Things that Puzzle Me This Week

Elton John performing for Rush Limbaugh’s 4th / 5th wedding was a head scratcher to me.
It appears some people will take any amount of money to compromise their principals.
While I have enjoyed Elton’s music over the years I have never particularly liked him.
Now I also don’t respect him.
Look, if someone made disparaging remarks about me and or my lifestyle on a daily basis in a very mean spirited and bigoted way I don’t care if he offered me 1 millions dollars.
I am not a whore. I can not be bought.

Bernie Madoff has been making friends with a former mob boss and a spy while in federal prison. According to a new article in New York Magazine he has told his fellow inmates,
“F-k my victims. I carried them for 20 years and now I’m doing 150 years”
Two of the lines from Madoff that I found interesting were,
• '"Some guy wanted to invest, and if I said no, the guy said, What, I'm not good enough?'" (the old “I had to do it” excuse)
• One day, Shannon Hay, a drug dealer who lived in the same unit in the Butner prison as Madoff, asked about his crimes. "He told me his side. He said he took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more," says Hay, who was released in December. (was Madoff speaking of himself or others?)
C’mon can’t you just feel the remorse just oozing off the page? What a guy.

The Dutch kid, Joran van der Sloot, that has been getting away with murder for awhile now seems to have confessed. Something tells me that this confession was coerced in ways we don’t do here in America or in Aruba (okay unless you are in a war and W is the president). His father, the Aruba judge, has since past away since his last known murder in Aruba and there really isn’t anyone that can help him now. His smirk makes me think he would never ever confess. Too arrogant and narcissistic. Something is fishy to me about his  whole confession coming so quickly. But I do understand why some turn their heads just so that some type of justice is served. Now if only he’d admit he murdered Natalee Holloway so her parents can get closure of some sort.
Karma is a kick in the ass isn't it?

Now a nice story that isn’t puzzling at all. This is where I get to see some sense in life.
Baseball.....God how I love this sport.
For all the women who don’t pay any mind to sports you even probably heard about this story. The young pitcher had a perfect game going.
He only needed 1 more out and it was a perfect game. Perfect games are rare.
There have only been 20 in baseball history.
So the final ball was caught and the guy was out at first base.
BUT the umpire said the guy was safe so it was considered a hit so no perfect game.

On replay you could see the guy was OUT and it was so obvious to everyone except this ump. The young pitcher handled this all with grace, dignity and class. He never threw his glove or had any kind of tantrum.  He didn't berate the umpire in the interviews following the game. No, he just said he was a bit shocked but said the game is human and I have to go by what the umpire said.  I could have kissed him!  I was so proud and he doesn't even play on my team!!  

After the game the umpire saw the replay and agreed he robbed this young man of a perfect game. He was mortified and called him to apologize. Major league baseball does not give do overs or rescind calls unfortunately.
Nor do they use instant replay for such calls.
So this kid doesn’t go down in the history books for achieving a very difficult and impressive feat. But the umpire did the right thing. He apologized to this young man.
It even choked him up that he made the wrong call and in his words, “I have to man up and do the right thing because I realize now it was a bad call”

Don’t you wish everyone lived like that? By doing the right thing.
Why does that seem to be so difficult today?

The next day the ump and the pitcher saw one another at another game.
They shook hands and the ump choked back tears. He really had remorse.
The young man patted him on the shoulders as if to say, “Its okay.”
The young pitcher got a new corvette from I believe but don’t quote me, GM.
As if to say, “thanks for showing us real sportsmanship”

Granted this kid could buy himself that car a few times over.
But isn’t it nice to have good behavior rewarded for a change instead of bad behavior?
He actually deserves his 15 minutes of fame.