The case of North Face v. South Butt, Delonte West is freaking scaring me and Google Wave about to wash over us

- It would seem tat apparel maker North Face does not have much of a sense of humor, corporate-wise. The company is none too happy with Jimmy Winkelmann, a University of Missouri freshman who created a new clothing line called South Butt, with a logo and name that are obviously clever pokes at North Face, which manufactures, shirts, jackets, shorts and other clothing items. Winkelmann’s South Butt clothes are sold at the Ladue Pharmacy in his hometown of St. Louis, but if North Face has anything to say about it, they won't be there for long. Jim Winkelmann, Jimmy Winkelmann’s father, said that North Face sent a letter asking his son's South Butt line to "immediately" stop production. "We don't understand why they were taking this aggressive posture," Jim Winkleman mused. According to the letter, North Face’s grievance is with the younger Winkelmann’s use of the half-dome design that it has made famous as its logo. On South Butt merchandise, the half-dome is flipped upside down, but North Face doesn’t seem to see the humor. Winkelmann’s attorney, Albert Watkins, stated this week that he attempted to resolve the matter with North Face’s lawyers, but to no avail. "I did try to explain with a great deal of candor to counsel for the North Face that the general public is aware of the difference between a face and a butt,” Watkins humorously recalled. Ironically, Winkelmann's dad says the whole idea behind his son's creation is to offer customers an alternative to North Face’s soul-less corporatism. Jimmy Winkelman admitted that he was nervous at first when North Face came after his company, but now he relishes the attention his merchandise is getting and the fact that it could boost sales. For the time being, the clothing will continue to be sold, which is good on several levels. First, I think this is a clever concept and although I personally wouldn’t want to wear any South Butt gear, I can see where some people might. Second, this has the potential to lead to one of the funniest-named court cases ever: North Face v. the South Butt. Say what you will about Jimmy Winkelman, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t laugh for a good 10-20 seconds at least if you saw “South Butt defeats North Face in landmark case” as a headline……………

- They have not have won a World Series title in nearly two decades, but no franchise in Major League Baseball is deserving of more respect on an annual basis than the Minnesota Twins. For those unfamiliar with the economics of baseball, let’s just say that there is no salary cap and teams like the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers, all based in major media markets, have infinitely more revenue and bigger budgets than small-market teams like the Twins. This year, Minnesota boasts a payroll of $65.2 million, less than a third of the $201 million the Yankees are paying their bloated, bought roster of all-stars. So the Twins can't sign prime free agents in the offseason and more often than not, they must watch their own elite players leave in free agency when their contracts are up because they simply don’t have the resources to hand out absurd free-agent deals like the Yankees do. In spite of that, the Twins are ridiculously competitive on a yearly basis with rosters filled with cast-offs from other teams, scrappy overachievers and homegrown talent. This year, they overcame an injury to MVP candidate Justin Morneau and missing all-stat catcher Joe Mauer for more than a month during the season because of a knee injury and have battled right back into the AL Central race, currently residing just two games behind the front-running Detroit Tigers. Last year, they were in a similar position and ran down the Chicago White Sox to force a one-game playoff for the division that the Sox ultimately won. They’ve won the division four times in the past seven season, even as their chief rivals outspent them. Manager Ron Gardenhire is a fiery leader who is beloved by his players. They know he always has their backs and will fight for them to the end, an attitude that permeates throughout the clubhouse. Another advantage the Twins always have working for there is their stadium, the infamous Metrodome. With its off-white roof, the dome presents incredibly difficult challenges for opposing players trying to pick up fly balls hit up near the roof. The Twins’ outfielders are adept at doing so because they play 81 games a year there. Also, the hard-as-a-rock playing surfance underneath the Metrodome’s Field Turf artificial grass allows the Twins to absolutely kill teams with multiple-hop base hits on balls that would be fielded easily on natural grass fields. Now, those Metrodome advantages will be gone after this season as the team moves to Target Field, a new outdoor stadium being built in downtown Minneapolis, but the other advantages of coaching, organizational excellence and toughness will still be there. So whether the Twins chase down the Tigers and win the division this year or not, their great pursuit and the toughness showed all season long will only bolster their stellar reputation around Major League Baseball and with knowledgeable fans of the game around the world……..

