August 2007 Archives

Last week, hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, of "only little people pay taxes" fame, died at age 87.

This week, we learned that she left $12 million to her 8-year-old Maltese named Trouble.

Two of her grandchildren received zilch for "reasons known to them," according to her will.

Twelve million to her dog. Zero to two of her grandchildren.

To be fair, she loved the dog. Her Romanian housekeeper -- what, you don't have a Romanian housekeeper? -- told the New York Daily News that Helmsley shared her bed with Trouble and believed her late husband Harry communicated to her through the dog.

"I never saw a human being so in love with an animal," the housekeeper said. They were always together everywhere. ... She would lick the dog tongue to tongue. It was unnatural. It was unhealthy."

She was known as the Queen of Mean.

And she will be remembered at the Queen of Loopy.

You all have heard about the saga about Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig and his arrest in a men's room in Minneapolis.

Of course, it's a sordid tale, one rife with irony and hypocrisy -- a politician who publicly espouses family values and who was among those who pressed the impeachment of former President Bill "Bubba" Clinton is arrested for allegedly soliciting gay sex in an airport men's room.

That kind of thing is becoming almost routine. It's almost as if every politician who publicly espouses family values will soon be outed as gay or will be caught with hookers or something worse.

That's old hat. My favorite part of the story is that if Craig resigns, his replacement until the next election will be appointed by the governor of Idaho.

The governor of Idaho is a guy named -- seriously -- Butch Otter.

You can't make this stuff up.

Today is the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the news was full of stories marking the date.

My favorite story? The Washington Post ran a piece that said former FEMA head Michael "Brownie" Brown is now making a living as a "disaster preparedness consultant."

What?!

OK, let's see, he completely botched the federal response to Katrina. It took him days to figure out that something went wrong and people were suffering. He was unaware of the folks trapped at the Superdome and the Convention Center, despite the fact both things were reported extensively on CNN. His main qualification for the job to begin with was that he was a college roommate of the former FEMA head and had run horse shows, poorly.

And now, people pay him for his advice on how to prepare for a disaster?

As boxing impresario Don King would say, "Only in America."

Attorney General Alberto "Fredo" Gonzales' resignation was announced this morning.

Word is, he's going to hold a press conference as soon as he can remember why he's quitting.

It may be a while.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Joe Hardy, the founder of 84 Lumber Co. and a Fayette County commissioner, has filed for divorce from Kristin Georgi, his third wife.

Hardy is 84. Georgi is 23. They were married in Vegas on May 5.

Court papers cited irreconcilable differences.

No kidding.

Cabbie by day, Orioles superfan and cheerleader by night, Wild Bill Hagy has passed away. He was 68.

Wild Bill, a Dundalk boy, was a mainstay at Orioles' games at old Memorial Stadium. He led the O-R-I-O-L-E-S cheer in the cheap seats, usually after sucking down his share of Natty Bos.

Wild Bill never made the transition to Camden Yards. Too yuppified. And the first time he saw someone talking on a cell phone at a ballgame was the last.

He didn't have much respect for fans who showed up merely to make the scene. He was a O's fan, one of the breed who thinks the National Anthem sounds weird if people don't yell "O" in the middle of it.

Wild Bill was a true character and a legend in Bawlmer.

Godspeed, Wild Bill. Hope Pat Dobson is pitching the first half of a double-header whereever you are.

So now, Michael Vick's going to plead guilty and may wind up in the pokey for an extended visit.

Sounds good.

Dogfighting is incredibly inhumane and brutal and gruesome and ugly, and Vick's alleged role in it was pretty inhumane and brutal and gruesome and ugly.

The sports commentariat is going bonkers over the Vick thing. Will he ever play football again? Will someone give him a second chance? What does he have to do to get back in the league's good graces.

Funny. I don't seem to recall such gnashing of the teeth and concern over his career when Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was involved in a case of murder a few years back. That is, murder where a human being was killed.

And I don't recall such apolexy over former Ravens' running back Jamal Lewis, who did time on drug charges.

The National Football League has a number of players who have run afoul of the law, from drugs to being involved in shootings to accusations of domestic abuse. And those players continue to make livings playing a game.

Vick is planning to cop a plea to charges surrounding his role in a dog fighting ring. Now, that's despicable, certainly. But to be banned for life from football for it?

The lesson?

People care a lot more about dogs than they care about human beings.

I'm not making an accusation, just an observation.

So Mattel recalls millions of Chinese-made toys saying they contain lead paint or small magnets that can be harmful if swallowed.

Who knew that toys made by what is essentially slave labor in a country that has lax or non-existent environmental and worker safety laws could be unsafe?

So last week, the big news was a report that said a couple of NASA astronauts were drunk before liftoff.

This week, the NASA safety chief investigating the matter says, not so much.

USA Today reported that safety chief Bryan O'Connor investigated every space shuttle flight over the last 10 years and found no evidence of heavy drinking, much less drunken astronauts blasting off.

O'Connor, the newspaper reported, "examined records and interviewed astronauts, launch-pad personnel and the crews who help astronauts into their launch suits but didn't hear any reports of alcohol abuse or violations of NASA's alcohol policy."

It'd still be the only way they'd ever get me on that thing.

In my Sunday column, I referred to members of the Dubya administration as "clowns."

So I hear from Earl Shaffer and he's upset.

He's a clown and is upset with this kind of comparison. He clowns with the Tall Cedars of Lebanon, a group that does a lot of good in the community. He gets irritated when clowns are disrespected. And he was having a little fun too.

So don't be calling the bozos in Washington clowns.

Wait a minute...Bozos...

Uh, never mind.

The Washington Post reported that banana giant Chiquita told the U.S. Justice Department it was paying a death squad -- a group on a list of terrorist organizations -- to secure its banana plantations in Colombia.

Banana death squad?

It'd be a good name for a rock band.

When we last left the Keith Richards-snorted-the-ashes-of-his-deceased-father story, the Rolling Stones guitarist and marvel of modern medicine denied the story.

Now, though, he is reversing himself, again.

In a story in London's Daily Express -- "The World's Greatest Newspaper," according to the masthead -- Keef now says he did snort his dad's ashes. But he he said he didn't mix then with cocaine because that would have been disrespectful.

From the story: “The cocaine bit was rubbish. I said I chopped him up like cocaine, not with. I’d opened his box up and said, ‘Jesus, I’ve got to do something with dad, y’know, plant the oak tree.’

“I pulled the lid off and out comes a bit of dad on the dining room table. I’m going, ‘I can’t use the brush and dustpan for this’. So you just gotta like, put it together.

“What I found out is that ingesting your ancestors is a very respectable way of… y’know, he went down a treat.”

Whatever, Keef.