Faka gangstas, the funny pages and an overlooked college hoops team

- So far this year, college basketball has been dominated, at least in terms of headlines and airtime, by the so-termed “Big Four” of North Carolina, UCLA, Florida and Wisconsin. The consensus has been that these four teams have established themselves as the class of the nation, and although parity reigns supreme in college hoops and you can’t say for sure that the national champion will come from this group, they are the teams to beat. One thing I believe everyone has been underestimating, however, is the effect that freshman center Greg Oden is going to have on Ohio State once he actually gets close to full strength. Up til now, the focus with Oden has been first on the fact that he’s a virtual lock to leave school after one year and be the top pick in the 2007 NBA Draft. The 7-foot-1, 260-pound monster could very well do that. The rest of the focus on Oden has been on his missing the first month-plus of the season after wrist surgery. Of course, not nearly enough attention has been paid to the fact that with his thick beard and overall appearance, he’s more likely pushing 50 than still being two years from his twentieth birthday, but that’s another topic for another day. Honestly, he’s already been a dominating, if slightly inconsistent, force in the middle for the Buckeyes, and the healthier he gets, the better his numbers get and the greater his impact on the game becomes. His shot blocking alone could produce a Patrick Ewing-esque effect in the postseason, to the extent that OSU could easily beat any of the Big Four on a given day. Yet OSU has been overlooked, playing in the same conference as Wisconsin. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking these guys come March, though, or you could end up with a face full of Spaulding, just like one of Oden’s opponents trying to shoot over the big fella.

- One place I’m sure to go in the newspaper every day, besides the sports section, is to the funnies. I think a lot of adults probably read the funnies on a daily basis and have their favorites, and these comics are a small but often powerful part of life. Laughing is such an essential component of life and all too often, the funnies are one of the few places to steal a laugh on an otherwise terrible day. One of my favorite comics for a while has been “For Better or Worse”, a comic following the fictional Patterson family through life’s ups, downs and little oddities. It’s sometimes serious, always a little funny and often tackles bigger issues in life, and sadly, later this year cartoonist Lynn Johnston will be seriously scaling back her creation. The series won't go away entirely, but it will largely recycle old material, framed by a few new pieces here and there. No more 7/365 for a comic that’s been a daily staple literally every day for nearly three decades. I’ll miss it and the comics page won't be the same. There’ll be a few less laughs every day, and for that reason it’s a sad day on the funnies page.

- Remember when a tearful Tara Conner stood up and promised she would change, that her wild ways were behind her and she was just oh, so thankful to have a second chance? You remember that, along with Donald Trump triumphantly proclaiming that “Tara will be given a second chance.” Well, I was on board with all of that, and honestly, I did care if it was honest or genuine, I can simply always get on board with a hot chick who likes to go crazy, period. But for the sake of appearances, a girl who has been chastised for drinking, partying, drugging and messing around with other girls probably should not be negotiating to pose in Playboy when she’s attempting to clean up her image. Conner went to rehab recently, and correct me if I’m wrong, but taking your clothes off for a skin mag is not one of the 12 steps in the AA program. Yet Conner (with Trump in tow) negotiated with the magazine before ultimately deciding against posing. Trump says she would not have been totally nude, but that’s like robbing a bank and claiming it’s not so bad because you only took the money and didn’t pistol-whip the teller in the process. Tara Conner needs to make up her mind; either she’s going to go the squeaky clean route and stop all of her questionable behavior altogether, or she’s going to capitalize on the bad girl rep she’s built and ride it as far as it goes. Make up your mind, Tara, you can't keep going back and forth.

- White college kids wanting to pretend that they’re hardcore gangstas isn't a new concept. If you ever take a look at the music selections college athletes make for their warm-up CDs - Ludacris, T.I., Jay-Z, Danity Kane, Kanye West, Mystikal - you realize that even though a lot of these people are white and from very suburban, country-club-style neighborhoods, they still think they can pull off the gangsta vibe. Nothing’s funnier than a white girl from an upper-class suburban neighborhood who went to a private boarding school picking a Ghostface Killa tune as her warm-up song. But having so-called “gangsta parties” where you dress in fake jewel-studded grills and gang attire, drink malt liquor from paper bags and even wear blackface makeup seems like such a stupid, offensive idea that not even a very white, very suburban college kid would try it in a desperate grab for street cred. Yet college administrators nationwide are dealing with the backlash from exactly these kinds of parties, parties drawing the ire of black and white students alike who say such even pander to the worst negative stereotypes about African American culture. Playing the music is one thing; trying to pick up the verbiage and talk is another and not all that awful; dressing up in costume like it’s friggin’ Halloween and a black gangsta is some caricature or costume to have fun with is just idiotic. Even University of Connecticut Law School students aren't smart enough to figure this out, holding a “Bullets and Bubbly” party where they carried fake machine guns and wore baggy jeans. Memo to all who would attend to throw these kinds of parties: you’re white. Admit it, embrace it and learn to live with it. Try not openly mocking and belittling a group of people that comprise a rather large percentage of the student body on your campus. See if that doesn’t work out a little better for all of you……

- Your political career is on very shaky ground when you, as an alleged political revolutionary leader, are politely asked to not take part in a tortilla price protest march. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a leading member of the opposition to Mexican president Felipe Calderon and a man who narrowly lost to Calderon in the last election, offered to lead a protest march this week against soaring tortilla prices in Mexico and was told no thanks. Organizers of the march weren't too excited about having the leading voice of a group that has rapidly shrunk and faded from public view and relevance since losing the disputed election, and maybe Obrador should take this hint and realize that if you aren't important enough to lead a tortilla protest march, you are no longer a person of significance in…well, pretty much anywhere.

- I, like everyone else with even a shred of football knowledge, wasn’t bowled over when the Oakland Raiders signed Lane Kiffin, 31-year-old assistant coach at USC, as their new head coach. Well, apparently Raiders wide receiver Randy Moss isn't really impressed with Kiffin either. When the new coach grabbed the phone and tried to get in touch with his new star wide receiver, he had trouble tracking Moss down. Finally, Kiffin got Moss on the line, but that proved to be a bad thing. Moss is reported to have unleashed an obscenity-laden tirade on Kiffin, basically dressing him down and explaining in colorful, vulgar terminology that he had no interest in speaking with the man who was now his boss. Not a great start, especially for a coach who will be younger than many of the players he will coach. Kiffin needs to get a hold of his team quickly, and to do so, he may have to be a hard line, a-hole even if that’s not his personality. Until he establishes his leadership and builds some credibility, he has no hope of leading an abysmal franchise out of the absolutely decrepit state it’s fallen into.