Master Bates's Favorite Athlete of All-Time

Wally Backman, fired by the Arizona Diamondbacks after three days, is now working his way back into the majors by managing the South Georgia Peanuts in the independent South Coast League.
Filmmaker John Fitzgerald is following the Peanuts around hoping to sell a reality series about the team, called "Playing for Peanuts."

In a possibly related development, Backman was ejected from a game after dropping several F-bombs on [the umpire] and kicking dirt on home plate. Then Backman started tossing equipment onto the field. Not only did he throw 22 bats onto the grass, he also emptied a bucket of baseballs down the third base line.

The situation was made worse by the fact that Backman's foul language was clearly audible since there were only a handful of fans left in the stadium. Some of those fans were, in fact, children.

Mrs. Poop's Favorite Athlete of All-Time

When Mrs. Poop was a little girl, her father used to take her and her grandmother (who being Canadian loved hockey) to Hartford Whalers games.
Mrs. Poop often remarks that she's the only person whose grandmother loves hockey.
Anyway, in those days of the old Hartford Whalers, Ron Francis was the star player, and Mrs. Poop even had a little #10 Francis jersey.

Francis played 23 years in the NHL, 10 with the Whalers, scoring 549 goals. Now he has been selected for the Hockey Hall of Fame.

gourMETS

The Mets released the “GourMets” cookbook, a collection of recipes from players, coaches and members of the front office. Proceeds will benefit local charities. Some highlights: Moises Alou’s stewed goat, Willie Randolph’s linguine with white clam sauce and Carlos Delgado’s grilled snapper and avocado salsa. “It’s not rocket science,” Delgado said. “If you mess up fish, you’re in trouble anyway.”

It costs only $12 and you can order it here.

Habla Con Ellos

A little controversy brewing in the Mets clubhouse as Paul LoDuca is tired of being the team spokesman because so many of the Spanish speaking Mets never talk to the media.

"I'll do this [interview], but you need to start talking to other players," Lo Duca said. "It's the same three or four people every day. Nobody else wants to talk. Some of these guys have got to start talking. They speak English, believe me."

Prior to Lo Duca's comment, starting pitcher Orlando Hernandez declined to talk about moving his scheduled start from Thursday to today.
"I'm not talking," Hernandez said, before switching to Spanish. "No mas. Manana."

And later, slumping first baseman Carlos Delgado shut down his interview session once the group around his locker grew from one reporter to a handful. "I've got no comment," he said with a smile. "I'm going home."

Lo Duca just felt the need to vent. Just before lashing out at teammates, he admitted he'd been in a bad mood all day. Before the game, as the Mets were stuck with indoor batting practice because of the rain, he banned all questions about the two-game suspension he has under appeal.

"Don't ask me any more about when I'm dropping my suspension. When are you guys going to drop it?" he yelled. "I'm tired of talking about it. ... It's like the president got killed." On Wednesday, Lo Duca complained that his getting thrown out of a game was bigger news than the war in Iraq.

Ed Coleman said the main culprits of this are Beltran and Delgado. Both of them do some kind of workout after the game and are not usually available to the media right after the games, when the reporters need to write their stories. Seems like Delgado is the worst offender, probably because he's been hitting so badly. I'm curious to hear where Reyes stands in this. I'm sick of Delgado's poor hitting and his bad attitude. He's batting .220, playing like shit in the field, not hustling on the bases and not being man enough to talk to reporters about it. Fuck Delgado. They should ship his ass back to Florida because it's clear from his actions that he never wanted to be here in the first place.

It's Very Drafty In Here

Because Billy is the only Poophead who still cares about the NBA, I chose one of his gayest lines as the headline to this post.

And I'll start with Billy's favorite team, the Bulls, drafting Pizza Parlor Derek's least favorite player, JamesOn Curry. Curry will not be anything special in the NBA, but the Bulls also got Joakim Noah and Aaron Gray. Gray could become a serviceable big man and I get the feeling that on the right team a guy with Noah's energy could become a very useful player.

The Dallas Mavericks drafted Nick Fazekas because one 6'11" soft white guy is never enough.

One Syracuse player got drafted, Demitris Nichols. He is going to Portland which could be a good place for him because he's one of the best shooters in the draft and has decent size so he could be a good outside shooting forward to play alongside Greg Oden. And his defensive liabilities will be masked somewhat by Oden.

