In my last post, I noted the extreme oddness and stupidity of a Missouri woman who was sentenced to four years in prison for faking the birth of sextuplets to get money from sympathetic folks.
It was the first time I had heard of this odd and stupid crime.
Then later that day, I’m reading our own Bayou, the greatest blog in the history of bloggery, and I find … the same scam in a different place!
That’s right, folks. This time, a couple in South Carolina, Nancy Cantu and Juan Solis, claimed they were having quintuplets to get money from sympathetic folks.
What the heck is going on here? Do we have an epidemic of fake multiple births to get money from sympathetic folks? Should state legislatures start passing special laws to prevent fake multiple births to get money from sympathetic folks?
You’re probably as concerned as I am about this new crime wave. But after thinking about this a while, I believe we are safe.
You see, the criminals who think they have found the ticket to instant riches have overlooked one major problem in the ol’ fake-multiple-births-to-get-money-from-sympathetic-folks scam.
That problem, of course, is that YOU CAN’T FAKE MULTIPLE BIRTHS to get money from sympathetic folks.
Look, you could borrow a kid or two from Aunt Bertha or Cousin Zeb for a photo op or a fund-raiser or an appearance at City Hall.
BUT THEY WON’T LOOK ALIKE AND THERE WON’T BE FIVE OR SIX OF THEM!
In other words, potentially sympathetic folks will eventually catch on that THERE IS NO MULTIPLE BIRTH TO BE SYMPATHETIC TOWARD.
Good grief; what part of “multiple” don’t these crooks understand?
Criminals of America, please don’t try this at home. Please go back to something like the pigeon-drop scam or the fake-night-deposit-box scam and let the rest of us live in peace.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
A new crime wave?
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
A familiar trick
A woman in Independence, Mo., Sarah Everson, was sentenced to four years in prison for violating her probation for an earlier charge of felony theft.
And how did she violate her probation? According the Associated Press, she “faked the birth of sextuplets to tap the generosity of neighbors.”
Um, how do you fake the birth of sextuplets?
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Good riddance
You’ve got to be pretty cold-blooded to be happy with anyone’s death. And I rarely am.
O.K. I’ll make an exception with Osama bin Laden and Fidel Castro. And let’s not forget the psychopathic dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Il.
Beyond that, it’s more appropriate to be sort of quietly relieved when a dirtbag checks out.
For example, take Cedric Wills, 18, who was killed in a drive-by shooting last year in Houston.
At first cops thought Wills was killed by rival gang members in one of your traditional shootouts.
Now they think he was accidentally killed by fellow gang member Craig Vincent. It seems that Wills moved in front of Vincent’s gun when the two were hanging out the window of a car in a drive-by shooting.
Don’t you hate it when that happens?
Or take Jesus Flores, 25, who is no longer with us. Jesus went to Jesus about 4 o’clock Tuesday morning at the Polunsky Unit, otherwise known as Death Row, right here in Southeast Texas, in Liberty.
Flores cut his throat. He tried to write something on the wall of his cell with his own blood but guards said it was illegible.
Why was he on Death Row? Because he admitted to and was convicted of killing a Harris County sheriff’s deputy in 2001, Joseph Dennis.
I suppose Flores’ family is sad that he is gone. I sure won’t lose any sleep over it.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Dumb and disorderly
There ought to be a law against stupid criminals.
I mean it. If you commit a crime in a really boneheaded way, you should get extra punishment.
Take Channel Gaskin, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested for robbing a bank this week in Sandy Springs, Ga.
Cops were able to grab Gaskin because she forgot a crucial element of a bank-robbery scheme — the getaway car.
That’s right, folks. Police spotted her … while she was waiting for a bus after the heist.
"That just wasn’t too bright," said Sandy Springs police Lt. Steve Rose.
Indeed it was not, Steve-O. Nor was the bank robbery attempted by a 72-year-old man in Lynchburg, Va.
