The Good...The Bad...The Ugly...
The Good
Every week it gets harder to find people who qualify for this category of TGTBTU which is a message in itself. However...we do have a trio of people who qualify this week starting with former NFL cornerback Everson Walls who will donate a kidney to former Cowboy teammate Ron Springs. Kudos to Everson and his kidney. The late Buck O'Neil was posthumously awarded the nation's highest civilian honor as he was cited for a life in baseball after being barred from the national pastime in his prime because of his skin color. There was never a better spokesman for the Negro Leagues or the game of baseball than Buck O'Neil who passed away 3 months ago at age 94. Receiving the same award is blues legend, B.B. King who had the biggest smile ever plastered on the punim of a living legend and one of the greatest blues guitarists and singers to ever draw a breath. Well done, Everson, Buck and B.B. You're our heroes this week...
The Bad
Three groups of idiots fall into this category: The New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets and UMass students. The Knicks and Denver for a bench-clearing brawl during a game in which 10 players were ejected as the fight spilled into the front row of MSG. And the peaceful town of Amherst (MA) erupted into a melee when UMass students rioted following the football team's Division I-AA championship game loss to Appalachian State. 11 people including 10 students were arrested. There's a P.S. to this story. The game was played several hundred miles away in Chattanooga... The poster child for Bad, Terrell Owens a.k.a. T.O. scored 2 touchdowns when Dallas beat Atlanta. He also spit in the face of the Falcons DeAngelo Hall who covered T.O. in the game but don't expect the Big Tuna to discipline T.O. because Parcells has become the biggest wimp in sports. It'll be the NFL who will fine and/or suspend T.O... And finally (I know, enough already) there's Cleveland troublemaker Kellen Winslow Jr. who hit the taunting Steeler linebacker Joey Porter from behind (so to speak) when Porter hit him with a homosexual slur. We'll let you guess what that was...
The Ugly
Tank Johnson of the Chicago Bears had a bad week. First he was charged when his house was raided, for his stash of guns, 6 if you're counting, 6 guns were found in his home when a disturbance was called in to the Gurnee (IL) police department. And then over the weekend, he was seen in the Ice Bar nightclub when his bodyguard (does every football player have a bodyguard?) was shot and killed. And you think you had a bad week??? This story might get real ugly...
Our video link features S/SGT Barry Sadler doing the song he recorded on this date in 1965: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH4-tOqLH94
Timeline Memories...
- [1865] Slavery is abolished by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution...
Happy Trails: 1980] Former Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin dies of a heart attack at 76...1997] SNL comedian Chris Farley becomes the shows latest tragedy when he O.D.'s in his Chicago apartment at 33...
Debuted on this date: 1956] "To Tell The Truth" debuts on CBS-TV (this first edition of the classic game show runs until 1968, runs as a syndicated show from 1969 to 1978 and then off and on through 2002)...1956) Yankee Hall of Fame SS Phil Rizzuto is hired as a play-by-play announcer by the Yankees for radio and TV...1966] Dr. Seuss' "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" airs for the 1st time as a special on CBS-TV...
Premiered on this date: 1892] Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite" publicly premieres in St. Petersburg (Russia)...
Recorded on this date: 1965] "The Ballad of The Green Berets" - S/SGT Barry Sadler...
#1 on this date: 1984] "Like a Virgin" - Madonna...
"Guilty as Charged": 1987] Ivan F. Boesky is sentenced to 3 years in prison for insider trading...2003] Michael Jackson is charged with 7 counts of molesting a child under 14 and 2 counts of supplying the child with an "intoxicating agent" ("Jesus juice" to you and I)...2003] A judge in Seattle sentences confessed Green River killer to 48 consecutive life terms (one for each murder he allegedly committed and confessed to)...
Wedding Bells: 1983] Keith Richards and model Patti Hansen rock down the aisle (they are still legally married)...1984] Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest (and still married)...
"D-I-V-O-R-C-E": 1975] Rod Stewart and Faces divorce when Rod goes solo (they have returned together from time-to-time since then)...
[To ensure accuracy of dates and content, multiple reference sources are used in each timeline]...
Commentary...
We may be in the Christmas/Chanukah season but temperatures are staying mild in the northeast. We expect another day in the 60s, which brings up this question: Do we really have global warming??? One of the 3 books I've yet to finish says NO! The know-it-all 20/20 co-host John Stossel actually shows a chart in "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity" that shows temperatures over the last 4,000 years which shows just a gradual warming trend and says "it isn't such a big deal". And this: "half of the global warming of the past century happened from 1900 to 1945. If man is responsible, why wasn't there much more warming in the second half of the century?". If true it kinda blows up the Al Gore Presidential campaign doesn't it???
Timeline Countdown: Happy Chanukah, 7 days until Christmas, 13 days until 2007, 19 days until the NFL playoffs, 21 days until the BCS championship game, 48 days until Super Bowl XLI and 59 days until pitchers and catchers report...
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