- Finally, we can all stop pretending to care about Alex Rodriguez hitting hit his 600th career home run. For more than a week, the sports media has been cramming this story down our throats (I’m look at you, ESPN) and insisting that we should care about an admitted cheater and ‘roider reaching a milestone that used to mean something but has now become hollow and empty because of the very steroids era that A-Rod helped to perpetuate. Rodriguez sent his milestone homer sailing into Monument Park in straightaway center field, landing it amongst the plaques recognizing past Yankee greats. His home run came off of Toronto pitcher Shawn Marcum and occurred exactly three years to the day after day after his 500th homer. "That's amazing," Rodriguez said. "To the day." What’s odd is that unlike so many of A-Rod’s home runs, this one didn’t come with his team either ahead or behind by a half-dozen runs and the game’s outcome already decided. This one came in the first inning, staking the Yankees to a 2-0 lead on the way to a 5-1 victory over the Blue Jays on a sweltering Wednesday afternoon. After going 9 for 46 after homering on July 22, the search for No. 600 seemed to be choking the life out of Rodriguez and his team, which had blown a four-game lead over Tampa Bay over the past 10 days as one of its top sluggers struggled. In becoming the seventh player to hit 600 home runs, A-Rod also achieved two milestones to go along with the occasion: being the youngest player ever to reach the mark and having the longest stretch between Nos. 599 and 600 for any of the seven to reach the mark, including going hitless in his last 17 at-bats. "It was a relief just to put it past me," he said. "There's no question I was pressing 'cause I wanted to get it out of the way." The home run landed in the hands of Frankie Babilonia, in his second-year as a Yankee Stadium security guard. Babilonia dutifully retrieved the ball and gave it to his supervisor, who had it passed on to Rodriguez. He got the ball because another security guard in the area was on break, and he was rewarded with an autographed A-Rod bat. I’m actually disappointed that a stadium employee caught the ball because Babilonia said it was his job to turn in the ball and he never thought about trying to keep it, meaning we have bee deprived of a bitter battle over the ball that culminates with the fan catching it selling the ball at auction for a huge wad of cash. The fan who caught the ball for A-Rod's 500th homer sold it at auction for $103,579. Nothing pumps me up more than a fan looking to cash in on being in the right place at the right time and you, Frankie Babilonia, are a huge disappointment……….
- How angry are you at British Petroleum? They did, after all, dump millions and millions of gallons (and counting) into the Gulf of Mexico with the debacle of its Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, so a lot of consumers are pissed at BP and have made a lot of noise about boycotting BP stations. So how will that anger hold up now that BP will attempt to appease them by lowering its gas prices through a series of incentives to its distributors that could take two cents off the price of gasoline at the pump? Although the company doesn’t actually set prices at the gas station because most BP stations are independent businesses that buy their gas from distributors, which are also independent businesses, those distributors actually buy the gas from BP and theoretically, discounts to those distributors could trickle down to consumers. It’s the old Republican economic model of trickle down economics, except this would actually benefit everyone and not just the filthy rich. Still, the extent to which the discounts help the average driver is in the hands of individual station owners. Here's what BP is offering: up to a penny off of the wholesale price of a gallon of gas, a rebate if distributors keep their gasoline sales up, a discount in the rate it charges service stations for motorists that use credit cards and another "temporary voluntary allowance" worth a penny a gallon. Put all of those together and the discounts add up to between three and four cents a gallon. "Basically, what we've done is put together a package of assistance for the independent owners and operators of BP stations," said BP spokesman Scott Dean. "Unfortunately, customers have taken out their frustrations on service station owners, who have nothing to do with the events in the Gulf." Yes, but people strike back where they can and since they can't lob Molotov cocktails through the front window of BP’s corporate offices, this is their next-best option. Some BP stations have seen profits drop by as much as 25 percent as consumers strike back at their parent company and these cuts appear to be a last-ditch effort to win the average person over with cheap gas. Knowing America the way I do, I’d say that there will be a nice, long line at the pump for any BP station whose gas prices are markedly lower than those of its competitors………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Another day, another outbreak of dissident-led violence in Indian-administered Kashmir, where anti-India mobs continued to defy the curfew restrictions in the capital of Srinagar and other towns. Today’s violence led to five deaths, but unfortunately authorities were able to clear the chaos and restore traffic on the strategic Srinagar Jammu national highway. The highway is important because it connects the landlocked Kashmir Valley with rest of the country. However, temporarily quashing the uprising took the deployment of Indian army troops and paramilitary forces, so the rebels in this case need not be ashamed. This is a temporary setback and I prefer to focus on the fact that the protestors were able to keep the highway blocked for four days as by squatting on it, disrupting traffic. They did so in opposition to Indian rule and to show their anger over recent alleged human rights violations in Muslim-majority Kashmir. Even the police are admitting to the impressive actions of this angry mob, with a police spokesman in Srinagar saying mobs defied curfew restrictions and threw rocks in Srinagar and other major towns. This led to the typical overreaction of The Man in the form of Indian police opening fire, wounding four people, three of whom later died. And no, I don’t buy the lies from that police spokesman, who claimed security forces were forced to fire as a last resort to control the protesters. Ironically, those deaths of protestors triggered a new wave of protests and violence with more people defying curfew restrictions in other areas of the capital. Even the funeral of 18-year old Anis Manzoor, one of those killed in the shooting, turned into a protest with demonstrators carrying his body through the narrow streets of the old city, chanting anti-India and pro-freedom slogans. The instant he was lowered into the ground, groups then broke into small, angry mobs and they then attacked and torched a police post and the homes of two police officers in south Kashmir's Frisal. All told, an amazing an inspiring day of riots, social dissidence and impressive feats of rebellion, one that has me fired up and anxious to see what comes next…………
- Shocker of all shockers, Justin Bieber’s concert movie/biography film is still without a director. Apparently, Paramount Pictures was attempting to swindle Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim into directing this surefire train wreck, but he wisely passed on it in favor of his promotional duties surrounding his film on our nation’s troubled public education system. Whatever story you need to sell, D. No one wants their cinematic legacy tied to some weasel-voiced, bob-cut-sporting Canadian 10-year-old who sings crappy, garbage pop music. So go ahead and promote your Waiting for Superman documentary and work on other projects, then claim that those efforts prevent you from focusing on another movie at this time. Oh, but props on taking a few days to pretend that you were actually considering the Bieber project, which will apparently add to its horror value by being filmed in 3-D. If you recognized Guggenheim’s name, it could be because of his previous credits, which include Al Gore’s heralded enviro-documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Now, Paramount and its MTV Films division must find a schmuck willing to sell out and take their ginormous wad of cash so they can foist this 3-D debacle and cash in on Bieber Fever with a Valentine’s Day weekend release next year. There are no other names currently rumored to be in the running, but the studio is looking at a few different options to lead the project, either two co-directors or one director and a strong producing team. Right, because who wouldn’t want to work with executive producer Justin Bieber? Don’t bother calling me, Paramount, because I too have better things to do………
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