You Get What You Paid For

Kathleen Parker has been fired from the show--that nobody watches-- she co-hosted with Eliot Spitzer on CNN.  Spitzer says that he will have no problem finding a replacement:

"Let's see, to replace Kathleen, I need to pay a woman thousands of dollars  in order to spend an hour with me each night.  I think I know how to find the right candidate," said Client # 9.

Perfect for the Job

Major League Baseball has just hired Joe Torre as as vice president of baseball operations.  Torre, thinking he was not qualified, was apprehensive about taking the job, but Bud Selig told him that running baseball's operations was like managing the Yankees: you sit around all day and do nothing, and if you ever have any questions, you ask Don Zimmer for help.

A Tale of Two Walks

The Carmelo Anthony introduction last night in the Garden tells you everything you need to know about what is wrong with the NBA in general and the Knicks in particular.

Did you see it? They dimmed the lights, brought out the smoke machines, and the new saviour, St. Melo of Red Hook appeared, making his way from the tunnel to the court.  From the tunnel?  Hold on now.  Walking from the tunnel-that's what Willis did.  It is the greatest moment in Knick history, and should be untouched by anybody, especially the Knicks.

But let's compare the two walks from the tunnel.  With Melo, it was all about the glorification of self. More choreographed than a Broadway Show. Look at Melo. Celebrate Melo. All hail Melo.

Willis Reed's walk from the tunnel could not be more different, which makes it all the more remarkable that it happened in the same building.

First, there was nothing planned about what Willis did.  No one knew he would come out.  There was no announcement. It wasn't about self-glory.  It was game seven.  For all the marbles.  And moments before, he was injected with a needle that would have knocked out a rhino. And the job he had was an impossible one: to guard the greatest physical specimen in the world: Wilt Chamberlain.

And it resonated then, and even more so now.

Willis put it all on the line, in an act of physical courage and bravery. There was no public address announcer shouting his arrival.  No smoke.  No mirrors.  Just a hobbled man limping his way onto the hardwood.

With St. Melo, what was his walk from the tunnel about?  It was about hero worship.  It was about him and the glorification of fame.

Willis's walk was for the team and the city.  Melo's walk was for Melo.

And that tells you all that is wrong with the NBA.
 

Look-A-Likes: The Chin Gigante & Landry Fields

kiss of death

 The movie above should be remade, with Isiah Thomas in Richard Widmark role, and poor Donnie Walsh as the wheel chair bound person who Isiah throws down the stairs. 

Give It Back

If you want a quick example of how hard it is to take away a government entitlement, look at the NYC public schools this week.  You will have to look from the outside, though, because schools are closed all week.  They call it the mid winter break, which is not to be confused with the other breaks:  Christmas week, spring break, July & August summer vacation, religious holidays in September & October, Thanksgiving week, Election Day, Veterans Day, Columbus Day and others that I'm sure I left out.  Teaching is a great part time job if you can get it.

But the schools never used to have a week off in February. That all changed, however, under Obama's Presidential role model, President Carter.  In the winter of '77 or '78, the Arab world was squeezing the oil supply.  They sensed weakness in Carter, and sadly they were correct.  One of the initiatives was to conserve energy by closing schools for one week during the winter.  They called it "Energy Conservation Week."  We were told that once the crisis passed, the schools would reopen again for that week in February.

A couple of years later Reagan became President, and we had so much oil, it was coming out of our water faucets.  The oil crisis was like Carter-gone.  So the schools should have opened, right?  Wrong.  We gave the teachers a week off with pay and they had no intention of giving it back.  And our political leaders, cowards to their core, never demanded that they give that week back. 

And thirty-plus years later, teachers still have that week off. 

Because once the government gives you something, the post WWII generations of Americans have been brainwashed to think that you never have to give it back.

But those days are over.            

Look-A-Likes: Kevin Love & AJ Soprano

(Bill Simmons came up with this.)

Going Going...

Borders Bookstore filed for bankruptcy yesterday.  The sad thing about it is that Dennis Miller will have to stop using the great line, "Borders Bookstore has better security than our borders."

Low Grade

The temperature tomorrow reminds me of my high school grades: the low 60s.

Enough With The Victimhood

Here is that petty little man, Mayor Bloomberg, speaking at the American Irish Historical Society:

"I live in the neighborhood, right around the corner, normally; when I walk by this building, there are a bunch of people that are totally inebriated hanging out the window. I know that's a stereotype about the Irish, but nevertheless, we Jews around the corner think this."

Now I know the thing to do is to feign outrage, to grab the reins of victimhood and hold on tight, and to demand apologies and teachable moments from the three-term midget.

But if you do all that, you are playing the game on the liberal side of the field.  Where everyone has a grievance, a cause, a sense of entitlement.  The side of the field where you need to be "sensitive to the community."

At the end of the day, is that how we want to live?  In a perpetual state of grievance based on group- think?

Please. Whatever you think of what the vertically-challenged Mayor said, it did not negatively impact your life. You still had to get up, go to work, and if you're a Republican, pay taxes.

The whole thing reminded me of a Sopranos episode where Tony's crew took up the Italians-Are Discriminated Against cause.  The scene above is where Tony finally lays down the law with a great speech: Enough of this victimhood bullshit, whatever happened to Gary Cooper, and the strong, silent type?

Phat Yankee

CC Sabathia apparently has lost a lot of weight this winter and is raring to go.  Apparently, he was inspired to lose weight when he would walk around New York and people would come up to him and say,       "D'Brickashaw, you guys had a hell of a year!"

Kicking The Can

Just glanced at the budget proposal put out by Obama today.  Holy Sh*t.  The man locks the spending amount in at 2011 levels and calls it fiscally prudent.  Of course, he raised spending by 20% in 2010 & 2011.  Locking spending in at this level and calling it  responsible is like Charlie Sheen saying, "I will  limit my cocaine intake to only one briefcase a day."

Christie-Ryan 2012

Quote of the Day

O'Reilly might've asked Obama if the winning Super Bowl team should have taken a certain amount of points and given them to the losing team.-Dennis Miller