from mclaughlin.com
September 12, 2014
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
In Ray Rice Case, N.F.L. Sees Only What It Wants to See
from nytimes
SEPT. 10, 2014
Roger Goodell needed the latest Ray Rice video to clear up the ambiguity of the incident. Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images
SEPT. 10, 2014
Roger Goodell needed the latest Ray Rice video to clear up the ambiguity of the incident. Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images
Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the N.F.L., took a seat with “CBS This Morning” to explain once again how very little he knew about the circumstances in which Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocked out his then-fiancée.
“When we met with Ray Rice and his representatives, it was ambiguous about what actually happened,” said Goodell, who at first suspended Rice for two games.
Norah O’Donnell asked the obvious follow-up of the commissioner in the interview: What was ambiguous about the first video, available since February, which showed an elevator door opening at an Atlantic City casino and Janay Palmer, who is now Rice’s wife, lying there, out cold? Rice tried to drag her out, before giving up in disgust.
“That was the result that we saw,” Goodell replied. “We did not know what led up to that.”
So ambiguity curls up like a cat around the foot of intentional ignorance.
The Atlantic City police report, it is worth recalling, stated that Rice struck his fiancée with his hand, “rendering her unconscious.” Perhaps the passive language threw Goodell off. But logic dictates that Rice knocked her out.
Local Atlantic City prosecutors told reporters in the spring that they had video of the knockout punch by Rice. That assertion, too, was widely reported. Goodell, who received compensation of $44.2 million in 2012, might consider hiring a better news clipping service at the league office.
So it goes. The Circus Maximus that is the National Football League long ago banished shame from its executive suites. Owners’ profits soar and players get their taste, if they don’t mind the concussions, torn ligaments and broken bones.
Earlier this week, the New England Patriots owner Robert K. Kraft sat on the set of “CBS This Morning” to discuss the league’s new $250 million partnership with the network. Kraft, whom CBS helpfully identified as the Master Kraftsman, heard Charlie Rose laud his team’s $2.6 billion value.
The chitchat took a discrete detour to that video of Rice delivering his Joe Frazier left cross to Palmer, his fiancée at the time.
“When you see that visually, it’s such a turnoff,” Kraft said.
But don’t blame that bummer on Goodell. “He had no knowledge of this video,” Kraft assured Rose.
The Ravens cut Rice on Monday, once the knockout tape was made public. Kraft speculated that Rice’s career was over. Asked if the Patriots might pick up Rice, Kraft offered a prim word: “No.”
At which point all involved turned to merry chatter about that CBS/N.F.L. partnership.
Where to begin?
Perhaps the CBS anchors conducted mind wipes before talking to the Master Kraftsman. Or perhaps they disliked being rude, and so shied from pointing out that Kraft’s family-values Patriots drafted Aaron Hernandez, a fine tight end about whom there had been many whispers of troubles during his college career.
Six months after Hernandez helped lead the Patriots to the A.F.C. championship game in January 2013, he was arrested on murder charges. He since has been charged with two more murders and he is being held without bail.
The Patriots cut him loose before knowing the charges against him. Kraft portrayed this as an example of principle extremis: “It was principle over money,” Kraft said at the time.
Well, of course it was.
The Patriots have taken several bites out of the apple of misjudgment. In April 2012, the dandy cornerback Alfonzo Dennard was arrested, charged with assaulting a cop outside a bar. Fifteen months later, he was charged with driving while intoxicated and refusing to take a test. He spent his off-season in the spring serving only 35 days of a 60-day jail term. And he was back starting at cornerback for the Patriots on Sunday.
Let’s not pick on the Master Kraftsman, who, by the way, looked spiffy in his blue jacket and custom-made magenta sneakers on “CBS This Morning.”
The N.F.L. Circus truly turned Maximus when ESPN — which pays $1.9 billion a year for the right to broadcast N.F.L. games — decided to bring one of its “personalities” onto “Monday Night Football Countdown” to talk about Rice. That would be Ray Lewis, the former legendary Ravens linebacker.
