The inner workings of the NFL lockout, as demonstrated daily

To casual fans, it's one of the oddest concepts in the already-odd world of professional sports.

Pro athletes -- often paid millions annually to play a sport for a living -- threatening to go on strike and cancel sporting events across the United States? Really?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, they are typically paid millions, annually. Yes, sporting events are in danger of being cancelled. But no, it's not actually the players threatening to go on strike -- it's the owners, hence the term 'lockout,' not 'strike.'

So, yes, in the current situation in the news, NFL owners are threatening to, in many more words, lock the players out of their facilities and cease normal functioning as an NFL franchise in order to coerce the players' association into agreeing to a more favorable collective bargaining agreement that will allow them to profit more handsomely as the national economy continues to struggle and several owners fight to stay in the black.

Recent developments have made the likelihood that will happen a lot smaller. A U.S. District Court judge in Minnesota ruled Monday, on the side of the players, that the lockout was unlawful and ordered it ended, meaning that, as of right now, there is no lockout in the National Football League.

There's an issue, though. The NFL owners immediately appealed the ruling and also requested a special expedited stay, meaning that they want the enforcement of the ruling to wait until the appeal is heard. When a ruling is made on the stay request, we'll know whether or not the lockout will continue to not exist, but that could still change when the second ruling -- on the appeal -- takes place.

Confusing, right? Imagine if you're a NFL player waiting to get back into shape for the upcoming season. Even more confusing.

The NFL Players' Association emailed all of its members late Monday night, after the judge's initial decision was announced, letting them know they could report to their places of work Tuesday morning. A few did for each team across the country, with all but one player -- New York Giants defensive being turned away by management from the weight room and some not even being allowed in to the facilities. In other words, it sounds a lot like the lockout still exists to the owners.

On inside the fold, I typically try to take in-the-news issues and go over the media aspects covered within them. With this lockout ordeal, there are tons, but the most interesting is following along to which side the media takes as the lockout -- or what we know of it -- continues. Today, when NFL players tried to report to their team facilities, reporters all across the country staked them out and wrote stories on which players tried to report and the outcomes of those attempts. The resulting stories were decidedly player-favored, even in news stories, with owners and team staffers coming off as demanding and players coming off as simply inquisitive.

It's something we often forget as a general public -- the media, especially in sports, plays a large role in how stories are shaped over time. We mustn't forget it'll be the same this time as well.

Kobe and his mouth

You've probably heard about it by now: midway through the third quarter of a Tuesday game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs, the Lakers' Kobe Bryant was called for his fourth foul of the game on what he felt was a bad call by referee Bennie Adams, so he took action.

As Bryant sat down on the bench, he threw down his towel violently, picked it up and then shouted at Adams in a voice loud enough the TNT boom mic picked it up and simultaneously broadcast it live around the country.

"BENNIE!" Bryant yelled. "F**CKING F**GOT!"

Within seconds, Twitter and other social networking sites were ablast with fans and media members writing about the incident, and by Wednesday morning, it had blown up to an astonishing extent. Gay publications were responsible for a lot of the coverage, but they were only the spark -- every news source was on it by noon Wednesday.

Bryant eventually issued an apology -- but really didn't apologize, actually, being that he didn't say sorry at all and really only said that he didn't meant for his words to be taken literally.

And then the NBA fought back, commissioner David Stern announcing that the league would fine Bryant a cool $100,000. Sure, it's not a lot of money when a guy makes upwards of $20 million a year, like Bryant does, but it's significant in that the average NBA fine ranges from $5-10 thousand dollars.

Because of that, Stern showed that he placed the issue high up the spectrum of importance, and his stand was important for the NBA to take as they near an offseason of uncertainty with the impending lockout.

But what's most interesting about this whole story is this: Should Kobe actually be faulted and deemed homophobic for what he said? After all, most Americans have used a word -- or something akin to it -- in a very similar fashion as he did at some point in their lives. There's no arguing whether what he did is right or wrong -- it's clearly wrong -- but can we really say that he's a bad example of a role model as an athlete because of his use of that gay slur.

In my eyes, no. It'd be more than a little bit unfair for me to call him out for saying a word like that when I've done the same thing in my past. (Not that it makes it right. It's completely wrong. But I've still done it.) The only thing he did wrong was that he did in a public sphere. And, yes, of course there is something to be said about that, but I'm not going to crazy on him or anything.

The $100,000 fine is a good way to solve it. Bryant has been publicly reprimanded, and hopefully he and other pro athletes learn that that word should never be used, let alone in a derogatory way at a referee simply doing his job.

