A growing chorus is questioning Barack Obama’s seemingly disparate policy on Wall Street versus the auto industry. The “Wall St. v. Detroit” tension was highlighted yesterday with the encouraged stepping down of now-former GM CEO Rick Wagoner, as well as the pushed coupling of Chrysler with Italian automaker Fiat in order to tighten the debt belt. But is he being too harsh on Detroit? Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin weighed in on the ultimatum: “Their option is either to take a haircut or a bath.” Sometimes haircuts and baths are good. But if these haircuts and baths include cutting the promised retirement pensions to autoworkers who were explicitly promised “If x, then y” regarding benefits of becoming lifetime employees, is it necessarily a fair pitch across the plate?

Next up, financial segue time – French President Nicholas Sarkozy is threatening to walk out of this week’s G20 Summit on the global economic crisis unless France’s demands for tougher financial regulation are met. Still, what’s with the outgroup-y quip about blaming “the Anglo-Saxons” (read: us and our fish ‘n’ chips-eating neighbors across the pond)? That, and he and Angela Merkel are suddenly strange bedfellows in a good instance of camaraderie by negation. Drama at the G20.

Or maybe just drama on Fox News. Because nothing made me happier than the fadeout music on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ this morning being “Proud to Be An American” after repeatedly playing the clip of Glenn Beck crying on air. Does that look real to you?

Did I say something about strange bedfellows earlier? …did you see this commercial? I mean, it’s March Madness. Strange and beautiful things happen in March Madness – including, apparently, but not limited to Rick Pitino and Bob Knight putting on a jam session in their underwear. What does that mean? “It means you’re gonna have to put on some pants, pops.”

About 24 hours later, the shock of IU’s hire of Tom Crean for head basketball coach still hasn’t subsided.

It’s a hell of a day when former President Bill Clinton visits Assembly Hall and still isn’t the biggest story coming out of Bloomington, or even that building.

After suffering about six weeks of pure agony caused by Kelvin Sampson’s poor decisions and our team’s poor play – something obviously caused by Sampson too, thanks KS – Crean’s hire really couldn’t have come at a better time.

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Look, I appreciate that the NBA wants some more Spanish-language viewers. Their Hispanic fan base is growing, and the NBA wants to cater directly to them. Great!

I can imagine the meeting now: “OK, we have a broadcast deal with Telemundo, and outreach organizations in Hispanic communities. You know what else we need? ‘LOS’ in front of the team name on the jerseys. That way they’ll be Los Los Angeles Lakers! And Los San Antonio Spurs! That’ll show just how Spanish we are! Get it? But we won’t change the actual team name for a night. Because that’s crazy. “Los” it is! That’s great, lemme write that down. OK, pass the blow.”

Paul Lukas, of Uniwatch, expresses similar concern about the NBA’s halfassedness:

Am I the only one who thinks this approach reeks of American ignorance? It’s like getting drunk on Tequila in Mexico City and then asking, “Where-o is el bathroom-o?” And it’s not like the words Spurs and Suns don’t have Spanish translations — Espuelas and Sols, respectively. Would that have been so hard? Just tossing “Los” on there is a lazy cop-out …

The idiotic marketing exercise (I assume that the NBA simply doesn’t want to change the team names, because the brand is too important) actually makes the NBA come off as calculating. It’s like some sort of hybrid between cynical marketing tool (”Those Mexicans will love it!”) and poorly conceived multiculturalism (Next: Les Raptors vs. 那些 Rockets!). Plus, it makes for some damned ridiculous uniforms.

This is still cool, though.

Bill Simmons is one of my favorite writers, and the column he posted Friday (which can be read here) is especially good. It’s about a young man from Los Angeles, a star high school running back, who was gunned down when someone suspected him to be a member of the wrong gang. [He was not involved in gang activity at all.] Here’s a taste:

Like everyone else, I was waiting for an answer when Jamiel Sr. somehow pulled himself together and started speaking. He mentioned the fear of residing in a gang-infested city, how he felt powerless when Jas got older for the same reason that every parent starts to feel powerless — once children start spreading their wings and parents realize they can’t spend every second of the day with them, there comes a point when the parents just have to cross their fingers, let the children spread those wings and hope for the best. Still, as Jamiel Sr. put it, “We shouldn’t have to cringe every time our kids go outside.”

‘Sup fools? It’s time to preview the National League West Division, home of last year’s NL champs, the Colorado Rockies. Yeah, that still sounds weird to me too. Here’s a picture to look at while that sinks in again.

Okay now? So let’s get to it.

The Webb/Haren duo could end up to be the best pairing since lamb and tuna fish. (AP; Eric Risberg, AP)

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A professional golfer is facing charges for killing a hawk. With a golf ball.

PGA Tour golfer Tripp Isenhour was charged with killing a hawk on purpose with a golf shot because it was making noise as he videotaped a TV show
Isenhour was with a film crew for “Shoot Like A Pro” on Dec. 12 at the Grand Cypress Golf course. The 39-year-old golfer, whose real name is John Henry Isenhour III, was charged Monday with cruelty to animals and killing a migratory bird.
According to court documents, Isenhour got upset when a red-shouldered hawk began making noise, forcing another take. He began hitting balls at the bird, then 300 yards away, but gave up.
Isenhour started again when the hawk moved within about 75 yards, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer Brian Baine indicated in a report.

Seems pretty impressive to me, but apparently it’s a crime to hit hawks with golf balls. I’ll have to keep that in mind next time I’m out on the links. The story didn’t say what his punishment would be if convicted. I wonder what you get for killing hawks with golf balls? A simple “Nice shot” and a pat on the back might have been my first inclination.

Golfer Tripp Isenhour shoots a “birdie.”

Hey again, sorry this is coming later than promised. It’s time for me to do a preview/prediction on the division that interests me only slightly more than the NL Central — the AL West. I have never actually seen any of these teams play, except for when the Angels played the Red Sox in the ALDS last year. This is because they are all on the West Coast and, therefore, never on TV that I can watch. So I’ll be making most of this up as I go along.

Photoshop a Mariners hat on the man, and fear is struck into the hearts of Angels fans everywhere. AP photo.

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David Zalubowski/Associated Press

Good night, sweet prince. You shall be missed.

I don’t usually make sports posts, but today marks the first spring training (it’s spring?!) game for my favorite baseball club, the Chicago Ursine Young (not to be confused with the Chicago Ursine Adults), playing the New York Giants of San Francisco. In any case, this has made me about as giddy as I can legally get without the use of mind-altering substances.

As any Cubs fan knows, every year is “The Year,” that is to say, the year that the Cubs end their near-century-long championship drought. Nothing gets me riled up quite like the Chicago Cubs. It’s basically like Lucy and the football; every year they get my hopes up, and every year they snuff them out faster than you can say “All-Star Break.”

But hey, hope springs eternal or something. Cubs-Giants@Scottsdale, first pitch 3:05 p.m. ET. It may be 20 degrees outside, but there’s no need to fear. After steroids hearings, forgettable trades and a snowy winter, spring is finally right around the corner. Baseball is here again.

Bad news for Roger Clemens: Congress wasn’t fully convinced of his statements and thinks he may have lied under oath. To combat that, letters have been sent to the DOJ so they can look further into Clemens’ statements.

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