Beat the Lakers

      It's the only way to call the current NBA season
a success...The Dallas Mavericks now face a major 
obstacle in their road to the championship...and it 

is called the Los Angeles Lakers. The two teams entered the playoffs with almost the same record, but Laker superstar Kobe Bryant hit a three point shot at the buzzer to give the Lakers the number one seed in the  Western Conference, while Dallas is number two. The Mavericks have a history of NOT doing well in the playoffs despite having steller performances in the regular season. They have added a couple of big men since last year, but still the burden will be on the backs of Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki. Kidd has played for other teams in the NBA, but Nowitzki has been a Mav since day one. The seven foot German was suppose to elevate Dallas to championship caliber, but so far it has not happened. Two years ago Dallas folded in the finals against Miami, despite winning the first two games of the Championship series. Dallas is coming off a first-round win over Portland and the Trail Blazers tried to make it a blue-collar series. They roughed up the Mavs to try and make them lose their composure, but Dallas took the series in six games. Now it is a different and stronger opponent as they enter the Western Conference Semi-Finals. All eyes will be on Nowitzki to see if he can finally attain the superstar status he has been promising all these years.

Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo

    It was 69 years ago today... April 18, 1942 and America finally fought back after the disaster of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had a lot of successes after the surprise attack on December 7, 1941. Buoyed by the great victory of the Pearl Harbor mission, the Japanese followed up with conquests of Malaysia, the Phillipine Islands, and Indonesia, to go along with the large section of China (Manchuria) the Japanese had invaded in the late 1930's. The constant stream of bad news for America forced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to order his military forces to come up with some way to fight back. Japan was too far from any U.S. base to attack from the air, so a joint-service effort was devised. The Navy would ferry U.S. Army B-25 bombers close to Japan and the bombers would strike five different Japanese cities before heading for China. On April 18, 1942 sixteen B-25's took off from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet. Never before in history had a bomber taken off from a ship. The mission was under the leadership of Lt. Colonel James Doolittle and he not only trained the men, but was the pilot of the first bomber to leave the Hornet. The mission was a super success for the U.S. and extremely embarrassing for the Japanese, who thought they were safe from the U.S. military. One of the bombers landed in Russia, five others ditched in the South China Sea, and the ten others crashed in China. Of the eighty men involved in the mission only five are still alive as of this day. Each year since the mission the remaining fliers all get together for a reunion and there is a bottle of vintage champagne waiting for the last of these American heroes.  

Titanic's 99th Birthday

    April 14th,....It is a date that most people
gloss over without much thought. I happen to remember it because of the significance of the moment..

    Construction of HMS Titanic actually began in April of 1907 in the ship-building port city of Belfast, Ireland. Five years and 7,000 workers finished the Titanic on April 2, 1912. The ship was the most luxurious vessel afloat at this point in history. Gold chandeliers, sterling silver flatware, and porcelain dishes with only the finest of foods gracing the tables. Over 20 boilers gave the Titanic a speed of almost thirty knots and was designed for passengers of all levels of society. American millionaires Benjamin Guggenheim, Isodor Strauss, and John Astor had to be on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. The ship was almost four football fields long, and had three propellers, each forty feet wide. She was the showpiece of the White Star Line, which owned the Titanic. The first passengers boarded the Titanic at Southampton, England on April 10, 1912. After brief stops at Cherbourge, France and Queensland, Ireland, the Titanic headed for open water and a destination of New York City. It was 11:40 at night on the 14th when she struck the iceberg, and water poured in at the rate of seven tons per second. Distress calls went out immediately, but 58 miles away the 'USS California' had turned off the radio shack at 11pm. It took just two and a half hours for the 'unsinkable' to slip below the frigid waters of the Atlantic. Of the 2,206 passengers and crew, only 703 were saved due to the shortage of lifeboats on the big ship. Since it was one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic, the Titanic would rest in peace until 1985 when technology made it possible for divers to finally find her. James Cameron's great movie of 1997 has been hailed as being extremely true to the historical facts of this disaster...and remember it happened 99 years ago tonight.     

Harvick Wins.......Again!!!

This posting is almost a repeat of the one
before it....with the same result.
At the NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Martinsville,
Virginia today, Kevin Harvick passed Dale
Earnhardt, Jr with three laps to go to claim
the win and the Grandfather clock trophy. Harvick
becomes the first two-time winner at the Cup 
level in 2011. He started the race in the 24th spot 

and remained about mid-pack until the 200 lap mark
of the 500 lap event. Earnhardt, Jr has not won a
Cup race since June of 2008 and was the sentimental
choice, but it was not to be. He did edge out Kyle 
Busch for second place, with Juan Pablo Montoya
fourth and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top five.
Harvick, who finished 42nd in the Daytona 500 has slowly worked his way back into the points chase and now is fifth after todays victory. The NASCAR drivers will be in Dallas-Fort Worth next week when they come to Texas Motor Speeday, north of the metroplex. It
is one of the fastest venues on the NASCAR circuit.

