Athlete arrests and general debauchery

- So maybe skier Bode Miller hasn’t given up drinking/getting hammered before downhill races…..there’s no definitive evidence on this, but at the World Cup downhill event in Bromo, Italy, Miller was disqualified after skiing off the course near the starting line. You may remember that prior to the 2006 Winter Olympics, Bode said in an interview that he has, in the past, shown up for races drunk and has in general made an ass of himself in the public eye while flaming out big time in the Olympics plus taking runs at Lance Armstrong, a man revered as a hero and inspiration by many sports fans and cancer survivors worldwide.

- The Mike Tyson Downward Spiral has taken another sad turn. The former heavyweight champion boxer turned convicted rapist turned circus freak/sideshow act was arrested early Friday morning in Scottsdale, Arizona after police pulled him over for a traffic stop and found cocaine on Iron Mike. While I’m sure that nothing this guy does will shock or stun anyone at this point, it is ironic to note that Tyson was taken to the very same jail where he recently went to speak to teens about the danger of drugs and drug usage. The cops even said Tyson was great with the kids and did a good job of reaching them with the message. One can't help but wonder, though, why he couldn’t get the same message through to himself. Most of his self-harming acts have hurt no one but him, but the rape conviction and this drug arrest are on another level. If Mike wants an ugly facial tattoo, fine. If he wants to threaten to eat his opponents’ non-existent children, fine. If he wants to call a reporter a scared coward (redundant, but amusing) and threaten to make that same reporter his girlfriend, those things don’t harm anyone. Drugs, rape and biting off a man’s ear, now those are problematic. Mike might be best locked up, because at least there he can be somewhat controlled and isn't a menace to society at large. Even if he’s not a malicious and mean guy, he just can't help himself and no one else seems able to help him either. Sad………

- Continuing on today’s theme of athletes drinking and driving while impaired….San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Antonio Bryant continued a less-than-stellar finish to 2006 by pleading not guilty to charges of reckless driving and resisting arrest after being pulled over when officers spotted him driving in excess of 100 miles an hour. This, coupled with the current four-game suspension Bryant is serving for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy, makes for a black mark on what has otherwise been a decent season for the rebuilding Niners. Judging by Bryant’s immature on-field antics and conduct, no surprise that he’s getting into so much trouble on and off the field.

- Great of the government to issue an apology to a Muslim woman who was wrongfully detained at the Tampa Airport. Safana Jawad was held in a local jail and strip searched, and I’m sure an apology from the government for ripping her dignity and the racial stereotyping for being Muslim will be easily forgotten. Great how the feds can continue using the “national security” excuse to try and sweep just about any misdeed under the rug. Jawad was flagged for what Homeland Security officials termed “association with a suspicious person,” and hey, they’re right, aren't all Muslims or people of Middle Eastern descent suspicious? What, you mean they’re not? Most of them are good, normal people and not terrorists? Wow, somebody needs to tell the government that.

- Sweet home, Alabama, where the strippers aren't really strippers. The most recently enacted state laws in Alabama require that “exotic dancers” (see skanks working brass poles in your dictionaries) have any area of their bodies that would normally be covered by a “modest” bikini be covered in some way, shape or form when they writhe around on stage for the ones thrown by the degenerate losers who go to strip clubs. Most dancers choose to cope with the regulations by using latex, meaning that not only are you a pathetic, sick loser if you go to strip clubs to see these skanks perform, you’re not even seeing actual nudity or anything close to it. Congratulations, lowlifes who frequent strip clubs in Alabama, you’re even more sad and wretched than previously thought.

Sex scandals in Washington? No way!

- The #1 question to ask potential girlfriends or dates is no longer what they do for a living, how old they are or what their hobbies and interests are. Thanks to a former congressional aide who kept a “sex blog” detailing her sex life with six (yes, six) different men. Aside from being a freaky skank, which having six sexual partners at once definitely qualifies you as, Jessica Cutler apparently fancies herself as the Carrie Bradshaw for the new millennium. Look, I know women love Sex and the City and it was a highly celebrated show, but writing a blog about your sex life and giving graphic personal details is something you’re going to want to reconsider, Jess. That’s especially true if your partner(s) don’t know about the blog in which they are so prominently featured. This issue is coming to the forefront because one of this skank’s partners, Robert Steinbuch, an aide for Ohio Senator Mike DeWine, is suing Cutler for posting the information that publicly shamed him, led to her firing and ultimately drove him out of Washington. He’s now a teacher in Arkansas, but somehow I think this story will follow him around for some time. At stake it there is a responsibility of a blogger to protect the privacy of people they interact with offline. Here’s hoping Steinbuch wins the suit, because Cutler is clearly a sick freak who has more fetishes than a porn star. But perhaps Steinbuch should have been tipped off by the fact that he was dating a woman who had six sexual partners at once. If he didn’t know, he’s either very oblivious or willing to ignore the obvious to get some. But hey, he can be thankful that Cutler didn’t go the extra mile and rig up her web cam to broadcast their sexual encounters.

- FEMA rocks…..really. These ass clowns, the ones who made life miserable for Katrina victims through the organization’s general incompetence and apparent indifference to the plight of those they were supposed to help, have now informed 4,000 storm victims who now reside in Texas, informing these people that they were deemed no longer eligible for governmental aid. Those receiving the letters can appeal to FEMA (boy, bet that inspires a lot of confidence that things will work out) and then they may be eligible for renewed monthly housing payments of about $750. Problem is, the program expires at the end of February and appeals could take up to three months (although it’s the government, so let’s assume three months means five or six). Oh, and an overwhelmingly large portion of the letters were returned as undeliverable. Let’s not forget also that thousands of people have had an impossible time trying to get any aid at all and that many Louisiana residents claim that they’ve seen little or no assistance from the government thus far. Perhaps it’s time for a poll of some sort so we can determine which situation the current administration has f’ed up worse, the war in Iraq or the aftermath of Katrina. Honestly, they’ve screwed both up so badly that it’d be hard to pick one or the other.

- Good luck with your long, laborious move Barry Zito. The former ace of the Oakland A’s pitching staff will have to relocate waaaaay across the Bay to………San Francisco. Apparently, dude did not want to leave NoCal, because San Fran and Oakland are as close together as any two MLB franchises that aren’t in the same city. I imagine that the bloated, 7-year, $126 million contract (yes, $18 million per) helps as well. But when you consider that mediocre, uninspiring hurlers like Gil Meche and Ted Lilly are getting $11 million and $10 million per year contracts this off season, Zito is a freaking bargain. Someone needs to go to Zito and ask him whether he thinks his new teammate Barry Bonds took steroids, too, because God knows not enough people have weighed in on that issue. Also, Zito is gonna have to figure out how to swing a bat because going to the National League means he will now hit in games. Overall, I believe the Giants will come to regret this deal, because they paid $18 annually for a pitcher whose production they could have eclipsed by signing two pitchers who were nearly as good for about half as much. Two 13-14 game winners would be better than one 18 game winner for the same price, eh Frisco?

- So is New York no longer a “safe” city? The Apple is apparently returning to its old ways, with murders on the rise in 2006. That should be easy to incorporate into whatever the tourism board’s new strategy is, “Come to New York, you’ve got an increasingly good chance to be killed.” No word on whether the number of rats in the city also rose in 2006, although that might be tough to quantify. Rats are notoriously bad about filling out and returning census forms, for sure. I still love New York and the increasing murder rate won’t deter me from going there, but it goes to show that no matter how much of an effort the cops make, they can’t definitively control people killing other people. Gangs, drugs, easy availability of illegal guns and the tendency of younger people to pull guns when they don’t get their way (hey, not at all stereotyping or generalizing, love it) are being blamed for the rise in murders. “Visit your city name here and get capped!” It’s a catchy slogan, you gotta admit.

- Ironic when a celebrity’s publicist is denying that the celeb hasn’t finished rehab yet. Normally the denial is that the star isn't in rehab at all, that they don’t have a problem with alcohol or drugs, blah, blah, blah. But the publicist for country singer (one of society’s biggest blights) Keith Urban is in fact denying that by leaving a rehab facility that Urban is declaring himself rehabilitated and done with the process. Instead, it appears he’s just going back to his native Australia to celebrate the holidays with his family. While I wish Mr. Urban a full and healthy recovery from his addiction, I can’t help but view this time as a victory for the music world in general. Whether he’s in rehab or spending down time in Down Under, he’s not making the worst of all possible kinds of music, save polka….country music. If only every country artist could be in rehab or taking time off…….we would have no country music, and the world would be a better place. No line dancing, no songs about drinkin’ at the saloon and losin’ yer woman…….hey, a guy can dream.

- How sad it is to watch a “legendary” college football program absolutely humiliate itself, groveling at the feet of and obsessing over a guy it wants to hire as its next head coach and having that same guy outright reject them - multiple times. Alabama, formerly coached by greats like Paul “Bear” Bryant, cannot find anyone to take their vacant coaching job. They fired Mike Shula after he went 10-2 in 2005 and 6-6 in 2006, and yet with that kind of impatience, shockingly no one is eager to step in and take their shot. Yet the Tide keeps throwing themselves at the feet of current Miami Dolphins coach Nick Saban, believing he’s the savior they need. Saban keeps saying no and reiterating his desire to remain with the Dolphins, yet after multiple rejections, the Tide brass still plans to make another plea to Saban once the Dolphins’ season ends. West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez almost took the job but pulled out, and numerous other coaches, including Bobby Petrino of Louisville, have turned Alabama down. The longer this goes, the more pathetic UA looks and the more luster their once-proud program loses. Maybe, though, this will help them to realize that Alabama football is no longer in that class of programs…….

