Kobe Bryant’s late mistakes doom Lakers in their Game 2 loss to Thunder

OKLAHOMA CITY – There would be no mea culpa from Kobe Bryant on this night. No put-it-on-me. No admission of guilt, acceptance of responsibility or credible explanation for his role in the Los Angeles Lakers’ stunning Game 2 collapse at the feet of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Instead, Bryant hemmed and hawed about how Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook surprised the Lakers with their risk-taking. “It was a little unconventional,” he said, as if he’d never seen a desperate defender step into a passing lane.

Bryant talked about how the Lakers’ decision to pound the ball inside to Andrew Bynum left him too far from the basket and with too little time on the shot clock. “I tried to create something, and it just didn’t work out,” he said, and while there’s some truth in that, he has a portfolio packed with 17 years of far more difficult shots.

Bryant gave only hollow excuses, ignoring the obvious: He coughed up this game, allowing the Lakers to somehow waste a seven-point lead in the final 128 seconds. He lost a pass to Durant, let another go through his hands, missed a 3-pointer and had a shot thrown back by James Harden. It was two minutes, eight seconds of chaos, one blunder after another. Never has Bryant looked so clumsy – so mortal – in such a big moment.

“I was surprised,” Lakers coach Mike Brown said.

Afterward, Bryant and Brown both rued the final opportunity that never came Kobe’s way. With 5.7 seconds left and Metta World Peace inbounding, the Lakers set a flare screen for Bryant. Bryant said he sprung open in the middle of the lane. Brown agreed. World Peace instead swung the ball to Steve Blake, who was standing alone in the corner. As Blake’s shot clanged off the back of the rim and into the hands of Thabo Sefolosha, Kobe swung his fist in disgust. In truth, the game should have never come down to that play.

“We’re better than Santa Claus,” Bynum would later say. “We gave them a gift.”

Bryant’s competitiveness allows him to concede nothing, and that’s fine. He never does mea culpas, and he wasn’t going to start now. His stubbornness, selfishness, has made him one of the greatest ever. But deep down, with the Lakers flying home in an 0-2 hole, their season pushed to the edge of the cliff, Bryant knows the truth.

This is on him now.

The Lakers can hope Bynum becomes more efficient, more consistent, but he’s not the problem in this series. Ramon Sessions is the lost soul. Bryant has ridden Sessions hard in practice during these playoffs, and for good reason: The Lakers thought they were acquiring the athletic playmaker they’ve long needed, enough to make Derek Fisher expendable. So far, it appears, they’ve given Kobe another Smush Parker.

The rest of the Lakers’ role players are what they are: adequate on some nights, not adequate enough on others. If anyone is going to pull the Lakers back into the series, it will have to be Bryant. He hasn’t played up to his standard in the first two games – and really hasn’t looked the same since gutting through his stomach sickness in the Lakers’ Game 6 loss to the Denver Nuggets in the first round.

Bryant chided his teammates for not matching his competitiveness in that game. On this night, he deserved the blame. He hit a flurry of shots to steady the Lakers in the second half, but missed 16 of 25 overall, including all six of his 3-pointers. He’s shot poorly before, but to give away a game?

“Stuff happens,” Brown said. “He’ll regroup and we’ll all regroup.”

The Lakers played well enough defensively to win, corralling Westbrook and turning Durant into a facilitator for long stretches of the game. The Thunder’s frustration showed: After Serge Ibaka and Westbrook barked at each other on the sideline, Westbrook spiked a water bottle onto the court then walked away from the team’s huddle. The young Thunder looked ready to crack.

Instead, Bryant gave Durant the only opening he needed. Fisher lined up alongside Bryant for all those years, all those playoff battles. Now with the Thunder, Fisher wasn’t ready to pass judgment on his old teammate’s struggles.

“I think he does about the best job of anybody in the league at putting his team in position to win,” Fisher said. “The best players in the world are not going to be perfect.”

