Boozer invisibul cheezburger
Carlos Boozer prepares to consume the world's largest invisible cheezburger.

Update! I totally forgot to mention the Bryon Russell versus Michael Jordan one-on-one hoax. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity. Well, this sort of proves that wrong, doesn't it? According to the AP writeup: "More than 7,500 fans showed up hoping to see Jordan play 1-on-1 against former Utah Jazz guard Bryon Russell at halftime.
... Fans caught on when the impostor trotted on to the court at halftime and started booing, then leaving."

Whoop.

Utah Flash owner Brandt Andersen -- who acknowledged sending a Jordan lookalike around town Monday, when supposed "Jordan" sightings and an Internet video of the impostor eating at a local restaurant created buzz that Jordan really was in town -- tried to cover his butt by saying: "This was done in fun. If you did not see it as fun or you feel we went over the top I am sorry. ... We wanted to test the strength and effectiveness of viral media by putting him out in Provo with bodyguards, and some hype. I always assumed it would be uncovered very quickly that it was a hoax."

I'm pretty sure he must have realized otherwise when all those extra fans showed up for the game. That would have been a good time to mention to the crowd that the whole event was faked. Waiting until halftime to surprise them? Bad move. It's enough to make me consider changing the term "bush league" to "D-league."

The Philadelphia 76ers: It was almost like Allen Iverson never left the City of Brotherly Love. He got a sold-out stadium, a video tribute, a standing ovation, big minutes (38) and, of course, another loss.

forced shot
A forced jumper under intense defensive
pressure?! It's like he never left!!

Said the Not Answer: "I just felt like I was back home. It was deja vu. Just a real good feeling."

That's probably a sign of how things have gone in Iverson's life as of late: a double-digit loss at home -- his old/new team's 10th straight defeat -- left him with a real good feeling.

Iverson's return led to some inspired defense -- the Sixers held the Nuggets to 39 percent shooting and Carmelo Anthony scored a season-low 14 points on 5-for-21 shooting -- and some inspired offense from Andre "The Other A.I." Iguodala (31 points on 11-for-21 shooting). But neither those things nor Iverson's reasonably decent contributions (11 points on 11 shots and 6 assists) could prevent the Sixers from losing for the 14th time in their last 16 games.

So...what's wrong this team? Said Iverson: "I haven't been here long enough to put a finger on one or two things [wrong]. Tonight, with the way the guys competed, I don't know how they lost nine games in a row. I couldn't see it, not from the team I was playing with tonight. We’ll get it together, believe me." In related news, I have real estate in the Smurf Village for sale. It's cheap! It's Smurfy! E-mail me...

Take note that Chauncey Billups -- the man who got trades away from the Pistons for Iverson -- scored 31 points (8-for-15 from the field, 4-for-6 from downtown, 11-for-11 from the line) to go along with 8 rebounds and 8 assists. Billups probably would never admit it, and he really is in a better place now considering Detroit's problems, but I'd be willing to bet this was a semi-revenge game for him.

Fun fact! The last time Philly had a 10-game losing streak was from November 24th, 2006 to December 20th, 2006. It was during that fail fest that Iverson demanded -- and received -- a trade. At the time, Iverson said: "I'm very happy about the trade. Denver's style of play fits my strengths. I'm looking forward to playing with Carmelo, the rest of the Denver Nuggets, and for George Karl, who is a proven winner." Added Nuggets vice president of player personal Rex Chapman: "I talked to Allen and he's ecstatic. We hope to have him here tomorrow. Allen has proven that he's a winner. We think they're going to be a dynamic duo [Iverson and Anthony] together and take this franchise to new heights."

Nuggets coach George Karl went on to say: "I think we need better chemistry on my basketball team. I think we need more leadership. I think we need more emotional maturity, I think we need some mental toughness, some intensity, an every game, every possession mentality." Turns out Karl was exactly right. Only it was Billups, and not Iverson, who eventually provided all that. And after Iverson was traded, Karl said: "There are less bad plays, more solid plays. I think the wasteful, cheap possessions that we used to have 10 to 15 a game, they don't exist very much anymore. Sometimes I saw something, but I couldn't get it done on the court because I didn't have a playmaker out there." Mind you...Iverson had been his point guard during that era of wasteful, cheap possessions.

The San Antonio Spurs: Okay, seriously, what's going on here? I see Timmy Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili all in uniform. I see the restocked shelves (Richard Jefferson, Antonio McDyess, DeJuan Blair, Theo Ratliff). Last night, I even saw a career-best 28-point explosion off the bench from...Matt Bonner?! Yes, Matt Bonner, who went 10-for-14 from the field and 4-for-7 from downtown. (It is uncertain, even now, whether the Jazz are aware that Bonner actually plays for the Spurs or was in fact on the court last night.) Of course, what I haven't seen is the classic Spurs defense. We certainly didn't see it in Utah against the Jazz, who canned 53 percent of their shots and 63 percent of their treys while outscoring San Antonio 52-32 in the paint. Mind you, this is the same Jazz squad that lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday.

Utah has won three straight against the Spurs this season, which makes it the first time the Jazz have won the season series versus San Antonio since the 1997-98 season. The Spurs are now 9-9, including only 1-5 on the road. They aren't allt aht bad on offense (currently 9th in Offensive Rating), but their strictly middle of the pack on defense (14th in Defensive Rating). These aren't your big brother's Spurs.

The Spurs also ran an, er, questionable crunchtime play...

Update! The Spurs' local broadcasters: From NarSARSsist: "By the way. Speaking of the Spurs game. I don't know if anyone else here gets local broadcasts of the Spurs, but my god is Sean Elliott biased. Every time the whistle is blown, it has to be against the other team, or it's a bad call. When Timmy drove at the basket near the end of the game and drew a foul on Okur, the color commentators exclaimed "FINALLY!" At that point the Spurs had taken 29 free throws to the Jazz's 11. In addition, yoikes is this man beyond Waltonian in his praise of the Spurs. On the Spurs' final possession, in which Bonner had the ball, dribbed, then drove off a Duncan pick and lobbed a wild, contested 13 foot (underhand?) floater, he said: "Oh man, that was so close! You just can't ask for more than that. This was Matt Bonner at his best, taking it to the rim." Really Sean? I bet every team quakes in fear when they see the Red Rocket with boosters on full. I can appreciate a little bias, wanting your team to win and do well, especially when you're doing local coverage, but come on...this is getting ridiculous."