Update: Nichols was traded to the Knicks in a separate deal for a 2nd rounder next year. I don't see him as anything more than a role player but he can shoot so maybe he'll help during those times when Q-Rich is injured. Thanks, SCZA!

The Seattle Supersonics did what the Knicks need to do. They dumped Ray Allen, they'll probably get rid of Rashard Lewis (who is expected to meet with the Knicks on Sunday) and they are going to rebuild their team around two top five picks, Kevin Durant and Jeff Green.

The Celtics did nothing to improve themselves. What a horrible trade. Why do they need Ray Allen and Paul Pierce?

I love Cory Brewer and I love Daequan Cook.

I think Al Horford will be the bust of the draft. I never thought he was a good enough offensively player to be a real star. Plus he's going to the Hawks. Which reminds me that Acie Law will also suck. He's a shooting guard in a point guard's body, even though he's 6'4" he's less than 200 pounds.

In addition to Oden, Durant and Conley, at least one other freshman from the group of (Young, Young, Hawes, Wright and Wright) is going to be an awesome player. I predict Thaddeus Young but he'll need three years to develop. I also think Spencer Hawes gets made fun of as a big white stiff, but I've seen him play and he's more agile than that.

I have no idea about Wilson Chandler but if Sean Williams can stop smoking pot he will be a very good interior defensive presence for the Nets.

Chemicals Found in Staten Island

Several blocks were cordoned off and a few dozen homes were evacuated in Staten Island as police investigated a "large amount" of chemicals found at a home (199 Ada Drive) and a nearby commercial storage facility.
Authorities found less than a thousand pounds of chemicals in the home, including potassium nitrate, sulfur, mercury, and peroxide. At the off-site storage facility, authorities found about 1,500 of chemicals, mainly potassium nitrate.
There is no indication the chemicals were being used for bomb-making or anything terror-related. The man was purchasing the chemicals in bulk and reselling them on the internet.

What Were You Watching?

CNN's "hard news" rep took a hit, but Paris Hilton brought in the viewers, as her exclusive tell-all with Larry King drew 3.2 million viewers -- more than triple King's regular average.
Ratings for the Paris edition of "Larry King Live" exceeded those for CNN's last two presidential debates. CNN drew 2.78 million for its debate between the Democratic contenders and 2.05 million for its Republican debate, earlier in June.

CNN got the interview after the major networks backed out. Barbara Walters thought she had the deal sealed for 20/20 by offering $100,000 which it billed as a reasonable license fee for family photos and videos.
Then NBC offered a million dollars, and Walters got pissed at the Hiltons for reneging, so she outed them. Both networks were embarrassed and Paris fell into Larry's lap.

The show was King's highest-rated since 2005 but only his 53rd highest-rated in 10 years at CNN, according to Nielsen Media Research. Some 1.4 million adults 25-54 demo tuned in for Hilton, more than three times King's regular average.

CNN exhaustively promoted the interview even analyzing it afterwards on Anderson Cooper 360. Ironically, the man referred to as the "Paris Hilton of news" refuses to talk about Paris, often called her "she who must not be named" and "the heiress." But he caved to network pressure Wednesday.

I saw the interview, I thought it was interesting. Paris was giving scripted answers and not totally taking responsibility for her actions. She said she got a raw deal, she's never used drugs, she had one drink the night of her DUI, her lawyer told her she could drive to work and she read the Bible a lot in prison. But when Larry pressed her for her favorite verse she didn't have an answer. Presumably it's like asking to decide which pair of shoes she loves most.

But she wasn't the ditzy airhead I expected, she had some real substantial things to say and I can only hope that she has realized how unfulfilling her previous lifestyle was and that she is true to her word and decides to become a more serious person who can affect positive change on our society.

Baseball is Poop

Milestone Edition

Worth the Wait
Three hits from 3,000, Craig Biggio sat out 3 of the Astros last 5 games so he could reach the milestone during a 10-game homestand. Good thing he did, his 5 hits Thursday night made him the 27th and worst member of the 3000 hit club.

Congratulations, Now Get Out of Here
Frank Thomas hit his 500th home run becoming the 21st member and maybe second worst player in the 500 home run club. Eddie Murray needed about 900 games more than Thomas to do it. Later in the game Thomas was ejected for aguing balls and strikes.

Who's Next
Alex Rodriguez, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez could all join the 500 home run club this year. They are all within 18.

