by John Walters

Starting Five

1. Snow Place Like Home*

*The judges will also accept, “STELLA! STELLA!”

Snow days like today in the Northeast allow you time to sit and ponder life’s great questions, such as: Why does ‘blizzard’ have two z’s but ‘lizard’ only has one, and how come you never see one where you see the other? Why do they call it a Nor’easter (because that’s the direction the wind comes from; I don’t know why they sub out the “th” for a “‘”; ask Billy Joel)?

President Trump reports 14 feet of snow at the White House, “the greatest snowfall of any snow fall ever”

2. Check Out The Balls on Those….Balls*

LiAngelo, Lonzo and LaMelo. Their pop, Lavar, is seeking $1 (Dr. Evil pinkie move) BILLION from a shoe company for their services

*The judges will also accept “The B Amigos,” and “Billion Dollar Babies”

Joe Jackson, Richard Williams, Earl Woods, meet LaVar Bell….

LaVar Ball planted his seed(s) between 20 and 13 years ago and now he’s finally ready to reap the harvest. “A billion dollars, it has to be there,” Ball told USA Today in an article published Monday, talking about the shoe deal he wants for sons and/or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Lonzo, LiAngelo and LaMelo. “That’s our number, a billion, straight out of the gate. And you don’t even have to give it to me all up front. Give us $100 million a year.”

And you need to build them a venue and call it Ball Arena.

LaVar is pissed after learning there’s already a school named Ball State

Is LaVar, who himself stands 6’6″, somewhat of an overwhelming stage dad? Consider that  Steve Baik, the coach at Chino Hills High, where Lonzo played last season and his two brothers now play, quit after leading the team to a 36-0 record and a California state championship. And Baik was named National High School Coach of the Year. He still resigned.

From the Orange County Register: “As LaVar remembers, “I told the coach, ‘Well you’re going to be known as the one who let the Ball boys get away. We can go anywhere. Trust me.’”

3. Ball, Ball Meet Bol Bol

I know you’re following the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) basketball playoffs, but for those who aren’t, you should know that in the Open division, the premier class of high school hoops in California, the Balls of Chino High are one win away from avenging their only in-state loss of the season with a semi-final matchup against perennial power Mater Dei. The Monarchs are led by 7’0″ center Bol Bol, who is yes, Manute’s son. He’s only a 17 year-old junior.

4. Wealthcare*

*The judges will also accept “Don’t Care,” “Designated Survivor” and “When Even Donald Trump Doesn’t Want His Name On It, You Know It’s A Steaming Pile Of Garbage”

Charles Darwin: “Insurance??? Do giraffes get insurance????”

I get that it’s easy to pile on health care systems, whether they’re proposed by Barack Obama (“Obamacare is a disaster!”) or Donald Trump (“14 Million More Unemployed, Tax Cuts For The Rich”). Here’s The New York Times‘ op-ed on the topic this a.m.

And I don’t have the answer.

I guess if I were Health Care Poobah, I’d say this: 1) Let’s cut the crap and we only pay for what you NEED to stay alive as opposed to what you WANT. So, yeah, if you have diabetes or you just got into a motorcycle accident, that’s what your health care is for, but if you WANT pre-natal care for your sixth child even though you and your partner don’t work, well, something’s gotta give.

Does that sound cold? Nature is cold (as our man above can tell you).

I don’t have the answer. I do know that medical care and what medicine can do has far outstripped our capacity as humans to afford it. I also know that more and more people are living longer, post-working years, lives. And being here a week in Arizona, where everyone drives as opposed to where I normally live, I’ve seen an alarmingly high rate of obese Americans (despite having the best weather in the country in which to exercise daily) as opposed to where I live, in New York City (sounds counter-factual, but it’s not).

It’s a doomed system: People living longer, living less healthy, and expecting the best health care that has ever existed. And who’s going to pay for it? “You, Lieutenant Winberg?!”

Eventually, we’re going to hit a WALL much more real and blunt than the one Donny wants to build on the Mexican border. Eventually we’re going to set the cut-off age at 70 and Logan’s Run everyone’s asses. And if you think it’s bad now, wait until they find the cure for cancer.  We ALL want to live and we all want access to everything that can make us survive as long as possible. Great.

Or maybe we should put Desmond Doss in charge of health care….

How you gonna pay for that? Are you going to put a massive financial burden on everyone? Are you going to cut military defense spending (One reason those other western countries can afford universal health care is because they don’t spend as much on military and one reason they do that is because Uncle Sam has their backs on that)?