The Golden State Warriors: So, uh, how's that Stephen Jackson trade working out for you guys? The Warriors may have dumped their disgruntled forward on the Charlotte Bobcats, but their fortunes have not improved. They've lost four straight and six of seven. And against the Thunder in Oklahoma City, they scored a season-low 88 points. Run-and-fun has given way to shuffle-and-suffer. Monta Ellis got all the shots his heart could desire (28 plus eight free throw attempts) but also had trouble holding onto the ball when he wasn't shooting it (a game-high 9 turnovers). Vladimir Radmanovic went 1-for-9. Corey "Bad Porn" Maggette inspired a 16-5 Thunder run by earning a double-tech ejection in the third quarter. And the Warrior _efense let rookie James Harden leap up off the Oklahoma City bench to score a career-high 26 points (thank to a 13-for-14 performance at the free throw line). Oh, and the Thunder beat the Warriors up on the boards (57-37).

Maybe if Andris Biedrins didn't have that, ahem, "strained groin," the Warriors could have pulled down a few extra rebounds. And maybe if they didn't suck, they wouldn't suck.

Good news for the Golden Staters: They may be headed out East for a four-game road trip, but their facing The Sub-.500s: New Jersey, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia. It almost doesn't get more cup-cakey than that. Of course, the Warriors will probably let every one of those teams score 100+ points...

The Portland Trail Blazers: Ugh. Ugh, I say. Apparently, the loss (again) of Greg Oden was a bigger blow to the Blazers than we could have imagined. Portland scored only 84 points against one of the league's great defenseless teams. Eek. It was only the fifth time in 22 games that the Bricks have held a team below 100 points. Double eek. Despite the absence of their big man, the Blazers had an edge in shooting (47 percent to 41 percent), rebounding (41-37) and points in the paint (34-24). It was actually all the non-Oden areas that killed Portland. They went only 1-for-8 from beyond the arc. Their playmaking below average (only 13 assists on 31 field goals). Their ball control was turrible (19 turnovers for 26 points going the other way). And they let "Big Shot" Larry Hughes score 21 points off the Bricks bench, thanks in part to 4-for-8 shooting. I understand not getting a hand in Larry's face -- I mean, you want Larry Hughes shooting the ball, right? -- but still.

Of course, the Blazers were missing more than just Oden's ancient, shambling body. Also missing were Rudy Fernandez (sciatic pain), Travis Outlaw (broken left foot) and Nicolas Batum (right shoulder surgery). Hell, even coach Nate McMillan was absent after having surgery on an Achilles tendon he ruptured during practice last Friday. (Must have been a rough practice!) What's going on with these guys? Maybe it's the Curse of Walton.

Eddy Curry: from the AP game notes: "Knicks center Eddy Curry was back in uniform but didn't play after he was inactive for the last seven games because of a sore left knee. He wasn't expected to suit up again until the Knicks visit New Orleans on Friday so he could get some practice time first." Remember when Isiah Thomas "stole" Curry from the Bulls? That's like handing a mugger a ticking time bomb.

"Funny" domestic violence against men: Yeah, I know. This has nothing to do with basketball, per se. But it does kinda-sorta involve Bill Simmons, and he recently wrote a book about basketball. So there. There's your tie-in.

I'm sure you've already heard or read about the sad tale of Tiger Woods and his "transgressions." Well, in his latest column, Bill Simmons let his wife, the Sports Gal, weigh in on the subject. Here's what she had to say:

"Everyone is talking about Tiger the spineless cheater. I would like to talk about his wife, Mrs. Tiger, the former nanny from Sweden. Bill and I were at dinner when news broke about the 'incident.' Bill shrewdly predicted that she attacked the car and that's why Tiger crashed. I told Bill that if he ever cheated on me, I would do the same thing she did, only I would attack the car with his League of Dorks trophy and keep hitting him with it until he stopped breathing. I then tweeted this so he knew I was serious.

"Now Mrs. Tiger is being portrayed as a crazy loon. Isn't she a hero? Did you see the parade of skanks that Tiger cheated on her with? Each one looked like she came with her own pole and lip plumper. Mrs. Tiger could have looked the other way and said, 'I am just lucky to live in America in this big mansion with my wealthy and famous husband who wins many golf tournaments. I will get back at him by having sex with cabana boys and masseurs.' Instead she stood up on behalf of women everywhere. Just because you are rich, famous and successful doesn't mean you get to humiliate your wife and kids.

"I wish Mrs. Tiger would admit what she did, if she did anything. She won't because Florida has strong domestic violence laws. California does not. If Bill ever follows Tiger's skank-chasing footsteps, I am going to beat him to death with his 2.8-pound book, while also having sex with cabana boys and masseurs. There will be no mystery about what happened. That's my Great Call of the Week."
Now, just for fun, let's spin things around:

"Everyone is talking about Mrs. Tiger the spineless cheater. I would like to talk about her husband, Tiger, the former golf champ. The Sports Gal and I were at dinner when news broke about the 'incident.' The Sports Gal shrewdly predicted that he attacked the car and that's why Mrs. Tiger crashed. I told the Sports Gal that if she ever cheated on me, I would do the same thing she did, only I would attack the car with her favorite pair of high heel shoes and keep hitting her with them until she stopped breathing. I then tweeted this so she knew I was serious.

"Now Tiger is being portrayed as a crazy loon. Isn't he a hero? Did you see the parade of beefcakes that Mrs. Tiger cheated on her with? Each one looked like he came with his own tear-away shirt and a bottle of baby oil for his rock-hard abs. Tiger could have looked the other way and said, 'I am just lucky to be a wealthy and famous husband who wins many golf tournaments. I will get back at her by having sex with nameless skanks everywhere I go.' Instead he stood up on behalf of men everywhere. Just because you are a foreign trophy wife doesn't mean you get to humiliate your husband and kids.

"I wish Tiger would admit what he did, if he did anything. He won't because Florida has strong domestic violence laws. California does not. If the Sports Gal ever follows Mrs. Tiger's beefcake-chasing footsteps, I am going to beat her to death with her 50-pound makeup table, while also having sex with nameless skanks. There will be no mystery about what happened. That's my Great Call of the Week."
Tell me Bill Simmons wouldn't get fined, suspended or maybe even fired for that.

