{"id":311,"date":"2011-04-14T09:26:29","date_gmt":"2011-04-14T13:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/catholicsmediaandculture\/?p=311"},"modified":"2011-04-14T10:33:39","modified_gmt":"2011-04-14T14:33:39","slug":"kobe-bryant-on-defense-following-anti-gay-slur-is-a-guy-being-hit-by-a-truck-funny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2011\/04\/kobe-bryant-on-defense-following-anti-gay-slur-is-a-guy-being-hit-by-a-truck-funny.html","title":{"rendered":"Kobe Bryant on defense following anti-gay slur; Is a guy being hit by a truck funny?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kobe Bryant on defense.<\/strong><\/a> During a heated game with the San Antonio Spurs, the LA Lakers superstar was caught on camera mouthing a couple of offensive F words toward the ref who had just slammed him with a technical foul.\u00a0 GLAAD quickly went on offense and NBA Commissioner fined him $100,000. Bryant is appealing the fine but apologizing for the slur. “What I said last night should not be taken literally,” he said in a statement.\u00a0 “My actions were out of frustration during the heat of the game, period,” he maintained, adding “The words expressed do NOT reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were NOT meant to offend anyone.\u201d
\nIMHO: <\/strong>I find the offending term offensive myself. But I’d like to know, did he actually scream the offending words at the ref or more or less mutter them to himself toward the ref?\u00a0 The reporting I’ve seen leaves that unclear. In the former case, a fine is appropriate. In that latter, it’s creepy. (Watch the video on ABC News<\/a> and see what you think.) If the P.C.P.D. has reached the point of lip reading what pro athletes mouth during a tense game, that may be taking the ball a bit over the line.<\/p>\n

Is a guy being run down by an ice cream truck funny? <\/strong>Norm MacDonald is one of my favorite comedians. Nobody delivers a line quite like him and I’m looking forward to catching his new Sports Show <\/em>on Comedy Central (sort of the The Daily Show <\/em>with an ESPN twist).\u00a0 However,\u00a0 I found a clip of the show featured on The Wrap<\/a> to be more than a bit objectionable. It shows a video of a man (apparently taken from YouTube<\/a>) dancing happily in middle of the street when he’s suddenly slammed by a passing ice cream truck.\u00a0 Norm makes some jokes. The audience dutifully laughs at his glibness. At least on the rather lengthy clip (01:39, to be precise), we’re never even reassuringly told something like “Don’t worry. The guy wasn’t hurt.” <\/em>We don’t know if he was hurt or not and apparently aren’t expected to care. BTW, it looked like he probably was. And we wonder why our society seems to be getting ever coarser.
\nNow, if the person hit were a priest or a nun, the Catholic League would go ballistic. If it happened during a Gay Pride parade, GLAAD would be up in arms. And, though the guy appears to be black, the driver of the truck isn’t heard saying (or seen mouthing) the “N” word, so the NAACP appears fine with it.\u00a0 There’s also no anti-Islamic slur involved (lucky driver) so CAIR doesn’t care. No, it’s just a guy being hit by a truck. And we’re supposed to think it’s funny. It’s not.<\/p>\n

Encourage one another and build each other up \u2013 <\/em>1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kobe Bryant on defense. During a heated game with the San Antonio Spurs, the LA Lakers superstar was caught on camera mouthing a couple of offensive F words toward the ref who had just slammed him with a technical foul.\u00a0 GLAAD quickly went on offense and NBA Commissioner fined him $100,000. Bryant is appealing the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1,24,129,6],"tags":[52,141,142,91,139,92,130,133,140,134,132,135,136,137,138],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-media","category-politics","category-sports","category-television","tag-1-thessalonians-511","tag-abc-news","tag-anti-gay-slur","tag-cair","tag-catholic-league","tag-glaad","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-la-lakers","tag-naacp","tag-norm-macdonald","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports-show-on-comede-central","tag-the-daily-show-with-an-espn-twist","tag-the-wrap","tag-youtube"],"yoast_head":"\nKobe Bryant on defense following anti-gay slur; Is a guy being hit by a truck funny? - Catholics Media and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2011\/04\/kobe-bryant-on-defense-following-anti-gay-slur-is-a-guy-being-hit-by-a-truck-funny.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kobe Bryant on defense following anti-gay slur; Is a guy being hit by a truck funny? - Catholics Media and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kobe Bryant on defense. During a heated game with the San Antonio Spurs, the LA Lakers superstar was caught on camera mouthing a couple of offensive F words toward the ref who had just slammed him with a technical foul.\u00a0 GLAAD quickly went on offense and NBA Commissioner fined him $100,000. Bryant is appealing the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2011\/04\/kobe-bryant-on-defense-following-anti-gay-slur-is-a-guy-being-hit-by-a-truck-funny.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholics Media and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-14T13:26:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-04-14T14:33:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. 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Kennedy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","caption":"John W. Kennedy"},"description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media & Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations & Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. 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