And Pitchers Count Too
Tom Glavine is now just 3 wins away, finally, from 300 wins. And an interesting battle between Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux. Maddux only trails him by 9 wins and if Clemens keeps pitching this way, Maddux could pass him this year. If not, it will be interesting to see if one or both of them comes back next season to try to set the mark of most wins in the modern era, which is 363 by Warren Spahn.

Knicks Trade

The New York Knicks acquired Zach Randolph, Dan Dick-ow and Fred Jones for Channing Frye and Steve Francis.

This is a bad trade but not a terrible one. You cannot evaluate NBA trades based on talent alone, you have to look at the salary cap ramifications. The only, the ONLY way the Knicks are ever going to be good again, I mean really good, not 8th in the East, is to tear it down and start all over. They need to stop acquiring high priced players and build from the bottom. Instead of Francis for two more years at $33 million the Knicks are on the hook for four more years of Randolph at $61 million.

If you just look at the talent, the Knicks definitely got the better deal, Francis was a waste and Frye is decent, but that's about it. By the way, the Trail Blazers are going to buy out Steve Francis so they basically gave up Randolph for Frye, that's how much they think of Randolph.

One of the reasons they wanted to dump him is because of his bad behavior, they won't want him teaching how to hire girls to perform a sex show to their new star Greg Oden.

Randolph is also fat and lazy and doesn't play defense. Which means he's just like Eddy Curry, a fat, lazy defensive liability already on the Knicks. This is actually my biggest problem with the deal, the redundancy of having Randolph and Curry, two big men who need the ball to operate down low. I also think this move will have a deletirrious effect on the best Knick, David Lee. He is going to play less power forward and more small forward, making him a defensive liability, and taking him away from the low post where he is a demon on the glass.

If Curry and Randolph can work together with Marbury perhaps the Knicks can win 40-45 games this season but I don't see any way this collection of malcontents is going to be willing to give the effort on defense necessary to be a really good team.

For $20 They'll Play With Your Putts

A strip club in Pocono, Pennsylvania named CR Fanny's (get it?) sponsored a golf outing at a local golf course. This outing included strippers giving lap dances on the course. A guy who lives across the street recorded the whole thing. You must watch this video.

Baseball is Poop

The Curse of the Poop
Ever since I wrote about two of my favorite young pitchers, James Shields and Fausto Carmona, they have both gone in the toilet.

Shields was 5-0 with a 3.08 ERA, since then he's 1-3 with a 6.48 ERA. And though he allowed 7 homers in those 4 starts (25 innings) he walked only 1 and struck out 26.

Very similarly Carmona was 7-1 with a 3.11 ERA when I wrote about him. Since then he's 1-3 with a 6.86 ERA including a disastrous 8 runs in one inning start against Oakland.

The Kid is Still the Future
The Kansas City Royals were very worried early this season because their franchise, Alex Gordon, had gotten of to a terrible start. On June 6 he was batting .173 with 3 HR and 8 RBI. Since then Gordon is on fire. In the last 18 games, he .408 with 3 HR and 14 RBI.

With Age Comes Wisdom
Wednesday night featuring an incredible 7 starting pitchers over 40 years old. Kenny Rogers got rained out and Roger Clemens got bombed by the other 5 (Woody Williams, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Jamie Moyer and Greg Maddux) went 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA. And the former Braves triumverate went 3-0 with a 0.50 ERA. And not one of them suffered a broken hip.

A Walkoff Walk off Proctor
The Yankees are reeling again. After winning 11 of 12 to get back to 3 games above .500 the Yankees lost 7 of 8 and are now 3 games below. Those losses include a 3-game sweep by the Rockies and 2 losses to the Orioles, one on that walkoff walk, and one when Clemens gave up four runs in 6 innings and didn't strike out a batter for the first time in 200 starts. Pedro Martinez has struck out at least one batter in 293 straight starts, the longest active streak.

Better Than the Babe
Ryan Howard hit his 100th home run in only his 325th game. That's the fastest to 100 in major league history. At that pace he can get to 800 in about 14 more years.

Help a SCZA Out

SCZA's station is holding an internal contest to promote their new partnership with youtube. Whichever employee posts a video on youtube that gets the most views, or gets to 10,000 first wins an iPhone. SCZA posted his famous on-air appearance describing the dastardly duo who terrorized Boston with light-up displays of cartoon characters.

