking at a feature video about a big-city Texas high school.  Immediately after school most of the students would head to the big downtown library.  Obviously almost a century old, with ornate columns, three sets of steps in the front ascending to the entry, a courtyard of sorts with seating-high walls, a couple of "handicap" ramps per ADA law.  Interesting.  The white kids and the Asians climb the stairs, backpacks loaded down with books, and head straightaway through the doors.  The black kids and the Hispanics and/or Latinos -- whatever -- carry their skateboards.  They ascend the stairs, but only part way, then start dashing and jumping their boards in all directions at the entryway and courtyard.

After a couple of hours, the youngsters from within the library begin to appear, departing with tired eyes, but with a look of steely purpose, and walking briskly with a destination clearly top of mind, presumably home.  Meanwhile, most of the skateboarders remain, though a few have opted for a basketball court a few blocks away.

Harvard researchers tell us that black middle- and high schoolers spend one-third the time as whites and Asians studying and more than three times more watching tv.  Then we read that town "leaders" -- worried about boredom among black teens -- propose organizing "midnight basketball" to drain them of some of their pent-up energy.  Black members of school boards in system after system just know that what they see in their schools is unique.  Black boys are sent to detention or suspended disproportionately -- by a factor of three or more -- and that can mean only one thing: teachers -- including, even especially, black teachers -- are racists and biased.  Those same Harvard researchers document that the disparity is true nationwide and has zero to do with racism or bias, but that doesn't influence the locals.

Okay, so I know the peer-reviewed research that shows that IQs among American blacks are -- in the aggregate -- one whole standard deviation (from the mean) below that of whites and a little more than that below Asians -- again, I hasten to iterate and highlight, in the aggregate.  Viewing the bell curve illustrates, then, that only 14% of whites have IQs below that of the average black.  Nonetheless, if blacks coming out of high school account for about 1/7 of the class and if colleges and universities are fair, shouldn't 1/7 of the freshmen class at Princeton, Wake Forest, MIT and Yale be black?

Obviously, the answer is "yes" and that's why our legal system -- including the U.S. Supremes -- has invented "Affirmative Action" discrimination to insure such fairness.  Whew!  Thank you.

Have you -- like I -- ever perused the football or basketball program or media guide for your college or university team?  Have you -- like I -- ever noted the contrast in hue demographics versus the Forbes list or the late-Spring local paper top-grads features or the faces in the library versus outside it?  Hold on.  Don't jump ahead here.  I'm talking about the head coaches.  They are disproportionately white, big time.  That's why the NCAA and the BCA (Black Coaches Association [Note: there is no WCA]) have stepped up to the fairness plate to impose their version of "affirmative action" (discrimination), though some under the umbrella of "diversity". 

The NFL (National Football League) requires that before any team hires a new head coach it must include in its applicant pool and interview at least one black candidate.  There are, I think (off the top of my head), eight black head coaches for the thirty-two teams.  That means that blacks are disproportionately represented relative to the percentage of the population at large.  Nonetheless, the NFL continues to require "affirmative action" (discrimination).

There are 22 blacks among the 64 offensive and defensive coordinators in the NFL.  To the NFL that means that fairness dictates that there be 10 more blacks, half of the 64.  To the 22 it must mean that every time there's a head coaching vacancy they have to pack their bags and jump aboard a plane, regardless of whether they're actually being considered.  They (the 22) oughta band together and demand big money for agreeing to interview.

There are thirty NBA (National Basketball Association) teams, and at my last count nine black head coaches.  So again, blacks are disproportionately represented.  Despite that, the BCA continues to whine.  Of course, as I see it, the self-defined mission of the BCA -- as with the NAALCP (Nattional Association for the Advancement of Liberal Colored People) -- is to whine loud and whine often.

Okay, finally let me get to it, get to my real point, get to what has my boxers all in a bunch.  It is incontrovertible that both the NBA and the NFL discriminate against white athletes.  82+% of NBA players are black.  65+% of NFL players are black.  Blacks account for about 15% of the population.  Independent auditors have carefully assessed, then told me flat out that I'm no Lebron James.  At 5'7" and a vertical leap of 4 1/2", I may not be a crowd draw, but I demand my due.  Fair is, after all, fair.

It is incontrovertible that  America's colleges' and universities' football and basketball programs both discriminate against white athletes. 46.1% of NCAA Division 1A football players are black. 61.1% of NCAA college basketball players are black.  Blacks account for about 15% of the population.  These schools keep recruiting guys who run fast, jump high, hit the trey, dunk backwards, dribble with either hand, pass without looking, and irrelevant factors like that.  If they were employing the right  - i.e., fair -- criteria, 85% of players would be white.  I demand a piece . . . and justice.  I deserve hope and, thus, change.

Don't get me wrong now.  This isn't about me.  I see myself here as a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton, you know, one of the Justice Brothers.  Big-time football and basketball will obviously be better off with more "diversity".  It's conventional wisdom.  It's settled science.  It would be just.  It would be fair.  And Yao Ming may be big, but he's not enough.  The token Chicom.

So, how do we make this work?  First, we think like government "civil rights" bureaucrats.  Never mind what the NBA or NFL want, what the colleges and universities want.  They may own the game and own the programs, but property rights don't stack up against "diversity" and fairness.  Never mind what fans want, and will support and pay for.  The free market is clearly flawed, self-serving, unjust.  What's needed is a sorta Title IX for short, slow, white guys who can't jump.

