I think we all thought that if the anger management sessions took with Chicago Cub pitcher Carlos Zambrano, the fights in the dugout would be a thing of the past, but it turns out today’s cubs don’t even need the season to start to begin brawling.
Yesterday, there was another fight, this time between pitcher Carlos Silva and third baseman Aramis Ramirez in only the team’s fourth game of the spring.
In the 12-5 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, Silva gave up six runs in the first inning, three of them unearned because of three errors. According to Cubs manager Mike Quade, Silva entered the dugout and ranted against the defense to no one in particular. Ramirez, who committed one of the miscues, didn’t like his reaction. There was some pushing and shoving, but this time, no punches were thrown and Silva was escorted to the clubhouse by a coach.
The manager’s initial reaction was not to hand out any discipline. The team was to discuss the matter at a meeting. Quade said Silva would have come out of the game, anyway, because he had thrown close to 40 pitches, but he admitted that he likes the fire that the players have.
Shortstop Starlin Castro also had an error and the third was charged to Koyie Hill on catcher’s interference on a grounder by Chris Dickerson that extended the inning.
I would agree with Quade about having a team with fire, but one would hope that the fire would show in time for the season to start, or at least toward the end of spring training.
It could be a nutty season on the North Side of Chicago. I hear that the team is looking for a public address announcer. Have they considered Michael “Leettt’s Get Ready to RUMBLE” Buffer?

It’s unusual when my alma mater, Northwestern University, makes the news, but the university is in the headlines this week after acknowledging that in a class on human sexuality last week students observed a naked woman being penetrated by a sex toy.
The sex act was performed in front of about 100 students in psychology professor John Michael Bailey’s class. The demonstration occurred after class between a woman and her fiancée, and attendance was optional.
The university will pay several hundred dollars to guest lecturer Ken Melvoin-Berg, co-owner of Weird Chicago Tours. His Feb. 21 discussion of bondage, swinging and other sexual fetishes was arranged by Bailey, who gets extra funding from the university’s College of Arts & Sciences for lectures and other activities he routinely holds after class.
“The students find the events to be quite valuable, typically, because engaging real people in conversation provides useful examples and extensions of concepts students learn about in traditional academic ways,” Bailey said.
After an initial discussion at Ryan Family Auditorium, the class was told reportedly five or six times that a couple was going to demonstrate the use of a sex toy and female orgasm.
The woman undressed and got on stage with her male partner, who used a device that looks like a machine-powered saw with a phallic object instead of a blade. Apparently, the couple are exhibitionists who enjoy having people watch them have sex, and they were not paid for the demonstration.
(I have to admit that the main image that is in my mind is the scene from “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life,” when John Cleese is a schoolmaster teaching sex to a disinterested group of students at an English boarding school. The line that I keep thinking of is when Cleese asks how to get the woman sexually aroused and Michael Palin says “suck the clitoris.” Suck the clitoris???!!! What about a nice kiss boy? You don’t have to rush headlong for the clitoris.”)
Already, the prudes are coming out. University police are reportedly determining whether the demonstration violated any local ordinances. The university’s President has issued a statement decrying the occurrence. I’m sure that the professor is well on his way out of a job and may have problems finding work in most universities as the prudes have their say. It’s a shame – it’s a viable field of study and since the class participants were warned beforehand and the demonstration was not required, I don’t have any problem with it.
Personally, I found that in my time at NU, I said that 10% of the student body was having 90% of the sex – all with each other (guess which percentage I was in – never mind). Boy, have times changed on the old Evanston campus. Back when I was there, the most well attended class was Professor J. Allen Hynek’s UFO lecture in Astronomy 1 (he was the scientist who came up with the “Close Encounters of the first, second and third kind” and was briefly in the Spielberg film). I know which class will be most popular next term (if its allowed to run, that is).

