Hat Tip: SoxNation.net
This will have to be a quickie post because I am overcome with excitement and schadenfreude, almost dizzy from it really. Oh. My. God.
Manny Ramirez suspended 50 games for positive drug test
Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and has been suspended 50 games starting today, Major League Baseball confirmed. The suspension will cost Ramirez $7.7 million, or roughly 31% of his $25-million salary. Players in violation of baseball’s drug policy are not paid during suspensions.
This is the final nail in the reputation of Manny Ramirez, athlete. His personal reputation was killed by slow motion suicide over the past five years, now his professional reputation has also been TKO’d by suicide. Hey, one more category Manny leads the league in…self -inflicted wounds!
A final thought while I set up a DVR of SportsCenter so I can watch this segment on a loop…Jose Canseco is money on the topic of steriods,
In an appearance at USC last month, Jose Canseco said Ramirez’s name “is most likely, 90%” on a list of 104 players that failed a drug test in 2003. The players were promised anonymity for taking tests in 2003; Rodriguez is the only player that has been identified among that group.
UPDATE: Manny using HCG, a female hormone
Courtesy of the Whiner Line on WEEI, “That’s just Manny being Tranny” and “Maybe that’s why he takes a week off every month”
It is not an anabolic steroid but rather a fertility drug that is widely considered to be part of the chemical enhancement game played by athletes. The hormone is produced naturally by women during pregnancy and often is used by steroid users to reboot their body’s natural testosterone production coming off a steroid cycle. It is also associated in the sports and the bodybuilding communities with serious and prolonged steroid use.
UPDATE II: Peter Gammons will believe anything an agent tells him. What a jock sniffer. He’s pathetic.
UPDATE III: Boston Dirt Dogs ID Manny’s doctors
In my daughter’s backpack yesterday came this notice…
Dear Families,
Happy Spring! Hopefully you will have lovely weather this special weekend. This year, we have decided not to make special gifts for Mother’s and Father’s Day. The composition of families has changed over the past few years. In order to be sensitive to the needs of all children, we have decided to forego a formal acknowledgement of these upcoming holidays.
We hope that every day brings you the love of family and friends. Wishing you our best,
First Grade Teachers
What are these new family compositions? Are there that many kids being raised by wolves these days? Divorce rates have been high for generations. Single parent families are nothing new. Relatives and grandparents raising children is nothing new. For those few children not being raised by even a single parent or relative, why couldn’t they make something special for whoever it is that is raising them? Let’s diminish the role of parents and change the rules for the vast majority of children to accomodate the rare exceptions. All this worry about offending the few offends the many.
I expect these educators will be consistent with this policy and its implementation. Next holiday coming up is Memorial Day. They won’t be celebrating war will they? We have to Give Peace a Chance. Columbus Day…how could they celebrate that mass murderer! Good thing July 4 is during the summer vacation. There might be students with British relatives who are still bitter over the way things turned out. Wouldn’t want to offend them, if they’re out there. Certainly, there will be no mention of Halloween at school for that could, potentially, someday, maybe, offend a practicing Wicca. Christmas, forget about it. Thanksgiving? Wouldn’t want to offend any American Indian students. President’s Day? With all the war crimes they have committed over the years, from Truman to Bush. No way.
Who doesn’t love political correctness?
I’m a Deadhead. I love The Grateful Dead and the beautiful music they made for nearly thirty years. In college, Spring Break did not mean Daytona Beach or fun in the sun. It meant one thing. A week on the road with the Grateful Dead on their annual east coast spring tour. These epic road trips started in central Maine and included three nights in Albany, NY for shows at Knickerbocker Arena, then down to Nassau, Long Island for three nights and then, if we had any money left, three more nights in Landover, MD. Ahhhh, the memories.
The New York Times recently wrote a great article about the Dead and their die hard fans, Bring Out Your Dead .
There are at least five different levels to how fans talk about the Dead. The basement level concerns the band’s commercially released albums. This is how a lot of interested but inexpert people once talked about the Dead — myself included — in the early 1980s. The next level is periods or eras, the conversation I was prepared for. There was the aggressive, noisy, color-saturated improvising from 1968 to 1970; the gentler and more streamlined songwriting and arranging of ’72 and ’73; the spooky harmonies of 1975; the further mellowing and mild grooves that lay beyond. Next comes the level of the Dead’s best night…
After that comes particular songs within particular performances.