Fisher understood what could await the Thunder when they walk into the Staples Center on Friday night. Never had Bryant looked so fallible, and never will he be more motivated.

Wednesday night had bled into Thursday morning, as Kobe made the walk to the Lakers’ bus. He’d never admit it, but he knew he gave away this game. He also knows it’s up to him to take back the series.

Whether you like her or not there’s no denying that Nene Leakes is making major bitchie career moves! The loud, vivacious and sassy diva has landed a new role on NBC’s fall lineup in ‘The New Normal’,  a new comedy about a gay couple trying to start a family.  Recently, Nene attended NBC’s Upfront Presentation and spilled some tea on her character.

I’m Rocky, one of the gay guy’s assistants. I take it very personal, honey, if you talk about my gays, honey. Only I can talk about them and I’m fabulous. She’s very different from Roz Washington on ‘Glee’; she’s always in workout outfits and sneakers. Rocky wears high heels every day. This is very fitting for me because in my real life, you don’t mess with my gays, honey. I don’t play that.

Nene is definitely trying to maintain living up to her coined phrase ‘I’m very rich b*tch!” She may not be cashing in anymore ‘Trump Checks’ but she sure has plenty checks flowing in heavy rotation. She currently has a recurring role on ‘Glee,’ and of course, a starring role on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, which has already begun filming its fifth season. Three gigs may be a heavy load but Nene says she can do it all.

I hope to stay on Glee, I hope to still be a Housewife and I hope to do The New Normal. I just want to do it all! Why not? I’m only going to be young for a little while longer.

Get that money girl!!! Watch the trailer for the ‘The New Normal’ below:

The New Normal premieres this Fall on NBC

Via Huffington Post & NBC

By Dylan Stableford | The Ticket – Sun, May 13, 2012

(Newsweek)

It won’t be nearly as controversial as Time magazine’s breastfeeding cover, but Newsweek’s May 21 issue declares Barack Obama the country’s “first gay president.”

The accompanying cover story was written by Andrew Sullivan, the popular–and openly gay–political blogger. The magazine even gives the commander-in-chief a rainbow halo.

Obama, Sullivan writes, “had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family.”

The full cover story is not yet online, but in a blog post published earlier this week, Sullivan wrote that Obama’s support of gay marriage brought him to tears:

I do not know how orchestrated this was; and I do not know how calculated it is. What I know is that, absorbing the news, I was uncharacteristically at a loss for words for a while, didn’t know what to write, and, like many Dish readers, there are tears in my eyes.

So let me simply say: I think of all the gay kids out there who now know they have their president on their side. I think of Maurice Sendak, who just died, whose decades-long relationship was never given the respect it deserved. I think of the centuries and decades in which gay people found it impossible to believe that marriage and inclusion in their own families was possible for them, so crushed were they by the weight of social and religious pressure. I think of all those in the plague years shut out of hospital rooms, thrown out of apartments, written out of wills, treated like human garbage because they loved another human being. I think of Frank Kameny. I think of the gay parents who now feel their president is behind their sacrifices and their love for their children.

The interview changes no laws; it has no tangible effect. But it reaffirms for me the integrity of this man we are immensely lucky to have in the White House. Obama’s journey on this has been like that of many other Americans, when faced with the actual reality of gay lives and gay relationships. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. But not all of it. I was in the room long before the 2008 primaries when Obama spoke to the mother of a gay son about marriage equality. He said he was for equality, but not marriage. Five years later, he sees–as we all see–that you cannot have one without the other. But even then, you knew he saw that woman’s son as his equal as a citizen. It was a moment–way off the record at the time–that clinched my support for him.

Today Obama did more than make a logical step. He let go of fear. He is clearly prepared to let the political chips fall as they may. That’s why we elected him.

A police officer guards the area where dozens of bodies were found, May 13, 2012. (Christian Palma/AP)

Forty-nine headless, dismembered bodies were found along a stretch of highway in Mexico on Sunday.

