New York has become the first state in the nation to ban, uh, certain methods of euthanizing animals that are harvested for their fur.
Yes, we are talking about anal and genital electrocution. (But you suspected that, didn’t you?)
State Sen. Frank Padavan even said of this fur fight, “I draw a very strong correlation between how we treat domestic animals and all animals and how we treat each other.”
Soon, mink, foxes, chinchillas and rabbits will go to that Great Big Zoo in the sky via other methods — in New York, that is. In the other 49 states, it’s still business as usual.
Two points:
1) Sen. Padavan is making a biiiiig leap in comparing this curious practice to “how we treat each other.”
2) It’s hard to argue in favor of this kind of electrocution. It does sound creepy. But I’m not sure that one way of euthanizing an animal is much more humane than another as long as the critter doesn’t feel unnecessary pain — or preferably any pain.
As the Bard put it in Macbeth, “If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.”
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Fur fight
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Rocket misfires
A few months ago, Roger Clemens was one of the biggest names in sports. Maybe not the most loved guy in baseball, but respected across the board.
Seven Cy Young awards, — two more than Randy Johnson. A whole bunch of other Hall of Fame numbers — 354 wins, 4,672 strikeouts.
His retiring and unretiring shtick in the last few years was impossible to ignore. Surely he would be remembered as one of the greatest pitchers ever.
Then came the Mitchell report, which said what a lot of people had whispered all along: Roger got some pharmaceutical help in his later years, and we ain’t talking Nolan Ryan’s Advil.
Now the Mitchell report has been followed by the McCready report.
Rog admits he had a decade-long relationship with the country star … that began when Mindy was only 15. But the Rocket insists it wasn’t, uh, sexual.
If you believe that, you probably also believe that he threw inside heat so hitters could get a good look at the baseball.
The story of Roger’s relationship to Mindy came out after he foolishly filed a lawsuit against his former trainer, who said he was a big-time juicer.
And there’s still a fair chance Rog could be indicted for perjury for volunteering to go before Congress and swear he never touched the stuff.
He should have quit while he was ahead. He would have been assured of a Hall of Fame berth the first year he was eligible.
Now that’s far into the future, and he suddenly has other legal problems.
In 1996, McCready had a No. 1 single called, “Guys Do It All the Time.”
They sure do.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Food fight
The next time you hear someone complain about “cruel and unusual punishment” in America, think about Broderick Laswell.
Broderick is an inmate in the Benton County (Ark.) jail, awaiting trial for murder. Something about beating and stabbing a guy to death, and then setting his home on fire.
After eight months in the slammer, he has sued the county. Says he is “literally being starved to death.”
"On several occasions I have started to do some exercising and my vision went blurry and I felt like I was going to pass out," Laswell put in his lawsuit. "About an hour after each meal my stomach starts to hurt and growl."
And he means it. He’s lost 105 pounds since he’s been inside.
The catch? Well, Broderick still weighs … 308 pounds!
That’s right, taxpayers. He was 413 pounds when he went in and apparently didn’t want to trim the tonnage.
Oh, and he also wants hot food, not the cold stuff the jail has served for years.
Poor Broderick.
The poor guy is wasting away to nothing, and he doesn’t even seem to realize that he’s in a jail, not a swanky hotel.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Another thug in Big D
As of Friday night, the trade that could send Adam “Pacman” Jones to the Dallas Cowboys was not yet nailed down.
I would say that I hope it doesn’t happen, but by this point it doesn’t matter.
Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones has made it clear that he likes thugs and outlaws like Terrell Owens and “Tank” Johnson — both of whom were kicked off their previous teams for misconduct.
Pacman will fit right in. Don’t be surprised if he is followed by Chad Johnson, the talented punk now feuding with the Bengals.
The usual explanation for clueless owners like this is that they want to “win at all costs.”
I think it’s more pathetic for Jerry. He likes the bad-boy image. It’s a phase most guys go through, but we outgrow it around 15 or 16.
And Jerry, who’s not real smart, doesn’t want to be thought of as conventional and boring.
So for him, the way to avoid that is to sign every felon as soon as they make bail.
I’m serious about this prediction: Do not be shocked if he signs Michael Vick when he gets out.
What a sad fall for a franchise that once had such upright leaders as Tom Landry and Roger Staubach.
