New perspective on Barry Bonds issue

Here's an interesting perspective from a sportwriter boycotting Barry Bonds games, a sportswriter who happens to be a black woman.

SI.com - Writers - Elizabeth Newman: Decision to boycott Barry Bonds is not about race - Thursday May 18, 2006 5:15PM

NFL Commissioner Condi?? Secretary of State Tagliabue?!

Current NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has announced that he intends to leave office in July unless the NFL owners haven't found a replacement for him by then, in which case he might stay a bit longer. An article in today's NY Daily News lists ten possible replacements for Tagliabue, among them US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, ex-US President Bill Clinton, and ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani. Of the three, I'd have to say that Giuliani is probably the one most owners would take seriously. On the other hand, during his tenure as mayor he tended to come across as hall-monitor-in-chief rather than the city's CEO, and the billionaires and multimillionaires that run the NFL might not appreciate someone with that demeanor. (Though I recall some of the members of my high school's Red Brigade, as we called them, and they were a tough bunch. Charlotte Rodriguez could whip the NFL into shape pronto.)

Condi Rice actually said, back when she was national security advisor, that she would be interested in the job once Tagliabue left office, but a story in today's Daily News makes it clear that though she's a huge football fan -- "she thinks football is the greatest sport on earth," according to a spokesperson -- she won't be leaving the White House for the NFL, though at least one owner is clearly in her corner should she change her mind. Bill Clinton is also being touted by another Daily News writer as a good candidate to replace Tagliabue, though dealing with NFL owners' egos could make him nostalgic for Pennsylvania Avenue, according to this article.

[Interestingly, Condi made this statement about wanting to be NFL commissioner during Bush's first term, suggesting that either she didn't expect Bush to be (re-)elected or she didn't plan to stick around for a second term.]

And if Hillary Clinton getting elected to Capitol Hill while her husband was still President made a big splash in the news, imagine Bill as NFL commish while his wife's running for or if she's elected President!

Better the NFL than major league baseball, I say. Hillary's supposedly a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, she would be hard-pressed to refrain from meddling if Bill were to become MLB commissioner, with all the mess that's going on in baseball these days. There's the Barry Bonds situation (retire, please, NOW); the "ownerless" Washington Nationals, who will never be allowed to become competitive as long as all of baseball's owners officially co-own the team; and who knows what else could pop up.

UPDATE: It has come to light that not only is it Condi Rice's dream job to be NFL commissioner, but it's also Paul Tagliabue's dream job to be Secretary of State! He's already on a couple of foreign policy committees, due to his past high-level employment by the federal government, and still has high security clearance. Maybe the Feds and the NFL could work out a trade?

Send in the clowns!

The other day, a coworker was telling a story about a family who had appeared on Family Feud or some such show, and it happens they were a family of professional... clowns. Once another coworker I'll call J heajrd the reference to clowns, she just started cracking up laughing for no apparent reason. She didn't even know herself just what she found so funny about a family of clowns, except she did offer this: "Say you're bringing your boyfriend or girlfriend to meet your family for the first time and he or she asks, 'So what do you do?' and the answer comes back, 'We're clowns...'" after which she broke up again. The girl telling the story made sure to emphsize CLOWN everytime she got to that word, just for the reaction, and every time she did J would just dissolve into laughter. I happened to mention the scene in the Charlie Sheen movie "The Chase" where Charlie's character is trying to convince his "hostage" that he's really innocent of the crime he'd been convicted of (just before he accidentally kidnapped her), and the story involves a children's birthday party where he's dressed as a clown. J managed to get "I remember that!" out before cracking up again.

So, the next day, I thought I'd try to put her at ease, especially since her next-cubicle neighbor was still at it. "Don't worry, J, I won't try to get laughs out of you like I did yesterday afternoon," I said in my most soothing voice. "You don't have to worry, 'cause Homey don't play dat."

Caveat Scriptor...

