From the Chimp-O-Matic this morning:

Our country puts $1 billion a year up to help feed the hungry. And we’re by far the most generous nation in the world when it comes to that, and I’m proud to report that. This isn’t a contest of who’s the most generous. I’m just telling you as an aside. We’re generous. We shouldn’t be bragging about it. But we are. We’re very generous.

–George W. Bush

You know, like how generous we are by sending contaminated trailers to a few Katrina victims. And no, I’m not going to forget about this.

He’s right about one thing: we shouldn’t be bragging about it.

Richard Gere’s arrest warrant in India has been lifted. He publicly kissed Indian film star Shilpa Shetty in public, setting hardliner Hindu activists on their ears.

I’m glad the courts lifted the arrest warrant, since what he did was dumb but (by my measure) fairly innocuous (particularly given what is acceptable in Bollywood movies, the no-kiss rule notwithstanding). But during this whole mess (which I’ve been following fairly closely because Lizzie is so into the Bollywood scene), Gere tempered every apology with a dismissive aside about how backwards and silly the people who were upset were.

Richard, I’m surprised all the time you’ve spent with the Dalai Lama hasn’t produced a bit more mindfulness. Whether you think it’s silly or not, you simply don’t go to someone else’s country, break their fairly well-established social rules, and then gripe about it when it makes people mad.

I like a lot of sports. I’m currently following my Chicago Wolves (AHL hockey, minor league team for the Atlanta Thrashers) very closely, the Blackhawks somewhat closely, the Bulls as much as I can stomach, the PGA tour every weekend, and even the off-season transactions of the Bears. But I’m following nothing as closely as my Cubs. I can’t wait for Cubs, er, baseball season. I even (clients, if you’re reading, please accept my apologies and know it was a short respite) blocked out the first radio broadcast of spring training on WGN from my schedule so I could shriek with joy when Pat Hughes said, “Chicago Cubs baseball is ON THE AIR!” So I’m all about the baseball.

However, I’ve never been a big Yankees guy. In fact, as a Red Sox fan (you know, if I had to pick an American League team), I would say I’m typically pretty much anti-Yankees. But I have to say, read this article. It’s a fairly well-covered story about Billy Crystal, a bit shy of 60, signing a minor league deal with his beloved Yankees so he could play in one preseason game. It’s a great story. He held his own in a major league at bat, fulfilled his dream, and both teams were totally on-board with his endeavor. You don’t get that in hockey, football, or basketball. It’s just not an option (partially because of the nature of the sports, and partially because of the nature of the business around the sports). Golf occasionally has a story like this, but even there things are so elitist that even good amateurs are usually relegated to the pro-am portion of tournaments. This was Billy Crystal, comedian, batting against major league pitching. And while the pitcher didn’t particularly go after him, he was still throwing 88 MPH against him. And Crystal had a good at bat (he pushed one foul, then showed some patience and ran the count to 3-2 before he swung over a fastball for strike three).

I dunno. I don’t want to get too dreamy about baseball (though it’s been a damned long winter and I have even more of an itch for baseball than I usually do), but it still occasionally rises above the stuff like the Roger Clemens steroids BS and delivers a good dream moment. It was four minutes out of Major League Baseball’s life, and it created a memory for Billy Crystal (and any of the rest of us who think we can somehow get that four minutes for ourselves) that he will carry to the grave. And unlike other leagues, MLB granted it. That’s kind of cool, I think.