- I take it all back, WNBA honks….actually, no I don’t. Your league is every bit as irrelevant and unimportant now as it was before confirmed steroid user and disgraced track star Marion Jones announced that she is training for a comeback in the WNBA. Jones has been training with members of the San Antonio Silver Stars (yes San Antonio, you have a WNBA franchise), a fact confirmed by coach Dan Hughes. It’s been more than a year since Jones was released from federal prison for lying about ‘roiding up, which is apparently enough time for the all-mighty WNBA to forget about her convicted-felon status and offer her an opprotunity. Jones has been in San Antonio working on her skills and conditioning in San Antonio since October, which seems like a good idea because what the hell else is she going to do? "I thought it would be an interesting journey if I decided to do this," Jones said. "It would give me an opportunity to share my message to young people on a bigger platform; it would give me an opportunity to get a second chance." Her background in basketball includes a stint as the starting point guard at North Carolina, where she was a member of the Tar Heels' national championship team in 1994. No word on how she fared in prison pickup games at a Texas federal prison during her six-month stint for lying about doping and her role in a check-fraud scam, but the experience clearly left her with a hankering to play subpar basketball that no one cares to watch. But hey, I’m sure that a WNBA championship trophy (I assume they have one, or maybe like all other amateur sports out there, the coaches just take the players out for ice cream to celebrate) would definitely fill the void left for Jones when she was stripped of three gold medals and two bronzes she won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Even though it has been nearly a decade and a half since she last played basketball competitively, Jones believes she can be an asset to a WNBA team. "It's important for people to know that it's possible to make a mistake in your life, but it's what you do after the mistake that people are going to remember you by," she said. "Are you going to make whatever negatives that happened in your life a positive? Are you going to disappear? That has certainly never been in my horizon. How can I use my experience, my story, to help people and in the process hop on this journey of trying to make a team?" Well said, M. If nothing else, big ups to you for actually managing to find a new sport that the sporting public cares even less about than your former sport of choice………
- Honduras has heard your threats, demands and pleas, rest of the world, and they could not care less. Nearly everyone outside the country may want deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya to be reinstated as head of state, but the country’s congress disagrees and their votes are the only ones that matter. A vote was held Wednesday and of the 128 lawmakers, more than half voted in favor of a motion against the reinstatement of Zelaya. In the Honduran chamber, each lawmaker addressed the rest of the legislature and then recorded his or her vote. It was a painstakingly slow process and although voting was not complete by the end of the day, Zelaya's opponents tallied the simple majority, or 65 votes, needed to keep Zelaya a political pariah. Only eight lawmakers had voted to reinstate Zelaya by the tie his opponents achieved a majority. The vote came after a U.S.-brokered pact that representatives for Zelaya and de facto President Roberto Micheletti signed October 29 which allowed the Honduran congress to decide Zelaya's fate. In some sense, the vote was a moot point, as Hondurans elected a new president, opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo Sosa, on Sunday. The best Zelaya could have hoped for was to win the right to serve out the remainder of his term as a lame-duck president, but even that faint hope is now gone. Perhaps sensing how the vote would go, Zelaya said prior to it he would not accept the post even if Congress voted him back in. His theory was that accepting the job would legitimize the June 28 military-backed coup that ousted him and made Micheletti the country's de facto president. Now that he has been officially denied a return to power, Zelaya’s status makes for a sticky situation for the international community. Many nations said before Sunday's election they would withhold recognition if Zelaya were not returned to power. The United States, Colombia and Costa Rica have said they will recognize Lobo, but Argentina and Brazil have said they will not. Members of congress would reply that they were merely voting the will of the people, as elected representatives are supposed to do. "History will judge us, and I'm certain it will judge us positively," congressman Juan Angel Rivera Tabora said. "Congress didn't make this problem. The problem came to us." In making their decision, the congress sought opinions from the nation's Supreme Court and other bodies before holding the vote. Of course the court was going to advise the congress not to vote Zelaya back in because just last week, the court ruled that Zelaya cannot return to office without first facing trial on charges that he acted unconstitutionally when he tried to hold a vote that could have led to the removal of presidential term limits. Now, Zelaya must decide his next move. He can’t exactly continue to be an indefinite houseguest at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he’s been staying since Sept. 21. Time to figure out your next stop, Joe………
- Different teams gear up for college football bowl season in different ways. Allow me to illustrate exactly what I mean by that statement. For example, the Michigan State Spartans are a so-so Big Ten team headed for a mid-level bowl game and to get ready for the Insight or Alamo bowls, some of their players are honing their fighting skills by taking part in campus residence hall brawls. The fight took place during a potluck function sponsored by the Iota Phi Theta fraternity on Nov. 22 at a residence hall. University police, clearly with some free time from their specialty, citations for underage drinking, have identified 10 suspects and hope to identify five more. Michigan State confirmed Tuesday that sophomore running back Glenn Winston and junior safety Roderick Jenrette were present during the incident and those two geniuses have already been dismissed from team due to the infamous “unspecified violation of team rules.” The university has also suspended eight additional players who were present at the brawl: wide receiver Mark Dell, wide receiver B.J. Cunningham, wide receiver Fred Smith, running back Ashton Leggett, cornerback Chris L. Rucker, linebacker Brynden Trawick, nose tackle Ishmyl Johnson and defensive end Jamiihr Williams. All eight players have been suspended from all team-related activities, with the suspensions of Dell, Cunningham, Leggett and Rucker noteworthy because all four have started