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Monday Night Open Thread

The Bachelorette is winding down. The big question, will Ali Fedotowsky end up alone or pick Cape Cod landscaper Chris Lambton or Roberto Martinez, the soon to be State Farm insurance agent from South Carolina (formerly a Florida college baseball player )won't be answered until next week. Tonight is suffering through the "Men Tell All" and the rejected suitors, minus Frank and Justin, the cads with girlfriends, who didn't attend.

Until this week I was convinced the spoiler experts were correct, that Ali ends up alone. Now I think she sends Chris home before the final rose ceremony and ends up proposing to Roberto (rather than waiting to see if he proposes to her.) It's about the only thing that hasn't been done on the show: a final rose ceremony with just one guy and the Bachelorette doing the proposing. The suspense will generate from “Will Roberto Accept?” rather than “Who did Ali Choose?” But I could change back to Ali is single before the week is out--that's how good a job they did this season.

For those of you with weightier things on your mind, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Bad Cat Food... (none / 0) (#1)
    by desertswine on Mon Jul 26, 2010 at 08:59:06 PM EST
    Wow, Great Story (none / 0) (#4)
    by squeaky on Mon Jul 26, 2010 at 10:58:03 PM EST
    Brought tears to my eyes.... not sad tears..  triumphant...
    The best player on the Plant City Little League Team, is a 13- year-old girl named Chelsea Baker. Taught the knuckleball by Joe Niekro, Chelsea has not lost a sanctioned game in four years.

    espn

    She may be the best little league pitcher in the entire US.

    and has pitched 2 perfect games (none / 0) (#7)
    by nycstray on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 12:23:33 AM EST
    She's also got the personality to keep on going against the odds/gender issue. GMA also covered her.

    thanks for posting this, it was good to watch her again :)

    Parent

    How long before she (none / 0) (#8)
    by caseyOR on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 12:52:53 AM EST
    gets pressured to switch to softball? No matter how good girls are in Little League, they seem to always get shunted off to softball. I don't know of any USA girls playing on high school baseball teams. Are there any?

    And, the only female playing in the majors is a Japanese woman who plays minor league ball in, IIRC, California.

    Parent

    She's a knuckleballer and (none / 0) (#9)
    by caseyOR on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 12:57:57 AM EST
    plays for the Chico Outlaws in an independent league. She learned the knuckleball from watching video of Tim Wakefield.

    Parent
    Aren't they already pressuring her? (none / 0) (#10)
    by nycstray on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 01:01:55 AM EST
    Or at least some of the parents of the boys she's beating ;)

    She seems pretty intent on staying in baseball, says softball isn't for her. I hope she stays in longer and kicks some glass . . .

    Parent

    Boys just can't take the heat, or (none / 0) (#11)
    by caseyOR on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 01:15:10 AM EST
    at least their parents can't. It's so unfair when their sons get beat by a giiiirrrrlll.

    A few years back there was an amazing young girl basketball player in the Portland metro area. She was, and probably still is, phenomenal. She played in a league that was mostly boys, and she played above her age group. She was clearly the best player on the court. She ran circles around the boys.

    So, some whiny over protective parents of some of the boys pressured that league to ban girls from playing. That's right. It was so unfair, and probably damaging to the tender developing masculinity of their 12 year old sons, for these guys to be regularly blown off the court by this girl.

    It caused quite the brou-ha-ha, in part because her parents were well-to-do and her dad was a bit of a muckety-muck in local sports circles.

    Can't start too soon teaching boys that the best way to defeat a girl is to keep her out of the game.

    Parent

    When GMA ran the story on this girl (none / 0) (#12)
    by nycstray on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 01:52:04 AM EST
    i think it was the weather guy that was so excited by her and also said that the boys should take her as an asset because she could raise their game.

    sad thing about the parents in these stories, aside from the fact they are a-holes, is that they are younger than us and should be more "enlightened" about equality . . . . what's interesting, is that if there was a high performing, well respected girl's school in the area, they would want their boys to be accepted.

    Parent

    She Will Make History, IMO (none / 0) (#13)
    by squeaky on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 03:05:28 AM EST
    The first girl to make it all the way to major league baseball.

    Parent
    Every ounce of me (none / 0) (#15)
    by nycstray on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 03:53:29 AM EST
    hopes like heck you are right.

    Parent
    Damn... (none / 0) (#17)
    by kdog on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 08:42:18 AM EST
    Thats awesome...my cousin once threw a 6 inning perfect game, all strikeouts...never went 4 years without a loss. Or threw a knuckler. I'm whipping out this article at the family reunion...I know my nieces will love it.

    She even has a sick baseball name...Chelsea Baker.  Keep sittin' 'em down kid, and don't let the haters get ya down.

    Parent

    We could have used her on our team (none / 0) (#19)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 09:16:54 AM EST
    this year...

