- Here’s hoping a sparkling new stadium is enough to jump start baseball in the nation’s capital. The Washington Nationals have been playing in D.C. for three years now, occupying the stodgy, rotting rat hole that is RFK Stadium. It’s a park not designed for baseball, not really for any sport you’d like to enjoy as a fan or player actually, but definitely not for baseball. When the franchise now known as the Nationals (formerly the Montreal Expos) relocated from Canada, the hope was that leaving a place where the locals were totally and completely apathetic to the franchise (crowds of 5,000 were actually considered good nights in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium) and putting it into a thriving metropolis like Washington, D.C. would be the shot of adrenaline that the Expos/Nationals needed. That hasn’t happened, mostly because the team has been mired in last place in the National League East and playing inside the aforementioned crap hole of a stadium. The latter part of that equation has changed with the team moving in the awesome Nationals Park, a spacious new abode for the team that should buy it a 2-3 year reprieve from fans in spite of subpar play. A new stadium buys those years of goodwill because people are taken in by a shiny new venue, eager to attend a game there and willing to overlook poor play on the field for a short time. After those 2-3 years, the novelty wears off and a sucky team won't draw in spite of a nearly new stadium, so the Nats need to improve their play as well or this will be just a temporary fix. But a 41,888-seat stadium (a nice, round number) located two miles southwest of Capitol Hill should be a great draw for a young team that has talent but isn’t ready to contend yet. The four restaurants three stores and 78 luxury boxes are tucked inside a geometrically simple, sleek modern ballpark that bucks the trend of recent new stadiums in MLB being built in a retro, throwback style. Last night, in the park’s official opening game, the Nats defeated the Atlanta Braves 3-2, starting off a new chapter of their history in Washington in style with a walk-off home run by stud third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. For the sake of baseball fans in D.C., I hope this year’s team exceeds expectations and gives them something to cheer about after the luster of their new stadium fades.
- I’m glad I came across this bit of news before the cops discovered my own illegal stash of machine guns. Boy, would that have been embarrassing. Thankfully rapper T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris (what, Clifford isn’t a good rap name, you need to go with T.I.?) has shown us all that having that kind of cache of illegal weapons is a bad idea. Actually, that’s not fair. Not only did T.I. have those illegal machine guns, he also had the silencers to go with them. Either he was planning an all-out, Jack Bauer-like raid on a foreign embassy or my man C. Harris is just not smart. It’s one thing if you want to have your 9mm or maybe even a hunting rifle, those are bad choices but not even close to being on the same level as having a stockpile of machine guns and silencers. Police seized the weapons and Harris has since plead guilty to charges of possession of unregistered machine guns and silencers, unlawful possession of machine guns and possession of firearms by a convicted felon. In weapons-possession circles, that’s referred to as hitting the trifecta. Under the terms of his plea agreement, T.I. will perform 1,000 hours of community service by speaking to youth groups about the dangers of drugs, guns and gangs and once those 1,000 hours are completed, he will report back to the judge in his case for sentencing to time in jail. Currently, he’s set to spend a year behind bars, but after he’s done with his community service that sentence could be shortened or lengthened, depending on a variety of factors. Now if anyone knows a good way to dispose of a s**tload of machine guns, silencers, land mines, hand grenades and rocket launchers, would you please shoot me an email so I don’t end up in jail sharing a cell with T.I……
- Welcome aboard the B.O. bandwagon, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey! With your state’s primary fast approaching and its 158 delegates up for grab, now is the time for all of us to bind together as Americans and do whatever we can to avert the travesty that a Hank Clinton run for the White House would be. So thank you, Sen. Casey, for doing your part by publicly announcing your support for my main man Barack Obama. Political pundits believe that the endorsement will help Obama with white, working-class voters and personally, I hope so. Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Indian…we all need to be against Hank Clinton. That dude is a confirmed liar, a vitriolic femi-Nazi and scary as heck. As of right now, polls show Clinton with a solid lead in the state, so the endorsement Sen. Casey is a big “get” for Obama and for all Americans. Casey’s father is a popular former governor of the state, so that’s a plus as well. Clinton’s only hope to salvage a win in this election is to crush Obama in Pennsylvania and every other major state left on the primary schedule. If she falls short of that on April 22 in the Keystone State, we can all avoid weeks or sweating out the final few primaries and sticking those last pins into our Hank Clinton voodoo dolls…that isn’t just me, is it? Moving on…..
- Hmm…no. That was my thought process when it came to a request from the Material Skank, a.k.a. Madonna, that everyone leave Britney Spears alone and stop ripping her for things like failing to show up for child custody hearings, shaving her head like a deranged lunatic and leaving her home without underwear on regularly. “They need to step off,” whined the MS. Step off? Way to pick up “hip” phrases that were cool about five years ago, Material Skank. Even more amusing is the fact that the MS says her 11-year-old daughter Lourdes feels the same way. Oh, so the pre-teen daughter of some slutty pop singer thinks that everyone needs to be nicer to Brit, so we’ll all comply….or not. How ‘bout this, MS: Britney stops acting like a mental patient on crack and starts remembering to leave her house fully dressed, attends court-mandated custody hearings and ceases her alcoholic ways and then we’ll all stop making fun of her, how’s that? One coherent appearance on some hack CBS half-hour comedy show doesn’t confirm that she’s back on the right track, sorry MS.
- This is one of those concessions that appears great on the surface, but when you dig deeper it’s not as wonderful as it seems. New Cuban dictator/president Ramon Castro has reversed a policy upheld by his despotic brother Fidel, allowing ordinary Cuban citizens the right to have cell phone service. That right had previously been restricted to a select few in the Communist island nation, but Ramon is looking to extend a hollow olive branch to the masses in the hopes that it will quell demand for other larger reforms. Why is this such a hollow act? Stop and ask yourself this: can the majority of Cubans afford cell phones? These people can’t afford basic necessities like food, clothing and a decent place to live much of the time, but they’re going to have the cash to spring for a Razor, iPhone or Chocolate? It would take the average Cuban a year to afford just the phone, let alone the monthly fees. It’s like giving free Internet to a person living in the Amazonian jungle: meaningless. Unless the Cuban government suddenly becomes extremely munificent and also agrees to provide subsidies to people looking to sign up for cell service, this gesture is every bit as empty and meaningless as it seems. The more things change…..the more Cuba is still a heartless, Commie dictatorship that oppresses its citizens early and often.
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