A training camp video for the players meant as a prep course in how to deal with the media has caused an uproar in San Francisco:

The 15-minute film, featuring racist jokes, lesbian soft-porn and topless blondes, features the team’s public relations director, Kirk Reynolds, impersonating San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the mayor’s office and other city scenes.

Now the mayor and the city’s gay leaders are outraged, the team’s owners are embarrassed and Reynolds is leaving the organization. The Chronicle described the film and published an image showing Reynolds with the half-naked women under a screaming headline on Wednesday. …

Reynolds said he made the video to coach players on handling media questions in diverse San Francisco — and never meant it for public consumption.

[Um, ya think?!? Pretty dumb to think it wouldn’t actually get leaked at some point, though. –Ed.]

The video was shown to players last August during training camp in Santa Clara, where it was part of a diversity workshop.

“I certainly offended people and I never intended to offend anybody,” Reynolds said. “Anybody who knows me, that’s not a reflection of who I am. I did something for a certain audience that got out of hand. … It was contradictory to my values and beliefs and contradictory to the team’s values. I completely apologize to anybody who was offended.” …

Reynolds opens the film sitting behind the mayor’s desk, then goes to Chinatown, where a 49ers team consultant uses racial slurs about the Chinese community. Next comes a topless, lesbian wedding filmed at a strip club and officiated by Reynolds, again impersonating the mayor.

“I know the courts say we can’t do this,” Reynolds says before the happy couple engages in heavy petting. “We make our own rules here in San Francisco.”

[Well, at least he’s not lying. –Ed.]

Reynolds then goes to SBC Park, where acting as “mayor” he throws out the opening pitch, then takes a bribe from the catcher, who thanks him for supporting “hookers and booze.”

“You do something controversial, you say something controversial, it will have an impact on this team. So remember, be mindful of your actions,” Reynolds says, wearing only a towel before joining three topless blondes for a group hug in a strip club’s dressing room. “What you do is not only a reflection of yourself. It’s a reflection of the San Francisco 49ers.”

[I think we have ourselves a winner for the 2005 Hypocrite of the Year! –Ed.]

Predictably, the San Francisco 49ers organization and the NFL are denouncing the video and claiming no prior knowledge of its compilation. Personally, I found the video to be extremely amusing, as well as incredibly stupid. Good luck finding a new job, “Mayor” Reynolds!

(You can view the video here. Warning: NSFW!)

UPDATE FROM THE WEBMASTER: Here’s the top of the Chronicle’s Wednesday front page:

Believe it or not, the first hurricane of the season is upon us. Hurricane Adrian is now over El Salvador and is quickly heading to the Caribbean, whereupon it will be redesignated an Atlantic storm and head northeast to Cuba.

Is this a sign of Global Warming? The Apocalypse? Something is surely awry….

Oh yeah, that’s what it is–Brendan failed to be the first person on the internet covering the storm in breadth and detail!

For shame!

An anonymous poster recently clamored for more USC football-related posts on BrendanLoy.com, so of course I am more than happy to oblige.

Sure there are the Eric Wrights and Manuel Wrights of the team, but the Lee Webb stories aren’t uncommon either, and for that we should take pride in our Alma Mater.

Andrew Sullivan, who announced a blogging hiatus back in February, admits he has a problem:

It’s time to come clean. I tried to cut down on blogging, and I have indeed changed my hours and patterns. But my name is Andrew and I am a blogoholic.

Brendan, it’s your turn. Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery. ;-)

Loyal readers of BrendanLoy.com may recall a series of posts not too long ago dealing with the controversy surrounding The Vagina Monologues and associated events being held at the Notre Dame campus. Well, the ingenious College Republicans (remember the “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” at various colleges a couple years ago?) at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island struck back with The Penis Monologues:

The week before V-Day, the Roger Williams campus was plastered with flyers emblazoned with slogans such as “My Vagina is Flirty” and “My Vagina is Huggable.” There was a widely publicized “orgasm workshop.” On the day of the play, the V-warriors sold lollipops in the in the shape of–-guess what? Last year, the student union was flooded with questionnaires asking unsuspecting students questions like “What does your Vagina smell like?” None of this offended the administration or elicited any reprimands, probations, or confiscations.

The campus conservatives artfully (in the college sense of “artful”) mimicked the V-Day campaign. They papered the school with flyers that said, “My penis is majestic” and “My penis is hilarious.” The caption on one handout read, “My Penis is studious.” It showed Testaclese reclining on a couch reading Michael Barone’s Hard America, Soft America.

“Testaclese” tipped the scales when he approached the university Provost, Edward J. Kavanagh, outside the student union. Apparently taking him/it for a giant mushroom, Provost Kavanagh cheerfully greeted him. But when Testaclese presented him with an honorary award as a campus “Penis Warrior,” the stunned official realized that it was no mushroom. After this incident, which was recorded on videotape, the promoters of P-Day were ordered to cease circulating their flyers and to keep Testaclese off campus grounds. Mindful of how school officers had never once protested any of the antics of Vagina warriors, the P-warriors did not comply. The Testaclese costume was then confiscated and formal charges followed.

