I Can't Stay Healthy

Chicago media is in awe of Derrick Rose:

• Forty-eight hours later, Derrick Rose finished his thought.
  
  Thank goodness.
  
  It was worth the wait to hear Rose finally say something that made Chicago well up in pride instead of wince, to see evidence of Rose's maturity our city has become quick to judge. We all know Rose can be inelegant as a public speaker. But this wasn't about Rose finding the right words as much as sending a strong message. This was about a professional athlete with a social conscience extending his reach and, whether you agreed with his stance or not, engendering respect.

Hey Haugh - watch those teeth as you slobber on Rose's sack.

Rick Telander is even worse:

• Gestures mean something. So do words. So, even, do T-shirts.
  
  So when Derrick Rose wore a black T-shirt with the words ‘‘I Can’t Breathe’’ in white letters on the front during warmups before the Bulls’ game Saturday against the Warriors at the United Center, it meant something.
  
  People noticed. Rose certainly meant for people to notice.

Rose is the spokes-asshole for a "movement"? A movement of the willfully ignorant we suppose. People (or folks) who ignore mounds of evidence, mountains of actual physical evidence rooted in observable fact, scientific analysis, legal definitions and the laws of physics.

People (or folks)? Did we just go there? We did, because of this:

That's the hero, throwing up for the nation. He denies it meant anything and ESPN ran his excuses. But anyone who worked in Englewood knows the stories, has talked to the players. Rose was thick as thieves with the gang. There was an "understanding" among the hierarchy that Rose was to be supported and protected. And that isn't because he wasn't part of the organization.

And the people that he ran with have visited untold misery to tens-of-thousands. Murders numbering the thousands. Many more thousands maimed. Hundreds upon hundreds of families ruined, bankrupted, torn apart by narcotics. And not a couple murders and many more injuries of Chicago Police Officers.

And to get to this point, all you have to do is ignore the fact that "choking" people can't speak over and over about how they can't breathe. Ignore the autopsy report that says a man died an hour later from a heart attack due to being over 350 pounds and failing to obey the completely lawful and justified orders of police officers enforcing the duly passed laws of a legislative body.

Just manufacture a story, put it on a t-shirt, and have a member of a criminal enterprise broadcast it on national television because he can put a ball in a hoop - if he manages not to stub his toe on an air molecule that is. Nice movement. Nice role model.