Thursday, January 29, 2009

The week in sports

Tuesday January 20,2009 was a historic day in American history. The first Africa American was sworn in as our country’s 44th President, that moment will be in the history books. It was a moment historians and scholars will be dissecting for years and decades to come. It was a day to be a proud American and to celebrate our democracy. He has already kept a lot of his campaign promises like closing down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Change has definitely come to America.

Now back to sports.

The two weeks between the Super Bowl and the Conference Championship Games are one of the most boring times of the year. The last week especially, on all of the ESPN talk shows it’s all about the Super Bowl and the Draft. You had all this week to talk about the Super Bowl, and the Draft is not until April. ESPN should limit the talk to Monday after the Conference Championship Games then end it. The NFL Draft talk should be done after the Super Bowl and the Pro Bowl: let the season end first. Speaking of the Pro Bowl it looks like it will move to the week between the Championships Games and the Super Bowl as well as to the Super Bowl city of Miami next season. Good move, it gives us something to watch and gives the Pro Bowl the spotlight it needs.

Speaking of ESPN, they are looking for a new Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is the public's representative to ESPN, offering independent examination and analysis of ESPN's media outlets. I’M in, I watch ESPN all the time and I am critical of them most of the time. My opinion is that ESPN takes itself too seriously. Take last week for instance; they issued a press release about reporter Chris Berman covering the Super Bowl, why? It is not about what ESPN is or their reporters are doing at the Super Bowl it’s about the game. But they made the story about a reporter instead of an athlete; this should not be the case.
Please ESPN I need a job!

This Weekend
This weekend is Super Bowl Sunday. This year’s game is on NBC and its their 16th Super Bowl but first since 1998. Super Sunday kicks-off at 9 A.M. with a special three-hour edition of the “Today Show” with Meredith, Al, and Ann in Tampa. The official pre-game show begins at Noon with NFL Films Production “Road to the Super Bowl” review of the season. Starting at 1 P.M. is NBC Sports Super Bowl XLIII Pregame show with a cast of thousands, literarily. The highlight of the Pregame will be Matt Lauer will have a live interview with President Brack Obama from the White House. Kick off is set for 6:30 P.M., the Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Arizona Cardinals. Jennifer Hudson will sing “The Star Spangled Banner” before kickoff. The half-time entertainment is: The Boss” Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band.

My pick is the Steelers, but it will be closer than most people think.

I’M actually looking forward to the pre game show. I like Bob Costas and Keith Olbermann and I want to see how they will use the cast of thousands on the program.

Take care and talk to you next week.

Jamie Lazaroff

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Cost of Living adjustment

Hi everyone

This is the commentary I give on WINY 1350 AM radio this morning. Please give me some feedback on this topic. I want to hear form you.

One thing that has really been bugging me for a while is, the CT Legislature has not given Private Providers, who support people with disabilities, a cost of living adjustment in some 20 years. In that same time frame they have given state workers a raise many times. Why not give others a sample cost of living adjustment like you give yourselves? My question is, why is it that people with disabilities and their support systems always at the bottom of the totem pole? People with disabilities are one of the largest minority groups in the country, in fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau more than 54 million U.S. residents, or about 19 percent of the population have some sort of disability, but they are the last group to receive recognition, services and monetary help. People with disabilities need assistance, and in order to keep good employees we need to keep up with the cost of living adjustments as most of the competitors do. What I mean by this is, the cost of living has gone up every year for 20 years and it’s getting tougher and tougher to keep our staff. If I did not have a person helping me with my daily living tasks and pushing me to be my best I would not be here today. We are not asking for much just one little cost of living adjustment in 20 long years.

2009 will be a pivotal year in this fight as the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) will be conducting a detailed cost review of care provided in a institutional settings as apposed to care provided in the community. One of the factors they will be looking at is the difference in staff costs between public (state) and private providers. Hopefully this report will show that it is a cost savings to the state to have their people within DDS served by private providers. This is not about the many state employees who are caring wonderful people who work very hard to support us. This is about the system not recognizing that employees who work in private provider agencies work just as hard and are just as caring and supportive of us. After all, no matter, whether you work for the state or The Arc you are working toward the same goals, to support individuals with disabilities to become independent and accepted members of their community.

Connecticut is only one of three states in the Union that still provide a two tier service where all other states provide all their services through the use of Private Providers and at a greatly reduced cost to the State.

Senator Dan Debicella of Connecticut is in the process along with others in putting together a bill that would move the 4000 clients that are supported by DDS and moving them to be supported by The Private Provider. Even after adjusting the salaries upwards for the Private Provider's the savings to The State could exceed 400 million annually.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

The week that was and the week to come

Hope you all had a Happy New Year. New Years Eve and New Years Day have added two new events that I hope will be around for sometime. On New Years Eve for the past two years ESPN has presented Red Bull: New Year No Limits. Last year Robbie Maddison broke the world record for a motorcycle jump (322’ 7.5”) with a leap over the length of a football field. This year Maddison attempted a more elaborate, but equally challenging jump. He jumped more than 120 feet high to land on the top of the 96-foot-high replica Arc de Triomphe in front of the Paris, Las Vegas Hotel. Upon completing the jump he then performed a freefall 50 feet off the Arc to a ramp below. Here is the video:



Sorry for the f bombs in the video but you can understand. That was just crazy and nuts, great alternative to the ball drop in Times Square. I hope ESPN keeps up this new tradition.

On New Years day the NHL presented there second annual outdoors Winter Classic. This year’s game was played at Wrigley Field, the home of baseballs Chicago Cubs. What I like about this is that it is old school, in that most people start out playing hockey outside and this year’s game was a heated Original Six-Rivalry and it was a divisional match-up between the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks. Original Six means that Detroit and Chicago are two of the oldest teams in the league. What I also like about the Winter Classic is that the announcers are outdoors like the rest of the event, this gives the game a better feel for the weather conditions. All and all it is a great event and an alternative to the meaningless Bowl Games on New Years Day. It looks like the Boston Bruins will get a Winter Classic in the near future. Just think about hockey at Fenway Park that would be a lot of fun. I hate the winter and cold but I would not mind covering that.

I’M glad to see a staple of my youth coming back this summer. According to Variety, ABC is bringing back the “Superstars” for a six-episode run in June. As originally conceived, the show pitted pro athletes opposite each other in sports like swinning, biking, running and a obstacle course was the final event. In this vision of the "Superstars," eight celebs will be paired with eight male and female pro athletes to compete in various events, including swimming, biking, running and kayaking. Teams will be eliminated each week, until one athlete/celebrity pair is crowned the champs.

This weekend in Sports
This weekend the NFL Playoffs continues with the Divisional Round. On Saturday in the AFC it’s Baltimore at Tennessee (4:30) on CBS, the other Saturday game is Arizona at Carolina on FOX at 8 P.M. On Sunday is Philadelphia at the New York Giants on FOX at 1 P.M., then its San Diego at Pittsburgh at 4:30 P.M. on CBS. Enjoy, all the action.

The alternative to the football is the second stop of the Winter Dew Tour from Mount Snow in Vermont. TV coverage is Saturday 4:30 to 6 P.M. and Sunday 4:30 to 6 P.M., both days on NBC. Saturday will feature freestyle skiing in a Superpipe. Sunday is the Main Event with the snowboard Superpipe. Always fun and crazy, you never know what there kids will do. By the way, these kids are athletes, you tray to do what they do.

Enjoy the weekend. Good by and good luck.

Jamie Lazaroff