Friday Weisblog: With Drew and Peyton ‘Manning’ the QB spots, the Super Bowl will be a ‘Brees’

In my last correspondence, I told you all about what was wrong with this year’s Super Bowl. What’s right with the game deserves equal time, so here goes …

Drew Brees led the NFL in touchdown passes this season. Peyton Manning was the league’s Most Valuable player. It could be rightly argued that each means more to his respective team than any two other players in the entire league – including the elderly #4 in purple.

But the goodness goes beyond that. These are two guys who are genuinely fine, upstanding people. They seem to always do and say the right things – and manage to stay off the rap sheet. What a concept!

Brees signed with the Saints four years ago when he could have gone to teams that were then far more glamorous than the Saints, who had recently suffered the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He felt it was his calling to play there, and he and the Saints fans have developed a unique love affair for each other. He’s thrown for more than 4,000 yards four years in a row, including a mind-boggling 5,069 in 2008.

Meanwhile, Manning came into the NFL as the the top selection in the 1998 draft – and he has more than lived up to the hype. He’s thrown for more than 4,000 yards 10 of his 12 years, and has NEVER thrown fewer than 26 touchdown passes in any season, including his rookie campaign. The son of Archie Manning, ironically the Saints’ best-ever signal caller until Brees came to town, Peyton may very well go down as the best to ever play the game if he continues on his current pace.

This is a rare year. I will be happy with either team that wins the big game, largely because of their quarterback.

NOTE: Speaking of quarterbacks, kudos to Kurt Warner, who announced his retirement from the Arizona Cardinals today. Another of the league’s true gentleman, his was a true rags-to-riches story. Warner went from bagging groceries to the Arena League to NFL stardom, and he certainly belongs in the Hall of Fame. I think he gets there eventually.

Monday Weisblog: A not-so-super halftime show

Apparently it’s old news by now, but I just found out today that “The Who” will be the halftime entertainment at the February 7 Super Bowl in Miami. I must say that I am stunned by this news.

When I first heard who would be performing, I had to make sure I heard it right. “Who?”

“That’s correct,” was the reply as if it was something out of an Abbott and Costello routine.

Yes, The Who. The very same Who featuring Pete Townshend, the guitar player who in 2003 was arrested for possessing child pornography. (The charges were later dropped despite Townshend admitting he had used his credit card to obtain this material. He said it was “research” because he thought he might have been abused by his uncle when he was a child. Apparently, the feds bought what he was selling, but he was listed as a Registered Sex Offender according to the background information I read.)

In the best-case scenario, this makes him a reeeealllly strange guy. At worst, well, I prefer not to think about that. It isn’t that I don’t feel sorry for him if he was an abused child … but a transaction was made in which he willingly, knowingly purchased images that make a normal person’s stomach turn. No justification for that.

With that in mind, why on earth would you pick this group as halftime entertainment on the most-watched television event of the year? What, Courtney Love had another gig? Amy Winehouse didn’t return calls? Bobby Brown was busy? Someone has to explain this one to me, because I just don’t get it.

The Who hasn’t even been relevant for 30 years or more. Now don’t get me wrong … I am not advocating trotting out Lady Gaga or Katy Perry for this event, either. But there must be someone who bridges the generation gap of Super Bowl viewers better than The Who – and certainly someone who paints a better image.

I, for one, will be changing the channel during the halftime “festivities” of the NFL’s greatest game.

Thursday Weisblog: A female king working as a secretary? It’s true!

Peggielene Bartels lives in the Silver Spring, Maryland area and drives a 1992 Honda. She works as a secretary in an embassy.

Oh yeah … and she’s also a king. Really.

It turns out that her 90-year-old uncle was the king of Otuam, Ghana. When he passed away recently, the townspeople performed an ancient ritual to decide upon the new king, and it turned out to be Peggielene.

About 15 months ago, she received a phone call at 4 am from Ghana. “Hello, Nana,” the caller said. (The term “Nana” means something similar to VIP here in America.)

Bartels, who has no children of her own, thought it was a joke. “Oh, please don’t play games with me,” Bartels replied, who promptly reminded the caller that because she was a woman, she’d make a better queen. The caller replied that the kingship was the post that was open.

Once she finally decided it was her destiny, she made the trek to Otuam to be installed in her new position. She stayed as long as she could, but returned after 10 days because she still had her secretarial job to do.

For now, she plans to be a “commuting ruler” who spends all her vacation time in Otuam. She sees her retirement coming in about five years – and after that she anticipates moving there full-time and taking over her position.

