July 2, 2009
LET'S GO TO THE VIDEOTAPE:
TAKING LIBERTIES: WE ARE BEING WATCHED: Britan has quietly become the most spied-upon nation in Europe. How? Why? And does it matter? Charles Nevin goes to Manchester, London, Berlin and Bucharest to compare, contrast and discuss ... (Charles Nevin, Summer 2009, INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine)
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000 (RIPA), one of a series of laws introduced to combat modern terrorism, sets out the conditions for surveillance by the police and security services. It has also been used by other public bodies for electronic and manual surveillance aimed at exposing lesser threats to society. In Cambridge last year the council used hidden CCTV cameras to check whether punt operators were using unauthorised landing places. In Poole the council followed a family, day and night, who were suspected of lying about their address on a school application form. In all, some three-quarters of Britain’s local authorities have used the act as a weapon in the unceasing fight against dog fouling and putting the rubbish out too early, enjoying a 9% success rate in prosecutions, cautions or fixed penalties.The flavour of Ealing comedy accompanying so many British activities is absent at the other end of the operation, where the Control Order is surveillance made easy by house arrest and electronic tagging without the necessity for a charge or open testing of evidence. In between lie the fruits of the new electronic technology, enticing to the authorities, evil to increasing numbers in Britain, from the robust inheritors of Tom Paine and John Wilkes to such establishment figures as a former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, a former director of public prosecutions, a former director general of MI5, and the current information commissioner of the United Kingdom. The last of these, Richard Thomas, has been loud in warning. His soundbite “sleepwalking into surveillance” has been opposition shorthand since 2004. The former MI5 boss, Dame Stella Rimington, has matched it with talk of “a police state”. The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, doesn’t deal in soundbites but is no less compelling, as we shall see.
Sleepwalkers should feel free to scan our information (below) on surveillance by numbers. One feature meriting special notice concerns DNA, a seemingly miraculous aid to order brought into disrepute by the mechanics of its operation: the indefinite retention by the police of DNA samples taken not only from convicted criminals, but from 1m people, including perhaps 100,000 children, who have committed no offence and have in many cases only been witnesses to one. Lovers of renowned dystopian visions of state control will appreciate the attendant language. A 2006 report on reforming public services speaks of “transformational government”, “the totality of the relationship with the citizen”, and, best of all, the establishment of “a single source of truth” on each individual. In April 2009 that fantasy came close to reality, when the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, published a white paper proposing a central government database tracking all electronic communications—every e-mail, every phone call, every text. Smith then backed down from a single database, but went ahead with plans to force mobile-phone companies and internet-service providers to keep these records, at a cost to the taxpayer of £2 billion.
I watch a lot of British mysteries and the other night happened to be watching an older one. I kept wondering why they didn't just use the CCTV surveillance to solve the crime, but it was just old enough that they wouldn't have had systematic coverage yet. Made you wonder why we didn't start surveilling earlier.
SELF-COUP:
A 'coup' in Honduras? Nonsense.: Don't believe the myth. The arrest of President Zelaya represents the triumph of the rule of law. (Octavio Sánchez, July 2, 2009 , CS Monitor)
These are the facts: On June 26, President Zelaya issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the "Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly." In doing so, Zelaya triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office.Constitutional assemblies are convened to write new constitutions. When Zelaya published that decree to initiate an "opinion poll" about the possibility of convening a national assembly, he contravened the unchangeable articles of the Constitution that deal with the prohibition of reelecting a president and of extending his term. His actions showed intent.
Our Constitution takes such intent seriously. According to Article 239: "No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years."
Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says "immediately" – as in "instant," as in "no trial required," as in "no impeachment needed."
THE LOSING OF WWII:
Dead end: Mankind’s biggest mistake: a review of The Rise and Fall of Communism. By Archie Brown (The Economist, 7/02/09)
Archie Brown’s new history of communism identifies three big questions, perhaps even the biggest, of the past century. [...]