It's my party, and I'll hate Bob Knight if I want to......

- In life, there are certain surreal sights, things that even as you watch them happen, you still never thought you’d see. It could be the Boston Red Sox winning their first World Series in nearly a century, it could be Pauly Shore making a watchable movie (still yet to happen), or it could be what is now certain to take place some time in the next 30 days: the execution of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. His appeal of his conviction and death sentence have been rejected, and now an Iraqi court has ruled that he’s to be offed within the next month. There are still some procedural and legal hoops to jump through, but the realization that soon, we’ll see this S.O.B. swinging from the gallows is just a wow moment. It’s just never pleasant to see someone executed, but this is one case where you can understand why that type of punishment is necessitated. Mass murders bordering on genocide and a tyrannical reign of terror are about as good of reasons as you’re going to find for handing down a death sentence. Still, I don’t think I’ll truly believe it’s happening until I see it with my own eyes.

- For the new year in sports, whatever you might wish to see, be it your favorite team winning a championship or your favorite player have the best season of his or her career, I think there’s one sports happening that everyone should be hoping for. That happening would be the teaming up of volatile, team-wrecking wide receivers Terrell Owens and Randy Moss. Both players have teams are present, the Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders, respectively, but the Cowboys are thought to be seriously considering not bringing Owens back next year and the Raiders are openly seeking trading partners for the perpetually unhappy Moss. In a dream world, some intrepid team would trade for Moss and sign Owens, thereby leading to the most combustible pair of teammates in sports history. Moss, with his petulance, lackadaisical attitude and propensity for quitting on plays, games and teams; Owens, with his tendency to throw teammates under the bus, undermine coaches, sleep in meetings and generally be a malignant malcontent….it would be a dream season. Well, right up to the point that the coach quit in the fourth week and all the other players retired or walked out a week later. But if we’re lucky, we’d get several weeks of high drama and comedy, non-stop conflict and ultimately, a locker room brawl to end all brawls, maybe resulting in the elimination of one or both of these walking abominations to the sports world. Good times…..

- Something tells me that Californians aren't too concerned with the broken leg suffered by the Governator, Ah-nold Schwarzenegger, in a skiing accident over the Christmas holiday. He recently won re-election and will have his inauguration next week, albeit on crutches and with his leg held together by wires and screws. But as I said, I don’t think Californians need be concerned. After all, it’s not like the guy could be any less effective or much less competent even with a bad wheel. Heck, maybe being forced to be stationary for a while will help Ah-nold, he’ll have to focus on actual governing and not on hanging with celebrity pals, working out and being famous. It will never cease to amaze that not a single competent candidate came forth to challenge him in the recent election. Now Schwarzenegger can enjoy his hard-fought victory over porn star Mary Carey, little person Gary Coleman and other “candidates” and have a second term that is as forgettable as his first one has been.

- Remember in school when you had fire drills and everyone was supposed to line up, march down the hall and outside the building to an assigned spot? Those drills were the best, mostly because they got you out of class for a while and outside for some fresh air. I don’t remember, though, ever doing a tsunami drill. People in Indonesia did just that on Tuesday, fleeing the country’s coast as sirens sounded to signify the start of the drill. In light of the recent tsunami that devastated the country, such a drill makes sense, but was everyone directed to exit to coastline in a single file line, keeping their hands to themselves? Did the principal come out to the meeting place outside their city and let everyone know that the drill was over and that they could go back in? And how much would you enjoy seeing Southern Californians participate in a mass earthquake or brush fire drill? The thought of seeing thousands of botoxed, cosmetically enhanced citizens on their Blackberries, behind the wheel of their BMWs, all trying to flee the region would be amusing to say the least.

- My new favorite politician, at least for this month, is Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who has strongly stated his intent to oppose any further American troops being sent to Iraq. Biden, who is the incoming Senate Foreign Relations Chairman, plans to summon Secretary of State Condi Rice before the Senate next month to testify about the administration’s plans for the Mess O’ Potamia, as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart so adequately termed it. Furthermore, Biden (brace yourself, W, this is amazing) has a real plan for the situation, namely beginning to withdraw U.S. troops and find a political settlement among Iraq’s warring factions. I know this is stunning, someone with an actual plan and clear goals for this mess, because W and his cronies have had no plan all along and don’t seem worried about formulating one, but I’m with Biden. Not saying I plan to vote for ol’ Joe in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, but for this particular situation, he’s 100% right.

- What to do when a floundering musical career and the widespread public belief that you are a pedophile have driven you from America and out of the public’s sight and mind? Michael Jackson has the answer: sue your former accountants over allegations that they withdrew $2.5 a year from your bank accounts and didn’t properly pay your bills. This isn't about the money for Jack-O, I have to assume; he’s filthy rich and owns the rights to all kinds of music, including many of the Beatles’ hits. The suit charges negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, but it seems more like a desperate grab for publicity and attention from the Freaky One. Maybe he’s pissed about losing some money, but more likely, he realizes that no one gives a crap about him or cares what he’s up to. Actually, most people seem more concerned with the fate of the exotic animals he left behind as his Neverland Ranch/child molesting playground (allegedly) when he fled to Bahrain. Glad to see you’re still alive and well, Jack-O, I look forward to much more freakery from you in the years to come.

- Sportscasters and commentators need to stop telling me how I just have to respect Texas Tech basketball coach Bob Knight, even if I loathe the man with a passion. He’s done so much for the game of basketball and produced so many great kids from his programs, they say….he’s an abusive, abrasive, rude, belligerent ass, I say. So what if kids who came through his program came out on the other end as productive members of society? You’re telling me they couldn’t have done so under the tutelage of a coach who didn’t choke them, berate them and act like a power-hungry dictator? I’ll go out on a limb and say that any kid who Bob Knight “reached” or helped could have done just as well, if not better, playing for Roy Williams, Dean Smith, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith, Tom Izzo, John Thompson, Billy Donovan or and number of great coaches. Besides which, the ends do not justify the means, and Knight’s domineering, fear-mongering, abusive ways can’t be excused or overlooked. Plus, did he “reach” or help the secretary at Indiana at whom he threw a flower vase? How did his influence benefit the IU student he verbally berated when the kid greeted him with a friendly, “Hey Knight,” in passing? Stop telling me I have to respect him or admire him somehow, because college basketball would be better off without Bob Knight and with someone who actually treated people with respect and dignity in his place.

Recovering from the holidays, still time for sarcasm

- Random acts of Christmas kindness are great, but when they take place more than 3,000 miles from me, there’s a problem. If people are going to be out and about, doing unsolicited acts of good, giving to others (especially cash) I’m going to have to ask that you perform your good deeds in my area code. Take, for example, a Spokane, Washington woman who boarded random city transit buses and handed out envelopes with cards and $50 cash to passengers. She did her benevolent work quickly and without fanfare, so much so that no one got a good look at her. Her kindness moved one young man to tears, and everyone she helped has a Christmas story for a lifetime. Props to everyone out there that did something similar this holiday season, and zero props to the people in my area who all failed to pass out cash to random strangers, namely to me.

- Looking for signs that Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo’s star is fading just a bit. No, it’s not found it the stats he’s posted in the past month (4 TD, 7 INT) or his team’s mediocre 2-2 record over that same time. Look no further than the current arm candy that dude is sporting: former American Karaoke winner (I think she won, right?) Carrie Underwood. When Romo was first the hot QB on the scene, he was linked to Jessica Simpson, who despite being fairly vapid and ditzy nad producing utterly unlistenable music, is one of the 10 hottest women on the planet. Now, with his play deteriorating and his team fizzling, Romo has stepped down to Jessica-lite, a former reality show winner and (ack) country music singer. Maybe Romo can rebound in the playoffs and lead his team to the Super Bowl, in which case he should be able to bump back up to, say, Jessica Alba.

- There are a lot of reasons we love politicians. The pork barrel legislation that wastes scores of tax dollars on unnecessary projects in the lawmakers’ respective home states…..the taking of bribes, the broken campaign promises….the list goes on and on. But when you get the chance to hear about filthy rich (often millionaire) legislators b*tching about how far they have to walk to go to the bathroom, then your admiration goes to a whole new level. Newly elected speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., lamented that male members of the House have a bathroom right next to the House chamber, while female members have a long walk that includes (gasp) traversing through a public hallway to get to their restroom. Oh, the agony……hey Pelosi, I’m extending a single finger in your direction, can you guess which one it is? Shut up, keep wasting our tax dollars without accomplishing anything and endure your long walk to the bathroom in silence.

- I love college football and its many bowl games. That love doesn’t preclude me, though, from wondering often how the hell the NCAA can sanction a bowl game called the New Mexico Bowl that features……(drum roll please)……..the frakkin’ University of New Mexico! In their home stadium! So basically these guys, with a putrid 6-6 record, get to have an additional home game and you call it a bowl? Why stop there? Why not the Montana Bowl, the South Dakota Bowl or the Rhode Island Bowl? I’m not against adding bowl games, but when the NCAA can no longer find teams with above-.500 records to compete in games and not have them played at a team’s home stadium, then it’s time to stop adding new ones. Raise the eligibility for a bowl to a plus-.500 record and mandate that no team can play a bowl in their home stadium, because you’re doing the unimaginable and making the bowl season into an even bigger farce than many think it to be.

