Every election season, the pundits and campaigns tell us “ERMAHGAD This is totes the mostest important election in history of ever, you guys!” It’s pretty much never true. But this recent on was actually a historic election for a number of reasons.

We’ve hit a tipping point on gay marriage,  the drug war, and race, and the presidential election itself will have resonance on the direction of this country for at least a decade.

First gay marriage and drug war. For the first time gay marriage has passed on the ballot. Gay marriage has been legalized through the courts and then through the legislatures and now on the actual ballot. We have seen majority support for gay marriage in recent years and now we have electoral proof to back up those numbers. We may have seen the last national campaign to oppose gay marriage. There is no turning back. Being pro gay marriage is officially a winning issue and opposing it a losing issue. I have no doubt we’ll see national legalized gay marriage within 10 years. Likely less than that.

In terms of the drug war, two states have legalized marijuana. People have laughed at me when I’ve said over the past few years that we’ll see marijuana legalization in the US in our lifetime. But this is playing out exactly how I thought, in fact it’s moving faster. I thought we’d see a western state (we got two) to legalize it by 2020 and have a number of northeastern states legalize medical marijuana by that same time (Mass. passed it tonight). A majority of Americans support legalized marijuana and a VAST majority support medical marijuana. But the fear was that it wouldn’t show up at the ballot box. Now they have. Taking a hard line on the drug war is no longer a slam dunk politically.

It will be interesting to see how the federal government responds to these new laws. But the conversation on the issue has been forever changed. We will see more politicians and more states willing to take a stance against the drug war and for legalization. We will see national legalization for marijuana in our lifetimes.

Now, for affecting the direction of the nation for the next decade. The economy is improving and over the next 4 years we should see a much larger recovery. Whoever in in office when a nation recovers from a depression/recession tends to reap electoral benefits for the next decade. It validates their agenda and discredits that of their opponents. When the economy recovers with Obama in office, it will validate his economic policy (as well as the rest of his agenda) and make sure that Dems stay in power for the foreseeable future. The Dems didn’t just win this election, they just won the next 2 or 3 presidential elections. This country is swinging left after 40 years of conservative rule and it’s not just because the Senate got significantly more liberal.

If Mitt Romney had won, the improving economy would have been seen as a validation of his policies even though it is a result of Obama’s. Obama would have been seen as a discredited failure. The republicans would have bought themselves another 10 years of power and influence to run wild on a number of other issues as well. (Of course this assumes that he wouldn’t have a disastrous war with Iran or his austerity measures wouldn’t send us into a double dip recession – as they’ve done in Europe).

Finally, this is a tipping point on race because the portion of the electorate that is not white has grown to a point where no candidate will ever be able to win with a solely white coalition ever again. This was the Republicans last election where they could have won solely with white voters. The investment the Democrats made in diversity in 1964 and the investment the Republicans made in racism when they started deploying the southern strategy at the same time, is finally bearing fruit. The Republicans will have to reform and attempt to embrace non-white voters or lose from here on out.

This isn’t an end to racism or anything close, but it is a promise that any coalition that elects a president from here on out will better reflect America than the current neo-confederate coalition the Republicans employ. From now on, any national candidate will have to attempt to win over voters who are not white. That is a good thing.

And all that is incredibly historic without even beginning to mention the first out gay member of the Senate, NH sending an all female caucus to Washington, the Republican rape caucus completely losing out, and a wide range of other amazing victories for the left around the country.

So, needless to say, I’m quite happy and rolling around like a pig in shit in my political science nerdery.

Oh, and quite bit win for math as well. Go Nate Silver!

Yea, I was kinda high up there …

I eventually moved down a bit.

Yea, they’re nothing great. But they’re mine, so fuck you.

Since the release of  The Dark Knight Rises, I’ve been gobbling up a lot of criticism and commentary on the movie. A lot of it is political interpretations, of course, being that I tend to read political people. Some of it is quite smart and interesting, more of it is quite silly.  But most important had been one thread of criticism I’ve seen that I agree with whole-heartedly.

That is, that even at nearly three hours long, the movie still feels short. This is a grand world, with grand happenings and we’re forced to walk through only a few select sections of it. A lot could be gained for this movie by us seeing more of this world. What was life in Gotham like when it was under siege? How much of Bane’s army was normal citizens pushed to the brink by their circumstances? What was life like for your average Gothamite throughout this movie? What are their thoughts and feelings of the events? 

