Hi Everyone:
A bunch of us woke up Saturday morning with a surprise in the name of about half a foot of snow on the ground. Usually when the forecasters screw up, it's by saying we're going to get a lot of snow when the reality is a dusting. This time we were told it would be a dusting and we ended up with a bit more than that.
According to NBC 4 NY, Coney Island got 9.9 inches, while Bay Ridge got 5.6 inches. I wondered how two neighborhoods that close to each other could have such disparate amounts of snow. Thought maybe one of those neighborhoods needed to invest in new rulers.
But then the meteorologist on News 12 Long Island said that Long Beach, Island Park and Oceanside got hit with more snow than did Lynbrook, Rockville Centre and Hempstead. The storm was over the ocean so coastal areas got hit harder. I've seen that happen before, but not with such a difference in snowfall total between towns so close to each other.
Just thought that was interesting.
Last week I wanted to keep it football/Las Vegas themed since it was our Super Bowl Halftime Special. This week, we'll delve into some of the news of the past couple weeks, as there has been a bunch of things going on. We'll get to them, but first we'll wrap up the big game.
FOOTBALL: Super Bowl Wrap Up
So as I had written in the halftime special last week, the first half of the game made me feel like I was watching our local teams, what with the fumbles, and drops etc. Then the normally reliable Patrick Mahomes threw a pick in the 3rd quarter. I'm not going to lie, I dozed off on the couch towards the end of the third and if not for Timmy being at a Super Bowl Party that I had to pick him up from, I may have turned in early and missed the end of the game.
But the 4th quarter finally gave us the excitement and fun we thought we were going to get from the two best teams in the game.
Some random thoughts....
1) The most interesting part of the first three quarters was when Travis Kelce got in coach Andy Reid's grill after Reid pulled him out of one play. The cameras also showed one of the Chiefs receivers (forget who it was-too lazy to look) came over to Mahomes slapping himself in the chest as if to say "I was open". Had to laugh when both Kelse, Mahomes and Reid talked about what a great "family" they were.
Sure.
They looked like the Kardashian family the way they were bitchin at each other all game long. They'll say that happens in games all the time. Sorry, not buying it. Kelce going after Reid was bush league*. Would have loved the cameras to cut to Taylor Swift after that one.
2) My co-editors Karl (the Ace) Ludwig and (Razor) Ray McGarvey both were woofing on Tony Romo after the game, with Ray going so far to suggest someone at CBS Sports introducing Romo to a Thesaurus. My sister Katie also can't stand Romo, and I had suggested to her before the game she watch the Nickelodeon broadcast with Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson** (and SpongeBob Squarepants and Patrick Star). Ace referred to Romo as "a windbag."
Well, they are all windbags as far as I'm concerned, all speak as if they are getting paid by the word, (and at a cool $17 million per, that's a lot of words for Romo). My take on Romo is that he is good at describing what plays should be run and predicting in the huddles how plays will turn out. He's actually quite good at that. Dan Dierdorf, who was on Monday Night Football when I was a kid, would predict a play and when it wasn't what he said it would be, would still say, "Just like I said.." and he was serious too.
But where Romo loses me is when he gets the basic stuff wrong. And he does that an awful lot.
Now, I haven't read this anywhere else so I went and found it on YouTube just to make sure I wasn't going crazy.
As the first quarter of overtime was starting, play by play man Jim Nantz meticulously went over the rules of overtime, being very careful to explain that the rules were different in the playoffs than they were in the regular season. In the regular season, IF you win the coin toss, and IF you choose to receive the ball, and IF you score a touchdown on that first possession, the game is OVER. Likewise, if instead, you kick the field goal, the other team gets the ball, where a TD wins it, a FG ties it, and if neither of those happens the other team wins.
In the playoffs regardless of whether the receiving team score a FG, TD or doesn't score at all, the other team is guaranteed at least one possession. Again, Nantz explained this fully.
