Isaiah v. Magic heats up, a Heroes recap and Nebrakans need to man up

- The story of former friends Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas turning into the Magic v. Isaiah hate-fest is both intriguing and disheartening. In case you missed it or simply aren’t a big NBA fan, Magic and Isaiah were basically best friends during the legendary, hall-of-fame careers to the point that during the 1988 NBA Finals, they greeted one another with a kiss on the cheek prior to every game. They had supposedly remained friends after their playing days ended – at least until last week, when excerpts from a book that Magic co-wrote with Larry Bird and author Jackie MacMullan, When the Game Was Ours, leaked. The quotes from the book alleged that among other things, Johnson believes that Thomas questioned his sexuality after Johnson was diagnosed with HIV in 1991 and that Johnson, Michael Jordan and others banded together to have Thomas blackballed from the 1992 Olympic Dream Team. "Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him. ... Michael didn't want to play with him. Scottie [Pippen] wanted no part of him. Bird wasn't pushing for him. Karl Malone didn't want him. Who was saying, 'We need this guy?' Nobody,'' Johnson is quoted as saying in the book. Those are pretty strong accusations and allegations to make against one of your best friends and Thomas was predictably hurt. "I'm really hurt, and I really feel taken advantage of for all these years,'' said Thomas. "I'm totally blindsided by this. Every time that I've seen Magic, he has been friendly with me. Whenever he came to a Knick game, he was standing in the tunnel [to the locker room] with me. He and [Knicks assistant coach] Herb [Williams] and I, we would go out to dinner in New York. I didn't know he felt this way.'' Right there is where I have a problem with Johnson, because whether the allegations are true or not, if he didn’t go directly to Thomas and confront him the instant he became aware of what Isaiah had supposedly done, then Johnson is at fault. A guy is your best friend in basketball and you hear that he’s going around questioning your sexuality so you decide a) not to ask him about it and b) tuck it in your back pocket, wait nearly two decades and then pull it out to help generate interest when you want to write a book (available at a retailer near you on Nov. 4!)? The kicker is that the book is supposed to be about the rivalry between Bird and Magic, yet it’s the blindside attack on Thomas that is receiving the most attention. Thomas correctly pointed out that Johnson should have dealt directly with him if there was a problem, saying, “I wish he would have had the courage to say this stuff to me face to face, as opposed to writing it in some damn book to sell and he can make money off it.” To be fair, MacMullen stated that she did attempt to contact Thomas six months ago for his comment on the allegations, but he declined through his publicist to speak with her. However, that was still nearly 20 years after the fact and an author calling him to clue him in to the fact that his former best friend was about to trash him in a book isn't the way Thomas should have found out about all of this. Of course, that’s assuming Thomas is being forthright in what he’s saying now. There is obviously the possibility that he knew all of what Johnson is alleging in the book years ago. If that’s the case, then Thomas is the one who is a disingenuous douche bag. The accusation that seems to have stung Thomas the most is that he was out there spreading rumors about Johnson’s sexuality after Magic contracted HIV. "What most people don't know is, before Magic had HIV, my brother had HIV,'' Thomas said. "My brother died of HIV, AIDS, drug abuse. So I knew way more about the disease, because I was living with it in my house. Magic acted and responded off some really bad information that he got. Whatever friendship we had, I thought it was bulls--- that he believed that. Let me put it to you this way: If he and I were such close friends, if I was questioning his sexuality, then I was questioning mine too. That's how idiotic it is.'' I wholeheartedly concur that someone is acting like an idiot here, but I don’t yet know if it’s Magic Johnson or Isaiah Thomas………..