All SCZA wants you to do is click, minimize and ignore. If we each do this 100 times SCZA has a chance.

Song of The Week

"Charlene" - Anthony Hamilton
Sometimes coming up for inspiration for these Songs of the Week is difficult. But then I was reading an article about racecar driver Lewis Hamilton and his father's name is Anthony which reminded me how much I love this song.
This Anthony Hamilton has a great smooth smoky soulful sound.
This is an awesome song and I even tried to convince Mrs. Poop to name Baby Poop Charlene, but she said no.

Who Are These Guys?

I'll give you stats of two players. You tell me who the guys are. I'll post the answer in the comments section tomorrow.

Player A - rookie season: 280 AB 22 HR 43 RBI .293 BA .952 OPS
Player B - rookie season: 312 AB 22 HR 63 RBI .288 BA .923 OPS

Player A - 2007: 209 AB 14 HR 37 RBI .273 BA .884 OPS
Player B - 2007: 207 AB 17 HR 53 RBI .256 BA .938 OPS

Does It Count?

Mrs. Poop has now attended two Mets games this season. Because Baby Poop is now a viable fetus with brain activity and can react to sounds, does that mean Baby Poop has been to two games. Or does first official Met game status start outside of the womb?

Our Day At Shea

Mrs. Poop and I took in Monday night's 2-1 walkoff victory from our plush rightfield seats at Shea Stadium.

We started the evening with a trip to Joe's Shanghai. Mrs. Poop was excellent handling the pork steam buns, serving them out without piercing them and spilling the soup everywhere. We managed to avoid tongue scalding, although Baby Poop was pissed that hot liquid was pouring on its head and started kicking. We were satisfied with our efficiency because the guys at the next table had soup all over their plates, we kept it in our mouths and in our spoons.

Then it was back to Shea for the game. We got a nice view from the subway of all the body shops that are going to be torn down. You can't see from the street but their are hundreds of them, stretching for blocks. When they get replaced with restaurants I wonder if it will hurt business at Joe's on game nights. There were at least 3 other tables occupied by people headed to the game. Hopefully Joe's can survive without that business. Or even more hopefully, Joe's will open a new location across from the Stadium.

We had our new digital camera, and a nice low perspective of the field from the loge level so we got some good pictures.



Of course I took several shots of Pooh Holes. Someday I'll tell Baby Poop all about the magnificent Pooh Holes.













Professor Reyes taught us that "David Wright esta en la esquina caliente" means "David Wright is at the hot corner."

Kiss Cam was also good, several funny couples including one girl who mushed the guy next to her when he leaned in. Something tells me they were just friends and he'd been waiting years for this opportunity.

Mrs. Poop missed half the game wandering around the concourse looking for water, ice cream and of course going to the bathroom. That's what happens when you bring a pregnant woman to the game.

Mrs. Poop hates So Taguchi. He is soooooooooo taguchi.

I remembered why I knew Russ Springer. He got ejected after hitting Bonds because he didn't want to give up #714.

We went home happy thanks to Shawn Green's game-winning homer.

Which is Gayer?

Several years ago Josh perpetrated a horrible act upon me, Beers, Michael and Anton (I may have those names wrong, if I left you out, I'm sorry). We went to the movies to see "The Thin Red Line." When we went to sit Josh demanded that we leave at least one seat between us as a buffer. This led to the five of us dispersing throughout the theater. So when the movie started, and it was the worst movie ever made, we all hated it, but when we look around it seemed as if everyone else was enjoying it, so we didn't leave early. All because Josh thought it was gay to sit next to another dude in a movie theater.
At Bill's bachelor party, Josh, Smokey and I caught a cab. When I suggested someone sit in the front seat, Josh demanded that all three of us sit in the back.

Sextuplets - Update

Another of the Morrison sextuplets of Minnesota died. The Morrison six were born 22 weeks premature, 3 died within a few days, now Cadence Morrison died, Lucia Rae and Sylas Christopher are the last two remaining.
Still the Morrisons say their faith keeps them strong, failing to see how their faith helped contribute to their current situation.
There are no new updates on the Masches sexes from Arizona so I'll assume that no news is good news on that front.

Nice Pants - Update

A Washington DC judge threw out the case of Roy Pearson who was suing his dry cleaners for $54 million because they lost his pants and therefore violated the sign in their store that said "Satisfaction Guaranteed."

