In London, Robin Pagnamenta reports Dow Chemical’s sponsorship of the London Olympic Stadium wrap “has provoked fury in Bhopal, the Indian city where nearly 4,000 people were killed in the world’s worst industrial accident” in '84. Campaigners for victims of the incident yesterday “condemned the organisers for agreeing to allow Dow," which merged with Union Carbide Corporation in '97, to produce a "fabric curtain that will be draped around the main stadium” for the '12 London Games. Bhopal Group for Information & Action's SATINATH SARANGI said the agreement was like "dancing on the graves" of those who died when methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a plant owned by a Union Carbide subsidiary. Dow last year signed a 10-year agreement to be an IOC TOP sponsor, and U.K. Minister for Sport & Olympics HUGH ROBERTSON said, “The International Olympics Committee had signed Dow, so there was no reason that we should not follow them” (LONDON TIMES, 8/9).
NAMES: SI.com’s Peter King wrote Patriots Owner ROBERT KRAFT, “mourning the death” of his wife, MYRA, “got a boost” from former Patriots WR RANDY MOSS. Moss several days after her death “flew up from Florida for one reason: to tell the Patriots owner how highly he regarded Myra Kraft” (SI.com, 8/8)....The U.S. Postal Service next summer will issue a JOE DIMAGGIO stamp as part of the ’12 MLB All-Star stamp series. The collection was announced yesterday and “will feature three other Hall of Fame baseball players,” though only DiMaggio’s name has been released (NYTIMES.com, 8/8)....Browns Owner RANDY LERNER “won a court order for the return of the remainder” of his $40M investment in hedge fund Paige Capital Management, which “had refused to say where the money was invested” (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 8/9)….N.C. State men’s basketball coach MARK GOTTFRIED “was among several high-profile college coaches who invested in GLC Ltd., a retail company involved in an alleged Ponzi scheme linked to former Georgia football coach JIM DONNAN.” Gottfried “invested $250,000 in the retail liquidation company” (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 8/9)….Mavericks Owner MARK CUBAN Sunday on his blog offered a “circumscribed view of patents, making the case for eliminating patent protection for software and business methods.” Cuban wrote that the benefits “include lower court costs, a more efficient patent office and, most important, more corporate dollars spent on employees instead of lawyers” (LATIMES.com, 8/8)….Celtics coach DOC RIVERS has purchased a 2-bedroom, 2 ½ bath penthouse at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston for $2.2M (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/9).
IN MEMORY: Hendrick Motorsports Owner RICK HENDRICK's mother, MARY, passed away yesterday at the age of 88 at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 8/9).
