BREAKING NEWS:
THE GLOBAL GAME TARGETED IN
NEW STEROIDS SCANDAL
To Our Readers: The Global Game emphatically and categorically denies the scurrilous allegations that have recently been leaked to the press. We assure you that we have never knowingly taken, used or promoted any performance enhancing drugs. We expect to be fully vindicated at trial. For the full story, see below, after our Barry Bonds trial coverage. In the meantime, we ask that you keep TGG and all of its affiliates, subscribers and contributors in your thoughts and in your prayers. God Bless this tip sheet ("blog") and God Bless the United States of America.
IN THIS ISSUE:
-- GUS JOHNSON MARCH MADNESS GREATEST HITS
--JAPAN'S CRISIS
-- JAPAN'S HEROES
-- LIBYA -- "THE OBAMA DOCTRINE"
-- THE CIVIL WAR 150 YEARS LATER
-- DEMOGRAPHICS AS DESTINY: THE NEW FACE OF AMERICA
-- FINAL FOUR FINAL OBSERVATIONS
-- STEROIDS: THE BARRY BONDS TRIAL
-- STEROIDS: THE GLOBAL GAME ACCUSED
-- TGG OLD SCHOOL JAM OF THE WEEK
[OK, we made that last example up, but you get our point])
Count on TGG to have just the remedy.
What better cure for boredom during March Madness then 3:49 of Gus Johnson highlights? Gus Johnson is the best announcer in sports, period. Nobody conveys excitement --- the Thrill of Victory and The Agony of Defeat --- like Gus Johnson. It is a national disgrace that CBS does not put him on the Final Four broadcasts. But The Global Game has him right here, with a collection of the very best of his March Madness calls, and we can only speak for ourselves, but this may be the most thrilling 3:49 we spend all week
(hint: turn up the volume):
"Heartbreak City"
and
"The Slipper Still Fits," indeed.
 |
| A Gamer's Gamer |
Japan's Disaster
Although the world seemed to be paying less attention, the disaster in Japan continued to spiral into unimaginable despair, as captured in this summary of an NBC news report:
"A crack in a damaged reactor adds to Japan's problems, including the health of the plant workers and where to put
the country's 12,000 dead..."
Japan's Heroes
We can only hope that the world will take even more notice of the almost unimaginable heroism of the nuclear workers, firefighters, soldiers and others in Japan struggling to contain the nuclear catastrophe. As one report noted, the plant workers have been exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation since the crisis began three weeks ago. In the U.S. not nuclear power plant worker is allowed to be exposed to more than 50 millisieverts per year. "Crying is useless,," one worker wrote in an e-mail. "if we're in hell now, all we can do is crawl up toward heaven."
The Obama Doctrine
Meanwhile, as he decided to pursue a strategy of limited intervention in Libya, the latest Middle East flashpoint, the President laid out what many came to call "The Obama Doctrine" --- the U.S. would approach international crises by acting as a coalition-builder, spreading the costs and burdens among nations. "The burden of action should not be America's alone," Obama said. "Our task is instead to mobilize the international community for collective action, because, contrary to the claims of some, American leadership is not simply a matter
of going it alone."
The Obama Doctrine makes virtually perfect sense in theory. Who can argue with multilateral coalitions and shared burdens?
In practice, the problem is that the U.S. has as much military capabiity as virtually the rest of the world combined, and the U.S. has identified the Gadhafi regime
as its particular enemy.
The other problem was that the President said "Gadhafi must leave" without apparently being willing to actually do anything about it. All this frankly left the President and his team looking as if they hadn't really thought through their strategy --- or perhaps even worse (after reports surfaced of CIA operatives aiding the Libyan rebels) of saying one thing or doing another. [Not, as both TGG and Jerry Seinfeld have been known to observe in the past, that there's anything necessarily wrong with that....]
The problem was that the rationales the President cited --- intervention was necessary to prevent massacre of innocents [what happened to Rwanda, the Congo, and Bosnia?] and the U.S. should only act as part of a broad multilateral coalition which would share both costs and responsibility [but what about Iraq?] just didn't add up.
The cartoonists predictably had their field day with our young Commander-in-Chief....
Although the world seemed to be paying less attention, the disaster in Japan continued to spiral into unimaginable despair, as captured in this summary of an NBC news report:
"A crack in a damaged reactor adds to Japan's problems, including the health of the plant workers and where to put
the country's 12,000 dead..."