Almost everyone viewed this as a frivolous lawsuit by a judge who had a greater grasp of the law than he did of reality.

Sam Alexis Woods Photos

In a move aimed at controlling the flow of information, and preventing paparazzi from camping out on their lawn, Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren posted pictures of their new daughter, Sam Alexis Woods on TigerWoods.com.
Interesting the way you can see very little of Elin in these pictures, just her hair, which is nicely done up.

Busy Beavers

The Oregon State Beavers are your National Champions in baseball for the second straight year. Nice beaver, thank you I just had it stuffed.
The team struggled during the season, and according to their coach Pat Casey, people would have put the odds of them repeating at one in a million. "But it’s like the guy said in ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ that means we’ve got a chance.”
They didn't even need Mets first round draft pick Eddie Kunz (pronounced coons, not raccoons you idiot), their closer, in either of the game.

Whatever Happened to Darren Baker?

My favorite World Series moment is when the ball rolled through Buckner's legs. Mrs. Poop's favorite moment is when JT Snow scooped up 4 year old Darren Baker from home plate during the 2002 World Series.
Now Darren is in second grade and starting to play little league. He made a guest appearance on Baseball Tonight with his father.
Dusty said whenever Darren makes a nice play he asks if it's a webgem.
Darren got very embarrassed by this. But after no-selling some of the webgems ("that was all right") he came alive on the last one, and then gave the double shocker. Glad to see he's growing up right.

This Old Black Lab Just Ain't What He Used To Be

We took Diesel to the dog park for the first time this summer. For the uninitiated, a dog park is a fenced in area where dogs can run off leash. To some it may seem unnecessary to have a park for that, but having your dog off leash in our town violates an ordinance, and we don't have a fenced in yard.
So Diesel seldom gets to spread his wings and let loose after a tennis ball, other than at the dog park.
When Diesel was an impossible pup we used to take him all the time because it tired him out and we could leave for hours and he wouldn't be crazy. Now that he is so good (I swear, he really is), we never need to take him. So we hadn't gotten there yet this year, but Sunday was our day (because we have to leave him all day Monday).

As soon as I take his Chuckit out of the closet he knows where we're going and starts freaking out.



The dog park is very crowded on this day but I find some room and throw Diesel some tennis balls. He zips off after them and of course doesn't bring them back (I don't know why they call him a Retriever, he's just a chaser) but he's running well and getting tired. The some crazy woman with a Labradoodle named Waldo starts up a conversation. She thinks Diesel's panting sounds like whistling which is what Waldo does and people are nervous and the vet never said anything, did the vet say anything about Diesel. I tell her no, he's 100% fine just winded and she asks to use my chuckit, she throws a couple for Waldo while Mrs. Poop takes Diesel for rehydration.

An angry Mrs. Poop comes storming over asking for the car keys because she needs to get bottled water out of the car for Diesel because the gallon jug we brought is missing. This dog park has no bowls (it used to) and no place close by to fill up water so its best to bring your own. On her way back she sees three old people have our jug that we brought. Because she "doesn't like confrontation" she sends me over to get Diesel's water. I walk over, say "can I take this back?" and grab our water. The old people don't try to stop me. Here's the weird thing. They weren't borrowing or sharing. They hadn't spilled a drop of it yet. If they wanted some, they could have filled their bowl and left it where we put it down. They didn't they just took it over to where they were sitting. Very strange.

After that we finally got some nice running and fetching in and Diesel was exhausted. I spotted an entlebucher, a very rare Swiss mountain dog, that I had seen once on "The Dog Whisperer." I wanted to find out more because it seems like the one breed of dog other than lab, that Mrs. Poop and I both might like to own some day.



If you ever go to a dog park, and you want the dogs to attack you, you should be eating food, and running. Some little girl did that and every dog in the place was after her. Then she kept picking up this ball and running with it, and every time Diesel chased her. Then she started taking pictures of Diesel. Very strange.

Finally, Diesel was so exhausted we had to take him home but before we could we almost had an incident. Every dog park has two gates, they open into a small square so that if one gate is closed, no dogs can get loose. As we were leaving, a couple was bringing in their dog. As they opened the inner gate to let their dog in, their bratty kids opened the outer gate to ask for ice cream money. Thankfully we had Diesel on the leash, and no other dogs escaped. But this is why Focks is nervous about letting Bauer go to a dog park, because people are idiots.