...or something. I'm trying to say beware of what you post online, because you NEVER know who's reading, or how they might react. You'd think someone in a sensitive profession like law would think long and hard about whether to blog about an ongoing case, complete with enough details for readers to piece together the identity of the writer and of those being written about.

At least I would think so, but what do I know? I'm not a lawyer. Maybe that's a good thing...

The Internet Patrol: Blog Postings Cost Lawyer His Job When Read by Judge

USATODAY.com - Old Man at Shea

This one isn't "strange," per se, just unusual. The New York Mets' Julio Franco, 47 years old, has just set a record for the oldest player to hit a home run in a regular-season game. Says he wants to hit a homer at 50. More power to him. (OK, that wasn't intended to be a pun.)

USATODAY.com - This player is really, really old school

Update: on Thursday 4/27 Franco stole a base. It wasn't the best situation to steal a base in -- he left first base empty with one out and Carlos Delgado, a power hitter, at bat -- but I like that hustle, especially in an older... make that the oldest player. The only player in major league history older than him to have stolen a base, did it almost 100 years ago. For the Mets' sake, I hope Julio continues to NOT act his age.

Too bad Rickey Henderson didn't have that kind of hustle in him when the Mets had him. His conviction that he is and will always be a SUPERstar is what did him in. He's a year older than Franco, but Franco's been playing continuously since he joined the majors, even going to Japan and Korea when he had to, taking nothing for granted. Superstar Rickey "bided his time" in the minors, convinced that a major-league callup was just minutes away. Well, it's been two years now, and no one's calling. Better hang up that pride, Rickey: retire, and take a coaching or TV job somewhere, instead of hanging around ballparks looking desperate.

At the time, it seemed like the thing to do...

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

• Newspaper subscription telemarketer
• Credit information verifier
• Cashier
• Bus driver

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:

• Silverado (the 'form' is Western, but they pack mystery, action, romance, comedy, and a fair bit of intrigue into it)
• Better Off Dead (from John Cusack's teen-movie phase)
• Independence Day (Judd Hirsch is great in this, as are Randy Quaid [yes, really!] and Bill... Pullman? Paxton? I get them confused)
• Canadian Bacon (no explanations, no excuses, I just like it. Michael Moore needs to make more narrative movies. And it's great the way he got Canadian actors to play up Canadian stereotypes -- John Lithgow, Steven Wright, etc.)
• BONUS: The Core (hey, with Stanley Tucci [The Man], Delroy Lindo [also The Man], and Alfre Woodard showing the others how to act, how could I NOT watch?)

Four -- no, Three Places I’ve Lived:

• White Plains, NY, USA
• Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, NC, USA (just a couple of weeks, from what I'm told -- it was supposed to be longer, until my mother saw a mouse!)
• Mount Vernon, NY, USA

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:

• Monk (Tony Shalhoub is yet another Man)
• My Name Is Earl (small-screen Raising Arizona)
• Half and Half (mostly to stare at Essence Atkins and Rachel True, I admit)
• Caliente (outdoor Spanish-language Soul Train)

Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation:

• Disney World
• Myrtle Beach (SC)
• Virginia Beach (VA)
• Martha's Vineyard (MA)

Four of My Favorite Dishes:

• Beef stroganoff
• Corned beef
• Lasagna
• Stewed chicken (with curry)

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

• DeviantArt
• MySpace
• Jazzyville
• My personalized Google front page -- I have games...

