Response to Mel Kiper's Draft Grade for the Detroit Lions

         When grading how every team did in this year’s draft, Mel Kiper Jr. decided to give the Detroit Lions an A-, which tied the Cincinnati Bengals for the highest grade in the draft. When I found out about this I was ecstatic, knowing that I wasn’t the only crazy guy out there that fought the Lions did something right by drafting Nick Fairley, the Defensive Tackle out of Auburn, Titus Young, the Wide Receiver out of Boise State, and Mikel Leshoure, the Running Back out of Illinois in the first two rounds.

            Sure, the Lions didn’t draft for need, (they needed a quality linebacker and a shut-down cornerback) but now they really don’t need one. By adding Nick Fairley to a defensive line that already includes Ndamukong Suh, (Defensive Rookie of the year, Rookie of the year, Pro-bowler, led the league with ten and a half sacks) Kyle Vanden Bosch, Corey Williams, and Cliff Avril, you don’t really need a linebacker all that much any more. Sure it’s nice to have one, that’s why the Lions drafted Doug Hogue in the fifth round as a developmental guy. But still, by drafting Fairley, that pretty much takes care of the defensive dilemma. My guess is that Fairley comes in and has a Suh-esque season, becoming the second Detroit Lion in a row to win the Defensive Rookie of the year award. Quarterbacks in the NFC North beware, (Aaron Rodgers, Jay Cutler, and Christian Ponder) Suh and Fairley are here.

            With the Lions next pick, Detroit took Titus Young, the explosive wide receiver out of Boise State. This kid is absolutely electric, and will be a highly productive guy in the NFL. Now, the Lions have pro-bowler Calvin Johnson as the number one receiver, Titus Young playing the role of the explosive quick receiver on the other side, and Nate Burleson playing in the slot, where he was highly productive in Minnesota. Now, the Lions have one of the scariest defensive lines, and receiving corpse in the NFL. I predict Titus Young will have a huge season with all the attention going over to Calvin Johnson, and could possibly win offensive Rookie of the Year. He definitely has the talent, and the Lions know he will work hard because it turns out that Titus Young is actually from Detroit!

            For the Lions next pick, they traded up and got Mikel Leshoure, the big, powerful, bruising running back that has drawn comparisons to Rashard Mendenhall of the Pittsburg Steelers. Boy, do the Lions love this pick. Last year, Detroit traded up to get Jahvid Best, the explosive running back out of the University of California. Best was injured during the year after a highly productive first two weeks. After the injury (Turf Toe) the Lions started questioning is durability, so this year, they drafted Mikel Leshoure in the second round, so they could let Jahvid Best step into the role of a change of pace back. This tandem will be Thunder and Lightning out there for the Lions, nobody will be able to stop these two. With Leshoure’s pound it down the middle ability, and Best’s make you miss quickness, the Lions will finally have themselves a backfield. (Well, at least for the first time since Barry Sanders.)

            Yes, I agree with you Mel, the Lions had another spectacular draft this year. And yes, I agree with you Mel, the Lions are officially a playoff-caliber team. They tremendously improved themselves with the additions of Fairley, Young, and Leshoure. And with Matthew Stafford coming back, the Lions have got themselves a football team. 

Response to the College Football Pre-Season Top 25

1.     Oklahoma

2.     Alabama

3.     Florida State

4.     Oregon

5.     LSU

6.     Oklahoma State

7.     Boise St.

8.     Stanford

9.     Texas A&M

10. Michigan State

11. Arkansas

12. Wisconsin

13. Nebraska

14. West Virginia

15.  Ohio State

16. Notre Dame

17. Georgia

18. Missouri

19. South Carolina

20. Texas

21. Arizona State

22. TCU

23. Virginia Tech

24. Florida

25. Mississippi State

Well, what do you think? First off, it is WAY too early to have a top 25. We just got done with the draft! All we have had is spring training; coaches don’t even have their rosters set yet! Why are we doing this? (Oh yeah, there’s a lockout in the NFL, that’s right. We don’t have anything better to do!) Nonetheless, people are already analyzing away, picking through it with a fine toothcomb, acknowledging every single detail, and it’s May! So, here’s my take on the pre-season top 25.

      Boomer Sooner. The Oklahoma faithful have to be happy about this one. But I’m not sure I agree. Every year, even if Oklahoma doesn’t deserve it, it seems like they always have a top five ranking. But what have they shown us? They won the fiesta bowl. Yeah sure that’s great and all, but I hate to tell you they played Connecticut, a team that was slaughtered by a 7-5 Michigan Wolverines team. This is not the right spot for the Sooners.

Now, Alabama, that’s a solid pick, they’re good every year. What really baffles me is Florida State. You have got to be kidding me. Sure they had the top recruiting class, but do you really expect them to win anything with just some highly touted freshman? C’mon man. Next we have the Ducks, who should be ranked atop the polls. They have Lamichael James who is without a doubt the best running back in all of college football. Also, they have Darren Thomas coming back, who will be even better next year. Oregon is my pick (Besides the Wolverines) to win it all this year.

