Superbowl XLI

We've all been hearing that when good friends Lovie Smith and Tony Dungee bring their teams onto the field this Sunday, history will be made as they are the first two African-American coaches to get to the Superbowl. I feel a duty to make sure the public knows that these guys are neither Boers nor Egyptians; they are also the first black men to coach teams to the Superbowl! That means that one of them will become the first African-American coach who is also black to win it all! What's cooler than that is the game is in February, and February is Black History Month!

Most people agree that these men are great role models for black youth. If Dr. King's dream were reality, we'd agree that these men are great role models for us all. One day, maybe, we as a society will recognize that character is more important than the color of one's skin. At least this glass ceiling has been shattered so we can get past skin color in the future.

Here are my picks for this game:

The first player to score: Robbie Gould
The first player to score a touchdown: Marvin Harrison
Over or under 49 points: Over
Final score: Colts 28 - Bears 31
MVP: Devin Hester

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for you using my predictions for gambling. In fact, I'd think you were an idiot if you did.

On second thought, I guess it really doesn't matter; I think you're an idiot anyway.

That's my take.

ed. note: Zero for five. If you count my guess that you're an idiot, though, I was one for six.

McGwire will ruin my prediction - for a while, anyway.

For a generation, Dave Kingman held acclaim as the eligible baseball player with the most home runs in his career who wasn't in the hall of fame. I predicted that Jose Canseco would replace Kingman when he became eligible. It looks like Mark McGwire may hold that distinction for a few years.

McGwire, unlike Canseco, deserves to be in the HOF. He was one of the greatest home run hitters ever to play the game, if not the best. Ultimately, though, the HOF is a private organization, so they have the right to determine eligibility on whatever basis they choose. Still, to overlook a legitimately great career because of something that happened during 'an era of moral question' is, in my opinion, a rather shithead thing to do.

Of course, would you expect anything less from the place that excludes the all-time hits leader because of some moral bullshit he did after he was a player?

Here's what I think: baseball is concerned about the political ramifications of voting in an American who exercised his civil rights to Congress. I guess I don't blame them for worrying about the government, but it's too bad that the guys who vote for the HOF will likely kiss Congress's asses to demonstrate proper worry! The steroid thing is just a convenient controversy.

Oh well, I doubt any of them have ever been mistaken for Edwin R. Murrow.

What bothers me is that my prediction will now predictably be incorrect! What's worse is that it will be because a bunch of guys who've talked about this for hours while getting smashed on the job question McGwire's ethics!

It won't denigrate Ripken's and Gwynn's first ballot selections. This just happens to be a class year in which three eligible players deserve the recognition based on their careers. Canseco is also eligible for the first time. He shouldn't make it. He was a very good young player, but his career, in the end, was pretty disappointing. Not so for McGwire. He was a generational hero who, in retrospect, may not have been the best role model behind closed doors. The same could be said about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, but those guys are already in.

It never was a secret that McGwire used performance enhancing products. He had some stuff that the Olympics and organized track prohibited, but baseball was silent at the time. It made some news, but it happened before the year he hit 25 home runs in both leagues, and fans' jaws dropped. All he could do was play his best, and that's what we, as fans, always got from McGwire. He hit 583 home runs in his career, and broke Maris's record! Compared to Canseco's 462, or Kingman's 442, he is a Hemilayan among Smokeys!

My kudos to the writers who have the balls to vote for McGwire instead of mistaking exercising one's rights with guilt, as the HOF would be Constitutionally required to recognize if it weren't a private organization.

Baseball loved McGwire when he was one of its biggest money-makers, but it appears those same people are likely to vote that subsequent controversy, and an obsequious gesture to Twain's nemisis, will leave McGwire on the outside looking in - undeservedly.

That's my take.

Andrea Yates gets a new trial?! Why?

If you don't know, you came to the right place! I'll try to explain this in terms an idiot can understand, and just hope you're as smart as an idiot.

Andrea Yates was convicted of murder for killing her five children. She was given a trial in front of a jury, and the jury weighed the allowable evidence and made the decision that she intentionally, and with forethought and malice, drown the precious lives out of those five kids.

The defense only disputed the malice. They contended that she suffers from post partum depression, an identifiable mental ailment that afflicts many women shortly after giving a birth. She was on medication for it. In severe cases, it can cause bizarre behavior including thoughts of suicide and murder, and sometimes the thoughts are acted upon. She told the police that she wanted to make sure her children would be with God. She had the classic signs of a psychotic episode.

The defense didn't pretend that she didn't murder her children. They just said she was was so fucking loony that she actually thought she was doing a good thing for the children.

But her case wasn't the typical baby found in a bag on the side of the road, or in a bathroom trash can; her case was the methodical murder of five children! Besides, and to many this seemed a relevant point, she's a goddamned Christian! The public expected the prosecution to get the conviction! This bitch didn't even deserve to live!

Well, they heard you.

They found this guy named Park Dietz. Mr. Dietz is a forensic consultant. To explain how she wasn't insane, he claimed he consulted for the TV series Law and Order for an episode in which a mother drown her children and got off claiming she was insane. It aired shortly before Andrea Yates murdered her children. She was an avid viewer of the show. Besides, if she didn't want the devil influencing her children from God, she obviously knew right from wrong.

Well, Park Dietz lied! There was no episode like that!

The appeal was correctly decided that Andrea Yates deserved a new trial because the prosecution's star witness influenced, or may have influenced, the jury into a decision based on a lie.

Don't fucking gripe about that! Those same fucking rules apply to you if some fucking prosecutor resorts to false witness to win a conviction! You should be fucking pissed off that these fucking doctors of law can even be influenced by you idiots! You fuckers should be making them listen to intelligent people like me, but you'll probably sell out to the money and the marketing slogans. Someone will come up with a law that throws the insane in with the criminals, and anyone who wouldn't make such an assanine suggestion gets to run with the tag that he/she is in favor of killing children!

You're fucking idiots to fall for that shit!

There's this idea that if you say something often enough, you'll believe it, even if you don't understand it. Try saying this often: 'people have the right to fair trials.' Maybe someday you'll understand it.

That's my take.