Should they quit trying?

Mike White of the Post-Gazette wrote a piece yesterday about the fallout from the Seton-LaSalle girls basketball team’s recent 113-14 victory over the girls from Brentwood. Seton-LaSalle says it is dealing with coach Dennis Squeglia internally, but that’s not good enough for the WPIAL, which wants an official report on what action the school takes, presumably so it can go further than the action taken by the school, if it deems that necessary. The real question here is, why is Squeglia in trouble at all? Tim O'Malley, the executive director of the WPIAL, told the P-G that “sportsmanship was totally absent in this case.” The story doesn't indicate why O’Malley believes that to be the case. I'm wondering, did the Seton-LaSalle girls continue employing a full-court press against overmatched Brentwood ball-handlers, despite the score? Were they doing 360-degree dunks? Not likely. It's girls basketball, after all. Squeglia denies running it up against Brentwood and said his starters played only a couple of minutes into the second half. I don't think anybody wants a team to go out of its way to humiliate another, such as by taunting them or celebrating excessively in such a blowout. But why should the girls from Seton-LaSalle, who practice every bit as hard as the girls from Brentwood (harder, perhaps, based on the score), have to essentially stop playing as they have been taught, just so nobody's itty-bitty feelings get hurt? And it's not like this loss was an isolated thrashing. The Brentwood girls also lost 71-9 to Avonworth, 65-11 to Bishop Canevin and 64-12 to Steel Valley. My advice to the Brentwood girls, if they want to avoid another similar whipping, is to work harder and do a better job the next time. If such a beating is too much for the girls' self-esteem to bear, disband the team and just have intramural basketball.

Words matter

Let's be clear from the start. The guy accused of trying to assassinate Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killing six people in the process is nuts. You can't claim there was a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the angry, sometimes violent imagery used in the world of politics with his decision to try to gun down the Democratic congresswoman. But at the same time, you can’t totally dismiss the effects that such political speech might have, particularly on the more unhinged among us. Sarah Palin, as everyone now knows, disseminated a map of congressional districts she thought the Republican Party should try to reclaim last year, including Giffords' seat, and very clearly marked them with the crosshairs of a gun sight. I'm not suggesting that gunman Jared Loughner, shown at left, saw those crosshairs and took that as an order to commit violence. But it's part of the rotten fabric of what's left of America. Do Democrats and Republicans both engage in demonization of their opponents. Certainly. But let's not pretend that it's equal. Those on the right have a much "richer" history of late when it comes to hinting at violence, or the need for such, if the political opportunities for "taking our country back" are not successful. The underlying message, which no one really wants to say out loud, is that the day is coming, because of President Obama and his minions, when blacks, Mexicans, Arabs – heck, anybody that doesn’t look like a good, old-fashioned white Amerkun – will arrive on your doorstep to take your stuff and maybe even kill you. Just being honest. That's what is written between the lines. When shameless demagogues on the radio and some TV networks, interested only in their approval ratings from a sheeplike fan base, build mental pictures of a post-insurrection, post-societal-collapse world in which only those hugging tightly to the most gold, guns and ammo will survive, we eventually will end up with political killings. Most people who listen to these programs will just don tri-corner hats, slap a “Don't Tread On Me” sticker on the back of their vehicle and bleat incessantly about Obama being a foreigner. But then there are those few who take the extra steps. They join a backwoods militia, playing Army in the woods and waiting for their opportunity. Or, like Timothy McVeigh, they take the anti-government message to another level and blow up a building with women and children inside. Or, like Richard Poplawski, they believe the lunatic-fringe claims that the government is going to take our guns, and they kill police officers. Palin could have apologized for her role in ratcheting up political rhetoric and call for change. But did she? Of course not. She blamed the media and political pundits (which, ironically, is what she is these days) for stoking hatred and violence by having the audacity to suggest that maybe, just maybe the poisoning of the well of our civil discourse might have tragic consequences. She accused the journalists and political analysts of creating “a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.” No, what is reprehensible is Palin’s stupid use of the term “blood libel” and her refusal to accept any blame, not one speck, for the sorry condition of our politics today. People with a pulpit, like Palin and the talking heads on TV and radio, have a responsibility to use it wisely, to recognize that their words – their choice of words and images – carry weight with many people, including a few who have lost the ability to recognize the difference between right and horribly, horribly wrong.

This and that

A few thoughts on recent stories in the news:

– Did you see the one about sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott, above, being released from prison early when Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour commuted their life sentences for an ambush robbery, provided that one sister gave a kidney to the other? According to an AP story, civil rights activists have been trying to get the sisters sprung for years, arguing that their sentences were excessive. Well, let's see. Back in 1994, the sisters were convicted of luring two men into an ambush in which they were whacked in the head with a shotgun and robbed of their wallets. Some of the Scotts’ supporters noted that the robbery only netted $11. So, because the amount of money wasn’t large, that makes it less of a crime? The people who were robbed could just have easily been killed. Sounds to me as if the original sentences were just fine.