    I assume she has just turned 13 as Little League rules says it is for 9, 10, 11 and 12 year olds. Some towns/cities split them by age, having one division for 9 and 10 and one for 11 and 12. Others do not, mostly because of insufficient number of players. But even there most leagues schedule games where the 9-10 year olds start and the 11-12 year olds fill in.

    I hope she does great in Babe Ruth next year and I hope the local league has had a "pitch count" and "innings pitched rule." Young arms are easily damaged and it is shameful for adults to let a child harm themselves. Same for letting kids try and throw curves and sliders as the wrist and elbow movement can cause harm.

    Little League is not about winning. Little League is about having fun playing and learning the rules of baseball and life.

    Parent

    Allowing kids that young (none / 0) (#22)
    by brodie on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 10:31:56 AM EST
    to throw non-knuckling breaking pitches is particularly a bad idea, from my experience.  Little League should ban the practice.  Probably BRuth League, too.  No reason for developing arms to be throwing such stressful pitches prior to well into high school.

    But the adults who run LL have a tendency to do whatever wins games -- that is still the predominate attitude in youth sports, unfortunately, and the kids' well-being takes a back seat to this notion of encouraging "competition".

    Parent

    Breaking ball pitches are (none / 0) (#25)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 01:33:28 PM EST
    banned in most leagues. Pitch counts and innings pitched limits also exist.

    Most coaches follow the rules. It is up to the peers of the ones that don't to call them out. That can be nasty.

    Parent

    Well, as to MLB, Pads have a day off (none / 0) (#5)
    by oculus on Mon Jul 26, 2010 at 11:03:32 PM EST
    before the dreaded Dodgers arrive in town.

    Jean-Michel Basquiat : The Radiant Child (none / 0) (#6)
    by squeaky on Mon Jul 26, 2010 at 11:25:12 PM EST
    Really great documentary. well worth seeing if you are interested in contemporary are and have lust or nostalgia for NYC in the late 70's and early 80's.

    The kernel of the film is a film interview done in 1985 by a friend of Jean Michele's. The 20 min or so interview is cut with vintage footage and current interviews of people who knew and worked with Basquiat. A tearjerker but incredibly inspiring.

    Here is the trailer and google...

    Well worth seeing if it comes to your city...

    Interesting man... (none / 0) (#18)
    by kdog on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 09:07:16 AM EST
    and insanely talented...thanks for the heads up on the doc.

    Also regarding NYC culture...Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs recently passed...another interesting and insanely talented cat that helped make NYC the place to be.

    Parent

    The Fugs were a phenomenon (none / 0) (#24)
    by jondee on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 12:23:53 PM EST
    fondly remembered also is Tuli's Fugs running buddy Ed Sanders who beat neocon bootlick Hitchens to the blasphemous, poetic punch years ago with his unforgettable opus F*ck God in the As* (the literary agnostic-atheist scene has been little better than a tame, negligible afterthought since).

    Restfully agitate in peace, Tuli.

    Parent

    25,000 Dead (none / 0) (#14)
    by squeaky on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 03:27:55 AM EST
    With at least 25,000 people slaughtered in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón hurled the Mexican Army into the anti-cartel battle, three questions remain unanswered: Who is being killed, who is doing the killing and why are people being killed? This is apparently considered a small matter to US leaders in the discussions about failed states, narco-states and the false claim that violence is spilling across the border.

    President Calderón has stated repeatedly that 90 percent of the dead are connected to drug organizations. The United States has silently endorsed this statement and is bankrolling it with $1.4 billion through Plan Mérida, the three-year assistance plan passed by the Bush administration in 2008. Yet the daily torrent of local press accounts from Ciudad Juárez makes it clear that most of the murder victims are ordinary Mexicans who magically morph into drug cartel members before their blood dries on the streets, sidewalks, vacant lots, pool halls and barrooms where they fall dead, riddled with bullets. ....

    Mexican soldiers seem immune to bullets. With over 8,000 Mexicans killed in 2009 alone, the army reported losses of thirty-five that year. According to Reporters Without Borders, a total of sixty-seven journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, while eleven others have gone missing since 2003. Mexico is now one of the most dangerous places in the world to be reporter. And possibly the safest place in the world to be a soldier.

    [The Nation

    I am still perplexed by the (none / 0) (#21)
    by KeysDan on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 10:09:54 AM EST
    7000 marines, 200 helicopters and 46 warships sent to Costa Rica early this month to 'fight the drug traffic'.  It is curious in several ways, from the logistics of that number of troops requiring that many warships for support to the stated agenda.

    Parent
    Nope, not a spill (none / 0) (#23)
    by Dadler on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 12:16:52 PM EST
    But we do get the occasional trickle (just a particularly ugly one) here in the far southwest.

    Link.

    The comments section, though brief, is almost more interesting that the story itself.

    Parent

    saw that yesterday (none / 0) (#20)
    by Capt Howdy on Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 09:18:20 AM EST
    pure gold