- Let the highlighted hair, man blouses and bleached teeth fly……it’s time for another round of the New Year’s Eve showdown featuring metrosexual girly men Carson Daly and Ryan Seacrest. Daly, taking time off from a late, late night TV show that no one watches (wonder if anyone will notice he’s gone) and Seacrest, using some free time before the next round of American Karaoke, will be hosting their respective New Year’s Eve shows, Daly on NBC, Seacrest on ABC. I move for a new channel to be created for this event alone, one where there are no atrocious, ear assaulting pop musicians or metrosexual hosts, just silence. Maaybe a few microphones to pick up the ambient crowd noise in Times Square and cameras to show the goings on, but without any of the other crap. I see too much of Seacrest on TV as it is, even as I strive to avoid him, so I don’t need a reminder as 2007 starts that he’s still around.

- Cosmo Kramer isn't the only comedian who has trouble with audience members. Comedian Gallagher (apparently, he believes he’s a Brazilian soccer star and only needs one name) is being sued by Branson Partners LLC for breach of contract after the comedian canceled shows in Branson, Mo. last summer after being accused of shoving an audience member. Marcy Kowalski alleges Gallagher swore at her (hey, he and Cosmo have something in common) and bruised her arm in pushing her back to her front row seat at a show last summer. So if we’re keeping score, that’s Abusive Comedians 2, Audience Members 0. Kramer and Gallagher have unleashed verbal abuse, physical abuse….all we need now is for Dane Cook, Larry the Cable Guy or Dave Chapelle to grope or sexually assault an audience member and comedians will have hit for the trifecta.

- Does anybody remember a time when Donald Trump did actual real estate business? Right now, dude is a 24/7 publicity hound, whether he’s seeking out the opportunities or fat, stupid, bitter wannabe celebs like Rosie O’Donnell gift wrap the opportunities for the Donald. The most recent target isn't Rosie, but rather the city of Palm Beach, Fla. The city ruled that the Donald was in violation of city laws in flying a oversized American flag on a giant flagpole on his property. Trump countered that the enormous flag and flagpole reflected his enormous……….patriotism (what did you think I was going to say, sicko?). So he’s suing the city for $10 million over the hassle and promises to donate the money to veterans of the war in Iraq. The Donald is a walking, talking publicity stunt and sound bite, and the only time he’s not amusing is when he’s probably trying his hardest to be, on his lame-o reality TV show.

- Why can't we go one day without someone giving us yet another reason to worry about flying? This reason comes courtesy of an unidentified, mentally unstable traveler on a New York to Portland, Maine flight who passed a note to a fellow passenger that read, in part, he was Jesus and it was time for everyone to die. He also stated that he had AIDS and that the “shedding of his blood and all our blood would cure sickness,” according to fellow passenger Tammy Budek. So some crazy guy with a Messiah complex gets on board and starts telling people it’s time to die, super. I’m sure Angus King, former governor of Maine, was thrilled to be a passenger on that plane. Do we need to start making mental health checks a required part of the security process before boarding? After all, the rest of the security measures take so damn long as it is, may as well prolong the experience even further……..

Blizzards, blondes and fake doctors

- What’s more fun than spending not one, but two nights sleeping in an airport? Travelers stranded in Denver by the massive winter storm blowing through the country are finding out just how much jubilation ensues when you’re trapped at an airport on back-to-back days. Some of those stuck at the airport slept there overnight because they were not from the area and didn’t want to pay the exorbitant hotel rates to stay in the local Holiday Inn. Plus, with most roads closed, there was no way to drive where they needed to go. I wonder if the same thing holds true for sleeping in an airport that holds true for riding on the plane itself….do you inevitably, no matter where you hunker down for the night, find yourself surrounded by crying, loud infants and obscenely fat people whose blubber oozes out of their own seat and into your personal space? I hope the airport at least cut the stranded travelers a few breaks, maybe gave them free wireless access to the airport’s wireless network that they usually charge like $3 a minute for, or maybe a coupon to cut the cost of an airport Whopper from $5.50 to $4.25. An eight-hour delay in the Detroit Airport was the worst I’ve ever had, so I can't even began to fathom what two frakkin’ days in one of those places is like. Happy holidays, Denver-bound travelers, this will be a holiday memory to treasure for years

- Did I miss something here? When did strippers become a viable source for news and information? First, stripper Kendall, the single mother/college student/girl who is just tryin’ to pay the bills, who works the brass pole at the NYC club Scores is quoted in a story saying Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith will make a great pro player. She says she can tell that he’s a leader and that he has “it”, “it” being what it takes to succeed. Now, strippers from a different Scores club on the city’s East Side are bad mouthing lush and movie-wrecker Lindsay Lohan. They say that in training for her role as a stripper (isn't that what her entire career is, essentially, making money off of wearing decreasing amounts of clothing?), they have found out that she is a terrible pole dancer and looks “extremely awkward” when she works the pole. Thanks, strippers, I look forward to reading quotes and insights from you in future stories about the tension in the Middle East, New Orleans’ recovery from Katrina and the 2008 presidential election.

- Blessings in disguise…..Mel Gibson, in an interview with an online entertainment site, says he is thankful for his anti-Semitic rant because it has forced him to re-examine his life and make some changes. Personally, I’m going to buy what Mel is selling, even though it’s probably part of a publicity campaign to rebuild his image. If getting liquored up and blasting an entire race of people causes you to change your life and go in a new direction, then I suppose it could be a good thing, even if you continue to apologize to those offended by your tirade. Some people end up hospitalized, broke and totally lost before reaching that cathartic point, but fortunately for Mel, he got off easy and just had to endure months of bad publicity and public scorn. End result, though, he will slowly get back to where he was and in the process, he gets to keep making movies and millions of dollars.

- I think we’ve found out what Pat O’Brien has been up to lately. Since the whole “leaving sexually explicit phone messages on the cell phones of co-workers” phase of his life, Pat has laid low. Now comes word that two men in Texas, one of them identified as Arthur Daniel Hays, set up a phony medical office and posed as doctors as an excuse to see female “patients” and basically fondle and sexually assault them under medical pretenses. I’m gonna go ahead and assume that the second man is O’Brien, making good on those intentions he laid out in those gross, offensive phone freakery. Whoever the second man is or isn't, he and Hayes opened an office, put on doctor’s white lab coats and even took payment for their services. They’re now being charged for practicing without a license, sexual assault and Medicare fraud. Sounds like your little scheme was well worth it fellas, although getting a girlfriend might have been a better alternative.

- What’s MADD’s problem? Mothers Against Drunk Driving is pissed after stories of Miss Teen USA Katie Blair partying and drinking with Miss America Tara Conner came out and MADD is no longer going to partner with Blair to promote awareness of the hazards of underage drinking. Typically, Miss Teen USA and MADD pair up to inform kids about this issue, but now the group wants nothing to do with Blair. Did they not see Donald Trump’s generous and forgiving response to Conner’s indiscretions? The Donald allowed Conner to keep her crown and fulfill her responsibilities as Miss America, so why can't MADD just forgive Blair and give her a second chance. If they won't, I think guys everywhere (especially those teenage guys who Blair was supposed to warn about underage drinking) will be willing to settle for photos of Blair and Conner making out at clubs, which is part of what has been alleged of both. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that teenage guys would prefer those images over a message on underage drinking from Blair or anyone else.

- Ken Griffey Jr. is just about the most fragile athlete in the world….ever. He’s pushing Grant Hill for the top spot there, and although I know NBA legend Bill Walton had chronic foot problems that ended his career, Griffey is about as snake bitten as you can't get. He’ll end his career with over 600 home runs and still has one of the sweetest swings you’ve ever seen on a baseball field (plus he plays a great center field), but he can’t stop getting injured. Shoulder problems, torn hamstrings, knee problems, back problems….and now this. KG broke his hand in a “home accident” recently and will have a hard cast on for the next three weeks, after which his hand will be re-examined. Although this injury comes at a rather opportune time for Griffey, one where he won't have to miss games because of it, I just can’t help but feel that a guy who has missed at least 34 games in nine of his 18 pro seasons is going to come up with another two or three injuries once the 2007 season gets underway. Sad to see and I don’t believe in bad luck or luck as a concept, but Griffey will go down as one of the all-time “Could’ve Done More” athletes.

- I have got to get involved with beauty pageants, because apparently they consist largely of hot blond women making out with each other and partying it up. Miss Nevada Katie Rees (Katie apparently a big name for hot blonde girls who like to get their freak on with other hot blondes) has been shown in photos engaging in some very Tara Conner-like behavior when Rees was 17. She insists she’s grown up and become a better person, but we may as well just go ahead and add “making out with your fellow contestants” as a fourth competition in these pageants, right alongside the evening wear, swimsuit and interview portions.

- Rather than b*tching about who was selected to the Pro Bowl and who wasn’t, how about a fun alternative for all of the NFL experts and commentators out there: try to guess which of the selected players will drop out of the game, or predict which excuse they will use - injury, illness, fatigue, time with their family, etc. The second option is better if for no other reason than the fact that annually, it seems like half of the guys originally picked to play in the NFL’s annual all-star contest beg out, despite the chance for a free trip to Hawaii for them and their families. So instead of crying about why Tom Brady or Ray Lewis didn’t get voted in, try to predict who will be the first guy to bow out of the game, or which side, AFC or NFC, will have more of its originally selected members when the game actually gets played. In the end, no one really cares about the Pro Bowl, not even the guys in the game. The NFL is the only league among the Big Four (MLB, NBA, NHL) to hold its all-star game after the season instead of in-season, so everyone has moved on to other sports interests. But the NFL is free to toss my name onto either roster as a replacement player for someone who elects not to go, I’d love a free trip to Hawaii and I promise to play hard, give a crap and even play the whole game if need be.

