Actually, it’s two videos.  The first is simply a local news report about an attempted rape in the projects.  That’s not very funny in and of itself.  But the victim’s brother has a lot to say, and his expressiveness and odd word choice is mildly entertaining.  Still, this isn’t what is so great, but you must watch this video first in order to appreciate the second one.

In the second video, someone has seen the entertainment value in this gentleman’s manner of speaking, and, using computer magic, turned it into a great R&B song.  I don’t know how they did it, but it is amazing.  (The good stuff ends at 1:15.)

The same foolish impulse that animates the men who snatch baseballs from from one another in the stands, and the boys who race each other from section to section in greedy anticipation, is the same one that prompts fans to interfere with balls in play.  The infamous Steve Bartman incident is the best known, but others occur almost daily, with fans reaching over walls, gloves in hand, to scoop up fair balls.

This obsession reached its logical climax in Arlington last night, when a fan at Rangers Park tumbled from the upper deck to the stands below.  He had been reaching for a foul ball and lost his balance.  He dropped thirty feet onto fans below.  Fans in the park screamed when they saw it happen.  The home plate umpire threw his hands over his head in horror.  The television announcers were similarly terrified.  The game was halted for fifteen minutes, and many players were visibly distressed, with several of the Cleveland fielders clearly mouthing prayers.

Everyone loves a souvenir.  But is a $16 baseball really worth all that?

UPDATE: A day after the tragically bad call by Jim Joyce, he stood on the field in Detroit, visibly weeping, and shook Armando Galarraga’s hand.  Joyce is clearly distraught about his mistake – obviously more upset than Galarraga himself, who has handled this ordeal with tremendous class.

Meanwhile, on mlb.com, Hal Bodley makes a considered, but ultimately illogical defense of Bud Selig’s decision to not interfere with the outcome of the game.  Bodley admits that his first reaction was to demand that Joyce’s call be overturned.  But, he writes, “had Selig taken the easy way out he would have established a precedent that could have come back to haunt him and the sport. Years from now, that decision would be an integral part of his legacy”.

True, overturning the call would be unusual, and it would go against the perfectly imperfect nature of baseball, in which human error is sometimes a part of the game, but umpires’ decisions are final.  But where Bodley loses me is in his correct assertion that this call will lead to expanded use of instant replay.  What I wonder is this: if Joyce’s call leads to more instant replay, which will inevitably lead to other umpires’ calls being overturned, what’s the point of not just reversing this decision right now?

That said, if someone makes performance-enhancing drugs for writers, the authors of the aforementioned article might want to look into it.  Consider the following paragraph:

Landis provided detailed information about his own doping practices, saying he consistently used the blood-booster EPO to increase his endurance, testosterone, human growth hormone and blood transfusions.

I am surprised that the big league New York Times editors didn’t spot the blunder.  Had they taken Professor McCrea’s Advanced Exposition course, they would know that the last item in a series should always be the longest.  As it stands, the sentence seems to say that EPO increased Landis’ endurance and testosterone.  Here’s how the sentence ought to look:

Landis provided detailed information about his own doping practices, saying he consistently used testosterone, blood transfusions, human growth hormone, and the blood-booster EPO to increase his endurance.

Even that, however, might not be enough, since one might now infer that all those items contributed to Landis’s increased endurance, when, in fact, only EPO was responsible.  I would take the last element in that series and write it like this:

…and the blood booster EPO, which increases endurance.

That’s better.

The flooding Cumberland River has caused terrible destruction in Nashville.  The water is several feet high at the door of the Grand Ole Opry, and LP Field, home of the Tennessee Titans, looks ready to stage mock sea battles.  The Opryland Hotel looks ruined.  (The Tennessean has a gallery of images on its website, though I couldn’t get it to work in Firefox.)  Today I see that the Schermerhorn Symphony Center has been added to the list of damaged buildings.  This is a pity, because of all the recent concert halls built in the United States, the Schermerhorn is one of the few I find aesthetically appealing.  Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles is a masterpiece, of course, but Verizon Hall in Philadelphia is ugly, and, apparently, acoustically flawed.  Other halls constructed in recent decades seem to aim for the appearance of modern, but instead look bland and soulless.  Schermerhorn Hall, on the other hand, is unashamedly neoclassical.  The architects must have recognized that a hundred years from now, when the trendy glass and steel boxes commonly built today are all torn down, columns and sculpture-adorned pediments will look as handsome as ever.

Sadly, Schermerhorn Hall, with its classic box shape and interior windows like the Musikverein, will now have to go extensive restoration.  The flood waters destroyed the organ console and pump, and trashed two Steinways in the basement.  Something has me confused, however: I know there probably wasn’t any way to move the organ’s mechanical equipment from the basement, but I am certain that the organ console could have been lifted onto the stage.  And, surely the pianos could have been brought up to the stage on an elevator, as well.  Why didn’t anybody think of that?