- Tales of star athletes receiving preferential treatment are nothing new. Most days in any given week you can hear about a pro football, baseball or basketball player being let off the hook for an alleged misdeed because of who that athlete is. Even star players in college get academic and other help that bends or breaks NCAA rules because someone is always willing to help out someone who can bring so much prosperity to their school with their on-field talent. However, it’s definitely jarring to hear that this kind of treatment is going on in high school, to the point that a star player gets to play despite being accused of a sex crime. The sex coverup has made headlines across Florida since December, and an investigation indicated star running back Antwain Easterling was given special treatment after he was charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a minor. Though a School Board rule mandated a 10-day suspension, Easterling was never disciplined, and school and district officials allowed him to play in the championship game. The Bulls won. Now, that decision has resulted in 21 teachers, coaches and counselors who knew about but did not report the sex scandal being removed from the school. Great decision making, all of you. What is this, an elite college football program or high school football? I refuse to believe that any high school can be so dependent and reliant on its football team that nearly two dozen school employees overlook a criminal offense by a student-athlete in order to allow that athlete to play in a big game. But hey, I’m sure that Easterling won’t have any sense of entitlement or being above the law from here on out, so no worries………..
- If there has ever been a bigger conflict of interest in the television world, I haven't seen it. The way ESPN is ridiculously fawning over David Beckham and trying to hype up his arrival in America is equal parts absurdity and self-servitude on the Worldwide Leader’s part. An event that America in general doesn’t give a crap about and even the majority of American sports fans are completely indifferent to is being turned into a huge ordeal at ESPN, which not so coincidentally also has a television deal with Major League Soccer, the league Beckham is coming to play in. You have ESPN throwing out nonstop commercials of “soccer fans” in Europe being devastated by Beckham leaving while Americans are purportedly overjoyed by his arrival. There was also the televising of the press conference introducing Beckham as a member of his new team, the L.A. Galaxy. Somehow ESPN is glossing over the fact that this guy is 10 years past his prime and plays a sport that is second or third-tier in this country, but hey, don’t let the facts get in the way of some good hype. Hearing the network’s soccer analysts wax poetic about how Beckham’s arrival is so huge and how it’s going to revolutionize soccer and how the sport is perceived in America……….it’s total bulls**t. The same things were said when the U.S. women’s national team won the World Cup, Brandi Chastain ripped off her shirt and those in the soccer community talked about how that day would forever change the country. Well it’s been several years and soccer is still the sports pariah it’s always been in the U.S., and Becks is just the latest failed attempt to jumpstart the sport in this country. At best, a few curious people will tune in for Beckham’s first game with the Galaxy, watch a few minutes of boring play and then switch off their TV, wondering why they even bothered. Way to hitch your wagon to a dead, dead, dead horse, ESPN, this should work out just splendidly for you……….
- When is a prank or hoax just not worth it? How’s about when it leads to federal prosecution and to possibility of 10 years in prison? Adam Hart, 22, a Chicago man who misled federal authorities into believing that a Muslim student he met on a social networking site was a terrorist planning an attack on the Sears Tower, is finding that lesson out the hard way. Why Hart thought this would be funny or amusing, I don’t know. If he had some sort of grudge against the Muslim student, how’s about playing a better prank, one that wouldn’t land Hart in prison? That’s actually the topic for the fourth session of my seminar for aspiring criminal masterminds, making sure you don’t try to land someone else in trouble with the law only to have them remain free while you’re shipped off to the hole. Perhaps it escaped Mr. Hart that when someone throws out an allegation of a planned terrorist attack against someone else, the feds are going to take it seriously and look into it. If it’s a hoax, they’re going to figure that out and come looking for the person who made it all up. What’s wrong with keying the dude’s car or leaving a derogatory message on his Facebook wall, Hart? Let’s try to be a little smarter next time………
- Devastating news from the state of Louisiana, where Governor Kathleen Blanco has done the unthinkable and signed into law a ban on cockfighting to take effect in August 2008. Really, I don’t get this outright persecution of a beautiful, majestic sport that features two roosters armed with razor blades on their feet, pecking and slashing one another to death while degenerates gather around the ring in a dimly lit basement and place wagers on which bird kill the other. Why are so many people against something that so clearly promotes everything that is good and right in America? Who’s not down with bloodshed for sport, for forcing two animals to fight to the death and profiting off of it? This bill will make Louisiana the 49th state to outlaw cockfighting, meaning New Mexico will be the only state in the union where you can see the wonder that is cockfighting after August 2008. I hope Blanco is happy, because she is depriving the good people of her state of the chance to see a sport that is truly all-American. Of course, cockfighting is still going to exist in Louisiana, just as it does in many other states where it’s banned. The sport will simply go underground and exist in an even seedier, more depraved form than before, if that’s possible. Still, it’s people like Kathleen Blanco that are making me less and less proud to be an American…………
- Anyone still having doubts as to whether Maroon5 is the weakest, wimpiest, most sissified, panty-waisted elevator music wannabes in the music business, I ask that you take a few short minutes to listen to the first single off of their new album, a song titled “Makes Me Wonder.” I can't fully describe the awfulness with mere words, but it’s like the most feminine, whiny Robin Thicke song multiplied by a thousand. Top it off with a disco-style video where in the group’s lead singer, Adam Something-or-the-Other, moves around like a clumsy teenage girl doing a bad Elvis imitation and well, it’s as bad as it sounds and then some. So in case you aren't getting my drift, the new album from Maroon5 (should be named Pink5, it would suit their effeminate quality better) is one you’re going to want to purposely miss.
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