As the Truth sees it…

A 35-year old woman came to me seeking advice. She told me that her 25-year old boyfriend of several years had become heavily addicted to the video game “World of WarCraft.” She felt he was sacrificing time with her in order to play his game.
After a few months of this, she decided to give him an ultimatum. He either had to give up the game or she would give him up. He tried to talk her out of it, made all sorts of promises about cutting back on the game and spending more time with her. But she was adamant. She wanted him to give it up completely.
So after a few days of avoiding her, he made his decision. He went back playing “World of WarCraft,” and she was without a man in her life.
I told her that she shouldn’t have been so greedy and demanding and it costs her.
Was I right and she made a mistake in trying to force her man to do something he didn’t want to? Or did she have every right to try and split her former boyfriend up from his true love, a video game?

Last week on the Billboard Pop Top 100 Catalog Albums sales, the Beatles occupied nine of the top 10 slots. Until I saw that, I didn’t even know The Beatles had put out that may albums.
Yet, I still do not see what the big deal is. They put out a couple of good songs that and a few bad movies. Talent wise they do not compare to Run-DMC, Guns & Roses or The Roots. But fans act like they invented music.
It’s a puzzle I hope someone can explain to me. Why have the Beatles music lasted this long? Because truthfully, it’s a toss up between them and The Back Street Boys on who is better.
Michael Kinney

I have been a fan of Adrian Peterson since he burst onto the scene at Oklahoma in 2003. I watched him play in many games and interviewed him a few times after wins and losses. But I recently read an article about him in Sports Illustrated (Sept. 16, 2009) that put AD (All Day) in a new light for me.
In the article, Peterson told of watching Usain Bolt break the world record in the 100-meter dash this summer. He turned to his uncle, who was watching with him, and said “I’m not saying I would have won, but I would have been in the race.”
That is the kind of confidence you like to hear in an athlete. Not bragging or arrogant. It’s just the natural competitor coming out. That is the type of animal defenders have had to deal with in the NFL the past two years. Judging by his first two games, he is just getting warmed up.
Michael Kinney

Saturday, while looking for a story at the OU-Tulsa football game (see A-1 of Sunday’s Norman Transcript), I was informed that Courtney and Ashley Paris would be joining the Oklahoma women’s basketball team at half-time in accepting their 2009 Big 12 Championship trophy. The first thought that came to my mind was how can Courtney be here if the WNBA season is still going on. I knew she hadn’t been cut or injured. So when I found out the postseason had started and her Sacramento squad was not in it, I was even more shocked.
That’s right, a major professional league’s postseason has started, and no one seems to have noticed. The WNBA has the bad luck of having the playoffs take place at the exact same time as the start of the high school, college and pro football seasons and the wind down to the major league baseball regular season. That doesn’t leave much time for sporting fans to check out players like Lisa Leslie, who is playing her final season in the league, Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird. They are great athletes and great players, who just happen to play in a league that is fighting for attention on a sports landscape that is already filled to the brim.
Will the WNBA ever reach the status of its male counterpart in the NBA? Or will it stay a second class citizen on the level of horse racing and soccer?
Until they get a transcendent player like Tiger Woods, who raised golf to new heights, the WNBA will be stuck in sport purgatory.

Michael Kinney

This week Oklahoma was a buzz as the UFC made a stop in Oklahoma City Sept. 16. From all accounts, it was a huge success. I expected it to be. Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has become the flavor of the month, year and maybe even decade. With its no-hold barred, all out fighting, blood, tap outs and knock outs, it has taken the 15-35 year old male and turned them into avid fans. Including me.
But, has it grown big enough that it can lay claim to being more popular than boxing? I don’t think so. At least not yet.
Boxing has a lot of things working against it. Dull fights, too many commissions and top-ranked fighters ducking other top-ranked fighters are just a few of the issues that professional boxing has to deal with.
However a Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao battle next year has a chance to be the biggest fight since Tyson- Holyfield. Both have tough fights this year, but if they win, the two pound-for-pound best fighters in the world will have no choice but to meet and settle who is the best.
That is what pro boxing has over MMA. Anticipation and intrigue before the actual collision. And it starts Saturday when Mayweather faces Juan Manuel Marquez. You can bet I will be planted in front of the television somewhere watching.

