- Not wanting to pay child support for your 2-year-old son is an acceptable reason to kidnap and kill the child, right? Wait, you’re saying that’s not a good reason. Seriously? So I’m guessing you’re not down with the actions of Danny Platt, a New Orleans man who initially told police gunmen kidnapped his was arrested Saturday before finally caving and admitting that he was the one who committed the grisly crime. Platt made a full confession and told police where to find the child's body, leading them to charge him with first-degree murder in the death of Ja' Shawn Powell. It’s a crime police have labeled as an "extremely hideous" murder, a characterization I’d have to agree with. All of this because dude was ordered to pay child support? "He had said he would kill either his wife or his child before he paid child support," Police Superintendent Warren Riley said. I think I’ve covered this before, but clearly I need to say it again: if you don’t want to pay for kids, don’t have kids. If you don’t want to have kids, there are several ways to go about it. You can not have sex, you can use a condom or you can have your woman be on any one of the many forms of birth control now available. But if you eschew those methods and end up as a parent, you need to own it and pay for the kid you helped to create. Find a legal means of supporting that child and pay up, plain and simple. Don’t duck the payments and go deadbeat, but more importantly, don’t kidnap and murder your kid so you don’t have to pay child support. Heck, being a deadbeat dad is almost admirable by comparison. At least then your kid is safe, healthy and of course, alive. Thankfully, the child’s mother is in what Riley calls “a safe place,” so Platt can’t go for a two-for-one. But maybe, just maybe, this woman should have been a little more suspicious when Platt called and asked to see his son, given the fact that despite having visiting rights, Platt, had never visited the boy until he picked him up Friday. In the aftermath of the abduction, as police began snooping around, Platt told them three men with dreadlocks and AK-47 rifles had piled out of an SUV and kidnapped Ja' Shawn shortly before midnight Friday. Right, a commando-style kidnapping of a 2-year-old, happens every day. Oddly enough, police weren’t buying what Platt was selling. "His story never really added up," Riley said. "He was a suspect from the very beginning." He went on to muse about what kind of person would murder a child to avoid paying child support. "How does an individual — because he's ordered to pay child support to take care of a kid ... believe that this is so much pressure that he would face — he would do this hideous act to his own child, or to any child, and think that is a remedy to paying child support?" Riley said. "I mean there are some sick individuals in this society, and this gentleman is clearly one." Well said, but I could have summed it up in four words for you: He’s a douche bag. Just a sad story all around……
- Whether or not 2009 turns out to be a big year for you, just know that it’s going to be a great year for the English language. Some time around the end of April, the Global Language Monitor is projecting that the English language will be adding its millionth word. The GLM is an organization in Austin, Texas, which uses proprietary software to track and analyze trends in language, whatever the hell that entails. The exact date that the millionth word is projected to make its way into the lexicon is April 29, 2009, so go ahead and plan accordingly - parties, celebratory spelling bees, etc. If you’ve ever looked at a comprehensive dictionary, that may not seem surprising. What is amazing is that of the one million words in the English language, our outgoing president is capable of mangling them all. Yes, I firmly believe that W. could verbally murder every single one of those million words, A to Z. Overall, there are an estimated 1.35 billion English speakers on the planet. Do the math, Americans, and you’ll realize that with just over 260 million of you kicking it in the United States, you represent about one-fifth of the English speaking populace in the world. In other words, it’s not just you shaping the behemoth that is the English language and determining how it evolves and what words are added to its number……
- Did someone empty out the late Imelda Marcos’ closet and decide to dump its entire contents on the Palmetto Expressway in Miami on Friday? Police in Miami are looking to answer that question - okay, so not that exact question - after literally thousands of shoes were dumped on the Miami expressway, causing significant traffic delays and creating some very unique photographic moments. According to Lt. Pat Santangelo of the Florida Highway Patrol, police aren’t sure where the shoes came from, nor do they know at this point where the shoes are headed. All they know is that early Friday morning, they received a call about the shoes and arrived on the scene to find kicks of all shapes, colors and styles just sitting there on the asphalt. Workers used a front-end loader and a dump truck (and plenteous coffee breaks if they were city workers) to quickly clear at least one lane by