These seem like important unanswered questions, yet it also seems hard to imagine how Christopher Nolan could have fit them in there. This is where Item 47 comes in.

Item 47 is a short filmed by Marvel for The Avengers DVD that takes place in The Avengers universe. After the final fight, there are loose pieces of alien tech lying around and a young couple with nothing to lose finds an alien weapon that it uses to rob banks. Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents track them down to recover the item.

Simple, fun little short that allows us to explore the Marvel movie universe a little more thoroughly. It gives us a look into the lives of ordinary people who live in a world full of superheroes and alien invasions.

It’s ground comics have been covering for years, but it’s still very fertile.

While Item 47 will no doubt be fun and interesting, it is The Dark Knight Rises that really needs an Item 47 short of its own. The Dark Knight Rises is so grand and epic and overwhelming, it could use a bit closer inspection of the details. It’s also such a large and interesting universe, it’d be fun to see people play in it.

It’s not hard to imagine a story of an ordinary Gothamite. He and his wife work hard for their money and are able to support their family. They aren’t rich or anything, but they have good jobs and they’re getting by. Then he finds out that he’s been laid off because his company is collapsing and his 401k has been raided. The guy responsible for mismanaging the company and essentially stealing from the employees is given millions of dollars in bonuses and a multi-million dollar severance package.

The rich don’t even get fired like the rest of us, huh?

His family can’t survive on his wife’s income alone and because she’s a public employee her benefits have just been slashed to compensate for state budget deficits. He can’t find work. After 6 months of frantically searching, the bills are piling up, the electricity’s been shut off, he has to take a minimum wage job just to keep food on the table. But that’s not enough, so he needs to take a second job. Even with all that, his family’s about to be thrown out on the street because their rent just went up and their credit cards are starting to get maxed out.

Then Bane comes, and even though he blows up a football stadium, he’s compelling. He offers a promise that the protagonist’s family won’t have to go hungry or without a home. He joins Bane to take a home for his family from the type of asshole who ruined his life and got paid millions for it. But as time goes on, he begins to become disillusioned with Bane’s mission. He sees Bane as offering more violence and cruelty than justice. Eventually, one of Bane’s crew harms a neighborhood child. It could have just as easily been his own. But what to do. He can’t fight back. He’s back to being helpless. He’s scared for his family’s safety. He keeps his head down and he protects his family. Then the Batman comes back and he has hope again. He’s cheering in the streets for the overthrow of Bane.

That took me two seconds to come up with, but it fits with all the themes of the movie and the whole trilogy while fleshing out the world a little bit.

We could also use a short about Catwoman and Holly Robinson. Or two, with one about each of them. I found Catwoman to be the most interesting character in the movie. The movie very easily could have been about her character arc, much like how The Dark Knight was about Harvey Dent’s arc (with Bane being the Joker, the catalyst of that arc). But Nolan instead chose to make the movie about Batman. I can’t blame him, it is a Batman movie after all. But Catwoman’s arc is perhaps the better vehicle to build a movie around. Too late. But it would still help flesh out the character and movie more completely for us to see her back-story and to see the events of The Dark Knight Rises through her eyes.

Between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Warner Brothers gave us a collection of animated shorts about Batman that take place in Nolan’s universe. It was fun, but not nearly as meaningful as a new collection would be for The Dark Knight Rises. The Dark Knight Rises is a really good movie, but it’s an even better universe. I wish they’d let us play in it a little longer.

I am a Knicks fan.

Since the Knicks refused to match Jeremy Lin’s offer sheet I’ve been in a funk. I’ve been light-headed, cranky, and fatigued. Everything has seemed just a little bit off, just a little wrong. Nothing seems to bring me the same joy it did before. I’ll eventually finish mourning and move on, and it’s completely stupid to care this much about a sports team in the first place, but the simple reality is that I do care this much, I’m crushed, and I don’t know if things can ever be the same between me and my team.

Being a fan is a weird experience in the first place .

Fan is short for fanatic which we definitely are. We’re conscripted into fandom at an early age and taught to love our team with all our heart, even as we see our favorite players let go, traded, or fade into old age. We scour the internet looking for stats and analysis and posting our own. We watch people talk about sports on TV and listen to them talk about sports on the radio. And as if that isn’t enough the only people still reading newspapers are those reading the sports section.

All that time, effort, and devotion so grown men can earn millions of dollars playing a ballgame.

