by John Walters
Starting Five
Gone Carlo!
You’ll be happy to know that the New York Yankees are overdogs again and perhaps it’s okay for those of you outside a 25-mile radius of the Grand Concourse to loathe them once more. Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run in his first at-bat in pinstripes road gray, and added a second bomb in the ninth. Yankees win, THEEEEEE Yankees win!
Brett Gardner added a home run. That’s 3 on the season. The Major League team record for one season is 264.
2. Blast Off*
*The judges will also accept, “Happ Happens” or “Happ Days Are Here Again”
First pitch, first game of the entire Major League Baseball season, and Chicago Cubs leadoff hitter Ian Happ deposited it into the right field seats at Marlins Park. If it feels as if Miami’s season is already over, it is.
3. The Song Of David
Ingraham has since deleted this tweet
Marjory Stoneman-Douglas High School senior/mass shooting survivor David Hogg has a 4.2 GPA and yet four colleges rejected him (I wonder if any of them are rethinking that). So Fox News harridan Laura Ingraham tweets that out; yes, a woman with an estimated worth of $70 million is trolling a 17 year-old shooting survivor.
Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #
Top Laura Ingraham Advertisers
1. @sleepnumber
2. @ATT
3. Nutrish
4. @Allstate & @esurance
5. @Bayer
6. @RocketMortgage Mortgage
7. @LibertyMutual
8. @Arbys
9. @TripAdvisor
10. @Nestle
11. @hulu
12. @Wayfair— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) March 29, 2018
Hogg fights back, tweets the sponsors of Ingraham’s program and asks followers to contact them. By day’s end, four have dropped her show. Ingraham then tweets out a non-apology, without acknowledging she was wrong, which is the fundamental aspect of an apology.
Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David…(1/2)
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 29, 2018
For the record, Hogg was rejected by four California state schools: UCLA, UCSD, UCSB and UC-Irvine. He was accepted at Cal State-San Marcos, Cal Poly, and Florida Atlantic.
David: Take a gap year (and a job as a correspondent at MSNBC or CNN).
4. Eye of the Cheetah
Someone is going to need a change of undergarments when the jeep returns to camp.
5. Hart-Breaking
Lower right
Kept thinking about the tragedy of the Hart mothers driving off a cliff in northern California earlier this week with at least three—and quite possibly all six—of their adopted children in the vehicle. And this happened not long after Child Protective Services in Washington made a third visit to their home in one week.
And while we sincerely hope this was an accident (there were no skid marks on the side of the road, and no witnesses), we were reminded of the closing scene from Harold and Maude. That’s how quickly it can happen and how destructive it is. Their vehicle, too, landed upside down (the difference is that no occupants or banjos jumped out at the last second).
Remote Patrol
Women’s Final Four
UConn vs. Notre Dame
9 p.m. ESPN2
Facts: UConn has won 147 of 148. Notre Dame has handed the Huskies seven of their 13 defeats in the last nine-plus seasons. Huskies have Katie Lou, Notre Dame does not.
For Laura Ingraham and others in the business of provocative political commentary (mostly on the right), there are no insults too craven, no targets too victimized — until their own financial interests are threatened. Then it’s a non-apology, a brief wait for other sponsors to fill the void (and they will), and then it’s right back in search of the next target.
By the way, Mr. Hogg learned what many non-Californians who have applied to UC schools in the last 10 years already know — if you aren’t willing to pay full sticker price, you probably aren’t getting in. California’s unique funding set-up for its state schools has squeezed even Golden Staters. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/12/californias-higher-education-crisis/418293/
Princeton, by the way, accepted only 5.5 percent of its 35,370 applicants this year, but did find a spot for one Californian who attended high school online. It helps to be a gold medalist. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/chloe-kim-accepted-princeton
One of my favorite movie scenes. Harold puts a penny in one of those penny crushers at an arcade and gives it to Maude. She takes it and tells Harold she will always treasure the gift and then she tosses it in the water. Confused, Harold questions Maude as she said she would always treasure his gift. She replied I will but now I’ll always remember where it is.