But the trip was worth it, Diesel had a great time, he was so exhausted he barely moved the rest of the night and he should be good to be home tonight by himself.

And I stepped in dog poop.

Put Your Money Where Your Bias Is

There is no question that in this country there is a tremendous liberal media bias. For whatever reason the people who get into the news business are mostly liberals. I don't know why this is, I guess the young conservatives are at Goldman Sachs making huge bonuses.
Now that doesn't necessarily mean their coverage is biased, but you have a pretty good idea that it's at least somewhat affected. And I think this is the #1 reason why the Fox News Channel caught, passed and now kicks CNN's ass. Of the people who want to watch news they agree with, liberals have a bunch of choice, conservatives have one.
But everyone in the media denies this bias. MSNBC did a study of all political contributions made by journalists to interest groups and to candidates in national elections only. They all have to be disclosed and I think employer is part of the disclosure process.
143 journalists made the list (a very small fraction of the total journalists, but as we will see, a representative one) and 9 times as many gave to Democrats as to Republicans.

What Really Happened

Monica Emerson was trying to take her young son through security at Reagan National Airport. Her son had some water in his sippy cup and she was told that she couldn't get through security with the water still in the cup. No liquids past the checkpoint. The rules apply to everyone, even former Secret Service like Emerson.

The rule is a bit much, but there's no selective enforcement, everyone has to abide by it. Even two year olds, no liquids means no liquids, for anyone.

So Emerson got pissed and said "ok, I'll spill it out," and she dumped the water right on the floor. That of course only caused more trouble and she was detained even longer.

After the incident Emerson told everyone in the media that she was picked on, and all she had was water for her two year old son, and it accidentally spilled and the big bad TSA hassled a poor innocent mother and her young child and why don't they catch some real terrorists.

Sounds like a great story, except for one thing. The TSA said "oh yeah bitch?" The TSA released the surveillance video of the incident, something they NEVER do, and it clearly showed Emerson purposefully dumping the water on the ground in the security checkpoint area.

So she bitched about having to follow the rules, then she flashed her Secret Service badge, then she spilled the water on the ground and finally she lied about the whole incident.

Put her on the permanent no-fly list.

Rosebud

10 years ago the AFI came out with it's list of top 100 movies. Thanks to a friend who worked in a video store and gave me free rentals, I saw most of the top 50 movies.

Wikipedia has the side by side of the two lists.

But here are a few thoughts:

Citizen Kane deserves to be #1. It really was a fantastic movie, especially when you consider the time period in which it was made.

Casablanca and The Godfather for 2 and 3 are a tossup. Both so great, yet so different.

Raging Bull moved all the way up to #4 from #24. I'm shocked and I couldn't disagree more. While I think it's a great movie, and an enjoyable movie, to make the top 10 it has to be near perfect and Raging Bull goes on too long, there is too much cursing and fighting and jumping around. At 24 I agree, at 4 it's a reach.

My favorite of all the movies I discovered while watching the oldies is #5, Singin In The Rain. Definitely the best musical ever. Funny, smart, well-done, just a fantastic movie. No, I'm not kidding.

Only four movies made since the list came out made the list: Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Sixth Sense, Saving Private Ryan and Titantic. Terrible choices.

Shawshank Redemption made the list. Thank God. If you add Gump and Pulp, 1994 was probably the best year for movies in a very long time.

How did Toy Story make this list? There are about 10 other movies in its genre that are better including Shrek and Finding Nemo.

If you haven't seen these movies which are on the list, don't: Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider (no plot, just pretty pictures), The Deer Hunter and A Clockwork Orange.

If you haven't seen these movies which are on the list, rent them: Bonnie & Clyde, North by Northwest, 12 Angry Men and The French Connection.

Juneteenth

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is an annual holiday in fourteen states of the United States. Celebrated on June 19, it commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas.

Here is a sampling of what happened on Juneteenth this year:

In Milwaukee, Pat Kasthurirangaian was pulled from his car and beaten, he says, by as many as 50 people. Kasthurirangaian says his right eye socket is broken, he has a broken nose and constant headaches.

In Syracuse, police closed down the celebration after multiple fights and two stabbings.

And in Austin, two men were driving and the car accidentally hit a small child, causing non-life threatening injuries. A mob surrounded the car and attacked the driver. The passenger, David Rivas Morales got out to help his friend. He was beaten to death.