games for Michigan State this fall. Police were able to identify all suspects from the fight through interviews with victims and witnesses and following a review of on-site video. Once the investigation is complete, Michigan State police expect to forward their findings to Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. Dunnings will determine whether any warrants will be issued and what charges will be filed, if any. It was quite a weekend for the Michigan State football program, it turns out, as there was a massive rumble during a party sponsored by the same fraternity at The Small Planet, a nightclub near campus, the previous night. A manager at the club stated that football players were involved in the fight. Quite a team you have there, coach Mark Dantonio and athletic director Mark Hollis. Perhaps you suscribe to the theory that the team that throws down together wins together, but you should really try to class things up. Now, for a different approach to postseason preparation. Let’s look at the curious case of Florida Gators defensive end Carlos Dunlap, who was arrested and charged with driving under the influence early Tuesday morning in Gainesville. Dunlap, a junior from North Charleston, S.C., was arrested at 3:25 a.m. near campus after officers responded to a reckless driving complaint and found Dunlap's 2000 Chrysler stopped at a traffic light near the 200 block of W. 34th Street. And when I say stopped at a traffic light, I mean stopped at a traffic light, as in Dunlap slumped over in the driver’s seat while not one, not two, but seven green lights came and went. Officers reportedly approached the car, found Dunlap passed out and attempted to wake him. Gainesville Police Department spokesman Lt. Keith Kameg said officers “talked to him and he would only open his eyes for a few seconds and then fall back asleep." Eventually, officers were able to unlock the car and turn off the ignition, then administer a field sobriety test that Dunlap failed badly. Nothing like seeing a 6-foot-6, 290-pound defensive end who is considered a potential first-round draft choice stumble his way through a simple field sobriety test, I have to admit. Dunlap was booked into the jail at 5:52 a.m., then released on his own recognizance about six hours later during his initial appearance at the Alachua County Jail. Before he was set free, Judge Mary Day Coker admonished Dunlap for underage drinking, and said he cannot possess alcohol, illegal drugs or prescription drugs that are not prescribed for him. In the wake of Dunlap’s arrest, Florida coach Urban Meyer announced after practice Tuesday evening that Dunlap has been suspended indefinitely from the team and will not play for the No. 1 Gators against No. 2 Alabama for the SEC Championship on Saturday in Atlanta's Georgia Dome. How very responsible of you, Urb. Actually, I’m stunned to see the coach of an elite Div. I team have the stones to suspend one of his top players before the biggest game of the season. Don’t expect that suspension to last beyond this game, especially if UF wins and makes it to next month’s national championship game. So there you have it, two different methods to preparing for the college football postseason. We just have to wait and see whose approach is more successful in the end………
- Phony invalid prisoner 1, state of Texas criminal justice system 0. That’s the scoreboard after a prisoner in a wheelchair escaped on foot Monday from two armed guards as he was being transferred between prisons. Arcade Comeaux Jr. is the prisoner who faked an inability to walk, scored a wheelchair and then managed to overpower two guards on his way to a new prison. The man who oversees Texas' criminal justice system, state Sen. John Whitmire, is oddly upset by this development and seems to view it as some sort of indictment of the system itself. Whitmire, a Democrat from Houston who is chairman of the state Senate's Criminal Justice Committee, called Wednesday for a shake-up in the system as authorities searched for Comeaux and tried to figure out just what the f*ck happened. "I just think enough's enough," Whitmire said. "We need a complete shake-up of the leadership of our prison system and/or an outside review by third parties. We just can't have security breaches of this nature." Probably not, especially when the escapee in question was serving a life sentence for aggravated sexual assault and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The scene sets up thusly: a van containing Comeaux and two correctional officers left the Estelle prison in Huntsville about 5:45 a.m. Monday, bound for the Stiles prison in Beaumont, where Comeaux was being reassigned. Comeaux was shackled and in a wheelchair, "which he had claimed was needed for mobility,” according to a police statement. About 45 minutes into the trip, as they were driving through Conroe, 40 minutes north of Houston, Comeaux pulled out a pistol and ordered the guards to drive south to Baytown, east of Houston. The obvious question would be how a prisoner got his hands on a gun, but somehow he did. Clearly this is a guy who saw his best chance to escape, knew there was nothing more that could be added to his punishment because he was already serving a life sentence and decided to carpe the diem in a big way. Once the van reached Baytown, Comeaux took one of the guards' gray uniforms, handcuffed the officers together and left them in the rear of the van unharmed and sans dignity. He fled the scene after taking the officers' two semiautomatic pistols and a 12-gauge shotgun and leaving his own weapon behind. That was at approximately 9 a.m., an hour before law enforcement officers arrived and found the unharmed officers in the back of the van. Ironically, Comeaux was being transferred to Beaumont so he would be near John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, for treatment of the supposed paralysis he had suffered during a reported stroke. That claim would appear to be a complete fabrication and adds even more egg to the face of the criminal justice system. In an attempt to rectify their mistake, police are offering $16,000 in reward money for information leading to Comeaux's rearrest. More than 100 investigators are searching for the escapee and hopefully they are smarter than those charged with guarding and overseeing Comeaux up to this point. The critical mistake in this incident appears to be the failure of the two guards to pat down Comeaux while he was in his wheelchair and before they began the trip. Insufficient searches appear to be a substantial issue throughout the Texas prison system of late, as more than 900 cell phones have been confiscated this year alone from the 112 locations that house the state's 158,000 prisoners. You’re not exactly inspiring confidence in your prison system, Texas officials. Step your game up, keep a closer eye on prisoners and try not to allow them to Jedi mind-trick you with incredibly simply escape plans……..
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