- Inevitability reared its ugly head today when rape charges against three Duke University lacrosse players were dropped. You remember these guys, who had a party, hired strippers for it and then had one of the strippers accuse them of rape. Yet as time went by, we found out that the stripper’s story was flawed and full of holes and that she was openly looking for ways to cash in on the situation for her own profit. Everyone came to the consensus, with the help of DNA evidence, that while the three accused lacrosse players had been guilty of bad judgment and acting like stereotypical bad jocks, one thing they were not guilty of was rape. And no, this is not a case of rich, privileged white men getting off for a crime they committed and bought their way out of. This is the story of an overzealous prosecutor seeking reelection and a greedy, dishonest stripper looking to get some time in the spotlight. The three men still face other less serious charges, but don’t be surprised if those too are dropped and they end up with a slap on the wrist. Actually, I hope the woman making the charges is the one who is convicted of a crime for falsely accusing the players, because rape is a very serious subject and falsely alleging it when it didn’t occur is a huge smack in the face of women who actually are victims of rape.

Brawling monks and more excuses for fat people

- Hard to imagine a more peaceful, serene group than monks, right? Wearing those long brown robes, going months without speaking, copying manuscripts and studying religious teachings are what you would typically associate with monks. Someone needs to tell that to the rival groups of monks in Mount Athos, Greece. The warring factions are at odds over control of a 1,000-year-old monastery viewed as the cradle of Orthodox Christianity, and as a result, they decided to solve their problems by throwing down with crowbars and sledgehammers. Great idea, guys. Seven monks were injured and had to be transported by boat to receive treatment. Why does this feel like a bad rip-off of the gang fight scene from Anchorman? And if you have monks who are taking vows of silence, what does a fight between them sound and look like? Hard to talk smack to your opponent when you can't talk. Were there other monks from their respective monasteries, using fountain pens to write some good fight smack on scrolls and holding it up as the action went on? I’m going on the record as saying monks are now among my very favorite groups of people.

- Wouldn’t this be the very definition of the phrase “conflict of interest”? A person, acting as a consultant for a pro team, being among the most vocal advocates for the team trading a certain player and actively helping to dictate when and where he’s traded, then deciding to return as a front office executive for that same team once that player, a player he never got along with, was gone? If I were to explain that to you and you had no idea who the involved parties were, it would seem shady, right? Well, it seems even shadier if you realize that the consultant in question is the nomadic Larry Brown, a basketball coaching vagabond who never stays in the same city for more than a couple of years. Brown is rumored to possibly be returning to the Philadelphia 76ers, an organization he’s coached and worked for in the past and loves, after the Sixers traded wannabe gangsta and franchise player Allen Iverson. AI asked for a trade (though he now denies that) and Brown was one of the forces behind facilitating and structuring Iverson’s departure. Now, he’s going to step back in with the organization? I don’t know for sure how much Brown factored into the decision to accommodate AI’s trade request, but if he was even a contributing factor in the team deciding that it would in fact deal AI, then Brown is a fraud and a con artist. I’ve never been a fan of LB, and I think he is vastly overrated as a coach and executive, but if the reality of this situation is anything close to what it appears to possibly be, then even he has hit a new low.

- Fat people everywhere now have another crutch to blame their enormous girth on rather than taking personal responsibility for their own shortcomings. As if obese individuals didn’t already have enough excuses for being fat and not owning up to their own overeating, non-exercising ways, researchers now claim that the guts of fat people, besides being buried beneath rolls and rolls of blubber, also contain a distinctive mix of bacteria that are especially efficient at extracting calories from food and thus make those individuals gain weight. Great….do these bacteria also prevent the fat person from climbing on a treadmill or Stairmaster? Can the bacteria extract extra calories and fat from carrot sticks, rice cakes, celery and lean chicken? Do they have a special gravitational pull that forces the fat person to make four extra trips back to the buffet line? How about we stop looking for medical reasons why fat people are fat and start encouraging them to exercise and not eat fatty foods? Sounds good to me.

- I don’t know that I’ve ever laughed harder at an infomercial for a CD of any kind than I did when I saw the spot for “Kids Rap Radio”. If there’s a more absurd, pathetic, loser album out, then….no, sorry, not possible. This joke of a CD takes major rap and hip hop hits of the past couple years and reworks them into “family friendly” versions. Better yet, “kid rap stars” sing them and the lyrics are something you can “enjoy with your whole family”. The easiest laughs come from watching kids with no rhythm and no actual musical skills attempt hip hop dancing and lip-syncing on the commercial. It looks like a bad faux music act they would conjure up on an old Full House episode, except this makes Uncle Jesse’s Middle Eastern-themed music video look cool by comparison. The kids on this commercial have as much street cred as Mr. Rogers and are more likely to be found eating animal crackers and drinking milk than clubbin’, droppin’ a beat or throwing some 20” spinners on their ride. Then, consider that they’ve taken such kid-friendly hits as Shake Yo Tailfeather and Laffy Taffy, songs that are very much about sex and sexual themes and suddenly with a few new words they’re kosher? Great idea, maybe next you can rework some Marilyn Manson and Slipknot songs into sing alongs for the preschool set….honestly, the first time I saw the “Kids Rap Radio” commercial, I thought it was a joke. Funny thing is, kids who like rap will just listen to the actual rap, not some cleaned up, milk and cookies version. The only ones who will listen to it are the dorky kids whose parents won't let them listen to the real thing, so they’ll get rap-lite and the normal mocking and teasing they get from their classmates will only intensify. Because what kid wouldn’t love rockin’ out to Nelly-lite in the minivan with your mom? Worst idea ever…..at least we don’t have to worry about seeing this one on the Billboard charts ever.

The Donald rips Rosie, people everywhere cheer him

- Great news America. You can ignore those images of chaos and anarchy in Iraq. Forget about the video footage of bombings, explosions and mortar rounds going off non-stop. Overlook those IEDs (improvised explosive devices) going off on roads across the country on a daily basis. Why? Because according to our fearless and intellectually stunted leader, victory can still be ours. Saying difficult choices and additional sacrifices are ahead, W assured Americans that we can still “win”. How the hell we win, I don’t know. Is there a way to reverse the needless deaths of every American solider who has been killed in Iraq? And what difficult decisions? You mean like sending more people who aren't you and aren't your own family members over there? How’s about an easy decision, Georgie? Look right into the cameras and repeat the following: “We are withdrawing all American troops from Iraq immediately and permanently.” Now that’s an easy choice. Let the Iraqis figure this mess out on their own. The only “victory” here would be if you had the goal of creating your very own Vietnam, because you’ve succeeded in doing that.

- Yet another reason to salute Donald Trump. The Donald decided to verbally blow up Rosie O’Fat, one of the least funny, most abrasive personalities on TV today, or ever for that matter. First off, let me admit that I would be on board with the Donald, or anyone else for that matter, taking a run at Rosie whether they had a good reason or not. I don’t need to know the particulars or whether the jabs were justified, but I’ll go ahead and spell them out anyhow. Rosie cracked Trump during an episode of The View, calling him a “snake oil salesman” and ripping him for being a moral arbiter in the Miss America controversy. Gosh, fat, ugly Rosie being bitter about a situation involving a hot, blonde model, who could have guessed……but anyhow, back to Trump’s reply. And here I feel motivated to declare today “Donald Trump Day”, except that I have no power to do so and the man could probably afford to buy a day of the week and name it after himself….but Trump fired back with the big guns. He called Rosie (accurately) fat, stupid, a loser and a plethora of other things. He said he would sue her, he said that he can't believe he’s a billionaire and yet he has to listen to this crap and he generally looked down on plump, bitter, bad-mane sporting O’Fat. Amen, Donald, amen. All true statements about Rosie and it’s about time someone fired back at her the way she goes after others. Rosie needs to realize that she’s a co-host on a subpar daytime talk show and she can't even do that well. She’s not funny, smart, insightful, pleasant to look at or to listen to. So Rosie, keep your head down, your mouth closed and be thankful that you still manage to be on TV daily, because that in and of itself is a major miracle.

- Maybe the Donald was so venomous in his annihilation of Rosie not just because she’s a fat, ignorant, abrasive, militant lesbian, but also because he was pissed because that the state of Pennsylvania rejected his proposal to build a casino in northwest Philadelphia while approving bids for five stand-alone slot parlors in the state submitted by competing groups. The Donald doesn’t like to lose or lose out on chances to make more money, so this decision can't sit too well with him. Philly will now be the nation’s largest city with a casino, but it won't be thanks to D. Trump. Apparently state gambling regulators failed to take into account Trump’s magnanimous decision not to strip Miss America, Tara Conner, of her title following allegations of underage drinking, drug use (cocaine) and sexual misconduct including getting with other chicks, namely Miss Teen USA. This decision alone should entitle Trump to build a casino in every state in the union if he wants and to tax exempt status for the first ten years of operation at each casino. But based on the Donald’s reputation, you can be sure he’ll find a way to stick a new casino somewhere else sooner rather than later.