We’re born. We live. We die. LIVE while you’re healthy. If you’re spending all day on Facebook and Twitter and talking about why Nick picked Vanessa over Raven, hey, that’s your choice. But all of us paying to keep you alive another 10 to 20 years….Well, nature has  the best way of dealing with that problem.

(Bring on the nasty comments.)

5. Don Denkinger Feels Your Pain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yjjf0bqllE

This video cuts off too soon, so we’ll never know if mass mayhem erupted after this call was made, whether that cute little boy standing up against the fence got a Snow Cone, what the umpire was reading in his left hand or if Tony Soprano and his entire family were murdered in the diner. We’ll just never know.

5-A. The Ceiling Is The Roof

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4ePqaBfWHY

It’s dated a week or two, but we never did cover the magisterial wisdom of Michael Jeffrey Jordan here. Speaking to the Dean Dome crowd recently at halftime of the Duke-UNC game in Chapel Hill, the greatest NBA player of all time told the audience, “The ceiling is the roof!”

Does this mean the Tar Heels are going to be playing in a dome? Or that UNC football is going to have an indoor practice facility? Is the roof, the roof, the roof on fire? Someone help me….

Music 101

Right Here Right Now

There was a time in the early Nineties when you could turn on FM radio and you could hear, right in a row, Spin Doctors, Jesus Jones, Extreme and EMF. Many people who experienced this began listening to opera or hip hop. This song flooded the MTV and was everyone’s favorite “Hey, The Berlin Wall Fell!” anthem. It was so nice to have eradicated fascism and authoritarianism in the West for good….while it lasted.

Remote Patrol

Mount St. Mary’s vs. New Orleans

Kansas State vs. Wake Forest

TruTV 6:30 p.m.

I’m flummoxed. I don’t believe in the whole play-in deal (nothing personal, Dayton), but it feels like this is the fourth “you won’t want to miss season finale” from NBC’s This Is Us. Kids, don’t ever grow up to be a curmudgeon. You can watch one or the other, I’ll be outside yelling at people to get off my lawn.

by Michael DePaoli

SANDERS’ XENOPHOBIA 

Non-Democrat challenger for the 2016 Democratic nomination Bernie Sanders (who blew the election for the Democrats by dividing the party and calling Hillary Clinton unqualified) (Ed. Note: Or, you know, maybe if Debbie Wasserman-Schulz didn’t manipulate the results of the primaries….potato, po-tah-to…) is at it, again. This time his target is the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi.

In an op-ed piece for The New York Times, Sanders makes the following attack against Sanofi: “Now his [Trump’s] administration, through the Army, is on the brink of making a bad deal, giving a French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi, the exclusive license to patents and thus a monopoly to sell a vaccine against the Zika virus.” Specifically, Sanders demanded that Trump “…make only the best deals on behalf of the American people…” (New York Times, March 10, 2017).

Thus, Sanders is up in arms with the Army deal because Sanofi is French and because Sanofi will make a profit.

If Sanders had hopped onto the Sanofi website, he could have discovered that Sanofi has a division called Sanofi Pasteur, which is the largest producer of vaccines in the World, which has its USA headquarters in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, and which employs three thousand people in the USA.

Also, if Sanders had taken the time to research the Zika virus, he would have found that it is part of the Flaviviridae family of viruses. Another disease in this same family of viruses is the Yellow Fever virus. And, can you guess which company is one of the largest producers of the Yellow Fever vaccine? Yes, that would be Sanofi Pasteur. Indeed, Dengue Fever and Japanese Encephalitis are also in the Flaviviridae family of viruses, and Sanofi Pasteur also makes vaccines for them.

Thus, if the Army wanted to produce a Zika vaccine as quickly as possible to save as many children as possible from developing catastrophic brain damage, then Sanofi Pasteur would be the obvious choice to help stop the nasty Zika virus.

Sanders (like Trump) does not take the time to explain the background facts. He just attacks.

TRANSFERRED AGGRESSION

(Ed. Note: This should have been the title of the last item, no?)

The trouble here is not just about vaccines. Bernie Sanders spews his socialist liberal aggression at a foreign company, but the aggression does not just stop at Sanofi. Today we target a French pharmaceutical company. Tomorrow we target Syrian refugees. The next day we build a wall on the Mexican border. Once you start going down the nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-capitalist road, there is no end to whom your next targets might be.

