Rick Pitino is a reprehensible waste of protoplasm

By Rick Morris

“Everything that’s been printed, everything that’s been reported, everything that’s been breaking in the news on the day Ted Kennedy died is 100 percent a lie, a lie ... all of this has been a lie, a total fabrication of the truth.”

So now, after last week's fake sincerity and humility at a news conference, the greasy, sordid liar known as Rick Pitino ripped off his mask and bared his fangs to the world. Apparently pretending to be sorrowful for your sins is harder than winning a national championship at Louisville -- oh, wait, he hasn't done that, either.

I was half-expecting him to break out with: "You want credibility and humanity? Well, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer are not going to come walking through that door!!!"

Apparently he expects the media to take the word of somebody who continuously lied about putting his family first when he was willing to risk a little floor dust on his ween with a local skank. I'm shocked, shocked that nobody is taking his word as the literal truth on what really happened.

The offensiveness of his arrogant attitude aside, I'm not even condemning him so much for his two-timing behavior -- let he who is without sin, yada yada yada -- although sticking to the "sackcloth and ashes" routine for the sake of his betrayed family would have been entirely appropriate. No, my anger arises not even from the act itself but from his gutless response to the consequence of it.

Rick Pitino paid for, and directed through his actions, the violent dismembering of his own unborn son or daughter as a cowardly attempt to cover up his actions. This, this is what makes him so truly vile.

People of character and worth do not scapegoat the helpless and innocent for their own mistakes; they rise to the occasion and show the best of themselves as a means of cosmically rectifying the situation. This so-called devout Roman Catholic instead chose to let his own offspring become a three-point shot into a garbage can at an abortuary.

My new favorite college hoops team is whoever is going up against this pathetic doosher on any given night.

FDH Lounge News Nuggets

By Rick Morris

Our "News Nuggets" segment on our FDH LOUNGE program generally addresses minor topics, or sometimes wacky ones, in detail that is brief relative to our discussion of other matters. This "News Nuggets" column is going to be a bit different, as factors relating to the overall FDH family (primarily keeping our pimp hand strong during fantasy baseball season) have kept me from opining here as much as I would have liked over the past two weeks -- but I do want to put my two cents in on the following topics:

^ Eliot Spitzer -- what goes around ... ew, I'm not going to finish that sentence given some of the connotations some people could put there! But this jerkwad slimed Richard Grasso and others on Wall Street, preferring to hypocritically try to blackmail them using their alleged sexual misadventures as part of his grandstanding campaign to advance himself. Now I'm supposed to feel sorry for him now that he's got a "problem"? Nah. I do feel badly for his daughters and yes, for his wife, notwithstanding her decision to accompany him in front of the cameras instead of walking away like he deserved (BTW, may I say Mrs. Spit is looking fine for her age and I'm sure there'd be a long line of guys looking to cheer up this "Mrs. Robinson" if push comes to shove). Now he suffers more humiliation as we learn that he likes to keep his black socks on, uh, "during." Wow. Pardon me while I get some turpentine and try to scrub my brain of that mental image ... OK, I'm back now with one more note. Apparently Hollywood Wackjob Par Excellence Alec Baldwin worshiped this guy and thinks America's going in the crapper now that he's been marginalized. He also notes that prostitution is wrong because "every prostitute is someone's daughter." I'm actually touched that Baldwin took five minutes out of his busy schedule (which, ironically, seems to consist largely of working towards driving his own young daughter to a career "on the pole" by screaming at her about her alleged bovine tendencies) to break off that particular bit of Captain Obvious wisdom.

^ Planned Parenthood's real agenda is snuffing out black babies. The heck you say! The same folks who revere their founder, Fascist Racist Extraordinare Margaret Sanger? Evidently, things haven't changed much since Sanger was founding their little baby-skull-crushing enterprise:

"Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing those she designated as 'unfit,' a plan she said would be the 'salvation of American civilization.' And she also spike of those who were 'irresponsible and reckless,' among whom she included those " whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers." She further contended that 'there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped.' That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment of Sanger considered 'unfit' cannot be easily refuted.