      Let’s skip down a few. At the number nine spot we have Texas A&M. Since when is the number one team from Texas not named the Longhorns? I highly question this pick. Even more now because Jerrod Johnson was lost to the NFL this year.

      Next we have the Spartans from Michigan State. Wait; is this the basketball pre-season rankings? Sure the Spartans had a Sparty Party in Ann Arbor this year, (and the won the big-ten) but that doesn’t vault them over the Wolverines this next year.

Next, we have the most hated team in the land, the Ohio State Buckeyes. They come in at the number 15 spot, and I must say that this is too high. They are going to lose many key players for the first five games this season, one of them being named Terelle Pryor. Also, they lose their head coach for the first five games. My prediction is that after the first five games they drop out of the rankings completely, and the Big Ten will be the Wolverines play ground once again.

      At number 16, we have the Fighting Irish from Notre Dame. Wait, didn’t these guys lose to the 7-5 Wolverines last year. Didn’t they lose to them the year before too? Well, I’m here to tell you that Notre Dame will not return to the “holy land” of college football this season. They will lose to the Wolverines once again and stay out of the rankings for at least one more year.

      If we scroll down we have Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, and Arizona State in the next five spots. Georgia will be hopeless this year without A.J. Green, and so will Missouri without Blaine Gabbert. South Carolina should be bumped up a few spots, especially with Marcus Lattimore running the ball for them. The Longhorns will hope to get over that dreadful season of year’s past, but sadly they will not. And Arizona State? You have got to be kidding me. What have they shown to land them a spot in the top-25?

            Skipping down a few we find that there is no Michigan in the top 25. This is not right. Denard Robinson is a front-runner for the Heisman trophy, and along with the new coach, Brady Hoke, and a new defensive system, lets just say you’ll see the Wolverines in the rankings very soon. 

Little Red Riding Hood

            So we all know the story of Little Red Riding Hood. She travels through the woods with a basket of cookies to bring them to her grandmother’s house on the opposite side of the woods, only to find that her grandmother was eaten and replaced by a wolf. Pretty sad, huh? But that’s just it. We only know about the outline of the story, we don’t know any of the background information, the who, what, when, where and why if you will. Well I’m here to tell you what happened-why the wolf was in bed all alone instead of grandma. If you simply do not care what the rest of this story is about, do not proceed. If you wish to find out, then keep reading, and have your wildest fantasies become real.

            It all started out three days before the wolf ate Little Red Riding Hoods grandmother. You see, the grandmother was buying groceries at the at the forests local grocery store when she sees the wolf there. The wolf gives a mean look and the grandmother thinks nothing of it except, “Punk teenagers,” and just walked on until she saw the cream of wheat cereal and started in a mad sprint for it. But the wolf saw the cream of wheat too, and sprinted for it as fast as the wind! The two get there at the same exact time and start a huge fight over it! They rustle and tussle, fight and kick, and rumble around for the o’ so precious cream of wheat cereal. Finally, there is a huge crowd around them, and the manager comes and breaks them up. The whole thing was a huge mess, they get banned from the store, they have to do fifty days community service, and nobody gets to keep the cream of wheat.

         You see, neither the grandma nor the wolf got over that very easy. So they both hatched diabolical plans to get back at each other. Grandma’s plan was very simple. She would just sneak up on the wolf in his sleep, then attack. “Simple and clever,” she thought to herself over a cup of tea. “I will get rid of that pesky wolf that denied me of my cream of wheat, muhahaha!”

         The wolf’s plan was a little more diabolical than the grandma’s plan. You see, the wolf was a lot smarter than what grandma thought. The wolf was an evil, sinister, terrible wolf that would eat up anything that would get in his way. “And,” thought the wolf, “That’s just what I’ll do…”

         So, on the eve of the incident of little red riding hood, grandma snuck out of her house, then proceeded on to the wolf’s home. She creeped open the door, and slowly tiptoed across the room, without making a sound. She moved with such stealth that it could be compared to a preying mantis, moving about ever so slowly, stalking its prey. She walked into the wolf’s room, took out her blade and stood there with it, taking in every last moment of it, imprinting it into her aging brain, taking in the happiness, and the sorrow, the love, and the hate of it all. All of the sudden, the blade rises, as if she is in control no longer. And right at the moment she is about to bring down her blade to end the wolf’s life, the wolf opens his eyes and gobbles her up right then and there, laughing hysterically at the sound of her screams, until the wolf hears no more. You see, the wolf had anticipated this happening all along. He saw that crazy look in her eyes during the fight at the grocery store over the cream of wheat. He knew that she was going to pull a stupid stunt like this, and that was his plan all along, to sleep with one eye open, then to strike at the very last second.

