- Why so sensitive, New York Yankees? Sure, Yuri Sucart is the sleazy, scumbag cousin who allegedly provided A-Fraud with performance-enhancing drugs obtained in the Dominican Republic and helped administer those drugs, but why should that cause you to drop a ban on Sucart preventing him from being around A-Fraud when he’s with the team? You act like your highest-paid star getting into a SUV driven by his drug supplier/cousin when the entire baseball world is watching him because of his recent revelation as a user of performance-enhancing drugs is a bad thing. Team Steinbrenner clearly feels very strong about this, as it took all of a day for them to get to A-Fraud and inform him that he needs to keep his cousin away from ballparks. The message was delivered on Thursday, although the team did not make an announcement. The message applied both to spring training and the regular season, but all Yankees general manager Brian Cashman would say was that the matter of Rodriguez being picked up from his spring training opener Wednesday by his cousin "has been handled." Of course, all of this will go away if A-Fraud posts another MVP-caliber season, but for now it’s just another headache from a guy who is causing no shortage of them. Very big of A-Fraud to admit to the Yankees that having the cousin meet him at the ballpark in Dunedin was a mistake, which he reportedly did. A-Fraud is getting very experienced at this apology thing, even if he’s insincere, disingenuous and dishonest while doing it. I anxiously await his next apology for a transgression TBD, maybe he’ll get the apology right one of these times………
- Traditions are nice. Some towns have parades, festivals and fairs that are annual rites of passage, whereas the town of Brookport, Ill. has a very different tradition to hang its hat on. For the sixth straight year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has declared that the Brookport levee is unacceptable and that this deficiency places the town and those who live there in jeopardy. To underscore just how dire this situation is, consider the comments of the town’s mayor, Ada Copley. "There's nothing that would be left if we have a major flood, nothing would be left here in Brookport,” Copley said. Now that is something for your town to be proud of, that it could be virtually wiped from the map by a big flood. Plus, you can boast that for six straight years, this problem has existed and you haven’t done a damn thing to address it. That, my friends, is consistency. That is an entire town and its government banding together and saying, “We could be destroyed by a flood unless we put time, money and effort into building up our levee, but doing nothing is easier, so screw it.” What unity, resolve and commitment to doing nothing that shows on that part of all citizens of Brookport! I don’t know why the Corps of Engineers even bothers inspecting the levee at this point; just slap an “unacceptable” stamp on that bad boy and keep moving. That levee has been around since 1940, and like many old things that have been around longer than the people tasked with caring for them, it has fallen into disrepair. You can try explaining the two main problems with the structural integrity of the levee - drainage pipes installed during construction rusting out and the numerous trees that have grown up along the levee banks over the years - but why bother? The city has had control over operation and maintenance of the levee in 1949, and clearly they’ve been tired of worrying about it for a while now. "Both of those issues must be corrected before the agency will be able to declare the levee's ability to hold back flood waters to an acceptable level," said Dan Franks with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Louisville District Office. Yeah, whatever you say, Danny boy. The city of Brookport ponying up the more than estimated $1 million needed to fix the problems with the drain pipes in the levee is just not going to happen. Don’t believe me? Just ask Mayor Copley, who sounds verrrrry concerned with the survival and safety of her town and its residents. “They're wanting us to put new pipes in which we don't have the money to do. And with a population of just over 1100 people we don't have the tax base to even consider selling bonds to cover the repair problems with our levee," said Copley. Right now, Mayor Copley’s plan basically sounds like it consists of getting down on her knees and praying that 1) either $1 million falls from the sky soon, or 2) a flood never, ever comes near her town again. Best of success with that plan, Ms. Mayor………
- Shed a tear for the many rich, arrogant, spoiled millionaires of the NBA during these tough economic times. Wipe your teams with the few $1 bills you have handy as you think of the fact that old, rich, (mostly) white dudes who live in mansions, own companies and have more $2,000 suits than you have pair of socks who will now need to take advantage of the NBA’s offer to loan up to $11.66 million to 15 teams that responded to a league survey gauging interest in the money, which will be loaned by JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Oh, and also factor into your grief the fact that these owners are paying players as much as $20 million a year to freaking play basketball, that’s why they’re struggling. Pardon me if I don’t feel bad for these owners, who dug their own graves with their golden shovel of greed. Had they possessed a modicum of self-control and testicular fortitude, they wouldn’t have forked over contracts spanning eight or nine years and guaranteeing nine figures to players who almost certainly wouldn’t live up to said contracts. But now that ship has sailed and the NBA had to wrangle a $175 million loan from two lenders to keep half of its teams financially solvent. If you’re like me, you probably never thought you’d hear the names of professional sports leagues lumped in with the struggling industries receiving a swift ass-kicking from the failing economy, but I guess I was wrong on that one. Many teams around pro sports are laying off staffs and cutting ticket prices in an attempt to lure in fans who just can’t swing the cash for ducats because they too are hit hard by the nation’s economic woes. But hey, at least the Association was smart and secured the loan at a fixed rate. In this case, the interest rate is 8.27 percent for the first $100 million; 7.45 percent for the remaining $75 million. There are no conditions for how teams can use the money, but does it even matter? Experts and observers in the basketball world worry that the league’s financial crisis is only starting and that possible cessation of operations for teams, relocations and other cost-cutting moves are on the way, not to mention an all-but-certain lockout by the owners when the current collective bargaining agreement with the players runs out in 2011. The NBA, where “We’re freaking broke and may need to take out a second mortgage on our multiple homes, yachts and businesses in order to continue operations for another year” happens……
