Monday, December 27, 2010

Contador, Book of Year and the NFL Play-Offs…

Welcome back to the Update after a wonderful Christmas. With any luck, you received the gift of the season… Love. Not an iPad. Or a Mercedes. But those things were much more popular this year…

Some professional football players had great holidays. The Green Bowl Packers beat the New York G-Persons in embarrassing fashion, so far ahead by the fourth that the G-Persons couldn’t even collapse and cede 28 points in 8 minutes like last week. The NFC is clearing up, slowly, like the figure of a mysterious form emerging from some London fog. The Packers beat the Bears next week, and they are in the playoffs. The Eagles have essentially won the NFC with the G-Persons loss, though they will have to avoid a loss in their two remaining games, including the postponed tilt against the Minnesota Hyberboreans on Tuesday. The New Orleans Saints can clinch a playoff spot by beating the Falcons tonight, though the Dirty Birds are already decidedly 1) the best team in the NFC and 2) the winners of the NFC South.


The Return of Aaron Rodgers: Down with the G-Persons!

Over in the AFC, the Kansas City Chefs and the Baltimore Nevermores got in the playoffs yesterday while the Indy Young Horses (Young Studs, last year, merely horses after a mediocre season so far) won the AFC South in every aspect but the trophy yesterday whilst beating the Oakland Marauding Forcers. The Bolts are out of contention, but Phil Rivers’ adversary, Tom Brady is in. The Flying Elvii (named the Best Team In The NFL October 13th here on the Update) are in with home field advantage and free mochas from Starbucks, too.

In a short note, Mike Singletary has been fired by the Niners of San Francisco. Many fans noted he lacked the requisite flowers in his hair, and also performed poorly at the helm of the Bohunk’s sixth favorite team. The Niners are 5-10 this year, and were knocked from playoff hopes by the Rams yesterday. Singletary will return to his role of haunting retired quarterbacks around the country….


“I know I’ve mishandled by quarterbacks, defense and front office, but I’m wearing a cross
necklace, you can’t fire me!” said a dejected Mike Singletary…

Laurent Gbagbo, the entrenched and illegal President of the Ivory Coast, warns that any attempt to remove him from his role in government would certainly spark a deadly civil war. He claims he is the country’s true leader after quickly an election committee threw out thousands of votes for Gbagbo’s opponent, Allasane Ouattara last month. Both claimed the seat of power, but a loyal military force kept Gbagbo in office. International bodies like the UN and EU have voiced their desire for Gbagbo to step down, though none have gone as far as the contribute military backing. The supporters of each candidate are squared off and ready for war. A few hundred have already been killed in skirmishes. West African is pushing for the use of force to remove Gbagbo. More as this unfolds…

Julian Assange, the very Australian  and James-Bond-villain-looking founder of WikiLeaks, has announced that he will use the money from his book deal to pay for the costs of his legal defense. He will receive roughly $800,000 from the American publication and about the same from his British publisher, though it will gain more in serialization there. Very recently Assange remarked that WikiLeaks would not have the income to pay for site maintenance, legal suits and Assange’s personal lawsuit wherein he is charged with sexual assault. He may also be gearing up for an indictment by the US on terrorism and espionage charges. US diplomats have all been quick to throw around the “T-Word” with Assange, painting him in a more and exponentially increasing diabolic light. The Bohunk wonders if he could help figure out how to block spam, that’s really annoying…

To understand why people are so depressed in the world, the Bohunk throws up the following four headlines, then moves on in hopes of keeping his Dear Readers out of counseling…

