A non-greedy athlete, a no-scruples lawyer and some close-minded, backward thinking parents

- Props to Keith Foulke, the newly retired pitcher who was willing to voluntarily walk away from the game and the $5 million salary he was due this season because he knew he wasn’t physically able to pitch. In baseball, guys’ contracts are guaranteed as long as they try to play, so even if Foulke had shown up in training camp and tried to pitch but been too hurt to do so, he would’ve gotten his money this year. Maybe he would’ve spent the whole year on the disabled list, but he would have gotten paid just the same. By retiring, he forfeits that money. It definitely takes a lot of character and integrity to do something like that. It shows an amazing level of respect and concern for a team Foulke had just signed with and never played for. It saves the Cleveland Indians the $5 million and helps the team quite a bit, and again, Foulke had no real ties or history with the team. Next time you find yourself marveling at how selfish athletes are and how self-absorbed they tend to act, remember Keith Foulke and know that at least a few of them aren't that way.

- I knew it was too good to be true: the Senate managed to f*ck up its chance to force a debate on our Idiot in Chief’s resolution to send even more troops into his floundering, rumbling, bumbling, stumbling debacle of a war in Iraq. A 56-34 vote against breaking the Republican-imposed stalemate on debating the opposition of the troop surge meant several things; 1) politicians are still duplicitous, inefficient, incompetent leeches on the underbelly of society, 2) that a few more Republicans are beginning to jump ship and side with the Democrats who are oh, so wisely opposing W., and 3) we’d be just as well off electing 100 chimps to serve in the Senate on about 99 percent of the issues they deal with. The opposition needs 60 votes to break the stalemate, so they are still four votes short, but maybe, just maybe, this can still happen. Again, my vote is for impeaching W. and ending this whole charade he calls a presidency, but no one has brought that up….not yet.

- There has to be a point where being famous just ain’t worth it. For Britney Spears, this would be just such a point. When you’re so crazy and mentally frayed that you barge into an L.A. salon and G.I. Jane yourself when the stylist refuses to do so, you’ve officially jumped off the edge of the crazy cliff. Of course, when this comes on the back side of a one-day stint in rehab that you bailed on, you have no shortage of confirmation about your lack of mental stability. This is one of those times where yes, I hate this chick’s music and think it’s about the most awful noise I’ve ever heard, but you just feel bad for anyone who’s as messed up as Britney appears to be. She’s nuts, she seems headed right down Margo Kidder Lane, towards the intersection of John Nash Boulevard and Frances Farmer Avenue with a stop in the psych ward not far away. Her reps will surely be spinning this big time, talking about emotional stress, personal problems, she needs help, blah, blah, blah. At this point, she and those around her (any of them that actually give a crap about her) need to forget about repairing her public image and get this girl some help. Stay out of the public eye, go away for a year and get yourself together. Otherwise, this is a train wreck in waiting that I don’t have any desire to see the end of.

- Now this is the kind of lawyer I want if I’m ever accused of a crime. Philip Russell, 48, of New Haven, Conn., was charged with obstructing justice and destroying evidence after allegedly destroying a computer belonging to a client of his, a computer containing child porn. The client, a former church music director, got the benefit of a lawyer willing to do anything, no matter how illegal and unethical, to get him off, and now Russell is going to need someone who is apparently a much better lawyer than he is to save his arse. This does raise a good question, though: if your coup de grace tactical move is outright destroying the evidence, what does that say about your skill and intelligence as a lawyer? Shouldn’t there be some other, um, more legal and conventional maneuvers you try first? Maybe ask the judge to suppress the evidence, argue it was obtained illegally, these are just ideas from a non-lawyer commoner, but maybe try those next time. Good luck in prison, though, child molesters/porn freaks and those who defend them are always veeeeery high on the prison food chain.

- Few things crack me up like groups of “concerned citizens” who go on rampages against books, music, movies, TV shows, etc., that they deem as posing some sort of heinous, offensive threat to “our children.” These people and their crusades…….high comedy. Think back to Tipper Gore and her Parents Music Resource Council (PMRC), which railed against certain bands like Rage Against the Machine, Iron Maiden, etc. These yahoos attacked music they’d probably never heard and that wasn’t any more harmful to their children than anything else they saw in the course of an average day. Or to Parents Television Council, which took a run at World Wrestling Entertainment, claiming that images on WWE television shows were inappropriate for kids while ignoring that someone, maybe those same parents, should be monitoring exactly what their kids were watching in the first place. Now, we have outraged parents and school librarians who are on a crusade against the new children’s book, The Higher Power of Lucky, which has the audacity to…..mention the word scrotum. Yes, I know, what a travesty. And no, it’s not in a dirty or even a sexual context; the word is used when the main character, Lucky, hears someone say that a rattlesnake bit his dog on the scrotum. Yes, this does seem like a weird area for a children’s book to venture into, but I really can't see why these librarians and parents are promising to ban a book that won the Newberry Medal, the highest honor possible for children’s literature. You all are telling me that little Timmy or Ashley is going to be irrevocably scarred because he or she read the word scrotum in a book? Odds are that most of these kids have seen and heard far worse just by way of TV, the internet or from their classmates on the playground. Good grief, people, wake up and realize that your kids don’t live in a bubble and that trying to shield them from stuff like this is drastic overkill that is only going to delay the inevitable for about two seconds. You live in the 21^st century, not the 1940s.