Mind you, this is nothing against Simmons and his wife. (Although I don't remember the Sports Gal writing anything witty when Ron Artest or Delonte West were accused of domestic violence.) They provide just one of many examples. I heard about a dozen variations of that same speech in my office last week. Almost every woman there -- even the single ones -- described in vivid, bloody detail the horrors they would visit upon their husbands or would-be husbands if they ever caught them cheating. Usually while laughing and high-fiving each other.

I don't think it would go over so well if, for instance, me or Evil Ted suggested we'd murder an unfaithful wife.

This isn't a new phenomenon. People laughed their asses off when Tonya Harding was arrested for throwing a hubcap at her former boyfriend. A few years ago, there was a Miller Lite commercial in which a group of women were discussing potential punishments for a cheating boyfriend. One of them (somewhat ironically) fantasized about hitting a golf ball into the dude's man region. Another imagined him getting struck by lightning. The final woman daydreamed about a piano falling out of the sky and crushing him into a gooey paste. Why? Because violence committed against men -- those lying, cheating men -- is funny!

Just this past weekend, Saturday Night Live aired a rather humorless skit about Woods suffering progressively worse beatings at the hands (and golf clubs) of his wife. But here's the best part: that skit is "drawing some criticism, not for ripping on Tiger, but for being insensitive about domestic abuse on the same show that Rihanna was the musical guest." Yeah. That Rihanna. So it's okay to play Tiger getting his ass kicked by his wife for lols...but we shouldn't under any circumstances take the chance of reminding a woman that she was once the victim of domestic violence.

Dandy.

Lacktion report: Unlike Iverson, Chris doesn't need lots of minutes and shots to provide his daily lacktion report:

Nuggets-Sixers: Jason Kapono bricked four times in 8:51 (twice from the Comcast Center) and added two fouls as well for a +6 suck differential, capping a bawful night for the Philly bench which saw all five reserves score a combined 2 points!!!

Spurs-Jazz: Malik Hairston played a round of Donkey Kong Jr. Math and found that yes, indeed, 44 seconds is still short enough for a Mario!

Labels: , , , , ,

70 Comments:
Blogger Circle said...
one big reason why Philadelphia lost is that they only attempted 9 free throws the whole game, making 8 of them while Chauncey Billups had 11 free throw attempts and made all of them. So Billups had more freebies made than the whole Sixers team.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Dear Bawful,

Please don't ever try to talk about women again.

Of course Bill Simmons would get fired if he wrote that. That would be totally f***ed up if he wrote that. Why? Because lots of women actually live in fear because of years of physical intimidation by their bigger, stronger, physically intimidating husbands. Most men, even if they joke around about being afraid of what their wife would do to them, really think it would just be cute if their wife tried to beat them up because they know they could beat the sh** out of her.

I don't understand why you would spend time writing about something so silly, unless, as it seems, it's out of some stubborn aversion to defending women and NOT the f***ed up men that beat them. I usually really like your blog. Just don't ever talk about women again. Thank you. I can't believe you wrote a post complaining against violence against men. Seriously.

Please.

Anonymous NarSARSsist said...
Did anyone else laugh out loud at that Bullies clip when "Brad Miller - Physical" came up? Good find AnacondaHL. I applaud you good sir.

By the way. Speaking of the Spurs game. I don't know if anyone else here gets local broadcasts of the Spurs, but my god is Sean Elliott biased. Every time the whistle is blown, it has to be against the other team, or it's a bad call. When Timmy drove at the basket near the end of the game and drew a foul on Okur, the color commentators exclaimed "FINALLY!" At that point the Spurs had taken 29 free throws to the Jazz's 11. In addition, yoikes is this man beyond Waltonian in his praise of the Spurs. On the Spurs' final possession, in which Bonner had the ball, dribbed, then drove off a Duncan pick and lobbed a wild, contested 13 foot (underhand?) floater, he said: "Oh man, that was so close! You just can't ask for more than that. This was Matt Bonner at his best, taking it to the rim." Really Sean? I bet every team quakes in fear when they see the Red Rocket with boosters on full. I can appreciate a little bias, wanting your team to win and do well, especially when you're doing local coverage, but come on...this is getting ridiculous.

Blogger Unknown said...
I was talking with a coworker about this whole Tiger business and remembered another wonderful double standard when it comes to situations like these:

Every woman who even claims she was with Tiger is instantly a pseudo-celebrity, and if it hasn't already happened, there are going to be all sorts of interviews, TV appearances, book deals, and the like.

It takes two to tango. Tiger is (yeah, somewhat rightfully) vilified while these women who would have had to have been under a rock when they weren't under the sheets to not know he was married get rich for sleeping with him.

So to sum it up, Tiger is an evil cheating man who deserves a beating, but all the women who willingly slept with him are allowed to take it to the bank because they have stories to tell.

Stay classy, society.

Blogger Unknown said...
Also, I think the consequences of being on a..not-so-good team are finally getting to Joakim Noah. He was fined $15,000 for "throwing the ball into the stands and striking a photographer".

http://www.nba.com/2009/news/12/07/noah.fine/index.html

WV: digascre - A combination of "dig" and "massacre", when a team is massacred in a game, mostly by digging themselves into a hole.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
Anonymous -- I'm not sure why you seem to think I was saying domestic violence against women is okay. What I was trying to say is that domestic violence against anybody is wrong. It is rightly shunned when a woman is physically abused...but it is treated as a subject worthy of laughs when a man gets beaten.

Here's an idea, and I know it's crazy, but how about we try to keep everybody from getting their ass kicked by a spouse, be it male or female. Or do you really think that women should be able to commit violence against men? Is that okay with you?

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
It's less that violence against men is funny, but more that women are crazy is funny. But the switcharound would have been funnier if he used an US Weekly and a The Bachelor poster as a better analogy to the League of Dorks trophy.

Blogger chris said...
AnacondaHL and Bawful: Would you agree that the original Apple Daily animation of Tiger and Elin should be embedded here? :D :D

Weekend lacktion report coming up in comments in a sec.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
NarSARSsist -- I have updated the post with your wonderful observation. Plus, I should have mentioned Bonner's crunch time drive at any rate.

