Radio Derb Is On The Air as s a podcast on iTunes, listenable/downloadable onscreen at Taki’s Magazine, or as a transcript here.

Naturally I couldn’t resist the story about Donald Sterling having his private conversations taped by a strumpet.  After noting that Sterling was due to receive an NAACP award this month along with Al Sharpton, I comment:

The recordings were almost certainly illegal, and the lady sounds to have been coaxing the offending remarks out of him. It all looks like a set-up by someone who wants to force Sterling to sell his basketball team. In the speculations I’ve seen, the chief candidate for that “someone” slot is Magic Johnson, a sometime basketball player himself who became a major culture hero on account of having caught a venereal disease. Johnson is one of the blacks that Sterling's lady friend took her picture with.

Defaming public officials, inciting mobs to arson and murder, and catching VD, will all bring you fame and fortune in today’s America. The President himself will kneel at your feet. Contrariwise, not wishing it known that your lady friend is walking out with blacks is serious thoughtcrime. Sterling has been thrown out of the National Basketball Association and fined $2½m. He’s under pressure to sell his team, though apparently the NBA can't force him to do so.

I can’t improve here on the words of Mark Steyn, writing about the affair in his blog Tuesday, quote: “In a free society you should be able to make racist remarks in private without being fined and losing your property rights. Because the alternative is worse.” End quote.

The full Radio Derb playbill:

• Harmless old coot gets scarlet “R.”  (First goat of the month.)
• The uses of history.  (To whack your social enemies over the head with.)
• A nation of laws … please.  (Grazing and immigration.)
• Moral preen-o-rama.  (Pundits celebrate their purity of soul.)
• Redefining debate.  (Goodbye, Western Civ.)
• No stronger retrograde force.  (Britain’s national suicide proceeds apace.)
• Cruel and unusual?  (I guess.)
• Vacation suggestion.  (If you’ve had too much excitement.)
• Future Presidents.  (A challenger for Dwayne Alizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.)

It’s all there at Taki’s Magazine.