Weekly Mail February 21, 2016

          I was lucky last week. Timmy was off from school and I got to take the week off as well. Friday, Tim and I went snow tubing with Timmy's friend Ethan and Ethan's dad Danny.

I know that Timmy, Ethan, and Ethan's cousin Garrett had a blast. But I'm also certain that they didn't have nearly as much fun as Dan and I had. Dan is an athletic trainer and he's in phenomenal shape. I'm a couple inches taller and about 30 pounds heavier, so needless to say when we got on the tube we flew down that hill. A couple of times we went past the barrier that was supposed to stop us. Quite frankly were pretty lucky we came out of there alive

       But damn we had fun! And I'm starting to think that Dan and I should represent America in the next Winter Olympics. To me the only difference between snow tubing and luging is that luging is done on your back while snow tubing is done on your stomach. It's just a minor adjustment and if we go as fast on the luge as we did on the snow tubes we'll  bring home the gold.

ELECTION 2016 Trump Wins SC; Hillary Wins Nevada Caucus

          Donald Trump won big on Saturday in South Carolina, beating Marco Rubio by 10 percentage points to claim all 44 of the delegates. Ted Cruz, who won big with the religious conservatives in Iowa, finished a close third behind 2nd place finisher Rubio. 

             But the big story last night was the fourth-place finish of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush,  and his subsequent decision to exit the race . Now I can pull a Mike Francessa here and  tell you that I knew all along that Bush had no chance, even though I have been saying for months not to count him out.  I'm not going to lie, I'm quite surprised he didn't do much better. I'm not disappointed to see him go, I have Bush fatigue  as the rest of the country obviously does.  I'm just surprised with all the political experience that he has, and all the big money donors that were backing him up that he did have a better showing. I think it's pretty safe to say that this is the end of an era. 

           And Trump winning down in South Carolina is big because it shows he can carry a Southern state.  Next up for the Republicans is the Nevada caucus then Super Tuesday.  Probably the last chance for Rubio or Cruz to make a run at Trump. 

            Speaking of the Nevada caucus,  Hillary Clinton got a much-needed win there over Bernie Sanders.  Some suggested that the win give the momentum back to Hillary, but I don't think she won by a wide enough margin for her to rest easy just yet. 

             I alluded to this on Facebook the other day, but to me the most interesting fact about the Nevada caucus is this.....  In the event that there would've been a tie at one of the caucus sites, the winner would've been determined by the draw of a card! That's right,  they would've laid out a deck of cards at the caucus site and a supporter of Hillary and a supporter of Bernie would've drawn one card each, highest car drawn gets the delegates at that site !  My former Post colleague Ed Robinson pointed out to me that different states have different ways of breaking ties: coin flips, straw draws etc.. I don't know man, there's got to be a better way .  I mean drawing the Long-straw to determine the state caucus for president ? 

          One last note on the Republican side,  Donald Trump,  for once, finally used his noodle and didn't get in to a pissing match with Pope Francis . 

          It appeared he was going in that direction however .  Last week the Pope addressing the people of Mexico said that anybody who would build a wall to keep people out is not a Christian.  At firrst he took this as an attack against himself and responded in kind, saying that the Pope had no right to question anybody's Christianity.  Later on, during a CNN Town hall with Anderson Cooper,  Trump praised the Pope and said that the alleged statements by the Pope were misinterpreted by the media .   Trump realized that mixing it up with the Pope is a lot different than messing with Jeb Bush or Rosie O'Donnell or Megyn Kelly. 

NEWS ITEM:  Supreme Court Fight: 

              Last Saturday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly at a ranch near El Paso Texas at the age of 79 .  And no sooner had the announcement been made of Scalia's passing than both Democrats and Republicans did what they do best and acted ugly.  And more so the Republicans .  They demanded that President Obama hold off on nominating a replacement until after the 2016 presidential election . Obama, while respectfully remembering the fallen justice,  also vowed to nominate the successor,  something he probably could've held off on announcing.  I realize that Republican schmucks like Mitch McConnell put him on the spot, but I still think this was one time he would've been better off not hitting back right away . 

          And by the way Obama not only has the right to appoint a new justice he has the obligation to do so .  And if the Senate Republicans want to delay delay delay as Donald Trump said well shame on them because that's just the type of government gridlock that we do not need

           And this could really come back to haunt the GOP.  Because if they happen to lose the 2016 election which is a definite possibility would you rather have Obama picking other justice or Hillary Clinton ?

Or Bernie Sanders? 

TV Review. The People vs. OJ Simpson. American Crime Story. 

             So yeah I got suckered into watching,  because let's face it I didn't get enough of it 20 years ago when the whole thing happened .  Gavel to gavel coverage on CNN,  Court TV, and the E! entertainment network ,  domination on both the local and national news broadcasts,  not to mention all the gossip shows.  Careers were made out of this trial.  You would think the 21 years after the verdict was read that we would've had our fill of it. Yet here I am watching the whole thing again.

          The acting is a magnificent on the show though . Most notably, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, and David (Ross) Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian.  Paulson as Clark is right up there with Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in the eerily similar department. 

I can't really say if Schwimmer's  portrayal of Kardashian is that spot on because quite frankly, I don't remember hearing the late Kardashian speak all that much.

            But one beef I have with what I've seen on the first three episodes is that they've tried to force feed us the younger versions of the Kardashian girls.  There was one scene where OJ threatened to kill himself, and Robert Kardashian begged him not to do it "in Kimmy's bedroom".  Another scene has Kim Khloe and Kourtney running around goofing off at Nicole Brown Simpson's wake .  It's bad enough that we have the exploits of these three dingbats and their spouses shoved down on throats on a daily basis .  They were little girls with all this stuff happened in 1994.  They are totally irrelevant to the story and as such, should've been kept the hell out . 

           The night of the Ford Bronco chase, I was seeing the movie Wolf with Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer at the Cinemart movie theater in Forest Hills .  Because I was watching that forgettable movie, I missed the greatest night of television broadcasting in history (which also included Game 5 of the NBA finals, featuring my Knicks)  Maybe that's why am hooked on the show. 

SPORTS: Spring Training Starts

            I still think it is way too early for spring training to be starting .  I can't get that excited for baseball in February.  And it bugs me that all the local news stations send their sports anchors down to spring training in Florida where there is absolutely positively nothing going on and nothing to cover .  It's basically a paid vacation for guys who are already overpaid to begin with .  Still, after having made a trip to the World Series last year, I have to admit looking forward to this baseball season more than I have been looking forward to a baseball season in a long time . 

Have a Great Week!