Like I argued before, Sanders’ primary victories in Michigan and Wisconsin conditioned the people to accept the radical and impossible Trump promises of more jobs, less taxes, and paying off the national debt. Likewise, attacking a French company because it is French

(despite the fact that such company employs three thousand people here in the USA) will condition the people to accept more and more xenophobia.

THE AMERICAN WAY

The great American experiment has been a success (so far) because throughout the American Revolution and the formation of the Constitution there were consistent ideological principles that guided our Founding Fathers. See, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, by Bernard Bailyn. The trouble with Sanders and Trump and their ilk is that they just rally up the crowds by spewing hate.

In order for liberalism to survive (the essence of the USA has always been liberalism), we must have measured and rational inquiries, and we must educate as many people as possible about truth and justice and fairness and the American ideology of equal protection and due process.

If Sanders might want to argue that Sanofi Pasteur was not the best choice to partner with the Army to create a Zika vaccine, and if Sanders might want to argue that Sanofi Pasteur did not earn the right to own the patents on its work, then let Sanders prove it with facts. Was there any American company that would have been a better choice to partner with the Army? If so, which company? Would this other company have been able to make the vaccine? Would this other company have been willing to invest its money on the project if it knew that no patent would be granted and if it knew that the USA would impose an anti-capitalist limit to the profits?

Bernie, please! You have caused so much damage to our county. Just stop. You wanted to give away free college education and free healthcare, but you do not want to allow a company to reap profits from its efforts.

by John Walters

A Region To Believe*

Instead of the usual ‘Starting Five,’ let’s take a closer look at America’s best sporting event (that would be even better if they cut it off at 64 schools), region by region

East

Oh no no no, don’t funk with Josh Hart

Top Seed: Villanova. Defending champs should play at least four games, all in state of New York (Buffalo, then NYC).

Sleeper: SMU. Ponies are 30-4 and have lost just once, by two at No. 22 Cincinnati, since December 1.

Who Got Boned: Duke. You can somewhat explain the Boo Devils not being a 1 seed, but   if that’s the case then they’re the best 2 seed. Instead, they get pitted against the defending national champs and arguably the top overall seed. Maybe after Coach K becomes more of a known quantity they’ll treat him with respect.

Best First-Round Game: UNC-Wilmington versus Virginia in a 5-12 matchup. The Wahoos looked lifeless against the Irish in the ACC tourney and a 12:40 p.m. start in Orlando isn’t exactly a stimulant.

Best Second-Round Game: Baylor versus SMU in an all-Lone Star State battle in Tulsa. Then again, if Duke meets Marquette, it’s Coach K versus Wojo.

Don’t Forget: Florida (4). Four of the Gators’ eight losses were to teams seeded third or higher and three were to Vanderbilt (a 9 seed).

Winner: Duke. I just like Luke Kennard and Jayson Tatum too much and Grayson Allen hasn’t even woken up yet. Frank Jackson is emerging, too.

Midwest

Will Jayhawk frosh Josh Jackson vandalize his team’s chances to make the Final Four?

Top Seed: Kansas

Sleeper: Michigan. Team Project Runway may take that “survive and advance” mantra all the way to Glendale.

Who Got Boned: Creighton, a decent 6 seed who looks like upset nip for 11-seed Rhode Island. Yes, there are two schools from Rhode Island in this year’s tourney (Providence; get your act together, Brown).

Best First-Round Game: Creighton-Rhode Island, despite the fact that it’ll be a 1:30 p.m. local start in the college hoops hotbed of Sacramento.

Best Second-Round Game: Louisville-Michigan in Indianapolis. Not a far drive for lunatic Cardinals fans, but the Wolverines are going to be crowd faves everywhere they go.

Don’t Forget: Vermont, a 13-seed, has nation’s longest win streak at 21 games.

Winner: I hate to go chalk with “Rock, Chalk,” but is Kansas really going to lose two games in Kansas City this month? They already lost to TCU in Big 12 tourney, and second weekend will be there, a veritable home game.

South

Wichita State Gregg Marshall on his 30-4 team’s 10-seed: “I’m just glad they didn’t forget about us.” Well played.

Top Seed: North Carolina

Sleeper: Wichita State. The Shockers are 30-4 with three losses to tourney teams and a fourth to the best at-large team not in the tourney (Illinois State). Didn’t these guys make a Final Four just a few years back?