- Tonight’s Heroes was all about being dark and dangerous – well, that and not having a ton of the show’s key characters on screen. But you already knew it would be that way because that’s how Heroes rolls these days. Rather than make you wait, here’s who wasn’t around this episode: Peter Petrelli, Angela Petrelli, Mohinder Suresh, Hiro Nakamura, Ando, Emma, Edgar and Micah. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, on to what remains. The forced lesbian tension between Claire Bennet and her roommate Gretchen continues, with both unable to sleep after Gretchen planted an unexpected (and forced, plot-wise) kiss on her roomie last episode. Neither of them could sleep and so at 4 a.m., they decided to stop trying to get to sleep and talk it out. Claire admits that she really just wants to live a normal life after all the craziness that she’s been through and that she values Gretchen very much as a friend. However, she stops short of saying that she would have no interest in being more than friends. The conversation is interrupted when Becky Taylor and sisters of Claire and Gretchen’s new sorority, Psi Alpha Chi, barge into the room to kidnap Claire and Gretchen to kick off Hell Week. The sisters toss their new recruits into the trunk of a car and speed off to an undisclosed location. Of course, that provides the show’s writers another chance to put the two girls together in an awkward lesbian moment (let’s just create an acronym and call them ALM, because I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of them going forward) and as they are face to face, body to body, they renew their conversation about being friends or more than friends. And just when it seems that there’s a chance for another lesbian kiss, the car stops and the ride is over. Gretchen and Claire are blindfolded and led into an old slaughterhouse along with two other pledges. The sisters leave them all behind after issuing a challenge: follow the clues, find a prize and you win the right to skip Hell Week. Claire and Gretchen are on one team, the two other pledges on another team. All four girls wander through the slaughterhouse and find a set of lockers with their next clue. Claire deciphers the clue, painted on the wall, and opens the correct locker door to reveal a bag with bottles of water for all four of them. From there, the girls split up and try to find the next clue. As Gretchen and Claire trek around, they continue their conversation and Gretchen reveals that she’s had both boyfriends and girlfriends previously, while she realizes that Claire is still a virgin. As they walk and talk, it becomes clear that someone is following them, as we can see from footprints in puddles of water on the floor behind them. Of course, those footprints are from Becky, who has the power of invisibility. Becky uses her power to sneak up and send a meat hook flying Gretchen’s way, but Claire dives over, pushes Gretchen out of the way and they tumble to the ground, ending up on top of one another in another ALM (told you). But they manage to get up off the floor without getting it on and continue chasing the next clue. That leads them to a prep room deep inside the building, where Claire suggests that this doesn’t seem to be any sort of hazing or challenge, but more like someone really does want to kill one of them – Gretchen. In spite of that, they manage to find the last of the clues and the prize. But by now, Claire has also figured out that someone else is following them and her suspicions are confirmed when a cable dangling from the ceiling wraps around Gretchen’s throat and begins choking her. Thinking quickly, Claire grabs a metal tool and slices the cord, freeing Grethcen. But then, invisible Becky throws Claire across the room, impaling her on a metal rod. Claire can heal from anything, of course, so she’s still able to grab a metal hook and sensing Becky behind her, she slashes Becky in the shoulder. Being wounded shakes Becky from her invisibility, but it also presents an impossible situation when the two other pledges hear the commotion and come running. They are stunned to see Becky there and even more stunned when she turns invisible again and flees from the room. The astonishment goes up another notch when they see Claire impaled on the metal rod, then see Gretchen free her and Claire instantly heal. “What are we gonna do now?” Gretchen asks. Good question, G. Another good question is what was the point of H.R.G.’s field trip to Cainan, Georgia. Sure, last week he went there to find Jeremy, a boy with the power to heal others and also the power to take life from them. Peter Petrelli took that power to go help Hiro, but H.R.G. stayed behind to help Jeremy. That didn’t happen, as his plan to rig the heater in Jeremy’s home to make the murder of Jeremy’s parents seem like an accident failed. The police took Jeremy into custody anyhow because he has a history of suspicious activity on account of his power. H.R.G. works to have him released by the sheriff refuses, saying he’ll only release the boy once his investigation is done and even then, only to the next of kin. H.R.G. puts in a call to his new friend Tracy Strauss, who comes to town posing as Jeremy’s aunt. That isn't even enough to get him released once the sheriff finds Jeremy’s backpack and notebooks full of writings about death and learns from other kids in town about Jeremy’s habit of killing animals. Tracy is forced to call in a favor from a high-ranking political friend to secure Jeremy’s release, but as her phone call ends, she’s confronted on the street by Samuel Sullivan. Samuel does his magic trick of somehow bringing his carnival of misfits to anyone, anywhere at any time and Tracy instantly finds herself walking around the Sullivan Bros. Carnival. Samuel pleads with her to bring Jeremy there and even to come join “the family herself.” It’s where they belong, he insists. Tracy isn't convinced and demands to go back, although some of Samuel’s words do seem to rattle her. He calls over Lydia to show her back to Cainan, but not before