Monthly Archives: October 2010

Yankees Michael Kay Strikes Out

Posted on by
Reply

Even though Willie Mays is my favorite baseball player of all time, I’ve been a Yankee fan all my life. I remember watching Mantle, Ford, Clete Boyer, Bobby Richardson, Maris, Tresh, Kubeck and more. I’m a Yankee fan through and through. I also believe in fair play and class acts in sports. A class act, something Yankee announcer Michael Kay is not.

Michael Kay first got on my bad side when I heard him say he does not like it when NYC cabbies try to engage him in conversation. As a former NYC Cabby I find that offensive.

Disparaging NYC cabbies? Strike one, Michael!

Watching Michael Kay host Center Stage on the YES Network makes me wince. There is this segment called hit-and-run in which Kay asks his guests a series of questions, usually prefaced by Kay’s announcement that his guests have never felt pressure like they’re gonna feel during hit-and-run.  Kay makes me cringe I think he actually believes this. I don’t want to be the one to break the news to him but I’m betting folks like Bill Parcells, John McEnroe, Jay-Z, Andy Petite, George Foreman, Michael Irwin and more have faced a helluva lot more pressure than answering Kay’s rather dopey hit-and-run questions.

And then, we have the first game of the this years ALCS series pitting the Yankees against the Texas Rangers. The Yankees come back from a five run deficit in the first game to win, prompting Kay to proclaim the series over. Such a pronouncement not only is poor sportsmanship by any measure, it disrespects the Rangers, Yankees and the game of baseball itself. It’s also just flat out stupid.

Proclaiming the series over after one game? Strike two, Michael!

Since nitwit Kay’s series’ is over announcement the Yankees .lost the next three games and won the fourth, so at this writing they are down three games to two in a best of seven series.

Being a Yankee announcer you’d think Kay would remember the phrase, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over” which was first uttered by Yankee hall of fame Catcher Yogi Berra!

Strike three, Michael! You’re out!

Our Most Precious Gift

Posted on by
1

As I set these words down 18 of the 33 miners in Chile who’ve been trapped more than 2,000 feet underground for 69 days are free. Death faced, and, for now, avoided.

Every time the capsule, called the Fenix 2, emerges from the earth with another miner, I cry.

More than there should be in this world know the utterly unfiltered face-to-face encounter with death. Every one of those 33 men know this experience and, God willing, all will be successfully rescued and  know the ineffable joy that comes with the realization they get to keep their most precious gift: their lives.

When you are face to face with death it doesn’t make a damn difference whether you are wealthy or poor, what kind of car you drive nor does it make a difference what kind of place you live and where you live or whether you are employer, employee or unemployed. Life happens to us whether we like it or not, and that includes death.

Life and death know no bigotry.

When miner Esteban Rojas, 44, the 18th miner to reach the surface went to his knees in prayer moments after stepping out of the Fenix 2, joined by his wife’s kneeling embrace seconds later, my eyes wet up so much I could barely see the screen.

I hope these men, and I hope you, my reader, remember to live. I like that those rescued wait for their comrades before they leave the area because all 33 decided when they leave the area, they will leave together.

With all its up and downs, its wounds and blessings, life is a wonderful place to be. It is our most precious gift.

t1main.miner18Esteban Rojas

I Can See You!!

Posted on by
Reply

In my rearview mirror I  see a woman in her fifties looking in her rearview mirror repeatedly touching her neck with a thin shiny object before wiping the object on the back of her hand. I am curious. We are in a long line in a drive through.  What is she doing? And then, to my horror, I realize exactly  what she’s doing. She’s plucking one hair after another out of her neck and chin with tweezers and then wiping them on the back of her hand!

Why do people inexplicably forget glass is transparent when they’re in the car?

I want to run back, tap on her window and say, “Lady, I can see you. No one on the planet wants to watch you plucking hairs out of your face, cut us some slack!”

I drove a cab for more than five years in New York City and when you work six 12-hour shifts a week – that’s 72 hours a week on the road folks – you see a lot. I’ve seen people putting on make up, kissing, fucking, a couple of nitwits reading while driving.  I saw one schmuck with a  magazine taped to his steering wheel. I’ve seen people talking on cell phones. And then, of course, there’s the always stomach-turning image of someone with their finger jammed up their nose to its “armpit”. And then the doubly stomach-turning image of people chowing down on what their finger just dug out of their nose.

Glass is transparent, people. Hold that thought, please.

The Dangerous Dysfunction that is Carl Paladino

Posted on by
Reply

I am hoping that enough of my fellow New Yorkers know a dangerous nut when they see one. I’m talking about Carl Paladino, the racist, sexist, homophobe whose recent angry outbursts are, in the best light, childish thuggery. In the worst and more accurate light, they are a reflection of a hateful, dangerously dysfunctional human being.

He says he does not discriminate against Gays, a claim that would be laughable were it’s deceit not so dangerous. In other words, he’s lying. In a recent speech in Brooklyn he said he doesn’t want children “being brainwashed into thinking homosexuality” is acceptable. That’s discrimination right there because it discriminates against the rights of gays and lesbians to be treated as normal human beings, which, of course, they are. A line that was written in his speech but he did not say was, “"There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual." Again, more discrimination.

Stating the obvious bears no weight with the Paladinos of the world, i.e. taking the time to explain you either are or are not homosexual just as you either are or are not heterosexual. It’s not a matter of choice anymore than ones skin pigmentation is a matter of choice. It is dysfunctional – and destructively painful all around – when someone tries to be someone they are not.

But Paladino’s bigotry and hatred does not limit itself to gays and lesbians.  The tpmmuckraker’s site clearly documents some of Paladino’s racist emails. For example he sent an email in July 2009  “showing a photograph of an airplane landing directly behind a group of black men. The caption reads: "Holy Sh*t. run ni**ers, run!" Another Paladino email, sent in September 2009, read, "Easy Steady Big Fella….XXXX," with a photograph that graphically depicts a horse having sex with a woman.”

On top of all this is the disturbing and telling silence from New York State’s Republican Party leadership. How on earth can anyone remain silent in the face of this kind of hatred? For what reason? While the entire answer to their silence cannot be fully explained, there are two components that can be: they don’t give a damn who their candidate is as long as they get power, and in their veins runs the ability to accept racism, sexism and homophobia, which means they too suffer from the same dangerous bigotry dysfunctions as Paladino.

Despicable Non-Christian Protests

Posted on by
2

No matter what the United States Supreme Court decides in the case of the father of a dead United States Marine who is challenging the right of a fundamentalist church to picket at his son’s funeral, the actions of the church are anything but Christian.

As the AP reports,  “The father of a Marine killed in Iraq is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a $5 million verdict against members of a fundamentalist church who picketed his son’s funeral with signs like "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "God Hates the USA." The signs, not to mention protests at funerals of fallen members of the military, are beyond despicable. The father of the fallen marine, Albert Snyder, lost his son in Iraq in 2006.

The whack jobs from the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas, led by the not-so Reverend Fred Phelps, have picketed numerous military funerals claiming  U.S. deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are punishment for American immorality. I can think of nothing more immoral than protesting at a funeral.

There are certain lines you don’t cross. I don’t care what your position is on the war, or what political party you belong to, or what your religious belief’s are. When it comes to the men and women who lose their lives in war, it’s hands off and show respect.

While protests at funerals – which emotionally pulverize the families and loved ones of those who’ve lost their lives fighting in the American Military -  may be determined to be constitutional, they not only don’t represent what  is good about my country, they aren’t Christian.