OFF THE CUFF
July 2 --- The simple fact is to win in Major League baseball a team must have a feared lineup, one with some gitty-up. It's tough to win a championship as the 1959 Go-Go White Sox did with speed and defense and pitching. Power is what rules. Which means for all the good things the Seattle Mariners are doing a year after losing 101 games is nice, but they will not win the American League West because they don't have any power.
July 2 --- A Seattle sports talk head is asking callers to reflect on their favorite moments in Seattle Sonics history, on this the first anniversary of the team's departure to Oklahoma City.
This makes for good ratings, but isn't it about time for people to move on. The Sonics are gone. The NBA may not return to the Emerald City for a long, long time, if ever. Get over it. Go have a beer. My lawn needs watering. C'mon over and water it. People are dieing in unjust wars all over the globe, call in about them if you have to call about something. Look over your fence in the backyard and talk to your neighbor. He may even need his lawn mowed.
July 2 --- The plot(s) are getting thicker and thicker surrounding the death of Michael Jackson. Now his lawyer hints he may have been murdered. All I will say is that I don't plan to die tomorrow so if I am found dead, I hope the conspiracy theories abound. Maybe a novel will be written about my death and the surprising ending will center around a bunch of crows who for years now have hated me and have hounded me --- maybe to death.
July 2 --- A talking head on sports radio decried the signing by the Seattle Mariners of Ken Griffey Jr., saying it was done to put fannies in the seats and was not done based on a baseball decision.
Well, what else is new?
The talking head is just trying to create something out of nothing. Griffey is on the downside of his baseball career and there is no reason he will surprise by turning it around (unless he takes steroids, which he won't).
The Mariners have already turned a profit on Ken, and what company wouldn't pass on making a profit?
So Ken's signing was a business decision, but an easy one. And if he adds just a tad of strength to a weak batting order, well, that is a bonus.
If you get used to not expecting much, then Ken's presence in Seattle is all good.
June 29 --- Diane Keaton bumps her head on the movie set and it's front page news. What would happen if she got run over by a speeding train?
Bump your head around my household and, depending who it is suffering the bump, you will hear cheering, but no mention on the local newscast.
There is something wrong with our world, though, when an actress' head bump gets mentioned in the news more then the poor girl who gets shot for protesting in Iran.
June 29 --- Bernie Madoff gets 150 years in prison and I'm thinking that is too little for the extreme greed he showed. Bernie made off with, by his own estimate, $50 billion. Say this about him; he's brilliant. But also morally corrupt.
Sad to note this, but he's not the only morally corrupt bear in the woods. There are plenty of them. Just look around. The United States did not get into this woeful finanical situation by accident. When CEOs of major corporations earn billions a year while the 9-to-5ers who work for the corporations barely get by on a daily basis, something is wrong with the way things are done in this country.
It didn't help the past eight years that we had the worse president in maybe our history. And the worse co-president in Dick Cheney, who also was the most powerful.
At least they are, like Madoff, gone. Now it's time to clean up the mess and get back to what we do best, provide a glimmer of hope and freedom for others around the world.
June 28 --- The river runs through all of us, not just a selected few who would rule with an iron fist if given half the chance. That's why we need to stand with those who are being punished for speaking up for freedom, especially now in Iran. Despots of any stripe must be forced from power by whatever means.
June 27 --- Rachel Alexandra romps to a 19 1/4 length victory in the Mother Goose at Belmont Park to set a record.
Her stakes record run proves that she is the real deal.
Wouldn't it be great to have all the great horses in history running in one big race. If they were all at their peak, who would win among Man o' War, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Citation, Cigar, Kelso, Spectacular Bid, Affirmed, Damascus, John Henry, Nashua, Seabiscuit (of course we would have to have Seabiscuit in there, after reading the book and seeing the movie), and the great Ruffian, as well as many others, including Rachel Alexandra?
The same argument could be made for all the other sports, especially boxing. If you had all the great heavyweight boxers at their peak, who would win among Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Rocky Maricano, Jack Dempsey, George Foreman, Sam Langford (one of the most underrated heavyweights of all time), Gene Tunney, and Jack Johnson, who might have been the best of all time, and many others?
June 27 --- The evil that is the ruling class in Iran continues to show that evil by cracking down on dissent in the country. Evil isn't part of the nature of the only true God and for the religious leaders of that country to show its evil only proves that Satan is part of them.
That's too bad for the majority of the Iran population because they are the good part of the country. But evil, which includes its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will not rule for long. Evil can and will be defeated.
Unfortunately, many will die before evil is dispatched.
June 26 --- Michael Jackson dies at 50 and the world is stunned. We lose another great musician before it is time. It's been that way for ever. We can list more than a hundred who were gone too young, They include Charlie Parker (34), Hank Williams (29) and Patsy Cline (30). George Greshwin went at 38, Fats Waller at 39. Bix Beiderbecke was 28. Buddy Holly died in an Iowa Corn field at 22. John Lennon was 40 when he was shot dead. So it goes. Better to live for the moment because you never know.
June 16 --- Donte' Stallworth hits and kills a person with his car while legally drunk and gets off with 30 days in jail and two years of house arrest, permitting him to play in the NFL, depending on any forthcoming penalties by the league.
The family of the victim signed off on Stallworth's punishment so it's difficult to take issue with it. But it doesn't seem right that 30 days (and some finanical payoff to the family) for a life is anywhere near equal.
If Joe Blow, the average man, does the same thing, what do you supposed happens to him in a court of law?
Just wondering.
June 15 --- We haven't heard from Dick Cheney for a while. Maybe he's back in his secret hide out. Hopefully, he will stay there.
We hear he's writing a book about his life. When it comes out it should be put on a fence post and used as target practice with a shotgun.
Wait, Cheney's already done that --- to a friend.
June 15 --- David Lettermen has gotten away with a lot in his 30-plus years on the idiot box, but he really stepped into it when he joked about Palin's daughter.
He was way off base, and put a serious dent in his credentials. Palin has the right to be seriously upset.
Lettermen's mistake was getting too careless with the joke that is Palin. If he survives this, it's a good bet that he will tread carefully the next time Palin does something that sets her up for a punch line .... which could come at any time.
June 15 --- Getting a national health care program up and running will be the most difficult thing President Obama will face. That's because doctors, health care centers and insurance carriers have been scaming the public for decades and they are not going to give that money trough up without a tremendous fight.
A final solution should be heavily tilted toward the poor and the middle class, but don't be surprised if that doesn't happen. The political power lies with the monied people and that isn't the middle or poor class.
So unless the poor take to the streets, expect the worse.
Even though the world is becoming more and more dangerous with Iran and North Korea racing to join the nuclear club, it seems improbable that any weirdo will ever use one. To do so would mean, most likely, the end of the world as we know it, and even a madman will know that.
People who go around ordering suicide bombings and kill hundreds of people are not God's chosen people regardless of what they preach.
Let's put them in their proper place: they are the modern Adolph Hitler's, bent on destroying everything in their path to achieve domination and their sick way of life.
They are mindless cowards.
It's amazing how food containers continue to get smaller and prices continue to get bigger. If the trend continues, cereal boxes will some day be the size of a gnat and we will have to work a week to pay for them.
Same thing with what used to be half-gallon ice cream. It went to 1.75 quarts and now one brand name has slipped to 1.5 quarts. Soon we will get just a smell for $5.