giving her the same spinning compass we saw him send Edgar to retrieve earlier this season. It will help her find her way back, he promises, as she’s been feeling lost of late. Back in Cainan, Tracy’s favor comes through and Jeremy is set to be released. H.R.G. and Tracy explain that he will move to Washington, D.C., live just down the hall from H.R.G. and have a new identity: Jared Mitchell. The plan stays intact for about five minutes. On the way out of the police station, a throng of cameras are waiting to get in Jeremy’s face and an angry man rushes up to him, telling him that he’s getting away with murder. Unable to control his power amidst all the chaos, Jeremy loses it and the man dies while grabbing him as the power to take life wins out over Jeremy’s power to heal. H.R.G yells that he can still fix it by healing the man, but shell-shocked Jeremy retreats back into the prison under the orders of the sheriff. He doesn’t last long there, as one of the sheriff’s deputies decides to take justice into his own hands. He kidnaps Jeremy, takes him out to a back street and after begging the boy to give him a reason to shoot him, the deputy instead ties him to a chain linked to the back of a pickup truck. One of the deputy’s friends speeds off, dragging Jeremy through the streets until he dies. Tracy and H.R.G. finds him the next morning, dead and mutilated in the middle of the street. A distraught Tracy laments how the situation went from her simply coming to sign Jeremy out of police custody and ended with his death. H.R.G. admits that he was wrong and that he failed Jeremy. Tracy is heartbroken, having forged a bond with Jeremy, and demands that H.R.G. never call her again. She asks H.R.G. if he believes that people with powers can still live freely and safely in the world and he admits that after today, he doesn’t. She gets into her car, pulls out Samuel’s compass and when it stops spinning and points in one direction, she begins to follow it. The third storyline of the episode centers on Matt Parkman and his battle to get Sylar out of his mind, where the über-bad guy still resides because Parkman used his mind control powers to force Nathan Petrelli’s memories and mind into Sylar’s body. Sylar continues to haunt Parkman and has even shown that he can assume control of Parkman’s body. In fact, he does so one night and controls Parkman’s body as he has sex with Janice, Matt’s wife. When it becomes clear that he’s not in control of his own body, Parkman sends Janice and their infant son away so he can figure out how to get rid of Sylar once and for all. Once Janice leaves, Matt calls Mohinder Suresh (finally), but that’s the extent of Mohinder’s involvement in the episode. We don’t see him on camera and the call goes straight to voicemail. Left to his own devices, Parkman stumbles upon a possible solution while downing a beer. He notices that with each sip, Sylar winces and is in more discomfort. Somehow, his getting drunk weakens Sylar and so Parkman pounds beers, shots and wine until a) he’s totally trashed and b) Sylar is weakened to the point where he literally begins to fade away. One final swill of wine makes him disappear completely and Parkman thinks he’s won. To his surprise, Janice is back and she’s brought a friend – one of his friends from the police force and the departmental support group he’s been attending as he has tried to stay “sober” from using his powers. Janice and this guy show up, but Parkman passes out as soon as they arrive. When he awakes, his friend from the sobriety group hands him a sobriety chip and tells him that he can start new from here, one day at a time. Parkman excuses himself to shower, but as he walks around the corner he turns into Sylar In the next room, Sylar/Parkman runs into the actual Parkman, whose body he has now taken over. Sylar explains that he’s now in control and he’s the one making the rules. With a diabolical laugh, he laws down the law. The episode ends back in Cainan, where Samuel has returned with one thought on his mind: revenge. He waits in the street outside the police station and once the deputy who killed Jeremy walks inside, Samuel uses his power to control the earth to collapse the entire police station, killing everyone inside. As the building crumbles, he turns and walks away from the hurricane of debris behind him, a look of purpose etched on his face. So that’s it until next time…………

- Prepare for health care in a tent, Nebraskans. With the flu and swine flu raging across the country, people are flocking to their local hospitals and health care providers at the slightest hint that they might be the tiniest bit sick. Never mind that you’ve had the flu a half dozen times in your life and felt exactly like you feel now; dammit, this is serious! Problem is, our nation’s health care system is not fully equipped to handle that sort of widespread panic. For an illustration of that, look no further than Nebraska, where hospitals are considering putting up tents to handle the swell of patents and urging anyone who feels flu-like symptoms but is not having complications or isn't part of a high-risk group to just stay home. "A test won't help them," said Lori Snyder-Sloan of Sloan/St. Elizabeth Medical Center. "They probably won't get medication unless they're in a high-risk group anyway. So there's no real advantage to coming to the hospital." Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy insists that hospital bed space is currently plentiful and the idea of tents or trailers is just a contingency. Not if your citizens continue to act like a bunch of fear-ridden hypochondriacs, Lt. Gov. Sheehy. Just listen to Cheryl Rourke of Bryan LGH East. "On average, (we see) anywhere from 30 to 60 additional patients a day," Rourke said. City health officials in Lincoln are among those saying they could be forced to set up flu tents or special clinics, which would likely be provided by Lancaster County Emergency Management Office. The LCEMO has heated decontamination tents and trailers that could be set up in parking lots, which could isolate sick people from regular emergency room traffic and screen out patients who really need help. I see that idea and it has merit, but setting up tents and trailers could also have an added benefit: keeping people home. If they know that they’re going to have to go to a tent or trailer set up outside in the often-chilly Nebraska fall/winter weather, maybe people will examine their condition more closely and decide that perhaps they aren’t so sick after all. Way to show what a bunch of panicky, overreacting wusses you are, America…………

