HEADING OFF FOR A WEEK OF VACATION, BUT HERE’S A QUICK POST:
When it comes to criminals, I’m a lock-’em-up-and-throw-away-the-key kind of guy.
People who hurt or steal from other folks are pretty low on the food chain. If they do something seriously bad, they deserve to spend many, many days looking at the world through a set of iron bars.
But I will say this too: They should be treated OK while they are guests of the taxpayers.
That’s three meals a day, a shower every now and then and a little exercise to burn up some energy. No rough stuff from guards or other inmates.
Which brings us to Joe Francis, the guy who made millions upon millions by convincing college girls on spring break to flash for his cameras. Yes, we’re talking “Girls Gone Wild.”
It’s hard to believe any gal would be that stupid or slutty, but it happens.
Anyhow, Francis has managed to find himself on the wrong side of the law — tax evasion, contempt of court, having contraband in custody. And in more than one state, no less. What a schmuck.
While in a jail in Chickasha, Okla., recently, he said guards denied him food and blankets. And threatened to strap him naked to a chair for 48 hours.
It sounds crazy, and the guards deny it.
All I know is that if somehow, some way, this creep could be convicted for a stupid white-collar stunt like tax evasion, it would be sweet justice.
Why? Because what he did to get rich was not illegal. But it was incredibly sleazy.
There ought to be a penalty for it, but there isn’t. So I wouldn’t mind settling for some kind of secondary, after-the-fact conviction.
One more thing: When he goes to trial, I hope he gets a jury filled with men and women who have teen-aged daughters. Little Joey would then learn all about "Justice Gone Wild!"
Friday, November 23, 2007
Joe's gone wild
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Do the crime, do (some of) the time
If you’re planning to go to Arizona and break the law, you should try to end up before Judge Helene Abrams. If you do, let’s just say you don’t have to worry about dying behind bars.
Abrams is the Superior Court judge who gave perennial screwup Mike Tyson all of one day in jail for possession of cocaine and driving under the influence.
Tyson could have gotten four years and three months. The prosecutor even recommended a year in the slammer, and that seems generous.
Instead Iron Mike gets 24 hours. Heck, you don’t even have to eat lousy jail food or endure those unpleasant showers with other inmates if you’re in for that much.
Worse, Judge Abrams pumped up Tyson with some undeserved praise: “You’ve worked to address your addiction and self-destructive behavior,” she gushed.
I’ll believe it when I see it. So far, Mikey seems to be pretty good at addiction and self-destructive behavior.
As prosecutor Shane Krauser pointed out, Tyson’s run-ins with the law include convictions for rape in Indiana and assault in Maryland.
“Judge, by my calculations, this is his fourth or fifth chance,” he said.
Sheesh.
And we wonder why we have a crime problem in this country.
I don’t have all the answers, but one problem might be ridiculous sentences like 82 minutes to Nicole Richie, 84 minutes to Lindsay Lohan and one day to Mike Tyson for serious offenses that could have hurt or killed someone.
Oh, well. Maybe Tyson will get the book thrown at him the next time. And trust me, there will be a next time.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Yanks in the tank
So what is it, Yankee haters?
Are we happy that A-Rod came slinking back to the Bronx because he found out he wasn’t worth as much as he thought? Or are we worried that he will be back in pinstripes because, even though he is obnoxious, he’s good?
Personally, I could go either way on that one. The good news is that nothing can ruin the fact that it’s a great year in sports for anyone who doesn’t live in New York. We don’t have to be irritated by all that bragging from the Big Apple about how wonderful their town and teams are.
First the Mets, with their big payroll and big egos, don’t even make the playoffs. Then the Yankees — same description, only more so —get into the post-season but promptly get bounced by the once-lowly Indians.
Then the Jets get off to a terrible year in football (1-8!) and the Giants slowly settle into mediocrity. (Here a hint, Giants fans: Eli is no Peyton and never will be).
Now the Yankees start to fall apart in the offseason. Ya gotta love it.
The A-Rod soap opera is a joke, but the Yankees deserve it.