Great Finish in California

     If you missed the NASCAR race today in
Fontana, California, you really missed a great
finish.. Kyle Busch led 151 of 200 laps, but got
outrun by a couple of Chevrolets at the end.
With three laps to go after a yellow caution
flag, the drivers re-started with Bush leading
Jimmy Johnson into the last lap. Johnson got
around Bush but suddenly found Kevin Harvick
right on his rear bumper. On the backstretch Kevin
pushed Johnson's car into the last turn at a faster
speed than Johnson was ready for and the car
got loose. Harvick passed JJ on the high side of
the track and immediately went to the lower groove
to keep JJ from drafting on him. Harvick started the
race from the 24th spot and most of the announcers
had written him off despite running in the top ten most
of the race. It was the 15th NASCAR victory for Harvick
at the top echelon of the sport, and the win moved him
into 9th place in the points race. Harvick blew an engine
at Daytona on lap number 19 and finished that race in
the 42nd spot. He has slowly been working him way back
to the top, and today's win was all the more sweet as he
out-dueled the top two drivers in the sport at the moment 
in Kyle Busch and Jimmy Johnson. Next week the drivers

will be at the short course race track at Martinsville. 

Katy Out at CBS News

     Beginning in June of 2011 viewers will see
at new face at the news desk of the CBS Evening
News.. Katy Couric is at the end of her five year
contract (which pays her 15 million dollars a year)
and there is very little effort to re-sign her to a new
deal. Couric came to CBS News in 2006 after a long
stint as the morning hostess of the NBC Today Show.
In this format, she excelled at interviewing and adlibbing
with guests on the show. As a newscaster in a tightly
formatted 22 minute newscast, she is out of her league
and looked uncomfortable in her first couple of years.
CBS has lagged behind in the ratings for the evening 
news programs and now seem ready to make the change.
Rumors around the hallways in New York seem to think
that Scott Pelley would be the immediate choice to succeed
Couric in the anchor chair. Pelley, a Texan who began his

career in TV news in Lubbock, worked in Dallas at Channel 8
as a reporter and weekend anchor before moving to CBS.
He now is one of the staples on the CBS program '60 Minutes'
and has experience reporting from Iraq and Afganistan. Pelley
was also the first to interview then President-Elect George W.

Bush immediately following the election.
   I would like to submit another possibility for CBS to consider.
Harry Smith has been taken off the Early Show on CBS and now
is the fill-in for Couric when she is absent. Smith has a great voice and is the first to project that comfortable feeling that has been
absent from the CBS Evening News since Walter Cronkite was pushed out. I admit to being a bit bias on this decision as I worked
with Smith in Dallas and New York while I was with CBS News.
Harry is a good man, and he is one to work the story rather than 
just looking good on camera. It will be a choice for someone,...but
just remember CBS.... third place in the ratings !!  Smith can turn
things around for you...

Woman Driver Stands Up Like A Man

    While most of the hoopla last week at
Bristol, Tennessee centered around Kyle
Busch and his amazing talent,...there was
another happening you might have missed.
At the beginning of the Nationwide race on
Saturday, driver Jennifer Jo Cobb and car
owner Rick Russell. The owner wanted 
Jennifer Jo to run two laps of the race and
bring the car in so it would be ready for this
weekends race at Fontana, California. This
is the latest move by low-budget car owners.
They qualify for the race and then just run one
or two laps to preserve their cars. Even last place
money is attractive as the last place car at Bristol
took home almost one-hundred thousand dollars.
Jennifer Jo told Russell she was willing to park
after one lap if given the assurance she would be
the driver this week in Fontana. Russell could not
do that and with ten minutes to go before the 
start of the race, Jennifer Jo got out of the car and
told him to find another driver. She has received a
lot of mail and phone calls this week, most of it on
the positive side. She already has a new ride this week
with Rick Ware Racing and other car owners have
talked with her about the rest of the season. She 
has tentative agreements with three different groups
of owners, and Jennifer Jo, the eternal optimist, sees
the arrangement as a good thing. She now will have
three different cars and three crew chiefs to work with...and
she says 'it will be good experience.' Good job Jennifer

Jo,...Don't let them chase you out of racing. Danica might
get more publicity, but Jennifer Jo is more of a racer
among the good 'ol boys....