So what happens after the Niners win the toss, choose to receive and drive down the field? 3rd and 4 from the Chiefs 8 yard line, Brock Purdy goes back to throw to Jauan Jennings, but is rushed by Chiefs linebacker Chris Jones before Jennings can get to the end zone.
"This is for the Super Bowl!" Romo screamed as they showed the replay, "Jennings wins for the Super Bowl, right down here, but there's no time because Chris Jones does what he's been doing..
This nitwit, who again is being paid $17 million a year to know this $hit, thought that if Jennings caught the ball, the game was over. Nantz had to be sitting there with his hand over his eyes saying "Why TF do I bother. "
In fairness, there was video of some guys on the 49ers admitting they weren't familiar with the OT rules for the playoffs, which while curious, at least they had the excuse that nobody sitting right next to them explained the rules in detail right before OT started.
3) At one point they showed Joe Montana in the stands watching OT, and I'm sure I wasn't the only person watching the game who thought, "He's sitting there saying if I was the Niners QB, this game would have never gone to OT." You know who I'm sure agrees with me? Boomer Esiason.
4) The Chiefs are the first team to win back to back Super Bowls since the Patriots of 2003 and 2004. No team has ever won three straight Super Bowls (the Packers won three straight NFL Championships; 5 in 7 years actually; but one of those was pre-Super Bowl).
5) Between CBS, SpongeBob and Patrick, and Paramount Plus, this was the most watched program in television history. Was this because of two great teams playing, or because Taylor Swift was there. I'll let you be the judge of that.
So another football season is done.
Thank goodness.
This is usually the week where I get us up to speed on our three hockey teams, two basketball teams and St. John's, but I'm going to hold off on that till next week as I want to get to some other business here. We'll start with two stories concerning the gun plague in our country. Once again, an otherwise festive day was ruined by gun violence.
TRAGEDY AT THE SUPER BOWL PARADE:
When Jeff Pearlman's book about Bo Jackson came out a couple of years ago, I tweeted to him how much I was looking forward to reading it. he liked my tweet, but I also got a response from a handle Danielle-Royals Baseball and Bad Decisions. She said she was looking forward to reading it too, as she was a fan of Bo Jackson when he played for the Royals.
Turns out Danielle is a Kansas City native and a huge Royals/Chiefs fan. But more Royals than Chiefs, which you wanna talk about two teams on the opposite side of the spectrum. Danielle's Royals tweets are eerily similar to my Mets/Jets FB postings, in other words, not too much positivity. She tweets about other things in her life as well. She is a riot.
But God Bless her, she watches every Royals game from spring training all the way to game 162, though the Royals are mostly out of it by Memorial Day (Save of course for 2015-we won't go there).
Danielle was at the parade in Kansas City the other day. And while she didn't see the shooting, she was close enough to Union Station to see the mass of humanity running for their lives as the shots rang out. She tweeted a couple of times from the scene that she was OK and one of her tweets she said "It really didn't register at first.."
That's understandable. As much as this continues to happen, many of us still have that innocence right? Still the expectation that on a day of celebration, why should that be a day of violence? If a Super Bowl win can't bring a city together, what the hell can?
The official explanation so far seems to be that this was merely a dispute. It's not clear what the dispute was over, not that I've seen anyway, nor should it really matter. What matters is that you can add championship parades to the list that includes churches, bowling alleys, movie theaters, concerts and last but not least, schools, where you have to worry about getting shot.
It was a dispute, not terrorism.
9 of the wounded were kids ages 8 to 16. Let's ask them if they weren't terrified. While you're at it, ask their parents.
Lisa Lopez-Galvin, was a popular radio personality in Kansas City. She was killed. It was just a dispute, not terrorism.
The governor of Missouri, Mike Parson was the the parade. According to the St.Louis Post Dispatch...
“The First Lady and I were present when shots broke out. Thanks to the professionalism of our security officers and first responders, Teresa and I and our staff are safe and secure,” Parson said in a statement Wednesday.
Johnathan Shiflett, spokesman for the governor’s office, later said in an email the Parsons “were by the stage in front of Union Station just East of where shots broke out.”
It was a dispute, not terrorism. The Paper also said...