His arrogant agent Scott Boras announces — during the World Series, no less — that Prince Alexander will not be returning to the fold next year. Then A-Rod finds out that few teams, if any, will give him the supersized paycheck he is dreaming of.
So he pulls a U-turn, and the spinning that followed was as ferocious as a Josh Beckett curve ball.
George Steinbrenner’s son Hank said, “But the bottom line, the only thing that really matters, is he wants to stay a Yankee. And it could be very well that he’s always wanted to stay a Yankee and we just didn’t know it.”
Right, Hankie. I guess we were thrown off by the part where A-Rod made it real clear that he didn’t “want to stay a Yankee.”
Then A-Rod himself releases a statement that’s so silly you almost bust out laughing when you read it:
“We know there are other opportunities for us, but Cynthia and I have a foundation with the club that has brought us comfort, stability and happiness.”
Gimme a gigantic break.
The moody ballplayer and the dysfunctional team deserve each other.
I hope A-Rod breaks the all-time home run record because Barry Bonds is so icky.
I just don’t want to see them celebrating at the end of a World Series — and hear the talk again about how much better they are than everyone else.
Fortunately, based on the way the team has been run in the past few years, we all should be spared that. Let’s hope our luck holds.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
It's alive? I can take care of that.
Boy, the Manners Police are getting fussier and fussier.
Take poor Jerick Hutchinson, a high school agriculture teacher in Huntsville, Ark.
The other day he was all set to give his class a demonstration on how to skin an animal — and haven’t we all sat through dozens of them? — when a little problem came up.
See, a student promised to bring a raccoon for the demonstration, which he did, which is important, because you can’t have a skinning demonstration without a critter to skin.
Anyhow, the animal was alive, not deceased. So Hutchinson, being the resourceful type, took ol’ Rocky out back and turned him into a dead raccoon.
With a nail gun.
Now some of these tree-hugger types are saying that was just a bit icky for high school kids.
Gimme a break. Even the head honcho defended Hutchinson.
"It wasn’t like he held a nail gun against the head of a cute little animal in front of the class," said Superintendent Alvin Lievsay. " … He does a great job. The kids love him."
Damn straight. I mean, if he’d capped the ’coon in front of Billy and Susie, well, maybe then you’ve got a gripe. But he was discreet, as any good skinner is.
Thanks to Hutchinson’s pluckiness, the rosy-cheeked youngsters were able to observe proper skinning techniques on the raccoon, and, as the AP story put it, “examine the contents of its stomach.”
I have to end this post now. I’m just getting a little teary-eyed thinking about this Norman Rockwell moment in a little red schoolhouse somewhere in the hills of Arkansas.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Uh, what did you say?
If there’s a chutzpah award for attorneys, James Davis ought to win it.
He’s the barrister defending Kelsey Peterson, the 25-year-old middle school teacher in Nebraska who fled with one of her 13-year-old male students to Mexico. Yes, unless you are terminally naïve, it was one of those relationships.
Their little jaunt — the mother of all school trips — was mercifully cut short by men with guns and badges. Now Peterson is facing lots of years behind bars for getting real familiar with a boy who hasn’t been on this earth for lots of years.
If I were James Davis, I’d fall on my knees before the judge and beg for mercy for my client, seeing as how she looks really guilty and all that.
Not Davis. He must have gone to the “best defense is a good offense” school of lawyering.
In his view, Peterson is the innocent one here, not the kid.
“It’s my understanding he was grooming her and she wasn’t grooming him,” Davis said. “I see true victims every day. This young man is no victim. … The kid is sophisticated. He shaves, he has a mustache.”
Wow! Wonder if Davis wants the lad charged with kidnapping.
The boy’s aunt, Laura Rodriguez, said the boy is indeed 13 and not older as Davis suggests.
As for the horny teacher being the “victim” in the relationship, Aunt Laura made a good point: “She started up with him when he was 12. She was 24. How could that happen?”
Heck, maybe I’m being too hard on Davis. He has gone so far as to say about Peterson, “She understands what she did, and that she didn’t exercise the best judgment in leaving.”