Police say Duval Davis Sr. entered a bank on Nov. 29 with a gun and told the branch manager, “Give me all your money.” (I think they teach that line in Bank Robbery School.)
The bank guy did just that. Then Davis had second thoughts. He gave the money back and told the employee to call the police.
I’m no expert, but it seems that Davis needs to work on closing the sale. If you’re going to go around giving back money, you’ll never go far in bank robbing.
Sheeesh. Someone should lock up clowns like that and forget to let them out.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Yankeenomics
I know it’s January and you are not thinking about baseball.
Still, I would encourage you to get a head start on your Yankee hating for the ’08 season.
Why? Well, first of all, you shouldn’t need a new reason. The dozens of old ones are good enough.
But if you’re wavering, try this: The Yankees’ payroll last year (tops, naturally) was a whopping $218 million.
That’s a tad under $63 million ahead of the next biggest spender, the Boston Red Sox, who paid out $155 million. More effectively, I might add, since they won the World Series.
The Yanks did try to hold their payroll under $200 million last year, but that late signing of Roger Clemens pushed them over the top. (No word on whether the Rocket’s pharmaceutical bill figured into that.)
The NFL and NBA have tried to equalize team spending (in different ways) to give each team at least a chance of winning the Big Enchilada.
The player’s union has prevented Major League Baseball from doing something similar. And, to be fair, stupid owners keep shelling out ever-bigger bucks to marginal players.
But something is terribly wrong in a sport where the payroll gap between the No. 1 team (the Bronx Bombers) and the No. 3 team (the L.A. Dodgers, hardly a small-market squad) is an astounding $92 million.
What could be sillier? Try the two teams at the bottom of the totem pole:
-- Florida Marlins, $33.1 million. It’s hard to imagine they actually won a World Series a few years ago. In the off-season, they shipped their last two good players — Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera — to the Tigers.
-- Tampa Bay Rays, $31.8 million. They changed their name from the Devil Rays to the Rays because of all those negative vibes with the D-word. They should have played a little with the letter “A” and changed their name to the Last-Place Rays.
The thirtysomething million spent by each of those two teams is what the Yankees toss away for a single player. I’d love to see the Rays win the AL East over the Yankees, but that’s about as likely as Barry Bonds admitting he hit all those moonshots with a little help from his friends.
Oh, well. Hang in there, baseball fans. The first day of spring training is Feb. 14.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Triple play
Not good, you are thinking. The woman, Beth Modica, had better hope this is all a silly misunderstanding — or she needs a reeeaally good lawyer.
What could make things worth for poor Bethy? Well, how about:
A) She is a former PTA president. (Yikes.)
B) She is a lawyer herself and a former prosecutor. (Double yikes.)
C) She is the wife of the police chief in nearby Spring Valley, N.Y. (Triple yikes.)
Isn’t that called hitting the trifecta?
**************
A legislator in Maryland, Page Elmore, R-Somerset, wants the Old Line State to declare the 10-layer Smith Island cake its official state dessert.
Whatever. My nominee would have been a Snickers bar and Diet Coke.
***************
The world’s largest saltwater swimming pool opened last month in Chile. It is more than 1,000 yards long, covers 20 acres and holds 66 million gallons of water. It is at the fancy San Alfonso del Mar resort on Chile’s southern coast.
It is also waaay bigger than the world’s second-largest pool, which is in Morocco and is just 150 yards long and 100 yards wide. That’s a surprise; you would think the world’s second-largest pool would be a little closer in size to the world’s first-largest pool.
Anyway:
1) Wouldn’t it have been easier to fence off a chunk of the Pacific Ocean at the resort’s beach and call it “our pool”?
2) Isn’t the Gulf of Mexico the world’s largest saltwater swimming pool?
Friday, January 18, 2008
3 pointers for zoo visits
“Clearly there’s the lesson to be learned here,” said Sam Singer, spokesman for the San Francisco Zoo, where a tiger named Tatiana killed a man on Christmas Day and mauled his two friends.