The mutilated bodies “scattered in a pool of blood”—some with their hands and feet “hacked off,” according to the Associated Press—were discovered by local authorities on the edge of the town of San Juan on a road that connects Monterrey to the Texas border.

The bodies were thought to have been dumped there by a drug cartel, authorities said. A welcome sign near the killing field was filled with graffiti with the message, “100% Zeta.”

Zetas is one of the two largest drug cartels in Mexico. The other is the Sinaloa Cartel.

“This continues to be violence between criminal groups,” Jorge Domene, a state security spokesman, said in a news conference on Sunday. “This is not an attack against the civilian population.”

But the escalating violence between the two cartels has resulted in a recent rash of symbolic slayings.

On April 17, according to the AP, mutilated bodies of 14 men were left in a minivan in downtown Nuevo Laredo. On May 5, the bodies of 23 people were found, some hanging from a bridge and others decapitated and dumped near city hall. On May 9, 18 dismembered bodies were discovered outside Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city.

Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey are considered Zetas territory, while Guadalajara has been controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel.

In September, a Sinaloa drug gang dumped 35 bodies in Veracruz, Mexico. In August, a Zetas attack on a Monterrey casino left 52 dead.

Domene said Sunday’s victims—43 men and 6 women—would be hard to identify because of “the lack of heads, hands and feet.”

Since 2006, when Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon announced a crackdown on cartels, more than 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence.

By Jenna Goudreau | Forbes – 22 hours ago

We all think our mother is the best. But who’s the most powerful mom in the world—managing billions of dollars, entire populations and the little ones?

With Mother’s Day around the corner, ForbesWoman analyzed the annual list of the world’s 100 most powerful women—based on money controlled, decision-making power and multiple measures of influence—and teased out the moms who are at the top of their game. From spheres of government, business, entertainment and philanthropy, these 20 moms rule the roost–and the world.

This year, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, mom of daughter Chelsea, ranks No. 1. With one of the biggest jobs in the world, Clinton is still a mother first. Two years ago as Chelsea planned to walk down the aisle, Clinton used email to stay abreast of wedding preparations, review photos and offer support. Global diplomacy and duties as a mother-of-the-bride were both “serious, important and stressful” jobs, she said at the time.

Power moms must develop unique strategies to succeed in both boardrooms and playrooms. Indra Nooyi (No. 3), chairman and chief of PepsiCo and mom of two, says if her kids call in the middle of a meeting, she takes the call. Sheryl Sandberg (No. 4), chief operating officer of Facebook and mother of two young children, says she leaves everyday at 5:30 to have dinner with her family.

Executive Editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson (No. 10) told Forbes that when her two children were young, she tried to be available and informed on their class work. “I haven’t been a workaholic who hasn’t been home for the important times–and just about all times are important in family life,” she said. “When I was the Washington Bureau Chief, I had a set of my kids’ high-school books. I liked to read what they were reading, so that I could talk to them when I got home.”

Today, Abramson’s children are in their twenties, and she is transitioning to no longer having kids in the house. How does she cope? “I have a golden retriever puppy,” she noted. “I think for those of us adjusting to an empty nest, after we threw ourselves into raising kids, that a loopy, hard-to-train, irrepressible, affectionate dog is a nice thing in [this period of] life.”

Many of the moms on the list have publicly acknowledged the difficulty that comes with being a mother and a professional, especially one with a high-octane career. Sandberg told Forbes in 2010 that when she was a new mother, “like everyone else, you try to do everything, and you just do everything badly all the time. When I first was at Facebook, I was definitely feeling way unbalanced and more worried about not seeing my kids. Then, I got my feet wet, got the teams in place, learned what we were doing, and now it feels more balanced.”

Sandberg has also been a champion for other women with or considering children, and warns them not to “leave before they leave.”