Rigghhtt. That’s like saying Britney Spears “didn’t exercise the best judgment” in shaving her head.
We’ll see what a judge or jury in the Cornhusker State has to say about all this.
But from where I sit, calling an adult who seduces a child the “victim” in the relationship is, well, how, shall I put this? … preposterous!
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Please, no more instant replay
Did you see that story in our paper on Wednesday (page 4C) about the possibility of adding instant replay to baseball? If you didn’t, just go to our Web site and do a search for, “How to ruin a great game.”
Good grief. Baseball does not need replay, instant or otherwise. No sport does.
The reason we watch sports is that it’s unscripted competition between athletes or teams. You don’t know what will happen. The game might be good or bad or somewhere in between. You watch because you like the sport and the suspense.
Bad calls by umpires are part of the game. This is not a “problem” that needs to be “fixed” by a bunch of suits in Orlando, Fla., trying to kill time until spring training starts.
If a bad call happens, you shrug it off and keep playing. If you do that, sooner or later a call will go your way.
In fact, most replays show that umps almost always make the right call, even though the play is happening at full speed and they might not have the best angle.
Even more annoying is the doubletalk coming from the people trying to push this nonsense:
“I don’t think there’s a significant impetus toward destroying what has been 150 years of the human aspects of baseball,” said Bob DuPuy, baseball’s chief operating officer.
Gosh, Bob, I owe you an apology. I guess I thought that using sophisticated TV cameras with slo-mo and freeze-frame capabilities to review an umpire’s call would undermine “the human aspect of baseball.”
Baseball is enjoying a resurgence: Steroid use has dropped. The Montreal Expos have been put out of their misery and the game has returned to the nation’s capital. (Though the franchise should have been renamed the Washington Senators.) Teams that aren’t named the New York Yankees are winning the World Series.
If the owners were smart, and they’re not, they would leave well enough alone. If they want to fiddle with something, go after the monstrosity called "the designated hitter" in the American League.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Baby Grace is not Maddie
It’s a sad, sad story — the discovery of the body of little girl in Galveston Bay dubbed “Baby Grace.”
But Lord, are some people stupid.
To back up: The child’s body was found last week in a storage box that washed ashore. The blonde child had been murdered — fractured skull — but nothing else was known about her.
She was two or three, had beautiful long hair, and was wearing a pink outfit with white light-up tennis shoes.
Your blood runs cold when you think about the monster who could harm that innocent soul and then throw her body into the bay in a box. This is why we have the death penalty.
Anyhow, authorities are trying to I.D. the child, so they put out a description and sketch of her and hoped that a good tip might come in.
Here’s where the Stupid Part comes in: A few people called to suggest that she might be Madeleine "Maddie" McCann, the 4-year-old British girl who was taken from a resort hotel in Portugal in May.
A very polite major with the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office said tactfully, “Based on the totality of the circumstances, we do not believe it’s her (Madeleine).”
What he should have said was, “Maddie disappeared in Portugal, which is a country on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, which is a large body of salty water, and to suggest that she somehow wound up in America six months later is "My Name is Earl" dumb.”
Apparently some folks couldn’t figure that out, and that’s scary. Even scarier is the fact that these folks are almost certainly eligible to drive cars, own guns and operate heavy machinery.
I hope I don’t run into one of them.
If you have a better idea about who Baby Grace could be, call the Galveston County sheriff’s Office at 409-766-2222 or the agency’s tip line at 866-248-8477.
Baby Grace deserves better. She deserves to have her name on her tombstone.
One more thing: Her killer needs to be named too.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Can you hear me now?
A city near Dallas wants to be the first in the state to ban drivers from talking on cell phones while passing through school zones.
Two words: Won’t work.
Sure, it may garner some fines for Highland Park, but the ritzy town isn’t short of cash.
City Council members and state legislators all over should accept a transformation that has spread over this country in the past few years like a sunrise.
Cell phones are here to stay. Almost everybody has one, and we yak on them all the time. Even in our cars.
In theory, it’s not supposed to be safe, and I wouldn’t say it makes you a better driver. But it doesn’t necessarily make you a worse driver.
