Hardly any human on the face of basketball heaven remembers that young Thomas Jefferson of Monticello, Virginia, the second of eight children, evolved into his role as a ten year old blazing hoop addict, carefully throwing caution to the southern plantation winds, identifying with father Peter’s 50 owned slaves.
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What comes to mind is this archaic bit of250 year bit of colonial history is two “stats” of American History.
First, is when President Thomas Jefferson, a team mate of Patrick Henry John Adams, dropped out of their “horsey” spot shooting contests to write the wrongs: the Declaration of Independence, especially the Pursuit of Happiness.
His pursuit, in his mind’s eye, his “honky” sweats unto half court double dribble set shots, he had with John Adams (2ndPresident of our Democracy and Patrick Henry(“give me liberty or give me death”)
No one really knew their two handed set shots would eventually lead to Jefferson’s pursuit of happiness.
Two centuries later as the once 13 colonies spread across the continent to the west coast and California, the one hander would be pioneered by Han k Luiseti of Stanford, and a yong medical student named The late Dr. Arthur Feinfield from Ucla in Southern California.
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It therefore boils downtown to his 49 point swagger by LeBronJames, as his NBA Heat took a 3-1 lead over the Brooklyn Nets in their semi final “Pursuit of Happiness” ricocheting back toSouth Beach.
In the meantime, in the swirl of cyber space’s 21st centuryvitriolic, a second generation grandson of a sharecropper, “Magic” Johnson takes exception to the remarks of an 80 year old multimillionaire owner of the LA Clippers, Donald“Sterling”, raised in the Boyle Heights section of the L.A.Basin’s east side baits “Magic” being an allegorical symbol for the youngsters searching for surrogate fathers, yet raised in the slums of Watts and South Los Angeles gang violence.
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Within this crucible of a fast breaking penetration,(the line of scrimmage”) swinging the pumpkin from side to side, the shot clock winding down, these gifted multimillionaires flavor their saliva and ”hunger”, to savor their cyber space salvo on our minor planet, twirling in space.
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Hence on this stage, celebrities, medicos, former players coming out of their cocooned larvae, weigh their words, measure their thoughts, and do their swagger, the harmony and dissonance chords not lost by LeBron James .
“If Donald Sterling is not punished and deprived of his ownership for his racist remarks, I will lead a boycott by all the players in the “preordained pursuit , so immortalized inPresident Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.
“If Donald Sterling is not punished and deprived of his ownership for his racist remarks, I will lead a boycott by all the players in the “preordained pursuit , so immortalized inPresident Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.
The Pursuit of Happiness.”
May 14, 2014. The City that never sleeps.