Who Got Boned: Wichita State. A 10-seed. Between this and where Notre Dame (5) is seeded relative to Minnesota (also 5) and Florida State (3, in same bracket), I’m certain you and I could do no worse at seeding teams in the tourney. This one is the most egregious snub, and I don’t wanna hear about “scrubbing.” That’s a consultant’s term.

Best First-Round Game: Minnesota-Middle Tennessee State in a 5-12 game in Milwaukee on Thursday afternoon. The Blue Raiders took out Michigan State when they were a 2-seed last March in the opening round.

Best Second-Round Game: Wichita State-Kentucky. Remember 2014, just one year after the Shockers made it to the Final Four (losing to Louisville, the eventual national champ by 4), then entered the tourney 34-0 and the committee set them up with a 2nd-round game against Kentucky. It’s a deja vu F.U. from the committee. I like a pissed off coach Gregg Marshall as much as anyone. Gonna be tough to pull of that upset, though.

Don’t Forget: UCLA. The Bruins do have the nation’s top scoring offense, after all, and it’s the 30th anniversary of Steve Alford leading IU to its last national championship.

Winner: This is the glamour region, with blue bloods and blue uniforms UNC, Kentucky and UCLA. I’m going with North Carolina, and hoping Roy doesn’t pull Joel Berry Carroll for too long this time if he gets in foul trouble.

West

Markkannen hopes to make it a Finnish Four

Top Seed: Gonzaga

Sleeper: 4-seed West Virginia. It’s never fun to play the Mountaineers and there’s no good reason they can’t advance to the regional final.

Who Got Boned: Saint Mary’s. The Gaels, whose three losses since December 9 all came against Gonzaga, are only a 7-seed. And, they’re in the same region as Gonzaga. Thanks, much.

Best First-Round Game: Notre Dame-Princeton in the classic 5-12 upset special. The Tigers have won 19 in a row, but the Irish are an experienced bunch and have two starters from New Jersey. Thursday in Buffalo at 12:15, so we won’t have long to wait.

Best Player: Lauri Markkanen, Arizona

Best Second-Round Game: I want to say Arizona-Saint Mary’s (so say it!), but I’m going with the winner of Northwestern-Vanderbilt versus the Zags.

Don’t Forget: Northwestern. Kitties here after a 77-year wait. If you can, watch their game against Vanderbilt with alum Brent Musburger in Las Vegas.

Winner: Arizona. The Cats’ road to the Final Four in Glendale should just be I-10, but they’ll take detours to Salt Lake City and San Jose.

*****

Odds and Ends:

States with most teams: Florida (5)

Surprising Rep: Rhode Island has two schools in, as do the Dakotas.

Most present mascot: Wildcats (Arizona, Kentucky, Northwestern, Villanova)

Best First Weekend Site: Indy, which has potential Louisville-Michigan and Kentucky-Wichita State matchups.

by Michael DePaoli

John Ross (Is Boss?)

At the recent NFL combine in Indianapolis, John Ross, who played college football for the University of Washington, ran the 40 yard dash in a record-breaking time of 4.22 seconds, beating the previous record set by Chris Johnson who ran 40 yards in 4.24 seconds in 2008.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04qabU6DsZI

(Ed. Note: Didn’t we cover this last week?)

FROM CHINA: THE HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD OF THE UNITED STATES IN 2016. 

According to Xinhua News, China has issued a report titled “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2016.” The best parts of the report about the USA:

“Wielding ‘the baton of human rights,’ it pointed fingers and cast blame on the human rights situation in many countries while paying no attention to its own terrible human rights problems.” 

* * * *

“With the gunshots lingering in people’s ears behind the Statue of Liberty, worsening racial discrimination and the election farce dominated by money politics, the self-proclaimed human rights defender has exposed its human rights ‘myth’ with its own deeds.” 

China pointed out in its report that in 2016 the United States had 2.2 million prisoners, 385 mass shootings and 15,039 killed by gun violence. Also, the number of adults with full-time jobs is at the lowest level since 1983.

You can read the full report here.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2017-03/09/c_136115481.htm

TRUMP’S SECRET PLAN TO DEFEAT ISIS STILL HAS NOT BEEN REVEALED

The New York Times reports that the USA is sending 400 more troops to Syria to prepare for an assault on the ISIS stronghold at Raqqa.

Trump campaigned on his promise that he had a secret plan to defeat ISIS. But, now that he is President he has ordered General Mattis to come up with the actual plan. And, it appears that Mattis will just keep fighting ISIS with essentially the same plan that was implemented under President Obama.

