bad decisions

it's a dark day in seattle--thunder, lightning, ruptured community.

today, on the verge of a courthouse victory in their case against clayton bennett, the city caved. they got cold feet, or perhaps greedy, and agreed to a cash settlement. mayor greg nickels claims that the settlement will keep seattle in the good graces of the NBA--commissioner david stern has even reversed himself, stating that a remodeled key arena will meet the NBA's standards. in exchange for stern's weak promise that if the washington state approves funding for the remodel, seattle will be on the short list of cities to receive the next expansion team, bennett gets a get out of jail free card. already he is whisking the sonics away to oklahoma city.

after hearing the news, i turned my radio to 950 KJR and then made my way to www.sonicscentral.com. i listened as choked-up fan after choked-up fan bitterly torched the city of seattle, called for starbucks boycotts, vowed to never watch another NBA game again. some seemed close to tears as they talked of their memories, torn from them, perhaps forever. others talked of the future and their children who will have no shawn kemps or gary paytons, no kevin calabro.

and they said goodbye. a community 1000s strong suddenly deemed irrelevant by the powers that be. a community that in a flourish of ink, suddenly lost its reason for being.

perhaps there's still some hope.

(1) the city may have acted with prescience--balmer's still around, so this seeming betrayal of fan interest may actually result in seattle getting a second shot with the supes someday in the far future.

(2) howard schultz's lawsuit to rescind the original sale of the team is still on the table. if successful, we could be cheering in the streets once again.

in the meantime, here's my list of annoying people that deserve an otter-pop spanking:

howard schultz
clayton bennett
commissioner david stern
governor chris gregoire
speaker frank chopp
mayor greg nickels
city councilman nick licata