Oden article

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Greg Odens decision to make himself public in his support for his political beliefs. It is rare that a young man has such good principles that he recognizes his importance in shaping the world through his actions. Not only his actions on the court, but those off the court.

There have been many a great NBA superstar who have been reluctant to do so for fear of tarnishing their endorsement deals. Please do not take today's comments as a jab at his politics. Because, personally, I think he is a very interesting young man and appreciate that he brings an aura of social consciousness not seen by Portland athletes since the days of Bill Walton (do NOT get me started on him)!

I do, however, again take issue with the man who writes this. How in the world can the Oregonian continue to allow him to be called a columnist? He is nothing more than the Blazers' paid hack, sent to promote their agenda through his words. There are far too few people who know who pays for his KXL gig... too many people who believe he is merely an employee of the Oregonian writing from an "objective" view. His view on the Trail Blazers has been anything BUT objective.

I continually comment on this conflict of interest only to have the posts removed, but he cannot remove them from here. I am going to take it to the sports editor, the Publisher ANYONE at the Oregonian who understands that he should be restricted from writing anything about Portland Trail Blazer basketball due to the OBVIOUS conflict of interest presented by his KXL gig. I doubt they will listen... he must have pictures of someone doing something because he seems to be untouchable at that paper.

I encourage ANYONE who reads this to write to the Oregonian... ask them to prohibit John Canzano from writing ANYTHING about the Blazers until he is no longer their employee. One step at a time... one step at a time...

I do find it interesting how quiet he has been on the Kilkenny donation. His last column was Wednesday... the Kilkenny announcement came Thursday... and nothing... just shows that Canzano does not have the ability to make positive comments about the University of Oregon. How can one man with so many obvious journalistic limits keep being considered so untouchable? Maybe the Oregonian just can't attract good journalists...

Not sure, I still think Canzano will write a column that twists the Kilkenny donation into something else... time will tell...

I have written to Sandy Rowe and Therese Bottomly asking to remove this responsibility from Canzano... I encourage you to do the same... their email addresses are: srowe@news.oregonian.com and theresebottomly@news.oregonian.com