Adam -- To be fair, he accidentally struck the photog with the ball. That headline, which I had seen even before you provided the link, sure makes it seem like Noah launched the ball and then struck the photographer.

From the Chicago Sun-Times: "The incident came with 7:19 left in the third quarter. Noah had the ball under the basket near the Bulls' bench and slapped at it out of frustration, hitting the photographer."

But yeah, the Bulls are sucking Noah into a rage.

Blogger chris said...
And now, our lacktion.

---

After a second turgid Thursday without lacktion in a row, the Association went back into the swing of things with your usual failtacular Friday.

Raptors-Generals: Toronto's Rasho Nesterovic itched out one assist in 3:40 to throw a meteor at pure lacktivity, but lost the rock once and bricked for a 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl. JaVale McGee added a Voskuhl of his own by negating a one-shot 100% shooting percentage in 5:23 with three fouls and a giveaway for a 4:2 ratio.

Knicks-Hawks: Jeff Teague bricked once from Underground Atlanta and took a foul for a +2 suck differential in 1:30.

Bucks-Pistons: Kurt Thomas fouled once for the deer-in-headlights to earn a +1 and 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl in 7:07.

Bobcats-Nyets: NEWSFLASH: THE NYETS HAD THE OCCASION TO UNLEASH A HUMAN VICTORY CIGAR. WOW. Tony Battie bricked once from the suburb of Secaucus (so definitely NOT downtown) for a +1 in 5:51.

Wolves-Hornets: Oleksiy Pecherov took down a +4 and a 4:0 Voskuhl in 1:40 via three fouls and a giveaway for the Clotheslines.

Mavs-Grizzlies: Matt Carroll madly hatted a brick in 2:44 for a +1, while the baby cubs celebrated a victory with two lacktators. Hamed Haddadi and Marcus Williams each spent 1:33 on the court, Haddadi earning a 1.55 trillion and Williams bricking it up once for a +1.

Celtics-Thunder: Brian Scalabrine sweated out a rebound and assist in 14:56, but also lost the rock once and fouled twice for a 3:1 Voskuhl.

Pacers-Jazz: Roy Hibbert must've muttered "Doh!" after making a rebound and two assists in 14:42, but three bricks, two rejections, and two fouls led to a 2:1 Madsen-level Voskuhl.

Heat-Lakers: Sasha Vujacic annoyed the Lakers throughout a quick runthrough of Pitfall for a 28 second Mario.

---
Sucky Saturday

Sixers-Bobcats: Stephen Graham cracked his way into the celebratory part of the lacktion report for Charlotte, missing one shot and taking one foul for a +2 suck differential in 2:57.

Nuggets-Spurs: Roger Mason had a jarring night for Gregg Popovich's squad, appropriately tossing one brick from atop the Tower of the Americas, losing the rock once, and fouling twice for a +4 in 2:46.

Kings-Suns: Earl Clark unwrapped a bar of gold for Phoenix for a 1.5 trillion.

Hawks-Mavs: Jeff Teague served as the dirty birds' human victory cigar de jour, bricking twice (once from the Adolphus Hotel) and adding a rejection and foul to the plate for a +4 in 4:10 - a second straight night of suckiness! In response, Mark Cuban quickly switched on his Nintendo DS and had Rodrigue Beaubois load Super Mario 64 for a quick eight-second session.

Pacers-Clippers: No lacktion to report, because...STEVE NOVAK'S APPEARANCE STREAK IS OVER!!! He had not missed a game in weeks and had compiled no positive stats since the middle of November! Having said that, this technically means that his non-contributory stretch is still alive - for now.

Blogger chris said...
Snoozer Sunday

Nyets-Knicks: Terrence Williams may have not been a human victory cigar for New Jersey (seeing that the Nyets went back to their losing ways!) but he gave it his non-all in 9:24, bricking FIVE times, taking one rejection, and fouling twice for a league-leading +8 suck differential!!!!!

Crabs-Bucks: Coby Karl crawled onto the ledger tonight by pinching out three giveaways in 2:15 for a +3. For the Bucks, Dan Gadzuric avoided pure lacktivity with one act of thievery along one block in 7:10, only to garner a 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl after bricking twice and fouling once. On the other hand, Kurt Thomas successfully non-contributed to go with the same Voskuhl score in 3:48, by bricking once and fouling once for a +2.

Generals-Pistons: DaJuan Summers found himself warm in the D (or at least Oakland County) tonight for once, by grabbing a fire flower and pressing B for a four-second Super Mario!!!!

Heat-Kings: Ime Udoka fouled twice for a +2 in 2:12 for the purple paupers.

Suns-Lakers: Jarron Collins fouled once for a +1 and 1:0 Madsen-level Voskuhl in 3:57, while fellow solar energizer Alando Tucker earned a 4.4 trillion (4:24).

Blogger chris said...
BTW, Bawful, every time you mention Walton in this context, I'm imagining him DETERMINED to travel to Lovetron on a stationary bike, 8 hours a day, with its inevitable results. Makes you wonder what practice must be like in the Rose City...

Anonymous Wormboy said...
Mixed feelings about the domestic violence jokes. On the one hand, domestic violence is a very serious issue. Thus, trivializing it, even by reversing the roles, is in very dubious taste.

On the other hand. 95% of violent crimes are committed by men. Of the 5% committed by women, most are not against men, but against other women or children. Lorena Bobbit was an outlier (who btw acted in retaliation for her husband abusing her). So the frequency and severity of domestic abuse of men by women is spectacularly less than the converse.

That is why the humor works. Me, I find it in poor taste. But it also isn't kosher to "reverse the roles" here. It's not even apples and oranges. More like apples and rutabagas. Domestic violence of men against women is a pernicious plague. The opposite is one step away from non-existent (and we'll note than even when it happens, we don't see the man busted up like happens when men do the abusing. That's just biology meets physics.)

So, agreed that it's not funny. But doesn't reversing it trivialize the issue just as much?

Blogger Unknown said...
Bawful - Ah, fair enough. Even though I get the feeling I shouldn't, I like Noah. For better or worse, he plays with a lot of passion, which is something a lot of his teammates don't seem to have most times.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
Adam -- I love Noah. Dude is a spaz, fo sho, but he wants to win. He won't put up with crap. And he could seriously become a Barkley-like quote machine if the Bulls coaching staff would relax a little.