- Who to oppose here, who to oppose, despise and mock? On the one hand, I hate the American Civil Liberties Union because they basically seem to go around defending the rights of deviants, troublemakers and problem-causers and revel in stirring up dissent in defending those who quite frankly should not be defended at all. On the other hand, you all know my fierce despisal of The Man and especially when The Man tries to go all Big Brother and invade the private lives of Joe Citizen. So with the ACLU pitted against the city of Sacramento in its plan to install surveillance cameras throughout the city. The ACLU is taking the stance that the cameras are an invasion of privacy and may open the door to racial profiling. As for the first charge, I might be able to get with the idea that the cameras invade privacy. Where do you put them, how much can they see and are they strictly limited to non-invasive, public places are all valid questions. As for the racial profiling angle…..that’s typical ACLU bullsh*t. They will pick up the minority angle any time then can and bang that drum even if racism has no correlation to the issue at all. What, are there going to be special cameras that are rigged to follow only black people as they move around the city? Will there be special software installed on the cameras and the system that set off alarms when Hispanic people appear on camera? The race claim is so ridiculous that it basically invalidates the ACLU’s claim right off the bat. The agency points to a recent study which found that police in a city with 1 million surveillance cameras, only 1,000 crimes in 2008 were solved using closed circuit television. The ACLU’s argument is that instead of putting up cameras, the $615,000 grant from Homeland Security should be used to put more police officers on the street. "If you're walking down the street and somebody is thinking about mugging you, crooks are not stupid, they can see the camera," said ACLU Chairman Jim Updegraff. "They are not going to assault you, they will wait until you get to the next corner where there is no camera, then you get assaulted.” Perhaps there could be a camera on the next corner or police patrolling in areas where there aren’t cameras? But I hate the ACLU for putting me in a position where I’m almost defending law enforcement, because I hate that. However, the fact that I disagree with the Sacramento Police Department’s claim that putting up cameras will not infringe on people's rights, so no worries. "You can go online look around the world, there are surveillance cameras monitoring major cities and major iconic places like Tiananmen Square, so cameras are everywhere," said Sacramento police Sgt. Norm Leong. Umm, you probably don’t want to cite any tactic the Chinese government uses to control its citizenry as justification for your own actions, Norm. The Chinese government isn't generally considered a fair, forward-thinking group that makes the right choices in protecting and serving its people. Having taken in the arguments from both sides, I suppose my verdict is…..that we lock the two groups in a small, dark room and…..that’s it. Just lock them in that room, let them do what they want to one another and we don’t have to put up with either of them…………

- Who’s ready to ride the wave? For months now, we’ve been hearing about how Google Wave is going to revolutionize online communication, so now that the product is in the hands of 100,000 beta testers as of today, we’ll see how legit it is. Wave combines e-mail, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of Internet communication called a "hosted conversation," or a "wave." Google debuted the product at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, California, in May. The invitation-only group of beta testers will be looking to identify and bugs in the application so that Google can release it to the general public by the end of the year. The creators of Google Wave are familiar faces to Google and its users: Jens and Lars Rasmussen, the Australian brothers who developed Google Maps. These two have high ambitions for their new creation, as they have openly stated their hope that Google Wave will eventually replace e-mail as the main way people converse online. "This should be something everybody uses and something everybody knows," Jens Rasmussen said. Hmmm…..no. I’m not sold on Wave yet and don’t really need everything lumped into one ginormous application. Sure, e-mail-like communications can be edited by several users simultaneously in Wave and users can chat about certain sections of documents in real time, but not everyone has a need for that. So Brothers Rasmussen, I appreciate the effort to make online communication more efficient and collaborative, but your implication that email is basically snail mail for computers is off base. "We really have a much too strong tendency to just take things we know and just adapt them to the digital world," Jens Rasmussen said. My suspicion is that the concerns that the app may be too complicated for mainstream Web users are on point and that this thing will take a long time, if ever, to be accepted beyond a small group of niche users………….

- When Cleveland Cavaliers guard Delonte West was pulled over a couple weeks ago in Maryland for cutting off a cop on his three-wheeled Can-Am Spyder motorcycle and was discovered to be packing a .357 Magnum, 9mm handgun and a shotgun in a guitar case, the reaction against him was swift and strong. People viewed him as yet another gun-toting athlete who was trying to act like a gangsta. The reality behind that incident appears to be rooted much deeper in West’s troubled psyche. This is a cat who has a lifelong history of mood disorders and depression. He took 10 days off during training camp last year to seek treatment for these problems and speculation is that he may have been off his medications at the time of the gun incident. At the Cavaliers’ media day Monday, West was in attendance but didn’t want to discuss the incident other than to say he was back on his meds and doing fine. However, he’s missed the team’s first four practices over the past two days, all of which have been unexcused absences according to the team. All the Cavaliers will confirm is that West is in Cleveland and not in any immediate danger. Still, this is a scary situation that doesn’t appear to be getting better. A troubled dude who is taking mood stabilizers, going on and off of his meds and messing around with multiple guns is not good. If he’s struggling this much in the offseason, how is West going to handle the pressures that come with being a key component of a team that is considered a championship contender for the upcoming season? At this point it’s not clear when West might return to the team, but I am among those hoping he will take whatever time he needs to seek professional help, address his mental problems and get himself back on solid footing. Basketball is great and earning a living as an NBA star is the dream of millions, but it’s not worth it if it pushes you to the point that you are going to do something harmful to yourself or others. As much as Cleveland fans are starved for a championship, I don’t think any Cavaliers fan in his or her right mind would want to see West push himself back onto the court if it’s going to lead to disaster for the guy off the court. So best wishes to Delonte and his family during this time, do what you need to do to get right and basketball can wait until you do that…………