You can expect more Penis shenanigans next year:

Unhappily, P-Day may be the only effective means of countering V-Day with all its c-fests, graphic lollipops, intrusive questionnaires, outsized effigies of vaginas and its thematic anti-male play. The prospect of public readings from P-Monologues on campuses around the country just might be the reductio ad absurdum that could drive the vagina warriors to the bargaining table. The student activists opposed to V-Day will gladly cancel P-Day the moment the V-warriors abandon their vagina–fests.

But for the short term, college administrators should brace themselves. The rebels at Roger Williams are talking about a Free Testaclese Fund. And word is spreading to other campuses. P-Day and Testaclese will be back next year. And not just in Rhode Island.

God I wish I was still in college, I would have had a field day with this at USC!

Read the whole thing.

As the Minuteman Project in Arizona winds down, the “vigilantes” gained a new ally this past week in CA Governor Ahnold Schwarzenegger.

The day before, the Governator called into KFI640’s John and Ken Show to denounce some outrageous billboards that have been put up by local Spanish language Channel 62. You can listen to Ahnold on The John and Ken Show here.

Here’s a picture of the offensive billboard that is causing a ton of outrage here in Southern California:

Of course, KFI640 has a great counter:

Heh.

UPDATE: Close observers may note an amusing irony: The rented billboard in this picture is owned by ClearChannel, the same company that owns KFI640 and broadcasts The John and Ken Show. That just goes to show that no matter where you stand politically, the color of money is still green.

There really is no appropriate category on Brendan’s website for this post, but I came across a rather astounding article by none other than William F. Buckley, Jr. that I felt absolutely compelled to share with the loyal readers of this blog. I’m not particularly surprised by the content, and I completely agree with it, but I think Mr. Buckley’s words will come as a surprise to those who hold nothing but scorn for us greedy capitalist conservatives.

Please, go read his eminence, Mistah Fuhbuckley, if for no other reason than to pay homage, for no greater political commentator has yet walked the Earth.

By the way, Boeing has a rather justifiable executive compensation policy, a brief summary of which is found here, with more here and in the Boeing 2004 Annual Report.

UPDATE: Also see Buckley’s unrelated but, as usual, impeccably articulated article regarding filibusters and the judiciary… if you know what’s good for you.

On Friday, a CNNSI.com column rips Kobe Bryant for failing to show up for a “mentor” story with the columnist and Andrew Bogut. Later that day, SI and others report that Kobe Bryant missed Friday night’s Lakers game against the Sacramento Kings to be with his wife, who had developed a potentially life-threatening case of ectopic pregnancy. After a few days of testing, Vanessa Bryant has been diagnosed and will be fine. Still, in light of recent developments, the column exhibits incredibly bad timing and poor taste. I’m far from being a huge Kobe fan and rarely watch pro basketball, and sure Kobe could have notified SI that he’d be unable to make the meeting, but this article is just another example of why journalists are often held in such low regard.

(I generally like and respect this particular columnist, as we both worked at the Daily Trojan, so this isn’t anything personal against him. Just calling a spade a spade is all.)

UPDATE: The meeting mentioned in the column was supposed to have taken place this past Monday, April 11. Kobe was in the starting lineup against the Phoenix Suns that night. However, it’s not clear when his wife began having problems, and it’s certainly a strong possibility that her condition and its early symptoms led him to cancel on his non-professional, non-mandatory engagements that day.

UPDATE FROM THE WEBMASTER: I’ve edited this post slightly, and want to clarify it. According to the author of the column in question, there was no connection between the events described in his column and the susequent news about Vanessa Bryant. As noted in the “update” above, the “mentor” session was supposed to happen on Monday, and the column was written and published before the news broke about Vanessa Bryant’s health problem on Friday.

A lot of people love to hate on Rupert Murdoch (he’s a favorite villian–right up there with Karl Rove–for most of the Left), but his wild success brightly hints at his intelligence and ability to grasp societal and global trends. Murdoch makes so much money first because he’s shrewd, but mainly because he understands where the media is going, and he’s dragging his media holdings into the digital age–kicking and screaming if necessary. You can hate his politics if you want, but you have to admit, even if he is too Right for you, he’s still right about his business, too.

I don’t regularly watch TV, and I could[n’t] care less about American Idol, but I have to confess to seeing a few episodes over various dinners here and there, since my parents and sister DVR the program regularly. Tonight, they put in last night’s Idol, which prompted a few thoughts:

1. Bo, the rocker, is overrated. I saw him a couple times earlier in the show, and frankly, I’m surprised he lasted this long, as he never impressed me at any point. Is he supposed to be cute or something? Cuz he sure ain’t that talented.

2. Someone please tell me, when did Carrie Underwood get hot? Damn! She went from boring, frumpy Midwestern girl to: Hello!!!

3. Constantine should win this thing. Hands down, no questions. Even my mom has voted for him; in previous years she was a mere spectator. When it came up that he was going to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody”, I literally flinched, expecting a horrible butchering like Bo did with “Freebird”, or a repeat performance of when he did the Black Crowes song a few weeks back. Instead, he was awesome. I mean, wow! It takes cojones gigantes to take on Freddie Mercury, but he did it–and succeeded.

