Eddie Long’s Mediation Quest – The mainstream media is a fickle child.  We get blasted with days of seedy details on what Bishop Eddie Long allegedly did with some young, male members of his church.  Then audio on his mini-rants to fight the accusers because he says he did nothing wrong.  Audio of his church flock members vowing to support him regardless of analyzing the entire story.  Video from an accuser speaking of what was done to him.  Records on property supposedly purchased and used for trysts.  Self-taken pics of him posing in tight shorts. 

So both sides have now met and agree they want to move forward to quickly mediate the case.  If I remember correctly, when Michael Jackson’s team did this regarding his first formal accuser—and with the late Johnnie Cochran’s help settled it out for over $10 million—the media roared that it must be a testament to his guilt.  They said why would an innocent man willing settle to payout that much money to a family of liars. 

After Michael settled, a huge part of the public’s perception of him was never the same.  He later would say that he settled to make it go away and that he was in fact guilty of nothing harmful to children, but that didn’t matter.  The negative cast remained.  Since then, I always wondered if MJ wished he could go back and unring that settlement bell.

Tapping into that same logic, then why isn’t the media pointing their fingers and feeding on the fact that Eddie is doing the same thing?  And, after how it turned out for Michael, why would Eddie—if truly innocent—want to venture down that road? 

Cleveland Cavaliers – During last nights game against the Miami Heat, some of the players were acting like they were in summer camp.  I get that some of you may still be cool or even friends with LeBron.  But you are hired to play the professional game of basketball.  And this is a business so when you are on the court, you are at work.  Should you be paling around with your buddy while at work?  All the hugging, pats and joking around when he danced over to the Cavs bench during time-outs was a bit much.  I’m not saying don’t be his friend.  I’m saying don’t do it at work and on the fans’ time.  Channel all that fan rage into a fire in your gut.  Put on your game face, work shoes and killer mental mindset – and go to work.