Lewis was a teammate of Rice’s, and considered himself a mentor. Lewis was mournful. He was “disappointed; this is personal for me.”
Then the ESPN host Suzy Kolber asked Lewis if he saw a parallel between Rice’s despond and his own troubles. This line of questioning tended to define a delicate moment. Lewis was a Super Bowl M.V.P. His likeness is on display outside the Ravens’ stadium.
He also was charged in 2000 with murder and obstruction of justice in the stabbing deaths of two men with whom he and his friend quarreled at a nightclub after a Super Bowl party. Lewis’s white suit, which was alleged to have been splattered with blood, never was found.
Prosecutors dropped murder charges against Lewis in exchange for his misdemeanor plea to obstruction of justice and his agreement to testify — somewhat vaguely — against two of his friends. Those men were acquitted and no one was convicted in the murder of the two men. Lewis, who is taken with his own Christianity, has pointed to this resolution as evidence of some godly plan or another.
“There is no comparison of me and Ray Rice,” Lewis told Kolber. “It is night and day.”
That just might be the nicest thing anyone said about Rice this week.
Look, the N.F.L. is not San Quentin with shoulder pads. Among the thousands of players are many fine husbands, boyfriends and fathers, and some are quite thoughtful about these troubles.
But the N.F.L. is a vessel filled to overflowing with too many painful story lines and too many years of neglect. The San Francisco 49ers are a fine old franchise that since 2010 has led the league in the number of players arrested. In late August, defensive end Ray McDonald was arrested and charged with battering his pregnant fiancée, who the police said had “visible injuries.”
He posted $25,000 bail. His coach, Jim Harbaugh (brother to Ravens Coach John Harbaugh, who vigorously defended and spoke of his love for running back Rice before he cut him loose this week), pronounced himself greatly disturbed.
Then McDonald played Sunday and had three tackles. Barring revelation of an explicit tape, perhaps the N.F.L. and partner networks can market a redemptive story line?
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Janay Rice Releases Statement: "This Is Our Life"
from deadspin
Barry Petchesky
This morning, Janay Rice posted the statement to her (now-private) Instagram account. Ricetold the Baltimore Sun that it was intended to be released publicly.
Barry Petchesky
This morning, Janay Rice posted the statement to her (now-private) Instagram account. Ricetold the Baltimore Sun that it was intended to be released publicly.
"I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I'm mourning the death of my closest friend. But to have to accept the fact that it's reality is a nightmare in itself. No one knows the pain that the media & unwanted [opinions] from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing. To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass of for all his life just to gain ratings is horrific. THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don't you all get. If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you've succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is! Ravensnation we love you!"
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Elizabeth Warren, in spotlight, hits 'Late Show With David Letterman
from latimes
Elizabeth Warren has insisted that she will not run for president in 2016, but she is back in the spotlight this week — hitting the campaign trail for vulnerable Democratic candidates and outlining her agenda to help the middle class during her first appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman.”
Warren successfully avoided talking about a presidential bid with Letterman on Thursday night, but she made a vigorous push for raising the minimum wage, sharing her own experiences with economic upheaval as a young girl — a compelling story that could set her apart from Hillary Clinton, a potential 2016 rival.
While promoting her book “A Fighting Chance” on the CBS show, Warren recounted that her father suffered a heart attack when she was 12 years old, forcing her stay-at-home mom to seek out a minimum-wage job at Sears to pay the family’s mounting bills. “The bottom just fell out for us,” Warren said, noting that the family lost its station wagon and “came about that close” — she said pinching her fingers — “to losing the family home.”
Her mother’s job kept the family together, Warren told Letterman. “I grew up at a time when a person could work a minimum-wage job and it would support a family of three, and that’s what it did — it saved us.”
“Today, a person can work full time at a minimum-wage job and still live in poverty, and I think that’s just fundamentally wrong,” she said to applause.
Warren also shared that story, which is the opening for her book,during an interview earlier Wednesday with Katie Couric of Yahoo News. Hitting a theme that has been central to her political career, Warren told Couric she was stunned by former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s decision to take a job at a Wall Street investment bank right after leaving Congress.