If you’re on a straight stretch of road with no traffic signals, you can probably gab away without waking up in the emergency room.
In other situations, you should react accordingly. But then, you’re always supposed to react accordingly to rain, stop signs, school zones, etc.
Even the claim that hands-free units are “safe” is shaky. Even with your hands on the wheel in the “10 o’clock and 2 o’clock” positions recommended in driver's ed, you’re still not focusing 100 percent on the road.
At least part of your brain is focused on the latest news about Aunt Sue’s baby or whether you should get milk on the way home or how much A-Rod can rake in as a free agent.
And unless your “hands-free” unit can dial numbers or hang up without you touching it, it really isn’t “hands-free,” now is it?
I don’t know what the answer is. If some moron plowed into me while he was blathering on a cell phone, I’d be ticked off. If I lived, that is.
But cell phones are not going away, and people will talk on them while they are driving.
Unless someone invents a jamming device that turns them to static on roads, we have to deal with that reality.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Be a safe 'Weenie!
It’s that time of year again, a time when folks are fearful and nervous, wondering if they will survive. No, not April 15! It’s Halloween!
By now most of us realize that those old stories about trick-or-treating kids getting apples with razor blades in them are phony.
Some hospitals used to give free X-rays of candy bags on Halloween but gave up because they never found anything.
Sure, there was that slimeball in Houston nicknamed “The Candyman” who killed his own son with poisoned candy and claimed the kid got it while trick-or-treating. Thank God he got the Mother of All Injections for that horror.
And no, when it happened, I didn’t worry if the dirtbag was suffering cruel and unusual punishment because the needle prick was somewhat unpleasant.
But hey, it never hurts to be careful. So when you take your little ones door-to-door tonight, here are five things to watch out for:
1) Houses bearing signs that read, “A registered sex offender lives here.”
2) Doors opened by creepy men wearing clothing that says, “I skinned a man alive and all I got was this lousy shirt.”
3) A house with an armored Humvee in the driveway with a “Blackwater Security” bumper sticker.
4) Doors opened by shifty-looking characters who say, “Sure, c’mon in! And don’t mind those blood-curdling screams coming from basement. … It’s, uh, my washing machine.”
5) And finally, please make sure to avoid those decrepit homes occupied by weird old men with 64 dogs — some dead, some alive, all mangy — or crazy old ladies with 64 cats — some dead, some alive, all mangy.
How will you know if it’s one of those homes? Well, a dead giveaway would be … the presence of dozens of dogs or cats — some dead, some alive, all mangy!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Ralph's return
Below is a legitimate news story … with the real truth (my comments) in parenthesis:
WASHINGTON — Consumer advocate and 2004 independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader (yes, that annoying jerk) sued the Democratic Party on Tuesday, contending officials conspired to keep him from taking votes away from nominee John Kerry. (Righhhttt; if the bigshots hadn’t stepped in, Ralphie would’ve won.)
Nader’s lawsuit (which doesn’t have a chance in hell) … also named as co-defendants Kerry’s campaign, the Service Employees International Union and several so-called 527 organizations such as America Coming Together. ... (Left out were the Flat Earth Society, the Temperance Union and the Committee to Eliminate the Designated Hitter in the American League.)
The lawsuit also alleges that the Democratic National Committee conspired to force Nader off the ballot in several states (because every vote that loser got helped elect Bush).
“The Democratic Party is going after anyone who presents a credible challenge to their monopoly over their perceived voters,” Nader said in a statement (though he never explained why the word “credible” should appear in the same sentence with his name.) …
Among other things, the lawsuit alleges that the DNC tried to bankrupt Nader’s campaign by suing to keep him off the ballot in 18 states. (Why not all 50, Ralphie; can't you count that high?)
It also suggests the DNC sent Kerry supporters to crash a Nader petition drive in Portland, Ore., in June 2004, preventing him from collecting enough signatures to get on the ballot. (And let’s not forget the time the dry cleaner didn’t have Nader’s shirts ready or the time he ordered a pastrami on rye and got pumpernickel instead.)
DNC spokesman Luis Miranda declined comment on the suit (because he had 137 better things to do).