BYU center and best player Brandon Davies was suspended from the Cougars’ nationally ranked team for the remainder of the season because he violated the school’s honor code provision that prohibits premarital sex. Davies, a sophomore from Provo High School, acknowledged his transgression to BYU officials on Monday, according to multiple sources.
I think that at that age, with all of the raging hormones, it’s nice to see a young man having sex with his girlfriend, because, after all, athletes attract all types of women.
Now Brigham Young is a Mormon school, and in Mormonism, polygamy was accepted (until recently?) and legal in Nevada, and the leaders had many, many children.
Sounds hypocritical to me, that’s all I’m saying….

I hate when the mainstream media makes a big deal out of part of a big story that is meaningless. All over the media – CNN, the Chicago Tribune, so many others, – are headlines that the NFL faces a big deadline tonight when the collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union expires.
Yes, it expires, but it’s not the 11th hour for these negotiations, more like 3:00 in the afternoon. Yes, the CBA may be up, and the union may decertify and sue the owners, but these are tactical issues (remaining in the court of a judge who has consistently ruled in the favor of the union, being one reason). And yes, the status of drafted players and free agents will remain in limbo if this draws out, but it’s not Armageddon.
Simply, we have until September before the season would even be effected, and the league and players’ union have a vested interest in not killing this fatted multi-billion cow. The sides have brought in a arbitrator in an attempt to settle this thing. No one’s talking publicly on either side of the negotiations, which is always a good thing since negotiating via the media just inflames all parties.
In reality, training camps don’t open for over 4 months, which is several lifetimes in negotiation time. The NFL knows it’s history – it saw what a lockout and work stoppage did for Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League, and with revenues that dwarf those of those other two leagues combined, it is in their best interests to find common ground. Unfortunately, this often does not happen until the very last minute, 11:59 if you will.
And we’re not there yet.

The biggest story over the past several weeks has involved the strange antics and rants of “Two and A Half Men” star Charlie Sheen. Drugs, porn stars, hard partying, and now biting the hands that feed him.
Sheen declared that he is “at war” with CBS and the producers of his sitcom “Two and a Half Men” and his impending loss of $1.2 million per episode. “Defeat is not an option,” Sheen said
After his latest incident, the show was shut down for the final 4 episodes of this season and the future of the show beyond this is clearly in doubt. Sheen used celebrity outlet TMZ to attack the show’s co-creator Chuck Lorre. “I gracefully ignored this folly for 177 shows. I fire back once and this contaminated little maggot can’t handle my power and can’t handle the truth.”
Sheen has since said that he would sue CBS for some of the money that Industry insiders estimate that the show has earned. Reportedly, the show has grossed $400 million in reruns, putting total syndication fees for the 177 shows at a $1 billion.
He has also said that most men envy him for his wild lifestyle. I am mentioning this because I only envy Sheen’s money. When I was 25, I probably would have envied hanging out with porn stars and wild parties, but now, I don’t. (Besides, I was never particularly “cool.” Women like that would intimidate me and I couldn’t keep up with them anyway. Plus, I can only imagine the STDs that he risks having sex with porn stars.)
It’s his life to do with as he pleases, but I think about the problems he is causing his family. He has kids from 2 marriages who should see their father as a role model, not a joke on every late night television show in the country. they have been taken away from him (good), but shouldn’t your kids be more important than your hedonistic pursuits?
Also, I met his father Martin Sheen last fall at the Toronto Film Festival and a nicer man you couldn’t find. He has always put his reputation on the line for people, going to jail numerous times protesting (always peaceably) for people of various races and creeds for workers’ rights and other causes. (He has invited Illinois Governor Quinn to Old St. Pat’s Church to get the governor to sign legislation to outlaw the death penalty in Illinois).
I feel for them. If Charlie Sheen didn’t have any kids, I would support his right to take as many drugs and f#$k as many porn stars as he wished. Now, we can just watch to see how this car crash of a career ends up.

