Rioting goofs just use victory as their excuse
LAPD chief has those clowns' number: They're 'knuckleheads'
You see the photo of some oaf hurling a trash can at a Los Angeles police car after the Lakers won the NBA championship last Sunday night and you think:
Who are these clowns who tip over cabs, set fires, break windows and loot stores after their beloved teams win it all?
They're goofballs looking for an excuse. The fact that many of these acts were recorded by the media tells you we're not witnessing genius in action. They're "knuckleheads," said the LAPD chief.
Over the years, we've seen this happen in a number of cities, including Chicago --but only after certain sporting events. Nobody takes to the streets when Tiger Woods wins a major, right?
Fair warning: If Tiger takes the U.S. Open, I'm going to tip over a trash can on Michigan Avenue. Woooooohoooo!
Then I'll pick it up and put all the trash back inside and walk away quietly.
When someone says, "You just don't get it," the translation is, "I'm right, you're wrong, and you don't even understand why you're wrong."
On Monday, I received a number of e-mails and phone calls from folks saying, "You just don't get it."
E-mail: "It is a shame you and others just don't get it. The comments David Letterman made are inappropriate. Should Sarah Palin have responded? Yes, she certainly should have ..."
Phone call: "You liberals just don't get it. Why are you defending a creepy old man for saying perverted things about a teenage girl, whether she's 14 or 18?"
A number of other readers chastised me for "defending" Letterman.
I wonder if some folks just skim the column before running to the phone or to the laptop -- or if they're so bent on getting into a "liberals vs. real Americans" fight they don't absorb what they're reading.
I guess I was defending Letterman when I said his jokes were "tasteless" and added, "the humor was unpleasant and ugly ... you don't need to resort to cheap jokes about a teenage girl's pregnancy."
I suppose I was saying the Palins shouldn't have been offended when I wrote, "The Palins demanded an apology, and I don't blame them."
How do people read that and believe I was defending Letterman and saying the Palins shouldn't have responded?
One more time: The jokes were wrong. If someone said that about a family member of mine, I'd be interested in having his nose meet my fist. And I do appreciate hearing from my conservative friends who realized I wasn't defending Letterman and had other issues with some of the things I wrote, e.g., no late-night comedian would even think about making a joke about the Obama girls. (As well they shouldn't.) I was also reminded the Obama family appeared on the cover of People magazine during the campaign. Points taken.
Nevertheless, I still believe the Palin response was also over-the-top, opportunistic and offensive. If Gov. Palin had accepted Dave's apology and appeared on his show, it would have been a demonstration of class and dignity, and she would have been the clear winner in this unfortunate controversy.
In Monday's column, I referred to a report saying our man Blago introduced Fabio to the crowd at Second City.
"Fabio" has previously been spotted at other Blago-related events, including the inauguration of 2007. His real name is Dan Colla, a childhood friend of Blago's. Colla is said to be the spitting image of the Fab one.
Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle says he's accomplished two feats he'd never thought possible for him: pitching a no-hitter and hitting a home run.
Big deal, I had a no-hitter and a home run too. Fine, so I was 12 at the time. Details details.
As impressive as it for Buehrle to have pitched a no-hitter in 2007 and to have hit that home run Sunday, consider in 1971, the Phillies' Rick Wise pitched a no-hitter and hit two home runs -- in the same game.
But I'd say the most impressive pitching/hitting feat ever occurred in Oakland on May 8, 1968. Catfish Hunter of the A's pitched a perfect game against the Twins and went 3-for4 with three RBI's in a 4-0 victory. If a kid did that in the Little League World Series, we'd be checking his birth certificate.
By the way, attendance that night was 6,928. The game might have been played at a higher and a cleaner level in the 1960s, but baseball has never been more popular with fans than it is today. Even a team such as the A's, who have historically had trouble attracting big crowds (they averaged about 3,700 fans per game in 1979!), had an average attendance in 2008 that was twice the average of 1968.