Wormboy -- Here's the problem: domestic violence committed against men is vastly undereported: "A 2007-2008 online non-random, self-report survey of the experiences and health of men who sustained partner violence in the past year. The study showed that male victims of IPV are very hesitant to report the violence or seek help. Reasons given for non-reporting were they (1) may be ashamed to come forward; (2) may not be believed; and (3) may be accused of being a batterer when they do come forward."

Anecdotally, I know several men that have either been struck or had something thrown at them by an angry wife or girlfriend, and they don't even consider it abuse (even though one of those guys lost partial hearing in his ear for a few days after getting boxed in the ear).

It's kind of like date rape. It had been happening for a long time before people started reporting it. But just because it's unreported or unreported doesn't mean it isn't a real problem, nor that it's something that should be trivialized on a large scale...as domestic violence against men is.

Blogger Hilary said...
I agree with Bawful's original premise that physical violence against a spouse is not acceptable or funny, regardless of gender.

I don't agree with Adam , though. The "other women" weren't covering themselves in glory, but they didn't make a billion dollars from endorsement deals that marketed them as devoted family men crusading for truth, justice, the American Way, gatorade, and sneakers. The contrast between the public image of Tiger on a pedestal and what he was really doing is what prompted a lot of the criticism and mockery. The sluts? They are who we thought we were, if we had ever bothered to think about them. Sure they knew he was married and they were wrong to go ahead anyway-- but they weren't the ones who made a promise to his wife.

Tiger doesn't deserve a beating, but he deserves more criticism than his harem does.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
The Blazers' season of fail; please dub them the failblazers if they continue to lose by double digits to the crappiest teams ever.

Anonymous NarSARSsist said...
Fun factoid that makes Spurs fans want to scream and punch walls. The list of teams that have a better defensive efficiency number than the Spurs includes:

Milwaukee
LA Clippers
Oklahoma City
Indiana
Denver

P.S. Is anyone else having trouble with OpenID?

Blogger chris said...
Anonymous: I think that accomplishment will only truly be bestowed on them should they lose to the pride of East Rutherford's swamp.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
AnacondaHL -- Feel free to tweak the rewrite as you deem necessary.

Blogger Unknown said...
Hey, what happened with the worsties of the weekend? Every monday I expect the bawfulness of the weekend and it was changed for birdmas?

There is a lot of violence against men. It's more mental violence than physical violence. Threatening to leave the relationship is the most common form of violence against men.

Anonymous drbearclaw said...
Mark Cuban and a few Dallas Mavericks players on last night's Monday Night Raw deserves a mention

Blogger gordon gartrelle said...
I don't believe that any topic should be off limits. The point is not whether it's offensive, but whether it's funny.

But I gotta cosign what Anonymous #1 said.

There are these little things called context, history, and power that throw a monkey wrench into the simplistic "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" approach to social score-settling (or whatever you want to call it).

All people carry some form of privilege, but some people have more than others. Women happen get the extremely short end of the domestic violence stick no matter how you slice it. Trying to equate woman on man domestic violence in scope and severity to man on woman domestic violence is ridiculous.

Context, history, and power are also why white guys (the most privileged social group in much of the world) who try to claim "reverse racism" over some minor perceived slight just end up looking like whining douchebags.

Most humor works by cutting down the (relatively) powerful, not heaping upon the less powerful.

There was a Chris Rock bit about this on his stand up special Kill the Messenger. The gist of it was that fat women mocking skinny women is funny, while skinny women mocking fat women is just mean.

Anonymous Adrian D. said...
Billups and Roy tried hard, but not Harden'nuff to gain a Dantley. Only the rook in OKC achieved it with 13-14 FT and 6-13 FG, one of 'em a three.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
Basebawful -- Worst of the Weekend took a one-week hiatus for Birdmas. It'll be back next week...never you worry!

drbearclaw -- Indeed it does. I will update when I can.

gordon -- I'm not trying to minimize the suffering women have gone through over time, nor what African Americans have gone through, or whatever. I'm saying all domestic violence is bad. All racism is bad. So on and so forth. I don't think it becomes acceptable because a particular group has been "favored" in a historical sense. Once you start accepting caveats to bad behavior -- oh that [bad behavior] is okay if [whatever] -- you're on a pretty slippery sloap. I mean, I'm sure men throughout history felt entitled to abuse their wives because, well, they worked hard providing for their families. Early white Americans felt entitled to push Native Americans off the continent because, hey, Manifest Destiny, baby!

Under no circumstances is it okay for a woman to beat her husband, or vice versa. It's not okay for me to drop the N-word, and black people shouldn't call me cracker.

Why not just expect people to treat each other with an equivalent level of humanity and respect?

Anonymous Geert (Netherlands) said...
I think this deserves a mention: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B709W20091208?type=entertainmentNews

"The eight-episode half-hour series will show the wives and girlfriends of players Shaquille O'Neal, Eric Williams, Antoine Walker, Jermaine O'Neal and Udonis Haslem."

Antoine Walker? Really? Maybe we see him shimmy'ing his girl.

Anonymous Hellshocked said...
I wonder if Allen Iverson decided to do some math after last night's game.

"Well we lost by 10 points and I can get 10 points with 15 shots so the reason we lost is because I took 11 shots instead of 26. Detroit, here I come!"

Blogger chris said...
Geert: Or maybe, just maybe...we'll see a show resembling COPS.

Anonymous Shrugz said...
It's interesting to see how people twist words and phrases or completely wiff on the point that's suppose to be brought in by an idea, just so they have something to argue/complain/point out about.

If only people just stopped and thought about it because there's always more than one way to read or listen to something. Then there'd be less misunderstandings and arguments in the world. If you need clarification just ask, obviously basketbawful wouldn't condone any type of violence.

Anonymous Axel Foley said...
People are just hypocrites. There is a lot of female chauvanism going around these days as well. Just recently a person on facebook told little joke to a couple he was good friends with and called his girlfriend a whipwielder because he isnt around to hang out. They all had a laugh, including the girlfriend. Just minutes later he was bombarded with angry messages from female friends who were "offended". They claimed that his joke was sexist, that he shouldnt disrespect women like that, and he should *bow down on his knees to women kiss their feet and beg not to be beaten*. When a man is in that situation nowadays, he can't even say a word anymore. Hypocrites.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
If you need clarification just ask, obviously basketbawful wouldn't condone any type of violence.