For the record, my favorite Dead era’s are, in order, 1975-78, 1972-73, and 1981-83. The article went on to debate what was the best Grateful Dead show of all time. My personal favorite is Venetta Oregon, August 27, 1972. Of course, this is a completely subjective exercise with no right or wrong answers. With more than 2,300 concerts to choose from, it makes for an interesting conversation, amongst Deadheads at least.
Deadheads have often been polled about their favorite show, through fanzines and Web sites. The answers have stayed fairly consistent. May 8, 1977, at Barton Hall, Cornell University.
After reading this article last month, I have gone on a deep dive thanks to Archive.org where there are thousands of Dead shows online and ready to stream. I’ve listened, and re-listened to many of the shows that are on the short list for “greatest show ever”, including the amazing week of shows in May 1977, beginning May 5 in New Haven, CT to Boston Garden on the 7th, the epic Cornell show and finally May 9 in Buffalo. That spring tour in 1977 is widely regarded as their best tour ever. After re-listening, it’s easy to see why.
The NY Times has also posted a great interactive feature for Deadheads to debate The Greatest Show Ever. The Times lists four shows to pick from,
1.) Fillmore East, February 13-14 1970
2.) Harpur College, Binghampton, NY May 2, 1970
3.) Venetta Oregon, August 27, 1972
4.) Barton Hall, Cornell University, May 8, 1977
Grateful Dead era’s are usually broken out by keyboard players, as that has been the hot seat in the band. Remember Spinal Tap and all the exploding drummers? They got that gag from the Dead and their revolving keyboard players. The rotation of keyboardists was a hinge point for the band to take their music in new and exciting directions. The early years, 1965-1972 were defined by the blues singing of keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernen. Pigpen drank himself to death in 1973 at age 28, opening the door for two new band members and an entirely different sound. In 1972, the husband and wife team of Keith (piano) and Donna Jean Godchaux (vocals) joined the band stayed on until Keith’s drinking forced their exit in 1979. This was, in my opinion, the period of their most amazing and consistent work as a band. The band then turned to the great Brent Mydland, who combined amazing vocals with virtuoso electric piano and organ work that electrified the band in the early 1980’s. After Brent died from a drug overdose in 1990, the band brought in Bruce Hornsby for a number of shows, and then finally, Vince Welnick for the final few years until Jerry Garcia passed away in 1995.
1970 “Pigpen Era”
1972 “Keith and Donna”
1977 “The Greatest Year”
1980 “Brent Midland”
1990’s “So Many Roads” (This is a beautiful song)
For a bonus, here is a great Jerry ballad and one of my favorite songs to see live, Loser. It takes until about 1:45 mark before they start playing, but it is worth the wait
I don’t blame Barack Obama for sending his kids to an elite private school in Washington DC. Who wouldn’t want to send their kids to someplace better than DC public schools? Why does President Obama take that choice away from other inner city parents in DC who don’t have the luxury of paying any price for their childrens education?
This but the latest in a long line of examples of the difference between Obama’s words and deeds. On the campaign trail, Obama talked about supporting vouchers. He also made sure that you knew how courageous he was to take on the teachers union. Here is candidate Obama,
“I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn,” Mr. Obama, who has previously said he opposes vouchers, said in a meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “We’re losing several generations of kids, and something has to be done.”
Like most things with Obama, it was Just Words. Yes, it was laughable then, but is not so funny to these Washingon DC parents and students who are stuck in underperforming and miserable schools.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
Allah at Hot Air offers some perspective on Obama’s priorities,
Just a reminder: Obama’s proposed budget this year was $3.6 trillion, and yet somehow he couldn’t find $18 million in there to keep this program going.
This goal for this hour was to talk about social networks, from the cutting edge of the digital age to social networks of the Flinstones era, and we will bring them all together through Saddam Hussein. If you are wondering whether I have lost my marbles or not, we’ll find out in the next 45 minutes.
Joining me in studio for the first segment was Paul Gillin, one of the country’s leading experts on social media. Paul was editor-in-chief and executive editor of the technology weekly Computerworld for 15 years and since 2005 he has advised businesses on strategies to optimize their use of social media. Paul’s books include The New Influencers and Secrets of Social Media Marketing. He also maintains Newspaper Death Watch, self-described as “Chronicling the Decline of Newspapers and the Rebirth of Journalism”.