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

• Hawaii
• Grand Canyon
• Mount St. Helens (Washington State, US -- that is, if it's not about to erupt again)
• US Virgin Islands

Last four CD's I bought:

• Different Strokes by Different Folks, by Sly & the Family Stone with new music added by current stars (some great stuff here, and some stuff better left unlistened to)
• Can You Dig It?: The Ultimate Isaac Hayes, by Isaac Hayes
• Soundtrack from Shaft, by Isaac Hayes (I bought Can You Dig It specifically hoping that it would have the 19-minute-plus version of "Do Your Thing," where the musicians live up to the song's title. But it only had the three-minute radio version. The CD liner notes said the full-length song was on the Shaft soundtrack, so I went out and bought that the next day)
• The Cosmic Game, by Thievery Corporation

Toccara (*sigh*)

I've been somewhat fascinated by the living media storm that is Toccara Jones, plus-sized also-ran from America's Next Top Model (I don't know what season, after a while they all run together -- the only one I really followed was the one that came down to Yoanna-vs-Mercedes-vs-Shandy, and I was rooting for Mercedes). Anyway, this article is about the media's various perspectives on America's increasing girth, and one of the touchstones used in the article is Toccara's run on "Celebrity Fit Club."

AlterNet: Weighing Reality

Still alive...

Just a note to let the two or three people following this blog know that I'm still alive, just having some, uh, motivation issues. I should be back into the swing of things shortly...

You gotta be spoofin' me (as my father might say)

There is now a service called SpoofTel, that actually allows you to spoof the number that shows up on caller ID when you call others' cell phone numbers. What's more, the link is actually in rotation in Google Mail's new Web Clips service (one line ads and news links XML'd to the top of the mail listings). The blurb on the site's front page claims that this allows users to protect their privacy while making cell phone calls. Um, excuse me, but how is this any different from spoofing email headers? What's to stop unscrupulous telemarketers (imagine that!) from getting hold of this, if they haven't already, and going to town with it? As it is, they already send little or no info with their calls. All they need now is some kind of way to send spyware into your cell phone so they'll know what trusted numbers to spoof? With all the info they buy already about each and every one of us, what's one more bunch of bytes? (And I hope there aren't any conspiracy theorists reading this -- be assured that if I've thought of it, someone with the money and means to see it through has already done so a thousand times over.)

And with all the fuss over perceived loss of privacy through GMail's targeted ads in user's browser windows alongside their mail, why would Google even want to be involved in this mess? How can this not make people less secure with Google's promises that they value their users' privacy?

Somebody didn't do a very good job of thinking things through here.

PS -- Not only did someone drop the ball when deciding to let SpoofTel's ads through, but when I used Blogger's spell-check on this post, the spell-checker didn't recognize Google, GMail, or XML. I had to tell the checker to "learn" those terms. When a company that lives and dies by the Internet makes a tool available to the public, a tool with an included spell-checker, I would think that said company would make sure that the checker recognizes the company's name and the names of its main services without having to be "told."

"Attack of the Mindnumbed Educators" by Thomas Segel

Someone is finally speaking out against the overzealous school administrators and teachers who go all out to "protect students' self-esteem" and wind up robbing them of learning important life lessons. I love the opening sentence:

Have those who are charged with the education of our children all been infected with some mind-numbing virus? To read reports coming in from schools around the country that would appear to be the case.

"Attack of the Mindnumbed Educators" by Thomas Segel

Time

There's a special issue of Scientific American on the newsstands that features a series of articles on time. What is it, time travel, cultural ideas about time, and so on. One idea that seems to resonate throughout the first few articles is the idea that time does not "flow." That is, what we think of as the past and the future are subjective (relative) rather then objective (absolute). I can understand their arguments, but I can't sign on with them. My idea of time is, to paraphrase Matthew Broderick (said in character but I'm not sure who the character was), "Time is just... time just is." You get the feeling from the article that this is just yet another one of those instances where people spend much time, money, and ink of these ideas only because someone is willing to pay them to do so. Otherwise, they'd have to go out and get real jobs and stop arguing that "the passage of time is an illusion" (oh, so you're still being born?) or some such.

Price gouging because they can

Since I have a few chronic health conditions that require me to take medication daily, I'm very interested in medical developments and events that affect the prices and availability of medications. So sometime ago, when I got an email pointing out how medications that drugstores charge anywhere from 50c to $2 per pill contain fractions of a cent worth of medicine, it made me quite upset.