Still, fandom has its rewards. We get a community to be a part of and something to talk about when put in awkward situations where we have nothing in common with the other person. We also get the spectacle, we get to see amazing feats and take pride in them. We get the ecstasy of victory (especially when in the crowd). We get to experience the divine.

I’m an atheist, but even I’ve felt the presence of god while high-fiving strangers after a last second three.

Being a Knicks fan is even weirder than all that because on balance it causes way more pain than would be acceptable in a healthy relationship. I’ve been stuck in this abusive relationship for over 20 years and for the first time I see it for what it is, but it’s too late to get out.

As I said, they got me young. My dad took me to my first Knicks game when I was 3 years old. He took me again when I was 5 and I was hooked, completely head over heels in love. Some time shortly after he started getting season tickets. We didn’t go to many games (we split the tickets with someone else and sold off most of them anyway), but we went to enough. We went to a lot of the big matchups: The Bulls, the Pacers, etc. I got to see the lowest lows (Reggie Miller’s eight points in … I can’t even finish the sentence, but you know what happened) and I got to see the highest highs (LJ’s 4-point play).

My love was so great, I truly believed that Patrick Ewing was the greatest player in the league. I didn’t understand why people thought this Michael Jordan fellow was the best. Couldn’t they see he was clearly inferior and to top it all off evil? I had a wall in my room dedicated to sports fandom that I creatively named my “Sports Wall” which really meant that it was a basketball wall which really meant it was a Knicks wall. I learned to words to every version of “Go NY Go NY Go” and kept every towel I ever got at a Knicks game. I carried a stuffed Patrick Ewing with me everywhere I went until the age of 12. My Bar Mitzvah theme was the NBA (with the dais being the Knicks, of course). I actually cried with joy when I first heard we hired Isaiah Thomas because it meant Scott Layden was fired. It’s safe to say I had no idea what the future held.

This has been a long term love affair that’s had a lot more downs than ups. So why is Jeremy Lin the point at which I’m beginning to crack? Well, there’s a few reasons for that.

One is, we’ve spent 20 years looking for our starting PG. We’ve had some decent guys hold down the fort at the one, but we haven’t had anyone truly capable of running an offense since Marc Jackson and we just threw away our best shot at finding someone to fill that hole for nothing. It’s like when the Dolphins passed on Drew Brees only worse because they never had Brees to begin with. Instead of having the point guard of the future, we have Raymond Felton who would probably be quite nice as a backup, but will leave us still looking for a point guard as our starter.

Secondly, we didn’t  just look a gift horse in the mouth, we punched that gift horse in the mouth, then water-boarded it and electrified its testicles. It takes a lot of luck for any team to win a championship in any sport. Every championship team in history has had a few breaks go their way. This is one thing that has not been the Knicks strong suit regardless of owner. Other than the 1999 playoffs run (which, ended in failure btw), Jeremy Lin was the only truly lucky thing to happen to the Knicks in my lifetime. A PG just fell into our laps out of nowhere (just what we needed!) and we decide to show him the door.

Third, we’ve somehow gotten rid of all our youth (a common theme of the Knicks over the years) for ancient big name players. Mike Woodson, the Knicks coach, recently stated that veteran teams win championships. This is true! That’s why a certain amount of trading out youth for older players made sense! I loved Jorts, but Marcus Camby gives us a much better quality of depth. I was excited for the team we were becoming. A solid experienced team with a lot of talent, some veteran depth, and some really promising youth. It creates a nice balance and you need young players to take on minutes since 40-year-olds typically can’t handle a full NBA workload. You also need young players because they can start to take over as the older players start to fade.

Hey, everyone! Remember when the Celtics became a veteran team and won a championship, but then there core started getting too old and deteriorating fast? And then remember how they stayed relevant and stayed contenders because their young point guard started to take over and lead the team? Wow, that sure would be nice.

Fourth, Jeremy Lin is young, talented, exciting, and extremely marketable. If you’re going to lose a player like that it’d sure be nice to get something in return. If we had actual adults and professionals running this team they would at the very least have signed him to trade at a later date. I’m not sure of the CBA rules governing when a matched player can be traded, but Jeremy Lin would have been a very attractive trade asset if they were so determined to get rid of him. And since we can’t add any players over the next 3 years anyway because we’re over the cap, it might be nice to at least get a draft pick out of jettisoning our promising 23-year-old starting quality point guard who saved our season last year.

Those are all brutal enough reasons and they’re only a few of the many why I hate that the Knicks didn’t match Lin’s offer sheet, but those are more or less par for the course as a Knicks fan. There are really two reasons that make this hurt a special type of hurt.

