The biggest story in New England is the report that David Ortiz was on the list of MLB baseball players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.  As a matter of fact, I'll add the New York Times story that broke the news.  Let's set the record straight, the reaction to this news borders on hysterical.  You hear the "holier than thou" sports reporters calling Ortiz, along with the rest of the players who are trickling out of the 2004 test, as cheaters.  You hear the players, and former players, explaining that nobody knew what they were taking back in those days.  They claim that you could walk into a GNC store to buy supplements and you could ingest a banned substance without ever realizing it.  Of course, you also hear some players admit that they took the drugs, attempting to admit, take the heat, and move forward. 

How about the fans.  Most say they are disgusted.  Many wonder how they can explain all this craziness to their kids.  I don't have the answer to those questions, but here is my take.  Has baseball lost it's innocence?  It never had innocence to begin with.  How did people explain that Babe Ruth was so hung-over during games because of his well publicized carousing to the wee hours of the morning?  How did people explain that players in the 60's took "greenies", essentially a type of speed, so they could overcome the grind of the long travel and long season.  How about the cocaine taken by the players in the 80's?  My point is that players have been doing things and ingesting things that effected the game since the beginning of baseball.  I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that if you were going to say that steroids had such an impact on the game that this era should be taken out of the record books, I'd have to disagree.  I believe the biggest impact on the game has been the players working out all year long, taking supplements, amino acids, protein, creatine, and all the rest of the GNC stuff.  The players in earlier times never had these things either.  OK, my point is that as the game has progressed through the years, things have changed in the way players have prepared themselves.  Performance Enhancing Drugs are just another vehicle they have used.  So just relax!

Maybe George Jefferson and Louis Gates don't look exactly alike, but they do seem to have one thing in common.  They both seem to think that anything bad that happens to them is a direct result of being African-American.  Look, everybody knows that only bad things happen when you give a cop a hard time.  Black or White, when you get the urge to start yelling and swearing at a cop, you can expect to see the cuffs come out.  When you look at the circumstances involved with the Cambridge incident, you can see where both sides could have handled the situation differently.  To Mr. Gates point, he owns the house he was in, he just got back from a trip and he was probably exhausted.  The police respond to a complaint of a possible break-in and they find Mr. Gates, who they remove from the house in handcuffs.  From the police point of view, the house had been broken into the previous week.  A neighbor called the police who you would have assumed would have recognized Mr. Gates if he was their neighbor.  They try to get information from Mr. Gates, who becomes loud, belligerent, and sarcastic.  The police warn that if he keeps it up, he will be arrested.  The bottom line is that Mr. Gates claims that if he wasn't a black man living in America, this wouldn't have happened.  He is wrong.  If he was white, the same thing would have happened, it just wouldn't have been "news worthy".

I was never a fan of Gordon Ramsay or Hells' Kitchen.  People told me about it, but I never watched it.  I have begun watching the new season, and to be honest, the jury's still out.  The two hour season premier was pretty good, but I can't help but think that it is all too rehearsed.  Actually, my first exposure to Ramsay was when I recently watched Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC.  That show is about Ramsay going to restaurants, mainly in Europe, that are just about belly up and needs Ramsay to turn their businesses around.  The show is fantastic.  It seems like it's real.  Ramsay gets worked up, but not so over the top that you get the feeling it's rehearsed.  I'll probably keep watching Hells Kitchen, but I definitely have Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare programmed to record every show. 

Apparently, nepotism is alive in well in Rhode Island.  At least in the Superior Court anyway.  Atty. Kristen Rodgers, daughter of presiding Superior Court Judge William Rodgers, was appointed associate justice of the Rhode Island Superior Court.  Let's face it, this type of thing happens every day in the private sector.  A person starts a business, it becomes very successful.  The founder retires and names his, often incompetent, offspring to take over the reins and the company goes down the toilet in a matter of years.  Look, I don't know Kristen Rodgers.  She may end up being the best Superior Court justice this state has ever seen. It just reeks of favoritism, quid pro quo, or simply that same ol' stuff.  Welcome to Rhode Island.

Clay Buckholtz just got called up to Boston today.  He's been rumored to have been involved in trade talks for Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Roy Halladay.  I'm sure the only thing on Clay's mind is staying the heck out of Pawtucket.  On Friday, Clay got a taste, first hand, of what it's like living in Pawtucket.  He got his tires and rims stolen.  Here is the scoop in the ProJo.  Dude, you can't own anything nice when you live in Pawtucket.  This city is "thieves paradise".  Look, at least it ain't like Providence.  In Pawtucket you just get robbed.  In Providence you get murdered.  I'll trade a pair of spinners for my life any day!