This is amazing on so many levels. How she was chosen … how she is a female king … how the townspeople are fine with her being there only a few weeks out of the year … and so on. But hey, if it works, more power to her!

NOTE: Thanks to my friend Trace who told me about this interesting story.

Tuesday Weisblog: Her ‘cutting’ comments got her in trouble

Emily Walton is a not only a veterinarian, she’s also a Hancock County, Ohio County Commissioner. Apparently, Ms. Walton has upset one of her community members to the point that he is calling for her resignation.

It all stems from an incident that happened September 3. On that day, Walton and Jeff Davidson were engaging in a somewhat spirited discussion about a community drainage issue. Walton became agitated at Davidson and told him that she “wanted to castrate him and had the tools to do it.”

Bob Barker would be proud. (If you don’t get the joke, it’s not funny enough to explain. Just move on.)

“Sometimes things don’t go your way, and sometimes you have to raise your voice … but you don’t threaten to castrate somebody,” Davidson explained. “If she can’t manage her temper, and manage the words that come out of her mouth, she should resign.”

I tend to agree with him.

For her part, Walton’s explanation was a simple one: “That is a well-known, tongue-in-cheek comment that I have used for years and which people with half a sense of humor understand.” She also mentioned that she once, for comic relief, walked into a former mayor’s office carrying “a big white bag of tools,” though she never specifically mentioned castration.

I take offense to Ms. Walton’s actions for several reasons:
(1) She is a public official who should be acting appropriately.

(2) I am a male. If she had the same “equipment” I do, she may not be quite so liberal with her usage of the “c” word. It makes me wince just to think about it.

(3) If a male had said something off-color to a female, there would be much more made of this story, and I am 99.9% sure the male government official would be forced to resign.

Ms. Walton got her government post running unopposed last election. Something tells me that if she makes it through her term, she’ll have some competition next time around.

Thursday Weisblog: Terrelle Pryor drops the ball, figuratively.

Do you know what “eye black” is? It is a black substance you place underneath your eyes in order to help shade your eyes from the sun. You see it used quite often by football and baseball players. One such athlete wearing eye black this past weekend was Terrelle Pryor.

In case you’re not familiar with him, Pryor is the star quarterback for Ohio State University … or as they call it, THE Ohio State University.

It seems that Mr. Pryor had a special message inscribed into his eye black this past weekend that got some negative reaction … including from me. In large letters, it said “VICK,” in support of Michael Vick, who I’ve blogged about ad nauseum (perhaps the only more popular topic of mine is the “Octomom”).

Pryor did himself no favors when he was interviewed after last week’s game. You’d have thought he would be ready with a statement a little better than this: “Not everybody is the perfect person in the world. Everyone does … kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me, whatever. I just feel that people need to give him a chance.”

Sorry, Terrelle, but I have never killed anyone – and if I did, I would not necessarily deserve a second chance.

Terrelle Pryor deserves to be able to publicly support whoever and whatever he wants, and he’s certainly entitled to his own opinion. That said, THE Ohio State University PR staff should’ve tapped him on the shoulder and helped him be ready to defend his position a little better.

Friday Weisblog: Nothing is sacred anymore

You know what’s wrong with this country? Nothing is sacred anymore. We’re too worried about being so politically correct that we’ve swung in the entire opposite direction.

What I discovered today is a perfect example. (Note: This is actually being written on Thursday evening.)

My stepson JR tells my wife and I that he is studying Native American history in school. Fine so far, right? Well, they began to study some of their legends of how the world began. I’m a little uncomfortable with that, but OK.

But what I found out next enrages me. The teacher wants the students in the class to MAKE UP THEIR OWN STORY about how the world began.

Hold on a second … aren’t we supposed to be politically correct these days, going out of our way NOT to offend anyone? I guess that’s only a one-way street.

For those of us who believe in God and the Biblical account of creation, this is highly insulting. So now we are stuck in a bit of a predicament. If we instruct JR to not do the assignment because none of us are comfortable with it, we risk JR getting a bad grade. If we instruct him to do it, he is then forced to do something he isn’t comfortable doing.

I get that it’s a “creative writing” project, but there are thousands of other topics that are just as interesting and much less controversial.

Christian families should be upset over this. Even evolutionists should be outraged if they truly believe this theory. Making light of such a serious subject is not acceptable, and the teacher will hear my opinion … like it or not.