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The great baseball debacle: Steroids and the Hall of Fame

Whenever you see a huge mountain of muscle, or a guy that looks like he ate a bus, the first thought to cross most people’s minds is: “That dude is on Steroids.” With an exception to .01 percent of these people, you’d probably be correct. Most people that size have indeed taken a performance enhancing substance, whether it be basic like creatine, or more serious like andropen or Deca. Looking at professional sports, this is a topic that has been making appearances more and more often due to this past winter’s media frenzy.

When ESPN started running the A-Rod Marathon, the crap hit the fan, so to speak. His stalker paparazzi, Selena Roberts, broke a story on Rodriguez testing positive in 2003 for a steroidal substance. A-Rod then admitted it, which was both good and bad.  He “came clean” and many people respected him for basically coming out and saying what most of America had suspected for a long time; anyone in professional sports can be suspect of taking a PED (performance enhancing drug). 

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The who and what of Sonia Sotomayor

Hopefully at this point you have at least an idea of who Sonia Sotomayor is. She’s been in the news, well, obscenely because of her Supreme Court nomination on May 26. Then the press has found plenty of other things to critique her about. While the nation anxiously awaits the confirmation or rejection of the first female Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, the nation also anxiously analyzes her every move.

Sonia Sotomayor was born in the Bronx to Puerto Rican parents. Her father died when she was 8, leaving her mother to raise her. She graduated valedictorian in 1972 at Cardinal Spellman High School. She married Kevin Edward Noonan in 1976 and entered Yale Law School that same year. After graduating from Yale in 1979 with a J.D. she passed her bar exam the following year. Three years later, in 1983, Sotomayor and Noonan divorced. They had no children.

After being a lawyer for several years, Sotomayor was nominated on November 27, 1991 by President George H.W. Bush for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York after it was vacated by John M. Walker, Jr.

According to The White House’s Web site, “If confirmed for the Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years, and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years…”

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Stress: American killer

The last time I can remember having a truly stress-free day, I was 5 years old and my grandparents were taking me to Disney World to see Mickey Mouse for the very first time. My biggest worries of that day were deciding whether or not to cry on the dinosaur ride, if would upset my grandmother by continuing to lick one side of my chocolate ice cream cone and watching it hit the ground in a big dribbling mess and how long I could take walking in the 95-degree Florida weather before diving into the cushiony seat and shade of my covered stroller.

Ah, those were the days.

Over the years, stress has increasingly become a major part of my life; so much so, that sometimes it’s hard going back to that day at Disney in my mind, recalling a time when I didn’t experience it for a good 24-hour period. From making sure I’m at work on time every day to completing homework and term papers on the right due dates, to being there for friends and family when they need me and then somehow maintaining a personal life (not to mention eating, paying bills and even maintaining a regular hygiene routine), it’s become rather difficult for me to balance my stress.

I know I’m not the only one feeling this way.

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