- What is in the water in the Miami Heat locker room? The rest of the NBA seems to realize that the upcoming season is a lost cause destined to be wiped out by the league’s ongoing lockout. Yet the Heat - at least two of the team’s most prominent members - are espousing delusional views on the year and talking as if the lockout is merely a formality to be resolved in the snap of David Stern’s fingers. First, Heat forward LeBron James stopped stroking his own ego long enough to say he was optimistic about the season and believed training camps would open on time in a few weeks. Now, fellow Heatles (the self-gloss James bestowed upon the team last season) forward Chris Bosh is taking a window seat right beside James on the crazy train and talking nonsense about the immediate future for the NBA. Appearing at a promotional event for the popular “Call of Duty” video game on Saturday, Bush said he expects the Miami Heat to reconvene sometime soon in spite of the lockout and that he will be ready whether training camps begin on time or not. "We're going to make some plans. We're going to plan to do something," Bosh said. "I think just getting around each other, I think it's important as far as team-building is concerned and just getting something going. We're pretty much still in the process of doing that." Doing it for what? Not that togetherness and unity with teammates is a bad thing, but to use one of the best athlete quotes ever (by former NFL running back Ricky Waters), “For who? For what?” In other words, why waste time getting together and working out for a season that isn't going to happen? Despite LeBron’s delusions of grandeur about a new CBA being agreed upon in the near future, the players and owners remain miles apart on the major issues, especially money. Players are signing deals in China, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Spain and Israel to play this coming season because they can see the dire reality of the lockout. Others are playing pro beach volleyball, some are going on playground hoops tours in the U.S. and Bosh himself is scheduled to appear on an episode of "Law and Order" later this month. He admits he has no idea when the lockout will end, yet insists he is hopeful that a deal can be struck before too long. "I'm an optimistic person anyway," Bosh said. "The NBA is as good as it's ever been right now and I think there's no reason to miss out on it. So I think everybody will come to a conclusion. When you're dealing with business, emotions and feelings get involved and that's natural. You're going to have arguments. But I think as long as everybody knows that and as long as we keep moving forward to a deal, then that's progress." See, that’s the problem: You’re not moving forward to any deal. The two sides are barely meeting and when they do, they’re gaining no ground. Embrace reality and clue your pal LeBron in to it as well, C. Bosh…………
- America has issues. Clearly, so do most Americans. Whereas their country has massive financial problems and concerns over natural disasters and terrorist attacks, many Americans are dealing with something much more pressing in their daily lives, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC collected data for its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, released on Sept. 2, and found that about half of all Americans will suffer with some form of mental illness during their lifetime. The study was based on years of country-wide surveys and researchers found that 25 percent of American adults reported having a mental illness the previous year. Furthermore, in 2009, 11 million people, or 5 percent of the population, experienced some form of mental illness that effected their ability to function. Even more disturbing, 8.4 million adults admitted to having contemplated suicide in the past year, and 2.2 million actually made plans to kill themselves. Of that number, 1 million actually attempted suicide, the study found. Most medical experts believe the actual numbers are even higher and like the CDC, believe more must be done to help. The staggering cost of treating Americans sufferings from mental illness in 2002, as reported in the study, was $300 billion. One can only imagine how much higher that figure would be if all Americans suffering from a mental illness were to come forward and be correctly diagnosed. As it is, many people with mental illness hide their problems from others, either out of embarrassment or denial. Thus, under-diagnosis and under-treatment are still big problems in the U.S., according to mental health experts. Having a country on the verge of financial disaster, with earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes tearing through various states and being a top target for nearly every terrorist organization in existence probably doesn’t help alleviate mental illness, by the way……….