I'm fortunate enough to have insurance coverage from my government job, as well as secondary Medicare coverage since I'm an organ transplant recipient. But millions of people in this country don't have ANY health coverage, and millions of others don't have enough, forcing them to forgo needed medications in order to eat or to have a roof over their heads. And even those who have coverage are at risk of losing it when employers have to deal with escalating premiums due not only to fraud, but also to rising medication costs.

With the billions that the pharmaceutical companies make each year, this is uncalled for. Here is another blogger who agrees, telling her story.

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

A Danish website is courting controversy by contributing part of the proceeds from t-shirt sales to rebel groups in Colombia and Palestine. They actually even warn buyers that they should expect legal trouble because of antiterrorist legislation in the US and the European Union.

I guess this is what you could call "passive terrorism" -- incite trouble by buying a t-shirt.

Oddly Enough News Article Reuters.com

Wired News: She's Only 83? Cradle Robber!

The same guy who wrote the rude cell phone caller article at Wired (see above) has another article on the site entitled Wired News: She's Only 83? Cradle Robber! Interesting premise, but one thing I have to argue with.

There are already 6.5 billion people wandering around as you read this. Overpopulation is a severe problem in parts of the world (India, Bangladesh, the Upper East Side).

Some time ago writer P. J. O'Rourke pointed out that the net population density of Bangladesh is no more than that of Hayward, CA. Large numbers of people die each year in monsoon-related events in Bangladesh but that is because of the country's extremely low elevation -- its highest point is 660 feet above sea level -- not because of supposed overpopulation. If Bangladesh is overcrowded, then large sections of central and southern California need to be declared national disaster zones. Ditto Manhattan, while you're at it.

What's with all the Jessica Simpson mentions?

(or, no accounting for taste)

Anyone reading the previous post is probably wondering why there are so many mentions of Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears, and suspecting it might be no more than a crass play to get viewers. And to those cynics I have to admit that it did cross my mind this morning, even before I left home, that I could get more readers if I found a way to work those names into a post. But when I browsed on the MySpace site earlier today, and saw all the profiles belonging to members all claiming to be Jessica Simpson, I had to vent about it.

But one thing I did wonder this morning when I came up with the idea is, just what is it about Britney Spears that makes her such a popular online search subject? I mean, yeah, I think she's cute, and millions of other guys agree, and even some girls (and of course Madonna). And she does have at least a modicum of talent. But what is it about her that makes her so much more popular than Christina Aguilera? I happen to think that Christina is greatly more talented, at least as a singer. They both have some acting talent (and no, Britney Spears' acting talent is NOT acting like a singer). I suppose Britney's past romance with Justin Timberlake has something to do with it; after all, folks LOVED n*sync (I even found myself able to stand them, unlike most boy bands). Christina didn't really go public with whoever she was involved with, or maybe I just hadn't yet started wondering what it was about them (besides their looks) that made them It Girls.

I wish I knew what it was, so I could find someone else with It, get her (and it would HAVE to be a "her") to let me bottle Whatever-It-Is and sell it. We'd be rich. Of course, then the market would be flooded with Whatever-It-Is and it would soon become worthless, meaning no one would care about Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and all the rest, because everyone would have whatever it is that makes the public so attentive to their every twitch and burp.

Myspace fakers

I was just browsing through MySpace.com for the first time in ages, and I can't help but notice the total lack of originality or even honesty in the so-called personal profiles.

I originally joined MySpace because someone posted a message at a Yahoo group I belong to in order to announce that he had started a group at MySpace regarding one of my many online interests (no need to dwell on that right now). I joined MySpace, joined the guy's group, posted some pics, and that was mainly that. I've visited Somaya Reece's MySpace page a few times; she's the model/actress whose site I posted a link to sometime back (and keep changing the postdate -- you'll see it's presently above this post today). But for the most part I didn't really browse the site.

