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Zirin song

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

As someone who writes a lot about politics and a little about sports, it's no surprise that I'm a huge fan of Dave Zirin -- the world's only full-time progressive-politics-and-sports writer. In fact, he's the first and still only sportswriter ever employed by the Nation -- how cool is that. No matter what the topic, Zirin always brings the fresh perspective that 98 out of the other 99 guys are usually lacking. For example, his coverage of how Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert out-unclassed LeBron James on LeBron's big night was priceless:

Dan Gilbert needs to spare us the moral outrage. Forget about the fact that this is an utterly graceless, classless move given how much coin James has put in Gilbert's pocket.

Gilbert is the man known as "Subprime Dan," the who made his millions as CEO of Quicken Loans, offering 0%, no money down mortgages to potential home buyers over the Internet.

This kind of legalized loan sharking of course wrecked the US economy. But it didn't wreck Gilbert. As foreclosures reached record highs in Cleveland, Quicken Loans reported that 2009-2010 has been their most profitable period in the company's history. Now as people throughout the state of Ohio have lost their homes and livelihoods at the altar of Quicken Loans, Gilbert has announced that he will be opening four casinos throughout the state. He also funded the state referendums that secured his right to legalize gambling in the state. Anyone who has been to a casino in Detroit can predict what their Ohio variant will look like: working class families—black, brown, and white—dragging their kids to the bingo parlor and the penny slots hoping against hope they can raise enough to keep the bank from taking their home—perhaps even thanks to a subprime mortgage courtesy of Quicken Loans. The point here is a basic one. If anyone has stabbed the people of Ohio in the back, it's not Lebron James: it's Dan Gilbert. And if we didn't understand why Lebron would want to leave his home town in Cleveland yesterday, we certainly get it now. Talk about a bad sport.