Communism’s first big advantage was that it played on two human appetites—the noble desire for justice and the baser hunger for vengeance. Mr Brown, emeritus professor of politics at Oxford University, traces communism’s idealistic roots in the struggle against feudal oppression and beastly working conditions. The moral weight of Karl Marx’s criticisms of 19th-century capitalism even won him praise from the high priest of Western liberalism, Karl Popper, a Viennese-born philosopher who emigrated to London. But the intoxicating excitement of revolutionary shortcuts attracted the ruthless and dogmatic, who saw the chance to put into practice Marx’s muddled Utopian notions—and settle some scores on the way. “The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in killing, the better,” wrote Lenin in 1922. Even so, many still resist the idea that the founding fathers of communism were murderous maniacs. Revolutions against corrupt and ossified regimes in countries such as Russia and China stoked a steamy enthusiasm that took decades to dissipate.The communist block also had two bits of good fortune. The economic slump of the 1930s discredited democracy and capitalism. Then came Hitler’s disastrous attack on the Soviet Union. The victory over fascism in Europe gave the Soviet Union, an ally of America and Britain, renewed moral weight. Given what had happened in Russia under Stalin in the 1930s, that hardly seemed deserved. As Mr Brown notes, Stalin trusted the Nazi leader more than he trusted his own generals. The Soviet Union killed more top German communists than Hitler’s regime did. Yet in some countries, Czechoslovakia for example, Soviet forces were initially welcomed as liberators, and Stalinist regimes took power with a degree of popular consent. In other countries, such as Poland and the Baltic states, it looked different: one occupation gave way to another.
IN FAIRNESS TO HIS STAFF...:
A Pitch on Health Care To Virginia And Beyond (Michael D. Shear and Jose Antonio Vargas, 7/02/09, Washington Post)
In the stage-managed event, questions for Obama came from a live audience selected by the White House and the college, and from Internet questions chosen by the administration's new-media team. Of the seven questions the president answered, four were selected by his staff from videos submitted to the White House Web site or from those responding to a request for "tweets."The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence.
...if he doesn't know the questions ahead of time there's no evidence he can answer them coherently.
IF THE POST WAS PIMPING, WHAT DOES THAT MAKE THOSE THEY WERE OFFERING ACCESS TO?:
Post Publisher Cancels Plans for Off-the-Record 'Salons' (Howard Kurtz, 7/02/09, Washington Post)
Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000. [...]The fliers, circulated by the paper's parent company, offering an "intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth." The fliers, which said participants would be charged $25,000 to sponsor a single salon and $250,000 to underwrite an annual series of 11 sessions, were reported this morning by Politico. [...]
One such flier said: "Bring your organization's CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders . . . Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it." That flier said a July 21 session would involve "Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post . . . An exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done."
NEVER WASTE AN OPPORTUNITY:
USA Gold Cup Additions (Steven Goff, 7/02/09, Soccer Insider: WP)
Given permission by CONCACAF to supplement its Gold Cup roster, the USA national team has added forwards Jozy Altidore and Conor Casey, midfielders Ricardo Clark, Benny Feilhaber and Sacha Kljestan, defender Jonathan Bornstein and goalkeeper Brad Guzan. However, according to the USSF, not all seven will be present for each Gold Cup match. The schedule for each player will be announced in the days leading to the matches. Of the pool of 30 players, only 18 will be in uniform.
It's good that some new guys are getting a chance in the Gold Cup and that Freddy Adu will get a chance to show what he can do once and for all, but it seems like a golden opportunity to get Guzan some game time, to play Altidore and Brian Ching together--a front line with such size and physicality (for soccer) that few countries can match up with them--to see if Feilhaber can be our main playmaker in an attacking midfielder role, and to see if Bornstein and Marvell Wynne (who I believe still isn't on this squad) can develop into effective wing backs to give our attack some width.
JUST STEALING JOBS FROM DOMINICANS:
Bay to become US citizen on Thursday (Alden Gonzalez, 7/02/09, MLB.com)
Jason Bay can now call himself an American.The Red Sox's left fielder, a native of Canada, will officially become a U.S. citizen on Thursday afternoon in a ceremony at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall, according to The Associated Press.
