Rev. Jesse Jackson: Please, stop being an idiot

Responding to Dan Gilbert's hilarious, over-the-top diatribe in a letter to fans after LeBron James left the Cavaliers for the Heat, the Rev. Jesse Jackson had this to say in a statement released by his Rainbow PUSH Coalition:

"He speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship--between business partners--and LeBron honored his contract."

And he adds later:

"LeBron is not a child, nor is he bound to play on Gilbert’s plantation and be demeaned. He has been a model citizen and has inspired the children of Akron, Cleveland, the State of Ohio and the United States."

I mean, seriously. Or maybe Gilbert just reacted the way a scorned lover would. Nonsense like this is exactly why Jesse Jackson's message on real issues gets lost so often. Making such over-the-top statements on meaningless situations like this only serves to demean the work the Rainbow PUSH Coalition does on meaningful issues. It is a shame that Jackson finds the need to interject on situations like this so often, generally to the detriment of the real causes he should be supporting.

The other Touchdown Jesus goes down

In a sense, it would have been quite symbolic in some weird, perverse way had Touchdown Jesus on the Notre Dame campus been destroyed by a lightning bolt. Given that Notre Dame football has essentially died as major power, the destruction of that statue would have been the symbolic end to their football dominance, even if the actual end came roughly 15 years ago.

But the Touchdown Jesus in South Bend still stands, even as Notre Dame football goes the way of Army football and Navy football, once relevant but now completely irrelevant (actually, I take that back--Army and Navy both remain relevant in football one day a year, when they play each other). The same cannot be said of the "Touchdown Jesus" in Ohio, just north of Cincinnati.

Nicknamed as such because the Jesus statue's arms are raised like a referee signaling a touchdown, the 60-foot tall statue lasted just six years before being taken down by a lightning bolt and burning to the ground. "Burning to the ground" is probably an accurate metaphoric way for describing the state of Notre Dame football.

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