Hopefully the rest of us do too.

Occupation: Human waste disposal

Officer Trey Economidy of the Albuquerque Police Department learned a lesson about the negative effects of social media the hard way a couple months back, like many Americans have in recent years.

His learning process went like this: Economidy, a seven-year veteran of the police force working in Albuquerque's gang unit, pulled over a man in the parking lot of a strip mall for suspicious behavior. The man, 29-year-old Jacob Mitschelen, who had an extensive criminal record at the time of the incident, attempted to escape on foot after being pulled over.  Economidy did chase. A gun fell off of Mitschelen's person shortly after he began running and he immediately picked it up. The officer, Economidy, demanded he drop it. When he didn't, Economidy fired his gun at Mitschelen multiple times and fatally wounded him.

At that point, it was still a fairly standard incident, although the fact that someone died in the pull-over caused local news outlets in Albuquerque to research the circumstances. What they found caused a scandal of medium-sized proportions, got Economidy suspended and now has him outside the field and inside the police station at a desk job for the foreseeable future.

What was it? Well, for starters, Economidy's Facebook page was public at the time of the incident. So when a local TV station went to it, they were able to scan through his employment data, religious beliefs and similar self-provided personal information. Under occupation, Economidy listed his job as "human waste disposal." The TV station relayed the findings to the police station; Economidy was suspended the next day.

His page is now private, and he has since apologized for his actions, calling them "extremely appropriate." The New York Times picked up on the incident this week and ran a story Wednesday on its website -- it's slated for front-page publication in Thursday's paper -- taking a all-around look at the many problems social media has caused for police across the U.S., from Economidy's incident to an Indiana cop who posted a picture of another officer pointing a gun at his head to even an officer who filmed himself stripping off his uniform and masturbating and then sold the video on eBay's adults-only section. All three of these incidents were exposed by media investigations, the Times reported.

What's my take on all this? Well, I particularly liked the angle the Times took on the stories and thought it shrewd of them to group all of these incidents in one deep-digging piece this week. The article served two purposes: (1) it essentially concluded, or induced readers to conclude, that the media was rightfully responsible for exposing these stories to the general public in a necessary manner and (2) it gave readers detailed information for their own personal security purposes online, regardless of profession.

Both of those are great in my book.

Obama to announce re-election campaign -- now?

CNN reported Saturday that Democratic sources indicated President Barack Obama intends to send supporters a text or email message as early as Monday announcing he intends to run for re-election in the November 2012 presidential election.

That's a little early, no? It seems to me as if Obama would be better off waiting a while to do such an announcement, simply because of, well...the state of the country, you know? Obama's US of A isn't exactly in great shape at the moment, and people are starting to blame him for it.

Hey, at least they're not going to make a whole big shebang out of it. Obama's plan, CNN reported, is simply to get the word out there among his big-time supporters so he can officially start raising the money he'll need to contend against whichever Republican candidate comes out of the woodwork to run against him next year.

I still don't agree with it.

Reads the article:

"These Democrats say no public event is planned because the White House wants to downplay the announcement and minimize the political distraction...The president is making his campaign official slightly earlier than is typical for an incumbent so he can get a jump on fund-raising in a season that's likely to shatter all records."

The campaign fundraising season's likely to shatter all records, again? It really is ridiculous how much these costs are trending upwards in recent decades, but that's a blog post for a different day.

And today's blog post? Here it is in summation: it can't be good for Obama, from a PR standpoint, to announce his re-election campaign at this point during his current term. His approval ratings are frighteningly low and on a downward trend right now, too.

Instead of announcing it now, why not announce it in another month or two, giving him some time to do some good in the eyes of American public and repair his image even the slightest bit. There is no downside to that plan. Every informed American knows he's going to run for re-election, so it's not as if he's going to be late to the party if he announces in June. All he'll lose is a couple months of fundraising while he'll gain -- hopefully, of course -- a bunch of possible supporters in on-the-fence voters over the next month or two.

And this is simply in his best interest, disregarding any particular political views I may have. Say what you will about Obama, but one thing he and his camp have always been good -- no, spectacular, at -- is crafting a great public-relations image in the campaign season.

This seems to be at least a slight departure from that, but I guess time will tell which one of us is right.

Now, we care -- the freed New York Times journalists

Last Tuesday, four New York Times journalists were captured while on assignment covering the Gaddhafi uprisings in Ajdabiya, Libya. The four -- photographers Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, reporter/videographer Stephen Farrell and Beirut bureau chief Anthony Shadid -- spent six days in captivity in the Northern African nation before they were officially driven to Tunisia and released Monday.

