Starting Five

1. Justice, Once Blind, Is Now Also Tone-Deaf and Dumb

Not the new logo for New Orleans’ NBA franchise, in case you were wondering.

Meet Halliburton. Here is a ginormous wing of the Military Industrial Complex, who once had a CEO who later became a United States vice president. Recently Halliburton plead guilty to not only using the incorrect cement to plug the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that released 200 MILLION gallons of petroleum-based effluent into the Gulf of Mexico, but also of destroying tapes of the tests that were conducted with that cement beforehand –showing it was faulty.

Incompetence and destruction of evidence on about as massive a scale as one might imagine.

The sentence: A $200,000 fine, or roughly one-sixth of Peter King’s annual salary. Not that he does not earn it.

To Halliburton’s credit (three words I never expected to type), the corporation subsequently donated $55 million to fish and wildlife conservation. It’s as if even they were embarrassed by that penalty. Two hundred K is probably their monthly dining budget at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse in Houston, where they are based.

If only this were a promotional poster for “Multiracial Gay Couples In The Military.”

Meet Bradley Manning, who starred in none of the “Hangover” films, by the way. This week Manning, a five-foot-two U.S. Army private, was convicted on 17 of 22 charges concerning his having leaked reams of classified government information concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Colonel’s eleven herbs and spices (turns out it’s 10 herbs and just one spice! Who knew?).

While no one is downplaying the gravity of Manning’s actions, the people who are not downplaying it more than anyone else reside in the Justice Dept., which could send Manning away to prison for 136 years. The good news is, by that time, the effects of the BP oil spill in 2010 may finally be behind us.

Tangentially, here’s a thought –as Edward Snowden reads the Manning verdict and decides to put up curtains in his corner of Terminal D at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. Earlier this week the U.S. government also rejected an amendment that would make it mandatory that the NSA only spy on the phone records of people currently under investigation (as one congressman who was in favor of the amendment stated, quoting Benjamin Franklin, “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserver neither.” But, I mean, Ben Franklin, what did HE know?)

So what if he’s dead (or was Spitzeresque in his pursuit of the fairer sex)? Maybe we should be listening to this guy.

So, that amendment was rejected. Apparently, proponents of unadulterated domestic surveillance such as President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and pulchritudinous patriot Michele Bachman Turner Overdrive argue that by skirting the Fourth Amendment the government has foiled at least 50 international terror plots.

But here’s my question: In the continued pursuit of security at the expense of the United States Constitution, might our wise leaders in Washington be creating a new generation of domestic terrorists? Or anarchists? Americans who believe that their government has trampled upon their rights to such an extent that they are going to take justice into their own hands? I know, it sounds crazy. What American would ever launch an attack on the United States?

2. The Notre Dame-USC of Major League Baseball

Nicholson: You can take the boy out of Neptune, N.J., but you can’t…

Last night the New York Yankees visited Dodger Stadium for the first time since 2010. Did anyone care? Well, Jack Nicholson, Jay Z, Ice Cube, Mel Brooks and NBA stars Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul were just some of the celebrities in attendance.

Let’s note that the Dodgers and Yankees have met eleven times in the World Series (New York leads, 9-2), more than any other two franchises. That they inhabit the two largest metropolises in the United States. That the Dodgers and Yankees once shared a city for a longer period of time than the Yankees and Mets (or Dodgers and Angels) have.

All of which is to say that fans would be better-served by seeing these two franchises meet for a series annually, as opposed to being exposed to six games between the Yanks and New York Mets annually.

The Yankees and Red Sox may be baseball’s fiercest rivalry, its Alabama-Auburn or Michigan-Ohio State. But Yankees-Dodgers is its Notre Dame-USC. Two glamour brands with polar opposite fan bases who have more of an infatuation than a genuine hatred for one another. Let’s make it an annual thing.

3. Shea Allen Goes Champ Kind…and Pays For It

Shea Allen: Soon to be co-anchoring KTVU’s midday broadcast (bra-less!) with A.J. Clemente.