Monday, October 29, 2007
3 quick hits
Mary, Mary quite contrary
Former Jefferson County employee Mary Darlene Koch was already in hot water.
She was accused of embezzling $77,000 from a county training account and fired. It is a second-degree felony.
On Monday, she failed to appear at a hearing in her case. So an arrest warrant was issued for her.
Somebody needs to tell Klepto Koch that there is a very technical legal term for what she is doing. It is called …
DIGGING THE HOLE DEEPER!!!
Another shocking announcement from a guy you didn't know was still alive:
Former rock ’n’ roll crooner Donovan said from Scotland that he is opening the Invincible Donovan University, where students will study transcendental meditation.
First, the kids these days don't remember Donovan, who goes all the way back to the Psychedelic Era of rock music. His big hits were “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Mellow Yellow.”
Second, Donovan knew he would get some snickers with this announcement. In fact, he said, “I know it sounds like an airy-fairy hippie dream to go on about ’60s peace and love.”
Wow, that’s spooky.
That’s the exact, literal, word-for-word reaction that millions of people had across the globe.
You can have my brew when you pry it from my cold, dead ... oh, heck, I need to go to the bathroom.
If you thought the politicians had some explaining to do over high gas prices, you ain’t seen nothing yet. A shortage of hops and soaring prices for barley and wheat could lead to — no, not famine, you idiot — something even worse … beer shortages!
That’s right, folks; we had the article in Sunday’s Business Section. Seems it costs more and more to make a good brew — and you can throw in higher costs for glass bottles and aluminum cans as well.
The brewmeisters can’t just pass along these costs to the average beer-swiller because there are so many brands out there that something is always on sale somewhere.
And contrary to the nonsense peddled in beer commercials, most drinkers are not fanatically loyal to one brand. They want something cold and beery; for most of them, one yellow-brown liquid is as good as the next.
They might even — gasp! — switch to wine or the hard stuff!
The outlook is grim. Even the big breweries are scrambling, and the micro-brewers are crying in their beer.
... Well, they would if they had any.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Betcha can't smoke just one
Who’d have thunk it?
The medical marijuana program in Oregon is going up in smoke.
The limited program that voters approved in 1998 has expanded, well, like a mushroom cloud.
Supporters said then that only about 500 people a year would need to smoke pot to get relief from terrible diseases like cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, etc.
Oregonians, being a tolerant lot, said OK.
Nine years later, things have changed. A lot.
Today, the program has exploded to nearly 15,000 “patients,” as they are called in the Beaver State. Another 1,700 new or renewed applications are filed each month. These days, folks want legal weed to deal with conditions that aren’t exactly life-threatening, like back pain or menstrual cramps.
In three southwestern counties, an average of 1 resident in 89 is a card-carrying toker. (Must be a lot of sick folks there.)
More than 7,000 other Oregonians get pot privileges because they are “caregivers” to “patients.”
Cops estimate that 40 percent of the state’s licensed pot growers have broken at least one law — most commonly the one against growing too much cannabis.
That’s not surprising, since a pound of pot sells for about $2,500 on the streets.
Because of all this, some folks in Oregon want to repeal the program. Or at least scale it back.
But the pot smokers won’t hand over their joints and bongs without a fight.
I called up an old friend in Oregon who’s enrolled in the program (sinus condition, sore knees) and he seemed determined to defend it:
“Dude, it’s like, wow, let us do our thing, because we’re not, like, hurtin’ anyone, y’know? … I mean, it’s like, uh … what was I talkin’ about?”
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
A last resort
A lot of rich people aren’t smart, but at least they know a little bit about money. After all, they are rich. If they don’t, pretty soon they become un-rich.
Like Stephen R. Smith. He’s the jillionaire (maybe former jillionaire) who poured a ton of money into a resort in West Texas. As much as $80 million.
The resort — actually, now it’s a former resort — had a 92-room hotel, fancy golf course, private air strip, etc. More goodies were planned — condominiums, a gated community, etc. — but they never happened.
The problem, as realtors say, was, “Location, location, location.”