“The lesson is that it’s not a good idea to drink, it’s not a good idea to be high on dope, and it’s not a good idea to taunt a man-eating tiger.”
Well put, Sam.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Britney Quiz
To heck with the presidential race, world peace and stuff like that. Let’s talk about something really important — Britney Spears.
As part of a research project by a major think tank, people like you are being asked to take the following Britney Quiz. It will take only a few seconds, so please give it a whirl:
1) When you hear about the latest antics of Britney, you think she is:
A) Loony
B) Wacky
C) Crazy
2) You used to admire Britney in a vague sort of way, but now you think she is:
A) Loony
B) Wacky
C) Crazy
3) Compared to flakes like Amy Winehouse, Robert Downey Jr. and Sean Penn, Britney is:
A) Loony
B) Wacky
C) Crazy
4) The bizarre behavior that caused Britney to lose custody of her kids suggests she is:
A) Loony
B) Wacky
C) Crazy
5) When Britney hits the booze and pills, she acts:
A) Loony
B) Wacky
C) Crazy
Thank you for your cooperation. This blog will be updated when Britney goes into rehab again.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
'Boys bounced!
When I think of guys like Wade Phillips and Tony Romo, I’m sorry the Cowboys got bounced from the playoffs.
When I think of guys like Jerry Jones and Terrell Owens, I’m not.
The Cowboys are schizophrenic like that. Fans either love ’em or hate ’em — or love parts of ’em or hate parts of ’em. Think Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith (yes!) … vs. Barry Switzer and Hollywood Henderson (yecchh!).
Phillips is a classy guy — and a PN-G ex — who looked like he might finally get that elusive playoff win as a head coach. Hang in there, Wade; your time will come.
If you can’t get excited watching a brash guy like Tony Romo play the game with boyish enthusiasm, you might want to check your pulse. Maybe Jessica can, uh, soothe him in the off-season.
His counterpart Sunday — Eli Manning — looks upset even when he’s doing well. Maybe he could do some antacid commercials to catch up with brother Peyton on that score.
As for Jones and Owens, you almost hate to see them succeed. They’re so arrogant they take the joy out of winning. If someone is going to taste the bitter ashes of defeat, I can’t think of a more deserving pair.
Still, the ’Boys had a good year — their best since someone named Clinton was president.
Maybe next year, they’ll have another good season … and another person named Clinton will be getting ready to be president. I’m hoping for one ... but not the other.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Seattle slacker
This is one of those “only in America” stories. Or maybe an “only in baseball” story.
Seems the Seattle Mariners have signed a journeyman infielder by the name of Miguel Cairo to a one-year contract — for the tidy sum of $850,000.
Nothing unusual there. Teams do things like that all the time.
What is unusual is the main reason the Mariners signed Cairo.
You see, they already have a second baseman by the name of Jose Lopez. And Lopez is, or was, pretty good, since they gave him a $6 million contract, which is hefty even by baseball’s inflated standards.
But poor Mr. Lopez … well, he just can’t seem to get motivated. He played so indifferently last year that he was benched for a while.
The young star lacks “focus,” and Cairo was signed specifically to inspire/scare Lopez into trying harder. In fact, this is the third consecutive year that Seattle has signed an old veteran like Cairo to light a fire under Lopez’s can.
"We need improved offense at second base,” said Seattle GM Bill Bavasi in November. “Whether we get someone else or take Jose and make him better, we have to get better there. … (Lopez) is a young kid finding his way still. From my point of view, it is more a focus issue than anything else."
Gee whiz, doesn’t your heart just break for the delicate Mr. Lopez? I mean, he’s pulling down $6 mil for a fantasy job that most of us dream about … and he just can’t seem to get cranked up.
I can imagine him, like a spoiled actor, asking his crusty manager before every game, “What’s my motivation?”
Personally, I think the Mariners are taking the wrong approach. Instead of signing Cairo at $850,000, they ought to sign me for half that.