Unless it's ninja-on-ninja violence, which I abso-fucking-lutely support in any and every variation.

Blogger chris said...

Blogger Wild Yams said...
I'd just like to say that all of this violence could have been avoided if Tiger had just bought his wife a "Sorry I Cheated" ring with a stone on it the size of a tangerine the way Kobe did. Lesson learned.

In all seriousness, I agree with Mr. Bawful on this one. Domestic violence should not be tolerated (or worse, thought to be worthy of a good chuckle), regardless of who is committing it. That seems like a rather obvious viewpoint to have, but what do I know?

I'm glad to see the Spurs get this kind of mention here today, because at some point you really have to stop with the "they always start slow, they'll be fine later" talk and just wonder if they really are too old. This is the second year in a row that their defense has been really, really poor (especially by their standards), and they seem to be getting very little from Richard Jefferson and Antonio McDyess. We're a couple weeks away from Christmas and the Spurs still have only one road win and are still at only .500 for the year. At some point it's not just that they're off to a slow start, right?

You gotta love Iverson getting absolutely dominated by Billups last night. What a fitting return for Philly's prodigal son.

The Blazers are in serious trouble. Some have said that without Oden they'll now be able to go back to having Roy and Aldridge dominate their offense the way they did last year, and in doing so maybe they'll be able to play as well as they did a year ago, but things look very different for Portland this year. If they can't re-discover what worked for them last season, they're gonna be hard pressed to make the playoffs this season.

Way to miss the point of the Miller Ad. Beer ads sow misogyny (it keeps alcoholics from choosing their relationships over their addiction) under the guise of comedy.

Blogger ChrisH said...
"black people shouldn't call me a cracker"

you're from Indiana, the whole world calls you a cracker.

Blogger gordon gartrelle said...
"Why not just expect people to treat each other with an equivalent level of humanity and respect?"

Obviously. Who's going to argue with that?

We're ultimately talking about humor here. Humor has its own set of rules that are different from real life rules about peoples' opinions on social/political issues. As I said earlier, the power differential thing is what drives a great deal of humor.

The power differential is what's missing from your account of your examples (first the effective equation of man on woman d.v. to woman on man d.v. and then the "n word/cracker" one). In your well-meaning attempt to level the playing field by offering a straightforward maxim (e.g. "regard every instance of d.v. humor as unacceptable"), you end up creating false equivalencies.

Of course domestic violence, racial hatred, etc. are inherently immoral and contempible no matter the background of the perpetrators and/or the victims, but in practical,historical terms, in terms of how they affect the daily lives and life chances of different groups, they most definitely aren't the same. The attempt to regard them as equivalent is often a smokescreen to ignore the real world practical consequences (privilege for some, disadvantage for others) that come as a result.

I hate to bring all of this stuff to such a lighthearted blog, but you kind of invite it when you step away from mocking terrible basketball and start acting as a social critic.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Damnit! WildYams beat me to the Kobe joke.

Oh well, you would need to change "Husband" and "Wife" around in your flip story for it to make sense. Just an FYI.

-Brickcar-

Blogger chris said...
Wild Yams: Didn't the Spurs start slow last year, then after a while everyone thought they were fine...only to completely sputter out in the playoffs?

Blogger ChrisH said...
I agree with gordon gartrelle (nice shirt). I've tried the cracker/nigger analogy but made no headway. I suspect it's bc most whites associate "cracker" as a petty insult. sticks and stones what not. while blacks associate "nigger" with lynchings and all sorts of even nastier shit.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
gordon -
while i agree with your comments about the different nature of humor in general, i think bawful's point still stands in regards to domestic abuse.

as he mentioned earlier, domestic violence committed against men goes largely unreported, mostly due to the social stigma that results from jokes such as these (and societal ideas of masculinity etc, but i digress...). this situation isn't like making a joke about a black person calling a white one cracker, it is like making a joke about a black person lynching a white person.

Anonymous NarSARSsist said...
chris - The Spurs' "Wait wait, we really are still good, seriousleh!" was actually quite misleading. Against teams above .500, the Spurs were 9-11 at home and 8-11 on the road (I discovered this while making my own version of the Hollinger Rankings, yes I'm a dork). That they were so poor on the road against quality teams was already bad enough, but they also couldn't even protect their own house, something that the Spurs generally do well at. Similarly, look at the Spurs' next 15 games. Other than a road game at the Suns and a (home?) game against the Blazers, it's crammed with marshmellowy soft goodness. I expect that by around early to mid January, people will be declaring that the Spurs have found their mojo again. In actuality, it's not even close, as they're, what, 2-8 thus far this season against playoff teams. If they run the table in the next 15 games, they'll be 5-8 against playoff teams. That's still pretty marginal to me, but we won't really get a good look at the Spurs versus a long stretch tough teams until like, mid-March. I do expect that they'll look a good deal better by then, though I wouldn't bet that they'll look like championship contenders then.

Yams - Indeed the Spurs are struggling. The lack of production from RJ and McDyess is hardly surprising, however. I can't find the comment right now, but I'm pretty sure I predicted somewhere here that Jefferson wouldn't exceed 15 ppg short of some heavy injuries slapping the Spurs around. The same for McDyess with 8 ppg. The Spurs simply have too many people demanding some action for them to get much more than they are averaging now (12 and 6 respectively). I think too much was expected of them and Blair. After all, the difference they make is the marginal difference between them and the last guy, and considering how bad they were last year, they have a lot of marginal difference to make up.

One of the major problems is trying to get all these guys to mesh. Last year they were distinct for committing/forcing the fewest turnovers, grabbing/allowing the fewest offensive rebounds, getting/allowing the fewest fast break points. In other words, they played low-mistake, grind it out basketball. This year I've seen quite a few errors in the form of errant passes that simply are the result of a lack of chemistry. I expect those to get smoothed out as the season goes along. Will that make them ring contenders? I doubt it, probably more like a 2nd or 3rd round team, but we'll see.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
gordon -- I get that humor has its own set of rules. But when serious social issues are treated with such thoughtlessness -- regardless of its historical context -- it is simply perpetuating a system in which abuse and prejudice are encouraged rather than reduced.