– I had to laugh when I read today that Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York wants to step up efforts to make abortions in the city “rare.” What a hypocrite. The Catholic Church refuses to budge on giving its followers the OK to use any form of birth control – other than not “doing it” – then has the gall to say it wants to do more to pare the number of abortions. I'm pretty sure everyone would like the number of abortions performed in New York City and everywhere else to be reduced – to zero, if possible. But if Dolan really means what he says, perhaps he should break ranks with the Vatican and start a program to help people obtain effective birth-control devices and/or pharmaceuticals. But that's never going to happen. In fact, Dolan and other religious leaders with whom he was meeting also took the opportunity to blast public schools for including condom distributions in their sex-education programs. Yeah, we sure wouldn’t want kids who are going to have sex anyway to protect themselves from deadly diseases and also try to prevent pregnancies that might end in ... ABORTIONS.

– I certainly hope that somebody comes forward and offers to pay any fine levied on Russell Miller of Boise, Idaho, because the guy is definitely one of my heroes. The 68-year-old Miller was on board a flight from Las Vegas to Boise, seated next to a 15-year-old boy who was playing games and listening to tunes on his cell phone. As the plane approached Boise, flight attendants announced that people needed to turn off their electronic devices prior to landing. The kid did not follow the instructions, so Miller punched him in the arm. He was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery. It's just a shame he didn't whack the kid a few more times and stomp the heck out of the phone.

– Talk about an overreaction. Greensburg police have charged a 13-year-old middle school boy with a sex crime. His offense: a little necking and petting with a 12-year-old schoolmate after they stole away to a band equipment room during school one day. Police admit that the girl had no problem with the “activities,” but they say that under the law, she is too young to consent. C'mon. It's not as if the band director was in there with the girl. This is one of her classmates, and they were doing what usually comes naturally to young people when puberty strikes. I'm not saying I'm in favor of 12- and 13-year-olds getting "busy" in dark places during schooltime, but running a kid through the juvenile system and perhaps sending him to a detention facility over this is ridiculous. What's next? Are police going to start skulking around darkened movie theaters and high school dances to see if some kid is copping a feel? Wouldn't it be better to just give both of the kids a couple of days' detention and tell them not to do it again?

These idiots should go to prison

It happens all too often, and the punishment, sadly, rarely fits the crime. It is the premeditated murder of defenseless children who die because their parents try to pray them back to health. The latest such case is on display this week in Philadelphia, where Herbert and Catherine Schaible are on trial for involuntary manslaughter in the death of their 2-year-old son, Kent, who was allowed to suffer for two weeks with bacterial pneumonia while his parents did nothing but pray over him. Of course, the toddler died. These people should definitely be sent to prison. It's just a shame that they aren't being tried for murder, because that's what they're really guilty of. A social worker who testified Wednesday said Herbert Schaible told him, “We tried to fight the devil, but in the end the devil won.” That's just sick. And what’s even sicker is that authorities have allowed the couple to retain custody of several other children. If you truly believe that an invisible demon caused your child to get sick with viral pneumonia and die, you have no business raising any child. If people like the Schaibles had to spend the rest of their days in prison, perhaps this sort of thing would go away. But as it is, authorities and society as a whole give way too much leeway to people like them, just because they claim to be acting on the direction of their God.

Crawling farther under rocks

Our base of knowledge as humans has grown exponentially over the past 2,000 years, but some organized religions are doing their best to continue living in the dark ages. A few recent examples:

– The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, when it comes time to choose a new leader, typically selects the fellow who had been vice president of the group. But not this year. Why? According to church observers, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, who held the No. 2 post, was thought to represent the more liberal “social justice” wing of the church. Kicanas, according to a story in the New York Times, has favored dialogue between Catholic liberals and conservatives. The bishops weren't going to have any of that. They broke with tradition and instead chose New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is much more reliably old-old-old-school.

– Southern Baptists in South Carolina voted to approve a resolution this week calling on pastors to do more preaching against homosexuality, while also urging Christians to be compassionate toward gay people. I'm guessing a sermon might go something like this: “The lives you gay people are leading are vile, sickening and horrifying in the eyes of the Lord ... but do join us for punch and cookies in the social hall after today's service."

– This is my favorite one, and I swear that I'm NOT making this up. Those forward-thinking Catholic bishops I mentioned earlier held a conference on how to conduct exorcisms because there just aren't enough priests who know how to perform the rite. Seeing as how this is 2010, not the Middle Ages, I was a bit taken aback by this. Leaders in the Catholic Church, in the 21st freakin' century, still believe that people can be possessed by the devil or some other assorted demon. How 1452 of them. My first inclination is to laugh at them, if this weren't so sad.

Boobs

On America’s political right, it’s all the rage these days to be deliberately stupid. Witness the many Republicans and tea party advocates who believe that Barack Obama is 1) a Kenyan; and/or 2) a Muslim. Village idiot Sarah Palin (she would be the idiot in pretty much any village in which she chose to live) made up a lie about "death panels" in Obama's health-care program, and the masses of blithering simpletons who see her as some kind of hero to the common man – rather than the pandering font of ignorance she is – slurped it up like manna from heaven. Now comes a new poll showing that a majority of Republicans – 53 percent – don’t think there’s any evidence – NONE – of climate change. That's just plain dumb. It was only three years ago that nearly two-thirds of Republicans believed in global warming. Why the change? It's pretty clear that it's politically driven. Obama is in the White House, and anti-intellectual dolts like Palin are now worshipped by a significant segment of our populace, so if scientists say something is true, they're not to be trusted because they are “elitists.” In real English, that means they're smart, and we sure don't want to trust smart people. The truth is, as long as the big energy companies own a fair number of our lawmakers, especially on the Republican side, there will be no shortage of climate change deniers. Some of them are smart enough to know that truth is not on their side, but some are just dumb sheep who believe anything they hear from serial liars like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Palin. Just for the record, about 80 percent of Democrats and a majority of independents still believe global warming is real. So, unless the Republicans and tea partiers want to admit that their ignorance is deliberate, I'll just have to assume that there are fewer brain-dead fools among the Dems and independents than among the GOP/teabagger crowd.

