Carpet Muncher, Clam Digger, Softball Player

The Wall Street Journal published a picture on its front page of Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan playing softball. The picture was taken in 1993, and became a front-page story in 2010. Some have claimed the Journal did this to raise questions about Kagan’s sexuality. She is rumored to be a lesbian but the White House angrily denies these “charges.” Kagan has said nothing.



And that’s the problem. All the liberals and gays out there long for the day when someone’s sexual preference doesn’t matter, especially for a Supreme Court Justice when lots of other issues are way more important when determining competency for the role. But instead of blaming the evil people who keep asking the questions, I think it’s the people who constantly evade the issue who make sexuality important.
Ricky Martin, Johnny Weir, Adam Lambert, Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres are just some of the celebrities who at least initially lied or hid their sexuality. Do they think that brings us closer to the day when no one will care? What if they simply said, “yes I am gay.” Wouldn’t that minimize it, if that is indeed their goal?
Which brings us back to the Wall Street Journal, of course their goal was to raise questions about her sexuality. Combine the rumors, with the stereotype of softball players and you can reach no other conclusion. But maybe the Journal was doing more for the cause than all the closeted celebrities and public figures. Don’t we have to have the conversation before we can end the conversation?
Not sure, but I’d like to ask Jennie Finch about it.

Refreshing Honesty

Campbell Brown recently stepped down from CNN and her final words were so refreshingly honest that I had to share them and think we should all applaud her and hope more people in the future will do the same when faced with a similar predicament.

"Simply put, the ratings for my program are not where I would like them to be. It is largely for this reason that I am stepping down as anchor of CNN's "Campbell Brown". To be clear: this is my decision, and one that I have been thinking about for some time. As for why, I could have said, that I am stepping down to spend more time with my children (which I truly want to do). Or that I am leaving to pursue other opportunities (which I also truly want to do). But I have never had much tolerance for others' spin, so I can't imagine trying to stomach my own. The simple fact is that not enough people want to watch my program, and I owe it to myself and to CNN to get out of the way so that CNN can try something else.
My plan right now is to help CNN through any transition, and then to enjoy, for the very first time, the nightly ritual of "Good Night Moon" and good night kisses with my two little boys. I wish my CNN colleagues all the best. And as long as bedtime doesn't conflict with primetime, I will be watching and pulling for them."

It's true that Brown got killed in the ratings. On a rough estimate O'Reilly averaged 2.5 million viewers a night, 1 million for Olbermann, 500,000 for Nancy Grace and 300,000 for Brown. Her show's tagline was "No Bull, No Bias" but the rating show viewers want bull and bias. But at least she took the high road on the way out.

Song of the Week

"Hold You" - Gyptian
I'm hoping this will be the first song of the week that no one has ever heard of before.

Another Reason For LeBron To Come To New York

The Knicks don't have Delonte West.
According to scurrilous internet rumors West is banging LeBron's mom, Gloria James.
Apparently this has been going on for a while but LeBron didn't find out until the middle of the Celtics series.
The team discord may have resulted in the Cavs losing.
I don't believe this story one bit, but it should at least be part of the Knicks pitch to LeBron.
We promise no one on the team will fuck your mother.

Yes, He Really Said That

A few years ago an e-mail made its way around the internet telling the supposed story of a news anchorwoman who questioned the weatherman about his snow forecast that never came true thusly: “what happened to the 8 inches you promised me last night?”
Unfortunately that is an urban legend but now we have something better.
After reporter Catherine Shreves of WGNO in New Orleans did a story on the G-Shot, a shot given to women to enlarge their G-Spot, anchor Michael Hill asked the question everyone was probably wondering:

Song of the Week

"Despicable (freestyle)" - Eminem

"fuck that I'd rather turn this club into a barroom brawl
get rowdy as Roethlisberger in a bathroom stall"

Reason Why I Love Mrs. Poop #415,780

While rushing for an appointment for an ultrasound Mrs. Poop was driving around the very busy parking lot at the medical building. She noticed one of the spaces reserved for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Patients open up, but by the time she drove around to it a man (by himself) had taken the spot.
Mrs. Poop avoided confrontation but was forced to park across the street in the parking lot of the Korean Church.
On the way in, she left a note on the offending car "thanks for parking in a spot reserved for pregnant ladies, asshole."

