Roy Exum
As we await what promises to be a pair of great league-championship games in the NFL tomorrow, kindly remember each home team is a 3½ point favorite. I got that from a note I had written to myself and put in my pocket. Here is a collection of what some of the other notes read:
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When Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe appeared on the red carpet of the Golden Globe Awards last Sunday, there was a rash of mean-hearted tweets after viewers saw the famous “Big, Beautiful Woman” in her shimmering floor-length gown. “I love Gabby Sidibe but she looked like the GLOBE at the Golden Globes” read one, while another snide critic remarked, “Clearly Gabby’s stylist doesn’t like her and has no problem stealing her money.”
The fact is Gabby is obese but the delightful 30-year-old is a huge star in the TV series, “American Horror Story: Coven." You may remember the 2009 film “Precious,” where she played the main character, Claireece "Precious" Jones, an obese 16-year-old girl with two children (both of whom are the results of being raped by her father) trying to escape abuse at the hands of her mother. It won two Academy Awards and a Golden Globe while she was nominated as Best Actress.
As you can imagine, Gabby saw some of the tweets and her reply was a classic: “To people making mean comments about my GG pics, I mos def cried about it on that private jet on my way to my dream job last night.”
Is that a great comeback or what?
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When I wrote about the zany Dallas auction at the Safari Club that would enable the winner to shoot an aged rhinoceros in South Africa, I had no idea the news would cause the man who spent $350,000 for such an prize to receive death threats and vicious hate mail. “You are a BARBARIAN. People like you need to be the innocent who are hunted,” was one Facebook entry.
“I will find you and kill you,” wrote another, unaware the winner’s first response was, obviously, to contact the FBI. “I have friends that live in the area who will also have you in their sights.”
The money will actually be used to help conservation efforts to save the black rhino. Every year several older rhinos become detrimental to the herd of approximately 1,500 in the country of Namibia and the auction was staged by the Dallas Safari Club with the government’s approval.
Unable to stop illegal poachers due to lack of funding, more than 1,000 rhinos were illegally slaughtered in 2013. The money from the Dallas auction will be used to protect the animals.
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The best college recruiting story of the year is still three weeks away but when Texas Christian signs high school sensation Desmon White to a national letter-of-intent on Feb. 5, we’ll have our player to watch in the next few years to come.
White, who stars for DeSoto High in Texas, has played for four years and has passed for 8,095 yards, run for another 4,071 and scored 122 touchdowns. His team got all the way to the state semifinals before the Eagles lost a heartbreaking 42-35 decision to Allen but, in his two years as a starting quarterback, the dazzling White is the biggest reason the Eagles have posted a 28-2 record.
But up until this week when the TCU offer finally came, 14 of White’s teammates had already gotten BCS offers ahead of the quarterback because everybody thinks Desmon White, despite his superstar status, is way too small for the college game at 5-feet-6, 155 pounds. “Keep doubting him,” said his coach Claude Mathis, “and he’ll prove you wrong!”
Let’s hope so.
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Did you notice anything unusual about Thursday night’s NBA game where the Houston Rockets dropped a 104-92 loss to Oklahoma City? If not, you may want to go back and look because an NBA record was broken when Houston scored 73 points in the first half and only 19 in the second half; it was the biggest point-differential (54) between halves in pro basketball history. In the first half the Rockets were 18-of-30 on 3 pointers and in the second half they were 0-of-29 from outside the arc.
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We know about the horrible brush fires in California but how did it get past us “the left coast” is suffering the worst drought in the last 100 years? Governor Jerry Brown has asked all the citizens to reduce their water usage by 20 percent. According to a CNN report, the snowpack in the mountains is only 20 percent of normal, the lakes are down, and rivers like the Sacramento and the San Joaquin are flowing with "significantly reduced" water.
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With the Olympic Winter Games just three weeks away, the State Department has issued an “advisory” for American citizens going to Sochi. “U.S. citizens planning to attend the Games in Sochi should remain alert regarding their personal security at all times,” read the statement. “U.S. citizens are urged to remain vigilant and exercise good judgment and discretion when using any form of public transportation. When traveling, U.S. citizens may wish to provide a friend, family member, or coworker a copy of their itinerary.”
The alert also included: “The law makes it a crime to promote LGBT equality in public, but lacks concrete legal definitions for key terms. Russian authorities have indicated a broad interpretation of what constitutes ‘LGBT propaganda,’ and provided vague guidance as to which actions will be interpreted by authorities as ‘LGBT propaganda.’”
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According to the Urban Dictionary, the “word of the day” on Friday was “redshirt kindergartener.” It is “when a parent (usually the father) will hold back their child from starting kindergarten for a year solely for the belief that an extra year of physical development will pay off athletically once the child is in high school ten years later.” Example: “That kid is in 1st grade but he should be in 2nd. He is a kindergarten redshirt as his dad thinks he will be a big football star in high school with that extra year to grow.
Oh, please.
royexum@aol.com