There’s nothing like a funeral to bring out the fakers, phonies and frauds.
At Joe Frazier’s funeral in Philadelphia on Monday, America’s Stage Hog, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, delivered one of the eulogies.
Jackson preached the too-little, too-late take on Frazier, the take that right-headed people held 40 years ago. Frazier, Jackson declared, never got the respect and admiration he so richly deserved.
Is that right, Rev. Jackson?
So where were you when it really counted? Where were you when Muhammad Ali mocked Frazier as “a gorilla?” Why didn’t you step to the podium then to censure Ali’s inflammatory and divisive condemnations of Frazier as “The White Man’s Champion?”
Frazier didn’t get the respect and admiration he earned and deserved? Really? Then where was Jackson when Ali verbally brutalized Frazier as a moron, and as an ugly, sub-human primate?
One other thing about Frazier’s funeral, attended by Ali, or what’s left of him, and Don King. The news/sports media, as always, reported that Ali is afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease.
Wrong.
Parkinson’s Disease, a monstrous act of nature, is what King, Ali’s primary exploiter and financial beneficiary, has long claimed is Ali’s affliction.
But Ali was diagnosed, and in middle age, with Parkinson’s Syndrome, which, while it mimics the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, comes from trauma to the brain, or simply put: getting hit in the head too many times.
People also seem to forget that Ali fought much too long, until one month short of his 40th birthday. Even before his final bout — terribly out of shape, Ali lost a unanimous decision to Trevor Berbick, a year after being beaten senseless by Larry Holmes — Ali had begun to mumble and stare blankly through glazed eyes.
People also forget that Ali sued King for shorting his purse.
King could not have prevented Ali from being afflicted with Parkinson’s Disease, but he might have prevented him from being hit in the head so many more times, years after it was time to quit, that he suffers, and mightily, from Parkinson’s Syndrome.
Yep, nothing like a funeral to bring out the phonies, fakers and frauds. Rev. Jackson on Monday had the congregation join hands as one. Let us prey.
Risque car dealer slams Paterno morals
Among the most outraged and outspoken by the Penn State pedophile scandal is former Penn State and Giants offensive lineman Brad Benson, who quickly and angrily distanced himself from his former coach, Joe Paterno.
On Paterno, Benson was quoted that “someone with a tremendous responsibility failed to fulfill his moral responsibility, and other people failed, as well.”
Well said, Brad! And now it’s back to the studio, where he can voice more of those obscene, any-time ambush commercials, those ads loaded with cheap, unfunny sexual gags, for his auto dealerships.
* It’s time for well-meaning people to stop reaching for naive, quick-fix remedies following scandals attached to big-time college athletics. It’s time to stop calling for school presidents to “get tough.” School presidents are hired, fired, hired for their ability to perform one primary duty: successfully solicit donations.
As long as the most moneyed alumni and boosters demand winning football and/or basketball programs, along with their midfield/midcourt seats, well, the rest isn’t hard to figure. Losing teams don’t sell tickets or TV deals, nor do they excite wealthy yahoos.
Be it a pedophile scandal, a recruiting scandal, or anything else that includes compromises, rationalizations and looking the other way, do as college presidents do: Follow the money; always follow the money.
* President Obama finance advisers should get a copy of the plan used by NCAA Division I athletic departments. While the academic side of collegiate institutions can no longer afford test tubes for the bio labs, let alone bio professors, their football and basketball programs continue to spend like Sheik Rattel en-Rohl.
California’s women’s basketball team flew in to play Rutgers on Sunday night, then flew back to California. That’s at least six private bus rides, a bunch of meals, a hotel stay and two cross-country flights — to play a college basketball game.
Berman fumbles at halftime
ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” continues to be a challenge, a test of one’s will to endure. Even the halftime show — more a dare than a show — makes more noise than sense.
At 17-0, Packers over the Vikings on Monday night, Chris Berman began halftime with this:
“All right, Michael [Tirico], thank you very much.
“Border War from Lambeau Field. Monday night in Green Bay always special, and glad to be with everybody. And I think that in addition to Aaron Rodgers’ good play, the Packers would be just as happy that they have the same number that they have allowed the Vikings — zero — as they have losses thus far on, ah, their record. Thirty minutes to go.”
Good grief.
* Shut up, and keep talking: Do you detect a pattern? It seems as if the local and national football media eagerly await Rex Ryan’s weekly mouth-offs, then, after the Jets lose, the same media admonish him, suggest that he shut up, already.
Then the same “Give us something, Rex” process is renewed the next week.
It’s kinda like the Mets, when they’re picked to be a .500 team. The same media who picked them to be a .500 team will rip them for being a .500 team.
* Tomorrow’s “Eddie Westfall Night” at Nassau Coliseum, will include Westfall and Jiggs McDonald, TV partners for 15 years and three of the Islanders’ four Stanley Cups, calling the second period of Bruins-Islanders on MSG Plus.
* So how are your Roger
Goodell “good investments” Jets and Giants PSLs working out? How many of you would jump at the chance to unload yours for just a 10 percent loss? Let us know.
* Kris Humphries has signed on with Old Spice to endorse a new line of men’s toiletries called “Rebound.”
* Funny bit Wednesday from Mike Francesa, how he accidentally brushed his teeth with his kids’ rash ointment, Desitin. Francesa: “How did it taste? Just the way you’d imagine it would.”
* Politics or sports, there’s always a media place for the caught and/or convicted to land. Former Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl has landed with Sirius/XM.
