- Let the bribes begin! With the announcement of the four finalist cities to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, officials and business leaders in those cities should ready their caches of cash, fitness equipment, electronics, free meals and other perks if they hope to beat out the other finalists and land the games. Chicago was one of lone American city selected as a bid finalist Thursday, along with Tokyo; Madrid, Spain, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. If past experiences have shown us anything, it’s that a steady stream of bribes and gifts to members of the International Olympic Committee significantly boost your chances of winning. One funny note from the process of whittling the field down to four is the failure of Doha, Qatar to make the final four because Doha because it proposed holding the games in October. Look Doha, I know you’re in the freaking Middle East where it’s 8,000 degrees every day of the year, but you can’t hold the Summer Olympics in October. Different parts of the world experience summer differently climate-wise, but the Summer Olympics are typically held in the…..wait for it….SUMMER. That means June, July or August. But I digress….the finalists now advance to a 16-month race that will culminate on Oct. 2, 2009, with a secret ballot by the full IOC at its session in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Thankfully for all U.S. Americans, our representative doesn’t appear to be a strong contender for the bid. Chicago was smacked in the IOC's report assessing the technical bids, with the report citing problems with finances and transportation, among other things. “We really respect the experts who have done the evaluation,” said Chicago bid leader Patrick Ryan, who had not yet read the report. “We're going to learn from that. We're going to respect it and we're not going to alibi to ourselves about it. We're going to do everything we can to correct all the deficiencies.” No you won't, P. You may think you want the bid, but no one else does. The Olympics are a passé, tired event that puts a major, unnecessary burden on your city. For three-plus weeks, the Olympics turn your city into an absolute zoo in terms of traffic, hotel space and travel. Furthermore, they make your town the prime target for terrorist groups and whackos of all political persuasions who are looking to make a statement. You’re better off without the Games, take my word for it. Hopefully Tokyo, Madrid and Rio have a much better plan for bribing, er, submitting a winning plan to the IOC so that Chicago doesn’t win this thing. Cities must submit their detailed bid files to the IOC by Feb. 12, 2009 and after that, a panel of IOC experts will visit each of the cities to tour the proposed sites and meet with bid and government leaders. Their report will be released to the IOC members a month before the October 2009 vote. I and millions of Americans are rooting for you, Tokyo, Rio and Madrid, do your best to beat us…..
- I long ago gave up on Hollywood bothering to come up with original new ideas for movies and accepted the fact that we’re going to be faced with an ever-widening stream of remakes and retreads to the point that finding good flicks is going to become nearly impossible. That being said, can we at least wait more than five years before we start remaking movies? You know what I’m talking about too, because you’ve seen plenty of the Incredible Hulk trailers by now, starring Edward Norton and looking suspiciously like a remake of the 2003 movie starring Eric Bana and Jennifer Connolly. That movie was actually decent, thanks to some strong supporting acting from the always unpredictable Nick Nolte, but for no apparent reason, some idiotic studio exec out there decided that dammit, this is a movie that needs to be recycled after just five years. What’s hilarious about this is that it’s not a case where some major technological advance has occurred since a film was made and thus the remake makes sense on some level because it will look totally different. This is just a gratuitous cash grab by a filmmaker who can’t summon up a single worthwhile original idea and so he chooses to recycle a movie that hasn’t even passed its expiration date yet, so to speak. While I enjoyed the first incarnation of this remake back in 2003, I won't be enjoying, hating, liking or disliking this new version because I’m not wasting my time or money watching it. Ed Norton is a good actor, just not good enough to make me go see this movie.
- Wednesday was a terrible day for baseball fans in general and for Atlanta Braves fans specifically. Just before noon, longtime Braves pitcher and certified class act John Smoltz announced that he will be having season-ending shoulder surgery, making it disturbingly likely that we’ve seen the final pitch of an absolutely stellar, hall-of-fame career. Smoltz has pitched for the Braves for 20 seasons, an amazing feat because finding a player who has spent his entire career with one team in this day is remarkable, but finding one who has spent two decades with the same franchise is unbelievable. During his career, Smoltz has recorded 210 wins, 154 saves and a career postseason mark of 15-4 with a 2.65 E.R.A. His win total isn't what you’d expect from a sure-fire hall of famer, but he did spend several seasons as a closer and you have to factor his 154 saves into the equation. The only other pitcher with at least 150 wins and 150 saves is Dennis Eckersley, who is in the Hall of Fame. So it was sad to see Smoltz say that he needed surgery that would end his 2008 season after only one outing, a blown save against Florida this week. He went on to explain that he is having surgery with the hope of pitching again, but that his ability to do so won't be known until doctors go in and see how severe the damage is. The interesting theory being thrown around is Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux all retiring after this season and being elected to the HOF in five years. Of course, they played many seasons together with the Braves as the cornerstones of a team that won every freaking division title they competed for during a 14-year span, with Maddux and Glavine having played for other teams while Smoltz stayed in the ATL later on in their careers. They both attained the 300-win plateau, but after this year, all three of them could ride off into the sunset together. Regardless, best wishes for a successful surgery and full recovery, J. Smoltz….
- I can't believe I’m saying this, but I think Hank Clinton has finally gotten the message. After her speech Tuesday night about not making any decisions about pulling out of the race despite the fact that she was no longer in it, Hank’s aides are confirming that she will now be endorsing Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for president. This comes after party leaders spent the past few days and even weeks in some cases urging her to drop out of the race because she had no actual chance of winning. With all 54 Democratic primaries concluded, Obama has enough delegates to clinch the nomination and even a raging femi-Nazi like Hank can’t fight the inevitable any longer. I did get a good laugh out of her saying that she would accept the vice presidential spot on the Democratic ticket if Obama offered, but my laughing stopped and a cold chill ran down my spine when I thought about the situation further. Seriously, is it a good idea to have Hank as second in command, perched right there next to the throne, ready to take over if something happened to Obama? Does anyone think for a second that Hank and her advisors don’t already have a half-dozen sinister plots for ways to bump off Obama as soon as he gets in office, thus allowing Vice President Hank to step in as commander in chief? Play this one smart and pick another running mate, B.O., your candidacy and maybe even your life depend upon it….
- We haven’t had a good riot story in a few days, so take a jaunt with me to Port-au-Prince, Haiti for a small, yet spirited riot outside government buildings in the country’s capital city. The locals were pissed about a four-year epidemic of kidnappings in the largely lawless, poor regions of the city and its suburbs, and rightfully so. The government and local law enforcement have done precious little to combat the kidnapping problem, offering little or no suitable explanation in the process. Clearly these commoners finally had enough of governmental inaction and indifference, so they rallied outside these government buildings with signs, chants and general displeasure. Unfortunately, no cars were overturned, no buildings were burned and no police in riot gear were called upon to fire tear gas and unleash water cannons to quell the unrest, so this was a C+ protest at best, but you have to cut the Haitians a little slack given the abject poverty many of them live in. They simply don’t have the resources to properly train and develop as social dissidents. Good effort, Haitians, way to stand up to an apathetic, unresponsive government…..
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