Last Friday Shea Allen, a reporter at WAAY-TV in Huntsville, Ala., had a very bad idea. Allen’s idea was to post an entry on her “personal blog” entitled “No Apologies: Confessions of a Red-Headed Reporter.” Soon after posting such items as “I’m frightened of old people and I refuse to do stories involving them or the places they reside” and “I’ve taken naps in the news car.”

In the immortal words of Ron Burgundy, Shea, “Maybe you need to sit the next couple of plays out.”

Because television/webcast/web media grows increasingly insipid, some observers are choosing to focus on the fact that Allen was fired for admitting that she often appeared bra-less on TV. I’d like to think that Allen was fired for being absolutely clueless.

Just because something is posted on one’s personal blog does not mean that every earthling with access to the internet –just a few billion souls — is unable to read it. The test for what one should write on social media, be it this blog or Twitter, is, Would you stand up at the 50-yard line of a packed Bryant-Denny Stadium and read those words into a microphone? If not, just don’t write it/post it.

Also, if you want to see how terrible media has gotten, watch this interview with Nancy Redd from “The Huffington Post” in which she is actually sympathetic to Allen’s situation. Also, the reporter uses the phrase “When the door’s knocking, you better answer it.”

Shea Allen is about to learn that a lot fewer people care about what she has to write on her blog now that she’s just another unemployed member of the media. WAAY was her forum, and she failed to respect that privilege. Another one bites the dust…

4. Texas A&M Tragedy

Paying the ultimate price for a lesson learned.

A single-car accident in a remote area of northern New Mexico (one can claim that all of northern New Mexico is a remote area, of course) has claimed the lives of Texas A&M redshirt freshman defensive tackle Polo Manukainiu and two others. The three friends, all from Euless, Texas, died after the vehicle began to drift off the road and then the driver, who survived, over-corrected the steering wheel, according to New Mexico State Police.

Ominously, and reminiscent of Declan Sullivan’s final tweet, Manukainiu’s final tweet read “22-hour drive back to Texas on no sleep –oh my.”

If in fact this is the tale of a driver falling asleep at the wheel, it sadly is a college football tragedy with which I am familiar.

5. The Oliver Twist

Actually, Jon, you may want to look over your shoulder.

Have any staffers at The Daily Show posted a photograph of Wally Pipp on Jon Stewart’s door yet? And have we passed the point at which that would be funny? Stewart’s understudy, John Oliver, has been tearing it up through the first half of his three-month run as replacement host. While we enlisted in Oliver’s Army immediately, it seems other members of the media are finally beginning to notice.

Last night’s opening segment was yet another brilliant spectacle for the goofy, cheeky Brit, whose jubilant tone is a stark departure from Stewart’s. What will Comedy Central do with Oliver when Stewart returns? They’ve unearthed a gem, and you know where unearthed gems do not remain? Underground. Not for long.

Reserves

As someone on Twitter –either Matt Goldich or Pour Me Coffee, I’m sorry I don’t remember — noted, “Fruitvale Station” stars Michael B. Jordan and Kevin Durand. It’s the NBA legend typo cast.

****

The NCAA has ruled in favor of incoming UCLA five-star defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes in his appeal to be released from his National Letter of Intent obligations in regards to Notre Dame. Translation: Vanderdoes will not have to sacrifice a year of eligibility and may suit up for the Bruins this autumn. There may be more to this than meets the eye, Domers, so as soon as I have more information I will share it. But, in terms of contractual obligations and penalties, the Irish may actually be at fault here. More news to come…

***

My new favorite ESPN reporter is Chris Hassel, who has gamely made the three-minute drive from headquarters of the Worldwide Leader in Bristol to Pine Lake, also in Bristol, to provide us with live stand-ups as the police search this body of water for one of Aaron Hernandez’s guns. I cannot wait until they dredge the lake and find Brett Haber.

Starting Five

1. Seems Like Old Times

Soriano in the 2003 World Series…

Whoever wrote “You can’t go home again” (Thomas Wolfe) never watched a baseball game. After all, every batter who scores starts and finishes there.

…and celebrating a home run on Sunday with The Captain.