I could motivate Lopez, and it wouldn’t be hard. In fact, I’ve already thought of three helpful things I’d tell the petulant star when his enthusiasm waned:
1) “Hey, Lopez! Show some hustle, you jerk! You’re making $6 mil!”
2) “Hey, Lopez! Show some hustle, you jerk! You’re making $6 mil!”
3) “Hey, Lopez! Show some hustle, you jerk! You’re making $6 mil!”
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
8 more for '08
Back from vacation; ready to rumble.
Eight days after my last post, on this eighth day of ’08, here are eight things I do NOT want to see in 2008:
8) A sequel to “Knocked Up” starring Jamie Lynn Spears.
7) A report that chocolate causes cancer.
6) A doping scandal at the Beijing Olympics.
5) Another report of an animal getting out of its cage at a zoo.
4) Roger Clemens coming out of retirement — again.
3) Another assassination of a moderate leader in a place filled with crazies and haters.
2) A president-elect who loses the popular vote but wins in the Electoral College.
1) A recession.
Monday, December 31, 2007
8 for '08
HEADING OFF FOR MORE VACATION TIME, BUT HERE’S ONE LAST POST. WILL BE BACK NEXT WEEK:
Here are eight things I’d like to see in 2008:
8) A whole lot less about the worthless lives of Britney, Lindsay, Paris, etc.
7) A report from the National Hurricane Center expressing amazement at the third successive slow season.
6) A confirmed sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker in the Big Thicket.
5) Barry Bonds standing in a tense courtroom as the jury foreman says, “We find the defendant guilty on all counts.”
4) A deal between the city of Beaumont and its firefighters that both can live with.
3) A World Series that does not involve a team from New York City.
2) A Hillary-Rudy face-off. These are the two best candidates in both parties; let ’em tangle.
1) A report from Baghdad that begins, “The first withdrawal of U.S. troops has begun and is expected to be completed by … ”
Friday, December 28, 2007
Farewell, Fidel
I hope this is the last year we have to put up with Fidel Castro.
He’s 81, he’s a dictator, and he needs to kick the bucket.
He’s also senile, I think, as indicated by his latest comments in which he said he did not want to be known as “a person clinging to power.”
Uh, Fidel, you’ve been “clinging to power” since 1959. For 17 months, you’ve been so sick that you can’t “cling to power” openly, so you do it from a hospital bed.
He keeps vowing not to stand in the way of younger leaders ... but he keeps “clinging to power.”
His idea of a “youth movement” is handing off power to his brother Raul — a sprite of 79!
And he’s still on the ballot for Cuba’s phony elections Jan. 20.
You know how that game works in communist countries, don’t you? A hand-picked slate of “candidates” is presented to voters, who can play along and rubber-stamp the ballot … or wake up in a re-education camp.
That’s “democracy” under communism.
Whatever. The open secret in Cuba is that Castro really only wants to outlast the second term of President Bush, which expires at noon on Jan. 20, 2009.
I hope Castro expires first.
Then, and only then, will he no longer be “clinging to power.”
Thursday, December 20, 2007
R.I.P., W.T.
They buried W.T. Block this week. He was 87, and I knew it was coming. So many of the heroes from the Greatest Generation are leaving us each day. My father Carl, a flight engineer on a B-29, departed several years ago.
As editorial page editor here and at the Port Arthur News before that, I developed a special relationship with W.T. Block. Well, it was special to me, but he probably knew dozens of people like me.
He wrote a guest column for us for many years, and he was one of the most interesting and best-read local writers we ever had.
His columns covered the gamut, from pirates to logging, but I particularly loved his columns on World War II.
I am fascinated by that great war and the greater men who won it — men like W.T. Block. Whenever he sent in something on the war, it got into print ASAP. On our occasional phone conversations, if the talk drifted to the war, it wouldn’t be brief.
Of course like most of the men from that conflict, he was modest about his own achievements even though he faced death many times.
In one column, he mentioned the cold nights he spent on the front in a dugout … and waking up to see footprints in the snow of German patrols from the night before.
