professorlarry

Pro golfer Dustin Johnson was denied a chance to participate in a playoff for the PGA Championship yesterday because he was penalized two strokes for grounding his club in a bunker on the 18th hole. It’s true that every sport has its rules, but many of golf’s anal retentive rules and strict enforcement of them lessens the value of the sport. Violations such as grounding a club in a bunker or failing to sign a scorecard have no effect on the playing of the sport itself. As I’ve noted in many articles in the past (see my Articles section), golf is not a real sport, since it doesn’t involve running, jumping, and other physical prowess. It’s more like a skill, such as darts, billiards, and shuffleboard. What is your opinion of this ruling and of golf itself?

President Obama’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs vented his frustration earlier this week against what he called the “Professional Left”, claiming that Liberals have not given President Obama enough credit for his job performance so far. Naturally, there was an outcry from the Left and some have called for Gibbs to be fired. I think that Gibbs’s frustration is warranted. Under Obama’s leadership, Congress passed the Stimulus Bill, which gave tax cuts to 98 percent of all Americans, the Health Care Bill, and financial regulatory reform, among other significant legislation. He’s accelerating the withdrawl of troops from Iraq, which was a campaign promise. He’s nominated two women Justices who should be fairly Liberal. He hasn’t been perfect, but Liberals need to be pragmatists. Obama gets zero cooperation from the Republicans in Congress, so he needs to get cooperation from moderate and conservative Democrats in order to get anything accomplished. Do you think that Gibbs was warranted in his criticism? Please comment below. (Photo from the Christian Science Monitor).

Dr. Laura Schlessenger, the loopy, obnoxious, conservative radio talk show host crossed the line earlier this week when she used the N-Word several times during a tirade about race. She’s apologized, but some groups have called for her to be fired. The incident has reignited a debate as to whether it’s ever OK to use the N-Word. I can’t stand Dr. Laura, but I think she should be given a second chance given the context of the incident. She was trying to make a point about use of the N-Word, not calling the caller the N-Word. She was totally wrong in using the word and hopefully she’s learned her lesson. I know that the N-Word pops up in rap lyrics and that some black people use it between each other, but it’s still wrong for white people to use the word given the word’s history. What do you think? Is it ever OK for white people to use the N-Word? Should Dr. Laura be fired for using the N-Word repeatedly? Please comment below (Please don’t say the full N-Word in your comment).

Ben Quayle, son of the worst Vice President ever, Dan Quayle (you say ‘potato’, he said ‘potatoe’), is running for Congress in Arizona. This week, he unveiled a TV ad in which he called President Obama the worst President in United States history. The potatoe didn’t fall far from the tree. Ben Quayle recently came under fire for running an ad that showed him as a family man with two kids, yet it turned out that the kids were those of a campaign staff member. It also turns out that he wrote for a porn site; this wouldn’t be a big deal except that he claims to be the pro-family values candidate. Maybe he could be Sarah Palin’s nominee for Vice President in 2016.

I know that Steven Slater has been deemed a Working Class Hero. He’s the Jet Blue Flight Attendant who flipped out on a passenger and then bolted down the emergency chute with a couple of beers after the passenger’s luggage struck him. He now has over 100,000 fans on Facebook and he seems poised to become America’s next instant celebrity, much like Joe the Plumber or the Octomom. Yes, many Flight Attendants are disrespected by customers, and Slater lived out many of our fantasies of venting against rude people, but he was still wrong. His discharging the emergency chute could have endangered the passengers and those on the ground. He faces up to seven years in prison for his actions, although that’s not likely. Everyone seems to love his rage in this situation, but his actions are no better than the woman who attacked a McDonalds employee and broke the drive thru window just because they weren’t serving Chicken McNuggets for lunch yet. Do you support what Steven Slater did? Should he serve jail time? Will you buy one of his Tshirts? Will he be on Dancing With the Stars next year? Please comment below.

Here is my latest Huffington Post article on the Joe Sestak-Pat Toomey race and how Toomey is not a moderate:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-atkins/sestak-needs-to-show-toom_b_675061.html

GQ Magazine recently ran an article alleging that when Kentucky Republican Senate Candidate Rand Paul was in college, he and a fellow member of a secret society kidnapped a female student and tried to force her to smoke pot. When she refused to smoke, they allegedly took her to a creek and forced her to bow down to the Aqua Buddha God. This seems like a scene from Animal House when Otter pretends to be the fiance of a dead coed named Fawn Leibowitz to get her friends to go out. This doesn’t help Paul’s image of being way out there, but then again, President Bush overcame his hard partying past and President Clinton overcame the fact that he didn’t inhale.  Most of us did things in college that were pretty stupid; when the Phillies won the World Series in 1980, I joined my fellow students in rocking a Septa bus and a police car. Fess  up; what stupid thing did you do in college or when you were young?

Pennsylvania U.S. Senate Republican Candidate Pat Toomey has been flooding the TV airwaves with commercials touting himself as a mainstream moderate and hammering Democratic Candidate Joe Sestak as being too Liberal for Pennsylvania. The problem with this is that Toomey’s voting record is as Conservative as former Senator Rick Santorum’s. Toomey’s pulling an old trick in trying to portray himself as a moderate. He’s even fooled Republican Moderate Senator Susan Collins into campaigning for him. Thus far, Sestak has had virtually no media presence in TV commercials. Hopefully, he’ll jump into action right after Labor Day. It was a brilliant TV ad against Arlen Specter that won the primary for Sestak, and they need to do the same against Toomey. There should be plenty of past Right Wing Extremist rhetoric by Toomey that the Sestak staff can find and then juxtapose it against his current deceitful attempt to portray himself as a moderate. Toomey is nothing more than Sarah Palin with cojones, to paraphrase Sarah. Come on Joe; start getting your message out. What say you?

Last night, the Philadelphia Phillies inducted catcher Darren Daulton as the 32nd member of their Wall of Fame. I have mixed feelings about this. On the positive side, he was the leader of the Phillies’ 1993 National League Championship team, was a three time all-star, played 15 years for the Phillies, was plagued by injuries, and gives the 1993 Phillies a representative on the Wall of Fame.  On the negative side, he only had a .245 lifetime batting average, had only two seasons over 65 RBIs and only two seasons with over 15 homeruns, had DUI and domestic violence issues, and has stated his quirky beliefs about the occult and that the world will end in 2012 when the Mayan calendar runs out. Do you think that Daulton should be on the Phillies Wall of Fame, or do you think they should be a little more selective as to who gets chosen?

Yesterday, a New Jersey Appellate Court ruled that parents who gave their kids Nazi names (Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, and Honszlynn Himler Jeannie Campbell) could not regain custody of them. The court didn’t mention the names as a reason for denying custody, but emphasized that the parents were unemployed, had been abused as children, were physically disabled, and had not received adequate treatment for their psychological conditions. Obviously, these parents have serious issues, but the Family Court had ruled that there was insufficient evidence that the children had been abused. I’m no defender of racist, hateful Nazi sympathizers, but I’m wondering whether the children’s names were a major factor in the judges’ reasoning. Would custody have been denied if the kids were named Peter, Mary, and Suzie? If you’ve been following this case, what are your thoughts? Do parents have a right to be Nazi sympathizing bigots and pass those beliefs on to their children? Should stupidity and bigotry be factors in custody hearings?