Alfonso Soriano is also proving Wolfe’s maxim wrong. On Sunday the erstwhile New York Yankee had a walk-off single (and earlier in the game, a home run) to lead the Yanks to a 6-5 defeat of the Tampa Bay non-demonic Rays. Derek Jeter –The Captain — also hit a home run off the first pitch he saw after his latest return from the Disabled List.

Here is the remarkable aspect: Derek Jeter, Alfonso Soriano and Mariano Rivera (who pitched the 9th inning and got the win) all appeared on the same Yankee lineup card for the first time since Game 6 of the 2003 World Series, which they lost to the Florida Marlins. That was October 25, 2003, or roughly nine years and nine months ago. And if was Hideki Matsui Bobblehead Day, as the retired Japanese star also returned and donned pinstripes for a pregame ceremony.

And last night, the cleanup hitter for that 2003 Yankee squad, Jason Giambi, hit a walk-off home run for the Cleveland Indians. Giambi, 42, is the oldest player in MLB history to hit a walk-off home run.

Summer of 42: Giambi’s age

2. “Who Am I To Judge That Person?”

The pope, before takeoff, informing passengers that he cannot accept cash, only credit cards, for all alcoholic drinks.

Those seven words, uttered by Pope Francis on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Rome this weekend, were the most memorable uttered by a pope since John Paul I got his first look at the Vatican apartment and cried, “If this is poverty, I can’t wait to see chastity.”

Okay, maybe JPI did not say that. That’s just what KTVU reported.

Anyway, the most brazen follow-up in journalism history might have taken place if one of the papal press horde had asked Francis if he himself were gay, but who wants to be thrown from a plane that is 35,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean?

Good for Pope Francis for what he said. With an inordinate percentage of Catholic clergy being homosexual, it seemed foolish and hypocritical for the Catholic Church to be so hard-lined against it.

3. Are You Good With Tape and Cardboard Boxes?

Dude, may I borrow your masking tape?

Amazon announced yesterday that it is hiring 7,000 new employees. You have to love a country in which one of the most successful companies of the past 15 years manufactures almost nothing (outside the Kindle) itself.

4. Glorious Goodwood…

… is not a film that you will find on “HBO After Dark” but rather, as all Brits know, the highlight of the English horseracing season. And it begins today at the Goodwood Race Course in West Sussex, England, which sits along the English Channel. Goodwood is known as the most beautiful race course in England, but that is not what makes it peculiar. What makes it peculiar, at least to us colonists, is that the course is a six-furlong straightaway.

5. In Case You’re Thinking of Crossing Between Panama and Costa Rica

And the Rio Sixaola below is home to crocodiles and snakes.

This old railroad bridge is also an international border between Costa Rica and Panama. The planks are loose, too. And if an 18-wheeler happens to be crossing while you are, well, just lean against the fence.

July 29, 1983: National Lampoon’s Vacation

July 29, 1988: Cocktail

Say what you want about the 1980’s, but it had to be the greatest decade of all time for summer movies. The two R-rated movies above are summer movie classics, “Vacation” the family on-the-road Hall of Fame comedy that had Chevy Chase at his peak, Randy Quaid acting out his future, Michael Anthony Hall beginning a Shia Labouf like tear, Jane Krakowski getting her first credit, Christie Brinkley playing herself and a creepy young farmer kid asking, “you ever bop your baloney?” And it gave us a song that everyone now associates with their own family summer vacations. And John Candy. It spawned one classic sequal and a few terrible ones.

“Cocktail” is a movie that’s just as good with the sound down as up. Tom Cruise is having fun and when Tom Cruise is having fun (in movies, not on Oprah), we’re all having fun. There was a cry for Matthew McConaughey to get a supporting nod last year for “Magic Mike,” and he was good, but Cruise in “Rock of Ages” was just at another level of “I’m so freaking sweet that you can’t take it”. “Cocktail” is one of the best bad movies ever made, with beautiful people, awesome locations and good tunes. The fact that bartenders tried to do that shit around the country was one of the most embarrassing “80’s things” of the decade. Worse than Zubas. But if this doesn’t look fun, move to Russia.

