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There has been a crowded docket in our preeminent sport. Let's take just three cases. The defendants: the NFL, Roger Goodell and football itself.

The NFL first. If American banks, which nobody likes, are too big to fail, then the NFL, which everybody likes, is too popular to fail. Probably too big by now too. Despite all the negative news recently, has it really been damaged? Why, one of its smallest franchises, the Buffalo Bills, just drew a record price. Do you see any indication that fans have, in disgust, turned to Gilligan's Island reruns Sunday afternoons? Not to mention Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights.

Long ago Walter Winchell used to address his radio audience: Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. Well, Mr. and Mrs. NPR and all the planes in the air: Do you have any friends who have sworn off watching NFL games? Have you?

Sweetness And Light

The Washington Football Team That Must Not Be Named

Verdict: guilty on all counts. As punishment, by popular demand, we sentence the NFL to more playoff games for us to watch.

Next up for trial: Roger Goodell. He, the boyish blond, with a shoeshine and a smile; lifetime league functionary, promoted to a $40 million-a-year position thanks to the Peter Principle. Back more than a year ago I said here that he wasn't up to the job. It's only become more obvious since. Long before he was "ambiguous" about what might have happened to Ray Rice's fiancee on that elevator, he was disingenuous about his sport's dangers, ignorant of team bullying and team bounties. He doesn't even have the courage to tell the owner of the Washington franchise that his team's nickname is racist.

Sweetness And Light

Deford: Is Goodell Good Enough To Lead The NFL?

Verdict: guilty on all counts. The court hereby orders the NFL to hire someone from outside the football family of stature, honor and sensitivity to be the new commissioner.

And lastly on trial this morning: football itself. A new study shows that almost one-third of NFL players will suffer long-term cognitive problems. Granted, that's professionals, but obviously younger brains are at jeopardy on all gridirons. What mother or father can any longer willfully allow a son to play such a game with such odds?

Verdict: Football is dangerous to your brain.

The court orders that some brave college conference with high academic standards — like the New England Small College, the Midwest, the North Coast, the Southern California IAC — have the courage to lead the way and drop football.

That's called a no-brainer.

Roger Goodell

Football

NFL

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

Novelist Nicholas Sparks has been accused of racial and religious discrimination, in a federal lawsuit brought by a former employee on Thursday.

Saul Hillel Benjamin, the ex-headmaster of the Epiphany School of Global Studies, a North Carolina private school co-founded and funded by Sparks and his wife, Catherine, states that he discovered a hostile environment while working at the school and The Nicholas Sparks Foundation.

Among other allegations, Benjamin's complaint says the best-selling author sought to block the recruitment of black students and teachers, supported the bullying of LGBT students and questioned Benjamin's own Jewish background and Quaker faith.

And the complaint isn't short on incendiary language. The Guardian reports that the lawsuit accuses Sparks of endorsing students who "sought to enact a 'homo-caust' against a group of gay students," of having publicly claimed that Benjamin suffered from Alzheimer's disease and, according to The Associated Press, of generally fostering "a veritable cauldron of bigotry toward individuals who are not traditionally Christian, and especially those who are non-white."

Sparks' attorney denied the accusations, according to the AP, and his publicist released a statement from Sparks' entertainment lawyer, Scott Schwimer, that reads: "As a gay, Jewish man who has represented Nick for almost 20 years I find these allegations completely ludicrous and offensive."

Writers Group Pulls For Amazon Probe: The Authors Guild, a century-old professional society of more than 8,500 published writers, went public Thursday with its attempts to invite government scrutiny of Amazon's business practices. According a statement on its website, last summer the Guild — not to be confused with Authors United, another writers' advocacy group seeking investigations of Amazon — "prepared a White Paper on Amazon's anticompetitive conduct, circulating it to the United States Department of Justice and other government entities." The group says it met with members of the Justice Department on Aug. 1 to make their pitch in person.

The news comes as Amazon's pricing dispute with Hachette Book Group roils on, and as Authors United prepares a letter of its own to the DOJ.

Bots Plot Conquest, Libraries First: Robots, the imminent overlords of Earth (give it 50 years or so), are lulling us into a false sense of security with yet another blatant ploy: playing librarians. Say hello to Nancy and Vincent, the humanoid bots coming to Connecticut's Westport Library. No word yet on when, precisely, they'll become self-aware.

Citizen Can't: "If this were a domestic tragedy, and it might well be, this would be your fatal flaw — your memory, vessel of your feelings," writes Claudia Rankine, in "Citizen," a devastating prose poem out now in Granta.

Whoops, My Dear Watson: Anthony Horowitz, the man behind an upcoming James Bond novel, has a few issues to sort out with Sherlock Holmes first. Sarah Lyall reports in the New York Times that advance reading copies of Horowitz's Sherlock novel Moriarty contain some not-so-subtle clues to his writing process. Notes to his copy editor have been mistakenly left in, littering the text in all-caps — including this frank assessment: "I'M NOT CHANGING THIS."

nicholas sparks

Sherlock Holmes

Book News

Amazon

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In a sign of potential improvement in their frosty relationship, North and South Korea will engage in high-level talks by early November. The revelation came as a delegation of North Korean officials ventured south to Incheon for Saturday's closing ceremonies in the 2014 Asian Games.