1) I was looking forward to watching and rooting for Lin for the rest of his career. 

Linsanity was pure magic. It made people love basketball in way they haven’t in a long time, especially Knicks fans. It was incredible. We built a special connection with him as player. The night he dropped 38 on Kobe MSG rocked in a way it hadn’t since the aforementioned 4-point play. And this was a regular season game. I didn’t expect that pace to continue, but even when he regressed he was still magnetic on the court, watching him bounce off larger players like a pinball as he puts up a floater that seems more like a prayer than a shot yet against all reason goes in.

He was the best sports story of the year and he was ours. It was all organic. We gave him 6,000 nicknames, but my favorite came from Mike Breen: The Hero from Harvard. It sounds like one of the 6,000 nicknames people gave another New York sports legend: Babe Ruth. The Hero from Harvard sounds like an old timey newspaper nickname like Sultan of Swat. I remember telling my dad I hoped it would stick and a few years from now they’d start using it when announcing him for the starting lineup at MSG.

I was allowed to dream of long-term success for the Knicks. That Jeremy Lin would be the stalwart, here for his entire career, ushering in new teams and new players. Even if he’d never be as good, that he’d be for us, what Steve Nash has been for Phoenix. According to his interview with Sports Illustrated, it seems Jeremy thought so too:

I love the New York fans to death. That’s the biggest reason why I wanted to return to New York. The way they embraced me, the way they supported us this past season, was better than anything I’ve ever seen or experienced. I’ll go to my grave saying that. What New York did for me was unbelievable. I wanted to play in front of those fans for the rest of my career.

I was guaranteed joy for years into the future. How often does that happen in life? Never. And James Dolan took that for me.

2) James Dolan is a stupid, spoiled, thin-skinned, petty, petulant child and he’s never going away

Look, I’ve known James Dolan is a terrible owner for years. I’ve hated him for as long as I’ve known who he is. But this is the first time it dawned on me how truly hopeless he is and that he’s never going away.

During the Layden and Isaiah eras things were horrific and we were the laughingstock of the league, but a lot of the hate was focused on the GMs. “Hey, at least Dolan is willing to dole out money. And if anything his problem is that he’s just too loyal. Loyalty’s a good thing! He’s just loyal to the wrong people. He’s stupid, but if we got the right people in there he’d be ok,” was a common thought. And there was always the delirious hope he might sell the team.

Then the era of Isaiah was over and things started to move in the right direction. We were patient and things slowly got better. Donnie Walsh was a saint, even if he made some terrible mistakes. Overall things were still bumpy, there was still secrecy and controversy over everything. But none of it seemed as bad.

Finally things were working out for us. Even with the bumpiness and bad luck, things were moving forward and Dolan hadn’t done anything tremendously stupid. We still hated him, but at least there was hope that his stupidity and failure could be mitigated by having smart people in the room.

When the New York Knicks decided not to match Jeremy Lin’s offer sheet we learned that Dolan’s smallness will always reign supreme in this organization.

It wasn’t just that they declined to match, but why they declined and everything surrounding it. Essentially they declined to match because Dolan was butthurt by the fact that Jeremy renegotiated his previously reported offer sheet to get $6 million more dollars in the third year.

That’s right. A professional basketball organization decided to shoot itself in the foot because the owner felt sad that the player that was their future was able to get $6 million more dollars for himself. Mind you, it’s not because of the money itself. As I’ve already said, Dolan can dole out the money. In fact, Dolan is giving up money by not matching Jeremy Lin. He’s already lost more money from MSG’s stock crash following the decision than he would have paid for Lin’s entire contract. And that’s not counting all he stood to make from keeping the bottomless pit of profitability that is Jeremy Lin. If Scrooge McDuck ever met Jeremy Lin, he’d try to dive into him.

James Dolan made a decision that hurts the team in terms of basketball AND finances because he felt betrayed by a player renegotiating his contract after telling said player to go test his market value and knowing that teams were offering players poison pill contracts (See: Fields, Landry) to discourage teams from resigning their players. He is willing to sacrifice his team’s talent and his personal wealth in order to “settle the score” with a player over a re-negotiation.

Never mind that the other half of that re-negotiation was Daryl Morey, Houston’s GM, and matching Lin’s contract would super screw him over since he has no other point guards on the roster and there aren’t any of any worth left on the market (poor Johnny Flynn), just take a moment to reflect how monumentally childish and moronic it is to give up an endless supply of money and the best available option to run the point for your basketball team that can’t afford to add players for the next three years because you’re a little upset.