The resort is squished between the Big Bend state and national parks along the Rio Grande River. The nearest big town is El Paso, and it’s not really near. It’s 300 miles away.
If you know anything about the geography of West Texas, it is basically a large, barren, sun-baked desert. Words like “desolate” and “Godforsaken” have been applied to it — quite accurately.
Back to the resort: It went bankrupt from a distinct lack of customers.
Last week, it was put up for auction. It didn’t sell.
Now I’m no expert in these things, but I have a hunch that the reason nobody wanted to pour any more money down that rathole is the same reason that the “resort” went bust in the first place, which of course is that …
IT IS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!
Just another one to file under, “What were they thinking?”
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Weather alert!
BEAUMONT — An outbreak of strange weather was observed in Southeast Texas on Tuesday. Instead of the steamy, fiery, sweaty, stroke-inducing conditions we usually struggle with, temperatures today were quite different. Old-timers refer to this odd weather as “not hot.”
This bizarre weather is not expected to last. Temperatures should be in the upper 90s tomorrow with sunny skies.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Jail justice
I am sorry, in a vague way, that Jefferson County jail inmate Ronnie Tejada lost his legs due to complications from diabetes.
I am delighted, in a very enthusiastic way, that I don’t have to pay for his misfortune.
Tejada, of course, sued the county for bad medical care while in the slammer. Some folks were worried that the county or its health-care provider at the jail would get socked with a huge judgment … which would cause the county’s insurance/health costs to soar even higher … and encourage more lawsuits by other inmates.
Thank God common sense prevailed. Thank God a jury didn’t fall for Tejada’s sob story and throw him a pile of cash — thinking it was covered by insurance or was just sitting around in the petty cash drawer.
There is no free lunch.
If Tejada had collected a whopper of a judgment, it would have eventually come out of the pockets of every taxpayer in Jefferson County — most of whom contribute a lot more to the general welfare than a guy sitting in the klink on a charge of family violence.
The Enterprise covered this case well. I saw nothing that backed up Tejada’s claim. I saw several things which reaffirmed my belief that:
1) Lots of people with diabetes lose legs. That’s lousy, and it’s another reason to avoid this disease if you can.
2) Jail inmates should get good health care. But the notion that doctors and nurses should hover over these little darlings is absurd.
This country is still trying to figure out how to help hundreds of brave men and women wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.
If you’re looking for someone without an arm or leg who deserves sympathy, look to them.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Three quick hits
1) Strangest comment by a college student this week — hell, actually in quite some time:
After a skeleton was found during construction work at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, freshman Scott Eul, 19, was quoted as saying:
“It’s really scary. If it is a dead person, I hope it’s from a long time ago.”
2) Further proof that criminals aren’t really very smart:
A man in Santa Fe, N.M., was arrested Tuesday for violating his probation by possessing stolen property.
The bust occurred after Victor Lopez, 32, walked into a meeting with his probation officer with a stolen $2,500 Rolex watch on his wrist.
… Did they get the Beemer in the parking lot he just carjacked?
3) Scariest headline this week — hell, actually in quite some time:
(from USA Today Web site, Thursday, Oct. 18)
“Most fake bombs missed by screeners”
Seems that the security screeners at LAX missed three-fourths of the fake bombs put into their normal load of suitcases, purses, etc.
At Chicago’s O’Hare, it wasn’t much better; 60 percent of the fake bombs were missed.
I wonder if the supervisor of any of these highly trained barriers to terrorists said the next day during the morning staff meeting, “Hey, guys, we can do better than this! Let’s at least shoot for missing only half of the fake bombs, OK? Thanks; I'd appreciate your cooperation.”
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Home dentistry? No thanks!
Reason No. 837 to be against national health insurance:
That would be the headline on page 6A of Wednesday’s Enterprise:
“Shortage has Britons pulling their own teeth.”
That’s right, folks. Britain’s National Health Insurance Service is so inept that some Brits can’t find any dentists who participate in it. And if they can’t afford dentists in private practice, they do things like pull out their own teeth … or use super glue to hold down loose crowns!
Yikes!
