- Prepare to be floored, America: David Beckham is already injured with a “swollen ankle” and may not be able to make his scheduled debut with his new team, the L.A. Galaxy, this Saturday. Yes, a soccer player is suffering from a tragic injury even though he’s barely played in months, it’s amazing. I’m not sure it Becks injured his ankle walking down the stairs, getting out of his car or slipping on some water spilled on his kitchen floor. What I’m wondering, though, is whether soccer players follow the same protocol for getting injured at home as they do in games. You know, the typical soccer routine of going down like you’ve been shot the instant anyone makes any contact with you whatsoever, writhing around on the ground like you’re being electrocuted, having a half-dozen trainers come rushing to your aid. I just wonder if Becks takes a wrong step coming down the stairs of his house, does he still go down in a heap and start writhing around, groaning and grimacing? Do trainers burst through his front door and tend to his wounds? How very soccer player of you, Becks, you haven’t even played your first game and already you’re wussing out with some shady injury. Ah, the beauty and passion of soccer, the beautiful game. And you soccer honks wonder why your sport will never, ever catch on here in America………..
- Two episodes of the new ABC Family series Greek down, two very watchable hours of TV. The second week of the fraternity/sorority-based show was very good, continuing to mix a few good laughs with interesting drama and characters that are likeable and interesting without playing too much to the normal clichés and stereotypes that you usually get in shows centered around college kids. One good example to illustrate this point came this week when the show’s central character, Rusty, decided to procrastinate on a crucial homework assignment to play in a beer pong tournament with his fraternity. He rushed to complete the assignment but missed the deadline and came to his frat buddies for help. The normal cliché for this situation would be to have a member of the fraternity who is a wizard at math help Rusty out and get the assignment done, then talk the professor into taking the assignment late. Instead, Rusty and friends organize a humorous plan to have a pickup football game go awry, creating a diversion to get the assignment in the professor’s hands without his knowing it. While I’m not enjoying the sorority side of the show as much with Rusty’s sister, Casey, it’s still not too much of a drag and the Rusty-Casey relationship is getting more interesting as well. All in all, this is the second series that has shown itself to be worthwhile, along with Traveler (which coincidentally has its finale tomorrow at 10 p.m. on ABC, tune in).
- When you’re a new coach taking over a mid-level, perennially disappointing college football team, what sort of goals do you set for your team to take it to the next level? Recruit better athletes? Perhaps. Instill better strength and conditioning programs for players? Maybe. Have one of your players charged with third-degree sexual misconduct and have three other players as suspects in the same case? Definitely. Nothing catapults a team to the top of the conference faster than having one (possibly four) of your players having with a woman who was "physically helpless” and having that sex act caught on a cell phone video. Minnesota cornerback Dominic Jones is the player in question, charged with sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman said she had been raped at an apartment complex near campus. Defensive end Alex Daniels, cornerback Keith Massey and running back E.J. Jones all were arrested and questioned in April. They have not been charged, but have been suspended ever since by coach Tim Brewster. Brewster has to be psyched about his players exhibiting this kind of class and character, it sets quite a tone for what Minnesota Gopher football is all about. The woman making the allegations arrived at the apartment to hang out with friends, and Jones arrived later and had sex with the woman while Daniels recorded the video on his cell phone, Freeman said. The file had been deleted from the phone, but investigators recovered a part of it, he said. Good thinking, fellas, when committing a crime, always record the act on video where it can be recovered and used against you. Clearly, college is not making these guys any smarter; maybe prison will be more beneficial.
- Not often do you regret asking a famous athlete for an autograph and instead wish you’d punched him in the face repeatedly, but I find myself thinking just that at this moment. Last year when I got an autograph from Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick after beign on the same flight from Atlanta to Newport News, Va., I couldn’t have begun to imagine that a year and a half later, M. Vick would to indicted by a federal grand jury on some of the most revolting, disgusting and sickening animal abuse/murder charges I’ve ever heard. Vick was indicted by a federal grand jury Tuesday on charges of sponsoring a dogfighting operation so grisly the losers either died in the pit or sometimes were electrocuted, drowned, hanged or shot. Oh, there was also at least one instance where a dog that refused to fight was repeatedly slammed to the ground until it died, so there’s that as well. The indictment casts somewhat of a shadow of doubt on Vick’s insistence that he didn’t know anything about the dogfighting on his property, as the feds generally don’t indict just for the heck of it and if they don’t believe they can get a conviction. An indictment may not be a conviction, but if even part of these allegations are true, Vick is a sick, twisted freak and I don’t ever want to see him on an NFL field again, no matter how talented an athlete he is. I look forward to seeing you in prison orange, Mike, not Falcon red and black.
- Slumber parties and sleepovers aren't just for teenage girls anymore. The U.S. Senate decided that sleeping over and ordering pizza might be fun, so they rolled out cots and ordered pizzas as they settled in for a marathon Senate debate on Iraq last night that featured numerous speeches but little chance of getting any closer to resolving the stalemate over how to end the war. Democrats chose the tactic in an attempt to enact legislation forcing a withdrawal of combat troops, with Republicans once again promising to block an attempt to do the right thing and make the right choice. The Republicans, with heads firmly planted either in the sand or up their ass, dismissed the Democrats’ ploy as political theatrics. Theatrics or not, if something results in ending the debacle of war that has claimed thousands of American lives that should never have been anywhere near Iraq, then I’m all for it. Bring out the cots and sleeping bags, order pizza, give each other facials and makeovers, play “Truth or Dare” and “Spin the Bottle,” I don’t care. Fix this Mess O’Potamia and while you’re at it, impeach W. if it’s not too much trouble.
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