Lithuania is a wonderful country. The historic architecture, the beautiful scenery, the horribly racist basketball officials. Whaaaaa? Yeah, we have our fair share of bigoted nutjobs in this country, but they aren’t the head of a major sports organization.

(Humanitarian of the Year)

Looks like Valdas Garastas (pictured above) is going to be needing some of that diversity training. Garastas, the head of the Lithuanian basketball federation, is not too happy with the African-American players who have come to play in his country, and he’s not mincing words. He’s all apologetic now, but perhaps he should’ve realized that dropping n-bombs in the newspaper earlier this week might not turn out so well.

Ugly quotes after the jump.

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New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress has had one hell of a year.   Ever since winning the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots, it seems as though Plax can do nothing right.   When he’s not ticking off his coach and getting suspended by his own team for two games, he’s, well actually he’s always making Tom Coughlin mad.   When he wakes up in the morning and uses the bathroom Coughlin calls to yell at him for leaving the seat up.   “It’s just not considerate,” he screams into the phone.

So it wasn’t exactly a surprise that Coughlin suspended Plaxico for the first quarter of the Giants game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday after he missed a few practices and skipped getting treatment on his injured neck.   It was a move a lot of Giants fans support, and a lot of folks in the local media supported it as well.   Of course, if you ask Al Sharpton — and really, why wouldn’t you ask him — the NEW YORK POST went over the line.

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Remember when LeBron James appeared on the cover of VOGUE for the magazine’s April issue with Gisele Bundchen? There was a bit of a to-do over that particular shoot, with many observers complaining that the cover was less than flattering due to racial and “King Kong”-like imagery.

Well, as the BOSTON HERALD tells us, apparently all the hubbub didn’t mean a thing for VOGUE’s sales of the April issue.

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By way of the South Bend Tribune comes a story about the relationship between Lou Holtz and former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. As EDSBS points out, Holtz is an interesting guy to say the least.

Lou Holtz met Jesse Helms during his coaching stint at North Carolina State. According to Holtz, Helms used his political influence to help Lou build the program. In his autobiography, “Wins, Losses and Lessons”, Holtz explains how the friendship later cost him his job at Arkansas. Read more…

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is retired from boxing, but that doesn’t mean he’s retired from talking. The outspoken pugilist gave the first interview of his post-boxing life to The Grand Rapids Press and covered a wide range of topics.

Money Mayweather says he loved playing the role of the villain, and he’s really retired from boxing. His most interesting comments were directed towards HBO’s boxing coverage and the announcers in particular. Read more…

Don Imus’ foot-in-mouth disease continues to reverberate, as the target of his latest set of ill-advised and racially charged comments, Dallas Cowboys CB Adam “No Longer Pacman” Jones, has responded to the old coot’s off-hand remark about his yellow sheet yesterday.

Per the DALLAS MORNING NEWS:

“I’m truly upset about the comments,” Jones said. “Obviously Mr. Imus has problems with African-Americans. I’m upset, and I hope the station he works for handles it accordingly. I will pray for him.”

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The NEW YORK DAILY NEWS reports the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled that a jury should hear the case of former Iona basketball coach Craig Holcomb, who claims that he was dismissed from his job at the college because Holcomb, who is white, married a black woman.

The appellate court ruled that a lower court was wrong in throwing out the case and that the case will see trial. Holcomb was fired in 2004 after he refused to resign. He is now a gym teacher at a New York high school.

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And you thought the story was dead. Dead, dead, dead. A 47th prod of the stick reveals the story is still moving. And the HUFFINGTON POST via a litany of websites reveals that the LeBron James/Gisele Bundchen cover shot on Vogue might have the most striking resemblance to a World War I recruitment poster.

(LeBron. Gisele. And the Kaiser. These stories and Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes.)

This actually seems modestly harmless. Vogue was likely taking a hard stance condemning the death of Archduke Ferdinand — a sentiment needed so badly in today’s anti-Ottoman Empire society. Read more…

Sheila Marikar blogs in a post for ABCNEWS.com that the VOGUE magazine cover featuring Lebron James and Gisele Bundchen is racist.

Marikar:

They’re two of the most beautiful people on earth. But some say the Vogue photograph, shot by Annie Leibovitz, isn’t attractive at all because of the racial stereotype it purportedly evokes — black beast clutching a white damsel in distress, reflected in French sculptor Emmanuel Fremiet’s 1887 statue “Gorilla Carrying Off a Woman,” and later, in the many incarnations of “King Kong.” Read more…

In a good example of, “Hey, maybe things have gone a little too far,” a noose was placed near the entrance to the former home of THE GOLF CHANNEL’s Kelly Tilghman, who was suspended two weeks for the infamous Tiger-lynch comment.

Tilghman and Nick Faldo might be the whitest people ever. But that’s no reason for this. From the AP: Read more…