Blake Griffin: The NBA's Puppet

This past weekend was the 2011 NBA All-Star Weekend held at the Staple Center in Downtown Los Angeles. Every year, the All-Star game is a fast paced, high scoring game showcasing flashy plays with terrible defense. The players, with no real incentive to win and fearing unnecessary injury, rarely display real competition.  This kind of lackluster effort makes the game hardly a fun one to watch, but every year a contest is held that makes the weekend worthwhile: The Sprite Slam Dunk Competition.

                Many great players over the years have displayed their high flying abilities in this exciting contest and every February it seems to steal the show away from the actual All-Star Game. From Spud Webb (all 5’7 of him) beating Dominique Wilkins to Michael Jordan soaring to the basket from the free throw line to Vince Carter winning the competition with arguably the best overall performance in the history of the competition in 2000, the event always seems to please the crowd as well as the audience at home. There was something funny about this year though…

                With the emergence of Blake Griffin this season as a high flying star who has helped sell tickets on the road at other venues and proven himself to be invaluable to his team and the league, there was no question who the fans (and league) wanted to win. Advertisements for the contest had him at front and center and to no surprise the order of participants had him going last after his three less flashy opponents. Griffin stormed out of the gates with a breathtaking 360 degree two-handed dunk that scored 49 points as well as a modest off the backboard windmill dunk that added another 46. With Serge Ibaka’s decision to choose an extremely gimmicky dunk (a kid and a stuffed animal? Seriously?) and the absolute robbing of DeMar DeRozan (both his dunks were amazing), these scores were good enough to push Griffin into the finals against Washington’s Javale McGee. Some may say that the only reason that DeRozan was docked points was because his first dunk took so many attempts, but you may notice that Griffin’s first dunk took a few attempts as well.

                During the finals, McGee showed some skill with his impressive under the rim backwards one handed jam and although his second dunk was nothing special I still think he deserved a bit more credit than Griffin’s simple honey dip slam. Little did the viewers know, however, that the competition had already been decided. Upon Griffin’s turn, a Kia Optima was rolled onto the court (the official car of the NBA, big surprise there) and he then proceeded to dunk over the lowest part of the car, the hood. Did I mention that he brought out a choir to sing to him while he made the dunk? As an avid NBA fan, I hung my head in shame at this spectacle. How did the NBA know that Griffin would make it into the finals to make way for this blatant Kia advertisement? Well, it’s simple. They set it up that way. At this point, it was brutally obvious that the event was staged beforehand. This was to be the grand finale of the dunk contest that would benefit not only the league greatly, but please Kia as well.

                Is the NBA really more concerned with making more money than presenting an honest competition amongst some of the league’s brightest young stars? Are NBA executives really willing to sell their soul? Probably. They’ve done it before and they will do it again. At this rate, next year will see the winner of the once proud contest dunk the basketball while making a phone call on a cell phone provided by the NBA’s favorite (and most financially generous) cell phone provider.

Grammy Awards: What Do They Mean These Days?

Despite the decline of record sales in the United States due to illegal online peer to peer music sharing, music remains a powerful industry in the US today and in a world that loves to give out awards and is enamored by tradition, the Grammys represent the biggest stage of them all for recognizing excellence in music recording each year. The Grammys should represent the very best in music in the classiest way possible right? Well, not exactly. We watch stars walk down the red carpet and into their seats while harshly judging what they wear, watch short clips of the each music video, and then sit through a painful acceptance speech by the year’s “big winner” who wins their 5^th Grammy that night for the same song we grew tired of nine months ago.

The Grammys fall short of pretty much everything they should be. Here are just a few of the problems with the so-called “big night” for music.

