If being a fool was a crime... We would need more prisons!
Today's contestant comes to us from the National Football League, the same league that brought us Gus Frerotte, who once got a concussion as a Redskin by banging his head against the wall after a game and Terrell Owens who, well, two words sums it all up: Sit-ups and Driveway. Nuff said.
Announcer: Now entering our studio is Giants' wide receiver Plaxico Burress.
Host: Mr. Burress, tell us your story please.
PB: Well see what had happened was that I's was out...
Host: I'm sorry Mr. Burress, can you please speak English? ... oh, you were speaking English. Please continue...
PB: I was out wit my boys when one of 'em hands me this cheap ass glass of Chardonnay. I told him 'get that crap out my face and get me some Don Perignonny.'
Host: Uh huh... and then?
PB: Well see I had forgotten about the piece I had in my pocket.
Host: The piece?
PB: Yeah, you know, my rod...
Host: Oh quite right, your heater...
PB: Yeah man, you know... gots to have my piece case anything heavy goes down.
Host: Go on...
PB: So I reached into my drawers for my piece but I dropped it and the damn thing goes off, pop! I'm like 'man, u gots to be kidding.'
Host: So let me recap for the people playing at home, shall I? You, Mr. Burress, following a smashing performance in the Super Bowl, sign a five-year, $35 million contract extension, including an $11 million signing bonus. You then reward your employer by this year drawing over $200,000 in fines plus being suspended for a game and benched for another.
Then most recently, your "heater" escapade. Does that about cover your case, Mr. Burress?
PB: Um, yeah... what was the question again?
Host: Yes well, thank you so much. I think a gentleman who was working at the Radisson Hotel, the place where your “heater” faux-pax transpired, best summed it up. He said...
"How dumb do you have to be to load a gun you don't have a license to carry and then carry it into a crowded club? Where did he think he was going when he went out that night - to the front lines?"
How dumb indeed, Mr. Burress... how dumb indeed.
----
Say it with me kids. Don't go away angry, Plaxico. JUST GO AWAY.
SUPER BOWL HERE WE...
Ok, ok... maybe not the Super Bowl but hey, the Eagles did defeat the Arizona Cardinals... the NFC West-leading Arizona Cardinals. The Worst Division in Football-leading Arizona Cardinals.
On second thought...
Look, in the NFL, a win is a win is a win. That much is true. But in the NFL it's also about 'what have you done for me, lately?'
I think the majority of people would agree that IF the Eagles beat the Giants next week in The Meadowlands, then and only then, can we start to dream... a little any way.
And finally comes the story of the man trampled to death.
No, it was not in some far away foreign country. And no it did not involve a soccer match.
It was, sad to say, in our very own country and it involved digital cameras, appliances, sweaters and cell phones. It involved a group of "people" who decided that saving 50% off a toaster was better than saving a man's life.
Long Island, New York. Black Friday. Wal Mart.
Witnesses described it this way:
"The man got trampled, stomped on -- everybody banged through the doors."
"He was bum-rushed by 200 people. They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down, too ... I didn't know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back."
"Oh yes, they're savages," describing those that perpetrated this heinous act.
Cell phone video shows Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old part-time Walmart employee hired as a holiday temp get crushed in the onslaught. He was pronounced dead an hour later. As responding Nassau police and paramedics tried to save him, they were also jostled and pushed to the ground.
Read that last part one more time...
As responding Nassau police and paramedics tried to save him, they were also jostled and pushed to the ground.
Think about that. Not only were these people NOT interested in the fact that they just crushed a man to death to save a few bucks... BUT they also were inhumanely ambivalent toward those who were trying to save him.
I'm not sure the word "savages" is a strong enough word. Heartless. Animalistic. Barbaric.
Now you can guaran-damn-tee something will change as a result of this. Be it a new law, a new Walmart procedure, whatever. Something will happen. Book it.
How can be I so sure? Easy. Someone died.
See our society is a reactionary one. How many times do we hear of say a dangerous intersection being altered or improved only AFTER someone dies, this despite countless please from locals to do something BEFORE someone dies.
The same principle can be applied to the Plaxico Burress incident.
Many are clamoring as to why this is not a bigger issue.
To that my answer is the same. Because no one died.
If Burress himself had died or he had accidentally killed an innocent bystander, then you get bet your last peso that federal, state and local government agencies, watchdogs, community groups and whatever would all be raising collective hell, demanding that new laws be enacted immediately.
But since no one died, at least in the Burress case, nothing will come of it.
Book it.
'Til next time.
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