- Let me be a bit presumptuous here and say that whether University of Missouri basketball coach Mike Anderson wants to fess up or not, there’s no mystry behind why he’s suspended five of his players indefinitely. That the suspensions came a mere three days after a weekend brawl left his top scorer with a broken jaw seems more than coincidental, even for the most jaded conspiracy theorist. In a statement from the university, Anderson declined to indicate the reason for the discipline, calling the infractions a violation of team rules. However, the move comes as Columbia, Mo. police verified Tuesday that several teammates were with senior guard Stefhon Hannah the night he was involved in a brawl outside the downtown nightclub Athena early Sunday morning and sustained injuries that could cause him to miss the rest of the season.
Senior guard Jason Horton and forwards Marshall Brown, Darryl Butterfield and Leo Lyons. were suspended for Wednesday’s game against Nebraska. Hannah, who returned home to Chicago after surgery, also is suspended. "I am very disappointed in the actions of these young men," Anderson said. "We have defined team rules and when those rules aren't followed, our guys must be held accountable for their actions." Sgt. Ken Hammond, supervisor of the city's major crimes unit, didn't identify the players who accompanied Hannah, but noted that "there were numerous other players there." For a program that has had its share of legal troubles, this is a huge disappointment. A "zero-tolerance" policy was instituted after junior forward DeMarre Carroll -- Anderson’s nephew -- was shot in the ankle outside another Columbia nightclub over the summer. Also, three other Tiger players have been involved in off-court violence or misconduct since Anderson was hired less than two years ago. Sounds like you’re running a tight ship and bringing in only quality young men to your program, coach. But I’m sure this brawl is just an aberration for these five quality citizens, because…..what’s that? Darryl Butterfield was arrested on charges of third-degree domestic assault for allegedly punching an ex-girlfriend before the season began? He was suspended before the season started but was reinstated after missing one exhibition game and an intrasquad scrimmage? Oh. Well, maybe he’s the only one who…what? You mean to tell me that Kalen Grimes, the school's leading rebounder and starting center last season, was dismissed from the team after being arrested for hitting a man in the face with the butt of a shotgun in St. Louis in July? And last February, reserve guard Mike Anderson Jr., the coach's son, was suspended from the team after a drunken-driving arrest but was later reinstated? Damn. If I wasn’t such an optimist, I’d say Anderson is recruiting a lot of bad guys and doesn’t give a damn about character as long as you can ball. Apparently the team’s 11 p.m. weeknight curfew and a midnight curfew on weekends isn’t working. Missouri had a sketchy program before Anderson arrived, but he’s taken it from sketchy to downright felonious in two years flat, very impressive.
- I feel a bit gipped. I didn’t think I would feel that way about Lost returning to the air, but I do. Don’t get me wrong, the season premiere was great, drama-filled TV, but I’m referring to the whole “two night event” that it was supposed to be. First, last season’s finale was aired last night with alleged “new information” and “secrets revealed” placed in a text box on the bottom third of the screen. What a joke that turned out to be. There weren’t major revelations; there was a running stream of what seemed like someone’s would-be Lost¬¬-themed stand-up comedy routine. There was no shortage of lame one-liners and terrible jokes in captioning that did little more than state the obvious and give a few cliffs notes to people who had never seen the show before. Then, the two-hour premiere event tonight was a rip-off as well, with the first hour just a narrative by Ben, the leader of the group on the show known as The Others, telling you about each character and what’s gone on with them the first three seasons. Finally, after drudging through two hours of wasted air time over two nights, we got to the real deal: the premiere. It was a good episode, and unlike most season premieres, it literally picked up right where last season left off. Jack, just finished talking on the satellite phone brought to the island by purported rescuer Naomi, and Naomi’s crew promises to come find the survivors and rescue them. But back on the beach, Desmond’s arrival creates waves when he reveals that Charlie is dead and that Charlie’s last act was delivering a message that the people on the rescue boat aren’t who they claim to be. This causes tension among everyone, both those on the beach (Sayid, Hurley, Bernard, Jin, Desmond) and those Jack took to the radio tower in last season’s finale (the rest of the group). Some believe in Jack, some take the side of Locke, who traipses back into the mix when he finds a disoriented Hurley in the jungle in the middle of the night and helps him find his way back to the group. At this point, the entire group of survivors meet up in the jungle and an impromptu “town meeting” is held. Kate returns from tracking Naomi through the forest, reveals that Naomi has died after contacting her boat on the satellite phone. Jack spends a moment punching the stuffing out of Locke, but ultimately both of them present their side of how to deal with the alleged rescuers from Naomi’s boat. About half of the people decided to go with Locke back to the barracks that The Others abandoned at the end of last season, while the other half decide to return to the beach with Jack to wait for the rescuers. Ben, the leader of The Others, is along for the ride as a prisoner and elects to go with Locke. Danielle Rousseau, the crazy French chick who has lived as a refugee on the island for 17 years, does the same, as does Hurley. As Jack and Kate head back to the beach with their group, they see a helicopter fly overhead and a person parachute out of the copter. They come face to face with the man who jumped from the copter as the episode ends, and next week we’ll find out who this person really is. Also, in flash forwards interspersed throughout the episode (which are really starting to depress me and hurt the show from where I sit) we find out that Hurley is among those who get off the island, but once back home he is haunted by visions of his deceased friend Charlie, visions that drive him on a high-speed chase with police and send him to a mental institution, where Jack visits him and warns him not to tell anyone some big secret from the island that we don’t know about yet. Hurley also “talks” to Charlie in a vision and Charlie warns Hurley that he needs to “take care of them,” by which he seems to mean Claire and her son Aaron, Charlie’s girlfriend and quasi-son from the island. All in all, a good start to the season, but again, the flash forwards are killing me. It’s so depressing seeing that these people’s lives are such a wreck after leaving the island, I’d almost rather not know. But until next week, that’s all…..
