- There are some historical achievements that you don’t really want on your ledger. Not everything record-breaking is something you can be proud of, at least you wouldn’t think so. Thomas Wright, the first lawmaker ever expelled from the North Carolina General Assembly, was sentenced this week to six to eight years in prison for mishandling thousands of dollars in charitable contributions and fraudulently obtaining a $150,000 loan. His crimes led to him getting the boot from the state legislature and becoming the first member of that group to be expelled in 128 years. You would think that kind of infamy and the fact that you’re headed to prison for the better part of a decade would weigh heavily on a man, but Wright is either exceptionally arrogant or he has a Michael Scofield-like escape plan already in place because as he exited the court room, he actually winked at his wife. I don’t know what you’re winking about, Tommy, but there’s really no part of this to be proud of. You didn’t get over and you’re going to be wearing an orange jumpsuit for at least the next few years while your wife is at home all alone and maybe considering finding a new, non-incarcerated man….
- I see what you’re doing, Haitian citizens, and I like it. In case you missed it, hundreds of Haitians literally went medieval, storming the presidential palace earlier this week to demand the resignation of President Rene Preval over soaring food prices in the island nation. Of course, U.N. soldiers were there with rubber bullets and tear gas, looking to stop the angry, hungry Haitians before they could an any real damage. With food prices rising more than 40 percent worldwide, Haitians are suffering more than most because of the abject poverty they live in. Even when prices are low, their lack of resources makes life extremely difficult for the majority of Haitians. So you’ll have to forgive them, U.N. soldiers, if they’re a tad angry at their leader, living in a spiffy presidential palace with plenty of food to eat while they live in falling-down shanties with not enough to eat and abysmal conditions all around them. This is how heads of leaders have ended up on pikes and been paraded through the streets for centuries. This is why peasants have lit torches and stormed palace gates since medieval times and it will continue to be a source of tension until leaders in places like Haiti do more to help feed their people at a reasonable price. Before I move on from the protest front for the day, a tip of the cap to French students who staged a min-riot of their own over a very unlikely issue. The students were upset about teacher job cuts at their school and in an act that was equal parts un-student-like and un-French, they actually stood up for their teachers and offered actual resistance to The Man. Instead of going on auto surrender like Frenchmen are pre-programmed to do, the angry students threw bottles and rocks at police officers who were looking to shut their protest down. Predictably, police busted out the tear gas and sprayed it on the thousands of students who marched from Paris’ Luxembourg Square. Good effort, French students, even if your riot techniques are more than a little rudimentary.
- Does Al Reyes know that he’s Al Reyes, middle reliever for the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, or has he forgotten? Based on his act at a Tampa-area bar Friday night, I’m going to assume it’s the latter. Reyes was hit with a Taser blast and arrested early Friday after police say he fell against a ceramic pot in a bar, got up and picked a fight with a man he thought pushed him. Here’s Reyes’s oh-so-good explanation for going bonehead: “I tried to have a good time on my birthday, but I guess it was the worst one,” he stated. “I just want to apologize again to my teammates, the whole organization ... for what happened last night.” Which part, Al? The part where you picked a fight with some random dude or the part where you were so out of control that the cops needed to break out their Tasers? I’ll go ahead and assume you mean both things. Maybe you could get away with this crap if you were a great pitcher on a team that actually mattered and wouldn’t be 40 games out of first place by season’s end. But bro, you’re Al Reyes, he of the 0-1 record with a 27.00 ERA in two appearances this season. You pitch for the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, a team whose chief hopes for changing their fortune this season was dropping the word “Devil” from their name during the offseason. The aftermath of this brawl wasn’t all that bad, with Reyes treated at the scene for a cut on his nose and \ charged with being in a fight that disturbed the peace. Eduardo Mora, Reyes’ opponent, was charged with battery and both men were released on their own recognizance. Witnesses told officers that Reyes, who turned 38 on Thursday, appeared to be intoxicated when he exchanged words with Mora, who punched the 6-foot-1, 240-pound pitcher in the face at the Hyde Park Cafe around 2:30 a.m. No freaking way. Alcohol was involved in two middle-aged dudes getting after one another in a bar late at night? Get outta here. It’s good to know, though, because if Reyes wasn’t drunk, then I’d have to find another explanation for him allegedly spitting blood on patrons and swinging his arms when bouncers grabbed Mora, and that explanation would have been that Al Reyes is marginally insane. Helping support that theory would be the fact that when the bouncers were unable to control Reyes, a police officer working extra duty at the club intervened, asking Reyes to stop and the pitcher "continued spitting blood and thrashing about." At that point, the officer told Reyes he was going to use his Taser, which knocked Reyes to the ground. He was shocked a second time after not complying with commands to stay down. Dude, who do you think you are, Carl Eller (see yesterday’s post for Eller’s badass actions involving Tasers)? Remember who you are and that in the grand scheme of things, you’re not an important person. Celebrate your birthday if you want, but stay down and stop brawling with other bar patrons over alleged shoves into ginormous ceramic pots.
- I haven’t had a good anti-war rant in a while, so why not right here, right now? For some odd reason, a lot of U.S. senators are extremely angry that the W. administration, specifically Gen. David Petraeus, won't give them a straight answer about when the Mess O’Potamia, i.e. the war in Iraq, will wrap up. Petraeus seemed to be talking out of both sides of his mouth (and possibly his ass as well) when he suggested that maybe, possibly, we could kinda, sorta start withdrawing American troops from a place they never should have been in the first place, at any time, then went on to say that there will continue to be at least 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq until the end of the worst presidential administration in the history of this nation. I’m proud to say that the senior senator from my home state of Ohio, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, was among those leading the charge to tar and feather Petraeus. “The American people have had it up to here,” Voinovich declared while standing on a 30-foot high extension ladder stacked on top of ten phone books (ok, so maybe I made the ladder and phone book parts up, but you get the point). “We’re stressed out” from a conflict that has no end in sight, the senator also rightly decreed. At this point, I don’t even know why we’re bothering to ask W. or anyone under his command about this war, because clearly none of them are smart enough, competent enough or have the balls to do the right thing and end this debacle of a war. We’re just going to have to wait until we elect our next president (ANYONE BUT HANK CLINTON!!!!) and that new leader can end the conflict that W. has been so incapable of ending. Thanks for nothing, W., you still absolutely suck!
- If you gather up a collection of minor celebrities and have them blog about a peripheral, secondary sport that no one in these here United States cares about, does it still make a sound? We’re about to find out courtesy of the National Hockey League, which if I’m not mistaken is currently dueling with the juggernaut that is Major League Soccer for the title of fourth major sport in the U.S. And save it, NASCAR fans, because your little car race is not a sport, period. The NHL, seeking any possible avenue to revive its frozen corpse on the sports scene here in the U.S., has recruited 10 mostly second-tier celebs and musicians to follow their favorite teams through the Stanley Cup playoffs (yeah, they’re going on, I didn’t know that either but I checked and by gosh, they actually are going on). Among the also-ran, marginally famous people taking part are reality TV tart Lauren Conrad, director Jason Reitman, director Kevin Smith, actor Geoff Stults (alumnus of one of the worst TV shows of all-time, 7th Heaven) and actor Tom Cavanagh (alumnus of quite possibly the best underappreciated TV show of all-time, Ed). If you can manage to find the NHL’s website you can track down these postings by quasi-famous people and read all about how they feel about a sport you don’t give a crap about. Good times….
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