“As we wait to learn more, our hearts and prayers go out to the victims of this senseless violence,” he said.
St.Louis Post Dispatch
Parson, a Republican, said that the state would help local officials through the investigation process, and said people affected by the incident may call the 988 Crisis Hotline.
Hearts and prayers. But nothing about coming up with new gun laws. From the same article..
Democrats have long criticized Missouri’s relaxed gun laws.
Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, called for action after expressing gratitude to first responders in a social media post. He said first responders helped get him and countless others to safety.
“We shouldn’t have to live like this,” Rizzo said on social media. “We need common sense gun safety laws & we need them now. It’s not about politics, it’s about the kind of world we want for our kids.”
Wikipedia said that Parson signed a bill in 2021 that banned local police from enforcing federal gun laws. So yeah, he's not exactly what you would call, part of the solution.
But it was a dispute, not terrorism.
Ask the family of Lisa Lopez-Galvin if they feel terrorized.
Ask those kids and parents if they felt terrorized.
Danielle from Kansas City tweeted this on Thursday morning..
Just woke up shaking and crying.
Yep. Not terrorism.
The news wasn't all bad on the gun front. Two weeks ago a jury in Michigan found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Jennifer Crumbley is the mother of Ethan Crumbley, who on November 30, 2021, as a 15-year-old, shot and killed 4 of his fellow students at Oxford High School, in a suburb of Detroit.
I hadn't followed much of the trial, but I happened to be able to catch the verdict as it was handed down. I'll admit at first I felt bad for Jennifer Crumbley, just as a fellow parent. Criticizing parenting is something I tried to avoid at all costs as I hate to have it done to me, and as I've said before on these pages, none of us are undefeated when it comes to parenting.
But of course I felt worse for the parents of the kids who were cut down, doing nothing more than going to school. And when they went over the testimony on TV, including the fact that Jennifer and her husband James bought Ethan the gun he used to slaughter his classmates, a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun. That particular gun holds 11 rounds of bullets.
Add to this that both the school and the elder Crumbley's readily acknowledged that Ethan had mental health issues, and yet they bought him the gun anyway? The little sympathy I had for Jennifer Crumbley disappeared, replaced by whatever sentence she receives is not nearly enough.
James Crumbley will be tried separately.
If we're not going to come up with common sense gun laws than locking up any and all responsible for mass shootings is one of the alternatives. I'm not naive enough to suggest this will solve the problem, but maybe it will give parents a bit more incentive to not ply their children with guns.
POLTICS: Trump and Biden Legalities
We have a couple of weeks to catch up on here....
February 6- Federal Appeals Court Rules Trump not immune from January 6 case.
Captain Orange claimed that he should be immune from any charges against him stemming from his actions on January 6th. he believes that inciting a riot was part of his duties as President to ensure election fairness.
The height of this stupidity occurred when Judge Florence Pan asked Trump attorney John Sauer if a President who ordered Seal team 6 to take out a political opponent was immune from being prosecuted.
“Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That is an official act, an order to SEAL Team Six,”
Pan said “He would have to be, and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution,” Sauer said. “I asked you a yes or no question,” Pan said.
"If he were impeached and convicted first,” Sauer replied.
“So your answer is no,” Pan said.
Sauer responded, “My answer is qualified yes. There is a political process that would have to occur.”
By Sauer's reasoning, President Biden could order Trump to be executed, and the only way he could be charged is if he was impeached and convicted in Congress first?
Trump shouldn't be immune. Neither should Biden, Obama, Clinton or any other President. The problem is, Trump of course is the one that's going to test that. The man who said he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose votes, also believes he can do that and not be prosecuted. Thankfully smarter heads prevailed here.
Trump's filed an appeal with the Supreme Court because he figures at least three of them owe him. Here's hoping they don't see it that way.
February 8- Supreme Court hears 14th Amendment challenge to keep Trump off Colorado ballot
I got to listen to some of the testimony from both sides and to hear the justices ask questions and make statements. My 7th grade teacher at St. Mary's Mr. Troisi once chose 9 of us to act as justices and the rest of us to partner up and argue a case.
