- Ryan Leaf’s life has careened back and forth between great success and utter disaster over and over, but he may have hit a new low this time. Leaf failed to turn himself in on drug and burglary charges in Randall County, Texas on May 20. A warrant was issued for Leaf’s arrest at that point and it wasn’t until late this week that he finally agreed to turn himself in. Admittedly, none of us would want to face up to nine drug charges, but that doesn’t mean that going on the lam is a good idea. The indictment handed down by a county grand jury charged Leaf with one count of burglary to a habitation, seven counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and one count of delivery of a simulated controlled substance. Basically, he’s alleged to have presented an incomplete medical history to several physicians between January 2008 and September 2008 to get or try to get hydrocodone and when that didn’t work, Leaf allegedly broke into an apartment in Canyon on Oct. 30 and stealing hydrocodone, which had been prescribed to an injured football player. In the meantime, he has supposedly been undergoing drug treatment in British Columbia, Canada. This is merely the latest incident in a career filled with them for Leaf, a former No. 2 pick in the NFL Draft who washed out with the San Diego Chargers after playing for the team from 1998 to 2000 and then spending one underwhelming season with the Dallas Cowboys in 2001. He threw for 3,666 yards and 14 touchdowns in his career, not exactly hall-of-fame numbers. He’s actually better remembered for violent outbursts toward the media, including one tantrum in which he screamed, “Quit talking to me, all right! Knock it off!” at a media member in the locker room trying to interview him. His lack of self-control and proficiency on the field ushered him out of the NFL after four season and he somehow managed to latch on as the quarterbacks coach at West Texas A&M. There, he temporarily seemed to have landed on his feet and gotten his life together, even moonlighting as the school’s men’s golf coach at one point. Yet disaster was never far away, surfacing when Leaf was suspended for allegedly asking a student-athlete for pain medication when he couldn’t get any of his own. His act eventually put him on the wrong side of the West Texas A&M administration and Leaf was canned. That was followed by this new legal saga, another low point for a once-highly-esteemed Washington State quarterback with a promising NFL career ahead of him who has turned into the poster child for great college athletes who never lived up to their potential. I’d love to point out something positive at this point about Leaf’s life trajectory, but the fact is that at this point, there really isn’t anything………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! With a huge presidential election looming in Iran and record turnouts expected in today’s election, it was awesome to see hundreds of thousands of people show up for a demonstration and rally in support of pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. On Wednesday, a sea of Mousavi supporters showed up and marched to the "Azadi" (Freedom) monument, which has been a symbol of Tehran for a long time (one of the very few symbols of freedom in the city, some would argue). It was the largest protest/riot in Iran since the Islamic revolution 30 years ago, always great to see. The crowd was a giant green mass - literally. Most participants donned green clothing, which represents the "green movement" of reform - a symbolic gesture of Mousavi's supporters. Yes, there were some supporters of current dictator/fascist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in attendance, the crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Mousavi. To be fair, I don’t know that electing a new leader will drastically change the way Iran interacts with the rest of the world and take the country off the fast track as a leading contender to ignite World War III, but it can’t hurt. Either way, my interest in who wins this election is secondary to my interest in seeing massive numbers of people gather together to riot or protest, which is a fantastic sight no matter where in the world it takes place……..
- Not enough. Scratch that, not nearly enough. President Barack Obama and Congress might be pretty happy with themselves for passing and signing into law a bill that would give the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco, but it’s not enough. In short, the legislation empower the FDA power to ban candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes, which tend to be attractive to kids, prohibit tobacco companies from using terms such as "low tar," "light" or "mild," require larger warning labels on packages, and restrict advertising of tobacco products. All of these are good steps, but the only real step to take in regards to tobacco is banning it - all of it. Obama and Congress should feel free to drop a total ban on cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, snuff, dip and any other tobacco product on the market. If the Senate can pass this new bill by a 79-17 margin and the House can pass it a day later by a 307-97 vote, I feel like a total tobacco ban could also pass. As you might expect, the bill faced its stiffest opposition from tobacco-producing states, including Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. However, both senators from Virginia, the heart of tobacco country, supported the bill. Assuming the president signs it into law, which he has promised to do, tobacco companies would also be required to reduce levels of nicotine in cigarettes. Again, I like the concept - just not as much as I like a total elimination of tobacco products from this country. Seriously, whose life wouldn’t be better without them? Anyone who doesn’t use these products would be happier. Who wouldn’t be pumped about never having to inhale the secondhand smoke wafting over from the smoking section of the restaurant or having to hold their breath and run through the gaggle of loser smokers choking down their cancer sticks outside of a building because smoking isn’t permitted inside? Or what person’s life wouldn’t be infinitely better if they never had to be around to revolting, fat-cheeked loser shoving chew into their mouth and looking for an empty water bottle to spit the juice into? Obama might be right in saying that this new piece of legislation was a "long time coming,” but so is an all-out ban on tobacco products. Even smokers’ lives would be better without them, because once they got over their nicotine addiction, they would be healthier, they would have more money to spend on products that don’t drastically up their chances for lung cancer and emphysema and possibly kill them. They would no longer be the scourge of society and have to walk around with their green-ish, leathery faces that more closely resemble catcher’s mitts than a human face. Even Altria Group, which owns Philip Morris USA, the nation's biggest cigarette company, called the passage of the bill "an important step forward on this legislation.” I say if there’s this much agreement and support for tightening up rules on tobacco in the U.S., we ought to be able to must enough momentum to get rid of these products altogether…….
