NOTE: “Before it gets ugly, let me first say this: the views expressed in this piece are the views of Junoir Blaber, and only Junoir Blaber. MTM and its affiliates do not endorse nor condone any of the opinions Mssr. Blaber has put forth.” – Junoir Blaber [Sports Rain Main]
EL BARRIO, EL FALLS – I have been watching a lot of news and reading quite a bit during my 50-60 work weeks. The result is that I have a lot to say about what’s going on. With that, I will mess with the tried-and-true formula of a Song of the Week, followed by Sports Stuff by dabbling in politics before I get in the sports stuff. After the Song of the Week, my mighty sword/keyboard with crash down upon all these men being accused of sexual assault . With that, today’s Stuff will be about: The Al Franken Sexual Assault Revelations, Defending Lavar Ball & the New-Look Knicks!
Song of the Week: I think this will be the tamest of my unpopular opinions. I know most remakes suck when it comes to movies. Music is a bit more hit miss. When it comes to the American Woman remake by Lenny Kravitz, it pisses all over The Guess Who original from a great height. It has more edge and is just a little more bad-ass. Take a listen to it then go listen to the original. I dare you to disagree. Take a listen and enjoy a new classic.
The Sexual Assault Revelations: After jumping into the Ray Rice debacle and the Adrian Peterson farce, you shouldn’t be surprised by me getting into something I should steer clear of. My question is literally about what the end game is here?! Believe I am not defending the men accused, though I was disappointed to see Al Franken dragged into it.
But what is meant to be gotten out of this? Taking down a politician doesn’t mean the poor girl working part time at a retail store won’t have to deal with a weekly groping from a creepy manager just to get some extra hours so she can pay her bills. This is a movement without direction and that is dangerous. It is dangerous because there will be a backlash point, since there always is one. Unions use to be good guys then they got too corrupt and powerful and became bad guys leading to increased anti-union sentiment. Remember how Black Lives Matter took a huge hit after a fringe member opened a machine gun attack on cops in Dallas? That is the problem with a lot of these new age movements, they are too open-sourced (to use a tech term). Everyone and anyone can be part of the movement, so you get people that are not right in the head that are “members” add to that the way this new generation detests leaders and demands insane purity tests for someone to be even classified a leader.
The Civil Rights Movement had about 9 leaders, including the most famous one Dr. King. Nine is a lot, but considering how many millions they were leading, it is a good number. 
This new movement of out men who harass women, who are the leaders, where is it going? The time to be in the headlines is finite, so the most must be made of it. That said, I think the goal is to expand the legal degrees of sexual assault. Currently there are 4. If we could get to 7, that would be great – mainly because it would allow for more women living further down the class totem pole to have some sort of weapon they can use to get better treatment in all facets of their life. Senators Claire McCaskill, Susan Collins, Kristen Gillenbrand and Lisa Murkowski should be the leaders of this movement, along with NOW (National Org for Women). There can be fresh blood but there needs to be some sort of structure for when the one case of rape that ends up being a false allegation comes along. And it will. So, lets get it together ladies, and turn this movement into something with some tangible results.
Defending Lavar Ball: Somehow Lavar Ball is a bad sports dad. It is funny to me that he has this label because it is unfair to the man. 
He is bringing up three fine young men, but he is a bad dad because he lacks humility and thinks he knows best. Looking at the history of this country and the current President, he seems very American. I love Tony Dungy. He is one of my coaching idols. But his kid got involved with bad people and ended up getting killed sorry allegedly killing himself.
Same goes for Andy Reid, who is a soft-spoken person but likable. When we look at more one-to-one matches for Ball, you had Marv Marinovich, Earl Woods and Richard Williams. So far Williams is the leader, but Ball is second. Lonzo Ball is doing well in the league despite a current slump and staying out of trouble. His second son, LiAngelo just got into a wee bit of trouble with shoplifting in China. I am not downplaying it, but it could be something as simple as a dare-gone-wrong. The bigger problem is that LiAngelo has been suspended by UCLA, making his likelihood of one-n-done more troublesome; he may need to have a second year. The third son LaMelo, has been taken out of school to be home schooled, which I understand, since the coach sucks. But that means the kid has to do AAU or find some other way to get into UCLA or a big-time program. I guess he could go as a walk-on but that makes his climb that much harder. Either way, Ball is a loudmouth but he is still a good dad that is there for his boys and is helping them be the best person(s) they can be.
The New New York Knicks: I am loving these new-look NY Knicks. It is a bit weird that after being so anti-Europe that we have a very distinct EUro feel. The same team that drafted and never used Frederic Weiss, drafted and traded Marcel Lampej and Danilo Gallanari is now lead by some Europeans. We have Kristaps Porzingis, the Latvian Unicorn and “French” Frank Ntilikina. After watching Turkish Enes Kantor get into the face of LeBron James, I felt like the Knicks finally had a new Charles Oakley, the White Oakley, I heard him dubbed. You combine these guys with Queens own Kyle O’Quinn and Tim Hardaway, Jr. and you have the makings of a sold team. They won’t touch the Celtics (Brad Stevens has been doing a great job) or the Cavs but they definitely will make the playoffs.
That is it for now, leave your thoughts below, and come back tomorrow for another gem of a column by Cheesy Bruin. You can also find us on Twitter – @JunoirBlaber, @MeetTheMatts & @Matt_McCarthy00, Instagram – @MeetTheMatts – and Facebook – Meet The Matts.