- College football season is long. Good, but long. It starts in late August and there are games every week and weekend until early December, so it can seem to drag on at times. But there’s always plenty of action, upsets, rivalries, hot cheerleaders, crazy mascots and bands and hundreds of great moments on the field. But now is one of the absolute best times of the whole season, because it’s time for bowl season. The Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego kicked things off, with TCU thumping Northern Illinois 37-7 on Tuesday. But today is when the bowl action kicks into high gear, with bowls pretty much every day for the two weeks, with the exception of no games on Christmas. If you just tune in for the “major” games (Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, the national title game) you’ll miss some magical moments. Keep your tired holiday traditions like caroling, egg nog, gaudy lawn decorations, last-minute Christmas shopping, etc., and give me a full slate of bowl games any time. My sleeper pick for a great game this year? The Holiday Bowl in San Diego, which is almost always an offensive fireworks display and this year, the game will feature the Cal Bears and the Texas A&M Aggies.

- Winter weather blows. I don’t even live near Denver, but the blizzard there that is expected to dump about 20 inches of snow by the time it ends sends chills down my spine, thousands of miles away. How heinous is that, two feet of frakkin’ snow to deal with? Yeah, you get to stay home from work, school, etc., but it’s not like you can do much else. Roads are closed, so you can't drive over to the mall, and it’s probably closed anyhow. Sledding and ice skating are only fun for so long, and having to cross-country ski just to get into town every day for two weeks would get old really fast. So go ahead and cross Denver off of my list of places I would ever consider living. A good rule of thumb would be that if you regularly have winter storms that drop more than a foot of snow, I don’t want to ever reside anywhere near your city or town.

Why I love the new Miss America, and why X-raying an infant is a bad idea

- Not the best day in child care for an unidentified grandmother who put her one-month-old grandchild in a plastic security bin and sent the kid through the X-ray machine at LAX. No one in line said anything to the woman when she crammed the infant into the bin, nor did the person running the X-ray machine - at least not until the baby had made its way inside the scanner. How can you not know that it’s not OK to send an actual human being, albeit a tiny one, through an airport X-ray machine? Do you think that when you get X-rays at the dentist, they put that heavy lead vest on for the aesthetic value, because it goes so nicely with your shoes? Grandma, you do know that you also cannot stow the kid in the cargo hold, right? You can't check him at the counter with the rest of your luggage and pick him up after he comes tumbling down the baggage claim carousel, right? Do you also need to be told that you can't give him a bath in the washing machine or drop him in the freezer on a hot summer day? Safe to say that the parents of that child will not be leaving him with Grandma any time soon. And to think that they were about to let her get on a plane to Mexico with their infant son………..

- Props to Donald Trump for his magnanimous and uber-wise decision to allow current Miss America Tara Conner to keep her title after allegations of drug use, underage drinking and “sexual misconduct.” Strip her of her title? Heck no, I say we extend her reign by an extra year. I don’t think Trump and those running the Miss America pageant truly realize how antiquated and irrelevant they and their winners have become. No one looks to Miss America as a symbol of virtue and wisdom, and honestly, no one pays much attention to her after she wins and pops up on a few morning shows the day after. Now, Trump, who should realize the “no such thing as bad publicity” slogan better than most anyone, gets his pageant in the news for a lot longer than it would have been normally. Besides which, Conner is smokin’ hot, and the longer we get to see pictures of her popping up when this story is told and re-told, the better. She promises to go to rehab and clean up her act from here on out, but let’s face it, the “I’m a boozing, drugging, partying skank” toothpaste is out of the tube, and you’re not putting it back in. Embrace who you are, Tara, live it up and enjoy your time in the sun.

- The Price is Right has been, well, a waste of time for a long time now, but amidst a slew of horrible decisions, among them those hideous sequined sport coats that their announcer wore and allowing Bob Barker that close to so many hot young blondes that he could sexually harass (allegedly), the show is apparently making a very smart decision in rejecting the advances of Rosie O’Donnell, who is openly campaigning to host the show once Barker steps down. She got a clause put in her contract for The View that allows her to opt out and take the Price is Right job, but sniffs in an interview, “They apparently don’t want me, which is sad.” Not included was if Rosie O’Fat said this with a straight face. But no, Rosie, what’s sad is your inability to push away from the buffet line, to put down your fifth box of Ring Dings and find a treadmill. What’s sad is your militant lesbianism that seems to cloud your judgment and actions to the point that you sound like a raving lunatic most of the time. Also sad is the fact that you can't just do your job as a co-host on The View, stop verbally accosting the hosts of other shows and offending entire cultures like you did with Chinese people recently. Those things truly are sad. You not hosting The Price is Right isn't sad, it’s a reason for celebration.

- People seem pretty pissed that no discipline at all was given to the two head coaches involved in last weekend’s Knicks-Nuggets NBA brawl at Madison Square Garden. Many want to assign blame to Nuggets coach George Karl and Knicks coach/franchise ruiner Isaiah Thomas for their roles in the debacle. Karl, the lament goes, left four starters in in the waning minutes of a 20-plus point blowout, seeking to embarrass the Knicks and Thomas because Karl’s good friend Larry Brown was fired as Knicks’ coach after an awful 2005-06 season and Thomas was recently bad-mouthing Brown in an interview. Thomas, on the other hand, can be seen on camera, warning Nuggets’ player Carmelo Anthony “not to go into the paint” in those final minutes of the game. The consensus seems to be that Zeke instructed or implied to his players to physically punish Nuggets players who he believed were showing off and rubbing the Knicks’ faces in the fact that the Knicks absolutely suck. I’ll meet everyone halfway on this one….fine and suspend Zeke, but leave Karl alone. Zeke probably did orchestrate the “Code Red”, just like Col. Jessup in A Few Good Men. His warning to Anthony is evidence of that. But Karl? First, you can't prove he….well, wait……he did nothing wrong. It’s the friggin’ NBA, not junior high girls basketball. There is no mercy rule, no restriction on how badly you can beat a team. If the Knicks have a beef with the lopsided score, do something about it on the scoreboard!!!! Score more points, don’t suck so badly. Stop blaming the other team for being so much better than you. If Karl says he wanted his team to finish strong after blowing or nearly blowing big leads, then leave it at that.

- If there’s a good time to be a death row inmate, now would appear to be it. A second state, Maryland, has joined Florida in ruling that executions must be halted until the lethal injection procedure is reviewed, clarified, corrected, etc. States all over are re-examining their execution procedures after Florida botched an execution recently, although the guy still was killed, so how botched it was is open to debate. At this rate, though, with a state a week halting executions, there’s gonna be a massive backlog of criminals waiting to be offed in all 50 states by the end of 2007.

- Ohio State quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner can look at his trip to the New York City strip club Scores one of two ways. Either a) he can be embarrassed that the person most vocally touting his pro potential and chances for success in the NFL is a stripper known as Kendall (a single mom looking to feed her kids or a college student majoring in elementary education and looking to make money for tuition, I’m sure), or b) he can be happy that this, while perhaps a little embarrassing, is one of the best-case scenarios that can come from an athlete visiting a strip club. Indiana Pacer Stephen Jackson got into a brawl at a club, nearly got run over by a car and ended up on the hood of said car, firing warning shots from his pistol into the air. NBA legend Patrick Ewing was among scores (pun intended) of athletes who were part of an investigation into prostitution and illegal sexual favors going on at Atlanta-area strip club The Gold Club. So Smith getting off with a stripper, a woman who works a brass pole for a living, campaigning for his potential as an NFL quarterback isn't all that bad when you look at it in the right perspective. Why anyone was asking Kendall about her opinion on Smith’s future football career, I don’t know.

Five thoughts......

- Horror stories about former pro athletes whose lives have gone horribly wrong pop up from time to time, and some of them are so truly bad that you genuinely feel bad for the guy no matter what. You’ve got Hall of Fame running backs turned double murderers (allegedly, I know, O.J.), former NFL kickers shooting at the home of Sigfried and Roy (Cole Ford, mentally unstable ex-Raider) a former baseball pitchers homeless and living under freeway overpasses…..you get the point. What you don’t always hear is the story in between their time as a pro athlete and the tragic ending. Thus, witness the story of ex-Cowboys quarterback Quincy Carter. He had drug problems while in the NFL, and they have followed him out of the league after essentially killing his football career. Carter was picked up by Dallas police on marijuana charges, and the story of how he got bailed out of jail is, to me at least, offensive and a sick, degrading tale. Dallas radio host Rick Gallway, who hated Carter while he was a player and has always ripped on him, caught wind of the arrest and started a gag on his show about bailing Carter out. He had his producer look up bail bondsmen in the phone book, called one and set about bailing Carter out. The bondsman, Cowboys Bail Bonds, knocked the price down from $160 to $100 when they found out it was Carter, then when Gallway kept mentioning the company name on the air, they did the deed for free because of all the free publicity. So Carter got bailed out, yes, but not cool to make him the butt of some promotional stunt/practical joke. He’s so bad off that he had to bum a ride home in the news van of a cameraman from a local TV station. Here’s hoping Carter turns things around before a truly tragic and more permanent ending.

- Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin can no longer be referred to as TV analysts or commentators. From henceforth, they must be called what they truly are: marionettes. Terrell Owens plays puppet master with these two ass hats on a daily basis, making them sing and dance and put whatever happy-face spin he needs on his latest errant behavior. I would venture to say that within a week, these two morons will be trying to sell us the story that T.O. didn’t spit in the face of DeAngelo Hall, what he did was see that Hall’s skin was extremely dry and attempt to moisturize it with a little bit of friendly saliva. The way Sanders and Irvin throw softball questions at T.O. and fawn over him during interviews makes me want to vomit repeatedly. I’ll say it again, ESPN and NFL Network…..fire both of them….now.

