committed to turning your life around and being a law-abiding, responsible citizen, Michael Vick. After pleading guilty to federal charges related to his dogfighting ring and now having the state of Virginia touch him up with criminal charges as well, today we learned that earlier this month Vick tested positive for marijuana. He must undergo regular testing as part of his pre-sentencing monitoring program, a fact that I’m sure was explained clearly to both he and his attorneys. However, knowing that he would be tested for drugs wasn’t enough of a deterrent to M. Vick to keep him from burning tree and as a result, he has now received stricter release guidelines from a federal judge in Virginia for the weeks leading up to his sentencing hearing in December. Like I said, what better to show that you really are committed to changing your felonious, illegal lifestyle than by breaking the law when you knew there was a 100 percent chance you would be caught. Plus, even though the NFL has suspended Vick indefinitely and will wait to deal with him further until he gets out of prison, you can bet that Commissioner Roger Goodell and his crew won't forget about this positive drug test when they sit down with Vick to discuss his future in the league. He’ll now go into the league’s substance-abuse program, which would mean additional testing for the remainder of his career. Oh, and in case you didn’t know this (and you may not have, given the fact that the judge in your case only said it directly to you once in open court in clear, unwavering terms), but the length of your sentence is still to be determined, Mike. Yes, your plea deal lays out certain parameters, but the final decision is up to Judge Henry Hudson. I don’t know Hudson personally, but I’m guessing that you testing positive for the hippie lettuce is not going to have a positive effect on his sentencing decision. It doesn’t exactly show contrition and a commitment to change. Yes, the pressure Vick is under right now is immense and probably overwhelming to him. Being under house arrest from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and under constant monitoring with the prospect of 18 months or more in prison looming would be a major mental burden. However, burning blunts to alleviate that stress isn't an option right now, and if Vick sported an IQ anywhere north of 65, he would know that. Dude, you could sit in your house and drink 5 bottles of vodka with a gin chaser and no one is going to care, because that’s no illegal. You can smoke cigars or cigarettes and likewise, no one will care. But getting baked is illegal and if that’s your method for relaxing, you’re going to compound your troubles quickly. Not that many people felt sorry for you before this, Mike, but you’re making it tough for even your staunchest defenders to have your back at this point.
- Like it or not, America is a place where we give people the opportunity to be blatantly and embarrassingly wrong without fear of persecution and retribution. Like him or not (and I don’t), Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a right to say all the ignorant, ill-informed and stupid things he wants. Many Americans are irate because this week Ahmadinejad has been saying those things while visiting the United States. He even spoke at Columbia University in New York, which drew even more ire. Among Ahmadinejad’s takes are that the Holocaust is just a theory and that Iranian women are the most free in the whole world. I don’t know anyone other than Ahmadinejad and his sycophants who would agree to those statements unless under direct threat of physical harm with a lethal weapon, but I marvel at how so many people want to persecute and attack Ahmadinejad just for having these misguided opinions and being willing to share them. What, are there no Americans with ignorant takes and ill-reasoned opinions running their mouths? You all are beginning to sound like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has made it his policy to deport any foreigner visiting his country if they dare to express any views that are critical of or contrary to his government. You know and I know from mounds of physical and factual evidence that that Holocaust really happened and that is was the most horrific mass tragedy in history. We’ve also seen how Iranian women are treated and based on what we believe and think, they are anything but free and liberated. However, none of this invalidates Ahmadinejad’s right to have an opinion different than yours or to express that opinion. Unless he’s broken some law or poses a direct threat to our country, and so long as he goes through the same channels as any foreigner who wishes to visit the U.S., then he has a right to come and visit. Don’t let his words, however off-base and misguided, rile you up so much, they can only have as much of an effect as you allow them to have. Rise above it, America, rise above it.
