Admiring the entrepreneurial spirit, a space spat and pride over toxic air

- Is a person being an international drug lord any reason to persecute them and refuse to admire the entrepreneurial spirit? I say no. Drug cartels in Mexico have taken to expanding their business to include people-smuggling in order to supplement their normal practice of transporting massive quantities of weed, cocaine and hash into the United States. The human cargo is used to distract law enforcement from billions of dollars in cocaine shipments coming across the same section of the U.S.-Mexico border. The diversified crime syndicates get protection money from the illegal immigrants and then use them to provide an easier path for their drug shipments. Why this is a problem, I don’t know. It seems to me that when a business faces a challenge, as the smugglers do with a new crackdown by the border patrol on drug smuggling, that business should be praised for finding new and innovative ways to grow their business. Yes, they’re using human beings as shields to help facilitate trafficking of drugs that could kill people, but as with any advances in business, some sacrifices must be made. By using the same routes for smuggling both drugs and humans across the border, drug smugglers are showing creativity and ingenuity. It’s the American spirit at work, and even if our government, our border patrol, local and state police, federal law enforcement and society at-large can't respect that, I’ll be the lone voice in the crowd to express admiration for these human-exploiting, narcotic-pushing druggies who are finding new ways to foist their lethal product on the American public.

- Taking pride in your hometown or the area you grew up in is a natural instinct. We all want people to know the good things about the place we live and to recognize its good qualities. Thus, I am exceptionally proud that my area, the Cleveland-Akron area of Northeast Ohio, has cracked the list of cities in America with the worst air quality. What makes this honor so meaningful is that everyone in the community needs to pitch in to make it possible. This isn't something one environmentally ignorant, toxin-producing loose cannon can bring about. You need a collection of pollutant-emitting factories, citizens driving environment-wrecking vehicles with poor emissions systems and a general disinterest in keeping your community’s air clean and breathable if you’re going to be honored by the American Lung Association for having some of the most polluted air in the country. In case you’re wondering, the Los Angeles metropolitan area reclaimed its usual spot at the top of the list after dropping off in recent years when the tree huggers in the state of California made that push to clean up the air in the Golden State. Plus, not only does my area rank sixth on the list, Pittsburgh (a short two-hour drive to the east) is second on the list behind L.A. Few times in my life have I been as proud of my hometown and my fellow Northeast Ohioans as I am right now………

- Demanding that your nation’s radio stations portray another nation as an enemy and taking a directly hostile stance toward that national in the political arena makes for a tempestuous relationship. Russia has taken an increasingly hostile stance toward the United States (and pretty much everyone else in the world) lately as President Vlad Putin marches the Russkies back toward Communism, and now the good ‘ol U.S.A. has decided our feelings are hurt and we’re not going to play nice with Russia anymore. The chief of Russia’s space agency claims that the U.S. has rejected a Russian proposal that the two nations join together in exploring the moon, a claim American space program leaders deny. In fact, NASA claims no such offer was made, so someone here is lying. I’m torn as to who that might be, because our current government and agency leaders have shown a clear talent and predilection for lying, but how can you believe a Communist, totalitarian, dictatorial regime over your own country’s word? Whatever the case, you can be sure that the United States and Russia will not be scheduling any lunar play dates any time soon, although I would be all for taking the president of each nation and shooting those two up into space together for an extended moon exploration project through the year 2045.

- Raise your hand if you didn’t think the new movie starring Jamie Kennedy would be a bomb. No hands? Didn’t think so. Kennedy is rapidly becoming the next Pauly Shore, a pathetic wannabe comedian who makes absolutely ridiculous, unwatchable pieces of crap that appeal to a non-existent group about five rungs down the evolutionary ladder from the lowest common denominator among movie fans. After playing lead rules in acclaimed theatrical classics like Malibu’s Most Wanted and Son of the Mask, Pauly Shore Jr. is back in Kickin’ It Old Skool (no word on whether the movie’s producers intended to spell it that way), a movie with an implausible, idiotic premise of Kennedy as a coma survivor who wakes up after 20 years and is still living in the 1980s, with hilarity supposedly ensuing. Hmm, lemme see, has this kind of idea been done recently….oh yeah, Brendan Fraser as a guy who lived in a bomb shelter for a couple decades and reemerges into a world that he’s 20 years behind and struggles to adjust to in Blast from the Past. So with a retread of a plot and an exceptionally bad thespian in the lead, plus a “climactic” break-dancing throwdown, you can see where this movie is headed…….yup, pretty much straight to DVD after an underwhelming two-week run in theaters. I feel bad about seeing Michael Rosenbaum, who plays Lex Luthor in one of my favorite TV shows (Smallville) being a part of this cast, so I’m going to go ahead and pretend that this movie never happened so I can still watch Smallville and not laugh derisively every time Rosenbaum appears on screen.

- Not that anyone is going to miss her, but it is bad timing for Rosie O’Fat’s decision to leave The View. Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the show’s ditzy, perky blonde eye candy, has announced that she is pregnant, which would have been a positive development for O’Fat if she were staying on the show. With Liz adding all of that pregnancy weight and ballooning up to several times her normal size in the months ahead, Rosie would have finally had someone in the same general weight class as her so she wouldn’t appear so obscenely fat and disgusting on national television. Don’t get me wrong, Rosie still would’ve been the fattest person on the show by a wide (pun intended) margin, but at least Hasselbeck would have been in the same weight zip code for a few months. When you’re as obese, crude and disgusting as O’Fat, you need to take what you can get. Don’t let the door hit you in your ginormous ass on the way out, Rosie, which means you’ll need to find someone who doesn’t hate you (it’ll be hard, I know) and have them hold the door open for four or five minutes to give you time to make it through the opening.

- Was it something he said? Following his stint as a guest analyst for ESPN at the NFL Draft over the weekend, Keyshawn Johnson has been released by the Carolina Panthers. Johnson spent extensive airtime talking about the Panthers’ draft needs and raving about the players they selected. He talked with the team’s second round pick, Dwayne Jarrett, and consoled him about not being picked higher coming out of the same school Johnson attended, the University of Southern California. He promised to mentor Jarrett with the Panthers and to take care of him there, but it looks like those plans will never come to fruition. Johnson is gone, and ironically Jarrett may be the one taking his spot. Like Keyshawn, Jarrett is a big, physical receiver and he may slide right into the role Johnson once held. Wonder if Keyshawn would have been so effervescent and enthusiastic talking about the Panthers and their draft picks if he’d known what was coming……Of course, that experience as a TV analyst might be helpful to Johnson sooner rather than later now that he no longer has a job catching passes in the NFL. Still, dude does have the all-time best quote from any athlete, anywhere: “If you don’t like me, you’ve got a problem with yourself."