Indeed, with Obama as Commander in Chief, ISIS lost about half its territory and about half its fighters. Trump lied when he said he knew a better way.

by John Walters

Starting Five

Practice Jerseys Make Perfect

After an aborted takeoff in high winds from an airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on Wednesday—a near-death experience—the Michigan Wolverines made their way to the Big Ten tournament in Washington, D.C. (yes, Washington, D.C.) on another flight. Wearing practice uniforms instead of their game jerseys, which remained behind in the fuselage, the Wolverines took down Illinois, 75-55.

Who knows how far the Wolverines will go in the Big Ten tourney or if they will make the NCAAs (at 21-11, probably), but here’s hoping they keep wearing those jerseys as a reminder of surviving that ordeal, at least until they lose (they won’t be allowed to wear their game jerseys until an inquiry into the accident is finished, I’m presuming because those jerseys will be remaining on the plane).

2. Down Goes KU

This is what happens when you don’t get frog protection

It’s “only” the conference tourney, but top-ranked Kansas lost to unranked TCU in Kansas City in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tourney. Yes, Kansas lost in K.C. to an unranked opponent. Wake-up call or omen? We’ll see. Will the Rock Chalks still land a No. 1 seed? My entirely too early list of No. 1 seeds include North Carolina, Villanova, Oregon and…………Kansas. Yes, Kansas. Sorry, Zags.

3. Nobody Wants Brock Osweiler, But He Still Gets To Keep His $36 Million

Two years ago Brock “Did You Know He’s 6’8″” Osweiler was a backup quarterback for the Denver Broncos, so he has a Super Bowl ring. A year ago yesterday the Arizona State product signed a boffo $72 million contract with the Houston Texans ($36 million of which was guaranteed), then was benched. Yesterday he was traded to the Cleveland Browns, so that Houston could clear his contract off their books, but the Browns are said to be cutting him.

Osweiler, 26, threw 15 TD passes and 16 INTs last year and had a 72 passer rating. Where will he end up next? Take the money and run, Brock. Take the money and run.

4. Hey, Sister, Soul Sister, Pole Sister, Go Sister

Tori and Lexi, or Lexi and Tori, Weeks

The Weeks sisters are not weak sisters. At this weekend’s NCAA indoor championships in College Station, keep one eye on Lexi Weeks and another on Tori Weeks. The twins, sophomores at Arkansas, could go 1-2 in the pole vault. Lexi was the NCAA indoor/outdoor champ and an Olympian last year while Tori has improved since then and beaten her sister four times this winter head-to-head.

Lexi

This is the same program that produced 2016 silver medalist Sandi Morris, so they know what they’re doing on the infield in Fayetteville.

The girls attended Cabot High in Cabot, Arkansas. There Lexis set the national high school record for the pole vault while Tori set the national indoor record in the same event. You’ll be hearing a lot more about them.

5. Marines Vs. Maureens?*

*The judges will not accept “Boobs on the Grounds” but will accept “Semper Creepy” and “Rotten To the Corps” and “Code Blue”

More than 30,000 active duty and retired Marines are apparently on private Facebook pages such as Marines United, which share explicit or nude photos of female military members. All four branches of the service are investigating how the Facebook group launched and just who knew about it, but can you court-martial an entire division or two worth of soldiers?

You may be asking, Why are there so many nude photos of women? And if you do, you’ll get a severe “No, u di-un’t!” so you best not is my advice.

Music 101

Looks Like We Made It

I consider this No. 1 hit from 1977 Peak Barry Manilow, the kind of tune that launched 100 Love Boat episodes. The late Seventies were the schmaltzy period America needed and deserved after the tumultuous Sixties and Watergate-scorched early Seventies. Barry Manilow represents this Aaron Spelling-Battle of the Network Stars-Up your nose with a rubber hose-Charlie’s Angels era as well as any artist. And every girl in my sixth grade class owned a copy of Barry Manilow Live.

Remote Patrol

Duke vs. North Carolina

7 p.m. ESPN

There’s no reason with its talent that the Blue Devils cannot make a run to the Final Four. The Tar Heels, if they win the ACC tourney, will likely (IMHO) deserve to be the No. 1 overall seed. This is as good a matchup as you could hope to see in a month in Glendale, Arizona. The two teams split their ACC contests in the past month, each winning at home. Have fun.