— Bill Hubbell

The Annotated “Newsroom”

In which we attempt to identify and expound upon all the pop culture references from the latest episode of “The Newsroom” one day later. Here we take on last night’s “Willie Pete”, the third –and best, thus far — episode of the season. Great work by Grace Gummer (Meryl Streep’s progeny) and also by the woman playing Romney’s press attache, who you may recognize as Ari Gold’s paramour-or-less from “Entourage”.

We’re walking and talking…

1. “Go Corporal Klinger faster than you could put on a yellow taffeta picnic dress…”

Try wearing that to a Toledo Mud Hens game…

Our hero Will MacAvoy (Jeff Daniels), in calling out the cowardice of those who would boo a gay serviceman in Iraq but who would be afraid to serve themselves, references Corporal Maxwell Klinger (Jamie Farr) of M*A*S*H, prime-time’s first cross-dresser (p.m. upate: My bad. Milton Berle was prime-time’s first cross-dresser. How did I miss that?) . Klinger donned women’s clothing in hopes of being granted a Section 8, a discharge based upon the fact that he was nuts. Poor Max. If only he had known that all he needed to do was make out with Frank Burns…

2. “We’re like made men, we’re like Joe Pesci in ‘Goodfellas’…”

Sonny Corleone: This is what happens when you do not use EZ-Pass.

Will proceeds directly from a walk-and-talk with McKenzie in the episode’s second scene to a banter sparring fest with his boss, Charlie (Sam Waterston), in the third. Charlie references three notorious characters from the three most popular gangster films of all time (Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito in “Goodfellas”, James Caan’s Sonny Corleone in “The Godfather”, and Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in “Scarface”) and each time Will —who is Sorkin, gently correcting our errors– notes that all three of those characters met a bloody, violent end. “Have you seen any of these movies?”

Note: both Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino appeared in two of those three films.

3. “Was Don Quixote de La Mancha done with his mission to civilize?”

“Yeah, he died of being crazy.”

Spoiler alert! Thanks a lot, Charlie, for giving away the end of The Man of La Mancha. You really are the Sancho (Sancho Panza) in this relationship, which is exactly how Sorkin has cast you: the loyal but sardonic sidekick. Sorkin has overtly used the title character of this book –and the musical version of Miguel Cervantes’ work –as the model for MacAvoy’s mission. Which means that it is the impetus for Sorkin’s mission. See, he doesn’t just want to be Matthew Weiner, creating the best dramatic series of the 21st century. He also wants to be making us “an inch nicer.”

4. “You can fire the shot heard ’round the world…”

Oh yeah, and they did not refer to them as “walk-offs” back then. Do you see anyone walking?

Here Will embarks on his quixotic quest to persuade gossip columnist Nina Howard (Hope Davis) to NOT run a juicy iten on why he did not appear in ACN’s 9/11 10-year anniversary special. He is either alluding to the first musket blast from the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April, 1776, or Bobby Thomson’s pennant-winning three-run home run for the New York Giants versus the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951 at the Polo Grounds. The Giants trailed 4-1 in the bottom of the ninth in the deciding contest of a three-game playoff series to decide the pennant. Thomson’s blast off Dodger reliever Ralph Branca with one out provided the winning margin. Thomson would later say: “It was the best thing that ever happened to me. It may have been the best thing that ever happened to anybody.”

Notes:

A) New York actually trailed Brooklyn in the National League race — there were no divisions and the pennant winner proceeded directly to the World Series — by 13 1/2 games in mid-August before finishing 37-7 to tie Da Bums and force the three-game playoff.

B) The Giants literally crossed the Harlem River to meet their foe for the World Series, the New York Yankees (the two stadiums were within walking distance) but would lose in seven games, blowing a 3-1 series lead.

C) Thomson was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He had eight 20 home run seasons in a pre-PED era and made three All-Star teams.

D) The aforementioned game, which took place on October 3, was the first major sporting event televised coast to coast.

E) As noted, Thomson hit his epic shot to left field with one out. Had he struck out, the batter waiting in the on-deck circle was Willie Mays.