THE RATIONING IS ALL THAT RECOMMENDS THE PLANS:
Finding What Works in Health Care (William C. Weldon, July 2, 2009, Washington Post)
Congress took an important step for health care when it provided $1.1 billion to fund "comparative effectiveness research" as part of the stimulus legislation this year.This research promises to help America's doctors better target treatments to patients who can benefit from them as well as cut unnecessary health-care spending. [...]
Many patient groups, physicians and developers of treatments fear that comparative effectiveness research will be used to restrict access to a broad range of treatments, some of which may be precisely what particular patients need. As the head of Johnson & Johnson, a global pharmaceutical and device company, I have seen technology assessments make it more difficult for patients to access some lifesaving treatments.
But that doesn't have to be what happens here.
Of course it does. Once you do the comparisons you can't justify most health care on medical grounds.
CHRISTIE LOVE:
Christie Makes Inroads Among NJ Democrats Against Corzine (Congressional Quarterly, 7/01/09)
Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie is leading New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine 45 percent to 39 percent with 15 percent undecided, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll conducted June 22-29. [...]Christie’s favorable-to-unfavorable ratio is 34 percent to 25 percent with another 28 percent saying they had not formed an opinion. Fifty-four percent see Corzine unfavorably compared to 31 percent who express a positive view of him. Among Democrats, 48 percent view Corzine favorably and 37 percent view him unfavorably. Only 66 percent support him for re-election while Christie gets 20 percent of Democratic votes.
YOU DON'T DESIGN A UNIVERSAL SYSTEM...:
Obama Quizzed at Health Care Town Hall: On Taxing Benefits, Single Payer System, and Costs (Yunji de Nies and Sunlen Miller, 7/01/09, ABC News)
President Obama got personal with one audience member Debbie Smith, 53, who through tears, described struggling to pay for cancer treatments without insurance, without a job, and living on food stamps. The President hugged Smith, and promised to have his staff look into helping her, within the existing law. On a broader level, the President said her predicament is an example of why the system needs to change.“Debbie, you are Exhibit A, and we appreciate you serving -- sharing our story,” he said.
...around the aberrations.
IT LOOKS LIKE THE OLD POLICY TO FANS TOO:
To Critics, New Policy on Terror Looks Old (CHARLIE SAVAGE, 7/02/09, NY Times)
Civil libertarians recently accused President Obama of acting like former President George W. Bush, citing reports about Mr. Obama’s plans to detain terrorism suspects without trials on domestic soil after he closes the Guantánamo prison.It was only the latest instance in which critics have argued that Mr. Obama has failed to live up to his campaign pledge “to restore our Constitution and the rule of law” and raised a pointed question: Has he, on issues related to fighting terrorism, turned out to be little different from his predecessor? [...]
“President Obama may mouth very different rhetoric,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “He may have a more complicated process with members of Congress. But in the end, there is no substantive break from the policies of the Bush administration.”
NIHILISM IS SELDOM AN EASY SELL:
'What can they do except kill people?': Poll shows Pakistanis have turned against Taliban, Al Qaeda (The Associated Press, July 1st 2009)
The survey showed that 81%of Pakistanis believe the activities of the Taliban and other Muslim extremists were a "critical threat" to the country, up from the 34% polled on the same question in September 2007. Eighty-two percent said Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda was also a critical threat, exactly twice as many who thought so two years ago.The poll was carried out by Socio-Economic Development Consultants in Islamabad on behalf of WorldPublicOpinion.org. It questioned 1,000 people across Pakistan from May 17 to 28 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
The results mirror anecdotal accounts of a shift in the public mood in recent months, as well as among government leaders, politicians and army officers.
The Taliban's violation of a peace deal in Swat, a widely circulated video showing a militant allegedly beating a women in public and an uptick in suicide attacks around the country over the last year have contributed to the shift in public opinion.
Political analyst Rasul Bakhsh Rais said he thought the anti-Taliban sentiment was "irreversible."
