IMHO

Here are some of my random thoughts for the day.

1) Britney Spears IS NOT fat, and for a woman who has given birth twice in the past few years, she's downright ripped. Is she currently the leanest she's ever been in her life? Understandably not. Is she worthy of ridicule? Most certainly. From her choice of mates, to her "parenting" style, to her wardrobe malfunctions, to her ill conceived follicular decisions, to her seeming inability to remain sober for more than a few hours at a time, to ... America is a country that just loves to build idols up so they can later be torn down. As a celebrity who should credit sex appeal and slick marketing far more than actual talent for her immense success to date, I consider Britney Spears to be fair game for whoever wishes to mock her. The public has every right to put whoever they wish up on a pedestal, no matter how shallow the reasoning, and equal right to pull the pedestal away and laugh hysterically at the resulting crash landing. Britney can use her millions of dollars to wipe the tears away. But please people, let's not aid the afflictions of anorexia and bulimia by claiming that a woman with an extra pound or two on her frame is Porky Pig. There's plenty more material to work with if you have nothing better to do with your time than make fun of a former Mouseketeer.

2) If I've said it a million times I haven't said it enough. Bill Belichick is an ass. As an NFL addict, I really hope the Jets perform improbably magnificent this season. My fingers are crossed that I do prophetically well in the football pool I'm participating in. But what I most strongly desire for this football season is that it does not end with a Super Bowl victory for the New England Patriots. Even without another ring, I'm sure Tom Brady will have no problem when the time comes to move on from his current supermodel girlfriend to the next one. He won't suffer too much if the Colts repeat as champions and Peyton Manning commercials run 24 hours per day instead of merely the current 23.3 hours. But I'm pretty sure anything less than Super Bowl triumph is pure anguish for Belichick, and that's precislely what a cheater and all around jerk like him deserves. Other than that, since he's never done anything to me personally, I wish him well.

3) Bravo for medical advancement, kudos to the doctors and medical staff who treated Kevin Everett, and God bless that young man who seems to have miraculously escaped a lifetime of paralysis. We were all reminded how little sports means in the overall scheme of things as he lay still on the football field and reports later came that he was probably going to be a paraplegic. It did not initially appear to be a story that would have a happy ending, but an experimental procedure that utilized an ice cold saline injection to temporarily put Everett in a hypothermic state may have rewritten a tragedy into a tale of triumph.

4) It has been tough being a New York Knicks fan these past few years due to their display of ineptitude on the court. The previous general manager seemed to be trying to assemble the least athletic basketball team of all time. The current gm has simply reversed field, going after ballers who jump high and run fast but don't quite manage to play consistently well. They certainly have not been able to play particularly well together in spite of their individual talents, largely because they each duplicate the same skill sets (offense first / defense hardly ever). So they have settled for taking turns having good nights while regularly compiling team losses. They hired a Hall of Fame coach who by all appearances proceeded to try to lose as many games as possible in order to be elevated from the bench to the corporate offices. Only in America does one purposely do poorly in order to be promoted. The Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury has tried to change his image as a selfish player by coming out with an affordable sneaker, but in the process of increasing his interviews and public speaking engagements to promote the shoe, he has further highlighted that he isn't the brightest guy in the world ("dog fighting is a fine sport, is it not?"). As if all of this wasn't enough, now we have the off season distraction of the Knicks gm/coach (as plain old gm he was quite ineffective at just one job, so it was determined he might do better if he had additional responsibilities) being sued for sexual harrassment. Last year he needed to improve the team by an unspecified degree to keep his jobs. This year I believe he merely needs to refrain from flashing his "credentials" to the Knicks City Dancers. It certainly has not been easy to defend being a New York Knicks fan since Isiah Thomas strode into town, but nor has it been boring. If they're not going to enthrall their fans with synchronized championship level play, at least they're entertaining us with Desperate Housewives type theatrics. Go Knicks!!!

5) O.J. Simpson - WTF????? You'd think the concept of keeping a low profile would have occured to him by now. No Johnnie Cochran to save his behind this time around.

I'm out like Members Only jackets.

- Roy Pickering (author of Feeding the Squirrels: A Novella)

http://www.synergebooks.com/ebook_feedingthesquirrels.html

http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/Feedingthesquirrels.html