F) In the words of Cate Blanchett, “Wikipedia is a useful tool.”

G) This is not to be confused with “The Gar Heard ’round the World” (my coinage) from the 1976 NBA Finals.

H) We still think Will was discussing the launch of the American Revolution.  The phrase itself originated in a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson titled “The Concord Hymn.”

5. “What The World Needs Now is Love”

Will enlists a pianist to play Burt Bacharach’s 1965 classic about healing while wooing Nina. Wooing her not to print her scoop, that is. You could think of it as the title track/salve for the 1960s. Originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon, it has been covered by more than 100 artists (I prefer Dionne Warwick’s version). Also in 1965 Bacharach married Angie Dickinson, who was the hottest piece in Hollywood at the time. It was a good year for Burt Bacharach.

Angie Dickinson: If The Big Lead existed in the Sixties, they would’ve run this pic in The Roundup.

You may only remember the song from “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery”, in which Austin deploys Bacharach himself to perform it from the back of an open-aired limo as he and Vanessa Kensington parade down the Las Vegas Strip. However, those of you who are fans of Danish Zodiac porn comedy (you know who you are) may remember hearing it in I Jomfruens tegn.

6. “Mean Girls… Heathers” “Lord of the Flies.”

You may be more popular, but I will go on to make out with Ryan Gosling. Advantage, me.

As Will and Nina discuss gossip and civility, he tosses out two films about high school females being bitchy to one another. The first starred Winona Ryder and the latter starred Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. I was waiting for a “Bring It On” reference myself. Nina counters with a male analogue, “Lord of the Flies”, although that really does not fit. Will begins to correct her, but then realizes that here discretion is the better part of valor. Nice move, Don.

7. “I’m gonna own somebody/There’s gonna be a heartache tonight…”

Will interrupts the daily staff pitch meeting to ask, “Who the $%#* leaked the story to Nina Howard?” In so doing he references a 1979 song by The Eagles that surely no one on the staff would know…if they even know who The Eagles are.

8. “We all got pregnant by reading Lady Chatterly’s Lover.”

A 1928 D.H. Lawrence novel that was the “Fifty Shades of Grey” of its era.

9. “It happens in every road movie. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope…Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.. and you can be Dorothy Lamour.”

Jim, Grace Gummer and Drunk, Fat Guy (“Tequila!”) are sitting around a bar after a day of covering the Romney campaign when Drunk, Gat Guy suggests that Jim let down his guard some. “Road” movies have always been popular (“Midnight Run” celebrated its 25th anniversary last week), but the genre’s paragon are the seven Crosby and Hope films from 1940 to 1962 (Road to Morocco, Road to Zanzibar, etc.). You know what another terrific “road” film was? Dumb and Dumber, though I cannot seem to remember who starred in it.

Dorothy Lamour played the paraLamour-or-less (yes, I’m going to that pitch more than Mo goes to the cutter) of the two men, strictly PG. That was what the sarong reference.

10. “Find me an informed member of the Pajama Party…”

1964: What the world needs now, is lust, sweet lust…

McKenzie sure does know a lot of old American references for a Brit. Or maybe she’s just Canadian. Anyway, this is a condescending reference to Occupy Wall Street in which she is equating them to the gang of vapid youths from a 1964 beach party film.

11. “Will: We ride.”

I’m pretty sure this is another Don Quixote reference.

12. “They need us! Okay, who’s with me?”

Heeyyyyyyy, maybe just maybe it is JIM who is playing the role of Don Quixote de La Mancha. The scene on the bus in which Jim asks for volunteers to revolt is very reminiscent of the “O Captain! My Captain!” scene at the conclusion of Dead Poets’ Society, which I am sure that Sorkin wishes he had written.

And suddenly, as Jim, Gummer and Fat, Drunk Guy are booted from the bus, we have our “Road” movie.

Starting Five

1. The Tragedy of A-Rod

Alex Rodriguez, and the grin that hides the pain.

Robinson Cano takes cuts at pitches that his father throws at the 2013 All-Star Game Home Run Derby.

Derek Jeter’s father –and mother– attend more games at Yankee Stadium than many Little League parents do as well.