You've Gotta Be Explicit With Those Cake Decorators

With the Braves in Washington to play the Nationals Senators Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) hosted a ceremony, inviting the Braves manager Bobby Cox, as well as players and officials to honor Cox on his retirement.
But the cake had an unfortunate and profane misspelling of his last name



“Thanks for 50 great years Bobby Cocks”

Here’s how it happened: Restaurant Associates which does the catering for the Capitol called to place the order with a cake company they don’t normally use. They gave the name over the phone and never specifically spelled out C-O-X.

When Cox and the Braves players arrived they met with and posed for pictures with Congressional staffers. It was during this time that a staffer went to get the cake ready and noticed the mistake. They quickly cut off the offending portion of the cake and smeared the icing with the misspelling, but not before a media member got a picture.

Song of the Week

"For the Longest Time" - Billy Joel
I really like the fact that 20 years after doo-wop went out of style Billy Joel just said "hey fuck it, I want to record a doo-wop song."
Also, doo-wop is one of my favorite styles of music, you just can't be unhappy when listening to doo-wop. I love that every song has a guy with really deep bass and one with a really high falsetto.
According to Wikipedia, my old station WCBS-FM was instrumental in this song becoming a hit. When the "Innocent Man" album came out in 1983, CBS-FM started playing "For the Longest Time" because it sounded like an old song even though it was new. That prompted the record label to release it as the 4th single from the album.
Wikipedia also says Joel recorded all the vocals, presumably including the bass profundo and the falsetto himself.

Mrs. Poop's New Favorite Baseball Player

We all have our crosses to bear and Mrs. Poop's cross is her oft-recurring kidney stones.

Note: her idiotic husband was her own choice

That is why her new favorite baseball player is Colorado Rockies catcher Miguel Olivo. In a game earlier this season Olivo went to the clubhouse bathroom between innings and passed a kidney stone. Impressive, because as bad is it is for a woman, pushing the stone out for a man is even more painful.

Even more impressive, Olivo went back out for the next inning.

“Believe me, it’s not fun,” said Olivo. “Sometimes, when I’ve got that thing, I just want to die. But I can handle pain a little bit. Once it’s gone, I’m normal, I’m good. Let’s play baseball.”

Olivo has learned to live with the condition ever since he began experiencing kidney stones in 2003 while playing for the White Sox.

“Come on,” said Olivo. “After I passed it, I don’t even feel it anymore. I don’t feel anything. It’s like crazy.”

Paulo's Book Club: "Real Men Don't Say Splendid"

"Real Men Don't Say Splendid: A Lexicon of Unmanliness" is a silly little book that literally takes all of 10 minutes to read cover to cover.
But if you love words the way I do, it's a funny 10 minutes.



Simple premise: it lists 99 words real men should never say under any circumstances and it gives sentences for each one.

A large portion of the words are only used by gay men and gossip magazine writers: Canoodling, Preggers, Galpal, Chic, Elegant, Nuptials and the homosexual standard, Fabulous

There's also quite a few words Mrs. Poop uses on a regular basis which is ok because she's a girl: adorable, comfy, cuddle, snuggle, dilly-dally and scoot.
If Chase and I are laying in bed and she wants to get in she might say "you guys look comfy but can you scoot so I can snuggle and cuddle with you."

The word golly might have been added after the author saw me at a goyisha wedding because the accompanying sentence is: Golly, that's a lot of shrimp for one person.

Seinfeld perfectly captured the essence of this book when saying he didn't want to carry the chocolate babka to the party because standing at the door holding a box by a little string is a "tad dainty." Both those words are in the book.