(As an aside, who knew a gay man who died of AIDS could be so imposing and intimidating? Oh yeah, there was Alexander the Great….)

Best game of the Tournament so far: West Virginia over Wake Forest (Also considered: Vermont over Syracuse; Bucknell over Kansas; West Virginia over Creighton; Texas Tech over Gonzaga; North Carolina State over Connecticut). I did not see NC State’s upset over UConn, nor did I catch Texas Tech and Gonzaga, but both were great games from what I understand, with the former ending on a brilliant play in the closing seconds by NC State star Julius Hodge. Meanwhile, nobody will soon forget T.J. Sorrentine’s pull-up trey from the top of the key to propel Vermont on to the round of 32, and everyone watching Bucknell’s upset over Kansas held their breath when Wayne Simien caught the long inbound pass, turned, and put up a last-gasp shot that just missed. Nevertheless, I have to stick with West Virginia’s double-overtime upset of Wake Forest here as the top game of the tournament so far.

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The New Republic has long been the standard bearer for what we now call American (or modern) liberalism. Indeed, the magazine pretty much invented it, and to this day, they remain liberalism’s most honest flag-bearer. The magazine has always held onto a muscular, FDR-inspired pro-American, pro-liberal values, pro-Democratic foreign policy, and has been on the forefront of liberalism’s non-Marxist frontiers. To whit, the magazine once found room to hire a then-unknown British, Catholic, gay, libertarian-conservative Andrew Sullivan as its editor-in-chief. TNR also was quick to invoke liberalism’s core principles as an alternate justification for the war on terrorism (which is why immediately after 9/11, and thereafter for quite some time, I repeatedly told Brendan, “Dude, you need to read The New Republic–you sound just like those guys!”), staking out a position that, though easily confused with/mistaken for neoconservatism, nonetheless provided an intellectual foundation for conscientious Democrats and liberals to back a Republican-led war that was so obviously the right thing to do, while leaving them at least some wiggle room to potentially criticize the president and his supporters.

So it was no surprise then for me to come across an article in TNR by Martin Peretz titled, “LOSING OUR DELUSIONS: Not Much Left,” which declares liberalism bereft of new ideas, and concludes that liberalism “now needs to be liberated from many of its own illusions and delusions.” Count Peretz’s piece as just one of many recent articles by liberal intellectuals and their critics that attempt to calculate where their ideology went wrong, and how they’ve become so politically weak and primed for repeated defeat. What sets apart this piece, though, is not just the dark, sobering assessment of where liberalism stands today, but the frank, objective concession of many devastating points that its conservative intellectual opponents have brought against it. I think it was John Kenneth Galbraith, speaking in the early 1960s, the high point of post-New Deal liberalism, who pronounced conservatism dead. Conservatism, he said, was “bookless,” a characteristic Galbraithian, which is to say Olympian, verdict. Without books, there are no ideas. And it is true: American conservatism was, at the time, a congeries of cranky prejudices, a closed church with an archaic doctrine proclaimed by spoiled swells. William F. Buckley Jr. comes to mind, and a few others whose names will now resonate with almost nobody. Take as just one instance Russell Kirk, an especially prominent conservative intellectual who, as Clinton Rossiter (himself a moderate conservative) wrote, has “begun to sound like a man born one hundred and fifty years too late and in the wrong country.”

At this point in history, it is liberalism upon which such judgments are rendered….

Peretz goes on:

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Charlie Weis has been spewing a lot of hot air the past couple months about “that team from out West” and their head coach, Pete Carroll. Recently he said that Carroll has “never really done great against me.” Well, despite what he has said, Charlie Weis has about as much room to talk about Pete Carroll’s success in the NFL against Weis as Freddie “1 catch for 11 yards” Mitchell has room to talk smack about Rodney Harrison. One man has done an analysis (at my and others’ urging):

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The Former USC Football Coach Who Shall Not Be Named has resigned as Offensive Coordinator of the New York Jets. Chad Pennington can now look forward to better days as a quarterback. Let us again remind ourselves how lucky we are to have Pete Carroll!

In more depressing news, Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated has a damning column on the use of steroids and amphetamines in Major League Baseball.

Here’s what Brendan has to look forward to:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the “jury pool from hell.” The group of prospective jurors was summoned to listen to a case of Tennessee trailer park violence. Right after jury selection began last week, one man got up and left, announcing, “I’m on morphine and I’m higher than a kite.”

When the prosecutor asked if anyone had been convicted of a crime, a prospective juror said that he had been arrested and taken to a mental hospital after he almost shot his nephew. He said he was provoked because his nephew just would not come out from under the bed.

Another would-be juror said he had had alcohol problems and was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer. “I should have known something was up,” he said. “She had all her teeth.”

Another prospect volunteered he probably should not be on the jury: “In my neighborhood, everyone knows that if you get Mr. Ballin (as your lawyer), you’re probably guilty.” He was not chosen.

The case involved a woman accused of hitting her brother’s girlfriend in the face with a brick. Ballin’s client was found not guilty.

No further comments are necessary.