NBA All Star Game

The Good News: Mardi Gras 2008 is on my birthday.

The Bad News: The NBA All Star Game is in New Orleans on Feb. 15th of next year. Read Jason Whitlock's great article to see what a total disaster it was. He even takes a shot at ESPN.

"NBA All-Star Weekend in Vegas was an unmitigated failure, and any thoughts of taking the extravaganza to New Orleans in 2008 are total lunacy.
...
Without a full-scale military occupation, New Orleans will not survive All-Star Weekend 2008."

Deadspin has a nice wrapup, too. Read the comments, too.

Here's one of the comments:

Next year should be a total disaster in NOLA. Like this year, but ramped up 10X. Just like Whitlock says. The NOLA police can't keep things together now, and the city has 1/2 the population as before.

So I guess, when it comes down to it, NBA All-Star Weekend will finish what Katrina and the Chicago Bears started.

The police said it was a success because they "prevented total chaos." Jesus, just imagine how NOPD is going to cope. There were multiple shootings right on the Strip. A search of Google News and "NBA Violence" gives an inkling of how bad it was.

This article reminds me of descriptions of what it's like to wait on crowds during Essence or the Bayou Classic. Too bad I can't find that Nolafugees article about waiting on crowds during Essence.

Here's a more tame version of Whitlock's article. Had Bill Simmons, who is white, written the same article as Whitlock, who is black, Simmons would be unemployed.

Why is it that many black cultural events get hijacked by the thug 'culcha?' NBA All Star Weekend, Freaknik, the Bayou Classic, Essence Fest, etc. all are, in Jason Whitlock's words, "Woodstock for parolees, wannabe rap artists and baby's mamas on tax-refund vacations." How to separate the Thug culture from the real culture. Zulu has done it. How else can it be done? Wost comes to worse, you're just have to shut the events down, like Atlanta did with Freaknik.

I'm going to be on vacation next February 15th. Out of state.