- Setting yourself on fire certainly is one way to kick things up a notch when your group is looking to make its voice heard with a massive protest. Doing so tends to be painful and potentially deadly, but sometimes you simply have to throw caution to the wind, douse yourself in gasoline and light the match. So I salute the unidentified Tibetan monk who set himself ablaze, took up a Tibetan national flag and was heard shouting slogans in south-central China on Friday. In predictable overreactive fashion, police then shot the man three times and it wasn’t immediately known if he survived the attack. This whole mess began when around 1,000 monks trying to observe the Monlam Festival gathered at Kirti Monastery in Aba County about 40 minutes before the shooting. These monks, as so many bold monks before them in this very same area of the world have done, refused to allow The Man to hold them down. So they approached the gates of a prayer hall in defiance of an order by authorities that barred them from observing the Monlam Festival, which is part of the Tibetan new year. When the cops prevented the monks from entering the prayer hall and told them to go back to their rooms, the monks actually took the path of least resistance and did as they were told. However, a lone monk, going by the single name of Tabe, left the monastery a little later and walked the short distance into town, shouting slogans and holding a self-drawn Tibetan national flag above his head. Clearly Tabe wasn’t going to go down without a fight, and so he proudly flew that flag containing a picture of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet. All of that was well and good and it’s not the first time any of us have seen that sort of activity. That all changed when my man Tabe arrived in town, doused himself with fuel and set himself on fire. That quickly drew the attention of armed police, who surrounded him but were not able to get near him because of the flames. What to do with a flaming monk who you have surrounded and who clearly isn’t attempting to harm anyone? Ooh, ooh, I know! I know! Shoot him three times, right? Because I think we all know that the quickest way to extinguish flames is shooting the object that is burning, right? Well done, Chinese police! Eventually, the cops were able to extinguish the flames and the monk was placed in a van and driven away to an undisclosed location, the witnesses said. How shooting my man Tabe was even an option, I don’t know. Kinda screams abuse of power and textbook example of unnecessary use of force, no? But don’t let this discourage you, Tibetan monks. Keep up your battle to force China to recognize Tibetan claims of independence and demands for greater autonomy and claims sovereignty over the area in which you live……..
- Boy, here’s when you know the economy is really bottoming out. Porn companies are offering brain-dead octuplet moms $1 million to act in adult films and dudes in Vassalboro, Maine are opening topless coffee shops to make ends meet. Donald Crabtree opened his new business venture, Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, on Monday. At the shop, waiters and waitresses serve their customers topless. Not exactly the type of business you’d expect to thrive in a small town setting, but the owner's brother, Paul Crabtree, describes business so far as "fantastic.” He adds that, "It's just been crowds mobbing in." I’ll hold off on calling this a rousing success, given the fact that this coffee shop is counting on a town with fewer than 4,500 residents to sustain it. Predictably, Donald Crabtree faced initial opposition to his plan, but he won the right to go ahead in a planning board hearing last week. While many locals were angry over the idea of combining coffee and nudity. Crabtree saw the chance to combine two passions in his life. "I know what people want," he said. "People like nudity, and coffee is profitable. Sure, I'd start a coffee shop, but I'd be out of work in a week." Here’s where the tough economy really factors in; the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop received more than 150 job applications. Of those 150, about 10 percent landed a gig - 10 women and five men. If you believe Crabtree, he actually had strict standards for who he hired and they weren’t what you’d expect at a nude coffee shop (if anyone has a freaking clue what to expect at a nude coffee shop). He judged the applicants on friendliness and also on their ability to "treat everyone equally." Furthermore, Crabtree claims he didn’t simply hire the best-looking applicants. “We didn't hire '10s,' " he said. "We hired everyone from skinny to big-boned women.” Wow, nice way of saying you hired some FAT chicks, bro. But I guess if you can help people who have been laid off from other jobs in the past few months by allowing them to serve coffee sans clothing on the upper half of their body, it’s something……maybe. Then again, maybe the economy’s not so bad in Maine, not if waitresses are making about $30 a table at the shop and one waitress received a $100 tip for a cup of coffee. I guess is true what they say, perverts make great tippers. So if you’re road tripping through Vassalboro, Maine (and God only knows why you would be) and have a hankering for a cup of probably mediocre coffee served by a topless server, now you know where to go………
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