Funny Stuff from The Onion

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The Best Weather of the Year...

...Is coming up here in Portland in the next week.

We can hardly wait to turn our bodies from pasty white to slightly off white/tan. Cool!

New York Times Op-Ed on AA

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News To Us: Companies are now Requiring That Applicants Already Have Jobs

See here at The Onion

College Basketball Recruiting is a very IN-Exact Science: Note the 2010 NBA Draft

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Note that Wesley Johnson was a two star recruit coming out of prep school and wound up becoming a high lottery pick. A two star recruit is typically a kid that high major schools have their pick of, and will only take for a specific need. Having this young man develop into a future pro shows that no matter what anyone tells a high school player good enough for college, they can and should dream their dreams of future glory. Though the odds of becoming an NBA player are surely long, they are not insurmountable. Look at some of the others kids drafted early this year and you'll see that though most were highly thought of as high school players a large number of them became great only after their bodies matured at the college level. Nothing is impossible.

Roll-Up Computers? Coming Soon

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New Facebook Photo Album

From the staff's weekend excursion to South Orange, NJ to have a "two for the price of one" birthday party with our cousin Jen and her family.

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Our Brother Ed's Photos

Great stuff!

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Fabulous, Fabulous NHL Ad

Here

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That's as moving an ad as we've ever seen.

Sons of Sam Horn Discussion of Red Sox Third Base "Coach" Tim Bogar's Problems Thus Far This Year

Here

We haven't watched enough games to have an informed opinion on the guy, but if SoSH says he's bad, he's probably pretty bad. Expect a move of some sort fairly soon by the Sox management.

Book We're Reading: "The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron" by Howard Bryant

What a terrific read early on. This is a REAL book: a serious book about a compelling subject, written by a very talented and opinionated African-American writer familiar to Red Sox fans for his outstanding "Shut Out", concerning the racist history of the Yawkey ownership.

We here at The 'Pent are so very excited to delve into this one. It's long, about 550 pages or so, but compellingly and charmingly written thus far (we're about 50 pages in).

Henry (not "Hank", at least to his friends) Aaron was, for many years, the home run king of baseball. And we would guess that, at least for younger fans of the game, that is as far as their knowledge of the legendary slugger goes. But there is so much more to know and to learn: Aaron apparently never even graduated from high school while growing up in segregated Mobile, Alabama. He played in the frigging Negro Leagues, for crying out loud, and was the last Hall of Famer to play in that historic era. He had to deal with the racist southern "gentlemen" that destroyed so many millions of lives, both black and white. And so much more.

Can you imagine growing up in a world where just looking a white person in the eyes could get you reprimanded, and where a comment lacking the proper "Sir/Maam" could get you whipped, and a whistle to a white woman could get you killed? We have a hard time imagining this, but that was the childhood and early adulthood of Aaron. What must it have been like to be a boy in that world, especially for someone as lacking in driving intellect as Aaron?

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"The Last Hero" looks to be the book we'll remember most from this summer, though we have yet to get to "War" and "The Bridge."

Remy and Orsillo: Where's the Love of the Game?

Last night (or this morning, for folks like me who use their DVR), word came in during the Sox v A's game that Ken Griffey Jr. had retired. And the only response from Orsillo was that the Mariners had been a disappointment this season.

What? Excuse me? One of the greatest players in the history of the game leaves it and you have no comment (Remy) or a useless throwaway line about the M's (Orsillo)? What?

Junior is one of the greatest players to ever play our national pasttime, and was almost certainly, and thankfully, drug free. He retires with 630 home runs and a million memories for fans of all ages, especially for those of us old enough to remember him breaking in at 19 with Seattle and setting the league on its collective ear with his jaw dropping athleticism and joy for the game.

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Just another example of why Remy and Orsillo have, apparently, no passion for the game, no love of its history and day to day dramas, and are a total snooze. Really, no one cares about Remy's desire to get back to his hotel room as quickly as possible following the last out. And Orsillo? The next interesting thing said by that dude will be the first.

Wow.