Turkey and its African ambassadors played a large role in the reporters' release, the Times announced in a Monday email release from the newspaper's executive editor, Bill Keller. So what does this stuff all mean?

Well, firstly, there are some incredibly interesting stories involved in this when you dig in deep. Secondly, it demonstrates just how much risk newspaper reporters take on in their jobs, often contrary to popular belief. And, thirdly and most importantly, this whole debacle created the biggest American connection to what's going on in Libya to date, and that's a positive development. 

Let's start with No. 1: Farrell, a longtime Times reporter and one of the most respected war journalists in the business, has now been captured three different times on the job. This wasn't his first time at the rodeo. In September 2009, he was kidnapped by the Taliban in Northern Afghanistan and eventually rescued by a British army raid. He chronicled those events in a potent blog entry on the Times' website shortly after the incident. In April 2004, he was kidnapped during the First Battle of Fallujah in Iraq and released less than a day later.

Don't be surprised to see a similar account from Farrell in the coming days as the smoke clears from the incident and we find out more details.

About the risk -- obviously nobody thinks that war reporting is a risk-free job, but it's still not given anywhere close to the credit it deserves in terms of the inherent overall danger involved. One big reason it's particularly perilous is because of one key factor of war reporting that almost always holds true: the reporters are usually there illegally, unable to receive visas from the countries in which the wars are taking place. So if any foreign officials see reporters in these foreign countries -- and they typically stick out like sore thumbs -- they are liable to have them kidnapped and take them under captivity. And this is to say nothing of the involvement with the actual war, complete with guns, bombs and everything else you'd expect in combat. It's really, really risky stuff, and war reporters endure through it to provide necessary reports from the battlefields to the general public.

And, about Americans learning about the Libyan protests, it's really much-needed. The uprising began about a month before the reporters were kidnapped, yet, aside from the small newspaper-reading portion of society and certain others with particular connections to the African country, it went largely unnoticed. Then we Americans started to notice, started to pay attention, started to look East, when we first heard about the journalists being kidnapped.

That opened our collective eyes to many of the monstrosities occurring in Libya. The death toll, while unavailable in an official form, is at the very least in the thousands -- and crimes against humanity are much higher. Even now, with their government in shambles, Gaddafi still claiming to hold control and the U.S. getting involved to set up a no-fly zone, our collective knowledge of and familiarity with the story is far from what it needs to be. But at least we have some -- some, I stress -- grasp of it, especially as it continues to move forward and the stakes get raised.

That's often what we do when Americans are involved in something, and partly rightfully so. Now, that's an argument for a different day -- whether U.S. citizens are under-involved in foreign affairs as compared to residents of other countries -- but our involvement in this story is worthwhile.

Now, let's wait to see what Farrell and the rest of the Times reporters have to say about the whole ordeal.

OK, so I'm not the most politically correct person, but...

That's how the most viral video of the last week began, a three-minute rant on Asians by a UCLA student who has since withdrawn from the university amid death threats and worldwide ridicule of her video, originally posted on YouTube last Friday.

The self-identified UCLA student who posted the video, Alexandra Wallace, quickly removed from the video from the interwebs, but no matter -- the damage had already been done. Hundreds of astute YouTube users had managed to save the video in the hours between its original posting and its removal. By the end of the weekend, responses of all kinds were being posted as well, from offended Asians speaking out to parties not involved whatsoever simply amazed at the content of the video.

So what exactly did it say? Well, after Wallace began her video by admitting that she was in fact not the most politically correct person in the world, she proceeded to utter all sorts of ultra-racist comments against Asian students at UCLA, who she said ruined her studying experience at the library by talking when they were supposed to be studying and calling relatives at home in Japan to check in after the earthquake and tsunami that rattled the Asian nation last week.

There were some 'cool' Asians at UCLA, Wallace said, and she was in fact friends with those cool Asians on campus. But the rest of them were useless, she implied, and harmful to the rest of the general student body.

It's an alarming video, one that seriously draws into question any prior beliefs of school unity at universities like UCLA and one that draws into question racial beliefs of younger people at large as well. But the part we'd like to focus on here on Inside the fold is the official response to the video.

UCLA announced Thursday that, despite their complete disapproval of the video and what it represents, Wallace would not be suspended or in any way punished by the university because her posting of the video does not officially break any school-wide rules or its code of conduct.