Well, today I decided to browse the site. I have to admit, it wasn't so much that I was looking to make friends or anything like that; I prefer to do that face-to-face, or at least not on a site that's dedicated to such things. And I admit upfront that I was browsing mainly female members in the 18-to-40 age range, looking mainly for photos, because I do a bit of photomanipulation and wallpaper creation (OK, the Myspace group I had joined relates to, uh, photomanipulation. Nothing gross, but there it is). I couldn't help noticing that I was seeing the same profiles over and over again.

A good rule of thumb: if the member is a female, 18 to 25, with a fashion pic or glamour pic on her intro page, and her only listed friend is Tom, the company founder, and her site background has Britney Spears in the top lefthand corner, the profile pic is probably not really her.

I would think that the MySpace management would crack down on something like that, lest someone using the site with more serious intent (like networking) come to doubt how much value there is in it. MySpace has millions of members, but you'll see the same profile pics over and over again, and the same profiles over and over again. Some of them don't even bother to change the contact info in the About Me info they've swiped from elsewhere, which means they'll have conflicting contact info in their intro and their About Me section.

I was surprised to see how many celebrities have MySpace pages, but then, in light of all the copycatting, how can anyone be sure that the apparent celebrity behind any particular page is really who they purport to be? I saw what appears to be Jessica Simpson's site, and Ashlee's as well, and they seem to be on the up and up. There are many members claiming to be Jessica Simpson, but something about this one page in particular had me convinced that it might really be hers. But "Jessica" has Britney Spears listed as a friend, and I have some doubts, after looking at "Britney's" page, that the actual Britney Spears has anything to do with that site. She actually says, for example, that her birth name is "Britney Jean Spears Federline." Um, does that mean she was born married to Kevin? That would explain the need for annulling the 55-hour marriage to her old buddy Jason Alexander rather than getting a divorce. Or is Kevin Federline Britney's brother? (A redneck joke is brewing in my brain but I don't want to let it out here and now.) And I'm sure that if I'd done more looking, more silliness would have jumped out at me.

It's interesting also that "Jessica Simpson", an internationally known celebrity, has only about 10000+ friends, while one of her friends, a "supporting-actress" type from some show on one of the newer TV networks (I should have saved her name -- her site was listed under Myspace Music, and I *think* her name was Alex M) had over 100,000 friends. Would the real Jessica Simpson, assuming she really does have a MySpace site, really be trumped so badly by a newbie? So even the seemingly genuine Jessica Simpson page may be a fake, along with the myriad of obvious fakes. I mean, come on girls, how many sites would Jessica Simspon have anyway? Would she even be bothered to start an account with such a morass of fakery?

One of these days I'll fill out the rest of my profile, and maybe even personalize the layout of the site, but who uses MySpace to look for an over-the-hill type like me anyway?

Humor: Men need some excuses too

Reposted from MelvinDurai.com, and a reprint at that


MEN NEED SOME EXCUSES TOO

There are thousands of male scientists in the world, most of whom do their jobs quite well. But they've failed to fulfill their duty to fellow men. They haven't come up with scientific reasons for certain types of male behavior. They haven't given us adequate excuses for habits like leaving
the toilet seat up, refusing to ask for directions and getting too intimate with the remote control.

Women, it seems, have a monopoly on the excuses. An example of this occurred some years ago in Brookfield, Wisconsin. As reported by the Associated Press, Jaclyn Netzel, 19, was trying to turn her car right when a male driver behind honked and finally drove around her. Netzel and the man exchanged obscene gestures. When they met again at a nearby gas station, Netzel called the man a vulgar name and then slapped him after they argued. Police cited her for
disorderly conduct. Netzel pleaded that she was pregnant. Her pregnancy had evidently caused her body to produce a surplus of a hormone called SMH (Slap Men Hormone).

