- Since when it finding $182,000 in Depression-era currency hidden in a bathroom wall in a home you’ve been hired to remodel bad thing? Well, when it results in a protracted, bitter legal battle after which you end up with only a few thousand dollars, the whole windfall of vintage cash isn’t quite as cool. Such is life for contractor Bob Kitts, who couldn't agree on how to split the money with homeowner Amanda Reece. Ironically, the find wasn’t so great for Reece much, either, because she testified in a deposition that she was considering bankruptcy and that a bank recently foreclosed on one of her properties. The value of the find was further diluted by the fact that twenty-one descendants of Patrick Dunne -- the businessman who stashed the money that was minted nearly a century ago -- will each get a mere fraction of the find. “If these two individuals had sat down and resolved their disputes and divided the money, the heirs would have had no knowledge of it,” said attorney Gid Marcinkevicius, who represents the Dunne estate. “Because they were not able to sit down and divide it in a rational way, they both lost.” In other words, these two greedy a-holes fought so much over their find that they had to go to court and in the process, alert the heirs of a Depression-era businessman who then filed rightful claims to the money. All of this started when Kitts was tearing the bathroom walls out of Reece’s 83-year-old home near Lake Erie in 2006. It was then that he discovered two green metal lockboxes (somewhere Al Gore is smiling) suspended inside a wall below the medicine chest, hanging from a wire. After opening up the lockboxes, Kitts found white envelopes with the return address for “P. Dunne News Agency.” According to Kitts, he tore open one of the envelopes and his first sight after that was a $50 bill. He immediately did the right thing and called Reece, who ironically enough is a former high school classmate who had hired him for a remodeling project. At first, everything was hunky-dory, with the two counting the money together and posing for pictures with it. It all went sour when it came to dividing up the cash, with Reece offering 10 percent and Kitts demanding 40 percent. In December 2007, Dunne's estate got involved, suing for the right to the money. Unfortunately, Reece had already blown a lot of the cash, spending about $14,000 on a trip to Hawaii and had selling some of the rare late 1920s bills. She also lied, er, told lawyers in the case that $60,000 was stolen from a shoe box in her closet but testified that she never reported the theft to police. Riiiiiight. Because who doesn’t just say, “Never mind, no big deal,” when $60,000 is stolen from them. But it gets better: Kitts said Reece accused him of stealing the money and began leaving him threatening phone messages. So to sum up, once again the love of money takes a perfectly happy situation and turns it into a train wreck, what a surprise…..
- Stay classy, New York Rangers. And nothing says class like respecting the untimely passing of one of your top prospects by breaking out the NHL rulebook and demanding that you receive a compensatory pick in the second round of the 2009 NHL draft. Yup, a very classy reaction to the death of prospect Alexei Cherepanov, saying that “with all due respect to Alexei's family and his memory, he is technically eligible to be drafted again next year.” Let me stop you right there, Rangers executives. What you have said is inherently contradictory. You cannot do what you are attempting to do and at the same time show any respect to this guy or his family. I don’t care if Article 8.3 (b) in the NHL's collective bargaining agreement mandates compensatory selections be provided when teams are unable to sign first-round draft picks. That clause refers to not being able to sign players because they are unwilling to reach an agreement with the team, and should not be applied here. I don’t give a damn what contract or bargaining law says, you need to be respectful and just let this one go. A MAN IS DEAD, IDIOTS. He’s not coming back, nor is he going off to play for another team while you are left in the lurch. Whether it hurts your team or not, the right thing to do is to not try and wrangle a second-round pick out of his death. I mean, are you freaking kidding me?
Cherepanov was the 17th selection in the 2007 draft and he died Oct. 13 after collapsing during a game in Russia while playing in a Continental Hockey League game with the Omsk club Avangard. Yet all you seem to concern yourself with is how it affects your bottom line. Dude was 19 years old and now he is no longer alive, yet there you are, attempting to profit from a tragedy. I wonder what the Rangers would say if faced with that accusation….”We are not attempting to capitalize on a tragedy, but there would be no question regarding the Rangers' right to a compensatory pick if Cherepanov had been revived and survived the incident and were on life support,” Rangers’ general manager Cam Hope said. “If an unsigned player sustained a massive injury on or off the ice, the drafting team would get a compensatory pick.” This isn’t a massive injury, HE IS DEAD, YOU TOOL. You’re not explaining your way out of this one; you are a classless, heartless organization that deserves nothing but a swift blast to the package…..