- Life just gets worse and worse for Taco Bell. First, they’re still Taco Bell, purveyor of fine food-like products that, when prepared correctly with non-sickness including ingredients, still don’t pass muster as actual cuisine. But the E. coli scandal that has sickened dozens of patrons across multiple state lines may now land the fast almost-food giant before Congress. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, chair of an agricultural subcommittee in the House, plans to call in Taco Bell execs in hearings about food safety concerns in the U.S. And no, commercials about your CEO saying how sorry you are and promising all will be well from here on out aren't going to be a panacea for the situation, T.B. But you had better figure out something soon before you go the way of the Jack in the Box restaurants circa-1990s.

- Tick, tock…tick, tock…BOOM! This is the way we’re headed with the “World vs. North Korea” nuclear showdown, especially with the bumbling Bush administration leading the charge against North Korea. The dance has been going on for months now; the U.S. demands that the Koreans disarm and stop trying to produce nuclear weapons, the Koreans demand that economic sanctions be lifted and that they be recognized as a full-fledged nuclear power. All the while, they toil away, inching closer to being able to produce actual nuclear weapons. Now I don’t know if it will be days, weeks or months until N.K. has the capability to produce live nukes, but I do know that we’re tightening the noose on a highly combustible situation and I won't be surprised if (pun intended) this blows up in our collective faces. But after all, who’s not pumped up about the prospect of an all-out nuclear war? Anyone?

- Dancing with the quasi-Stars is starting to find its niche, it seems. I know the show has achieved a high level of popularity with women ages 15 to infinity, along with their boyfriends/fiancés/husbands they force to watch with them, but I am referring more to the show finding its place as the haven for washed up or never-were “stars” looking to revive their careers or clean up bad images. Take, for example, former man-band star Joey Fatone of N’Sync. Sure he’s acted on Broadway and done other things (I think) since he and his well-choreographed, matching outfit-wearing, frosted-hair sporting sidekicks called it quits. But no one cares about him and if you asked most people, the only thing they still know him for is being one of the perpetrators in one of the most offensive, awful musical travesties ever forced on the American public. So he’s openly campaigning for a spot on the next season of DWTQS, saying he’s turned down previous invitations. First off, what the hell does it say about your show that you got turned down by a former man-bander? And secondly, how magnanimous of you, Joey, to lend your considerable show biz clout to the program. Congratulations to both parties, you are both blights on the entertainment industry and American culture in general.

Athletes gone wild, military recruiters dealing drugs and airport rip-offs

- Forget Girls Gone Wild, our theme for the present is Athletes Gone Wild. Need proof? How’s about the dozen-player plus brawl at Madison Square Garden over the weekend, where multiple Knicks and Nuggets players went at it following a hard, dirty foul by Knick Mardy Collins. Collins ironically went to college at Temple, where his coach, the now-retired John Chaney, sent in a player he labeled as a “goon” to administer a dirty, flagrant foul to an opposing player. Collins whacked Nuggets’ guard J.R. Smith, setting off a bench-clearing brawl. All ten players on the court at the time of the foul were ejected, and the suspensions for the brawl range from one game to the most peripheral participants to 15 games for Carmelo Anthony, who sucker-punched Knick Jared Jeffries. Also over the weekend, Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens spit in the face of Atlanta Falcons cornerback DeAngelo Hall during a game and has since been fined $35,000 for the offense. Top it off with Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson, who was arrested when police raided his home and found, among other things, six guns for which Johnson had no licenses or permits. All told, a banner weekend for the world of pro athletes, arrests, brawls, spitting on opponents. I love this game!

- Bizarre choice by Time magazine for its 2006 “Person of the Year” award, given to…….“you.” That’s you, as in whomever is reading those words, assuming you are a person who makes use of the internet in any way. The magazine really copped out on this one, and I have a few theories on how they arrived at this absurd choice: 1) its editors were split evenly among multiple choices and despite locking the door and brawling it out until one person won, they could not reach a consensus, 2) at the annual Time holiday party, everyone got so sauced that they couldn’t make it into work the next day and so they picked you because it was quick and required little thought, 3) they got drunk at the party and some conniving, opportunistic intern hacked into the editor’s computer and changed the actual person of the year story to the dumbest possible thing he or she could think of, which ended up being “you”, 4) they decided to test the theory of seeing what would actually happen if you locked a bunch of monkeys in a room with typewriters, be it recreating the works of Shakespeare or crafting a story declaring that the Person of the Year is “you”…………….So in case you missed it up to this point, I think Time made a poor choice on assigning the award.

- South Dakota gots a whole lotta guns…….in fact, South Dakotans are the most strapped state in the union, with an average of 7.4 out of every 100 adults packing heat. This number is based on people with gun permits, though, so that has to be factored in. I’d guess that if you surveyed illegal gun owners (assuming they didn’t shoot you first), New York or Nevada might be places with more guns per capita. But apparently the guns are mainly for recreational and hobby purposes in South Dakota, according to state officials and representatives. I’ll go along with that, because let’s face it, there ain’t a whole lot to do in South Dakota on the whole, so going out and shooting aimlessly or hunting the scores of wildlife on your expansive country property may be a reasonably fun alternative.

- Weekend box office update………either people suddenly remembered that Mel Gibson went on an anti-Semitic rant last summer, or the opening weekend luster of his new movie, Apocalypto, has worn off. It slipped to sixth in this weekend’s box office earners, behind the holding-strong Happy Feet at fourth, The Holiday at fifth and a trio of newcomers in the top three, The Pursuit of Happyness, Eragon and Charlotte’s Web. Amazing that an animated penguin movie is still so high on the list so many weeks after being released, but it is about winter break time from school for the kiddies, so maybe Happy Feet can hold on a little longer. And as I always say, any weekend where there is no Borat movie in the top six is a wonderful weekend for cinema………

- As if you don’t get screwed enough when you fly, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport has found a new way to turn you upside down and shake every last cent out of your pockets. On top of paying $5.00 for a whopper and $4.75 for a small cup of soda, you can now pay $9.99 to place your “contraband” (i.e. anything other than your actual body and two articles of clothing) in a bubble wrap envelope that will be sent to the Hilton Hotel. What the hell good that will do is beyond me, but if you want to ship your belongings elsewhere, that will cost you extra on top of the $9.99. You do get to avoid losing the items totally, but if it’s something like liquids, razors or, heaven forbid, a family-sized tube of toothpaste, isn't it cheaper to just buy new ones? The regulations about what you can now bring on planes are idiotic, but this isn't the way to deal with it. Find something new, O’Hare Airport, cause you aren’t getting you hands on any more of my money than you already bilk me out of.

- Recruiting young men and women for the armed forces is really tough right now, I know. Recruitment numbers are down, and the military is even lowering standards for new recruits in order to meet quotas. However, I don’t think that the tactics used by some recruiters in the Tucson area are the right choice……unless you happen to be a big-time drug lord. A dozen Army and Marine recruiters in and around Tucson were snagged as part of a major FBI cocaine investigation, although in all fairness, none has yet been charged with providing drugs to students they were attempting to recruit. But odds are it happened at least a few times, and wouldn’t that just be the all-time best recruiting pitch…….“Excuse me, son, would you be interested in serving your country by joining the U.S. Army? No? You sure? I can score you an eight ball of coke and promise you a gram a week for the duration of your four-year service commitment. Think about it, ok?”

- Prepare to be stunned……..the Boston Red Sox are now worried that potential free agent signee J.D. Drew may be damaged goods. Drew, with whom the Sox have agreed to (but not yet finalized) a $14 million per year contract, is now being subjected to a second physical by the team to check out his ailing right shoulder. I am flabbergasted. You’re telling me that J.D. Drew, who misses about 30-40 games a season at minimum due to injury, might not be totally healthy? The same J.D. Drew who missed 90 games in 2005 and 62 games in 2003? The same guy who’s about as fragile, both mentally and physically, as a China doll? And you didn’t think this over before deciding to pursue him? Thankfully, the deal hasn’t been finalized, so the Sox can still get out of this, the deal that every single Red Sox fan loathed four seconds after it was announced and hasn’t stopped b*tching about since. With a guy like Drew, a team would be better off signing him to a per-game contract, a certain amount for every game played, that way when he missed 52 games in 2007 due to knee, shoulder and arm trouble, you only have to pay him for the 110 games he actually plays.

Weekend odds and ends

- See, O.J. Simpson doesn’t just kill people (allegedly), he kills careers too. Publisher Judith Regan was fired from her post at HarperCollins just a month after her aborted “If I Did It” campaign featuring a book and TV special by the Juice. In short order, the O.J. media tour was announced, ripped by everyone and canceled, although NewsCorp’s cancellation was clearly only a result of the public outrage, not of them actually believing they were doing anything wrong. People need to learn a lesson, that associating with O.J. in any way is not going to end well for you, because let’s face it, Collins getting fired was a relatively good outcome for her, considering that the alternative was, well, you know……….