And then there is Alex Rodriguez, a third member of the New York Yankee infield the past few years who should have been a Hall of Famer (and a first-ballot Hall of Famer, at that), who has never had a relationship with his father. It shows in how A-Rod is constantly trying to win our approval while never confessing to any of his myriad sins, baseball and otherwise. Rodriguez has a pathological need to demonstrate to us that he is not at fault, or that he is doing the right thing, that he is perfect.

And as the evidence consistently piles up at him that he is far from it –whether the New York Post splashes a photo of him entering an elevator with a buxom blonde while he was still married, or if MLB pummels him with Biogenesis evidence — Rodriguez still refuses to face the music.

Refuses to acknowledge: I cheated. Because who will love him if he does that? I’m just a poor boy/Nobody loves me. )He’s just a poor boy/From a poor fa-mi-ly.)

It’s a sad tale.

Arizona Diamondback pitcher Patrick Corbin, just 23, is 12-1 in his first full season in the majors.

Dodger rookier Yasiel Puig is a beast.

The Pittsburgh Pirates don’t suck!

And all we talk about this season is Alex Rodriguez, who has yet to have an at-bat. Because we don’t watch sports, we watch PEOPLE playing sports. And A-Rod is the ultimate Shakespearian tragedy writ large on a diamond.

Bob Nightengale of the USA Today says A-Rod will never wear pinstripes again, an assertion I’ve been making since last winter. And I still believe it after the events of the past 24 hours. The Yanks, by pushing back his rehab assignment to at least August 1, are buying time for MLB to suspend him.

2. John Oliver is NOT Boron Us

John Oliver: The true English prince of the Summer of ’13

Last night’s episode of The Daily Show — my only MUST WATCH program — featured a blistering opening segment about, I’m sorry, the bullshit that Goldman Sachs is perpetrating. In brief, GS owns aluminum storage warehouses and it also has the ability to bet vast sums of money on commodities futures. Do you see where that may be a conflict-of-interest? If you do not, then watch the segment.

Also, if you ever wondered how intellectually dishonest Fox News can be, their business analyst, Charlie Gasparino (a frequent guest at the steakateria who treats the staff with respect) claims on-air to not be able to understand the skullduggery that GS is pulling.

Geez, this is classic, classic stuff. I’d invite Oliver and his serfs to send this in as their Emmys reel, but they’ve done half a dozen pieces this solid in his brief interregnum. Brief, but glorious.

Also, my man Jeff Bradley’s big brother, Bob, the soccer coach of the Egyptian national team, makes an appearance later.

3. The Young and The Penniless

“Glory days, they will pass you by…” (that’s your author just off Young’s left wrist band)

The shameful aspect of Vince Young being bankrupt isn’t the fact that only seven years earlier he signed a contract that guaranteed him $26 million. The shameful aspect is that on top of that he took out a $1.7 million loan.

And now the former Texas quarterback, one of the best players (if not THE best) to not win a Heisman Trophy in the past decade, is flat-broke. And must auction off most of his stuff.

4. “At the Pope-a, Pope-a-cabana, the hottest priest south of Havana…”

Waves of people meet waves of water. I’ll take the ocean minus the points.

How can you not love Pope Francis? This pontiff knows how to party, throwing a massive, well, mass at Copacabana Beach in Brazil. Let’s continue this tour with stops in Cabo, Manhattan Beach and an Ash Wednesday service amidst the flotsam of empties on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

Impressive, but let’s see the replica of St. Peter’s Cathedral.

Francis: The pope who’s dope!

5. Blood on the Tracks

Garzon: Going off the rails on a crazy train.

In the words of another man with a thick Spanish accent, the driver of the high-speed train (KTVU is identifying him as “Speedy Gonzalez”) that crashed in Spain, claiming 78 lives, “has some ‘splainin’ to do.”

It seems that the driver, whose actual name is Francisco Jose Garzon de Amo, boasted on Facebook of the excessive speeds at which he enjoyed driving his choo choo.

“Facebook: the rope that lets you hang yourself.” (That should be it’s new motto.)