On the local front

Some thoughts on a few local stories:

– An enterprising young fellow at California University of Pennsylvania are firing up a website designed to allow students interested in “hooking up” with other students to avail themselves of a sort of online free love clearinghouse. It bills itself as “safer than Craigslist and cheaper than bars.” My guess is that the vast, vast majority of those signing up will be horny male students doing some wishful thinking.

– Police in Charleroi have charged a local man with cruelty to animals after finding two pit bulls that had starved to death in cages in a home the man formerly lived in. One can only imagine the suffering those animals went through before they mercifully died. I'm hoping that a judge will make an example of 24-year-old Stanley McDonald and give him as much jail time as the charge allows, provided he is found guilty. I saw a friend or relative of McDonald's on TV claiming that McDonald thought a friend was going to take care of the dogs. Count me among those who think that is bull@#$%.

– I'm rarely surprised by anything Washington City Council does, but I was still puzzled by the story about the hiring of Ron McIntyre, a city police officer disabled in a fall during the 2006 fire at the George Washington Hotel, as the new city code enforcement officer. It's not that I have doubts about McIntyre's ability to do the job. It's the rate of pay for the duties being performed. The old code enforcement officer, Mike Behrens, made $41,000 a year. McIntyre will be making $35,000, but city solicitor Lane Turturice says his duties will only be about half that of Behrens. The solicitor says McIntyre will primarily be involved with rental registrations, while the action code enforcement will be done by fire Chief Linn Brookman and someone from North Strabane Township. Can someone explain to me why McIntyre will be paid nearly the same as Behrens for only half the work? That's a great job if you can get it.

Heck, cover her with some of Big Bird's feathers

Katy Perry’s breasts got her kicked off Sesame Street. I never thought I’d have to write that sentence, but because there is no shortage of prudes in this country, I finally got my chance. Perry, who is a rather attractive pop singer, did a musical number with the Sesame Street puppet Elmo that was supposed to run on the show, but when a clip of the video turned up on YouTube, some people apparently were aghast about the dress Perry was wearing, featuring a gold bustier top much like the one in the photo above. And, of course, with this being one of the leading countries in the world in which people are highly outraged by next to nothing, those folks complained. And Sesame Street, of course, bowed down immediately and killed plans to run the segment. You can still see it on Perry’s website at http://www.katyperry.com/ Judge for yourself. But here’s my opinion. Katy Perry is a pretty gorgeous human being, but I find it hard to believe that anybody was offended by her cleavage because, well, she really doesn’t have much to speak of. I guarantee you that you can go to pretty much any beach in this country and see a lot more skin that what’s revealed by Perry’s dress. Heck, go to Washington Crown Center and you’ll see a lot more. Back in the day, the women’s underwear section of the Sears catalog featured more in the way of partial nudity. Honestly, unless it was pointed out by an adult, if kids watched this video, they wouldn’t think a thing of it. And I wonder if we’d even be talking about this if Perry’s dress had a couple of little straps on it. Unfortunately, children are too often taught that the human body is something to be ashamed of. The folks who are griping about Perry are probably the same ones who want women who breast-feed their children in public to be treated like Hester Prynne. Some people in this country are becoming more like the Taliban every day.

This and that

– A few days back, some of you might have seen a North Carolina sheriff pleading with law enforcement officers across the country to be on the lookout for his 23-year-old daughter's killer. It seemed pretty cut and dried. The guy in question is a convicted sex offender and all-around scumbag. The girl was described by her father as "perfect." But now you have to wonder. The suspect, Michael Harvey, claims that while he panicked and stuffed Valerie Hamilton’s body in a storage unit, he didn’t kill her. Instead, he says Hamilton, shown above, overdosed when they both took heroin, and she was dead beside him when he woke up the next morning. Add to that the fact that police said medical examiners found evidence of drug use, that it appears Hamilton left a bar of her own free will with Harvey, and that there were no outward signs of violence on the young woman’s body, and you have to begin to wonder if the guy might be telling the truth. Toxicology tests will most likely tell the tale in this case. It just goes to show that initial impressions in a criminal investigation can be dead wrong. The cops might get Harvey for providing the drugs that killed the woman, but the real blame for her death, if it was an overdose, lies with her poor decision-making.

– A school district in central Pennsylvania is engaged in a dispute with the mother of one of its students. Janet Malin wants Lampeter-Strasburg School District to exempt her son from its random drug-testing policy, with which the boy must comply in order to get a permit to park on campus. The woman’s reasoning? According to an AP story, the mother says her boy was raised in the Quaker faith, which “requires him to be truthful and obey society’s laws.” I’ve got two words for Ms. Malin: Richard Nixon. Nixon was a Quaker, and he was one helluva liar. Case closed. Verdict for the school district.