- Guys everywhere, prepare to be dragged to what will ultimately be the biggest waste of $50+ bucks you ever spend on tickets to an event. The Dancing with the Stars (again, a massive misnomer, most of these losers weren't even stars five years ago when their popularity was at its zenith) tour is taking the country by storm, subjecting guys all over to their wives and girlfriends dragging them to watch a live performance that those same guys struggled mightily to avoid while it was on TV. I’ll say this….I don’t like watching dancing, period, but if you like it and you wanna go see the ballet with its professional, trained dancers, go and enjoy. But if you willingly go to see some E-list “celebrities” attempt to ballroom dance and pay good money for the right to do so, you should be permanently stripped of all rights to control your money and credit cards.

- Never saw this coming……former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio was pulled over by Whitehall, N.Y. police for driving under the influence of drugs……yes, I know, someone associated with Phish being busted for drugs, amazing. You can probably still get a contact high just by holding a ticket stub from a Phish concert that took place in 2004. Anastasio had all sorts of painkillers and antidepressants in his vehicle when police pulled him over for swerving and erratic driving. Yet supposedly he left Phish to escape that same drug culture, where it seemed that both the band and every audience member were high by the second song of the set. It goes to show that you can take the lead singer out of Phish, but you can’t take the Phish out of the singer.

- I love how so many in the sports world are rushing to slurp on Texas Tech hothead/coach Bob Knight as he nears Dean Smith’s career wins record for college basketball coaches. Knight’s win today versus Arkansas puts him one behind Smith, who was a class act through and through and one of the true gentlemen in college hoops throughout his tenure. Knight on the other hand, is a raging psycho, a man who has: 1) choked a player in practice, 2) thrown a ceramic vase at an athletic department secretary, 3) thrown a folding chair across the court, 4) told an interviewer that, “If rape is inevitable, why doesn’t the woman just sit back and enjoy it?”, 5) Verbally assaulted a student who had the audacity to greet him in passing with a “Hey, Knight” and 6) smacked a player in the huddle earlier this season. The first five transgressions came during his tenure at Indiana. Yet so many are so eager to forget or set aside those things and many more now that he’s nearing a record. For the record, no matter how high your graduation rate for your players and how many wins you have, Knight, you will always be an ass, a man who treats people like crap even though they’ve done nothing to deserve it.

- Jeb Bush may find himself excommunicated from the Bush family if he keeps this up. The Florida governor and brother of our incompetent Commander-in-Chief W has suspended all executions in Florida after ruling that executioners botched an execution of a convicted killer earlier this week by faulty insertion of needles. On a side note, executioner is one job that you really should be accurate on 100% of the time, because killing someone shouldn’t be that hard when given the precise procedures and instruments and having that person totally restrained….but I digress. When he was governor of Texas, W had the executioners so busy that they nearly had to install a ticket-issuing counting machine like they use at delis to determine what order people are served (or in this case, executed) in. “Number fifty-three will now be executed, please step up to the table…..” Now Jeb is actually suspending executions? Better get ‘em going again before big brother uses his presidential influence to go over your head and get the executions going again, Jeb………

Britney is stupid, lettuce is lethal and Belgians love hoaxes

- Nobody has ever confused Britney Spears for a Mensa member. But it was funny to see that she was reportedly spotted buying a copy of her own album, apparently unaware of the economics of record sales. See, Brit, when you pay, say even the $9.99 discounted amount your terrible CD was probably on sale for in the “bargain” rack, not all of the money you paid goes back to you just because you are the one who sings (not sure I’d call what she does singing, but anyhow) on the album. You might get a small fraction of the sale price back, but in this equation, you lose money regardless. Besides, I am pretty sure the record company could have given you a spare copy, one that a member of their office staff had been using as a coaster or to prop up the uneven coffee table with one leg shorter than the others. But hey, it looks like hanging out with uber-skank Paris Hilton has really boosted Brit’s already sky-high IQ…….

- Taco Bell patrons can stop worrying….well, no they can’t, they’re still eating the semi-food products that the Bell passes off as Mexican cuisine, but they can worry a little less after health officials reportedly isolated the offending item that caused an E. coli outbreak in this great, overweight nation of ours. The lettuce was to blame, so all of you who had lettuce in the “What ingredient in Taco Bell food is most likely to make you ill” office pool can collect your prize. The allegation that lettuce is to blame was met with a predictably prickly response from farmers, who fear that the claims will harm their crops and overall business. Farmers have it tough, I think we can all agree on that, very hard job, very long hours, very little pay, but fellas, if the lettuce made people sick, I think letting the public know that is more important than worrying about your bottom line financially. As someone who generally avoids leafy green veggies and especially Taco Bell food, I am not worried, but a lot of people are, so simmer down guys.

- Amazing how cavalier our society has become when sports owners or city/state officials announce plans for a proposed new stadium complex that will cost hundreds of millions (or in this case, a billion….yes, billion with a “b”). I know that these plans can sometimes end up as pipe dreams, but still when Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones announces plans for a $1 billion stadium complex, I hafta take notice. Jones wants to lure in the Olympics, college football’s national title game, college basketball’s Final Four, the Super Bowl and the annual Texas-Oklahoma college football game, among other things, but I am going to go on record as voting no on this one. Well, unless Jones himself funds or finds private funding for at least $900 million of the project. I know, Texas Stadium, the ‘Boys current home, is considered a dump in NFL circles, but please don’t stick Dallas/Texas taxpayers with an astronomical bill for the next several decades because you want a stadium that will, most importantly in your mind, make you a lot more money.

- A good media hoax will bring hearty laughter into anyone’s day, that’s for sure. Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds radio program back in the 1930s, which pretended that the world was being invaded by space aliens and caused mass hysteria and some suicides, was a rip-roarin’ good time, right? So the Belgian TV station RBTF network thought it would throw out a hoax of its own, interrupting regular programming to announce that the Dutch-speaking part of the country had declared its independence and that the king and queen had fled the country. For some reason, the royal family was not down with the hoax. RBTF defended its actions, saying they helped to show “the importance of debate on the country’s future.” Because I’m sure that’s all you were trying to do, RBTF, is stimulate debate on the future of Belgium. Boosting your ratings or profile had nothing to do with it. Why don’t you all think a little harder next time in your production meetings so that when an idea like this is proposed, you can all put down your Belgian waffles, search deep inside those apparently very tiny brains of yours and come up with a better idea. Now pass me a waffle and some syrup and stop wasting everyone’s time with your stupid shenanigans.

- For years, some Beatles fans have been pissed at Yoko Ono, believing (and perhaps rightfully so) that she ultimately led to the breakup of the Fab Four. Now, John Lennon’s widow has attracted a new kind of whack job who is out to get her. Well, more specifically she hired and fired this particular whack job, but never mind on that. Her former chauffer threatened to release embarrassing pictures and recordings of her and potentially have her killed unless she paid him $2 million. Koral Karsan is the man behind this brilliant scheme, and now he is going to end up in jail. Nobody - chauffer, butler, maid, gardener, pool guy - likes it when a rich person breaks them off, but Koral would have been better off waxing his car, sweeping out the interior, apply some Armor-All to the dashboard and trying to find a new rich person to ferry around. Now, he can contemplate his own idiocy behind bars for a little while.

- “You’ll never take me alive, coppers!” Sounds like a line from the Wild, Wild West or a good gangster movie set in the 1920s, right? Well, Albany, Ga. motorcycle dealer and newly-minted felon is either a big fan of those eras or he simply shares my general distaste for authority figures and an aversion to going to prison. Wright, sentenced to 27 months in prison for bike smuggling (not sure if they were illegal bikes from the black market or he simply smuggled them without paying the proper import tariffs) but failed to report to prison and instead went on the lam. Furthermore, he sent an email to various news organizations vowing “not to be taken alive.” That takes an impressive combination of testicular fortitude and sheer stupidity, but I hafta say in some way I admire Wright. He’ll be caught eventually and have his sentence lengthened, sure, so in that sense he’d have been better off reporting to prison, serving his time and hoping he’d get paroled in 18 months or so for good behavior. Still, it’s always good to see someone give the finger to law enforcement and fight to stay free. As one of my favorite quotes says, “If bound, fight to break free. If you are free, fight to stay that way.” Stay tuned, Andrew Wright “On the Run Watch” is still in its first week…….

- The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are just so darned cute, trying to imitate their big brothers in the American League East, the Boston Red Sox. The Sox pay $51.1 million to negotiate with Japanese pitching phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka, so the Rays go out and find their own Japanese import, pay their own negotiating fee of $4.5 million to the Japanese team of Akinori Iwamura, the Yakult Swallows, and sign Iwamura. The Rays are so pathetic, they find the D-list equivalent of Matsuzaka, just like they always end up with the bargain basement, homeless man’s version of every player of value in baseball. They sign big name managers past their primes, aging sluggers, knock-off Japanese players, each cementing the Rays’ position as MLB’s biggest doormat.

Suing Kanye, ripping PETA, life is good

- Is this the NFL or the CIA? You’ve gotta begin wondering how much of a difference there is between the two, because for the second time this year, a player or coach has alleged the existence of a snitch or mole within their organization. First it was Oakland Raiders coach Art Shell, he of the blank, dumbfounded sideline stare when he’s supposed to be actively coaching his team, claiming there was a mole inside the Raider organization who was badmouthing then-offensive coordinator Tom Walsh to the national media. Walsh has since been demoted and could soon be back to running the bed and breakfast he was operating for the seven years before Shell hired him to coach an NFL offense. Now, one of my two least favorite people in sports, T.O., is saying there’s a snitch in the Dallas Cowboys organization who is letting out secrets about him being late for team meetings, sleeping in meetings and other various misdeeds. T.O. says now is not the time to deal with the snitch, but that once the season is over he will take them on. Oh, and let’s not forget the Miami Dolphins allegedly buying audio tapes of recent New England Patriots games and using them to decipher the cadences and snap counts of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. So to recap, we have snitches, moles, secret tapes purchased to decode embedded messages……who’s running this league, Roger Goodell or J. Edgar Hoover?