Jerry wouldn't know the high road if it was spray-painted fluorescent orange.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Bearly safe
Folks at the Predators in Action wild animal training center in Big Bear Lake, Calif., are grieving.
One of its grizzly bears bit one of its trainers in the neck. And now he is dead.
Two other trainers were working with Stephan Miller when the fatal accident happened.
They were said to be surprised by the tragedy. Said the bear was following cues and behaving well.
In a February interview, one of the trainers called Rocky “the best working bear in the business.”
So what happened?
I’m no expert in bear behavior, but I do know this.
"Rocky" is 7½ feet tall and weighs 700 pounds. In the wild, bears like that kill and eat things rather easily. In fact, very easily.
"Rocky" may have been in captivity a long time, but he ain’t a pet. You can take the bear out of the wild, but you can’t take the wild out of the bear.
This was the same bear, incidentally, that wrestled Will Ferrell’s character in the recent film “Semi-Pro.” For that scene, Ferrell used a stunt double.
Good call, Will. There are too many sports-spoofs movies yet unmade.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Lucky kid, stupid parent
Lisa Harrell made a great save this week, and she’s not a hockey goalie.
She’s a mail carrier. And as she was making her rounds Monday in Albany, N.Y., she noticed a toddler on the edge of a second-story window.
She was going to alert someone inside the home, but she didn’t have time.
The child fell out. And miraculously, Harrell caught the kid.
Talk about right time/right place.
The baby wasn’t hurt, and a few moments later the mom ran out.
All’s well that ends well, right?
Wrong. No charges will be filed against the moronic mom, who put her daughter on a bed that was up against an open window.
What kind of a mother would do that? She’s should have gotten a few days inside a jail cell to reflect upon how stupid she is.
The toddler survived this blunder.
I wouldn’t bet the ranch that she’ll make it to her 18th birthday as long as she lives with Mommie Dumbest.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Love that lynx
A group of animal lovers is suing the U.S. and Wildlife Service because it won’t extend federal protection to lynx in New Mexico, as it does in 14 other states.
The feds are wrong, and they should admit it.
So what does this have to do with anything?
Not much, I guess, except a lynx is the only wild cat I have seen in the wild.
It was on a trip to Colorado with a buddy; we were hiking up the spine of a mountain.
Like most lynx sightings, it was brief — a few seconds, more shadow than light.
But it was a lynx, and it was cool.
On that same hike, by the way, a golden eagle soared around us in a huge half-circle.
Those are the things you remember about a trip outdoors.
Happy Earth Day.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Mansion madness
F. Scott Fitzgerald said a mouthful. The rich are different from you and me.
For starters, they have more money.
Like John L. Thornton, 54, a former Goldman Sachs partner and chairman of the Brookings Institution.
He just bought a mansion in Palm Beach, Fla. For $77.5 million. Throw in closing costs, and the purchase price jumps to $81 mil.
That’s a record for mansion-buying.
Frankly, I think he overpaid.
Hey, don’t get me wrong. It’s a nice pad.
According to the Palm Beach Post, “The estate boasts 5 lushly landscaped acres and 300 feet of ocean frontage. The 32,000-square-foot home was designed by Thierry Despont, who also created Bill Gates’ mansion. The living room includes 26-foot ceilings and 20-foot-high glass panels that disappear into the floor at the push of a button. The home also features a wine cellar, pool, waterfalls, staff quarters and an air chiller and 27-zone air conditioning system.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Personally, I wouldn’t have forked over more than $60 mil.
Maybe $65 mil, but not a penny more.
Sometimes, you just gotta draw the line.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Tejada's tale
As if things weren’t bad enough for the last-place Astros, Miguel Tejada seems to have aged a couple of years even though the season has barely begun.
In fact, their hot free-agent signing in the offseason has gotten older. After ESPN found a copy of his birth certificate from the Dominican Republic, Tejada admitted he was 33, not 31.
You see, when he first signed a pro ball contract at 19, he said a local coach encouraged him to say he was 17 instead. So he did.
“It’s something that happened the first time I signed my contract,” Tejada said. “I had no intention of doing anything wrong.”
Apparently, this jock doesn’t understand that lying about your age could be, well, considered “doing anything wrong.”
If I were Astros owner Drayton McLane, I’d be ticked off.
He just signed a contract with Tejada that has a lot of zeroes behind a swiggly number, thinking the slugger had so much playing time and ability left. Now it turns out he has two years less of it.