She wrote: 'We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.'"

Whoopsie Margaret! All these years later one of your peons let the cat out of the bag about your extermination agenda. Sucks when that happens, eh?

"Donor: Wonderful. I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group - would that be possible?

Kersey (Planned Parenthood employee!!!): Absolutely.

Donor: Like the black community for example?

Kersey: Certainly.

Donor: OK, so the abortion -- I can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the purpose.

Kersey: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that you wanted your gift to be used to help (an) African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that that gift was earmarked specifically for that purpose.

Donor: Great. Because I really face trouble with affirmative action, and I don't want my kids being disadvantaged, you know, against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name, you know.

Kersey: Mmhmm, absolutely.

Donor: So that's definitely possible.

Kersey: Oh, always, always.

Donor: So I just wanna - can I put this in the name of my son?

Kersey: Absolutely.

Donor: Yeah, he's trying to get into colleges, and he's going to be applying, you know, he's just -- we're just really big -- he's really faced troubles with affirmative action.

Kersey: Mmhmm.

Donor: And we don't, you know, we just think, you know, the less black kids out there the better.

Kersey: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable. ... Um David, let me, if I may, just get some sort of specific general information so we can set this up the right way. You said you wanted to put it in your son's name, and you would like this designated specifically to assist (an) African-American woman who's looking to terminate a pregnancy.

Donor: Exactly, and yeah, I wanna protect my son, so he can get into college.

Kersey: All right. Excuse my hesitation, um, um, this is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited, and I wanna make sure I don't leave anything out."

Well, at least the media's been pretty quiet about it, ensuring that the populace remains in the dark about what a holocaust that "choice" really is.

^ The NCAA is officially more cynical than any politician anywhere. We see now what CBS gets for its 58 gajillion dollars for the NCAA hoops tournament. Mayo v. Beasley in Round One of the brackets? Bob Huggins facing his ancient rival Xavier for a shot at the Elite Eight? Georgetown happening to draw the little sister just up the road for the first round sacrificial lamb? A first round battle of very different sentimental favorites in Notre Dame and George Mason? This entire event is tainted by the fact that it is explicitly made-for-TV in the sense that logical matchups and fair seeding are going to be cast aside for whatever the puppets on the committee think is going to move the Nielson ratings. Say what you will about Vince McMahon, and I've buried him consistently, but at least he's honest about what his enterprise is.

^ Speaking of the tournament, Bobby Knight has yet to choke Digger Phelps out on camera. Fortunately, we've got two weeks to go ...

^ Winners win and losers make excuses. The Detroit Tigers have, predictably, signed their new young franchise player Miguel Cabrera to a megabucks deal that will keep him in town well into the next decade. Meanwhile, my Cleveland Indians are engaging in a season-long goodbye wave to C.C. Sabathia. And people wonder why I may sound bitter from time to time ...

^ So now Hugh Hewitt is pushing Mitt Romney for V.P. Who saw that coming? I'd watch my back if I was McCain, though, because if that ticket wins in November, good old Uncle Hughey is going to be perched in the crow's nest on Inauguration Day with a poison blowdart aimed right at JM's carotid artery.

^ Speaking of poison blowdarts, I wouldn't put my "thoat" anywhere within firing distance of Hillary these days if I was Bill Richardson. What a greasy, back-stabbing opportunist -- and surprise, he doesn't side with the Clintons!

^ Obama's pastor hates Whitey. Obama himself throws his grandma under the bus to make him look better by comparison. Whoever said campaigns teach us nothing about the candidates for office?

