It’s the oddest thing — just the other day I was reading online about the NBA logo, and how it’s modeled after the player-turned-front-office-great Jerry West.

And so just now a co-worker brings me the October 24, 2011 issue of Sports Illustrated and points out this paragraph:

The logo, created in 1969 and modeled on a photo of Jerry, was apt in a way that the NBA couldn’t have dreamed: a white, ghostlike figure, frozen forever on the run. But a Buddhist artist would have sketched that phantom a different way. The Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism have pinhole mouths, long necks so thin that they can’t swallow and absurdly bloated bellies — forever starving but unable to ear, forever seeking gratification from old needs never met. The fate of most of the gods.

That’s an accurate-enough written rendering of the mythical Hungry Ghosts — but what on earth it’s doing in a story about Jerry West is beyond me. The article does paint West as one of “the gods” of the court, but I don’t get the “if a Buddhist artist sketched the logo” part here. That’s totally out of thin air, isn’t it?

Somebody, enlighten me!

(Perhaps The Lakers Forward Formerly Known as Ron Artest has the answer?)

Photo via Mister 536 (on flickr.com)

Back in June, we’d told you this was possibly going to happen — though one had to wonder if it was a prank.

But, nope, it’s official: on Friday the 16th LA Lakers forward Ron Artest has his name legally changed to Metta World Peace. As his publicist says about the name, “Metta is his official first name; which in the Buddhist tradition means loving-kindness and friendliness toward others and his last name is World Peace.” (Though Artest might want to see this SunSpace post by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, which contends that an more appropriate translation of metta might be “goodwill.”)

More on the name-change here, via this CNN article – which reminds us that we’ll soon be hearing the name Metta World Peace on Dancing With The Stars.

Yes, you read that right — Lakers star Ron Artest wants to change his name to “Metta World Peace.” That’s Metta, as in that word you may have learned about through Buddhism, translated variably as “lovingkindness,” “lovingfriendliness,” or “goodwill,” and World Peace as in, well, world peace. The Associated Press reports that Artest has had his lawyer file to have the change made, for unnamed personal reasons. (Surely the influence of meditation enthusiast and former coach Phil “The Zen Master” Jackson is a factor?) We hope Artest will make those reasons more public soon. Here’s more on the story. And by the way, according to gossip site TMZ, it’ll be “Peace” that appears on the back of Artest’s jersey.

As both Sports Illustrated and CNN are reporting:

Shortly after the Los Angeles Lakers annihilated the Cleveland Cavaliers 112-57 last night, LeBron James took to Twitter to vent a little frustration and kick his former team while it was down.

“Crazy. Karma is a bitch. Gets you every time. Its (sic) not good to wish bad on anybody. God sees everything!” he tweeted.

Newsworthy? Absolutely not. But it is maybe worth repeating that “karma” is not about come-uppance. And it’s definitely not a “bitch.” (Maybe it’s time to cut down on our lazy use of that word already, huh?) Now, perhaps — like LeBron and so many others — you don’t really know what it means. No need to be embarrassed; this archived post from good ol’ Nate at the Precious Metal blog will clear things up, at least as far as Buddhists’ use of the word goes.

January 14th update: Gawker’s getting in on the act, with this Jersey Shore report, in which the “guidos” go to [the club] “Karma, their ritualistic mating grounds.”

“Despite being a practising Buddhist, Louise Goodman, a.k.a. Blackout Susan, plays roller derby with the Slaughter Daughters.”

The Ottawa Citizen has the story from which this great sentence comes. Go, Blackout!

Someone actually hired a plane and flew this over the Masters today (click the photo for more on that):

Look, I’m all for having a larf, but as one friend said to me:  “Very sad that someone actually paid money to do that.” And as I said back, “What if — just what IF — the dude is sincere? Not that I think that horrible Nike ad helps that argument…”

I know; that’s a weird headline. But bear with me. Are the L.A. Lakers The Worst Horse?

Coach Phil “The Zen Master” Jackson seems to think they might be. Via the Lakers Blog of the Orange County Register:

HOUSTON — The Lakers’ 33-point deficit after three quarters in Oklahoma City probably won’t be remembered too long, but it was still being discussed a day later.

Reflecting on that defeat, Phil Jackson said Saturday the Lakers simply “weren’t ready to come out on the floor.” [...] Jackson told reporters a story about the Buddha and four kinds of horses with varying motivation. He suggested the Lakers might need to lose to evolve into a more self-motivated group.

Yep, that’s right — that’s the same story from which this site gets its name. More on that here.

The tattoo in question, via farm4.static.flickr.com

Sports site TSN reports that:

“English welterweight Dan (The Outlaw) Hardy’s stomach tattoo was airbrushed out of the UFC 111 fight poster because it is ‘anti-Chinese government stuff,’ according to UFC president Dana White.

‘”I’m trying to get into China,” he told fans at a question-and-answer session Tuesday. ‘I don’t need anti-Chinese government stuff on my fighters.’

“Hardy, however, says the tattoo — the fighter’s favourite — is a Tibetan Buddhist prayer written in Sanskrit.

‘”It’s basically just like a prayer for focus,’ Hardy said. ‘It keeps me walking the path that I should be walking without veering off and distracting myself.’

“Apprised of that explanation, White said: ‘That’s not what I heard.’

[...] “‘I heard that it was anti-Chinese government, so I ripped that thing off it. I’m not going to put him on a poster with anti-Chinese government writing on it when we’re trying to get into China. . . . I don’t know what this stuff means, so I’ve got to be safe.’

But, as the MMA site Bloody Elbow (nice name, that) points out:

“The tattoo is the well known Buddhist mantra “Om mani padme hum” which has no political significance in relation to China.”

Well, not quite no political significance.  While the tattoo isn’t an overt anti-China statement, China sure is sensitive to hearing about Tibetan Buddhism. Some, like Robert Thurman, would even go so far as to say that the Chinese government is trying ‘re trying to, um, airbrush it away.

Tiger Woods is now wearing one, as he told ESPN:

“It’s Buddhist, it’s for protection and strength and I certainly need that,” he said, adding that he began wearing the bracelet before he went into rehabilitation and that he intends to wear it forever.

One had to wonder, after all the hubbub, if Tiger Woods’ much-publicized post-scandal media statement today would address his Buddhist practice. Well, yes, it did:

“I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path, for me, is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught. As I move forward, I will continue to receive help, because I’ve learned that that’s how people really do change.”

Update: Tida Woods, the golfer’s mom, had this to say about her son’s rededication to Buddhist practice:  “Buddhism teaches you to go deep inside your soul and look through from himself, and correct the bad thing to be a good thing. When he realized, he said okay, and went back to practice Buddhism and that will make him a much better person.”

For my ongoing coverage of the media-circus surrounding Woods’ Buddhism (versus Brit Hume’s suggestions that he convert to Christianity), click here.

Update: CNN has posted a new piece (featured on its homepage as of Friday evening): Tiger Woods’ apology brings new attention to Buddhism