"Some people had this feeling that Taliban were good people and very religious and they have good intentions and they're nationalist," he said. "But today the sentiment against the Taliban is very strong because they are a disruptive force. They don't present an alternative to the modern nation-state. They don't have any vision for the economy.
"Can the Taliban generate electricity? Can they give you cheaper oil? What can they do except kill people?"
A MAN COULD DO A HECK OF A LOT WORSE...:
Alexis Arguello: Classy guest, man without a home: Ex-boxing champ Alexis Argüello found dead in Nicaragua (DAVID J. NEAL, 7/01/09, MiamiHerald.com)
For most of Alexis Argüello's life as a three-division world champion, ''home'' was a foreign concept. Yet few knew a classier guest, whether as a Nicaraguan exile living in Miami or as a boxer beating people up in places where ''hostile environment'' meant winning the fight only started the battle for survival.That's the tidy summary. That covers much of what boxing fans in the 1970s and '80s knew of Argüello. Those Argüello memories spur today's coverage, including what you're reading now.
Few people are so two-dimensional. Almost by definition, such neatness falls incomplete when discussing a 57-year-old man who made and lost at least two fortunes; flip-flopped like a fish on the bottom of a hot canoe when it come to politics; had several marriages; and reportedly almost committed suicide in a 20-year span.
So, as it is with many athletes and entertainers whose public lives bleed over into the messy worlds of politics or crime, it comes down to if you separate or how you separate. What do you choose to remember best? Or do you remember it all and accept it for what it is?
It Was A Pryor Engagement (Pat Putnam, 11/22/82, SI)
Alexis Arguello's 38-foot yacht lay at its berth at the King's Bay Yacht Club near Miami, its name, The Champ, lettered in gold on its transom. Also in gold were three crowns painted beneath the name. "You notice how the crowns are centered," Bill Miller, Arguello's agent, pointed out last week. "There's room for two more, one on each side."But last Friday night before 23,800 in Miami's Orange Bowl and a Home Box Office TV audience, WBA junior welterweight champion Aaron Pryor made sure there would be no more crowns for Arguello, at least not now. In one of the fiercest title fights in recent memory, he stopped Arguello's bid for the immortality of a fourth title at 1:06 of the 14th round with an attack so furious it left the 30-year-old WBC lightweight champ unconscious for four minutes.
In so doing, Pryor, a 27-year-old Cincinnatian, established a beachhead of respectability for himself. He has been something of a conundrum, a brooding, irascible man. Though he was 31-0 with 29 knockouts, Pryor felt he had been denied his full due.
In the meantime Arguello had become renowned for his boxing skills, his knockout punch and his gentlemanly behavior. Now he was trying to do what no one—not Henry Armstrong, Tony Canzoneri, Bob Fitzsimmons, Barney Ross or Wilfred Benitez—had done: attain the distinction of having won titles in four different weight classes. Of course, Armstrong had held the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight titles simultaneously. For that, Arguello, in exile from his native Nicaragua and living now in a Miami suburb, had dedicated this fight to the 69-year-old Armstrong, who was in the Miami crowd.
As planned, Arguello, who was getting $1.5 million to Pryor's $1.6 million, came out cool and composed, but like a snarling wolf Pryor was upon him. Stunned, Arguello did what he had warned himself not to do: He joined Pryor in the trenches. Early in the round Arguello caught Pryor coming in with a snapping straight right that met an iron chin. Slowed but for a moment, Pryor hammered Arguello with a flurry of rights. At the end of the first three minutes Pryor had thrown 130 punches, Arguello 108. It would prove to be Arguello's best round of the fight, and he had lost it.
There is an adage in boxing as familiar as the smell of liniment: When a puncher moves up in weight he can't bring his punch with him. Arguello had been devastating as a featherweight (126 pounds), a junior lightweight (130) and, of course, as a lightweight (135). But at 138� pounds to Pryor's 140, he may have made one jump too many. Time and again his right-hand rockets never fazed Pryor.