Pro sports is a young man’s game. Old athletes don’t get better -- unless they’re juicin’.
Which brings us back to Tejada, who was mentioned in the infamous Mitchell Report as one of those ballplayers who occasionally got some pharmaceutical help that wasn’t exactly legal.
Tejada denied then that he did anything wrong.
Q: Do you wonder if he was fibbing about that too?
A: Does Roy Oswalt throw fast?
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Courting trouble
Adam Reposa must have been playing hooky that day in law school when the prof said, “And another thing. When you’re in court, don’t pretend to whack off in front of the judge.”
If he had been in class that day instead of throwing a frisbee around in the quadrangle, Reposa probably would be a free man. Instead, he’s doing 90 days for contempt of court.
That’s because last March, while standing before a county court-at-law judge in Austin, he used his right hand in an internationally recognized symbol for, uh, masturbation.
At his hearing this week, Reposa’s lawyer asked for a sentence of just one day in jail.
The presiding judge game him 90. He said he felt it was his "honor to uphold the integrity of the judicial process."
I would say something snippy about that, but I might find myself in a cell next to Reposa.
Oh well, Reposa is a defense attorney, and this is a learning experience.
Now he can say in all honesty to the dirtbags he represents, “Hey, man, I know what it’s like on the inside. You can do that much time easy. … Just avoid the meatloaf on Tuesdays.”
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Tag this
Hey, it’s about time.
Thank God some courageous principal has stepped forward and stopped a brutal “sport” that takes place on playgrounds all across America.
Yes, I am talking about the game of tag.
Robyn Hooker, principal of Kent Gardens Elementary School in Virginia, told her kids no more tag during recess.
Hooker was disgusted that all that chasing and yelling had become nothing more than a game "of intense aggression."
… The above words are sarcastic, of course.
What I really think is, “Aaarrrggghhh, a politically correct wimp strikes again! And worst of all, this weenie wields power!”
The prissy principal said the “nouveau tag” the kids were playing involved things like grabbing people not in the game and bumping them to the ground.
OK, then deal with that aspect of the game or those kids.
If kids talk in the cafeteria, do you ban eating?
At another school in Fairfax County, Va., its office of risk management (I don’t think my old school had one of them) bans … dodge ball and tug-of-war.
If this kind of thing takes hold, we will turn our kids into a bunch of geeks and sissies. They don’t get enough — or any — exercise as it is, so now we are going to clamp down on recess?
One disgusted parent asked, “Will we eliminate ‘duck duck goose’ because kids are being touched?"
Shhh. Don’t give ’em any ideas.
Monday, April 14, 2008
That's right, 53 times
If you ever wondered why some law-abiding folks want things like “three strikes and you’re out” laws to protect them, consider Freddie Johnson of New York.
This fine example of a broken criminal justice system has been arrested … brace yourselves … 53 times, mostly for … brace yourselves again … rubbing up against women on subway trains.
Ick!
That’s right, 53 times. And who knows how many times this perv did his thing on women who were too disgusted or embarrassed to report it.
He just got out of prison on March 25 after serving four years for persistent sexual abuse. No surprise that he goes back to his favorite hobby.
The surprise is why he wasn’t put away a long, long time ago.
“The behavior is disturbing, there is no question,” said Elizabeth Jeglic, a professor of treatment and rehabilitation of offenders at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “But in the larger scheme you want to commit the people who are grabbing kids off the street, or the rapist in Central Park.”
Well, yeah, I suppose so. Then again, you need to find a cell for serial offenders like Johnson, even if his crime is “minor.”
Prosecutors say that this time, Johnson could get up to life in prison. They’ve finally realized what a threat he is.
That’s nice. It should have happened about 50 arrests ago.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Three thoughts
Three quick thoughts to wrap up the week:
The state news wire was filled with reports that rapper Vanilla Ice, of all people, had been released from jail Friday after being busted for assaulting his wife — in Florida, no less.
Apparently, the folks at the Associated Press who compile the state news wire think this is important because Ice grew up in Dallas.
Um, who cares?
This guy had one hit in 1990. Does he still qualify as a “celebrity”?
I didn’t think so.
-----------------------------
The principal at a “highly rated” school in the Southlake Carroll school district in Texas has resigned after suspicions of shenanigans on the TAKS test.
Uh, do you think Old Union Elementary is “highly rated” precisely because of shenanigans on the TAKS test?
That’s my guess, too.