It is beyond comprehension that a human being can function that way. How has Cablevision’s stockholders not forced him out by now? Is there any sort of law where we can remove him as owner of the Knicks because of malpractice?

This to me, is beyond the pale. This is the single worst example of decision making I’ve seen from Dolan in his stint as owner, maybe even the worst example of decision making I’ve seen from a supposedly rational life-form. I can’t take it. And for the first time it’s 100% clear to me that he’s never going to sell, which means I have the rest of his life to look forward to this type of leadership. Why give up his fiefdom where he can sort out tiny perceived slights with the classlessness and anger he believes the deserve?

What James Dolan has really taken from me with this move is the most precious thing of all, the thing that keeps us going, as fans through heartbreaking losses and deals gone wrong. He’s taken my hope.

I’ve come to the basic conclusion that for America to move forward as a civilization Republicans have to suffer horribly. Poverty, disease, bed bugs, losing the TV remote, loss of limbs, real awful stuff. I want to make it clear that I say this not out of anger or a desire to inflict cruelty, but merely out of practicality. I don’t wish those things on anyone, even Dick Cheney (well, maybe Dick Cheney). I don’t want to see anyone suffer. But out of my deep love for my country and patriotism, Republicans have to suffer.

I don’t hate Republicans. I’ve just given up on trying to reason with people who clearly can’t be reasoned with. But it isn’t even their lack of logic and thinking that’s really holding America back. It’s the fact that they clearly have no concept of compassion.

Republicans can’t grasp the idea of compassion or empathy or anything that involves putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. They like their shoes thank you very much and will not be entertaining your silly notions that other point of views are something to be considered. A Republican’s only way to comprehend things is by it happening to them.

This is why many pushes to legalize medicinal marijuana across the county involve Republicans who have experienced (or whose loved ones have experienced) cancer and the horrors of going through treatment. Scientists and parents of children with leukemia are clearly not the type of people a Republican is going to listen to. The only person a republican is going to listen to is himself (I say himself because the Republican party has made it perfectly clear that women fall into that group of people who they will not listen to/are not welcome in their clubhouse).

This is why, if we want to address the real problems facing America today (the healthcare system, homelessness, the shrinking middle class, poverty, the death penalty, the war on drugs, starvation, endless war and detention, etc.) we need Republicans to suffer every malady we’re facing.

What? You don’t think the Democrats are going to do anything about it, do you?

Yea, that’s right. Mmmm … let the blasphemy flow over you. Doesn’t that feel good? But I’m not writing this purely to piss off believers. In fact, I hope many of them will nod their heads along with what I write and ultimately see past the dressing and agree with my point. Anyway, here’s why Elmo is better than God.

Ok, disclaimer: I, personally, wasn’t the biggest Elmo fan as a child. I was much more of a Grover man and it seemed an awful lot like Elmo bit his style. I kind of resented him a little bit. That’s why it was kind of a relief to me to see that Kevin Clash, the voice of Elmo himself, to admit Grover was his favorite growing up as well in the documentary Being Elmo.

It was that documentary that inspired this post. It was there that Clash mentions his inspiration in creating Elmo. He recalls Frank Oz telling him about how he created characters, how he’d find a trait or two that would define the character and that would be their hook. Clash went on to explain that his hook for Elmo was love. Elmo is love.

Elmo is love. This reminded me of another common phrase you hear a lot from the liberal wing of extreme Christianity, hippies, or treacly vaguely Christian movies and TV shows: God is Love. It’s a nice sentiment and an attractive one; one that might attract compassionate people to becoming more religious or, more likely, more “spiritual.”

Except the truth is that God isn’t love, at least not the Judeo-Christian one, at least not in our society. Elmo is, though. You see, Elmo doesn’t just love, he loves you and he always loves you. He loves you no matter your size, shape, race, gender, or anything else. Elmo loves you whether you’re gay, straight, bi, transgender, or any type of queer. Elmo loves you whether you’re a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, an atheist, or any form of religion or lack thereof. Elmo still loves you if you’re an “impure” woman or a slave.

None of the artificial lines dividing humanity that seem to matter an awful lot to God, matter to Elmo.

Elmo loves indiscriminately and without reservation or condition. He’d never ask you to sacrifice an animal or your son to earn his love. You don’t need to prove yourself. Elmo doesn’t have rules, God does. Elmo just loves you.