“People work in Washington, and, man, they hit that revolving door with a speed that would blind you,” Warren said. She said politicians like Cantor are not hired for their expertise and insight, “but because they are selling access back into their former colleagues who are still writing policy.”
“This is wrong,” the Massachusetts senator said.
Couric pressed Warren on whether Clinton is too cozy with Wall Street, noting the two have disagreed on some financial regulatory issues like bankruptcy legislation.
Warren did not directly criticize Clinton but didn’t defend her either. “I worry a lot about the relationship between all of our regulators, government, Wall Street,” she said. “I worry across the board.”
Warren has said that she is encouraging Clinton to run, and it seems unlikely that she would challenge the former secretary of State, who is to decide by next year whether she is running
Still, the senator
And the group encouraging her toconsider a presidential bid, “Ready for Warren,” is pressuring her to at least keep that door open. Last month, the group went so far as to hold house parties across the country on her behalf to build support for a potential candidacy.
With the midterm elections quickly approaching, Warren has campaigned in recent months for Democrats like Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, and on Friday she will hit the trail for Colorado Sen. Mark Udall. She has also raked in cash for Democratic Senate hopefuls like Natalie Tennant in West Virginia and Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader from Kentucky.
As the Los Angeles Times’ Lisa Mascaro reported last month, Warren has raised more than $3 million this election cycle for other Democrats.
Twitter: @MaeveReston
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles TimesSaturday, September 6, 2014
Friday, September 5, 2014
25 of Joan Rivers' best jokes
from cnn
updated 3:55 PM EDT, Fri September 5, 2014
(CNN) -- When Joan Rivers had her star-making 1965 appearance on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show," he told her, "God, you're funny."
That, there is no doubt, she was.
Sometimes her wit was self-deprecating; other times it was directed, like claws, at other targets.
But, as she said, she was put on Earth to make us laugh.
Here are a few of Rivers' best jokes.
On growing up:
- I was so ugly that they sent my picture to Ripley's Believe It or Not and he sent it back and said, "I don't believe it."
- My mother never told me a thing. I asked my mother, "Where am I from? She gave me a fake address in Cleveland."
- I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw that my bath toys were a toaster and a radio.
- I was so flat, I used to put Xs on my chest and write, "You are here."
On home life:
- I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later, you have to start all over again.
- I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, "Get off my property."
- Grandchildren can be annoying -- how many times can you go: "And the cow goes moo and the pig goes oink"? It's like talking to a supermodel.
On her love life:
- I was dating a transvestite, and my mother said, "Marry him, you'll double your wardrobe."
- All my mother told me about sex was that the man goes on top and the woman on the bottom. For three years my husband and I slept in bunk beds.
- Peeping Toms look at my window and pull down the shade.
- I have no sex appeal -- if my husband didn't toss and turn, we'd never have had the kid.
- My best birth control now is to just leave the lights on.
- My sex life is so bad, my G-spot has been declared a historical landmark.
- I got a waterbed, but my husband stocked it with trout.
- My love life is like a piece of Swiss cheese: most of it's missing, and what's there stinks.
On aging and plastic surgery:
- Looking 50 is great -- if you're 60.
- When a man has a birthday, he takes a day off. When a woman has a birthday, she takes at least three years off.
- My breasts are so low, now I can have a mammogram and a pedicure at the same time.
- I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die, they will donate my body to Tupperware.
- I wish I had a twin, so I could know what I'd look like without plastic surgery.
On reputations and stereotypes:
- A man can sleep around, no questions asked. But if a woman makes 19 or 20 mistakes, she's a tramp.
- It was a Jewish porno film: One minute of sex and nine minutes of guilt.
- I spit on education. No man is ever going to put his hand up your dress looking for a library card. (Note: Rivers went to Barnard, the women's college affiliated with Columbia, and was extremely well-read.)
On death:
- My husband killed himself. And it was my fault. We were making love and I took the bag off my head.
- At my funeral, I want Meryl Streep crying in five different accents.
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