– The latest case of official stupidity came out of a New Jersey school district this week. It seems a fifth-grader who found a cigarette lighter on his way to school has been suspended because the lighter was considered a threat to student safety. I kid you not. Never mind that the 11-year-old never even tried to flick the Bic. The idiot school superintendent said the district considers something a weapon if it “has the potential to cause harm.” Guess what? Being exposed to dim bulbs like the school officials in that district pose a greater threat to students than an unlit lighter ever could.

Religious hatred behind mosque opposition

A group started by noted hatemonger Pat Robertson (the story I saw called it a “conservative” group; doesn’t that go without saying?) has filed a lawsuit in what will no doubt be a long, expensive, but ultimately fruitless, attempt to stop the construction of an Islamic center a couple of blocks from Ground Zero. The action comes after the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee unanimously refused to block demolition of a 152-year-old building that stands in the way of the project. Those proposing to build the Cordoba Mosque have made it very clear that their goal is to foster peace and understanding between Islam and people of other faiths. That didn’t stop one goofball at the committee’s hearing from holding up a sign that said, “Don’t glorify the murders of 3,000. No 9/11 victory mosque.” And Rick Lazio, a former Republican congressman now running for governor of New York, took the opportunity to do a little demagogueing, accusing the Islamic group’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, of being buddy-buddy with terrorists. He noted a “60 Minutes” interview in the wake of 9/11 in which Rauf said the attacks were in some part sparked by U.S. policies in the Middle East. Of course they were. Does anybody really doubt that the United States’ constant support of Israel against any other interests in that region just might have fostered some anger and resentment? One question I have for mosque opponents is this: Exactly how far must a mosque be from Ground Zero? Is is four blocks? Six? Eight? The distance from Ground Zero really isn’t the issue. It’s the hatred by many people of all things Muslim because of the actions of a militant, violent fringe of that religion. As an online poster noted recently on the O-R website, these folks won’t be calling for a ban on Catholic churches near grade schools because some priests raped children. Apparently, the central argument that will be made in the Robertson group’s lawsuit is that the landmarks panel “acted arbitrarily and abused its discretion.” No, it didn’t. It acted dispassionately, rationally and intelligently. The mosque opponents should give that a try sometime.

Kagan’s on the court

Elena Kagan won approval of the Senate this week to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, marking the first time three women will be on the panel. The vote was relatively predictable. Kudos to Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Lindsay Graham, Judd Gregg and Richard Lugar for putting politics aside and voting for Kagan for the only reason that should matter: They found her to be a well-qualified candidate for the court. And then there’s supposedly Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the lone member of his party to vote against Kagan. In response to critics of his vote, Nelson said, “Are they from Nebraska? Then I don’t care.” In other words, “Can they vote for me in the next election? If not, I don’t care.” There’s nothing wrong with a lawmaker breaking with his party. In fact, independence is a valuable quality in a lawmaker. But it’s not independence that Nelson is displaying. It’s pure politics. He’ll be facing re-election in a couple of years in a conservative state, and if there’s anything remotely controversial about an issue, you can expect Nelson to vote with the Republicans. He might as well just switch parties and make it official. Then there’s Scott Brown, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, who had the most hilarious explanation for his “no” vote on Kagan. Brown said he thinks Kagan is “brilliant,” but he voted against her because she lacks courtroom experience. I have no problem with someone thinking that members of the top court should have a judicial background, but Brown’s explanation was ludicrous. He said, “The best umpires, to use the popular analogy, must not only call balls and strikes, but also have spent enough time on the playing field to know the strike zone.” That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. First, that’s not a popular analogy. In fact, I’m guessing no one has EVER heard it uttered before in human history. Second, an umpire doesn’t have to have any experience as a player to be a good arbiter. All an umpire has to do is understand the rulebook and apply it accurately and fairly. Brown comes out of this looking like a boob. In other words, he’s perfect for the Senate.

He's still an idiot

You would think that with memories still fresh of his little incident with police officers in an alley where a teammate was allegedly relieving himself, Jeff Reed might try to avoid causing a stir. You would be wrong. In an interview with the Post-Gazette, the Steelers kicker is whining about the way he's being treated in contract negotiations. Reed claims that somebody in a higher-up position with the Steelers lied to him about getting a long-term deal. Reed told the P-G that team President Art Rooney II has advised him that such a contract won’t get done before this season gets under way, in part because the team had to ante up some millions to hire Flozell Adams to replace injured offensive tackle Willie Colon. Here's what Reed told the newspaper: “It’s one of those things. Life is not really fair. I’ve experienced that a few times in this league. I honestly feel that if you perform ... you need to get compensated for it.” For the record, Reed will be compensated this year to the tune of $2.8 million. For kicking a ball maybe eight or 10 times a game. Most people would feel really blessed to have such an arrangement. Fact is, Reed is an excellent field goal kicker. At the same time, he’s very average in the kickoff department, and he has repeatedly conducted himself like a buffoon. Maybe the Steelers just want to wait to see if Reed can go a year without acting like a horse’s ass in public. You know, maybe avoid going 12 rounds with a paper towel dispenser, and stop having run-ins with the boys in blue.