In another column, he noted that he was standing alongside a colonel at the famed Remagen Bridge when a piece of shrapnel or a bullet entered the officer’s side and killed him on the spot.
So many memories from that great writer flood through my brain. Of all the columns he wrote, however, one stands out. We ran it years ago, and it is reproduced below.
Read through it and think about what W.T. Block did for those two days in that bitter cold. Think of the horror he must have felt. But think of how he did his duty anyway that day — and dozens of other days when it seemed unbearable and undoable.
He titled this column, “I Remember ‘The Lucky Stiffs’ ”
NEDERLAND — Some time ago, a friend asked me, “Bill, have you and your wife seen the movie (name deleted) yet?” I replied that “No, we hadn’t,” and he asked why. I responded, “Because each of us had already seen enough brutality for this life!”
Suddenly I recalled the days I spent with the “lucky stiffs,” days during which every evil thought nibbled at my conscious, and days I could never forget. The day before, the 309th Infantry had jumped across the Roer River, making a lightning advance into the weakly defended Rhineland, but several of our 78th Division soldiers had died during the onslaught. And the several inches of snow beneath our feet had hardened to ice consistency, with the temperature hovering in the minus zero range.
Early that day Sgt. Novy and I, our mess kits still dangling in the brisk breeze, had just returned from breakfast at the HQ mess truck. Suddenly I heard a loud voice bellow, “Hey, soldier, come here!” I turned and inquired, “Me?” “Yes, you!” was his response. “Go help Davis do his job for a day or two. His helper has gone on sick call!”
I was reluctant as I pondered the price of refusal, since the man with the loud voice wore no visible rank or insignia on his uniform. Sgt. Novy added, “Go ahead, Block, it’s just a temporary assignment, and refusing a direct order at the front can mean a general court martial for insubordination.”
I opened a door of Davis’ truck and as I did so, I read the sign on it, “Graves Registration Command.” We drove a short distance to a soldier, whose body was half covered with snow, and whose shoulder insignia was the same as mine, a red half moon and lightning patch. Davis stopped his truck and said:
“Grab his shoulders and swing with me, and let him fall in the truck,” he shouted above the icy breeze. The frozen body hit the bed of the truck so hard that ice fragments broke off and scattered everywhere. Something rushed up inside my throat, but I said nothing that time.
We drove a couple blocks and repeated the procedure, but I could not keep quiet that time; I cried out:
“Good Heavens! Must we toss these bodies in like so much cordwood? There must be a better way. Every one of them represents a trail of broken hearts back home, and but for the Grace of God, they could be us!”
“Don’t be foolish, Block!” he retorted. “You’ll git used to it! They’re ‘the lucky stiffs.’ They don’t feel no pain no more. Their fingertips and toes don’t ache no more like ours do. And besides, we still got ours to git!”
“Git what?” I asked him curtly. “I mean git a bullet in the head from some sniper!” he responded.
I winced at the words, but got back into the truck. Once I had to take a shovel and pick up the insides in a basket of a fallen soldier’s body, which had been mutilated by an 88 shell; and the scene was so sickening I quickly tossed up all my breakfast.
All that day and the next, we threw scores of bodies into the truck — an American here and a German there. I remember one big German body — must have weighed 350 pounds — that required four of us to pick up and put in the truck.
Of course, I could not escape the fact that a day earlier, he probably had killed some of the Americans we had loaded on the truck. Nevertheless, I also could not escape thinking that the death of the big German was heartbreak for some one in his country. Each day we kept loading bodies and hauling them back to the Henri Chapelle Cemetery in Belgium.
After that, I was glad to get back to the pillbox where we were billeted, but the memories of “the lucky stiffs” continue to haunt me to the present day. I remember too that I was able to return home and raise a family, but they couldn’t — so I know they were not the lucky ones.