In the past couple of years, the topic of Bullying has surfaced throughout the nation. From middle schools to colleges, individuals or groups picking on a smaller or seemingly weaker person has caught the public’s attention.
It was once again the center of a firestorm this week when a fight on a school bus in Belleville, IL. was caught on video. Because it involved black and white students it was first described as a possible hate crime, then downgraded to an act of bullying.
The video shows two black students beating up a 17-year old white student, who was just trying to find a seat on a crowed school bus Monday. While the beating was taking place, the other students on the bus cheered the action and all the bus driver did was tell everyone to sit down but never did anything to stop the fight. (see link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0A_v0-gcWQ)
As of now the only thing that happened is the school suspended seven students, five of them for laughing while the fight took place. The two instigators, who are 14 and 15, could still have charges filed against them, but not likely.
My question is how bad is bullying today? The way people make it sound sometimes is that it just started this decade and never took place in past generations. Why is it all of a sudden getting this type of attention when kids have been getting bullied for decades? Are we living in a more sensitive age or are we just finally seeing the errors of the past and bringing them to light? What will it take to stop bullying or do we just have to toughen our kids up and teach them to fight back?
Michael Kinney

For those of you who may have been watching Sunday Night Football or the season finale of True Blood, as I was, you may have missed the weirdest moment of the year during the MTV Music Awards Sunday night.
A quick recap: Taylor Swift won an award for video of the year beating out Beyonce and a few other stars. As Swift was just starting her acceptance speech, out of nowhere Kanye West bolts on-stage, takes the mic and tells everyone and their mother that Beyonce’s video was the greatest he had ever seen. West was booed by the audience, Beyonce looked mortified that it had happened and a stunned 20-year old Swift stood by with an expression on her face as if West had kicked her favorite puppy and told her Santa wasn’t real.
Since then Kanye has been the talk of all the social networks, cable and network TV and AM and FM radio. It was a sad display from a man who has roots in Oklahoma. But it’s not unexpected. Kanye has no problem upstaging whoever he wants to let get his point across. Whether it’s abut him or friends of his.
Besides, as someone wrote on my Facebook page last night, “Kanye was just saying what we all were thinking.” Another friend called and told me this was Swift’s Welcome to the music industry moment and she needs to just toughen up and make the best of it. I tend to agree.
What do you think?

Friday night the Basketball Hall of Fame inducted the 2009 class into its ranks. Players and coaches such as David Robinson, John Stockton, Jerry Sloan and C. Vivian Stringer were part of the festivities. The class also included a man many people have labeled the greatest basketball player of all-time, Michael Jordan. Thankfully, I am not one of those believers.
I think Jordan was a great player. One of the top 50 ever. Even I can’t argue that. But to hand him the title of greatest of all-time is discounting the many, many ballers who revolutionized the game in ways Jordan couldn’t and didn’t. Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Larry bird, Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Shaq and Kobe are just a few names that I would put ahead of Jordan.
The top of the list is reserved for the real MJ, Magic Johnson. There is no comparison to how Magic changed the game. Magic was a 6-foot-9 point guard who played every position and was the ultimate team player. There has never been a player like him before or since. That doesn’t even include his post basketball career where he became a champion of Aids awareness, rebuilds minority communities, and helping the poor and homeless.
The only attribute Jordan ever brought to his career that will never be duplicated was his ability to sell shoes. Do you think that will be engraved on his Hall of Fame bust?
I was lucky enough to have to work Friday night and missed Jordan’s induction. I can only hope the rest of you were as fortunate.

A friend of mine, who is attending a local college, texted me yesterday after enduring what she described as an emotional event. While waiting for her next class in the student union, a fellow student approached her and asked when is she expecting. This would normally not be a problem, except that she is not pregnant.
After she informed him she was not with child, he asked her if she just had a baby. This was like adding salt to a gaping wound. Once again she told him she didn’t just have a kid. Her only kid is a pre-teen. The stranger mentioned he had stuck his foot in his mouth and tried to get my friend’s name and shake hands with her. But she would have none of it. After he slinked off, she sat there silently crying for a few minutes feeling humiliated the rest of the day.
So my question is, is there a right way or time to ever ask a woman if she is pregnant if you do not know for sure? And if you do ask, and she is not, should a person feel bad for asking the question?

I watched President Barack Obama’s talk to the nation’s students today. And I am as perplexed as ever on why a fuss was made over it. And to find out that some area school districts were conveniently out of school today is even more amazing.
The focus of Obama’s speech was just telling kids to work hard, stay in school and never give up. I guess it matters more who is saying it rather than what is being said.
I truly believe the schools, teachers and parents that had an issue with having their kids listen to the President would fall over backwards if Paris Hilton wanted to speak at their schools. And I bet they wouldn’t want to prescreen her speech either.