Japan's Heroes
We can only hope that the world will take even more notice of the almost unimaginable heroism of the nuclear workers, firefighters, soldiers and others in Japan struggling to contain the nuclear catastrophe. As one report noted, the plant workers have been exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation since the crisis began three weeks ago. In the U.S. not nuclear power plant worker is allowed to be exposed to more than 50 millisieverts per year. "Crying is useless,," one worker wrote in an e-mail. "if we're in hell now, all we can do is crawl up toward heaven."
 |
| Japan Calls Them "Nuclear Samurai" |
 |
| Unimaginable Courage |
The Obama Doctrine
Meanwhile, as he decided to pursue a strategy of limited intervention in Libya, the latest Middle East flashpoint, the President laid out what many came to call "The Obama Doctrine" --- the U.S. would approach international crises by acting as a coalition-builder, spreading the costs and burdens among nations. "The burden of action should not be America's alone," Obama said. "Our task is instead to mobilize the international community for collective action, because, contrary to the claims of some, American leadership is not simply a matter
of going it alone."
The Obama Doctrine makes virtually perfect sense in theory. Who can argue with multilateral coalitions and shared burdens?
In practice, the problem is that the U.S. has as much military capabiity as virtually the rest of the world combined, and the U.S. has identified the Gadhafi regime
as its particular enemy.
The other problem was that the President said "Gadhafi must leave" without apparently being willing to actually do anything about it. All this frankly left the President and his team looking as if they hadn't really thought through their strategy --- or perhaps even worse (after reports surfaced of CIA operatives aiding the Libyan rebels) of saying one thing or doing another. [Not, as both TGG and Jerry Seinfeld have been known to observe in the past, that there's anything necessarily wrong with that....]
The problem was that the rationales the President cited --- intervention was necessary to prevent massacre of innocents [what happened to Rwanda, the Congo, and Bosnia?] and the U.S. should only act as part of a broad multilateral coalition which would share both costs and responsibility [but what about Iraq?] just didn't add up.
The cartoonists predictably had their field day with our young Commander-in-Chief....
as did the Wall Street Journal...while some critics on the Right actually criticized him for taking the time to fill out a tournament bracket and watch March Madness!
We're with you, Mr. President --- if the rest of America wants to see The Big Dance, you can too. And anytime you want comprehensive coverage of the real story, just remember to turn to TGG....
Ultimately, the President remained trapped in the historical dilemma of U.S. foreign policy --- the country born in a revolution was perpetually reluctant to use force on the side of rebels or revolutionaries, rather than to prop up the regimes they were trying to overthrow.
We're with you, Mr. President --- if the rest of America wants to see The Big Dance, you can too. And anytime you want comprehensive coverage of the real story, just remember to turn to TGG....
Ultimately, the President remained trapped in the historical dilemma of U.S. foreign policy --- the country born in a revolution was perpetually reluctant to use force on the side of rebels or revolutionaries, rather than to prop up the regimes they were trying to overthrow.
TGG Pop Quiz: Why is the park across from the White House named "Lafayette Square"?
The Civil War and Its Continuing Aftermath
Maybe sometimes we need an outsider to provide us the best look at ourselves. Here, from British publication The Economist, a masterful piece on the history and ramifications of America's Civil War
150 years later:
"[A]s William Faulkner, the South's great novelist, wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Earlier this year, for instance, a group of Mississippians proposed honouring a Confederate general who later became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan with a special car license-plate. In South Carolina more than a thousand people marched through downtown Columbia in January to protest against the flying of the Confederate flag on the statehouse grounds. Such lingering echoes are hardly surprising, though they are ever rarer. The war split and nearly broke America. It killed 620,000 soldiers--- more Americans than died in all the country's wars until Vietnam, combined.
And it set 4 million slaves free."
Census Issues
The Civil War changed the mosaic that is America in many fundamental ways. 150 years later, peaceful population shifts and immigration are having the same effect. Once more, in a piece entitled
"Minority Report" (pun clearly intended)
The Economist
broke it all down:
"Among America's three-year-olds, a revolution is afoot. Children of that age are turning the country's demographics on its head. According to ...the Census Bureau, the majority of them are now from groups normally considered minorities, chiefly Hispanics and Blacks. Whites still constitute a slender majority...of the population as a whole. But America's transformation into a much browner, more suburban, more southern and western place is rapid and relentless."
Brought to you exclusively from The Global Game: one little-noticed effect of the Census Bureau's announced changes --- they cement into place as America's premier demographers and social scientists a rather unlikely source: the 1990's rap group
"Public Enemy"
What? You doubt The Global Game? Think we're up to one of our occasional pranks, or frequent detours into satire?
Think again! After all, wasn't it Public Enemy who, as far back as 1990, put out an album rather presciently entitled......
Among the most tragic stories to come out of the Census was the sad disintegration of one of America's greatest cities, Detroit.
See "Detroit: A Dream Still Deferred" for some of the ugliness that accompanied the Motor City's decline.
The bottom line is that segregation still rears its ugly head in America.
Bob Herbert, in a devastating piece on the return to "Separate But Equal" said,
"More than a half-century after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling, we are still trying as a country to validate and justify the discredited concept of separate but equal schools.....We pretend that that no one's a racist anymore, but it's easier to talk about pornography in polite company than racial integration. Everybody's in favor of helping poor black kids to better in school, but the consensus is that those efforts are best confined to the kids' own poor black neighborhoods."