- Not a great few days for birds in America. First, a flock of seagulls that has been residing in and around Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio and disrupting the proceedings at Indians games landed on the field and played a key role in the Kansas City Royals losing an extra-inning heartbreaker to the Tribe. When Indians outfielder Shin Soo Choo singled to center field in the bottom of the 10th inning, the ball bounced on the outfield grass and right into the seagulls, who had taken up residence in shallow center field. The ball appeared to bounce off one of the scattering gulls, altering its course and sending it rolling past discombobulated centerfielder Coco Crisp. Had the ball not struck the seagull, it’s possible that Crisp would have fielded the ball cleanly and kept Mark DeRosa from scoring the winning run. However, the seagull that took a hit from that baseball had a freaking great day compared to a robin on the course at the LPGA Championship in Havre De Grace, Maryland on Friday. The bird was minding its business on the ninth hole, kicking it and doing typically bird things. Life was good….right up to the point that golfer Ahn Shi-hyun teed off drive on the ninth hole and drilled the robin with her tee shot. The bird exploded in a puff of feathers, a la the seagull that exploded after being hit by a Randy Johnson pitch in a spring training game a few years ago. "It's a shame," marshal Nina Dawson. "The bird was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was instantaneous.” Well at least the bird went quickly and didn’t have to suffer, but that is just an all-around bad sight, period. Ahn managed to shake off exploding a bird with her tee shot to shoot two under par for the second round and was 1 under for the tournament after the round. Let this be a warning for all other bird out there around sporting venues: you might want to find a new place to live if you want to see another day………
- I almost skipped this next story, but if nothing else it’s a good chance to punctuate the inevitable, unavoidable end of a story that we all wish would just go away. Ever since stumbling and staggering onto television screens across America because she happened to be a friend of a rich, privileged chick that MTV handed her own reality show, Heidi Montag has been heading this direction. Whether it was dating and marrying this single biggest ass clown in the Western Hemisphere or her oh, so regrettable attempts to become the next Britney Spears (with even less talent than Spears, which is saying a lot), this chick was going off the tracks at some point. Maybe that implosion was expedited by her appearance on NBC’s low-budget, thrift-store-quality rip-off of Survivor, the still-running I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, I don’t know. What I do know is that Montag, who has been busy professing her spirituality and religiousness alongside her imbecilic husband, is apparently not all that tied to Christianity. I realize that everyone has a slightly different slant on their faith and doesn’t believe or practice the same way, but I don’t know a variation of the Christian faith that says it’s cool to take your clothes off and lay down for a skin rag. To that end, Montag has posed for a "tasteful" spread in Playboy, “There is nudity. It's tasteful -- she had a lot of fun with it," a source confirms. You'll get to see a whole lot more of Heidi in the September issue of the magazine. Seriously….you’re going with the “it’s tasteful” routine? Every skank, er, chick who has ever posed for a skin mag has used that excuse, right along with claiming that they had total control over the pics and that it’s always been a dream of theirs. Uh-huh, sure. Let me spell this out, just in case you’re new to this discussion. There is nothing classy, dignified or tasteful about taking your clothes off for money and for pictures that scores of pathetic, no-girlfriend-having losers will then use to….umm…well, you know. Repeatedly bailing on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! looks dignified and upstanding by comparison. But as I said before, this girl was headed in this direction from the instant she first popped up on MTV and began thinking that she was actually a famous celebrity who actually mattered…….
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