God has no problem punishing the unfaithful and the sinners or taking vengeance. Elmo is uninterested in these things, he just loves you. You are fine the way you are. He asks for nothing more than a hug and a kiss.

Elmo is better than God.

Wu-Tang is for the children

The New York Jets traded for major religious figure and sometimes football player Tim Tebow, today. The Jets are my favorite team. Tebow is my least favorite player. Oh, and I love our current quarterback Mark Sanchez.

The truth is, the two aren’t really in competition. Tebow will come in to be a slash player, not a quarterback. Meaning he’ll run the wildcat and come in as a running back/fullback/tight end, which is a more appropriate role for him. But because of the zealotry of his followers, there will no doubt be calls for him to attempt to be the starting  quarterback. Thing is, Mark Sanchez is just plain better than Tim Tebow (at football and at life) and always will be. Here’s why:

1) Body Gestures

Mark Sanchez is famous for celebrating his touchdowns in the same way as his receivers, by sticking his arms out like jet wings and running around like he’s flying. It’s team specific, it’s done in concert with everyone else on the team, and it’s a lot of fun to do. Go ahead, put your arms out and run around in circles right now. Silly fun, ain’t it?

Tebow celebrates by Tebowing. That is praying in the end zone and he’s gotten his mindless followers to do this as well. Just what we all need in sports, more praying. And good job on making sure that your name is a verb that means praying. Why would anyone think of any other name when they pray?

2) Origin

Mark Sanchez is originally from Southern California, a lush and beautiful paradise. A veritable Eden that lives just below the sunset. The home of Hollywood, where we see dreams brought to life and legends born. People fantasize about leaving their homes and problems behind and creating a new life on its beaches.

Tim Tebow is originally from Jacksonville, Florida, a post-apocalyptic hellscape, completely devoid of anything that could be considered human life. Florida, the wang of America, is known for its swamps and failing public schools. Of course, Tim Tebow was home-schooled, but that’s even worse because Florida is also known for its feral hillbilly swamp people. More crocodile than man, really.

3) Accuracy (I had to get an actual football one in here somewhere)

Mark Sanchez has been widely ridiculed for his lack of accuracy. In 2011, he completed only 56.7% of his passes. The typical benchmark for a successful quarterback in the NFL is 60%. But Sanchez’s stats can be a little misleading because he’s prone to being an up and down player. In fact, he had seven games last year where he completed 60% or more of his passes and two more where he missed that mark by less than 1%. His best game saw him complete 71.4% of his passes.

Tim Tebow completed 46.5% of his passes in 2011. He had only one game where we completed over 60% of his passes and two games in which he completed under 30% of his passes.

4) The Ladies

Mark Sanchez is dating Kate Upton

Tim Tebow, from what I can tell, is dating a fetus.

5) Foreskin

Mark Sanchez, as far as I know, has no stated opinions or deeply held beliefs about foreskin.

Tim Tebow is an avid foreskin collector.

6) New York, New York

Mark Sanchez actually loves New York. A guy with his looks, charisma, and USC background was made for the New York spotlight. Also, lots of clubs and model hobnobbing. If there’s anywhere in the league where a guy could pose shirtless in GQ before ever taking a snap in the NFL  and have it be okay, it’s New York.  Back to the models, with Jeter at the end of his career, we need someone new to step up and work his way through every model and actress in New York.

There’s a long and proud history of New York sports superstars living the Casanova lifestyle. We had Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath, and Walt “Clyde” Frazier. And then it seemed like the dream died. But in 1996, a new hope rose up, resurrecting the Yankees and our dreams of superstars with enough swagger to power the mojo of the other 8 million denizens of NYC. That hope was Derek Jeter. But now, his day is coming. Carmelo Anthony is locked up by LaLa and Amar’e Stoudamire is more interested in the fashion than the models. Jeremy Lin is all Jesusy. Help us, Mark Sanchez, you’re our only hope!

Tim Tebow likely thinks of New York as either Sodom or Gomorrah (I can’t figure out which). If there’s anywhere in the league where a guy could pose in an anti-choice Super Bowl ad before ever taking a snap in the NFL and have it not be okay, it’s New York. Just to spite his distaste for females and sexuality, let’s take another look at Kate Upton.

I know which QB I’d listen to in the huddle.

This is a beautiful moment. The arc of history is long, but it bends towards freedom.