- In the month’s leading up to last summer’s Olympics, it was public knowledge that China has something in the neighborhood of three-fourths of the spots locked up on the list of the world’s 20 most polluted cities. There was talk of visiting athletes wearing surgical masks to protect themselves against the toxic, smog-riddled air. With the reality of their air-quality problem still looming over them both literally and figuratively, the Chinese are going to work to clean up their air. They are taking these steps largely because of concerns that climate change could worsen the flooding that plagues the country's low-lying coastal regions, including Shanghai, and cause water shortages in western areas as glaciers in the Himalayas melt away. There are also economic benefits to be had, so of course a government is going to look to capitalize on those. China now views energy efficiency and renewable energy as ingredients for the type of modern economy it wants to build, in part because it would make the nation's energy sources more secure. "We think this is a new business for us, not a burden," said Gan Zhongxue, who left a job in the U.S. to head up research and development at ENN Group, the Langfang company that made its fortune as the primary natural gas distributor in 80 Chinese cities. At its sparkly new research center outside Beijing, about 250 engineers and researchers from the ENN Group are hard at work on a compound that includes a massive greenhouse, dozens of solar panels and chunks of earth, carved out of Inner Mongolia, that have been trucked (not exactly the most enviro-friendly endeavor, seems like harming the environment in order to find a way to help it) in to test for new methods of gasifying coal underground. All of this is well and good, but if I could speak to the Chinese government for a moment, just mano a government, I’d say this: How about getting around to imposing a ceiling on your emissions of the gases that most scientists blame for climate change? After all, you do produce the most carbon emissions in the world. China has some notable advantages in this quest, as on average, a Chinese person emits one-fifth as much greenhouse gas as an American. Also, the majority of Chinese don’t own cars and that gives them another leg up on more advanced countries. So far, the Chinese government has taken a few promising steps in its quest to stop f***ing over the environment, including the removal of subsidies for motor fuel and establishing a fuel-efficiency standard of 36.7 miles per gallon for new urban vehicles, a level the United States will not reach for seven years. It will certainly take a lot of work and a long time to make up for the incredible depth of damage that the Chinese have done over the years, but at least now they appear to give a crap. That’s a good start and a nice change……….

- It was inevitable. Any time Facebook or any social networking site with more than two users makes a change to its layout or format, you can bank on a certain segment of the user base reacting with outrage and anger to the changes. It happened last fall when Facebook changed its entire site design and for weeks on end, users created Facebook groups (using the medium you are hating on to organize against the same medium, that’s rich) denouncing the new Facebook and demanding that Mark Zuckerberg and Co. give them their old Facebook back. Now it’s happened again after Facebook launched a new version of its news feed on Friday, prompting the same sort of incensed reaction from users. For the uninitiated, the news feed is on the home page that Facebook users see when they first log into the site. The new design features a toggle view between a main view, featuring the top stories from their friends list based on their Facebooking habits, and a "live feed" featuring real-time updates from the whole network. "When the user wakes up in the morning, you go to Facebook and you see [the] news feed," product manager Peter Deng explained. "You see the stuff that you missed, the best of the previous day, to basically catch you up on what your friends have been up to." The revisions continue on efforts that began this spring, when Facebook tried to gravy train Twitter’s streaming setup by converting its home page news feed into a feed of live updates and relegated "highlights" to a small column on the right side of the page. The response was loud and hostile from users and Deng seems to believe that the new design will appease Facebook fans because it “responds to a lot of feedback along the way." Based on what I’ve seen so far……that’s not true. People hate these changes just as much as they’ve hated previous changes, no question about it. Facebook groups are being formed, status updates are being used to denounce the new live feed and I have yet to see a single message from anyone who likes it. In the new live feed, birthday and event alerts are more prominent, and stories that stopped appearing when Facebook launched the stream-inspired feed in the spring - relationship status news, photos added and tagged, etc. – are back. But fear not, Facebook users who want the look of your old home page back. To return to the way things used to be, simply click on the “More” link on the menu at the upper left of your home page, drag “Status Updates” to the top of the list and click on it. You’ll be back to your old home page appearance in no time and you can forget all about this ugly incident….until the next ill-advised Facebook overhaul, that is…………