Moreover, Arguello was fighting Pryor's fight; his vaunted body attack was all but forgotten in his obsession with Pryor's head. Pryor's seemingly reckless style makes his head appear to be vulnerable, but he never stops bobbing and weaving. And his nonstop punching never permits his opponent to get set. If there's a better chin in the world than Pryor's, it has to be on Mount Rushmore. Twice Arguello caught him with crushing right hands in the second round. The first one caused Pryor to take a half-step back; the second, of the thunderbolt variety that had laid out so many of Arguello's 80 opponents, didn't even buy a blink. "That punch," Miller said later, "would have decapitated anybody else."
After the second round, Panama Lewis, Pryor's trainer, reached for one of two bottles in the corner and gave Pryor a slug. Later, Artie Curley, Pryor's cutman, would admit that the bottle contained peppermint schnapps.
"Aaron ate a big steak at 5:30," Curley said, "and then he took a nap. It made him burp all night. The schnapps was just to settle his stomach."
...than to be remembered for even his losing role in the Pryor/Arguello fight.
MORE:
Lowering The Boom Boom: Lightweight champ Alexis Arguello was too classy, too cunning and too much for 20-year-old Ray Mancini, who may have learned a valuable boxing lesson (E.M. Swift, 10/12/1981, SI)
Arguello is one of six men to have held world championships in three weight classes. At 29, he's at his peak: He's 16-1 in title fights—with 16 wins in a row—and has a 72-4 record. Still, last Saturday afternoon in an overcrowded ballroom in Bally's Park Place Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, Mancini gave Arguello all he could handle."I'm just glad it's over," Mancini said. "It takes a lot out of you—these championship fights." It had been a tense, emotional few days, and it showed. "The disappointment's going to hurt longer than these wounds. I wanted to win it for my father...." Mancini's voice cracked, and his eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry I'm not acting like a professional," he said, trying to smile.
In a few minutes, Arguello arrived. He is a strikingly handsome man, a slim Omar Sharif, but now there was a cut on his left eyelid and a purple crescent beneath it. "It was the best fight so far this year, my friend," he said to Mancini. Then, to the press: "I think my heart is special. But his heart is bigger than I have."
Arguello is a gentleman as well as an estimable champion, and he knew Mancini's story well—how Mancini wanted to win the championship for his father, Lenny (Boom Boom) Mancini, who was drafted in 1942 before he could fight for the lightweight title and then sustained a shrapnel wound in WW II that ended any hope for a title. The elder Mancini attended Saturday's fight in a wheelchair because he was convalescing from a heart-bypass operation three weeks before. "After the fight I saw Mancini's father," Arguello said, "and I felt bad." Then, as if he needed to explain the thundering right hand that dropped Mancini and obliged Referee Tony Perez to stop the bout, Arguello added, "But it's my job." He sounded apologetic.
Shortly afterward, Mancini excused himself to be with his father, pausing to say, "This isn't the end of the story. This is the standard first chapter. I'll be back. I'm just sorry that...sorry for all the people...." His voice began to crack again.
Which was when the champion put an arm around Mancini and spoke to him as one would to a younger brother: "You don't have to be sorry. This is a better experience than any fight you've ever had. You'll be better for this." Mancini nodded, and with a roomful of eavesdroppers, Arguello told the kid about his first title fight, how he had lost by decision to Ernesto Marcel in February 1974 and had cried afterward, how he now drew on that experience and was a better boxer because of it. This took place about 15 minutes after Arguello had nearly taken Mancini's head off. When the champ was through, Mancini thanked him and everybody clapped. Quite a show.
Arguello was born in Nicaragua, but has lived in Coral Gables, Fla. the past three years because of political strife in his homeland. He held the WBA featherweight title from 1974 to 1976 and the WBC junior lightweight title from 1978 to 1980, and last June he won the WBC lightweight championship from Jim Watt of Scotland. He has designs on Aaron Pryor's WBA junior welterweight title, which would make him the first to win championships in four divisions. He has even talked about moving up two divisions to fight Sugar Ray Leonard for the welterweight crown. "I don't need $10 million or $20 million," he concedes. "Just one million." The $400,000 he made fighting Mancini was his largest purse. " Mancini's strengths are that he's in great shape, he throws a lot of punches, and he's very aggressive," said Eddie Futch, Arguello's trainer, before the fight. "He makes fighters hurry their punches. But it's hard to hurry Arguello. Mancini's never been hit by a fellow that hits as hard as this guy."