- What says holy religious ceremony quite like a good pre-ceremony brawl? Nothing says God’s love and mercy quite like the sight of dozens of monks punching and kicking each other in a massive throwdown. That was the image awaiting Jerusalem police Sunday morning as they entered one of Christianity's holiest sites. It all started when monks from the Greek Orthodox and Armenian denominations were preparing for a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City. The two groups had a disagreement, one thing led to another and bam, you’ve got an all-out bar room brawl, minus the bar. Apparently the exact cause of the brawl occurred when the Armenian clergy were holding a procession to commemorate the finding of the cross believed to have been used in the crucifixion of Jesus. Wanting to defend their own traditions, Greek members of the clergy wanted one of their monks present, because they feared that the procession would undermine their claim to an ancient structure built on what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus. When semi-peaceful negotiations couldn’t revolve the dispute, the Greek monks stepped in and the fight was on like Donkey Kong. “We were keeping resistance so that the procession could not pass through ... and establish a right that they don't have,” a young Greek Orthodox monk with a cut next to his left eye declared after the brawl. All told, dozens of monks came away with cuts and bruises, and one monk from each denomination was detained by police. I don’t know, there’s just something about the sight of monks throwing hands, busting each other up and sporting bloody lips, busted up knuckles and black eyes that is pretty funny - ya know, what with these alleged men of God supposed to be examples of His love and kindness, etc. But if there’s going to be an inter-faith showdown, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is a good bet for its site, as the church is thought to be built on the site of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection and rivalries between the different sects that share control of the church often lead to hostility. So thanks for a great visual, brawling monks….and you can check out scenes from the brawl here……
- All right everyone, last year you failed to heed my call and as a result, we were subjected to another year of the abortion that is country music, but life has handed us another chance. The Country Music Awards will be held this Wednesday and it’s our chance to finally get all of the biggest names in the genre together and take them down, take them out. Last year, I advocated some sort of nuclear strike on the venue to really wipe country music out for good, and maybe that harsh strategy scared some of you off. So this year, allow me to suggest something a little kinder, a little gentler, but which will still solve the problem. Instead of detonating a nuclear device to wipe out the arena and country music with it, which would, admittedly, get a little messy with the nuclear fallout and all, let’s try a mass kidnapping. Not the violent, abusive type of kidnapping; just blindfold all of the country music artists, take them to some remote location where they don’t have access to anything they could use to try and make music. Treat them well, feed them, give them all the amenities they are accustomed to, just keep them away from instruments. Then, brainwash them until they forget all about country music and re-program their minds with every genre of music BUT country so they might have a shot at making music that doesn’t totally suck. Okay, so this is a bizarre and twisted plan, perhaps totally infeasible, but it’s better than the alternative of doing nothing and allowing this sore on the skin of the musical world fester for another year……so everyone, let’s rise up this Wednesday and make it happen, because to borrow a phrase from our President-elect, YES WE CAN! Shut down country music!
- Now that’s more like it, Detroit Lions. After nearly giving me a heart attack last Sunday by looking like they would actually win a game and ruin my dream of an 0-16 NFL season in the process, the Lions were back to their normal, inept selves yesterday, losing 38-14 at home to Jacksonville. They trailed 24-7 at halftime and were never legitimately in the game. A big reason for that was the total lack of effort and toughness from their defense, which was shredded like toilet paper by a so-so Jaguars’ offense. Also, big ups to new Lions quarterback Daunte Culpepper, signed this week and rushed into the starting job after only half a week with the team. He was 5 for 10 passing, 104 yards and an interception. He was so bad that in the second half, he was pulled from Drew Stanton - yes, that Drew Stanton. The one negative from this game was that after scoring with 5:54 left in the game to close the gap to 38-14, the Lions attempted an onside kick to keep possession of the ball. That’s not going to work, Lions’ coaches. I don’t need you out there trying, scheming and giving a 110-percent effort. You need to roll over and die; give up on the season so you don’t inadvertently ruin my dream because you just HAVE to try. Your upcoming schedule is favorable, with NFC South leaders Carolina your next opponent and 5-3 Tampa Bay after that. Honestly, there isn’t a team left on your schedule that you should beat, so don’t go getting focused on me now. Keep not doing what it takes to win and close this out. Make history, 0-16 here we come!
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