That trip brought a chance for South Korea's Prime Minister Chung Hong-won to meet with the military and political leaders, in what the Yohhap News Agency says is "the first time that a sitting South Korean prime minister has met with high-ranking North Korean officials since their prime ministerial talks in 2007," when Kim Jong-Il was still in office.

The news emerges as a survey found more than half of South Koreans support reunification with the north. The Chosun Ilbo reports that in the survey of 1,200 South Koreans, only 14 percent said they view North Korea as an enemy. But nearly 90 percent also said the country would never give up its nuclear weapons, and three-quarters of respondents said North Korea might "launch an armed provocation."

Before today's meeting, the health of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-Un, had been a subject of rampant speculation, after a video showed him limping.

"North Korea's state media confirmed that he suffered from discomfort. I think there is no reason to disbelieve it," South Korea's Ministry of Unification spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol tells The Korea Times. The agency goes on to report that Kim has edema in at least one ankle joint, requiring surgery.

Kim Jong Un

South Korea

North Korea

The Democratic National Committee is running a Spanish language ad on radio stations in North Carolina and Georgia, where there are competitive U.S. Senate races.

"Republicans think we're going to stay home," the ad says. "It's time to rise up."

Democrats see opportunity in Southern states with fast-growing minority populations and an influx of people relocating to the Sun Belt. In Georgia, there's a push to register new voters in hopes of turning a red state blue.

Becks Nix spends most weekends at festivals, like the Fall Festival at Atlanta's Candler Park, working a voter registration booth for the gay rights group Georgia Equality.

"Are y'all registered Georgia voters?" Nix asks passersby.

Anastasia Fort says she needs to check because she just moved to a new neighborhood. Nix tells her how to make sure she's on the voter rolls.

"Because things are tight," Nix says, "we feel like it's even more important that people are not only registered but are actively engaged in what's going on."

Fort admits she's not so engaged. Her friend Steve Stuglin is shocked.

"You're not following? I mean Michelle Nunn's got a chance," he says.

Michelle Nunn is the Democrat in a tight race with Republican David Perdue for an open U.S. Senate seat. Stuglin moved here from Detroit six years ago, bringing his Democratic politics with him. He says Democrats could make gains in Georgia if their voters would just turn out.

"They think it's a lost cause, it's never gonna happen, it's a red state, just deal with it," Stuglin says.

But Democratic operatives say Georgia's days as a reliably red state are nearing an end, in part driven by demographics.

In 2000, 75 percent of Georgia's electorate was white. Now it's just more than 60 percent white.

"While demography can be destiny, destiny needs help," says Democrat state Rep. Stacey Abrams. She's House minority leader in the Georgia Assembly, and founder of the New Georgia Project, an aggressive campaign to register minority voters.

"There are 800,000 unregistered African-American, Latino and Asian voters in the state of Georgia," Abrams says.

Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority in the South, with Latinos close behind. Both groups have settled in Atlanta's bustling suburbs.

The New Georgia Project has been canvassing door to door and conducting drives to sign up voters. Abrams says they've registered 87,000.

Georgia doesn't register by party, but the group has targeted populations that tend to vote Democratic.

The question is, will they?

Along with the Senate race, Georgia also has a tightly fought contest for governor. Democrat Jason Carter, President Jimmy Carter's grandson, is challenging the Republican incumbent Nathan Deal.

Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie says Republicans still have the edge in Georgia. She doesn't expect this Democratic new-voter push to bear fruit this cycle, even though the registration numbers are impressive.

"The more important number for me is not whether or not you register 87,000 people to vote," she says. "It's whether or not you can get those 87,000 people to the polls."

Carter, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, spent last Sunday urging voter turnout in African-American churches around Atlanta.

He says what's happening here can alter the political landscape.

"Georgia is changing dramatically," Carter says. "There's no doubt that Georgia is next in line as a national battleground state."

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Republican Gov. Nathan Deal visits a charter school in Riverdale, Ga., with rapper Ludacris. David Goldman/AP hide caption

itoggle caption David Goldman/AP

Republican Gov. Nathan Deal visits a charter school in Riverdale, Ga., with rapper Ludacris.

David Goldman/AP

Republicans are taking note of the change. Gov. Deal also campaigned at an African-American church in Macon on Sunday, and appeared at a school last week with the rapper Ludacris.

Deal spokesman Brian Robinson says Republicans have to expand their electorate.

"That is our battle," Robinson says. "Changing the way people identify themselves by party over the next 20 to 30 years."

On the front line of that battle is Leo Smith, minority-engagement director for the state GOP. For the past year, he's been touting Republican values.

"These are ideas of liberty and freedom that Grandmama and them used to talk about," he says. "God bless the child that's got his own. Keep the man outta your house. Man don't work, man don't eat. All those were sort of black value systems that I grew up with that sound really Republican."

Smith acknowledges his work is cut out as he sits in the state GOP office surrounded with portraits of the top Republican office holders in Georgia — all white men.

Democrats

Georgia

GOP