The original Title IX served to devalue testosterone in favor of pony tails.  Our new "Title IX"-type initiative will discriminate against endomorphic body types with fast-twitch muscles, disproportionately characteristic of West-African-origin people especially males.

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Sidebar:  Later, we'll take up the pesky issue of those ectomorphs with slow-twitch muscles and  disproportionately large hearts and lungs, so characteristic of the East-African-origin guys -- like the Kenyans and Ethiopians -- who keep dominating distance running, whether track, cross country, or road racing.

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It'll be just like ignoring SAT and ACT scores and high-school grades and class standing in college-admissions decisions in favor of "diversity"  and "richness of life experience."  It'll be just like refusing to promote fire fighters because they're not black enough.  Perfect solution.

CNN reports here that golf balls are "humanity's signature litter".  Just in the United States alone, there are 300,000,000 golf balls lost each year.  And it takes between 100 and 1,000 years for a ball to biodegrade.  Moreover, in the core of the ball are harmful chemicals which, when released, can harm both flora and fauna.

Now, I've been an active supporter of both the First Tee Program for kids and the Wounded Warrior Project for wounded veterans and their families.  Sorry, kids and sorry war heroes, I've gotta rethink here.  We may well  be endangering or injuring some snail darters and seaweed.  Maybe, we need to at least mitigate the devastation by going to treehugger.com to begin using biodegradable tees and balls.

Golfers could also contribute toward saving and sustaining the planet by leaving 13 clubs in the garage, and playing solely with a putter.  Studies show that fewer balls are lost and fewer golfers are able to tee off since a typical putter-only round takes 11 hours to complete.  Both the strategy and the unintended consequence result in fewer lost balls in the global aggregate.

I beg for some brainstorming about this crisis.  If guys don't go out with their buddies to engage in sports, we can assume that birth rates will increase and we could face a population-bomb crisis.  If guys get discouraged with golf and switch to tennis, this will result in a precipitous increase in CO₂ exhalation per player per hour, and the global-warming crisis will be ever-more exascerbated.  If golf-course revenues are seriously hurt, many might close and revert to being cow pastures.  Uh-oh, worsening the precipitous methane crisis.  Algore alert!


Postscript!!  Shortly after publishing the above, I tuned in to the Rush Limbaugh Program, and he started talking about this.  Dr. Roy Spencer, Climatologist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, emailed Rush to inform that zinc -- the alleged dangerous chemical element in golfball cores -- is 95% of the content in a penny.  And 400,000,000 pennies are lost each year.  Now I could see that as justification for doing nothing about my golf game (such that it is) and golf charity.  But, that's not how I am.  I just want to add the admonition to my fellows that we avoid using pennies as ball markers.

Thursday November 5, 2009 in the early afternoon there was a terrorist attack at the U.S. Army's Fort Hood.  The apparent sole-perpetrator was an Islamist who gunned down 43 people, killing 13 and wounding another 30.  The victims were Fort Hood military personnel, soldiers either preparing to ship out for duty, soldiers having just shipped in from duty, and some bystanders.

It is no surprise here that CNN, ABC and PBS "news" people, et al, are reporting this  as a possible case of PTSD with the shooter as victim.  After all, the shooter is Muslim, a devotee of the religion of peace.  After all, what could have set him off to do something so crazy?  And there's also the matter that this would have to be a brand-new disorder.  "PTSD" would have to stand for "pre-traumatic stress disorder" since this psychiatrist hasn't done anything yet other than talk with people.  Of course, when deployed, he'd be in the rear, not in combat.  Such PC drivel is standard stock in trade for these folks.

What is of surprise to me, however, is the handling of this Islamist by the United States Army.  Up until July, Major Nidal Malik Hasan was psychiatric fellow at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and a captain.  In late Spring he received both a poor performance review and a promotion.  Following graduation from Virginia Tech in 1997, Hasan enrolled in the military's Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda.  Following that schooling he did an internship, then a residency, then a six-year fellowship, all at Bethesda.

In his off hours for all of those years Hasan gave speeches, chastising infidels, and imploring conversion to Islam.  He was combative both on-duty and off-duty, and explicit regarding his disagreement with American involvement both in Iraq and Afghanistan.  According to an aunt, he had sought a discharge from the Army.  He was not a closet Islamist.

Was it an actionable clue to intelligence people when  Islamic men enrolled in pilot training, but didn't want to learn take-offs and landings?  I think the clues here were as clear and as actionable for U.S. Army superior officers and the clues were repeated and repeated by Hasan for years.  What made it clear to Hasan that it was time?  Impending deployment overseas to support a war against Islamists.

Nidal Malik Hasan resided within the U.S. Army and "prospered" there for a decade, became an officer, was even promoted to the rank of major.  Enlisted -- even sgt. majors -- and even lieutenants and captains had to salute him and follow his orders.  He wasn't just allowed to infiltrate the mammoth Fort Hood Army base; he was placed there.  And as an obvious radical Islamist was even not proscribed from owning and possessing personal firearms and ammunition.  The wolf was in the hen house.

Do we expect the "news" media to kneel at the altar of PC crapola?  Do we expect such from college professors?  Do we expect such from k-12 government-school teachers?  Do we expect such from the Hollywood elites?  Do we expect such from an Obama and a Pelosi and a Reid and a, well you know the roster?  Yes.  Yes. Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  Do we expect such from the ranking officers of the U.S. Army?  We'd better not.