^ So now Steven Spielberg, Nancy Pelosi and other moral posturers are doing their full-blown "Mr. Mackey routine" at China: "Mmmmkay, genocide is bad, mmmmmkay?" Call me cynical if you must, but I can't see any of these buffoons standing up to an Islamic terrorist threatening our country in the same way -- or standing up for the rights of (those darn intolerant and judgmental!) Christians in the same way. But now that China is oppressing Buddhists -- conjuring up the image of helpless, peaceful fat bald guys rubbing their bellies as ChiCom tanks plow them over -- well, hey, now it's time to take a stand! Gimme a call the next time any of these assclowns raises a peep when a Jewish woman and her family gets blown to bits by a homicide bomber in Israel ...

Man-Hating for fun and profit

By Rick Morris

For those who like to follow the Lefter-Than-Mao antics of Ohio's First Couple of the Proletariat, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and his bride, perennially shrieking Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz, this week was a doozy.

Her typically hysterical column this week featured the fact that some hotel gift shops are selling a "Hillary Clinton nutcracker" with metal spikes between her thighs. It was hilarious in usual Connie fashion, which is to say it was completely unintentional on her part. While I am a big critic of many Dubya policies, I must say that I await with baited breath Connie's denunciation of novelty items such as a "FUGWB" bumper sticker. Or maybe I shouldn't hold my breath after all, given the nature of the Brown-Schultz family, which seems to regard the blood of unborn babies as a sacrament, Fidel Castro as the foremost religious icon of our time and the razor as part of a ginormous patriarchal plot against wimmins everywhere.

My Thoughts on the State of the Union Address

By Tony Mazur

In his eighth and final State of the Union Address, President Bush came out firing, flared nostrils and all.

I'm not a big fan of the non-stop applause breaks (there were roughly 70 of them). But when you look into the crowd from the overhead camera, you can see the divided room. The Republicans are standing and clapping, while the Democrats sat there, nodding off like Bill Clinton at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Ceremony.

Anyways, onto my thoughts.

President Bush brought up the fact that elementary school students are scoring higher on test scores than ever before. That includes African Americans and Hispanics. Democrats ripped on the president, saying the No Child Left Behind Act was a waste of time and money. It appears to be working now, isn't it?

Another topic was the Patriot Act. Since September 11th, 2001, there hasn't been an attack on American soil. We can thank the Patriot Act for that. There has been attempts to attack Los Angeles and other major cities in the United States, with no success. They tapped the terrorists' phone lines to stop the attack before it even started. They weren't tapping Joe Blow's cell phone in Middleburg Heights, Ohio. And if they were, what do you have to hide?

I'm glad Mr. Bush brought up the fact that we can find stem cells without aborting babies. You can find stem cells anywhere, not just from an unborn fetus. Us conservatives were all about stem cell research. We just didn't want to kill babies to do so, and we also do not want the federal government funding the research.

Can we start drilling for oil in America? Can we?

I only questioned a couple of parts in President Bush's speech. One of them was global warming. Global warming is a non-issue. Unless you can convince China to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being released, don't waste your time. Not surprisingly, the Democrats stood up and cheered loudly when the term "global warming" was brought up.

The President brought up an interesting stat. More than half of the World's food aid comes from the United States. I understand that we are global power, but can we stop being the global police? AIDS is running rampant in Africa, and it won't stop no matter how much money you send overseas.

I'm still not completely happy with President Bush's stance on immigration. I'm all about bringing Mexicans into America to give them jobs, but they should go through an extensive process before receiving a green card. Either they take these strides, or build a giant wall on the banks of the Rio Grande.

I personally think the recession is a bit phony. Just throwing that out there. Tell me what you think.

All in all, I think it was a good speech. President Bush has less than a year left in the White House until he hands it over to the next gentleman. His approval rating may be low right now (who regulates the approval ratings, anyway?), but I feel that in the next 10-15 years, George W. Bush will be vindicated as a great president. Wait and see.

Movie review: Juno

By Rick Morris

Reviews for the new Jason Reitman movie JUNO have been outstanding; it presently rates an astounding 93 on Rotten Tomatoes. These great recommendations are entirely appropriate. JUNO is an excellent movie and could well go down as one of the year’s best.

