Farwell and Adieu, You Slant-Eyed Spanish Ladies....

Amid all the controversy (or non-controversy — if you're European) surrounding the Spanish men's basketball team's "slit-eyed" photo it's hard to tell who's really wrong here. Is Spain just a culturally backwards country or are we a bunch of hypersensitive whiners overloaded on politically correct bumper stickers? As we found out today, this is not an isolated incident. The focus is on the men's team — Pau Gasol and Jose Calderon are NBAers after all — but maybe there is some truth behind this "affectionate gesture" , which Calderon called it? Spain's women's team didn't seem to mind doing it either. And the fact that their whole country seems utterly dumbfounded by the controversy indicates that as long as they think it's harmless than nobody else should think otherwise. Maybe they're right? The fact is, this wasn't an ad placed in USA Today,yet the chronically bored journalists forced to fly over to Beijing to cover the Olympics sick of fawning over Michael Phelps (or being videotaped chewing on dog penis) are treating it that way. The most telling, eye-rolling response to the whole controversy came from Spain's head coach Aíto García Reneses:

“If I go to play with a taller team and I put here (raising up on the tips of his toes) it is not an offense,” Reneses said. “I can’t understand anything more.”

Tall Mens' Clubs all over the world have yet to respond to that statement. IOC Critical Of Basketball Team Ad [LA Times] That Slanty-Eyed Asian Ad? Misinterpreted [AdRants]