I remember too how the Army had trained and honed me and other soldiers to butcher-shop perfection, and I do mean razor-sharp perfection, with never a thought of undoing that training as we became civilians again. Perhaps it was a credit to most of us that we were able to shed our chicken-hawk aggression toward others with no more damage to society than was wrought by us.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Hang in there, Andy
TAKING ANOTHER WEEK OF VACATION, BUT HERE’S ONE LAST POST. BE GOOD UNTIL I GET BACK:
You gotta feel sorry for Andruw Jones.
The former Atlanta Braves star has had a great career since 1996. He was a five-time All Star. Won 10 straight Gold Gloves. Was MVP runner-up in 2005, when he had 51 homers and 128 RBIs. Next year, he hit 41 home runs with a career-high 129 RBIs.
Everything was spiffy … until last year. He had his worst season ever.
The second half was a little better, but the first part was awful. We’re talking Mendoza Line awful
In the end, he hit only .222 and had just 26 homers — pitiful numbers for him. He did manage 94 RBIs, the only bright spot in the nightmare.
Worst of all, he was a free agent after this year. If he had had a typical Andruw Jones season, he could have reaped millions.
Instead, the best deal he could get was … $36 million from the Dodgers for two years.
That’s right, fans. After stinking up Atlanta, he becomes the fifth-highest paid player in baseball.
The economic laws of the game are simple and brutal.
Have a good year, and you rake in the millions. Have a bad year, and … well, you still rake in the millions.
... Oh, and you thought life was fair?
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Goodbye to pay phones
The latest casualty of the Information Age is pay phones.
If you feel sad or nostalgic about this loss … get over it. Cell phones are 100 times better.
And it is cell phones that are sending pay phones and phone booths to the history books along with manual typewriters, elevator operators, restroom attendants, etc.
On Tuesday AT&T announced it will disconnect its pay-phone operations in 2008.
A spokesman, speaking the obvious, said, “Usage has just dropped so much — precipitously.”
If you have an IQ larger than your waist size, you had to see this coming.
Cell phones are everywhere. Kids have ’em. Grandmas and grandpas have ’em. Even poor people have ’em.
(Though in America, poor people also have color TVs, air-conditioning, home computers, etc., but that’s another blog.)
I suppose some people have fond memories of phone booths and will moan about the clunky old contraptions.
I’m not one of them. Whenever I had to use a pay phone, I was worried about catching a disease from the filthy thing or having the correct change.
Gimme a cell phone anytime. Sure, we overuse those babies too. We wonder how we lived just a few years ago when we didn’t have one on our hip all the time. (Somehow, we survived.)
The only downside is that anyone who has passed puberty has another thing to explain to kids who ask in the future, “Uh … what, like, was a phone booth used for in, like, the old days?”
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Unbearable
They’re baaack, and you don’t want to run across one.
I refer of course to Ursus arctos horribilis, better known as the grizzly bear.
Seems that the griz are returning to parts of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington since coming under federal protection.
That’s good.
What’s not good is what happens when a member of Homo sapiens sapiens — that would be you or me or another human being — comes across a grizzly bear. What happens is that the person usually wakes up dead.
That would be because your average male grizzly bear is 6 or 7 feet tall and weighs up to 850 pounds. Throw in hellacious claws and teeth along with incredible muscle mass — not to mention a nasty disposition — and you are talking one big-time killing machine.
In the last eight months alone, the Associated Press has tallied a dozen grizzly-human confrontations.
Incredibly, the AP said that among those incidents, “seven people were injured, some severely.”
Wow. Only seven? I didn’t know it was possible to tangle with a grizzly and not end up looking like a sack of raw hamburger meat.
Anyhow, with more of this happening, some folks out West want to be able to hunt the bears again.
They figure if grizzlies get scared of people, they’d be less inclined to think of them as dinner.
I dunno.
I would say this: If the number of grizzly bears continues to increase in the Pacific Northwest, people are going to suddenly remember why they wanted to eradicate these critters from the lower 48.
Personally, I’ve got no beef with the bear.
In fact, if they want to have Montana, I wouldn’t fight ’em for it.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Joe's gone wild
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!"
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.
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