Wallace withdrew from the university anyway, announcing Friday via a statement in the school newspaper, The Daily Bruin, that the stress of attending UCLA had grown too large over the last several days as a result of the video. She admitted again that the video was a mistake and apologized for its contents.

So what does this all tell us? Above all, it's a great thing -- it shows us that the public has great power, greater power than we even realize sometimes. Despite the inability of UCLA to react because of bureaucratic specifications, we as a general public essentially did the same thing UCLA would have if they could have.

We expelled Alexandra Wallace, really. The death threats to her family were out of line, surely, but the endless ridicule of her for the video was -- and is, as it continues -- is completely in line. And with so much of that, she was forced to withdraw from the public eye and withdraw from the university, as she should have for publishing a video with such horrible, objectionable content.

We go, public -- there we go, getting stuff done.

New NCAA president takes hard-line stance on age-old question

Listen to the man, because this is as tough-sounding as he's going to get.

"They are student-athletes," says the man, simultaneously straining his voice and attempting to turn his lips into a scowl-like frown. "They are not our employees, they don't work for us.

"They are our students, so we don't pay them."

Notice the declarations in his words? They are not our employees. They don't work for us. We don't pay them.

Take note, boys and girls. That's exactly how you don't start off a new job -- by alienating the very people who pay your salary and allow for your job to exist.

This man's name? Mark Emmert, the 59-year-old NCAA president in his first year on the job in what is most assuredly a tough time for the vilified organization, and he's not doing himself any favors with his first actions.

His pedigree's pretty good. Emmert worked in higher education for 25 years before taking the NCAA job in April of last year, previously touring the country at places like the University of Colorado, Montana State University and his alma mater, the University of Washington. He took office at the NCAA on November 1.

Now, give him this: the time he took over was perhaps the most difficult time in the history of collegiate athletics, with former president Myles Brand -- who passed away in September 2009 -- leaving a wide-reaching legacy of success but with the NCAA seriously struggling in the one year between Brand's departure and Emmert's appointment.

He had the worst of both worlds, essentially -- big shoes to fill but small shoes in place. Still, Emmert's comments on one of the most pressing issues facing the NCAA as a whole are indefensible, and the fact that they came so quickly after his taking over office is puzzling, too. It's like he's never read a basic book about politics, which generally have one key for aspiring rule-makers and big wigs: stay away from controversial issues for as long as possible.

Mark Emmert definitely didn't do that.

His stance on the issue didn't have to be released so quickly. He could have waited a bit, told the media and the public that he was waiting to evaluate some second-hand issues and gain a full grasp of the situation.

That would've been understandable. But, no: on his first trip to Los Angeles while on the job, Emmert took the mic at a town hall luncheon in Downtown and did his best to sound tough.

He reasoned, too, giving some of the best arguments for not paying student-athletes while skipping past all of the arguments for paying them.

"They get to have experiences that very few students get a chance to enjoy," Emmert said. "If they take full advantage of it, they will have spectacular opportunities in life."

Sure thing, Mark. Do you know what else they get?

A decree to do not anything else. Seriously. Scholarship student-athletes are not allowed to take on a paying job from August to May each year, despite the fact that every other student at every other university in the Unoi has a right to do so if they so desire. What about the hours they have to work each week? There are at least 20 required hours Monday-Friday plus strongly suggested weekend and extra hours, plus even more time spent traveling and actually playing in games during seasons. Ask them -- collegiate athletes who put in less than 40 or 50 hours per week to their specific sport are not making it professionally.

No way, Jose. So to expect them to, in many cases, support fledging families on one $10,000 stipend for an entire school year is simply ridiculous. 

Take a real look at what is often the situation. At least eight of the 80 players on scholarship on the USC football team have a kid and a girlfriend/wife they support. Yet, simply because they desire to play professionally at some point, they often must live in poverty, unable to make any other money.

The likelihood they will make significant money playing professional football is close to nil. The likelihood USC will make significant money from their playing collegiate football is close to certain. Yes, the schools, in many cases, profit handsomely -- think $30 or 40 million a year on football -- from the on-court or on-field performances of their student-athletes.

The actual student-athletes don't.

Yet, because of a host of Draconian, nonsensical rules that governed the NCAA since its inception in 1906, we refuse to pay these kids.

With a new president in place, there was a hope in some circles that the rules would eventually be reversed, that student-athletes would finally be appropriately compensated for all they do.

But, thanks to Mark Emmert and his ridiculous hard-line stance, we know they won't.

Now let's see what kind of support he gets from the general public.