- Well isn't this something, Major League Baseball umpire Mike Winters has been suspended for remainder of the season. Yeah, but you didn’t say or do anything wrong, eh Mike? You didn’t bait Milton Bradley at all, because Major League Baseball just hands out suspensions to umpires who didn’t do anything wrong. Now would be a very good time for you to stop acting surprised and indignant at the implication that you did anything wrong, because clearly MLB has reviewed the situation and concluded that you did. The cryptic statement the league office sent out may not spell out exactly what went down or what you said to set Bradley off, but whatever it was, it was enough to get you run for the rest of the 2007 season. And while many have pointed out that no matter what Winters said, Bradley needed to rise above it and just walk away, I’m not focused on the player here, but rather on the egotistical, a-hole of an umpire who clearly has a God complex on the field and thinks that he can do what he wants when he wants without repercussion. Oh, and this reportedly isn't Winters’ first incident of this type with a player. It was being reported earlier this week that 10 years ago, he had a similar run-in with then-San Francisco Giants third baseman Charlie Hayes. If that’s true, and there’s no reason to believe it isn't, then Winters has a definite problem and needs to be brought in line. No one comes to games to see umpires do their thing, and really the only time we should notice them is when they’re calling ball or strike, fair or foul, safe or out, or if a player or manager is out of line, then the umpire should simply eject them and not make a big scene out of it. Umpires should never be inciting confrontations with players, ever. It doesn’t matter whether Mike Winters is a good umpire or not in the technical sense, if he can’t control himself and his ego on the field, then he should not be out on the field.
- Ah. the heavy hand of The Man, coming down in an attempt to quash the spirit of those daring to fight for democracy in Myanmar. The country’s repressive military leaders have imposed a nighttime curfew and banned gatherings of more than five people after a Buddhist monk-led 35,000-person march Sunday directly defied the junta’s warnings against such dissent. By the way, these kinds of restrictive edicts are a good sign if you’re part of a dissident group, because it means your efforts are making an impact and that those in power are worried. If they’re instituting oppressive, overbearing measures like this, then clearly they’re rattled and looking to shut you down before you can do any further damage. On the downside, this is going to put a major damper on all of the keggers and block parties the Buddhist monks were planning to celebrate their successes in advocating democracy in their country. It’s tough to have a good kegger when you can't have more than five people gathering together at the same time, beer pong just isn't the same with such a small group. But props to the Burmese military and government, because I’m sure that with these new regulatory measures in place, the dissident groups will just close up shop and go away…..right…..sure…..
- Has being a college football player and thus being able to pull chicks based on that fact ceased to be true? For as long as there has been big-time college football, there have been college girls wanting to get with football players because they like athletes and they like that status of being with a big man on campus. However, recent events (read here: arrests) have me thinking that maybe this has changed. Earlier this summer, Notre Dame football player Derrell Hand was suspended from the team after soliciting sex from an undercover police officer posing as a hooker and being hit with criminal charges. Now, Ohio State third-string quarterback Antonio Henton has popped for soliciting a prostitute and faces misdemeanor charges. Apparently Henton had the good sense to solicit sex from an actual hooker, no an undercover cop, but that didn’t prevent him from being arrested. Like Hand, Henson has been suspended from his team while the legal process plays out. I’ve got to ask once again how all you college football players are having such a hard time pulling chicks that you have to turn to your nearest street corner to get some action. I know for a fact that there are a lot of sororities at Ohio State and hot girls all over the campus, many of whom would love to hook up with the quarterback, albeit a third stringer. Best of all, assuming those girls are over the age of 18, then them agreeing to have sex with you is not a crime, Antonio. Besides, paying for sex not only makes you a criminal, it also makes you look like a loser who can’t pull girls like everyone else and has to resort to getting after it with hookers. Clean it up, my man, because if you don’t it’s going to cost you both your football career and your reputation.
