Random thoughts from the happily married...

-One last (or at least I HOPE it's the last time I have to go through this!) comment about Bill Simmons crusade against Scott Boras and the Boston media: is WEEI too stupid to realize that they're playing right into the man's hands? The rumors of Simmons attempts to burn all his bridges at ESPN have been swirling throughout the summer and it looks like the Sports Guy is tugging at the cape of the Red Sox Cabal (Globe/Herald/NESN/WEEI/WRKO) by suggesting that Manny wasn't 100% to blame. While I don't buy all of his premise, the Boston media has a reputation of running players out of town and/or bad mouthing them when they leave (Mo Vaughn, Roger Clemens, Joe Thornton, and others). And Boston has a reputation of being inhospitable to non-white athletes. As Manny's trade was a result of his awful behavior (with prodding from Satan Boras, no doubt), I don't think it was racial motivated. It just makes the move look much worse to outsiders.
At any rate, Simmon's ideas do have merit. Whether or not he's 100% accurate, is under debate. The idiots at WEEI who chose to slam him for "defending" Manny - and let's be fair, the Sports Guy comes off as a fan boy of massive proportions - are making his point. Why no one is seriously pursuing the Boras angle is beyond me.

-The Charlie Pierce article I linked to last week generated some of the usual idiotic comments. I was surprised to see many of the nitwits who infest the Herald's comments section have infested the Globe - the great Satan of the "oppressed" MA conservative - as well. I admitted that Mr. Pierce went a bit too far with his anti-Republican sentiment. The problem is that Curt Schilling is just as guilty of inserting politics into everything. Both Charlie Pierce and Curt Schilling should be taken to task for inserting politics into sports, but Mr. Pierce is less guilty because he's REACTING to some of the crazy things he sees on 38Pitches. Does Curt realize he plays for a team in a Blue State? Why antagonize the people who adore you by running around acting like the Giant Forehead? It makes no sense and that was Charlie Pierce's argument. He doesn't have to vote for Obama, but he should at least try not to insult people who do yet root for the Red Sox.
I would say the same thing about Hollywood liberals, but they can't throw a decent curveball.

-And as an added bonus, if Curt and Charlie can post their messages, and commentators who dropped fully formed from the Pink Hamster's anus can post their comments, then I can insult all parties. That's the First Amendment.

-Al Davis used to be kind of a joke. Now he's a complete joke. I don't doubt that he had good reason to gong Lane Kifflin. But why bring up a tampering charge against the Pats 1 year later? Only ESPN and their attendant twits in Hater Nation are buying this. Caveat emptor.

-Let's see: the Mets disintegrate, the Cubs are awful in the playoffs and the Angels can't beat the Red Sox (well, up until this evening, I suppose). Is it still 2007?

-I understand nothing can be done about this, but I absolutely hate the fact that the circus is always in town during the first two weeks of the Bruin's season.

Somebody smash this man's keyboard...

I should really loan my cat out to people who need their computers destroyed. Case in point is FoxNews "personality" Bill O'Reilly. When we last heard from Mr. No Spin Zone, he was trying to tell us that he wasn't racist by musing that a restaurant in Harlem did not feature people screaming the f-word at the top of our lungs. Which of course is the reason why the Klan hates black people: they despise people who use obscenities. The whole shebang was lampooned mercilessly in the press (Opie and Anthony in particular had some fun at Bill's expense) and at the end of day, the problem isn't that it Bill O'Reilly is a racist - he probably isn't - he problem is that he used the lamest possible explanation that he isn't. It was even dumber than the old "some of my best friends are black people!" line because he had to use an idiotic stereotype (all African Americans scream motherf***er at random intervals, right?) to prove his completely unneccessary point. The lesson is: if you don't want people to think you're a racist DON'T TRY SO HARD.

Well, all that was good fun, but unfortunately, Mr. O'Reilly writes a weekly column that if anyone was paying attention, would be just as heavily parodied. In the most recent column http://www.billoreilly.com/currentarticle, he chastises the liberal media (this is always a sign that your column is going to suck) for not reporting on infighting in the Daily Kos between Hilary Clinton supporters and Barack Obama supporters. Here's the problem with Bill O'Reilly's column: does anyone really care what the Daily Kos has to say about anything? Aside from die hard liberals who already hate Hilary anyways? I mean, why would the general media pick up a story on what some lunatics from the far left have to say on their message boards? The only people who would care are conservatives who are hard up for column ideas and people on Daily Kos. For everyone else, this is a colossal waste of time. Hey, at least the Daily Kos now has something in common with most of the people who take Fox News seriously: they both hate Hilary.

This would be like me trying to leak to the general media that the college hockey community really hates small burying rodents and is generally hostile towards men in striped jersies who officiate hockey games. It's a total non-story.

Sadly, that's not the dumbest thing I've ever read in a Bill O'Reilly column. Earlier, Mr. O'Reilly decided that it was worth it to once again chastise the liberal media (do you sense a pattern here?) for not embracing the wholesome family goodness that is "High School Musical 2: Electric Boogaloo". Could the reason why the "liberal media" is not fawning over themselves be because everyone is sick to the gills with this tween media silliness? Especially parents of children from the ages of 6 to 11 who already had to mortgage the f***ing house to buy "Hannah Montana" tickets? Could that be it? Or is the liberal media just really really hateful towards poor Zak Effron? Either way, I do get the impression that if given the decision between watching the family unfriendly, expletive laden "Goodfellas" or "High School Musical Two: The Wrath of Khan", Bill O'Reilly is going to chose "Goodfellas" just like the rest of us.

I'll save you a seat Bill. Just make sure you bring the popcorn.