If you want someone for your next celebrity roast, Ichiro Suzuki could be your guy.
Mixing sneaky humor with heartfelt messages, the first Japanese-born player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame stole the show Sunday in Cooperstown. [snip]
The outfielder was joined by pitcher CC Sabathia, also elected in his first year of eligibility, and closer Billy Wagner, who made it in his final try on the writers’ ballot. Suzuki fell one vote shy of being a unanimous selection and he took a jab at the unidentified sports writer who didn’t vote for him.
“Three thousand hits or 262 hits in one season are two achievements recognized by the writers. Well, all but one,” Suzuki said to roaring laughter.
“By the way, the offer for the writer to have dinner at my home has now expired,” he added, with emphasis on “expired” for good measure. [snip]
With 52 returning Hall of Famers on hand, Suzuki paid homage to his new baseball home in Cooperstown and his adoring fans by delivering his 18-minute speech in English. His humor, a surprise to many, delighted the crowd. [snip]
He even took a moment for some tongue-in-cheek modesty.
“People often measure me by my records. Three thousand hits. Ten Gold Gloves. Ten seasons of 200 hits.
“Not bad, huh?” Suzuki said to more laughs.
He thanked his late agent Tony Anastasio for “getting me to America and for teaching me to love wine.”
But he also took time to get to the root of what made him extraordinary.
“Baseball is much more than just hitting, throwing and running. Baseball taught me to make valued decisions about what is important. It helped shape my view of life and the world. … The older I got, I realized the only way I could get to play the game I loved to the age of 45 at the highest level was to dedicate myself to it completely,” he said. “When fans use their precious time to see you play, you have a responsibility to perform for them whether you are winning by 10 or losing by 10.
“Baseball taught me what it means to be a professional and I believe that is the main reason I am here today. I could not have achieved the numbers without paying attention to the small details every single day consistently for all 19 seasons.”
Now he’s reached the pinnacle, overcoming doubters, one of whom said to him: “`Don’t embarrass the nation.’” He’s made his homeland proud...
One of the greatest players ever to play the game. He make his sport and his homeland proud, indeed.
On the morning of 2 May, teenager Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio was driving to his landscaping job in North Palm Beach with his mother and two male friends when they were pulled over by the Florida highway patrol.
In one swift moment, a traffic stop turned into a violent arrest.
A highway patrol officer asked everyone in the van to identify themselves, then called for backup. Officers with US border patrol arrived on the scene.
Video footage of the incident captured by Laynez-Ambrosio, an 18-year-old US citizen, appears to show a group of officers in tactical gear working together to violently detain the three men*, two of whom are undocumented. They appear to use a stun gun on one man, put another in a chokehold and can be heard telling Laynez-Ambrosio: “You’ve got no rights here. You’re a migo, brother.” Afterward, agents can be heard bragging and making light of the arrests, calling the stun gun use “funny” and quipping: “You can smell that … $30,000 bonus.”
The footage has put fresh scrutiny on the harsh tactics used by US law enforcement officials as the Trump administration sets ambitious enforcement targets to detain thousands of immigrants every day.
“The federal government has imposed quotas for the arrest of immigrants,” said Jack Scarola, an attorney who is advocating on behalf of Laynez-Ambrosio and working with the non-profit Guatemalan-Maya Center, which provided the footage to the Guardian. “Any time law enforcement is compelled to work towards a quota, it poses a significant risk to other rights.”...
The footage of the violent arrests are at the link. But this is just one example out of countless others of law enforcement/ immigration thugs running roughshod over the rights (yes, they have constitutional rights) of citizens and non-citizens alike. It's happening every day in Trump's police state, and we're already in danger of becoming numb to it.
... In pursuit of its political goals, the Trump administration has attempted to intimidate and extort numerous universities. It has threatened them with severe consequences, including the loss of federal funding, termination of accreditation, and denial of the ability to enroll foreign students. Some have resisted, filing lawsuits against these unlawful threats. Others have capitulated, including most recently Columbia University.
Columbia’s agreement with the federal government includes a $200 million fine, restrictions on its admissions and hiring processes, modified disciplinary processes, mandatory faculty appointments, and changes to its curriculum and educational programs. No court has held that these changes are required by law, and many of them are seriously inconsistent with Columbia’s purported commitments to institutional autonomy, academic freedom, and a campus environment that is welcoming to all.
Columbia’s actions are immoral, unwise, and dangerous. In the name of compromise with the administration, it has compromised the core values to which universities are dedicated. Worse, it has done so in the face of a widespread authoritarian crackdown not just on higher education, but on all the civic institutions of a free society: the legal profession, the news media, nonprofit organizations, and many more. Columbia’s failure to defend its own freedoms threatens those freedoms for all. It gives aid and comfort to tyrants, and exposes others to the same kind of extortionate threats.
Universities have institutional moral standing because they stand apart from private profit and public power. The knowledge they produce and maintain is not reducible to the coin of the realm, and so they can legitimately call upon the generosity of others to sustain their mission. The alumni donor who writes a check and the outside reviewer who writes a tenure letter are participating in a gift economy built on payment forward rather than on payment in return. They give purely so that knowledge may grow and continue—or at least that is what the university should be able tell them with a straight face when it calls upon their aid.
Columbia can do so no longer. Along with the $200 million and the laundry list of promises, Columbia has traded away its soul. How can a university that lets the government illegally dictate who it admits and hires tell its faculty and students that they are truly free to think for themselves and say what they believe? It cannot. How can a university that pays Dane-geld promise donors that their geld will not go straight to the Dane? It cannot. How can a university that grovels in the face of demands for ideological control assure speakers that they are contributing to learning and not just the accumulation of power? It cannot...
One last time, just so this is fixed in our minds forever. Remember the cowards and collaborators like Columbia's administration.
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