- A follow-up to last week’s note on the new CW series Gossip Girl: I gave the show another try this week and I don’t know if it was just contrasting it with the horr-a that was Tuesday night’s CW new series offering Reaper or the fact that I’m pumped for tonight’s season premiere of Smallville, but this week’s edition of GG was good, better than last week’s episode. While I don’t think the show is good enough to justify the blow-out hype treatment the network is giving it on its promos and website (Gossip Girl – Watch it, love it, blog it, live it!), it’s at least interesting enough to hold your attention for an hour without making you want to shove your head into an industrial-sized blender filled with razor-sharp knives because the jokes are so dumb and the “drama” is so contrived and pathetic. The biggest hurdle of Gossip Girl is not doing the same basic show each week; rich kids at a party, hooking up, spreading rumors and having fights. A similar show from the same producers, The O.C., also centered on the rich and privileged but managed to mix it up enough for four great seasons. Thus far, Gossip Girl has been a one-note song, and while it’s been a fun ride so far, if the show doesn’t get some depth and variety, it’s going to get old very quickly. Stay tuned……
- Some very lucky congressmen had the chance of a lifetime Tuesday, coming face to face with musicians who are surely in heavy rotation on the congressmen’s iPod playlists. For example, I have it on good authority that House Energy and Commerce subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., is a HUGE fan of rappers Master P and David Banner, both of whom appeared before Rush’s committee to address the topic of how to deal with violent and sexist lyrics in rap music. Side note….leave it up to a bunch of rich, old white dudes to try and hold a hearing on rap lyrics. You can tell they know nothing about rap based on their choices – two rappers who are about a decade past their prime and on about the third or fourth tier of rappers as far as any fans of the genre could tell you. It would be like holding a hearing about the steroid problem in baseball and inviting Reggie Jackson and Jack Morris to testify about the prevalence and usage of performance enhancers in the game today, or holding a hearing about violence on TV and inviting Crockett and Tubbs to discuss how violence plays into the success of Miami Vice. But back to the matter at hand…..what a juxtaposition, with rich white dudes with as much pop culture savvy and style as a Men’s Warehouse clearance sale, questioning two rich black dudes from the streets. How these guys made it through an entire hearing and achieved anything is amazing, because they’re barely speaking the same language. Well, to be fair, Congress rarely achieves anything anyhow, and they seem to be speaking a different language than most Americans. Master P took one tact in the hearing, admitting that his lyrics early in his career were wrong and inappropriate. “I want to apologize to all of the women out there,” he stated. “I was wrong.” Banner, a.k.a. Levell Crump, wasn’t nearly so contrite. “I’m like Stephen King; horror music is what I do,” he declared, defending his right to rap about what he wants to rap about and use whatever language he wants to use. Oh, and if you don’t believe me saying that Rush is a hip-hop aficionado, don’t take my word for it, take his. “I am a fan of hip-hop,” he declared at the start of the hearing. Never mind that any real fan of rap or hip-hop would never say that in such a grammatically correct, old-white-dude fashion. So what was the end result of the hearing? Like many congressional hearings, it accomplished nothing but left the participants feeling mighty proud of themselves for having addressed and made “real” progress on an important issue. Now we can all go back to the way things were before and revisit this issue in a few years when someone else says or does something wildly inappropriate to stir on discussion on this topic.
- Dammit, he’s Jack Bauer and you’re keeping him from a very important mission that affects the safety and security of every last American and the whole world for that matter! Well, assuming that mission is finding his next beer, gin and tonic or rum and coke, that is. The diminutive star of FOX’s 24 was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated earlier this week in L.A. Police pulled Kiefer Sutherland over after he made an illegal U-turn and when he took a breath test, it registered more than twice the legal limit. To be fair, when you’re roughly the same size as the average Oompa-loompa, it doesn’t take many drinks to push you over the legal limit, but even so you can’t be driving around L.A. when your B.A.C. is roughly equal to the batting average of the Dodgers over the past week. Sutherland was released on $25,000 bail and has an Oct. 16 court date, which I’m sure will only help the production schedule on 24, which is several months behind schedule as it is. My chief hope in all of this is that K. Sutherland wasn’t too drunk to go to the “Do you know who I am?” card when the cops pulled him over, because it’s always hilarious when celebrities or people who mistakenly think that they’re celebrities go that route. So Jack Bauer can outsmart and defeat the Chinese, but he can’t outsmart L.A.P.D. officers patrolling the streets with a donut in one hand and a Breathalyzer in the other hand. Television heroes just ain’t what they used to be…..
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