Be proud, Republicans

U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana seems to be auditioning for a leading role in a remake of the classic movie “Dumb and Dumber.” In this case, he’s the dumb guy cheering on even dumber ones. Vitter, whom you might remember apologizing profusely after getting snared in the “D.C. Madam” case that starred Charleroi’s own Deborah Jeane Palfrey, held a town hall meeting for some of the home folks over the weekend and endorsed efforts by some conservative (read: lunatic) groups that are mounting court challenges regarding President Obama’s citizenship. Now, every person in America with more brains than a gerbil knows damn well that Obama was born in Hawaii. But since our populace includes its fair share of dolts, these cases continue to be filed. According to the AP, Vitter told the town hall crowd that the only "direct information" he has about Obama's place of birth has come through the news media “filter.” So, what Sen. Dimbulb seems to be suggesting is that every legitimate news organization in this country is part of a vast, left-wing conspiracy to conceal the African birth of our president. C'mon. You can disagree with the president's policies and the direction he'd like the country to take, but get a grip, for heaven's sake. A lot of people in this country aren't happy with President Obama and the Democrats, and most of them know that the correct way to express their displeasure is at the ballot box, this November and in 2012, if they please. But don't waste everyone's time with this jackassery. In closing, I'd just like to say to David Vitter, “You're an idiot.” And to any and all of his fellow “birthers,” you're idiots, too. But I'm willing to help you get over this obsession. I hear that if you stare at the sun, you will eventually be able to see President Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate. But be safe. Make sure you look through the cardboard tube from a spent roll of toilet paper.

In the news

A few thoughts on recent stories on the Associated Press wires:

– I'm not endorsing the guy (or his opponent), but it certainly warms my heart to hear Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett, in an AP interview, say that he would consider privatizing liquor sales to help balance the state's books. A couple of months ago, I contacted representatives of the leading candidates for governor to get the candidates' views on putting an end to the state’s Soviet-style liquor sales system. At that time, Corbett's spokesman said privatization of liquor sales was not a priority. Now it sounds like he's giving the idea more consideration. Good news.

– I recently heard about a book called "The Secret." When I found out what it was about, I laughed heartily and wondered why anyone in his or her right mind would spend the money to buy this hogwash. Then I found out that this crap-science book has sold millions of copies, leading me to believe there are millions of nuts among us. The main thrust of “The Secret” is the “law of attraction,” which really isn’t a law in any sense but instead is made-up bull@#$%. The AP reports that author Rhonda Byrne, in 2007, explained it by saying that "when you think and feel what you want to attract on the inside,” the law will pull you in that direction. Hah. But it seems millions of people are willing to suspend their common sense and stifle intelligent thought in order to believe that Byrne is on to something here. She's not the only one preaching this craziness. There's a fellow named James Arthur Ray who I saw profiled recently on a TV news show. You might recognize him as the charlatan who is currently up on criminal charges stemming from a deadly “sweat lodge” incident near Sedona, Ariz. With Ray out of action for a while, this presumably creates more business for Byrne, and she's capitalizing by coming out with her follow-up book, “The Power.” Here's my take: If you believe this stuff, you're a simpleton, and “The Secret” is that a shyster like Byrne has “The Power" to separate you from your money.

– I don't know if you saw this amongst all the important coverage of the LeBron James decision, but a recent guilty verdict against a white former transit officer who shot an unarmed black man sparked rioting in the San Francisco area that led to more than 80 arrests. That's right, a conviction. I seem to recall that there was rioting when police officers were ACQUITTED of whipping the bejeezus out of Rodney King, but there was a CONVICTION in this case, and people still rioted. Wonder what would happen in the case of a hung jury?

Catching up

It's good to be busy, but it's frustrating to be too busy to blog. Finally, I can unload some of the "stuff" that has been rattling around in my head:

– To some people, the "big news" today is where LeBron James will be continuing his basketball career. I couldn't care less. If James were making his big announcement in my backyard, I'd pull the drapes closed. But if the rumblings are true, and James is planning to abandon his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers to play with his boys D Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, isn't it a huge slap in the face and a major FU to the fans in Cleveland for James to hold a primetime, look-at-me egofest on ESPN to announce he's bailing?

– The folks at http://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com do a consistently great job of opening a window on local, state and federal politics and issues. Today, they have a nice follow-up piece on the "mysterious" vehicle with W&J plates parked in the garage at a Capitol office building. Check it out.

– I don't expect TV commercials to be as literate and cerebral as a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, but a couple of area car dealers are driving me nuts with their ads. The folks on the commercials loudly tout their "oh-ten" models. Wrong. It is NOT "oh-ten." It's two-thousand-ten or, if you prefer, twenty-ten. It was OK to say "oh-seven" or "oh-eight," but "oh-ten" is just wrong. If it isn't, then they should have been saying "oh-oh-seven" and "oh-oh-eight."