“3 Dead in Afghan Car Bombing” ~ Voice of Amercia

“14 Children Killed in Chinese Road Accidents” ~ Voice of America

“At Least 7 Killed in Iraq Blast” ~ Voice of America

“Bus Crash Kills eight Americans in Egypt” ~ Fort Worth Star Telegram

President Obama is reportedly spending his holiday break “hanging ten” in Hawaii but also working to reconfigure is White House staff for 2011, and, perhaps more importantly, for 2012 and his re-election bid. Four or five changes have already been made, including bouncing Rahm Emmanual as Chief of Staff and replacing him with the gentlemanly reserved Peter Rouse. Obama has also voiced that intends to spend more time outside of the capital, leaving Washington to do some good ol’ fashioned politicking around the nation and giving his face and support to his causes. It will also serve as a long-term campaign platform to get his message out to voters well before 2012..Though New Hampshire has its first election meetings this July, over a year and a half from Election Day 2012. We have already suffered from Christmas Creep, and now, we have Election Creep with which to contend as well. Most of the candidates running in the primaries won’t even announce their intent to run until four or five months after the first New Hampshire election debates are held. Unless Sarah Palin announces early, argues against herself, loses, but wins by default….

Alberto Contador and the Case of the Tainted Spanish Beef will enter 2011 unsolved and on-going. No word out of the Spanish Federation on a Contador verdict yet, with Contador still suspended. The Two or Three time Tour de France champ tested positive July 21st for clenbuterol, and for the past four months has alternatively fought for his innocence and shrunk from the press altogether. He has been quoted as voicing his intention to retire if suspended, or racing all three Grand Tours in 2011 if he is not. He said he would not comment on accusations to the press until the case was resolved, only to comment the very next day. He is in his hometown of Pinto, Spain training and attended camp with his new Saxo-Bank Sungard squad with boss Bjarne Riis in the late fall. His old squad, Astana, signed Denis Menchov and fellow Bohunk Roman Kreiziger to replaced him and his Merry Band of Spanish Gypsies, like Navarro and Hernandez, who follow Contador about wherever he may roam. With any luck, this case will be resolved early in 2011…At least before Lance Armstrong’s final race at the Tour Down Under….


Two or three time champ Alberto Contador…Hence the thumb.

In other cycling news, Team RadioShack signed veteran and very Australian sprinter Robbie McEwen, a fixture in the pro peloton for the past ten years. A winner of the green jersey and many TdF stages, McEwen was left without a pro ride when Pegasus, an Australian project, did not receive a professional license from the UCI. Robbie McEwen and South African sprinter Robbie Hunter hopped alongside other very old cyclists Levi Leipheimer, Chris Horner, Lance Armstrong and others for the 2011 season. A special note: Robbie McEwen named his son, knowing how funny it sounds, Ewan. Ewan McEwen.

For the 2010 Book of the Year, the Bohunk broke it down into two categories, non-fiction and fiction, because, as we all know, one mustn’t compare apples with citrus fruit. The criteria was based on three components; Sales, reviews and topic. For example, the Bohunk looked at the ranking of the book, the reviews from different sites and the subject matter of Decision Points by George “Dubya” Bush and found it wanting in nearly every area, most pointedly, truth.

The non-fiction Book of the Year is The Warmth Of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. The Pulitzer-Prize winning Wilkerson put together one of the most well-written and accessible study of the migration of black citizens to the North over many years in the hopes of living a better life. Stories of individuals and the attitudes of a nation are discussed, and Wilkerson finds a perfect and respectful balance between the emotion and plight of the individual and sociological attitude and reaction of an entire culture. You can order it here from Barnes and Noble.

The fiction Book of the Year for 2010 is the hilarious Earth by Jon Stewart. The guise of a joking, almost sneering volume of Daily Show sarcasm does not cover up entirely the intelligence of the book itself. The premise is light; Stewart and his team made a book to tell aliens or the discoverers of the remains of the human race what humans were all about. Religion, politics, society and why it all is important….Nothing is left unscathed, and the faux-effort for explaining each is hilarious but reflective. It all conveniently fit into 256 pages and costs only $17 bucks on sale, here.

That’s it for the Bohunk, thanks for reading and please, be careful getting back into the grind this week….Ease back gingerly, and stretch. Nothing is so lingering an injury than a pulled groin.  

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