Some areas are fair game. Feel free to mock Tiger for being a faithless cheat. It's certainly warranted. But areas such as domestic abuse (or any physical abuse), racism, and similar things should not be handled that way. Period. There's no "good" or "appropriate" or "acceptable" forum for it.

Unless it's ninja-on-ninja. Or possibly even pirate-on-ninja.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
This thread makes me laugh, is that wrong...?

Anonymous the Oden Apologist said...
The writing is on the wall, the Zers without Oden, Rudy, Outlaw, and Batum just don't have the depth to get by on grit n stuff. Absent a gasol-like trade, 38 to 39wins looks about right, fighting with Thunder and Rockets for the last play-off spot. NYC plays no D, yet PDX could only put up 84 while still shooting a decent %. The Thunder is the new team of the future.

I would also like to make a plug for a Conventional Wisdom, Basketbawful Wisdom post, where Bawful examines conventional basketball wisdom that really is a basketbawful desicion.

e.g. Does the 2 for 1 at the end of quarters matter? It is better to get 2 bad shots versus taking your time to get 1 good one.

or was the gasol trade really as bad in retrospect since memphis got Marc Gasol, Arthur, Carroll and cap relief.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
I would also like to make a plug for a Conventional Wisdom, Basketbawful Wisdom post, where Bawful examines conventional basketball wisdom that really is a basketbawful desicion.

Actually, I'd love to do that.

If some of you peeps compile a list, I'll tackle one per week. Starting, like, next week.

Blogger chris said...
Conventional basketball wisdom: that one can't make a shot in less than .3 seconds?!

:D

NarSARSist: Comparison point - 2008-present Spurs to 1989-1992 Celtics?

Blogger chris said...
Also, NarSARSist, I'd love to see your pseudo-Hollinger stat, maybe it can get mentioned by Kayte Christiansen on a Kings broadcast like PER was recently!!!

Blogger Unknown said...
Are you serious?? your skipping WoTW? affter The so much happened? I thought you were just taking so long to write it all, dude?.....dude.

Anonymous the Oden Apologist said...
I would also like to note the Rudy Fernandez underwent a microdectemy surgery to relieve pain in his back. out 6 weeks is best medical guess at this point. sweet!

Oden - Patella break, Done for season
Outlaw - Broken foot - late mid-April return
Batum - torn labrum - likely out for season
Rudy - bulging disk - 6 weeks

And not that it matters from a basketball perspectice
Patty Mills - broken foot, may return this month
Pendergraph - Hip surgery Mid January
Nate McMillian - torn achillies playing during practice, out 4 games
Assistant coach, Maurice Lucas - battling cancer recurrence
Owner Paul Allen - Battling non-hodgkins lymphoma, which medically has a 50/50 chance of killing him within a year.

Blazers need different trainers and maybe health care reform.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
chris: FSN sport science already did that. click me for some badass Kapono.

Anonymous NarSARSsist said...
the Oden Apologist - The 2 for 1 at the end of quarters is actually quite an interesting point. I was discussing it just yesterday in regards to the Jazz-Spurs games. It seems like a bad idea to me if a team like the Jazz, who has been killing the Spurs through intricate off ball screens and surprise rebounders sneaking inside the paint, to go for two 5 or 6 second possessions where they don't create the same confusion and havoc, taking contested jumpers instead. However, if they could make those with half the efficiency, then it'd worth it, assuming the extra time doesn't create more value for the Spurs. Pretty interesting how you bring it up today.

chris - I'll type up the details when I get home and can bring it up. It was inspired by looking at Hollinger Stats' faults, one of the biggest ones being that it lumps strength of schedule in one category and point differential in another. My basic question is: Should a team that beat two .800 teams by 10 each, and lost to two .200 teams by 5 and another that lost to the stronger two by 5 each and beat the weaker two by 10 each be the same? Intuition says no. I'd be far more willing to trust the first team, if for no other reason than that they're more likely to face .800 teams in the playoffs than .200 teams. With that in mind, I made my stats more correlation driven, with no idea whether it would produce any meaningful results.

However, for last season, at least, it looks quite solid. It predicted that Spurs < Mavs < Hornets < Nuggets < Blazers < Rockets < Lakers (I can't remember where the Jazz fit, but they weren't very high on the totem pole. The surprise team last year superficially was definitely the Nuggets, but then again, in truth, they did play some weak teams in their earlier series based on this ranking. The Spurs' troubles I already alluded to. The Mavs also made themselves look good against weaker teams. They were 22-0 against teams .500 or worse at home, inflating their appearance). If you go by that ordering, you would in fact predict the exact way the western playoffs would end up shaking out (I was actually quite surprised by this, since my formula was driven by intuition alone rather than relying on the results of the playoffs to go back and refine the formula, and therefore I expected at least a good number of exceptions). In the east, it predicted Celtics < Cavs < Magic. I didn't bother doing anyone else in the east since they didn't matter, but I might revisit the Hawks and Heat since they had a close series.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
Quiton -- A weekend off was my Birdmas gift to myself. I'm...I'm sorry. So...sorry.

Blogger chris said...
The Oden Apologist: I'm hoping the Blazers' trainers that Walton felt ruined his career ca. 1978 aren't STILL on the Rose Garden staf...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
chris:

or the medical examiners who thought that Darius Miles wouldn't even be able to walk, much less make a come back on the Grizz last year (dubious as that signing was)

Blogger chris said...
Anonymous: don't forget the ones who, um, underestimated Sam Bowie's potential as a star of the injured reserve.

Blogger Clifton said...
This is completely off-topic regarding any of the topics cascading through the comments here, but I needed to share this; it's tangentially Bawful-related.

I was stuffing envelopes and affixing address labels to said envelopes earlier today at a volunteer gig I do on an occasional day off. I came across an address in Tucson on an "E. Manlove Street".

I thought, nah, no way. Couldn't be.

Oh yes it most certainly CAN be.

Blogger Wild Yams said...
You think that was off-topic? Check this out. Can anyone who lives in Tucson explain something to me: in the 80s movie Can't Buy Me Love Patrick Dempsey's character earned $1500 (and factor in 20 years of inflation there) by mowing lawns. Now, I've been to Tucson before, and have never seen any grass there at all. How in the hell could anyone earn any money at all mowing lawns in Tucson?!