“People start thinking about wanting to have a child,” Sandberg explained, “and then think, ‘Well, I couldn’t possibly have a child with my current schedule. I’ve got to find ways to cut things or at least stay where I am to make room for this huge obligation.’ So, at that moment, those women stop. Fast forward a year or two, maybe three, and you’re leaving a baby at home for a job, and you’re bored because you’ve been at the same job for three years too long.”

She advises women, expecting moms and new moms to “keep your foot on the gas pedal for as long as possible.”

Christine Lagarde (No. 6), managing director of the International Monetary Fund and mother of two, said when she was interviewed at the Board, it was a board of 24 men. “And that is a message about diversity.” Despite the majority of the staff being women, very few were in senior positions. “As is often the case, the higher you go in the hierarchy the fewer women there are.”

Lagarde believes it stems from maternity leave, and mother’s ability to stay connected during it and come back after it. “When you ask female employees who did manage to work their way up, they very often had the support of a husband or their parents, or they live in countries where domestic support is relatively easy and cheap,” she noted, adding that it’s both a cultural and structural issue.

And, as we all know, the mother’s work at home is incredibly important. Often, it paves the way for her daughter’s work outside it. Clinton’s mother, Dorothy Rodham, who died in November at age 92, helped her develop into a strong leader. When Clinton was 4-years-old and came home crying over a neighborhood bully, her mom advised, “You have to face things and show them you’re not afraid.” If Clinton got hit again, “hit her back,” her mother counseled.

[Related: 6 Millionaire Moms]

Likewise, mother-of-two Anne Sweeney (No. 19), co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney-ABC Television Group, told Forbes that her mother, an elementary school teacher, was “smart, strong-willed and inspirational.” Said Sweeney: “I remember when I was a kid, she really pushed me hard. I was studying for a Latin test, and I looked at her and I said, ‘You think I’m smarter than I am.’ She said, ‘You don’t know how smart you are.’”

“It was such a great thing for a parent to say that,” Sweeney continued. “Because it’s motivating, and you sit back and think, ‘Well, maybe I can do this. Maybe I can do more.’”

From the spheres of government, business, entertainment and philanthropy, these moms rule the roost–and the world.

No. 1: Hillary Clinton

APSecretary of State, United States
Age: 64
Residence: Washington, DC
Marital Status: Married
Children: 1

No. 2: Dilma Rousseff

EVARISTO SA/AFP/Getty ImagesPresident, Brazil
Age: 64
Residence: Brasilia, Brazil
Marital Status: Divorced
Children: 1

No. 3: Indra Nooyi

APChief Executive, PepsiCo
Age: 56
Residence: Greenwich, CT
Marital Status: Married
Children: 2

No. 4: Sheryl Sandberg

Courtesy of FacebookCOO, Facebook
Age: 42
Residence: Atherton, CA
Marital Status: Married
Children: 2

No. 5: Melinda Gates

Cofounder, Cochair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Age: 47
Residence: Medina, WA
Marital Status: Married
Children: 3

No. 6: Sonia Gandhi

AFP/Getty ImagesPresident, Indian National Congress Party, Indian National Congress
Age: 65
Residence: New Delhi, India
Marital Status: Widow
Children: 2

No. 7: Michelle Obama

Charles Dharapak/AFP/Getty ImagesFirst Lady, United States
Age: 48
Residence: Washington, DC
Marital Status: Married
Children: 2

No. 8: Christine Lagarde

APManaging Director, International Monetary Fund
Age: 56
Residence: Washington, DC
Marital Status: Single
Children: 2

No. 9: Irene Rosenfeld

EPA/NewscomCEO, Kraft Foods
Age: 59
Residence: Chicago, IL
Marital Status: Married
Children: 2

No. 10: Jill Abramson

AFP/Getty Images/NewscomExecutive Editor, The New York Times
Age: 58
Residence: New York, NY
Marital Status: Married
Children: 2

Bank of America Offers Principal Reductions to 200,000 Homeowners

By Diana Olick | CNBC – Tue, May 8, 2012 1:46 PM EDT