A few other good examples from the book that I absolutely agree no real man should ever use: fancy, heartthrob, mingle (especially as in "I'm single and ready to mingle"), glamorous and hunk.

But a few of the entries I really don't understand their inclusion:
Boobies: Sometimes you have to talk about tits but you can't call them tits, boobs or boobies is the best alternative here.

Giggle: I don't know a good synonym to describe this type of laughter.

Oops: What else are you supposed to say when you make a mistake?

Shimmy: Only acceptable when quoting Major League 2: "Parkman is doing that little shimmy, it makes the women here in Cleveland wanna puke."

Tasty: Once again a manly movie quote "MMMM, this is a tasty burger."

Panties: There is a manly way to say this "She wasn't wearing any panties dawg."

In place of those I word have added: drafty, duvet, draperies and exquisite

Love Is Blind

Pete Rose and Kiana Kim
I know what they see in each other, Rose is 69 and thanks to Viagra he can still fuck this gorgeous Asian girl with huge tits.
And Kiana is 40 years younger and can hope the old man croaks every time she gets on top of him.
If not, at least she gets some fame to launch a modeling career.

Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?

We all know that Hollywood has run out of good ideas and have resorted to remaking old movies that never quite did all that well. Usually these are 1960s movies that nobody nowadays remembers. Movies like Pelham 123 that could also benefit from the advances in modern movie-making.
But now comes word they are redoing "Overboard" the 1980s classic starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.
Two major problems with this:
1) Not enough time has passed, likely ticket buyers have seen the original, they remember it (it's on cable all the time) and they like it
2) there's nothing you can do to make this better that they didn't have at their disposal in 1988

But there is one giant, and I mean giant thing in favor of this remake: the prospects of J.lo in this scene:

Note: please ignore the Russian dubbing, you can't always get what you want on youtube, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need

Who Should be the National League Pitcher of the Month for April?

I can never remember a season in which so many pitchers have started off the season so well and that will mean a hotly contested NL Pitcher of the Month Award for April. The candidates:

Roy Halladay: 4-1, 1.80 ERA, 40 innings, 36 hits, 3 BB, 33 Ks, 1.6 WAR
Special Consideration Stat: 2 CG and 1 SHO

Mike Pelfrey: 4-0, 0.69 ERA, 25 innings, 18 hits, 13 BB, 19 Ks, 0.7 WAR
Special Consideration Stat: 1 Save

Ubaldo Jimenez: 5-0, 0.79 ERA, 34 1/3 innings, 22 hits, 14 BB, 31 Ks, 1.3 WAR
Special Consideration Stat: No-hitter

Tim Lincecum: 4-0, 1.27 ERA, 35 1/3 innings, 22 hits, 7 BB, 43 Ks, 1.5 WAR
Special Consideration Stat: 2.01 Fielding-Independent Pitching, lower than the other three guys




I'm voting for You-Baldo because he's giving up fewer runs and a no-hitter is pretty special. But Lincecum should probably be the choice of the sabremetricians considering he'd be 5-0, with a lower ERA if his bullpen hadn't blown it.

The Anti-Rudy Gay

Memphis Grizzlies guard Rudy Gay (the Knicks possible consolation prize in the summer free agent sweepstakes) likely has the worst-selling jersey in the NBA.



I just imagine anyone wanting a jersey that says "Gay" on the back.

On the other hand, the Mets have a prospect who could revolutionize Major League Baseball jersey sales. That's right, Tobi Stoner. If the guy could just put together any kind of big leaguee success at all there's no doubt people would flock to the stores to buy "Stoner" jerseys.

Even Lawyers are Starting to Poke Fun at Our Overly Litigious Society

The law firm of Trolman, Glaser and Lichtman offering a insightful take on their own profession, specifically lawyers who advertise on TV.



Machete!

A few days after I wrote this and set it to post today I got a paper cut and it really hurt.

Machete!