The first time I went up, I really did a slipshod job of putting together my argument, not nearly enough research. Mr. T firmly (but kindly) called me out on it and gave me another shot. This time I did better research, took better notes, and still lost (to John Croce if memory serves me) on the issue of capital punishment. trying to persuade 9 of your fellow 7th graders to see things your way was terrifying.
Honestly that's all I could think of as I was listening to the attorneys being grilled by the justices. A couple of times I heard Justice Gorsich and Chief Justice Roberts say "You're not answering my question. I'm going to ask again" All I could think of was if that was me I'd be like "I DON"T KNOW!"
The consensus amongst those who are presumably much smarter than I am in these matters, says that the attorneys from Colorado didn't convince the justices that the 14th amendment applies here, and that even the justices he didn't appoint and/or aren't in the tank for him, (Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson) will vote in favor of him.
February 8- Biden Cleared in Documents Probe
Robert Hur, the special counsel investigating President Biden's handling of classified documents after his term as Vice President ended, declined to press charges.
Hur said that while Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified material, "the evidence does not establish Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
Hur also put in his report that Biden fully cooperated with the investigation and allowed investigators access to all his properties. Captain Orange on the other hand has gone to great lengths to hinder the investigation into his handling of documents, and to this day insists that the reams of documents he had belong to him.
But the big story to come out of this report is that Hur several times referred to Biden's advanced age and poor memory. Amongst the things Hur alleged Biden couldn't remember was the years he served as VP to President Obama, and the day his son Beau died of cancer (May 30, 2015***)
Biden gave a press conference later that day that many felt didn't help his cause, especially when he said that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was President of Mexico instead of Egypt.
I have a real hard time believing Biden couldn't remember the day Beau died. Some things you just never forget. I tend to believe that Biden was more thrown off by the question than that he didn't know the answer. What did Beau's death have to do with anything related to the documents case?
And honestly, if you are concerned about Joe Biden's age and mental ability to do the job of President of the United States, I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't be. I can't tell you how to feel.
But if you do feel that way, and you are a registered Republican (at least here in NY) then you better fill in that dot next to Nikki Haley's name when you vote in the primary. If Biden is too old and too compromised to be President, your solution can't be someone who is four years younger and says that he'd tell Russia to do whatever the hell they want to NATO countries.
I was going to go into the Fanni Willis hearings and Captain Orange's fine and banishment from NY, but I'll save that for next week. I'll wind this one up with some good news that hopefully we can all agree on.
THE WORLD CUP- We're Hosting the Final!!!!
I meant to put this in the Halftime Special last week, but it was announced that when North America hosts the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the final will be played at Met Life Stadium. The stadium that hosts two teams nowhere near winning a championship will now host the biggest sporting event in the world.
When last the World Cup was here in 1994, Giants Stadium hosted one of the semifinal matches while the final was played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena California, essentially Los Angeles, just as East Rutherford is essentially New York City.
And make no mistake, the World Cup Final is absolutely the biggest sporting event in the world. As big as the Super Bowl is, there are plenty of places on Earth no one cares about it. Every corner of our planet will have interest in the World Cup.
We are obviously a couple years away, but it will be here before you know it. How awesome!
Enjoy your President's Day Weekend
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
*Kelce has more than once apologized publicly for what he did and apparently apologized to Reid even before the game was over
**I was tempted to tune into that myself, as Eagle and Burleson are excellent together. Don't know how much SpongeBob/Patrick I could have stomached though. Kinda glad Tim is out of that phase.
***I had my heart attack two days after Beau Biden died, so I won't soon forget the date. I watched his funeral on CNN the following Saturday. I really believe one of the reasons I stick up for Biden so much is because I watched that funeral just a few days after I had my brush with mortality. Also watching Biden comfort his grandkids that morning was heartbreaking, considering he was burying his son after losing a daughter in a car accident. No matter what, I'll always have empathy for the man.
No comments:
Post a Comment