IF THROWING CUPS OF BEERS IS OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL THROW CUPS OF BEER. I suppose it's hard enough to keep order at an NBA game, but all I can say is I wish this standard was in effect when I was fronting rock and roll bands. I got the beer bath many a time. One time a guy threw a bag of garbage at us. Well, like Lou Reed said, those were different times, not to mention pay scales.

I suppose the charges against the lager louts will lead to all sorts of similarly elevated discourse, and I look forward to it. Too bad we can't get a follow-up from National Review's Geoffrey "Gangstaball" Norman, who boldly predicted, "Fans who were punched -- even though they may have provoked it -- will sue." Considering that the prosecutor has already given Artest a pass for clocking the guy who famously wandered into Artest's waiting fist on grounds of "self-defense," we shan't be seeing much of that, methinks.

The players' case has been already been an occasion for much hilarious analysis. My favorite is from the Revolutionary Worker Online:

The talk about Artest’s problems or his previous run-ins with basketball’s authorities is a lot of crap. Bush took the U.S. to war in Iraq based on lies about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s ties to al-Qaida. Before that as Texas governor he presided over a record number of executions, including some where the person put to death was innocent. But news reporters don’t link this to his past problems with alcohol or to his current addiction to Pat Robertson-style Christian Fascism.

Now who, as David Huddleston observed in Blazing Saddles, can argue with that? Though we owe the RWO a debt for pointing this out: "The Washington Wizards (formerly the Bullets) had a designated heckler who was seated behind the visiting team’s bench. This guy would do research to determine the best way to get inside the heads of visiting players and coaches. He’d recite rewritten versions of Shaq’s rap lyrics, read sections of Phil Jackson’s autobiography and run down any run-ins players had with the law among other things." Now there's a dream job!