The key to the fight, according to both men, was whether Arguello's left jab could keep Mancini from moving inside, where he's most effective. Said Arguello: "I have the equipment to fight him any way he wants, but I know if I get close to him, I'm in trouble."
The other question was whether Mancini, who fights best at a whirlwind pace, would have the stamina to go 15 rounds. " Arguello has won most of his title fights in rounds 10 to 15," Mancini said before the bout. "I'm a 15-round fighter, he's a 10-round fighter," Arguello would explain after the fight. And to his great pain, Mancini was proof of that assertion.
His Pryorities Are In Order: Alexis Arguello KO'd Kevin Rooney and now has a date with Aaron Pryor (William Nack, 8/09/82)
The warning flags were out last Saturday afternoon, and no one in Atlantic City got the message more clearly than Aaron Pryor, the WBA junior welterweight champion. Pryor was at Bally's Park Place Casino Hotel because he has signed to defend his 140-pound title against WBC lightweight champion Alexis Arguello in late October or early November and wanted to study Arguello against Kevin Rooney.Pryor got an eyeful as Arguello knocked out Rooney with a straight right hand so powerful that Rooney's head didn't clear until he got back to his hotel room almost an hour later. "What round?" Rooney asked his wife in the dressing room. "The second," she said.
"Better watch out for that right hand!" Roger Leonard, Sugar Ray's brother, called to Pryor after the fight.
"He better watch out for my right hand," Pryor said.
Teddy Brenner, who made this fight for Top Rank, said mischievously, "Aaron, you might have to train for this fight." Replied Pryor, "If I get hit with one of those right hands, I can forget it. But it'll be a challenge for him to make my bell ring."
Rooney was no challenge for the 135-pound champion, and for him the bell tolled loud and dolorously.
The Champion Of Confusion: WBA junior welterweight titleholder Aaron Pryor has everything in order in the ring, but outside of it, his life is a mess (Pat Putnam, 11/08/82, Sports Illustrated)
Pryor was born out of wedlock in Cincinnati on Oct. 20, 1955. Subsequently, his mother, Sarah Adams, married a man named Pryor, and Aaron took his stepfather's name. "Look," says Harold Weston, the Madison Square Garden matchmaker, "I've known Aaron a long time and he's a very warm, nice guy. But his whole world has always been right out there on the street corner. People look at Ray Leonard and say, 'Gee, he's got class.' But they look at Aaron Pryor and say, 'Christ, why does he act like that?' It's not his fault. It's the way he was brought up. He's reaching out for love and attention and so he does crazy things to get them."Pryor would have you believe that his life began at age 13, the day he first walked into a gym. But at Great Gorge he cracked open the door to his earlier years. "I had four brothers and two sisters," he said, "but I had a different father from the others. I was the kid nobody paid any attention to. I was neglected and completely lost. Some nights I just said to hell with it and slept in a doorway somewhere. Wasn't anything at home for me anyway."
He was roaming the streets in 1968 when he wandered into a gym at the corner of 14th and Republic. Phil Smith, who trained amateur fighters, remembers, "He was just a scrawny little thing, but he said he wanted to be a boxer. I told Aaron to get in with a kid named John Howard. I wanted to see what Aaron had. Well, Howard knocked him out of the ring. But Aaron climbed back and took off after Howard. I knew I had something special.
"I never wanted him to knock anybody out. He was a beautiful boxer, beautiful moves, but he just couldn't help it, he kept knocking guys out. I told him, 'Aaron, if you keep knocking all these guys out you'll only get fights in the tournaments when they can't avoid you.' He was a great little kid, he really was. His only problems are girls and telling time."
