Hope everyone had a good weekend - how can you not dig these uncommonly low-humidity days rolling into the first week of May? By the way, I discovered something about myself yesterday. I can't deal with films like "Iron Man 3" at all anymore. Life is too short to watch a lot of stuff get blown up for a couple of hours, you know?
Big sports weekend, with a championship boxing match and the Kentucky Derby...I spent my leisure time watching a few hours of the very exciting NBA playoffs. We are now down to just four series going on, after the Joakim Noah-led Chicago Bulls went into Brooklyn Saturday night to knock off the Brooklyn Nets. Now Chicago faces the number one seed in this tournament, the big, bad Miami Heat, led by the great LeBron James.
LeBron yesterday took home the league's Most Valuable Player Award for the 2012-2013 regular season, the fourth time in five years he's taken home the trophy as the league's best, or at least most valuable player. At 28, James is at the peak of his athletic powers, and it's a sight to behold. And with 4 MVP's, he's in rarefied air, joining Abdul-Jabbar, Russell, and Michael Jordan. Having said that, I'd love to see the Bulls knock off the Heat (or the Knicks or Oklahoma City afterwards), not because I'm anti-Miami, simply that they're the overwhelming favorite to repeat as champions, so why not have a major upset?.
Still, let's be frank: LeBron still has a ways to go before America embraces like they did MJ. Maybe they never will..
It was exactly a week ago that a journeyman basketball player became the biggest story in the country for a couple of days - that would be Jason Collins, the 34-year-old free agent who came out as gay in Sports Illustrated. Lots of people weighed in on that, of course, including Daily Beast contributor Howard Kurtz, who is now ex-Daily Beast reporter Howard Kurtz, after he misread Collins story. That led to the unusual spectacle of the media critic getting severely grilled on his own CNN show yesterday.
Although most Democrats I speak with are so over it, the fact of the matter is that questions about the circumstances before and after the death of former U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens still haven't been adequately addressed for many congressional Republicans. That means the issue of Benghazi will come back before Congress this week. Yesterday John McCain said it was time for a select committee to investigate the entire situation there, a la Iran-Contra.
And the Florida Legislative session came to an end on Friday night. One of the last major bills to get passed was an election reform bill that may not have appeased some state Democrats who are unhappy that local supervisors of election aren't being mandated to open up early voting for 14 days, but the League of Women Voters says the new law is just swell.
