Jack Kemp turned a career as a pro quarterback for the Buffalo Bills into a successfull political career. He served as a Congressman for western New York for nine terms and was appointed Housing Secretary in the first Bush administration. Those of you old enough to do so might also remember that Kemp ran as the Vice Presidential candidate on Bob Dole’s unsuccessful 1996 Presidential ticket.

Kemp led Buffalo to the 1964 and 1965 AFL Championships, and won the league’s most valuable player award in 1965. He co-founded the AFL Players Association in 1964 and was elected president of the union for five terms. When he retired from football in 1969, Kemp had enough support in blue-collar Buffalo and its suburbs to win an open congressional seat.

In 11 seasons, he sustained a dozen concussions, two broken ankles and a crushed hand — which Kemp insisted a doctor permanently set in a passing position so that he could continue to play.

“Pro football gave me a good perspective,” he was quoted as saying. “When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy.”

In January, Kemp announced that he had been diagnosed with an unspecified, but aggressive, type of cancer that had already spread to several vital organs. He passed away Saturday evening in his Bethesda, MA home.

In an upcoming interview with CBS’s The Early Show, 15 year old James Kambewa- the biological father of Mercy, the Malawian girl whom Madonna hopes to adopt- once again expresses his opposition to the adoption

“I want to take care of her and I’m capable to take care of my baby,” he says. “Mercy, she is a Malawian—so [I] need her to grow as a Malawian, as well with our culture.”

In the interview, Kambewa is wearing a necklace he made bearing his daughter’s name but says has never held or even met her in person. The little girl’s birth mother died shortly after childbirth.

Lucy Chekechiwa, Mercy’s maternal grandmother, says she, too, was initially opposed to the adoption but eventually gave in.
“I did not want my granddaughter to be adopted,” she says, “but because they have been persistent enough, I have been forced to let my granddaughter go.”

This reeks of opportunism. If his daughter was so important to him, why hasn’t he been a part of her life for the 3 years before now? I’m not claiming to be an expert on Malawian orphanages, but I’m betting that if the father of the chid at least wanted to hold his daughter, at some point in the past three years he could have accomplished that.

12 people were injured yesterday when the training facility for the Dallas Cowboys blew over and collapsed in high winds. The injured parties include coach Brett Maxie, team scout Chris Hall, four staff members, and special teams coach Joe DeCamillis, who broke his back.

Former coach Dan Reeves, DeCamillis’ father-in-law, said the first-year Dallas coach has a couple of broken vertebrae in his lower back.

“They say he’s lucky not to be paralyzed,” said Reeves, adding that DeCamillis probably will have surgery. The coach was seen being removed on a stretcher wearing a neck brace.

Details about the other injured parties have not been released due to privacy issues, but no one else is thought to have been as seriously injured.

Although the white, tent-like facility- similar to those used by many NFL teams for practice facilities– may look light and airy, it contains metal structural supports and electrical equipment that can be as heavy as a car. The lights began to sway violently in the 64 mph winds minutes before the building collapsed, but the Cowboys staff and the 27  players present continued their workouts until the roof fell in.

I don’t know about you, but if I had 70 people gathered together whose combined net worth is probably somewhere around a half billion dollars, I wouldn’t put them in a giant tent during a thunderstorm and hope they don’t have a car dropped on them.

In an interview for the June issue of Playboy, Shia LaBeouf reveals that his hippie mother used to wander around the house naked– even when he would have friends over– and that he was exposed to drug use from a young age:

“The nudity was weird, especially when her friends came over. ..All of them would just be naked around the house. That was strange for me, and it was really bizarre when my friends were there. You’ve got your little buds over, and Mom’s, like, playing naked connect the dots or whatever. She’s in the middle of goddess-group time, where it’s literally a bunch of naked women tracing auras around one another’s bodies with incense and then sitting together and humming for prolonged periods of time.”

His mother and father were also open about their drug use, which has given him a liberal attitude toward it as well. “I grew up with a bunch of hippies, and marijuana was always around,” he says. “Pot was never looked at as a negative thing. I could smoke it on holidays with my parents, and we were all good. I like pot. It has never been a monster for me. I can put limits on it. But I definitely saw from a very young age what drugs can do to you.”

Wow.. I can’t wait for his autobiography. A few years ago, I remember reading an article in GQ that gave the more PG, “mainstream” version of his childhood (sans naked mommies and massive drug use) and even that was engrossing and out of the ordinary. Something tells me we still haven’t heard everything there is to tell about Shia’s decidedly non-traditional upbringing.

Thank you, celebrities, for making me realize just how lucky I was to have parents that were weird and embarrassing in what turns out were very “normal” ways. I could have had a mom whose idea of consoling me after a stressfull day at school involved rolling me a joint and tracing my naked aura.

Megan Fox had been rumored to be in the running to play Wonder Woman in an upcoming Joss Whedon adaptation. She has however, firmly put those rumors to rest by calling the ass-kicking Amazon and feminist action icon “lame.”

Director Joss Whedon is rumoured to be putting together a cast for an upcoming big screen outing for the superhero siren, originally played by Lynda Carter in the 1970s TV show.

Fox is reportedly in the running to play the lead role, but the Transformer star is adamant she will not get involved with the comic book adaptation.

She tells British magazine FHM, “She’s lame. She flies around in an invisible jet, but she’s not invisible. I don’t get it.”

Until now, I had sort of tolerated Megan Fox and her unwarranted fame. Yes, she’s hot, but she’s been in ONE movie that people have seen– a movie with a horrible script whose plot had more giant, gaping holes than a Texas whorehouse and required about as much acting talent. Yet, somehow, she’s managed to become moderately famous.

She should be invisible, but she’s not. I don’t get it.

I love the Kentucky Derby–not because of the horse racing. I could give a crap about horse racing– although I do love to hear Nancy O’Dell talk about how she chooses what horse to bet on based on how nice its ass is.

Equestrian junk-in-the-trunk aside, I love the Kentucky derby because it makes obscenely rich (and moderately famous) people put ridiculous things on their heads and stroll around for photo ops because, well, that’s just what one does on Derby Day. It’s the rich and famous version of peer pressure at its worst, and I love every minute of it.

Take a stroll through the photo gallery. You’ll find yourself asking questions like: Did a can of silly string explode on Lynn Whitfield’s head? Does Bobby Flay ever NOT look like a total prick? If I jump on Brooke Shields’ head, will I get an extra life?

In case you were wondering, a tiny, screaming, weeping, Creole lunatic riding a horse called “Mine That Bird” won the race today. God, I love the derby.