We discussed the role community and family play in social networks and the future of journalism.
After the commercial break Paul and I were joined by Eric Maddox. As an Army Staff Sergeant, Eric was an interrogator assigned to Tikrit where he soon realized that the insurgency was not being run by former regime elements, the so-called Deck of Cards. Eric realized that the regime elements went into self-preservation mode and were too fragmented. Saddam was using his most basic social networks for protection and to run the insurgency. For his efforts,
Eric Maddox was awarded the DIA Director’s Award, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, and the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement for his key role in the capture of Saddam Hussein. He’s written a great book about his experiene in Iraq called Mission: Black List #1 The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein
Today, Eric has been hired by the DoD as the first ever civilian interrogator. He has deployed to Afghanistan, back to Iraq, and other locations around the world for interrogation operations. He teaches new interrogation methodology and techniques for the government and to allied countries.
This is a fascinating discussion between two subject matter experts who realize that social networks are really about human beings and not technology.
The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called "groundbreaking" by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 8-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston's Talk Station.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
Tonight, Bruce told us about Sgt. 1st Class Ray A. Plasterer. From the Army Times,
Sgt. 1st Class Ray A. Plasterer said he hadn’t seen a firefight like the one he saw May 10 in Afghanistan since he and his fellow Rangers did their part during the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
This time, the firefight nearly cost Plasterer his life and on Oct. 17 he was awarded a Silver Star medal at Fort Benning, Ga., for what he did under a hail of withering gunfire.
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 8-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
What an enjoyable read the Sunday New York Post was this morning. It was worth $10 bucks instead of two. Let’s review the various levels of misery in the Bronx surrounding the Yankees, all from today’s paper.
EXCLUSIVE: A-HOLE: YANKEES’ HOLE OF FAME; SITE OF ‘CURSE’ DIG UNFILLED A YEAR LATER
Hex still marks the spot at the new Yankee Stadium. It has been more than a year since the team extricated a Red Sox jersey maliciously entombed in the new stadium’s concrete by a Boston-loving hardhat — yet the hole remains unfilled, and officials have no clue what to do with it, The Post has learned.
A-Rod can’t even go to a sex club without making a fool of himself.
The major-league slugger looked like a rank amateur when he made a supposedly clandestine visit to a Dallas sex club in 2004 — but showed up wearing a Yankee hat that screamed, “Look at me!” “The guy’s not the biggest genius in the world. I guess the cat’s out of the bag on that,” Rick Reid, the owner of Iniquity swingers club, told The Post.
THIS WEEK’S WINNERS AND LOSERS
LOSER: RANDY LEVINE: Yankee president dismisses stadium seat price issue before Hal Steinbrenner cut prices.
BOOK: A-ROD DRIVEN BY NEED TO OUTDO JETER
Away from the diamond, he went so far as to use Jeter in his pickup lines: “The guys,” Roberts wrote, “who went clubbing with Alex say there was one pickup line he used repeatedly, even on women who knew nothing of baseball: ‘Who’s hotter, me or Derek Jeter?’ “
30-YEAR-OLD ROOK OUTDUELS SABATHIA
CC Sabathia is one horse that hasn’t done much winning, placing or showing this season. The best thing you could say about the $161 million lefty yesterday was the Yankees didn’t have to put him out to pasture after the game.
HEFTY LEFTY HASN’T PITCHED LIKE ACE
The fact remains — after the previously-collared Torii Hunter reached down on what seemed a wicked 0-1 slider and lined a two-run double against the base of the left-field fence on Sabathia’s 119th and final pitch of the game — he ended the day 1-3 with a 4.85 ERA in his first six starts in pinstripes. That’s not exactly preliminary bang for $161 million bucks, even if not exactly cause for panic, unless those 253 innings Sabathia totaled last year while willing the Brewers to the postseason are kicking back.
TEIXERIA: EARLY SWOON ‘EMBARRASSING’
Twenty-four games into the season, Mark Teixeira is “embarrassed” by his batting average. That’s his word. The Yankees’ struggling first baseman went 0-for-3 with a walk in yesterday’s 8-4 loss to the Angels in The Bronx, and for the season his average is now down to a miniscule .182 — the worst among Yankees regulars.