         Then, the wolf started coughing, and coughing until he spat something up. It was a note, a reminder that her granddaughter was coming over with a new batch of cookies tomorrow. “Good,” thought the wolf, “I can have the old lady and her granddaughter too. Oh and cookies as well!” The wolf was overjoyed! He immediately set out for the costume store, to buy none other than an old grandma costume.

         The next morning, when Little Red Riding Hood stepped into Grandma’s house with a basket of cookies, the wolf was disguised as her grandmother, lying in bed, awaiting her sweet granddaughter and the basket of cookies. But what the wolf didn’t know was that Little Red Riding Hood could fight. And not only could she fight, she could kick A. Little Red Riding Hood immediately knew that this was no grandma laying in bed, and attacked the wolf! The wolf was caught in a state of shock, so it wasn’t much of a fight. Little Red Riding Hood beat the wolf up and took him the forest jail, where the wolf was charged of murder, and was sentenced to be locked up for life.

         And there you have it, the truth behind the story of Little Red Riding Hood, why the Wolf was in bed instead of grandma.

                                             The End 

Nuclear Ghost City

            Wow, how could you even imagine walking through the desolate streets of Pripyat? Seeing nothing but nuclear waste and deserted hallways? Let me tell you, I would definitely pay a ton of money to go on that tour. Think about it, walking up and down the streets with nobody there, in this absolutely huge ghost town? I think it would be pretty freakin’ sick.

            On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s number four reactor exploded, destroying the entire city of Pripyat, which at the time was considered to be one of the nicest places to live in the Soviet Union. It looked like everything was new, and everything was modern. It was very popular, and when disaster struck, it was all gone. 50,000 people ended up evacuating Pripyat, leaving everything behind. Can you imagine how sad that would be?

            Right now, Japan is scared the same thing is going to happen in the city of Fukushima. The cost would be astronomical to fix, let alone the cost to fix all of those broken souls that had to move away from their beloved homes. Think about the people that lived in the city of Pripyat, everybody that had to leave everything behind. That would be sad.

A-Bomb Imposter

The book, The Last Train from Hiroshima, published by Henry Holt, claims to reveal a secret accident with the atomic bomb that killed one American and irradiated others and severely reduced the bombs destructive power. It also claims that a Mr. Joseph Fuoco was also a last minute substitute for James R. Corliss for the historic bombing run. There’s one problem, both of these statements are claimed to be false by people who were thought to be actually on the bombing run. Or were they? The truth is, nobody really knows who was actually flying over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

            It seems like everybody was defending Corliss, saying that they could shake hands with him on the plane, or they could see him right in the cockpit. His family showed old memorabilia of Mr. Corliss’, such as medals, and old photographs. Mr. Fuoco’s family could not produce any evidence that he was on the plane that was going to bomb Hiroshima.

            Also, there were claims that the accident that killed one American and reduced the A-bombs destructive power never happened. The Los Alamos laboratory that produced the bomb claims that the bomb suffered no accident and no technical failures. Again, Mr. Fuoco has no evidence.

            So, was Mr. Fuoco on the historic bombing run? No, I don’t think so.

Yitta Schwartz

Yitta Schwartz has the biggest family ever. She has 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren, and a ton of great grandchildren. All in all, she has around 2,000 living descendants. That’s a lot.

She is a very Jewish lady. She was a part of the holocaust, and was stuck in many different German concentration camps. She ended up living through the holocaust, and giving the world many many children. At family reunions, she never seemed to forget anybody’s name. Which amazes me, who can’t even remember ten people’s names?

Yitta considered bearing children as her tribute to god. And boy did she tribute. Having 15 children. Wow, that’s something else. All of her descendants lived close by too, in parts of New York. And all of her descendants are tributes to society. They are rabbis, teachers, merchants, plumbers and truck drivers.

Yitta was born in 1916 into a family of seven children in the Hungarian village of Kalev, revered as the hometown of a founder of Hungarian Hasid ism. During World War Two, the Nazis sent her and her family to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

In 1953, her family moved to the United States, in the New York Area. She lived a very happy life with many, many children.

Uzbek Photos

        The photo that Umida Akhmedova took was absolutely fine, and there was nothing wrong with it. She was simply trying to be an artist, and express herself. There is nothing wrong with that. She was simply trying to show the world her opinion. The government should never get involved with things like that. The government was totally wrong to have prosecuted her. The photographer was simply trying to express her opinion. Sure, maybe it doesn’t help the image of the country, but you can’t just arrest her! Also, the artist wasn’t even trying to disgrace the image of her country. In the complaint statement, it said, “With one glance at these pictures one can see that repair work is being done in these words, and that the children entered them purely through the childish curiosity that is inherent to them. But to foreigners, these photographs may give the impression that these children live in these homes.” Yes, these images may send that image, but that’s not the point. The point is that the artist should be able to express his/her opinion without being sent to jail! This whole case was just terrible, and the Uzbekistan government should just stay out of it.