Wow! Mexicans are becoming as unpopular worldwide as they are in California!

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Real comedy writers have been counting on our distingushed Vice President, Mr Joseph Biden, to provide some comic relief for this new administration, which is so far proving too competent to be very funny. More on them later.

Meanwhile, Mr Biden (who, by the way, I like and admire and always have) has finally stepped out and, while his first foray into comedy may have only produced a few uneasy chuckles, check out the following little Blast From The Past in defense of our new VP:

In the going-on three years I did Jewish radio here in N'Yawk, I'm proud to say I only missed three shows. Two of those absences (the two Saturdays before the Yidstock shows) were scheduled; one was not. I never really expected anyone to buy my alien-abduction story, nor the one involving kidnap for an ever-decreasing ransom (insert scream here), but what really happened may match those for pure, real-world absurdity.

The head cold I had picked up during a cold and rainy Succos had settled so successfully in my lungs that nothing OTC would dislodge it, so I grabbed up my inusrance card and marched off to the nearest ER. I'd been through this before, and knew simple, basic pneumonia when I had it and what to do about it: five to seven days on antibiotics, a bit of bed rest - presto! Good as new.

But the lovely folks at the ER did not know me as well as did my erstwhile (now retired) Family Doctor, and subjected me to a dozen or so tests (these were the Space Alens who did the experiment on me involving the little, teeny-tiny artery in the wrist which hurts like &^*%* for them to get to!), one of which produced a result that looked suspiciously like TB.

Inside a sealed, isolated room, I was asked by a doctor, from behind his mask, if I'd been out of the country recently.

"On my budget?"

"OK," doc went on, "have you been any place where you might possibly have been exposed to something exotic?"

"I ride the N'Yawk Subway," I offered.

That crack landed me in Quarantine for five days, surrounded by creatures who resembled Donald Duck's nephews (in the dead of winter; the masks were blue), only taller and uglier.

So don't feel bad, Mr Vice President (see, I told ya I like him and always have); in the Real World of Real Medical Practice, public transit - especially here - is considered a rolling Petrie Dish in the best of times.

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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a second pro football league, and in that second pro football league was mighty and majestic team called the Oakland Raiders, coached by an imbued mad genius named John Madden (they did ok when Al Davis Himself was on the sidelines, but their glory days were under Madden), a kinetic presence with a gift for strategy and a way to coax miraculous performance from an array of unlikelies ranging from has-beens to the deranged.

And the Raiders rocked the AFL.

Then the Raiders rocked the NFL.

Then Madden's doctor called him a "time bomb," and told him to get off the sidelines immediately if he valued his life. Thank G-d he did.

The Raiders haven't been great since, but Madden spent the subsequent thirty years raising the bar for color commentators, thereby mastering two worlds.

Now he's packin' in a distinguished broadcasting career, and we wish him the best. Let's hope we've not heard the last of him.

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Meanwhile, it's baseball season, and my beloved L.A. Dodgers are sitting, at 14-8 as of this writing, at the top of their division, while the N'Yawk teams stink up their new stadia like they closed out their old ones. I had harbored the fantasy that Joe Torre, now managing the Dodgers, would return to The House That Ruth Built, sweep the 2K7 Series in 4, and send Yankees fans out of their old home in tears. Unfortunately, the Yankees so sucked last year they barely managed to maintain their professional credentials, tossing yet another of my life's dreams and ambitions into the dumper, and sending Yankees fans out of their old home in tears.

And the Mets, at the bottom of their division, look as big a disaster as the corporation whose statium bears its name.

This week the Yankees announced that they were cutting their ticket prices. You get what you pay for.

Go Dodger Blue!

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Everyone knows that the First Hundred Days milestone of a presidency started with FDR, who rammed through 15 pieces of legislation to distinguish his. Not quite that good this time, but, thank G-d, no disasters.

I do wish more federal money had gone to beleaguered citizens and less to multi-dipping corporate oligarchs, but that story is not yet over. And, at long last, more than payment of lip-service is being offered to mitigate the shenanigans of credit-card carriers.

And, of course, the U. S. of A. now has the hottest First Lady in the world, and the only one with a relative on his town's Board of Rabbis. Take that, Carla Bruni!

Even the new admin's Middle East policy isn't too alarming - yet.

President Obama is easily one of the smartest guys ever to hold the office. We need that right now

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Oh, do tell me about time pressures! I'm havin 'em now.

tbc