Check out the story today in the Providence Journal about the Rhode Island affiliate of the ACLU.  Actually it's more a story about it's executive director Stephen Brown.  The story title is "Mr. Unpopular", but I'm not sure if that feeling is shared by a majority of Rhode Islanders.  Stephen Brown, I believe, is a well respected individual.  Don't get me wrong, I might not be a big proponent of some of the opinions he argues, but I bet he probably doesn't agree with some of them either.  My point is, Brown is a protector of the United States Constitution.  Look, my knowledge of constitutional law could fit on the point of a pin, seriously, I know virtually nothing about the constitution.  I bet that could be said about many Rhode Islanders, that's why Stephen Brown is so important.  I think he is wrong at times, in fact, his suit against the City of Pawtucket about the Christmas nativity scene that he won was later reversed by the Supreme Court.  On the other hand, he has represented the the Rhode Island State Rifle and Revolver Association.  How much do you want to wager that Brown is pro stricter gun laws on a personal level.  Just a hunch.  So the point is, Brown just doesn't represent groups he agrees with, he represents the constitution.  Let's be glad that Brown does what he does in Rhode Island.

Actually, the question was whether or not I wanted to even write about this topic.  Everyone is so sick of the wet weather, I don't think they want to be reminded about it.  The thing is, this stretch of unstable weather stretches back to last year.  Don't forget that we got more snow last winter than we got in a long time.  I don't remember exactly how much. but I measure it by how many times I broke out my snowblower.  It was an awful lot of times.  Now here we are in July and I haven't even thought about putting in my air conditioner.  It's like one or two days of decent weather, than we get four days of cool, cloudy, and damp weather.  The thing is, as soon as we get a week without rain, when the temps get up to the 90's, you'll hear one of the area's local weather people say, "We could really use some rain!".  That will probably make me want to jump off the Braga Bridge. 

The other thing is, can we get some decent weather people on the local news stations?  I mean what's up with some of these people?  That guy Pete Mangione has got to be the biggest goof to ever report the local weather, he recently took over the #1 spot from fellow Ch 12 weather reporter TJ Del Santo.  By the way, is it required to be Italian to report the weather on Ch 12?  Tony Petraca, Pete Mangione, TJ Del Santo, and Michele Muscatello.  I've said it before and I'll say it again right now, the best weather reporter in the Providence market is Jim Corbin. 

I read this story today by Terry Nau in The Pawtucket Times about sports talk radio.  Nau talks about how, although these shows are entertaining, they sometimes throw out some untrue statements.  He thinks that the printed media, and even television media, have someone to edit the information and ensure that the writer's facts are substantiated.  If they are not true, an editor will print a correction.  As far as television, they employ an ombudsman who will investigate claims of nonfactual reporting.  This all made me think about talk radio in general.  How many times am I listening to a talk radio program and the host makes, what I think is, an outrageous statement.  Maybe it's not outrageous, maybe it's a statement that I vehemently disagree with.  How angry I get, almost enough to call in and tell the host how much I disagree with him.  Then I realize that this is what it's all about, controversial!  Why are conservative talk show hosts so popular around this area?  Because the majority of listeners are liberal.  Conservative talk show hosts are more likely to hold an opinion far different than their listeners.  This drives two types of callers.  The first are the people who call to strongly disagree with the host's viewpoint on a particular issue.  The second type of caller are the ones who agree with the host, no matter what his viewpoint happens to be.  I guess my whole point is this.  Talk radio programs are fueled by advertising.  The more people who listen to a show drives the price a sponsor will pay the radio station to advertise on a particular shows time frame.  All this means that the more rude, obnoxious, and condescending the host happens to be, the more money the radio station makes. 

I saw on the news recently that the Mass State Police were going to step up their enforcement of Rt. 195, concentrating on aggressive driving.  I was happy to hear this news.  According to the report, serious accidents have increased on the stretch of highway between Fairhaven and Seekonk.  Since I drive this road often, I can attest to the fact that people drive like nuts on this highway.  I'm not just talking about speeding, I mean people driving 20 to 25 miles over the speed limit and weaving in and out of traffic like crazy.  Since I live in Rhode Island, I'm sorry to say that most of these idiots are driving vehicles registered in Rhode Island.  Not all mind you, but many are from RI.  The days immediately following the report, I witnessed a few vehicles stopped by State Police officers.  Over the last few weeks, the sightings are rare.  What happened?  You can't tell me it's a result of budget cuts.  This enforcement should pay for itself, and then some.  I'm willing to bet that if the State Police concentrated on stopping aggressive drivers, in a weeks time they would surely cite 100 people.  At $150.00 a pop, that would be $15,000.00 a week.  I'm not talking about pulling over the people who are going 5 to 10 miles over the speed limit either, I'm talking about issuing citations to 100 dangerous drivers a week.  I'm telling you, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

What better way of introducing my new site design than with a story about Michael Jackson?  Here's a story from the LA Times.  There's no denying that Jackson is probably as talented an entertainer as there has ever been.  He certainly deserves the title "King of Pop".  The only thing is, the last 20 years or so, Jackson has earned the title "King of Weird".  The only people who are happy about Jackson's passing is the news media.  They have a story they can beat to death for the next month.  Not to display a morbid sense of humor but, I heard Jackson actually died of food poisoning.  According to reports, the Medical Examiner found evidence that Jackson had recently ate some 11 year old nuts.  OK, relax, so it may be insensitive, but I can't help but believe that the world is a little safer place for kids minus Jackson.