Look, the health care system we have here in the states is not perfect. In fact, it’s far from that. It needs serious reforms — quickly.
But I do not want to rely on the government for health care. It will be worse!
I do not want to trust my life/health to the same bureaucrats who handle subsidies for mohair, tried to make us drive 55 mph and created a tax code that no one, not even the so-called experts, can decipher.
… By the way, this is the second blog in a row on the somewhat obscure topic of dentistry.
Coincidence … or conspiracy?
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Dental dread
OK, so we’ve got this icky dentist in Woodland, Calif., who feels up female patients.
That would be Dr. Mark Anderson, accused of fondling the breasts of 27 women who wanted him to concentrate on another part of their bodies — like their teeth, seeing as he is a dentist and all.
That’s creepy enough. But the story gets weirder.
Instead of admitting he’s a perv and begging for mercy, Anderson figures the best defense is a good offense.
He says massages of the pectoral muscles are legitimate therapy for something called TMJ, temporo-mandibular joint disorder, which causes head and neck pain.
If I were the judge handling that case, I wouldn’t know whether to laugh or retch.
But wait, it gets weirder still. One of the complainants, a 31-year-old woman, said Anderson fondled her AT LEAST SIX TIMES over two years.
She says she started wearing tight shirts with high necklines on her visits, but "Anderson would still get in under her shirt and bra," according to a police report.
Women of America: If you go to a dentist and he gropes you, call the police.
Oh, and one more thing: DO NOT GO BACK TO VISIT HIM AGAIN AND AGAIN!
Monday, October 15, 2007
Al Gore keeps winning!
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — (Surreal News Network) — Just days after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his visionary work about global warming, former Vice President Al Gore also won Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” for 2007 along with MVP in the National League and was declared People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.”
“I’m overwhelmed,” Gore said to cheering supporters at his Tennessee home. “I knew I had Man of the Year sewed up, but I was afraid I’d have to wait three more months and pretend that other people had a chance. … I really hadn’t played baseball since I was a kid, but if this award will further the battle against global warming, then the world will truly be a better place. … And my wife Tipper has always known that I’m one hot dude — that’s hot in a good way, of course, not in a bad way, like global warming.”
Gore, who also won an Oscar for his documentary film about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” is also believed to be a strong candidate for MTV’s Male Artist of the Year.
More on this story as it develops.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
He's baaack
If you're surprised at the coming return of radio shock-jock Don Imus, you haven’t been paying attention.
In this country, you can do some pretty stupid or disgusting things that should be career-enders. But after a few months of penance (real or fake), a carefully worded apology or two and an emotional plea for a fresh start, you’re back in the saddle.
Hey, even sports broadcaster Marv Albert slinked back to the booth after that embarrassing trial involving his former girlfriend. Yuck!
At least O.J. wasn’t able to weasel his way back into respectability. Thank God we still draw the line at murder.
For almost anyone else, though, it ain’t over til it’s over. Terrell Owens single-handedly destroyed the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005 with a world-class temper tantrum. Some naïve folks wondered if he would ever play again.
They were dreaming. As soon as T.O. was available, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones couldn’t wait to sign him.
Like T.O., the I-Man didn’t have to cool his jets for long. “Imus brings, potentially, large national advertisers,” said Tom Taylor of the industry Web site radio-info.com. “And there’s also syndication, not only on radio but television.”
Gosh, Mr. Taylor, do you mean that money is more important than principle in big-time commerce?
It usually is, of course. Imus also fared better than most temporarily disgraced celebs.
He got a multi-million-dollar settlement from CBS for letting him out of his contract. Now he apparently has signed an equally juicy gig with New York-based WABC-AM, owned by Citadel Broadcasting. He may end up making almost as much money in ’07 as he would have anyway.
One more thing about Don Idiot: His comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team — nappy headed ho’s — was cruel and racist. He deserved a public spanking.
But what about the countless rappers, actors and comedians who use the same terms — or worse — all the time?
They are the people who put these words into the national vocabulary, where guys like Imus pick them up.
If we want to cure the disease — and we should — let’s go to the source.
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