– Sen. John McCain felt the need to announce that he's going to vote against Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. Wow. What a shock. McCain is running comfortable ahead in his primary race against a right-wing loon, and he's clearly not going to upset the applecart now by even giving minimal consideration to Kagan's nomination. Sonia Sotomayor got nine Republican backers when her nomination came up for a vote, but she wasn't nominated in a mid-term election year. And let's be honest. Kagan doesn't have the advantage of being Hispanic. It will be interesting to see if any Republicans vote for Kagan. The ladies from Maine might do so, but that could be it. In recent confirmation history, Justice Alito received only four Democratic votes, but Chief Justice Roberts attracted 22 votes from the Dems.

– It sounds as if West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is chomping at the bit to grab the U.S. Senate seat just vacated by the death of Robert Byrd. Some believe that state code calls for Manchin to appoint an interim senator who would serve until the 2012 election, but Manchin is asking the state’s attorney general to determine if they might be able to have a special election for the seat this year. And Manchin, of course, would run in it. Manchin said it "doesn't make sense" for him to appoint somebody to "replace this giant" for two and a half years. Why not? If you select a good person who would represent the state's interests well, what harm is there in that? Oh, wait, that person wouldn't be Joe Manchin. Actually, Manchin could appoint himself but says he wouldn't do that. I guess he has some limits about how self-serving he's willing to appear.

– There was a story last week out of central Pennsylvania about a woman who was bitten and scratched when she had a too-close encounter with a black bear while walking her dog in a wooded area near her home. Black bears are not the most aggressive animals, so the attack was a bit unusual. But what caught my attention was this line in the AP story: "Officials said the woman's dog ran away and was uninjured." Nice. My dogs have their negative points, unexpected "gas attacks" and the occasional roll in some other animal's "droppings" among them, but I know damn well that if any kind of animal attacks me, those dogs would fight it to their deaths. I'm guessing the central Pennsylvania woman's dog must've been a Bichon Frise. You know how good the French are at running from a fight.

– You might be wondering about the photo at the top of this post. I think I might've seen those guys when I stopped at a local gas station this morning. And I'm pretty sure the lady behind me who was hacking up a lung has tuberculosis. The things you see when you go out and about. ;-)
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Potpourri

A few random thoughts:

- I saw on the Post-Gazette website today that state police are looking for a 76-year-old guy who was last seen at a casino in Erie. Here's the kicker: The dude is suffering from Alzheimer's and "may be driving a maroon, four-door Nissan." How in the hell does a 76-year-old Alzheimer's patient have access to a set of car keys? Just another piece in the mountain of evidence that points toward the need for mandatory driver's license retesting for those over a certain age. By the way, there's also a perfectly good bill languishing on the state Senate floor that would ban the use of hand-held cell phones for talking or texting while behind the wheel. But do you think our state lawmakers would pass any bill that would anger a significant segment of the population in an election year? Of course not. A great many of them are more interested in getting re-elected than they are in doing what is right for the people of Pennsylvania. How else could you explain the continued existence of the state store system.

- Speaking of which, the union that represents the state store clerks issued one of its hilarious, self-serving news releases the other day. The subject was the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's rolling out of its new wine-vending machines that will be placed in some grocery stores. Granted, the vending machine idea is stupid. Why not just let the stores sell wine off their shelves? Of, because the PLCB would lose its reason to exist. But the Independent State Store Union really went over the top. The union says the vending machines will "only intensify the effort to eliminate the state store system." Actually, the PLCB is doing this as a way to lessen the move to kill the state store system by showing (falsely) that it is trying to cater to wine buyers across the commonwealth. But here's where it gets really funny. Check out this quote at the end of the union's news release: "Alcohol is not a Red Box DVD - it is the most abused drug in every town, city and state in the USAA." OK. If that's the way you feel about it, why don't you issue a news release calling for elimination of all alcoholic beverage sales in the state? Oh, but that would eliminate all those highly paid clerk positions. Never mind.

- Tom Cruise's latest movie, "Knight and Day," pretty much tanked at the box office over the weekend, and it's pretty certain that it's not going to make enough money to cover the cost of producing and promoting it. Anyone who is not a blithering idiot can tell you that Cruise's career went south when he started jumping on couches and acting like a loon about his freak-show religion. But a spokesman for the movie studio that put out the latest film had the cojones to say that the movie got good reviews and "smart audiences" will make it a success by flocking to it. Bull@#$%. The smart audiences are the ones not sticking their dollar bills into the pockets of that wacky Scientologist.

- Finally, this little item struck a nerve with me on Friday. We got a news release at the newspaper from Intermediate Unit 1 announcing that its Center for Science, Engineering and Mathematics Education has gotten a $192,500 grant to "promote algebra readiness in third through eighth grades." The release goes on to say that dozens of teachers in Washington, Greene and Fayette counties will be able to participate in an "intensive summer math academy and school year follow-up focused on the development of content knowledge, its application to classroom practice and understanding of the role that mathematics plays in real-world careers in those subject areas for students." Gag me with a spoon. This is emblematic of everything that is wrong with our education system. Teachers are going to be taking time away from drilling elementary students on the basic math that they WILL use later in life in order to "promote readiness" for algebra, which I'm pretty sure not many of them will be using after high school. I took algebra in high school. I've never used anything I learned in that class, and I'm certain that I would have benefited more by taking ANY OTHER class that might have been offered. Hell, even metal shop was of more use to me than algebra. And in our modern world, with all of the technological advances, there are very few people who will need to come out of high school with the ability to figure out algebraic equations. For those who are pursuing a field in which that might be useful, there will always be the opportunity to take those courses in high school. But it's an absolute waste of time - and our school tax money - to force algebra, or "algebra readiness," on the student body as a whole.