But enough sociology for now. On to what's really on all of your minds....
The "Final Four"
(Mens and Womens Editions)
You've seen it all broken down elsewhere. TGG just wants to observe that how could you ask for more --- every game coming down to the last minute, superstars and back stories, clutch performances and inexplicable gaffes.
Our hearts were with Shaka Smart and VCU, but alas, it was not to be.
 |
| They Almost Shocked The World |
Who Do We Like Now?
 |
| "Every Dog Has His Day" |
Meanwhile, the Women's Final Four, like the Men's, had managed to pull of the almost impossible feat of advancing the perfect mix of Cinderella squads and established powers.
Connecticut and Stanford remained in the field, but heavyweight Tennessee had been knocked off by Texas A&M.
Some were calling Connecticut's Maya Moore perhaps the Greatest Woman Player Ever,
and it was hard to argue with her skills and dominance in every phase of the game --- shooting, passing, rebounding and defense.
 |
| The Total Package |
 |
| She Came To Play |
Others, meanwhile were keeping their eye on Notre Dame sophomore point guard Skylar Diggins, whose scoring and passing brilliance led her Irish to the upset victory over Tennessee, as a future "player to watch"
 |
| On Point |
 |
| Would She Still Be Smiling on Sunday? |
But TGG takes its hat off to losing coach Pat Summitt of Tennessee, who was interviewed by ESPN immediately after her Volunteers fell to the Irish. "What did you tell those young ladies in the locker room?" the correspondent asked her. Typical coachspeak is "I told them how proud I was of them and what a great year they had had." Summitt's expectations are a little bit higher, however, which is why she is one of the best coaches ever. Anywhere. "I told them they needed to play harder and work harder if they wanted to get back her next year," she said (TGG is paraphrasing slightly) "...I told them how disappointed I was in their effort."
Ouch.
Thank you, Coach Summitt, for being the one coach in America who's at least trying to
Keep It Real....
Ouch.
Thank you, Coach Summitt, for being the one coach in America who's at least trying to
Keep It Real....
 |
| And The Truth Shall Set Them Free |
The Steroids Issue --
Barry Bonds Version
Barry Bonds Version
In a San Francisco courthouse, the federal perjury trial of Barry Bonds continued. Bonds was accused of lying to the federal government by telling investigators that he never knowingly used steroids. Bonds had insisted that he believed the substances known as "the cream" and "the clear" were flaxseed oil and rubbing liniment.
Testimony from Bonds' ex-girlfriend that she witnessed changes in his physique and sexual performance received the most attention. Receiving much less notice was
the testimony of former slugger Jason Giambi, who said that the supplier of his steroids (who the government had implied supplied Bonds) told thim that they were "steroid-like" subtances with substantially the same effects as the illegal pharmaceuticals. Would this serve as sufficient doubt to weaken the government's case and convince the jury that Bonds could have believed"the cream" and "the clear" were not actually steroids?
Only time would tell.
 |
| Arriving at Court Looking Somewhat, Shall We Say, Smaller? Than In His Playing Days |
 |
| You Knew This One Was Coming.... |
The Steroids Issue ---
The Global Game Version
The Global Game Version
Meanwhile, in a shocking development, federal prosecutors turned their eyes towards
The Global Game, accusing your very own tip sheet of being at the center of a conspiracy to "use, distribute and promote" the use of performance enhancing drugs.
Like the Barry Bonds case, legal commentators thought that the government's evidence was circumstantial at best, but at this writing it appeared that indictments were imminent and that a full-fledged
Trial of The Century
would follow in short order.
The government's case against TGG rested on three pillars of evidence:
First, the re-emergence in Oakland of a new, updated version of the "Bash Brothers,"
the juiced-up and feared long-ball duo
of the 80s and 90s....
 |
| The Bash Brothers 1991 -- Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire |
 |
| The Bash Brothers 2011 --- G$ and Little G$ |
Second, the worldwide antics of frequent TGG contributor "J.B. in D.C.," whose lifestyle seemed to be one long promo reel for the excesses of the era....
 |
| Yoked In The Capital |
 |
| Fostering U.S.-Brazilian Relations |
Third, the prosecutors, in laying out their most conclusive piece of evidence to the grand jury, reportedly had simply turned to them and shown them this photo of TGG charter subscriber and unpaid advisor
Marshall "Doc" Titus ---
Marshall "Doc" Titus ---
and asked "Is this the body of a 52-year old?"
 |
| Was It "The Cream" --- Or "The Clear"? |
TGG continues to deny all allegations.
We have not ever, nor will we, use PEDs.
In the words of our "Old School Jam of The Week," there's only one way to do it....
Stay tuned next Weekend for Volume 1, Issue 11 of TGG,
and be on the lookout for periodic updates
"as events warrant"
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