Netzel told a police officer that "when a female is pregnant, they are more emotional than normal." This is why it's always a good idea to wear body armor when visiting the maternity ward. You could get attacked from all directions. Pregnant women are eager to slap men, because men never have to go through labor. This resentment probably goes back to the Garden of Eden: Adam was too busy inventing rules for football to attend the meeting where God handed out childbirth duties. Even the feminists haven't figured out a way to share this burden with men.

But women have turned pregnancy into an advantage of sorts. A pregnant women can get away with just about anything: turning her husband into an errand boy, consuming pizza for breakfast and ice cream for lunch, eating as if she's giving birth to a whale.

Women who aren't pregnant can also get away with pretty much anything, as long as the timing is right. Picture this courtroom exchange:

Judge: "Miss. Fisher, the jury has found you guilty of hijacking 10 planes, bombing five federal buildings and destroying three Hollywood marriages, all in one day. Do you have anything to say?"

Defendant: "Your Honor, it was that time of the month."

Judge: "Case dismissed!"

If the insanity defense works, it won't be long before women invoke the PMS defense. There's nothing that can't be explained by PMS, which stands for either Perilous Mood Swings or Potential Male Slap. PMS usually lasts just a few days, but like a football game, can go into overtime. Of course, there's a lot of scientific evidence to confirm the effects of PMS. Men can't understand it all, but as with religion, we just have to believe.

If male scientists would get their act together, maybe they'd discover a few afflictions for men. This would help us get some much-needed sympathy and ease all that guilt we feel.

Men who hate to ask for directions probably suffer from something like GCM (Going in Circles Mania). When pestered by his wife to stop at a gas station, a man could say, "Sorry honey, that darned GCM is acting up again."

Men who forget to lower the toilet seat suffer from TED (Toilet Etiquette Deficiency). "Sorry honey, the doctor says it's incurable."

Men who skip church to watch football suffer from PDS (Priority Disorder Syndrome). "You wouldn't understand it, honey. It's a guy thing."

Men who scratch themselves in public suffer from PMI (Primitive Male Itch). "Sorry honey, I can't help it. It's genetic."

Men who caress the remote more than their wives suffer from BPO (Button Pushing Obsession). "Sorry honey, I don't know which buttons to push with you. Do you have one for 'mute'?"

Come on scientists, we need this a lot more than we need cloned sheep.

Mannyfest doesn't materialize

So Omar Minaya and the Mets didn't get their Manny... at least not yet. If Omar is smart, he'll forget about Manny completely and go after the Phillies' Bobby Abreu, before the Phils come to their senses. Manny is the type of player that can be a team's top cheerleader one minute and their biggest pain in the butt the very next. Abreu, on the other hand, just quietly goes about his business without drawing attention to himself other than with his performance. Omar, get this man STAT!

As for Kris Benson and the ever-mouthy Anna Benson, well, Kris is still a Met for the time being. Anna caused a stink earlier in the week by blasting the Mets' organization for even offering Kris as trade bait (hey, Omar, Benson for Abreu -- how's that sound??). She claims that published reports that she's planning to pose naked in Playboy drove the team to offer Kris, which the team denies. But Anna, by wagging that tongue just a bit too much and too publicly, may force the issue. The team may not be driven to trade players because of their spouses' extracurricular activities, but a spouse with a runny mouth can poison a clubhouse, and no team wants that. Shut up, Anna, and let the Mets' people do their jobs.

Here's the ESPN story on the winners and losers at the winter meetings: ESPN.com - Mannyfest doesn't materialize

So it seems that some do not like "Commissioner" Bud Selig...

IllinoisLeader.com

The funny and sad part is where the writer says Selig needs a committee "to help him decide if he wants fries with that."

"Baseball to Canseco: Thank You" ??

Here's a different perspective: This Bloomberg.com columnist says that baseball and Bud Selig owe Jose Canseco a thank you for restoring some integrity to baseball. "Jose Canseco" and "integrity" in the same sentence -- who'd a thunk it?

Baseball Owes Canseco for Steroids Crackdown