Under the Big Top

The circus is back in town in Harrisburg. What I mean by that is that your state lawmakers are back at "work" today, with the deadline for approving a state budget just a little over a week away. Are you optimistic that they'll get the job done? After last year, when the budget was approved 101 days after the deadline, one would think that the lawmakers, with the November election on their minds, would bend over backward to accomplish what they haven't done in many a year and actually do their jobs by the required date. But the last I saw, they're facing a budget hole of at least $1.3 billion, and it's going to take a lot of cutting and/or "revenue enhancement" to balance the spending plan. Revenue enhancement is what you and I call taxes. The lawmakers find that term distasteful. They have proven to be excellent at public relations and at honing self-promotion skills that already are second to none. They haven't done nearly as well in the area of making tough decisions, so it wouldn't be a surprise if they once again failed to do what is really the only job that is required of them every year. The other day, Gov. Ed Rendell prodded lawmakers to pledge that they will work every day from now until June 30 in order to pass a budget. His call brought this reply from Brett Marcy, spokesman for House Democrats: "We are committed to doing everything we possibly can to pass a budget by June 30. That is why we passed a budget and sent it to the Senate nearly three months ago." What Marcy isn't telling us is that the spending plan the Democratically-controlled House sent to the Republican-controlled Senate was an absolute joke, a total fraud. And anyone who says otherwise is a liar. There are a few things to watch over the coming days as our "leaders" go about their business. One, will the lawmakers do the right thing and tax chewing tobacco and cigars, as every other state in the union does? Also, will lawmakers pass an extraction tax on the gas-drilling industry? Will they side with the people, who will bear the immediate effects and after-effects of the drilling, or will they side with the big Marcellus drillers? And then, of course, there's the timing of budget approval. Republican state Rep. Sam Rohrer told WFMZ TV in Allentown that, this being an election year, there's a chance that a budget standoff could go past the 101-day-late embarrassment of last year. Heck, maybe the lawmakers could dilly-dally until after the election. No sense doing something that might anger voters when your political future is on the line. Of course, not even our state lawmakers are that stupid. Probably. But if they are, each and every one of them should be shown the door. In fact, after last year's fiasco, if they do anything approaching that 101-day-late mess, they all should be booted out.

The pitiful Pirates

It's official now. The management of your Pittsburgh Pirates is now the most embarrassing collection of idiots on the face of the Earth. The incident that put them over the top came the other day, when the team fired a guy who dons a costume and participates in the pierogi races at PNC Park. His crime? He had the audacity to make a critical comment on Facebook after it was learned that the Pirates' "brain trust" had extended the contracts of general manager Neal Huntington and check-him-for-a-pulse manager John Russell. The reason I say that it was "learned" that the Pirates extended those contracts is that the extensions actually occurred months ago. The Pirates just didn't bother to tell anyone until the other day. And in the interim, team President Frank Coonelly lied about it. So, essentially, the team's owners and top officials are incompetent prevaricators, but it's the pierogi guy who has to go. The Pirates also totally botched the way they handled the call-ups of the team's promising young players. The Pirates claim that they're going to spend money to build the team when they need to. Well, they have the opportunity to prove themselves by signing the two stud pitchers they just picked in the draft. I'm not holding my breath. And only time will tell whether the team will pay the freight to keep players like Andrew McCutchen when those youngsters reach the point in their careers when they are set to earn real money, rather than deal them for other teams' garbage, as the Bucs have done in the past. Based on the Nutting family's track record, I'm not believing anything they say until it's proven otherwise.