One of my best friends lives in Tucson, and when he moved into his house a few years ago he noticed that the guy across the street had red gravel in his front yard instead of the grey gravel like everyone else in the neighborhood. He then said as he was looking at this house, his new next door neighbor came out and proclaimed that the guy with the red gravel had "the best damn lawn on the block." I'm calling shenanigans on Can't Buy Me Love! There is no grass in Tucson!!!

Blogger chris said...
Clifton: unincorporated Sacramento has a "Manlove Road" in the area south of the American River. It even provides the moniker to one of the Regional Transit light rail stations!!!!!!!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
"I don't think it would go over so well if, for instance, me or Evil Ted suggested we'd murder an unfaithful wife."
And yet right now, in dozens of radio stations across America, Hey Joe is playing.

Anonymous justin said...
I live in Tucson, and can confirm that that's a huge pothole for CBML. There are a few lawns in the Sam Hughes area, but it's full of old people who still think a quarter and a glass of lemonade is the appropriate payment for yardwork.

I can also confirm Manlove Street. Occasionally I work in the area and I giggle like an adolescent. I don't know how the city keeps the sign up. Seems like dorm room decoration to me.

Blogger jim said...
bawful: i agree with the premise that domestic violence in any form is wrong and should not be funny. gordon gartrelle's analysis of the apparent double standard is pretty much spot on.

anaconda pointed out something i think is incredibly important, too, in the analysis of why it seems like female-on-male violence is commonly joked about: it's because "women are crazy" is funny.

funny, as in "look at that hysterical woman" funny. funny, as in "oh, is the wittle girl angwy?" funny. funny, as in "she's practices witchcraft and must be put to death" funny. funny, as in hundreds-of-years-of-patriarchal-dominance-and-dehumanization-of-women funny.

which is, in fact, not funny at all.

Blogger jim said...
clifton: forgot to append this in my last post, but a long time ago my old high school bought new property from a church, including a building named after someone apparently influential in that church's history: lynn manlove. the building was called "the manlove center."

it was funny when i was fourteen, and it's still kind of funny now.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Yams - you deserve a season on the Clippers for even knowing Can't Buy Me Love. Anyone-on-Patrick Dempsey violence is something I support.

In my work life I run into domestic violence from time to time. Women's centers (read those words closely) from three different states all report about 10% of cases of DV are women-on-men cases, with about 5% for men-on-men and a very small amount (~1%) of women-on-women. There's a whole stack of data on this, but men as victims tend to not report due to masculine socialization and derived expectations, shame, and ignorance that they are victims of domestic violence.

Violence in homes not funny. Violence in UFC can be really funny. Like the Houston/Kimbo dance-off this past saturday. Clay Guida forever.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
jim: How did you know? I ask all the women I have sex with if they are a witch. And then I dominate them patriarchally.

I hope you're this riled up when someone makes a "men are stupid" joke. Like, "oh, is this dummy wittle man doin something with brain" joke. Like, "man beat dirt with stick and can't comprehend advanced cerebral thought" joke. Like "thousands of years of evolution from neaderthalithic cognitive thought and dehumanizing existence" joke. Not funny at all.

This post really smoked out the babbys and white knights, good job Bawful

Blogger Wild Yams said...
BadDave - Don't even pretend like you're not a huge Can't Buy Me Love fan. Anyone who claims to not know that movie is lying cause, come on, we've all seen it.

Anonymous the Oden Apologist said...
@ NarSARSsit - The only reason I bring it up is that you routinely hear the the color guy say they need to go for the 2 for 1, followed up by someone heaving up a terrible hurried jumper, that leads to a long rebound and break for the other team.

And for what - two extra shots? Assuming an equal distribution that a team only controls the two for one twice a game. I think you are right in games where a team is consistently getting the shots it wants, it should ignore the 2 for 1 and instead keep the focus on getting their good shot.

@ chris and anon - I have made this point before, Paul Allen needs to hire the Phx trainers who kept Hill on the court and Shaq spry enough to get traded for the chance to have King Crab try to carry his ass to a kobe beating 5th ring.

On Miles - still pissed the Chris Wallace actually made a smart GM move in signing darius. Miles is and was done as an NBA player. The only reason to sign him was to crush portland's cap space. You would have thought portland would have come up with a way to give Miles $1 M or so to pretend limp around for another year just for the lux. tax savings.

My sincere hope is that NBA Dance team will don the white leather outfit that was the mcguffin in Can't Buy Me Love.

Blogger Wild Yams said...
the Oden Apologist - First of all, the outfit was suede, not leather. Second, you really think the Crabs are gonna win the NBA title this year? I can't imagine them getting past Boston or Orlando (hell, maybe even Atlanta), let alone the Lakers.

As for the 2 for 1 thing, I think it really depends on who has the ball for that first shot at around 35 seconds or so. If the wrong person has it and are just gonna bonk up a shot, then it's better to wait for the good shot. If a serious scorer has it though, then why not? There aren't many shots which are all that bad for guys like Wade, Kobe, Melo and LeBron.

Blogger jim said...
anaconda: er, looking back at what i wrote, i think i seriously missed the mark on what i meant to say.

because i agree with what you said: "women are crazy" is funny, and has been for ages--this isn't some new cultural phenomenon that's only come up recently.

i was just trying to point out, springing off from your comment, that the fact that women seem to have a free pass at talking about beating their partners' asses because we all find it so hilarious is not exactly favorable for them--rather, it's in line with a lot of the ways that female emotion and agency have been trivialized historically. and that's what i find unfunny.

my apologies for being a dick about it, though. i was aiming for the broad target of social structure, not you in particular, and i missed rather badly.

Blogger Preveen said...
I'm amused when ppl say things like "physical intimidation by their bigger, stronger, physically intimidating husbands". For one thing, I'm reminded of Dirk. For another thing, at this point in my life, I know more abused, hen pecked men than I do abused women. Tho I am an IT nerd with a limited social life and an obsession with cars, who went to an all-male shcool, so I do have more male friends than female ones.

And I swear, IT nerds are the most abused by women group in history. Situation sucks!

Anonymous Stockton said...
wanna talk about double standards? What about child abuse? If some guy makes a move on a 14 year old girl, he's a rapist, and should his nuts cut off. If a woman makes a move on a 14 year old boy (who in that age is more of a child than girls are), it's a question of not controling her feelings; and with some luck will go to cry on Oprah. Not to mention "how lucky the boy was"...