Later Smith moved his boxers to Lincoln Center in downtown Cincinnati. "Our first night there some kid who had fought in the Golden Gloves the year before challenged Aaron," says Smith. "I told them, 'No, that's honky-tonk stuff. We don't need that in the gym.' So they went outside. Five minutes later Aaron came in. The supervisor came over and said, 'Hey, what's going on? One of your kids just beat up a guy outside.' So I told Aaron, 'Hey, cut that stuff out. You can go to jail for that.' Right then he quit street fighting altogether."
Frankie Sims was once Pryor's best friend, roommate and assistant trainer. "Aaron loves a challenge," Sims says. "I remember the time a girl where we lived was locked out of her apartment on the fourth floor, but she had left one of her windows open. To get up there you had to climb between two pillars and then swing over to reach a window. I went up but said there was no way I was going to let go of that pillar to swing to the window. So Aaron went up. I kept yelling for him to get down because if he fell he'd sure as hell break something. He yelled down, 'I'll be O.K. if you just let me alone.' Sure enough, he got in the window. It was just something he wanted to do because it was a challenge."
As Pryor's amateur career flourished, he was offered the challenge of international competition. His first trip was to Moscow. He had to lie about his age, change it from 16 to 17 to qualify. As an opponent he drew Valery Solomin, then rated No. 1 in the world at 132 pounds. The 29-year-old Solomin was considerably taller than the 5'6" Pryor and had had more than 300 fights with a 90% knockout ratio. During one round Solomin forced Pryor into a corner and fired a volley of 20 punches, all of which missed their bobbing and weaving target. The crowd stood and gave Pryor an ovation. He won the fight.
This is the contradiction in Pryor's life: erratic, antisocial behavior outside the ring and professionalism inside it. Rollie Schwartz, who supervised many of the U.S. teams' trips abroad, has followed Pryor's career almost from its start. "I've heard all the stories about him," says Schwartz. "But I have a great feeling for him because he represented the United States 21 times in international competition, always with honor and dignity. And he won all but one fight, and in that one he got shafted."
HOPEFULLY THE TALIBAN HAS A LOT OF PICKETTS:
Massive US assault to seize Taleban heartland (Tom Coghlan, 7/02/09, Times of London)
Thousands of US Marines stormed into an Afghan river valley by helicopter and land early today, launching the first major military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency with an assault deep into Taleban-held territory.Operation Khanjar, which the Marines call simply "the decisive op", is intended to seize virtually the entire lower Helmand River valley, a heartland of the Taleban insurgency and the world's biggest heroin producing region.
It is the biggest operation launched by the US Marines Corps since the retaking of Fallujah in 2004 and seeks to break the grinding stalemate between Nato forces and the Taleban in the province.
US commanders stressed this morning their desire to move quickly and decisively with overwhelming force to seize the entire southern Helmand River valley from Taleban control ahead of the delayed Afghan Presidential elections on August 20.
FORTUNATELY...:
FBI says Saddam's weapons bluff aimed at Iran (JoAnne Allen, July 2, 2009, Reuters)
Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader."Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction. [...]
The FBI reports, released on Wednesday, said Saddam asserted that he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for blocking the return of UN weapons inspectors who were searching for WMD.
...it doesn't matter why he didn't comply with the UN resolutions. The failure to do so was enough for us to remove him.
MOMMY, HE KICKED ME!:
Bullies booted me out of England, says ex-Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo (Sportsmail, 7/02/09)
Cristiano Ronaldo claims he was kicked out of the Premier League by players who couldn't cope with him on the pitch. [...]He said: 'There are some teams who know they can't compete with you on a football level, so they just kick you.
'It's frustrating and something needs to be done to protect the skilful players because one day someone will get seriously hurt. I think more could be done to protect us but that is up to the referees to decide.'
As soon as refs started calling him on his dives his EPL career was over. Moving to the Spanish league gives him a fresh start, but they'll catch up to him there too. And if he can't get free kicks by diving he's mostly useless.