Say what you want about the opinionated King of Corydon Avenue, but alone among all the pundits, he steadfastly maintained from about week 8 of the NFL regular season, that the Arizona Cardinals was a team that was headed for glory.
On Monday, Frank, having parlayed his hunch into untold riches behind the skill and artistry of wily quarterback Kurt Warner and speedy son-of-a-journalist Larry Fitzgerald, will describe the full emotion of (cue Jim McKay) "the agony of defeat".
The twists and turns of luck and effort and of course, officiating, all conspired to deliver one of the most exciting Super Bowls in history but one of the most crushing disappointments in Franks's prognostication career.
Along with our analysis of the 27-23 Pittsburgh Steelers football championship there is a lot of important news to catch up on.
* Right in line with our focus this year on "the untouchables" such as justice and health officials, Jen Skerritt of the Winnipeg Free Press blew the lid off the biggest scandal to ever - indisputably - touch on Gary Doer and his cabinet in Saturday's edition.
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority practice of accepting brown envelopes totaling over $20 Million from bid-winning suppliers, in a shady "value-added" process that they swore they've been trying to fix, they swear to it, for over 2 years now, raises questions that will shake the halls of power long and deep.
Supposedly, as long as an unnamed quartet of insiders opened the envelopes together, and the head honcho had sole control over the spending of $2.2 million of the loot, we can rest assured that the secret bonus payments 'had nothing to do with who won the bids', and 'the WRHA has policies', and if one official says 'the envelopes included cash', so what if the other said 'the WRHA insists on cheques', and 'heck, we've been trying to fix it for two years now', and as for the $1.1 million that went to the "regional corporate department" and not to patient care ( like, say, keeping the Seven Oaks Emergency Department open at night), well, 'watch out, those doctors and nurses are getting scratchpads from those pharmaceutical drug pushers !'...
Test, meet sniff. Inhale.
Health Minister Theresa Oswald has been invited to appear on Monday's show.
She told the Free Press that she was aware of the practice, and said she views CEO Brian Postl as "courageous" for overseeing the slow-as-molasses reforms to the bidding process.
Keep in mind the bidding process was so lacking in accountability the Free Press found not one member of another profession or from within government, who could remember ever hearing of such a lucrative side-stepping of transparency commitments and conflict of interest standards.
* Fresh details have emerged about the young woman who plunged to her death downtown last week. But she was quickly displaced as the cities latest murder victim, by 2 men seeping the end of their life out in a Maryland Street rooming house Saturday morning. We'll round up all the reports and see if there is more information yet to be disclosed.
* Last week the death of 2 aboriginal teens rammed by a stolen van near Black River, generated more calls than anything in recent memory. The universal condemnations also anticipated that root-causes apologists would try to blame the victim, for leaving his van running while grabbing a burger at VJ's.
The public outrage about blaming victims and two-tier justice is a sign that the paradigm has shifted; last week the Crown assailed the host of Texas hold-'em poker games on Corydon as 'organized crime', but agreed to ask a judge (Meyers? Lismer? depends on which paper you read) to sentence a 21 year old involved in the stolen car massacre of Duffy's taxi driver Tony Lanzellotti to PROBATION. Just like 11 of his underage co-accused.
The concept that sentences for violent crimes include consideration of deterrance and denunciation, means nothing to the Crown Attorney's employed by Justice Minister Dave Chomiak. Apparently neither does the so-called requirement to ensure a victim impact statement (in this case, from the widow), forms part of the record for a judge to evaluate.
In another case recently, the Crown bragged about a "plea bargain" for the 56 months sentence given to a man who failed to break into the home of a Crown attorney, in an incident where no weapon was used and no one was injured.
Listeners compared that with the slap on the wrist of 21 months given to a 16 year old Native Syndicate hooligan, who broke into and wrecked a strangers' home with 2 buddies and stabbed a 59 year old resident 3 times, because the punk had a beef with the landlord.
The only logical conclusion: If the home of a Crown Attorney doesn't get actually broken into or anyone gets hurt, perp gets 56 months; if Joe Sixpack lives on Alexander Avenue, his possessions get destroyed and he suffers a performated lung, the attacker gets less than half that sentence, and a hug to boot.
Two tier justice - one for the rest of us, and another for "the untouchables".
The public sees through all the government talk about being tough on car thieves and punks. Compared with the fury unleashed on someone accused of undermining the NDP's gambling monopoly by holding poker tournaments, gang bangers who terrorize someone in their home or steal a car (or joyrides in one) rightfully thinks, they can probably get away with anything that happens- including murder !- and face minimal consequences.
* Don't forget to check out The Spirited Kenny Show, from 3-4.00 and 5.30 - 7 PM on Tuesday, sandwiched around TGCTS.
