8/25: Bias Toward Hitlery, Young Pitchers
6 p.m.
• Wow, Fast Eddie talking about media bias? That's funny.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was supposed to give “closing remarks” during this afternoon’s Shorenstein Center-sponsored panel discussion with all three Sunday show moderators — NBC’s Tom Brokaw, ABC’s George Stephanopoulous and CBS’s Bob Schieffer — but instead, he opened up a can of worms about bias in 2008 election coverage
"Ladies and gentleman, the coverage of Barack Obama was embarrassing," said Rendell, in the ballroom at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel. "It was embarrassing."
Rendell, an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the primaries, now backs Obama in the general election. Brokaw and Rendell began debating campaign coverage, including the on-air comments by Lee Cowan, and when MSNBC came up, Rendell went after the cable network.
“MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign," Rendell said, who called their coverage "absolutely embarrassing..."
Don't worry, after Osama does his thing this week you'll be back on the "what media bias?" bandwagon.
• I'm sure there's a blogger WHOSE NAME WILL NOT BE UTTERED UNTIL THE END OF TIME that probably already scouted this kid inside and out.
Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player—too good, it turns out. The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.
Officials for the three-year-old league, which has eight teams and about 100 players, said they will disband Jericho's team, redistributing its players among other squads, and offered to refund $50 sign-up fees to anyone who asks for it. They say Jericho's coach, Wilfred Vidro, has resigned.
But Vidro says he didn't quit and the team refuses to disband. Players and parents held a protest at the league's field on Saturday urging the league to let Jericho pitch.
"He's never hurt any one," Vidro said. "He's on target all the time. How can you punish a kid for being too good?"
The controversy bothers Jericho, who says he misses pitching.
"I feel sad," he said. "I feel like it's all my fault nobody could play."
Jericho's coach and parents say the boy is being unfairly targeted because he turned down an invitation to join the defending league champion, which is sponsored by an employer of one of the league's administrators.
Jericho instead joined a team sponsored by Will Power Fitness. The team was 8-0 and on its way to the playoffs when Jericho was banned from pitching.
"I think it's discouraging when you're telling a 9-year-old you're too good at something," said his mother, Nicole Scott. "The whole objective in life is to find something you're good at and stick with it. I'd rather he spend all his time on the baseball field than idolizing someone standing on the street corner."
League attorney Peter Noble says the only factor in banning Jericho from the mound is his pitches are just too fast.
"He is a very skilled player, a very hard thrower," Noble said. "There are a lot of beginners. This is not a high-powered league. This is a developmental league whose main purpose is to promote the sport."
Noble acknowledged that Jericho had not beaned any batters in the co-ed league of 8- to 10-year-olds, but say parents expressed safety concerns.
"Facing that kind of speed" is frighteneing for beginning players, Noble said.
League officials say they first told Vidro that the boy could not pitch after a game on Aug. 13. Jericho played second base the next game on Aug. 16. But when he took the mound Wednesday, the other team walked off and a forfeit was called.
League officials say Jericho's mother became irate, threatening them and vowing to get the league shut down.
"I have never seen behavior of a parent like the behavior Jericho's mother exhibited Wednesday night," Noble said.
Scott denies threatening any one, but said she did call the police.
League officials suggested that Jericho play other positions, or pitch against older players or in a different league.
Local attorney John Williams was planning to meet with Jericho's parents Monday to discuss legal options.
"You don't have to be learned in the law to know in your heart that it's wrong," he said. "Now you have to be punished because you excel at something?"
"Frighteneing"? Oh well, I'm the last person to goof on another person's speling, but damnit someone got paid not to run a spell-check. I'm doing this blog for free.
Jericho's coach and parents say the boy is being unfairly targeted because he turned down an invitation to join the defending league champion, which is sponsored by an employer of one of the league's administrators.
Not sure how relevant this is to the above story, but as a kid I was in this bowling league. We didn’t use regular balls but rather this was a duckpin bowling league. What does that mean? The balls were smaller and there is no pinacton. Anyway, there was this kid was excellent but I hated the fuck. His dad was one of the bigwigs of the league, but his kid’s team never won a league championship in the several years I was there. This kid was so good he was always a team’s captain; each team had a really good bowler, a pretty good bowler and a few scrubs (like me). Well, this one year this kid was magically placed on a team with two other boys that had been team captains in previous years. Strangely enough, after a month or two this team amassed something like a 14-1 record. Here’s a coincidence: this kid’s dad put the teams together. What did I do about it? I took my ball and went home. Do I regret it? Shit, I forgot about this experience until reading the above article.
• Huh?
A death row inmate who says he's too fat to be executed received poor legal help during his trial and later when he appealed the death sentence, his lawyers said Monday during a clemency hearing.
Too fat? Oh this should be a good one.
It's the second time that Richard Cooey, convicted of killing two University of Akron students in 1986, has asked the state for mercy. The Ohio Parole Board denied a similar request five years ago and Cooey came within a day of being executed in 2003 before a federal judge issued a reprieve.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, his lawyers said executioners would have trouble finding Cooey's veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs...
Then fry him. Of course, then the poor cops zapping this porker will be smelling bacon...
Cooey stands 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 267 pounds. His execution is scheduled for Oct. 14.
Cooey didn't attend Monday's clemency hearing, and neither side argued the merits of the obesity lawsuit.
His lawyers said that Cooey's original defense team didn't properly present evidence about the effect of beatings Cooey received as a child as well as the impact of Cooey's alcohol abuse.
Oh Christ, the I-was-abused excuse. Sadly, below is the part of the article that pisses me off the most.
Cooey, 41, isn't the same person who committed the murders and is remorseful to the point of self-loathing, defense attorney Dana Cole told the parole board.
"If he's killed on Oct. 14, we will kill a changed man," Cole said. "He's not the same man who committed these crimes."
Oh boo-fucking-hoo.
Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh reviewed graphic details of the rape and murder of the two students, who met Cooey and his co-defendant after the two teens threw chunks of concrete off an overpass, striking the women's car.
Walsh also reviewed Cooey's unsuccessful attempt to escape from death row in 2005, when he used a homemade ladder constructed of rolled-up magazines and sheets to scale an outdoor recreation area wall.
Wow. That must have been one strong homemade ladder to hold that fattie up. Guess those magazines were phonebooks or something.
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