-----------------------
An East Texas man named Alvin Kelly lost another court appeal in his murder case. The news story said the court's ruling was “moving him closer” to execution for the crime.
Well, considering that the crime occurred 24 years ago, I wouldn’t exactly tell the victim’s family to get ready for a trip to the death chamber to serve as witnesses.
In fact, I’m not sure the victim’s family is still alive after all this time.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Mom and Dumber
So who’s a bigger fool, the 17-year-old girl in Austin who thinks she’s in love with a 27-year-old coach and Spanish teacher at her high school … or her mother?
I vote for Mom. After all, she said she thought the two were in love and gave legal consent for Little Miss Hottie to marry one Randy Arias. (In the British sense, he was indeed randy.)
But back to the fun couple. Mom even went with the bride-to-be when she applied for the marriage license. This for her own daughter, who just turned 17 last month.
Is there still a charge called “contributing to the delinquency of a minor”? How about “making a really stupid call as a parent”?
The law needs to hang something on Mommie Dearest. Then it can turn its attention to Arias.
You may recall his name. He was a track star at Texas State University and still holds the school record for 5,000 meters.
Maybe he can notch the same title at another institution — that is, if they have track meets in prisons. (I know from watching The Longest Yard I and II that they have football games on the inside.)
Some judge or jury should not be swayed by arguments that the gal was almost legal. She wasn’t, and she was still in high school.
Any teacher, coach or librarian who can’t keep his hands off the student body should get some time to think about it in a place without those distractions.
If she looks like someone on a "Girls Gone Wild" video, she's too young.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Tiger Troubles II
In my last post, I gloated over the 0-6 Detroit Tigers, the team with the big-bucks payroll that was supposed to steamroll through the AL Central. Make that the 0-7 Tigers, the only team in baseball that’s still 0-for-April.
Even the crummy Giants, thankfully rid of Barry “Balco” Bonds, have won a game. Just one game, but a game nonetheless.
The Tigers’ troubles resonate outside of sports and even the game of baseball.
They were good to begin with. Then in the off-season, they signed three mega-free agents — Edgar Renteria from the Braves and Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis from the Marlins.
They were stacked deeper than almost any team except the ’27 Yankees, with an All-Star at nearly every position.
But sometimes in life, the best lawyer doesn’t win the trial. The smartest kid doesn’t write the best report. The company with the dazzling reputation doesn’t get the bid.
Sometimes, favorites don't win. Underdogs come through despite the odds.
Thank God, or this would be an awfully boring world.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Tiger Troubles
If you’re a sports fan, or if you just root for underdogs, you have to like the start of Major League Baseball.
Only one team has failed to win a game in the first week. That would be the mighty Tigers, who went to the bank and signed some impressive free agents to add to their already strong team. In fact, Detroit has the second-highest payroll in the game, just behind (who else?) the Evil Empire, a.k.a., the New York Yankees.
The Tigers are stacked so deep that they are batting one of their big off-season acquisitions, the talented Edgar Renteria, seventh. He’s good and would hit higher on any other club.
Last night, on a nationally televised game, the Tigers started one of the game’s best pitchers, Justin Verlander. He got shelled. The Tigers lost again, in a blowout, no less, 13-2.
Before the game, analyst Joe Morgan said the Tigers had the best lineup of any 0-5 team he has ever seen. He was right. I guess the same applies to the 0-6 Tigers.
Detroit probably will right the ship and end up in the post-season anyway. Still, for now it’s hard to resist cackling as high-priced jocks stumble about and make excuses.
At the other end of the scale are the two teams with the best records in baseball, the 5-1 Brewers and 5-1 Cardinals. This is also rich in irony.
Both teams play in what has been called the weakest division (the Central) in the weakest league (the National). Yet so far, “Comedy Central” has the hot teams.
Well, except for the last-place 2-5 Astros, whom the Cards face in a three-game series that starts tonight.
The Brewers’ success is not surprising. They had a good team last year and have gotten better.
The Cardinals, the team I have rooted for since growing up in St. Louis, are an entirely different story. Even though they won the World Series two years ago, they have fallen far.
Most of their former stars are either old or gone or injured. In fact, they have the incredible total of nine players on the Disabled List, the most of any team in the game.
Despite all that, they are managing to win somehow with backups and plug-ins. They even had a rainout in their home opener against the league’s best team last year, the Rockies. They were leading 5-1 when the game was called and probably would have won that one too.