Talk about pissed off. Christopher Michael Carroll of Manteca, CA got into an argument with his wife last weekend. Apparently, the wife either wanted to stop him from leaving, or still had more to say to him, so she gets on the hood and grabs the wiper blade, I guess expecting him to stop the car.
Instead, Carroll sped through Manteca, got on the freeway and didn’t pull over until he reached Pleasanton, some 35 miles away. Some witnesses say that Carroll’s speed hit 100 mph with his wife on the hood. Eventually, Carroll slowed down the vehicle and his wife was able to get off the hood. With the temperature only in the low 30s, the woman was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was treated for hypothermia.
Of course, this wouldn’t be funny if she had been more seriously hurt, but I did find it amusing….

After many years of watching the Academy Awards, including having parties and pools on the results, I wasn’t going to watch the 2011 proceedings. I already knew (or thought I did) who was going to win, and Anne Hathaway and James Franco are fine actors, but I didn’t have much hope for their hosting. But the film nut in me won out – I had to see what was happening.
I was right, Ms. Hathaway tried to inject some energy into the gig, but Mr. Franco was stiff and leaden, which is a surprise since he is a fine actor. I don’t think they were bad, it was just a bad idea from the outset. The Oscars need a comedian to host – not necessarily one to insult everyone like Ricky Gervais did at the Golden Globes, but a comedian was definitely needed. When Billy Crystal was on stage, the energy level perked up for a few moments. The only good thing about the show was that it only ran a little late, so I was in bed at 10:35 having seen it all.
As I wrote above, I thought that I knew who would win the major awards, and for the very top categories, I was right, but I was wrong about the Supporting Actor/Actress awards. I didn’t see “The Fighter,” a fight film about a white family – I had seen it before and had little interest in seeing Mark Walhberg try a star turn. I thought that Melissa Leo and Amy Adams both from “The Fighter” would cancel each other out. Helena Bonham Carter was fine in “The King’s Speech,” but she’s too weird for the Academy. Jacki Weaver’s victory was just being nominated in the great noir “Animal Kingdom.” So that left the teenager Hallee Stanfield in the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit” to win. Yeah, I knew she was young and the Academy feels that it has time to give awards to young actors, but hey, Anna Pacquin won for “The Piano” in 1994, didn’t she? Of course, Ms. Leo did win and delivered a silly, rambling, f-word studded acceptance speech. But that amused me.
I admit that I was pulling for Geoffrey Rush to win the best supporting Actor award for “the King’s Speech.” He was great and had to be in order for Colin Firth to interact against. I didn’t see “Winter’s Bone,” (but I want to) and I didn’t know the name of nominee John Hawkes until the ceremony when I realized that I had seen him many times in different films. Jeremy Renner, nominated last year in the eventual Best Picture winner “The Hurt Locker:” was nominated again, this time in “The Town.” It was that picture’s only nomination and it wasn’t a big hit – he had no chance. I have generally liked the films that Mark Ruffalo has been in more than him. He received a nomination for “The Kids Are All Right,” but I have always felt that he was an OK actor. On the other hand, I love Christian Bale as an actor even if he is kind of prickly as a person. I heard he was very good in “The Fighter” and while I shouldn’t have been surprised, I guess I was.
After that, all of the chips fell where I thought they would. I should have gone to bed once Tom Hooper won the Best director award for “the King’s Speech” or even once the film won for Best Original screenplay. At that point, it was all over for Colin Firth and for the film as Best Picture. Was it that good? No, but as an anglophile, I did love the film and I enjoyed the humor. Plus, I love seeing old British favorites like Derek Jacobi and Timothy Spall in films not related to Harry Potter.
The final “no brainer” was the very pregnant Natalie Portman win for “Black Swan.” As I’ve said here a couple of times, I didn’t like the picture – it was a ballet cliché, and while Ms. Portman was good, I didn’t get that most of the events were happening in her head, and since I didn’t like her character, I didn’t really care. I still don’t.
So, that’s the wrap-up on the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. Next year, let’s have Jon Stewart again or even David Letterman. Chris Rock would be good and so would Bill Maher (but he’s too political for the Academy)