- Anyone who has played, coached or been around children’s sports has seen him or her. Overbearing Mom or Dad, bent on making the world see that their kid is the next big thing and ready to beat down anyone, coach, fellow players, fans, who doesn’t agree or tries to “stand in my kid’s way.” Usually these parents are bitter, myopic individuals trying to relive their glory days or glory days they never got to have through their kids. Most of the time, you see them at youth soccer games, Little League baseball, sometimes as high up as middle school and high school basketball, football, baseball, etc. Now, parents of three University of Arkansas football players have taken things to a whole new level. The parents of players Damien Williams, Mitch Mustain and Ben Cleveland went to Frank Broyles, athletic director at AU, because they didn’t like the way their kids were being used in the offense. After going over the head of the coach, who by the way has the authority to run his team, the parents then issued a statement, in which Mustain’s mother is quoted, that said basically that all involved parties “concede that the coach has authority to run his team and operate it as he sees fit.” Thank you very much, parents, how magnanimous of you. You are going to allow the coach to run the team, the team he’s paid millions to coach. You, with no authority or jurisdiction here, are going to grant him the right to run things how he wants. Thanks for the stamp of approval, I’m sure head coach Houston Nutt, who guided the squad to an SEC West title and a New Year’s Day bowl bid, is relieved to know that he has your support.

- You’ve done it again, PETA, high comedy, laughs and hijinks galore. Those wacky comedians/civic activists have sent out a letter that attempts to be both humorous and socially conscionable, yet manages to fail miserably at one and be totally irrelevant when it comes to the other. PETA sent the letter to crack on NBA players who criticized the Association’s new, yet soon-to-be-discarded synthetic basketball and claimed, among other things, that it cut their hands. PETA chastised (well, as much as a bunch of deluded, namby-pamby, bleeding heart liberals who have no touch with reality and no actual clout can chastise) the players for being wimps and offered to send them no-animal-harmed-in-the-making-of hand cream to help their ailments. PETA is bent because now the NBA is switching back to the old leather balls, meaning more cows will have to die to make them. Once again, as I munch on my plate of steak, chicken wings, a turkey sandwich and some duck pate, allow me to provide some silver lining on this cloud for the PETA people…..the cows were going to die anyway in order to provide all of the steaks and hamburgers that we love to eat, so using their hides to make the basketballs is just making best use of all parts of an animal that would not have lived even if the NBA had stuck with the synthetic ball.

- Today is Golden Globe nomination day. Wahoo…………I think. Honestly, there are so many awards shows that at present I am drawing a blank as to exactly what industry the Globes honor, but I think it’s TV or film….either way, here’s a question: other than being self-aggrandizing and self-congratulatory, what the hell good are these shows? They honor music, shows or movies that have been on TV, in theaters or on the air for several months, and if said entities are any good, people will already have listened to or watched them. When was the last time you watched an awards show, saw someone win for an album or movie and automatically went out and bought or saw it? People who care about music or entertainment follow it closely enough that they are aware of what’s out there and purchase or take in what they have an interest in. Whether it wins an award or not is irrelevant. After all, most music, shows or movies that a lot of people like don’t win any awards because the awards are given out by snobbish, out of touch groups and organizations that are more interested in perpetuating the status quo and patting themselves on the backs than rewarding artists, actors and others who actually do great work. So best of luck to all GG nominees, I hope you win whatever pointless statue they’re giving out and it validates you and your work.

- Now here’s a fight I don’t want to be in the middle of…..legendary daredevil Evil Knievel is suing legendary egotist and rapper Kanye West for portraying a character called" "Evel Kanyevel" in his video for "Touch the Sky". Honestly, the details of why Evil is suing Kanye aren't all that important, I’m just giddy with excitement over the prospect of these two having it out. But honestly, is a courtroom really the best place to settle a dispute between two guys like this? When you have a guy who has attempted scores of insanely dangerous stunts, including a jump of Snake River Canyon in Idaho that Knievel himself said he went into believing there was a “50/50 chance” that he would die and he’s going after a big time rap star, isn't there a better way to settle this? Maybe have Kanye set up every one of his bevy of tricked out luxury vehicles in a line and construct a ramp for Evil to use in attempting to jump over them all? If Evil clears all the cars, he wins, if he can’t make the jump, Kanye wins, that simple. And with all of the other reality TV crap on the airwaves, you’re telling me you couldn’t squeeze some decent ratings out of an hour program like that? Bring in Judge Judy to oversee the proceedings, give it a corny name like “Knievel’s Court” and slap it on FOX, problem solved.

Wasting tax dollars, sticking it to smokers and boozing it up with Lohan

- So what is a person to do when something they loathe (soccer) comes up against the potential to stick it to a group that they despise (smokers)? I’m conflicted over a plan by the Summit County (Ohio) government to build a new $170 million soccer stadium even though the area has no pro team (thank God) and every team in the area that has existed (Cleveland, Akron, etc.) has folded within a few years at most. So you have the local government wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on something the area doesn’t need, obviously bad……but now comes word that $7 million annually could be raised with a new, additional tax on cigarettes. On the one hand, a gigantic waste of money in a stadium that no one needs. On the other, the chance to screw over smokers. It’s a tough call, because I tend to be bitter against people who drastically increase my chance of lung cancer by foisting their secondhand smoke on me when they light up in places I happen to be. Ultimately, though, I’m going to have to come down on the side of hoping that this stadium doesn’t happen, because the cigarette tax isn't going to cover the entire cost of the stadium and it’s still going to be a colossal waste of money.

- It’s none of your business…..so here’s why I’m gonna tell you about it anyhow. That convoluted line of thinking is brought to you by Lindsay Lohan, who revealed to People magazine that she’s been attending AA meetings for a year but hadn't said anything because “it’s no one’s business.” Great, so why are you telling me about it now? And why should I care? You aren't wrecking production on one of my movies by staying out all night drinking and clubbing, then showing up too hung over to do your scenes. On a side note, what does this say about Alcoholics Anonymous, that Lohan appears to have become more of a lush after attending AA than she was before? The best therapy for Ms. Lohan would seem to be getting fired from a major project because of her drinking and being unable to find any more roles until she cleans up and gets her act together. Seeing her money dry up might be a good incentive to stop boozing.

- The NBA players have spoken, and the league has relented on the use of the new composite basketball in games. As of January 1, the league will bring back the old leather ball in games, heeding the complaints (loud, plentiful and frequent) of scores of players who said the new ball didn’t bounce right, was hard to grip, was cutting their hands, etc. The Players Association went so far as to file a labor grievance over the ball, but Commissioner Stern made the change before the grievance went any further. Oddly, Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash, a vociferous critic of the new ball, came out against the mid-season switch, apparently feeling it would have been better to finish the season with the new ball and go back to the old one at the start of next season. Nash needs to do one thing: shut up. You sound like a petulant five-year-old, whining to get your way, then when you get it, complaining that it wasn’t the exact way you wanted it. Shut up, Steve, be thankful you got the old basketball back and deal with the change.

- Weighing 85 pounds is looking to be the new Hollywood trend. Waifish Nicole Ritchie claimed that as her weight when arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of weed, and now rail-thin actress Lara Flynn Boyle is reportedly creeping close to the 85-pound barrier herself. I know most people think thinner figures look better, and most guys tend to go for girls on the thin side, but 85 pounds is perhaps a step too far. When you start more closely resembling a toothpick than an actual human being, you have then taken weight loss too far. Somewhere in between one extreme (Ritchie) and at the other extreme, the bloated, belligerent Rosie O’Donnell, there has to be a happy medium.

- Updating a previously reported on issue……the federal government is fighting a ruling by a U.S. District Court judge that the federal treasury must redesign currency in order to accommodate the needs of blind people. They cannot differentiate between the different paper monies, which are all the same size, and apparently have rejected some of my insightful, thoughtful suggestions for fixing the problem. Justice Department lawyers filed an appeal to the ruling, claiming that blind people are “not denied meaningful access” to money based on the way the nation’s currency is designed. Part of my thinks they just don’t want the expense of redesigning and issuing new currency, but part of me says good for them, because the complaining, whiny, gimme, politically correct sect has far too much influence in America. This should be a good battle, though, so stay tuned.

- NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell apparently fancies himself some sort of peace broker/mediation/counseling specialist. The commish called Cincinn-Attica Bengals owner Mike Brown to offer his “services” in helping the Bengals organization in dealing with its eight wayward players who have been arrested this season. Either the commissioner is some sort of Zen, behavior correcting sage, or he is putting on a happy face and making the offer while fully intending to bring the hammer down on the Bengals players when he gets face to face with them. He’ll pretend, for the public at least, to be doing it for the greater good of the NFL, but you know he has to be pissed to see the league being dragged through the mud by these cons in Cincy. So Goodell goes there, gets these eight players in a locked room with no windows and administers some Sopranos-style “encouragement” to them. Honestly, nothing else has worked, and since the NFL apparently does not share my goal of seeing at least ¼ of the entire Bengals roster arrested before season’s end, I wish the commissioner well in this ill-fated endeavor.