Ineptitude

If you’re looking for someone to do something horribly and deliberately wrong, give Bud Selig a call. The boob who leads Major League Baseball had a chance to do something right today, and of course, being Bud Selig, he did the absolute wrong thing. For those who have been living under a rock (or those who are not sports fans), a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers had a rare perfect game stolen from him Wednesday night by a ridiculously bad call at first base with two outs in the ninth inning against Cleveland. Pitcher Armando Galarraga is to be credited for not choking umpire Jim Joyce on the field, and Joyce showed great class in going into the Tigers’ clubhouse after the game to personally apologize for depriving the pitcher of his place in history. A distraught Joyce later told reporters, “It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the shit out of it. I just cost that kid a perfect game.” That’s a couple of stand-up guys there (shown above before today’s game). And then there’s Selig. It’s hard to remember any sport having a commissioner as pathetic as this guy. He has the power to overturn decisions made on the field. He considered the Galarraga situation. And then, in true Bud fashion, he declined to act. Bud did say that he’ll be examining the “umpiring system, the expanded use of instant replay and all other related features.” A lot of good that does Galarraga and Joyce. Here’s the hilarious part. Airhead Bud, in his official statement about the botched call, said this: “While the human element has always been an integral part of baseball, it is vital that mistakes on the field be addressed.” Then address them, you idiot. Selig had a chance to make things right for the game, for the fans, for the pitcher and the umpire. Instead, he handled it like Bill Buckner in the ’86 World Series. Galarraga probably will never come close to a perfect game again in his career. But the one who really has to live with this is Joyce. The guy is considered one of the best umps in the game, but from this day forward, he’ll be remembered as the guy who botched the ninth-inning call to cost a pitcher a perfect game. When his obituary is written, that fact will be in the lead paragraph. Selig could have helped both of these guys. All that was necessary was to rule that the batter on the botched play was out, and that the subsequent game-ending at-bat was wiped out. No one is hurt. The final outcome of the game isn’t changed a bit. But the impotent Selig, who has always been a puppet of major league owners, proved once again why baseball has taken a backseat to football as America’s game. Having a hapless milquetoast like Bud Selig running baseball is like making Richard Simmons a Navy Seal. It's bad enough that baseball continues to have a fiscal system that allows teams like the Yankees to buy World Series titles while small-market teams struggle just to be competitive every once in a while. This makes the game look worse. It’s been clear for years that the quality of umpiring in the major leagues has been in steady decline. Every umpire has, and is allowed to have, his own personal version of the strike zone. The phantom base tags at second on double plays have gotten more and more ridiculous. And then you have guys like Joe West and Angel Hernandez who think they are the stars of the game. They seek out conflict with players and managers so they can be the center of attention when they toss people out of games. Somebody needs to put a stop to this and make umpires accountable for their actions and the quality of their work. But do you really think Bumbling Bud is the guy to do that? The only good to come out of Wednesday’s mess is that perhaps now, finally, baseball will rely on instant replay to fix calls that are clearly wrong. Football does it. Hockey does it. Basketball does it. Baseball has resisted it. Nobody wants replay to be used on balls-and-strikes calls, but the big, potentially game-changing calls should be correct, and if replay can help, it should be used. Because it’s damn certain that nobody could rely on worthless Bud Selig to do the right thing after the fact.

Weird world of crime and the courts

When it comes to crime, the court system and people's greed and stupidity, if you think you've seen everything, just wait a little bit. Some examples:

– You've probably heard by now about the Michigan woman who claims she was asleep on a plane when she was left behind and locked in the United Express airplane for several hours on the tarmac in Philadelphia. Of course, Ginger McGuire (shown above) is suing. Her attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, the guy who came to fame by representing Jack Kevorkian, will be bringing a suit alleging false imprisonment, emotional distress and negligence. This whole story smells funny to me. How does one stay asleep through the landing of the aircraft and the resulting hubbub of people banging their luggage out of overhead bins and deplaning? And this woman didn’t stir for four hours after the plane was empty? I have my doubts.

– There’s a hearing going on in Ohio for a chief master sergeant who has been accused of sexually harassing nine female subordinates. William Gurney, who once was the top enlisted man at the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base but has been reassigned since the allegations cropped up, was accused by one of the women of having sex with her against her will. But here again, this story has some odd twists. The woman claims she was afraid of Gurney because he was a “powerful man.” But she testified that they had kissed in previous meetings, and she admitted that Gurney never made any threats or used force as they had sex. Gurney’s lead defense attorney, Maj. Gwendolyn Beitz, said the woman had never described the sex as anything but consensual until she was faced with telling her husband that she might be demoted for having an affair. Gurney also is married. I certainly don't condone forcing someone to have sex, or engaging in any sort of sexual harassment, but weak accusations like this one hurt the cases of women who really have been wronged.

– There’s some really nasty video circulating on the Web that was disseminated by a group called Mercy for Animals. The video purportedly shows cows at Conklin Dairy Farms Inc. near Marysville, Ohio, being punched, kicked and poked with pitchforks. And those are the nicer things. Also shown are workers holding down newborn calves and taking their boots to the calves’ heads. Another snippet depicts a cow’s nose being wired to a metal bar close to the ground while another metal bar is used to beat the animal bloody. Just lovely. One worker faces a host of criminal charges in the case. Conklin Farms says it does not condone animal abuse, and it fired the worker facing charges. But the farm doesn’t do itself any favors when it announces that it wants veterinarians to independently review the video. For what purpose? Are they planning to defend some of these actions? And according to an Associated Press story, Conklin also said the undercover video fails to include “context of how the farm is operated responsibly.” Doesn’t that seem almost the same as saying, “Yeah, some animals were tortured, but we’re usually not that mean”? Conklin would do better to just quit trying to engage in damage control and do everything it can to help authorities identify and prosecute each and every farm worker guilty of cruelty and abuse.

– Speaking of digging a bigger hole for oneself, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, who never has come off as the sharpest tool in the shed, made the mistake of going on “Oprah” in an attempt to explain how she ended up being secretly videotaped by an undercover tabloid reporter while offering to sell access to her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, for about three-quarters of a million dollars. Ferguson attempted to explain her influence peddling by saying it started as an attempt to get $40,000 for a friend in need. How did that escalate to $724,000? Well, she really wasn’t too sure about that. She also told Oprah that she proceeded with her dealings with the “businessman” even though she had her suspicions that he was an undercover reporter. That's about as dumb as the guys who got nabbed on “To Catch a Predator” and admitted seeing previous installments of the anti-pedophile program. As for Ferguson’s future plans, she says bankruptcy is a possibility. I have to assume that it’s fiscal bankruptcy, since she’s clearly already morally bankrupt, and dumb as a box of rocks, to boot.