When describing it to a friend, I described it as a darker NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. While imperfect, that’s the best succinct description I can give for this film. It has the quirky indy-ish feel of DYNAMITE and some of the same weird-but-funny dialogue, but the subject matter of teen pregnancy is infinitely more serious than anything in the earlier film. Speaking of the dialogue, a minority of reviewers have found it off-putting because of the quirky nature of it – I found it amusing rather than distracting, as do most audiences apparently.

The plot is built around the sudden and unplanned pregnancy of sharp-witted young Juno (played by Ellen Page in a star-making performance), which resulted from one encounter with her best friend, the somewhat shy-and-awkward Paulie Bleeker (played by the always-outstanding Michael Cera). Bleeker is somewhat in the background of the movie, but his character shines in the scenes where he does appear. Given that he is so different in personality from Juno, the attraction to him that she displays fleetingly earlier on and then again later in the movie does not seem very easy to understand, but apparently the notion of “opposites attract” is supposed to apply here. Then again, although she is an interesting and appealing character, she is not in any of the “cool cliques” at school, so she would probably not be quick to see herself as much better than Bleeker.

Juno’s initial instinct was to go to the local abortion clinic, but after being approached outside by a classmate picketing the abortuary, she reconsiders inside. While this opinion has nothing to do with a cinematic review, I admit as a pro-life individual to being very happy with the message of an intellectually honest mother-to-be admitting to herself that what she is carrying around is more than a mere clump of cells.

Once she charts her course, she must deal with several people, most of whom are fortunately nice to her. Her father Mac is played in a good-humored manner by J.K. Simmons, which kept me on the edge of my seat – I kept flashing back to his scary role on OZ and kept waiting for him to snap violently on Juno! Her stepmom Bren (played by Allison Janney) is friendly and supportive. In a slightly amusing element to the film, Janney is not shot in a manner that reveals her true height so as not to tower over any other actors.

The adoptive couple she selects from a classified ad have some very interesting issues going on under the surface. Stepford wife Vanessa Loring (played by Jennifer Garner in fascinating fashion) and subtly uneasy hubby Mark Loring (portrayed by the great-as-always Jason Bateman) have the idyllic yuppie existence working according to the naked eye, but they get more interesting as the layers get peeled back. As Mark’s nostalgia for his older life continues to manifest itself, some interesting and disturbing directions get hinted at and viewers are kept off-balance as the movie advances.

Juno’s interactions with everyone around her are constantly entertaining, especially those with her scene-stealing friend Leah (played by Olivia Thirlby). An awesome cameo by THE OFFICE star Rainn Wilson will have you in stitches also.

The twists and turns in the story keep you guessing but do not in any way feel contrived. Regardless of what your preconceived notion of what a happy ending for the story might look like, I don’t think I’m spoiling the ending by saying that the direction the writers chose was satisfactory to me and I think it would be to most people. On a note that will be very funny to those of us in the FDH family, the Juno character has a lot of resemblance to our own Samantha Jones – she and her husband saw the movie and agreed strongly with my perception of this. Listeners of THE FDH LOUNGE program may notice this the next time she delivers a music review!

But the bottom line is that this movie does justify the strong buzz and approving reviews it is receiving. I recommend it strongly.

Weirdest reason yet to support Hillary

By Rick Morris

This is priceless. Novelist Anne Rice has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Now, there's nothing unusual in the slightest about people in the creative community backing Democrats; it happens every day. But this part is really good:

"I am Pro-Life. I believe in the sanctity of the life of the unborn. Deeply respecting those who disagree with me, I feel that if we are to find a solution to the horror of abortion, it will be through the Democratic Party," says Rice.

Voting for a Democrat -- to REDUCE abortion! Under similar impeccable logic, I'm going to vote Republican to advance the interests of pacifism, labor unions and the agenda of the Sierra Club.