sweeping all the shoes to shoulder, but that wasn’t enough to prevent severe traffic backups. Just wondering, but how pissed do you think people were when they sat in traffic for 10-15 minutes or more and then found out that some ass clown dumping thousands of shoes in the road was the cause? It’s a wonder that a minor riot didn’t break out because of this mess, given the abundance of guns and quick tempers in a city like Miami. No one has stepped up (pun intended) to claim the shoes, so state troopers are seeking a charity to take the shoes rather then sending them to the dump. For future reference, residents of Miami: the expressway is not your closet or garage, nor is it your trash can. Take care of your shoes and other unwanted belongings the accepted way: by finding an open, unlocked dumpster behind a business and tossing them in when no one is looking……
- Why is it that the one artist willing to put out three freaking albums in a single calendar year also happens to be one of the worst, most overrated artists of all-time in the world of music? It couldn’t be a good band like Snow Patrol, Pearl Jam, the Black Keys, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Death Cab for Cutie, etc. - no, it has to be freaking Prince. Dude is a semi-androgynous freak show with a girlish voice who has a bizarre obsession with the color purple and just might be the most overrated musical artist ever, so of course he’s the one planning to release three new albums in 2009 and all without the assistance of a record label. Digital copies of all three train wrecks, er, albums will be sold through a new Prince Web site while a "major retailer" is in talks with the artist to release the albums in disc form. The two new Prince albums are the tentatively titled "MPLSOUND" and "Lotus Flower," while the third project will actually be under the name of Prince’s “protégé” Bria Valente, but will feature heavy input from the Freakish One. The first of the two Prince albums, "MPLSOUND," was recorded at Prince's Paisley Park compound in Minneapolis, and it is being labeled as "electro-flavored" and full of "trippy, experimental pop songs." "Lotus Flower" is supposedly less poppy and much more guitar-driven, a sound Prince credits to his time touring as the guitarist in singer Tamar Davis' band in 2006. One track will be Prince doing covers of Tommy James and the Shondells' "Crimson & Clover," "Colonized Mind" and "Wall of Berlin." These will be the Freakish One’s first albums since "Planet Earth," which was first released as a free covermount with the U.K. newspaper the Mail on Sunday in July 2007 and later released worldwide by Columbia Records. Like I said, not one, not two, but three albums featuring a wildly overrated, consistently awful artist in a single year, woo hoo!
- Guess the Chicago Cubs have figured out what was missing from their team last year, what caused a squad that had the best record in the National League to blatantly and unforgivably choke and get swept out of the playoffs in the first round by the L.A. Dodgers: a healthy dose of crazy. Why do I say that? Well, the team had made no major personnel moves in the offseason, unloading solid and versatile infielder Mark DeRosa in a trade to Cleveland for some prospects and allowing closer Kerry Wood to leave via free agency, but nothing else - until now. The team has signed volatile, insane and oft-exploding outfielder Milton Bradley to a three-year contract. Bradley has immense talent on the field that is surpassed only by his capacity to go nuclear and lose his head at any time. He has worn out his welcome in Montreal, Cleveland, Oakland, Los Angeles (Dodgers), San Diego and Texas because of his antics, which include charging the stands to throw a bottle down at the feet of a fan he believed was harassing him, attempting to storm the press box during a game to confront announcers who were being critical of him on a telecast, a traffic stop wherein he attempted to flee the cops, throwing a bag of baseballs onto the field during a game and many more. To be a career .280 hitter with six double-digit home run years, a switch hitter and capable of playing all three outfield positions well and have been on six different teams in nine years, you have to be a serious head case. The dilemma with Bradley is always wondering how long he can keep it together. In other words, what’s the maximum amount of production you can get from him before he implodes and takes your clubhouse down with him. As a lifelong Cubs fan, I’m honestly pissed that this is the best the team can do after such a colossal choke job. They failed to come through with a trade for San Diego ace Jake Peavy, who was on the trade market early in the offseason and listed the Cubs as one of the only teams he would accept a trade to. No, the Cubs trade their most versatile player away, allow their All-Star closer to walk and bring in a nut job outfielder who doesn’t make them any better than they were last season. As a Cubs fan, I like to wait for the season to begin before the massive disappointment and heartbreak set in, not before spring training even begins. New year, same old Cubs…..
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