It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World

Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | 12/15/03 | Ralph R. Reiland

[thesummerwind]

Playing for the Pittsfield High School baseball team in Illinois, Danny Hannant threw a pitch that a Calhoun High School player hit in a line drive right at the pitcher's mound. The ball bounced off Hannant's head.

Rather than blame the mishap on a lousy pitch or a missed catch, or on the intrinsic risks of the game, Hannant sued the maker of the bat, Hillerich & Bradsby. Seeking in excess of $1 million, Hannant's lawyer argued that the company should have put labels on its Louisville Slugger bats warning that the product "could cause a baseball to be propelled with such velocity that when hit directly towards a pitcher it does not allow the pitcher sufficient reaction time to avoid being struck."

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

In any event, with the jungle gyms gone and the fat kids pigging out at McDonald's, George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf, a pioneer in the big tobacco settlements, sees new pockets that are ripe for picking.

"It's important for lawyers to pick cases easiest to argue," Banzhaf told a group of lawyers assembled at a recent obesity conference. "I'd find a poor homeless fat kid if I could. One-hundred-million-dollar awards are inevitable, like tobacco."

This man is a ghoul. Or, maybe, a bloody vulture...

[LexBaird]

Well, imagine what you're missing: me in my kilt, sword scabbard in my hand, my long, golden tresses blowing in the breeze...

[cid89]

We played a slightly different version in the late 70's to early 80's. We would all stand in a circle and put our feet in the middle and then put the football on our toes and wait for someone to grab the ball and run. Those were the days.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

"Playgrounds all over the country have been stripped of monkey bars, jungle gyms, high slides and swings, seesaws and other old-fashioned equipment once popularized by President John F. Kennedy's physical-fitness campaign. The reason: thousands of lawsuits by people who hurt themselves at playgrounds."

G*dd*mn JohnKerrying trial lawyers and their miserable JohnKerrying plaintiffs! (Excluding those with a truly legitimate grievance against faulty playground equipment, of course.)

Ah, JohnKerryit.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Thanks to the trial lawyers you can no longer walk around with both knees and elbows scabbed over.The days of tackle football in somebody's backyard are long gone.If I had been born 20 years later and walked around with the bruises and scabs of my youth, my parents would be in jail and I would be in a foster home.

Makes me wanna cry. Thank G*d I grew up in the 70s and 80s...

[LexBaird]

G*dd*mn JohnKerrying trial lawyers and their miserable JohnKerrying plaintiffs

Yeah! Whadda buncha Lewinskis!

[mtbrandon49]

Must a knocked something loose. (huked on fonics wurked fer me)

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Dang. I saw that motherKerryer on the news once; that must be an old picture. The Kerryer I saw on the news was much older...

[mtbrandon49]

"Makes me wanna cry. Thank G*d I grew up in the 70s and 80s..."

I think we made the cut off point.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

That game was, er, actually called "Smear the Queer" ...

Oh, my! What will people say? :-)

[thesummerwind]

Well even without a roof you have walls to "break the wind"

Sh*t! The wife and I "break the wind" IN the house to keep the heating bills down. Damn! It stinks, but it works! ;)

[thesummerwind]

We would all stand in a circle and put our feet in the middle and then put the football on our toes

-----sounds like what Janet Reno did with Hillary with a piece of pizza on her toes!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

With folks like the motherKerryer Banzhaf, it's as though the gun goes round looking for someone to use it in a crime...

[Frankss]

We played that game, called it "murder ball" ha ha

[the_devils_advocate_666]

"Smear the Queer", yep, that's what we called it. But when we really wanted to hurt each other, we'd get out my friend's Dad's 16oz. boxing gloves and had some real fun. You really couldn't do much damage with the big gloves, but someone would eventually have to cry "Uncle" (oh, the horror).

As for my Dad and us crying, his line was "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about."

[LisaMalia]

As for my Dad and us crying, his line was "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about."

Oh, that one brings back memories. Although growing up in my household of 5 kids, Mom was the one who ruled with an iron fist! Damn, she would whip you with whatever she could get her hands on...a belt, pingpong paddle, her HAND (that one stung). At least she wasn'g big on switches!

Daddy was more of a pushover, at least to us girls...every once in a while he's say jokingly.."I'm gonna get in your eye like a wild onion!"

Some good sayings by my mom: "You're gonna put your eye out with that!" "If_______jumped off a bridge, would you?" "It's as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man." (words I didn't heed...:) And the best one of all, heard many times over the years from both of them "I love you."

[Conspiracy Guy]

PC would be. "Hurt the Gays and get charged with hate crime."

[Conspiracy Guy]

A regular Highlander eh!

[thesummerwind]

As for my Dad and us crying, his line was "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about."

---

a classic!!!!

[FreedomCalls]