Song of the Week

"Lady" - D'Angelo

"maybe at the liquor store
maybe at the health food stand"

Important SEC Porn Update

In February the Poop reported that SEC staff were often using their government computers, at their government jobs, to search for porn, often excessively.

A recent investigation found 31 serious offenders over the past two and a half years. Seventeen of the offenders were senior SEC officers with salaries ranging from $100,000 to $222,000 per year.

One senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn. When he filled all the space on his government computer with pornographic images, he downloaded more to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices.

An SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times in a two-week period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer hard drive. Yes, that said "her," even a female was involved in this.

Note: that might seem hard to believe but Master Bates reports (though doesn't remember) a secretary at his office was once caught visiting the website bigblackroosters.com (that might not have been the exact URL

Another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.

In one case, the report said, an employee tried hundreds of times to access pornographic sites and was denied access. When he used a flash drive, he successfully bypassed the filter to visit a "significant number" of porn sites.

The employee also said he deliberately disabled a filter in Google to access inappropriate sites. After management informed him that he would lose his job, the employee resigned.

Ironically, the report says most of these cases began in 2008, just as the financial system began to collapse. The same SEC officers who should have been safeguarding the economy were instead spending their working hours surfing the Internet for pornography, and the problem hasn't stopped.

The most recent case cited in the report is from just four weeks ago.

Rob Neyer on Ike Davis

ESPN's resident baseball genius Rob Neyer offer his somewhat disjointed take on Ike Davis. I don't get the comparison to Reese Havens but his overall opinion of Davis ranks pretty close to mine:

As you've no doubt heard by now, the Mets have a new first baseman, a kid named Ike Davis. This spring, Ephraim Fischbein asked Davis (among other things) to name his "most embarrassing professional moment."

Davis replied, "Not hitting one home run in my first professional season."

It's probably that power outage that caused Davis' status to drop quite a bit between getting drafted with the 18th overall pick in the 2008 draft and the beginning of his second professional season.

There were explanations, though. Baseball America:

It's funny, this business ... Davis, a future power hitter? Yep. Last season, split between High-A and Double-A, Davis hit 20 home runs in just 114 games. [Reese] Havens, quicker to the big leagues? Nope. Havens opened last season on the same team as Davis, but wasn't promoted to Double-A like Davis, missed seven weeks with injuries, and finished the season with a .247/.361/.422 line, which is fine for a young shortstop except this shortstop's going to play second base this season and might wind up somewhere even less demanding.

Havens remains a pretty good prospect, but he's obviously been lapped by Davis.

Perhaps I'm too conservative about these things, but I have to counsel against thinking Davis is going to set the National League ablaze from the get-go. At this point, his resume consists of an excellent college career, two outstanding months in the Double-A Eastern League, and 42 plate appearances in Triple-A. I think he's going to be a pretty good player. But I'm not sure he's ready to help the Mets win this year. Which might not be a realistic goal anyway.

After flashing power in college, Davis was slow to recover from a strained oblique muscle and failed to homer in 215 at-bats at Brooklyn after signing for $1.575 million. Still, the Mets regard Davis as a future power hitter. Davis needs to mature physically -- unlike Reese Havens, their other 2008 first-rounder, whom they feel will have a quicker route to the big leagues. He carried the pressure of being the Mets' top pick and pressed.

Did The Commissioner Really Call Our Pick a Gorilla?

With the fourth pick in the 2010 NFL the Washington Redskins select Trent Williams, offensive tackle, Oklahoma.

That's what I expected Roger Goodell to say, but what he actually said was slightly different.

He called him "Silverback." Apparently that is Williams's nickname and at a meeting the day before he joked with the commish to call him that. It's actually kind of funny for Goodell to do that I just hope it doesn't lead to every player asking for his nickname to be mentioned.

And I also hope it doesn't lead to people getting furious that Williams was essentially called a gorilla on national TV.

I hope it does lead to a long and successful career protecting the blindside of Donovan McNabb and whomever else the Redskins get down the line.