- Wait……a country can take its former political leader to court and charge them with a crime for failing to prevent a massive financial collapse? America, we’ve been bamboozled and screwed out of a golden opportunity to exact some much-needed revenge on the worst president in the history of the United States, W., if that is indeed the case. Setting this enticing precedent? None other than Iceland, whose former prime minister has finally appeared in court, accused of failing to prevent the 2008 financial crisis in the country. A special court held a hearing Monday to decide if Geir Haarde can be held accountable for Iceland's banking-sector collapse in 2008. Haarde has twice asked the court to dismiss the charges and is now seeking their dismissal for a third time, calling them a "farce.” A report filed last year accused Haarde and three other former government ministers of contributing to the crisis in which all Iceland's major banks, which at the time held assets equal to 923 percent of gross domestic product, failed in a matter of weeks. Despite the report, the country’s parliament voted last September that Haarde was the only one who should be charged with "gross
neglect." That gave him the distinct honor of becoming the first person to go before the Landsdomur, a never-before used special court for current and ex-ministers. Following Monday’s hearing, a decision whether charges will be dropped is expected within three weeks. Haarde emerged from the two-and-a-half hour hearing confident that he will be cleared of the charges. "I've always been a very optimistic man," he said. “It’s no fun to have to deal with a matter like this ... everything has gone well." If convicted, Haarde could be sentenced to up to two years in prison. Ironically enough, Haarde was Iceland’s political leader for just over two years, heading the right-leaning Independence Party and serving as prime minister from mid-2006 to early 2009 when his coalition was ousted amid public uproar over the crisis. Iceland went into a financial tailspin at that point, plummeting into a deep recession and watching the price of its currency - the krona - spiral out of control. Of course, unlike the U.S., Iceland has managed to pull out of its fiscal nosedive and its economy has gradually returned to growth to the point that it may not need to draw on the last installments of an International Monetary Fund bailout. Any advice for your American friends, Iceland? We could use the help…………
- Delusional as Chris Bosh and LeBron James may be about the fate of the coming NBA season, they have nothing on former “All My Children” star Susan Lucci. Lucci, who came to be the poster child for always finishing as a runner-up for Emmys to the point where everyone just felt bad for her, decided to use the release of a paperback edition of her autobiography (yes, she wrote one) as an opportunity to unleash deluded rants about the man she holds responsible for the demise of the soap opera she played a key role in for more than three decades. With networks canceling soaps at a blistering rate because they are a dying genre that has outlived its usefulness and no longer generates good ratings, ABC joined the cancellation parade by axing “Children” and Lucci is livid at ABC Daytime head Brian Frons for the decision. In an epilogue just added to the paperback edition of her book, “All My Life: A Memoir,” the actress rips Frons and describes how she personally berated him, saying, “I think our being in this position is the result of some very bad decisions by you.” Lucci, who played Erica Kane on the show since 1970, claimed Frons installed a new head writer in 2008 who presided over writing that was “subpar,” ordered the show moved to L.A. from New York and pushed out the soap’s creator, Agnes Nixon. She also alleged that Frons told her in April that “All My Children” would be replaced by a food show cheaper to make. “An iconic show was losing out to greed ... If Brian Frons could show his bosses that he could save the network 40 percent ... he could keep his job even if the rest of us lost ours,” Lucci wrote. “I watched Brian Frons’ decisions destroy the production of our show and the lives of people on both sides of the country.” Hmm, bitter much? Lucci is conveniently glossing over the fact that it’s not 1966 anymore and housewives aren't sitting around all afternoon looking for anything they can find to entertain themselves. Soap operas have been marginalized further by the ever-expanding world of cable and satellite television, meaning even more options for afternoon entertainment. Frons could have been the most brilliant network executive in television history and he could not have saved the show. Heck, media titan Oprah Winfrey turned down pleas from pathetic soap fans to save their favorite shows because she could see just like everyone else that they had no future. There is the outside chance that Lucci knows all of this and is merely lashing out to generate more attention for her book, but like soap operas, it doesn’t seem to be generating much interest among potential viewers/readers……….
- How was your Labor Day weekend? Did you spend it cooking out, having a picnic with family or maybe heading to the beach for one final hurrah of summer? Or, did you spend it wielding a 35-inch samurai sword while marching along an Indiana interstate and getting arrested by state police? If so, you spent your holiday weekend in the exact same fashion as an unidentified kook who was picked up Sunday afternoon in one of the most bizarre stoner-related incidents in recent memory. At approximately 2:30 p.m., the man inexplicably abandoned his car in the middle lane of Interstate 65 and upon exiting the vehicle, he began waving the sword around. Oddly enough, he wasn’t pretending to be an actual samurai, but instead…..well, let’s allow the official police statement to tell the story on this one. “The man was marching like a drum major, holding the sword, moving it up and down in rhythm with his marching cadence,” the statement read. Additionally, this kook informed the arresting officers he was “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.” He appeared to be in his 40s but refused to give police his name and defensively swung the sword at an approaching state trooper before dropping the weapon in compliance with the trooper's command. The situation took another bizarre turn when the Cocoa Puff-loving samurai attempted to force himself into an SUV that swerved and stopped on the inner shoulder to avoid hitting a police vehicle responding to the incident. Then, in a stunning turn, police discovered marijuana in his possession. Who would have foreseen that? A shirtless, middle-aged dude swinging a samurai sword after ditching his car in the middle of a busy interstate on a holiday weekend is a stoner baked out of his mind? Wow….just wow. Ultimately, this pothead was charged with attempted carjacking, resisting law enforcement and possession of marijuana. And you thought your wacky uncle Terry was annoying and weird at the family’s Labor Day picnic at grandma’s house……….
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