- I’m wondering why the PGA’s new drug testing policy hasn’t been applied to Ian Poulter yet. Poulter, who is ranked 22nd in the world and has seven European Tour wins to his credit but no U.S. major wins, is dropping either LSD or peyote, because how else would the world’s 22nd ranked player get the mistaken impression that he and he alone is a good enough player to challenge the most dominant force in golf history, Tiger Woods? Poulter is a decent player, sure, but he failed to qualify for the 12-man team that beat United States in the 2006 Ryder Cup at the K Club in Ireland. You can’t even qualify as one of the top 12 players in Europe but you have the game to beat Tiger? Umm, ok. “The trouble is I don't rate anyone else,” the 32-year-old Briton was quoted as saying in the March issue of the United Kingdom version of Golf World magazine. “Don't get me wrong, I really respect every professional golfer, but I know I haven't played to my full potential and when that happens, it will be just me and Tiger.” When asked who will win the Masters in April, Poulter replied, “Put Tiger down for that one.” Good one, Ian. Nice attempt to backpedal and make a joke. Make no mistake about it, I. Even if you played your absolute best golf you could ever play and were juiced out of your mind on ‘roids, it still wouldn’t be “just you and Tiger.” It might be you, then a ginormous gap of about a million miles, then Tiger still a hundred times better than you, but that’s about it. Dude is in another stratosphere, and you need to stop smoking whatever illegal drugs you’ve managed to get your hands on and remember that you are in fact Ian Poulter.
- NBC is run by the dumbest people in the universe. I don’t know any other way to explain it. The same yahoos who inexplicably canceled one of the best shows of all time, Ed, a few years ago, are now single-handedly putting together the crappiest TV lineup in world history during the writers’ strike. First, we were told about a show that’s basically a high school home ec project on film, a show where teenagers get stuck with babies for a few weeks and try to learn about being parents. Now, NBC has come up with the most asinine, moronic, stupid, lame, pathetic, retarded, reject of a show: My Dad is Better Than Your Dad. Yes, NBC, when we were kids, we all said stupid stuff like our dads could beat up other people’s dads, etc. But we stopped saying that when we were, like, eight years old, mostly because it’s stupid, juvenile and idiotic. But now you’ve gone and created an entire reality game show out of it? Perfectly imbecilic, a-holes. The new show will fill a gap left in NBC’s schedule left by the strike, but I have a better suggestion for NBC, something that would be a better use of air time than My Dad is Better Than Your Dad: DEAD AIR. Don’t broadcast a damn thing for an hour and you’ll have better TV than this sorry excuse for a show. I seriously don’t know how you can run a TV network with your head stuck that far up your ass, but kudos to the suits at NBC for doing so, I guess…..
- Riot time! Today we travel to Beirut, Lebanon, where some of the worst riots in years between civilians and troops took place a couple days ago. Citizens angry about electricity rationing took to the streets and Lebanese troops were there to meet them. Seven people died in the riots, but no official word was available as to how the deaths occurred, although shooting from the troops seems to be the likely cause. What isn’t known is whether the shooting to kill was intentional…but let’s go ahead and assume it was. Soldiers don’t generally shoot to disable or shoot for the heck of it. Stop rationing your electricity, Lebanon, or else do it more fairly, because a lot of people are getting squeezed here. I’m glad they did the right thing and took their fight to the streets to riot. Regardless of the issue, if you have a problem and you’re not receiving a satisfactory response from those in power, riot first, riot hard, riot some more and then ask questions later.
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