1)      The Nomination Process: Artists, albums, and songs are nominated by record companies. Does anyone see anything wrong with this?! This is a major conflict of interest. Of course the record companies would want to nominate the most popular music as it directly benefits them and gives their artists further publicity. These nominations are then sent to the National Academy of recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) who narrow the list down to five final nominees

2)      Choosing the Winners: The winners are then chosen by the NARAS. The NARAS is an organization of professionals in the music industry who are not always educated in the many genres that the Grammys give out awards to, which brings me to my next point…

3)      Too Many Awards: The NARAS handed out a whopping 109 Grammys this year. Really? 109?! Must we know what was the Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package was as well as the Best Album Notes? Should we also perhaps know what the Best Surround Sound Album is too? Oh wait, it was given to Britten’s Orchestra. And that doesn’t even count the Latin Grammy Awards, so if you’re in need of another Grammy fix, November is just nine months and counting…

4)      The Hollywood Factor: The night is less of an honorable event celebrating music and more of, well, a glamorized show parading stars around for another great photo op. While the night should be only about music, a quick Google search the next day yields completely different search results such as a story about how teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber’s fly was unzipped during the awards ceremony and another one speculating the possibility that John Mayer and Miley Cyrus may have “hooked up” at the event.

While some loved the show (it posted its best ratings in a decade), I can’t seem to view the night seriously. When taking into consideration that the highlight of the night for many viewers was seeing star Cee Lo Green dressed up as a giant bird complete with colorful feathers, I can’t help but see the annual show as a complete joke of music. Moreover, music is very important to me as well as for others in America and when everyone seems to have different tastes in music how could we possibly label one album as the best one? Is it the one that sells the most records? Is it the one that MTV plays the most and tells us to like? Or is it the one almost no one's ever heard of? The idea that one is truly "the best" is ludicrous. It’s completely subjective. Nonetheless, the Grammys manage to make money out of it and are here to stay whether I like it or not.

The Public Intellectual: Christopher Hitchens

Though the public intellectual is a difficult individual to define, Jean Bethke Elshtain argued that the main function for the public intellectual in today’s society is criticism. Elshtain also goes on to argue that “public intellectuals are in a better position to perform such a function because learning the processes of criticism and practicing them with some regularity are requisites for intellectual employment.” While these requisites may appear to be tough and the public intellectual seem nonexistent these days, Christopher Hitchens’ journalistic career coupled with his criticism of politics, religion, and notable individuals proves that the public intellectual has not completely disappeared from our society and their opinions still hold significant weight in this world.

            Born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England in 1949, Hitchens attended the University of Oxford where he received a third class degree and subsequently began his career as a journalist before immigrating to the United States in 1981. It was here that he wrote for magazines The Nation and Vanity Fair. In 2002, Hitchens left the Nation due to disagreements over the war in Iraq post September 11th. Hitchens’ strong beliefs including his support of President Bush’s war on terror and criticism of the government’s use of water boarding are prime examples of his status as a public intellectual and were aided by his education and work in the field of journalism. His journalistic background gave him experience in reporting facts and awarded him credibility among US citizens and foreign countries alike. Had Hitchens been merely educated in an unrelated field such as medicine, sports, or agriculture, his opinions on government and politics would not be valued as much by society and would not make him appear to be a public intellectual.

            Additionally, Hitchens’ subject matter for his criticisms includes topics that are relevant to the general public, not items that only relate to specific individuals. When it comes to religion (an area that must be considered by all whether you choose to follow God or denounce all), Hitchens is a self proclaimed anti-theist (one who is opposed to organized religion or the belief in any God) and even wrote a book titled God Is Not Great where he critiques religion. Although controversial, this book did reach #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list in its third week of circulation, which showed that many Americans were curious to hear his argument even though it was not a popular one in the mainstream society. This proves that although not everyone shares Hitchens views, he is a valued intellectual in society and presents intriguing ideas to an ever curious society.

            Specific individuals aren’t even safe from Hitchens’ criticism. In 2006, Hitchens showed that he does indeed hold all accountable for their actions and is willing to bring even some of the most famous people to light when he criticized Mel Gibson by calling him “sick to his empty core with Jew-hatred.” These harsh words from the Oxford graduate were made after it was reported that Gibson had harassed his arresting officer, asked him if he was Jewish, and then insulted the religion and its followers. Hitchens had not used any bias and did not give Gibson exemption because of his fame; he only commented on the event and gave his input. Not everyone will agree with what Hitchens has to say, but public intellectuals don’t always have to be right, they don’t even have to be popular (as Hitchens shows with his controversial ways), but they have to be educated and like Stephen Mack says, say knowledgeable things worth hearing about. Hitchens clearly does just this and proves that the role of the public intellectual in today’s society is far from dead.