As with the Tigers, the pre-season predictions for the Cards probably will pan out.
But for now, it’s nice for your team to have the best record in the game, even if it just after one week in a long, long season.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Excuses, Massachusetts style
I thought Massachusetts was filled with smart people. After all, it has some of the nation’s top universities — Harvard, Wellesley, Boston College, Tufts and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to name a few.
So how come state legislature in this magnet for brainiacs wants to let aspiring teachers who have failed the state certification test three times … get licensed anyway?
Good grief! If this was happening in the Deep South, the moron jokes would be flying out of the snooty East Coast.
Yet here we have the chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education saying, “The test is one methodology …but it isn’t necessarily the best venue for everybody to demonstrate their competency.”
Incredibly, the state Senate approved the three-strikes-and-you’re-not-out bill by the whopping margin of 34-5.
This is pathetic. If a supposedly educated person — an educator, by the way — can’t pass a certification test, he shouldn’t be certified. That’s the way the world works — or should work.
If you don’t pass the certification test the first time for teacher, bartender or brain surgeon, you go back to the library or classroom, study a little harder and try again.
If you make it, congratulations. If you don’t, well, perhaps it might be time to consider an alternative career, like something in ditch-digging.
Chuck Zucco, owner of a Massachusetts company that helps teachers prepare for the test, says most of his customers who repeatedly fail the test — some more than a dozen times! — have learning disabilities or speak English as a second language.
Good grief again! I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I’ll just say it: If you have a severe learning disability or can’t speak English very well … you shouldn’t be a teacher!
A few folks in the Bay State realize how dumb this is.
“It demeans the whole profession,” said state Sen. Richard R. Tisei, a Republican and the Senate minority leader. “Teachers should be held to the same standards that we expect when we certify a lawyer, an accountant, a funeral director. … What type of message does that send to the kids?”
Well put, senator. And I’ll tell you what message it sends to the kids:
It tells them loud and clear that you don’t have to try very hard. That you can always make a lame excuse … and some sucker will fall for it. That you don’t have to strive for excellence but simply hold out your hand and demand your “entitlement.”
I’m not an educator or a futurist. But I predict that if a state lets unqualified teachers teach, it is going to end up with a bunch of stupid kids.
And you expected some other result?
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Blaming the victim
It was one of those sad stories you run across from time to time — though it could have been a lot worse.
A woman in Maryland was being attacked — strangled, actually — by some creep on the floor of a kitchen in a boarding house.
Fortunately, the woman’s 12-year-old son heard her cries for help.
"I kept saying, ‘Stop! Stop! Stop!’ " the boy said. "But he just ignored me. He didn’t stop. He just kept hurting her."
So the boy grabbed a knife — this was in a kitchen, remember — and slashed the jerk in the neck. Unfortunately — for the jerk, that is — an artery was cut and he croaked.
Maybe the late attacker had a tough life or something, but I gotta tell you, basically I’m thinking no big loss.
The person I feel sorry for is the boy. Even though he did the right thing — a very brave thing, actually — that is a tough burden to carry around, especially at such a young age. I hope the lad can get past it and realize that he saved his mother from a worse fate.
Anyhow, here’s the part of the news story that really shocked me:
Even though the preliminary investigation indicates the boy and his mother are telling the truth, “Law enforcement officials were reviewing evidence and had not decided whether to file charges.”
Huh? File charges against the boy? For what, killing a dirtbag out of season?
If this incident went down the way it appears, the boy did absolutely nothing wrong. Charging him with any kind of crime would be absurd — and grotesque.
I hope there are enough sensible people left in Maryland to understand that.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Senior service
Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is running for re-election.
Nothing surprising there. Politicians do it all the time. In fact, it’s almost news when they don’t decide to keep feeding at the public trough — I mean nobly serving the taxpayers.
What is unusual with Lautenberg, however, is his age. He’s 84. Do the math. If he is re-elected to another six-year term, he will be 90 when it’s over. If he isn't over first.
Sure, we’ve all heard of old folks who are spry and sharp in their 80s and 90s.
But Strom Thurmond served in the U.S. Senate until he was 100, and that was clearly a term or two too long.
Right now, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia is 80, and he too is clearly past his prime.
Members of Congress need a retirement age. The new slogan ought to be “80 and out.”
Experience can be a good thing. Too much of it is not so good.
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