Tuesday, August 21, 2007

College football arrests, last night's episode of Greek and why America is really in danger

- Dear God, we’re in trouble. The greatest threat to America isn’t the terrorists, it isn’t hostile foreign powers with nuclear weapons…..it’s freaking Ryan Seacrest. Already the man-blouse wearing, tip-frosting, teeth-bleaching metrosexual, effeminate tool who hosts American Karaoke has weaseled his way into being the “host” of the Super Bowl broadcast because FOX has the rights to the game, and now he’s going to be hosting the Emmy ceremony as well. The chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Dick Askin, says he expects Seacrest to pull in younger viewers to the awards show, which I agree with if you assume that young people don’t have IQ’s above 45. Ironically, I think the real “dick” in this situation isn’t Askin, but rather his choice for the host of his show…….but I digress. Folks, we need to band together and keep R. Seacrest from taking over any more of our TV programming, because if he gets his way and hosts every meaningless, self-congratulatory awards show and televised karaoke contest on TV, the terrorists will truly have won……….

- Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is a busy man. After securing a small role as a “distinguished gentleman” in next year’s new Batman film, The Dark Knight, Leahy issued a bold proclamation of his intentions to hold members of the W. administration responsible for their refusal to turn over subpoenaed information to Congress. “When the Senate comes back in session, I’ll bring it up before the committee,” Leahy proclaimed. Leahy is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and on June 27 the committee subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents pertaining to the National Security Agency’s justification for the W.’s illegal (allegedly) wiretapping program. In what has become common practice for W. and his posse, they have trampled all over the Constitution and refused to comply with perfectly reasonable requests because they don’t want anyone to discover how much illegal, unethical crap they’re really up to…..not until they’re several years removed from being in office and have gone deep under cover.

- Jimmy Clausen is going in the wrong direction in a hurry even thought he’s yet to take a single snap in a game for the Notre Dame football team. Already struggling with his arm strength while recovering from surgery earlier this year, the highly touted freshman quarterback is now running afoul of the law in South Bend as well. The 19-year-old Clausen was cited by South Bend police for driving a 23-year-old friend to a local liquor store to buy several bottles of vodka, none of which Clausen intended to drink, I’m sure. In the state of Indiana, it’s illegal for an underage individual to drive someone of legal drinking age to a liquor store to buy alcohol. You can drive them there just to browse, but the second they buy anything, it becomes illegal. I doubt Clausen even knew this law existed, but he sure does now. It’s not a major offense and the discipline he receives for it should be very minor, but Jimmy, this is not the way you want to start your college career. Reportedly, you don’t even have enough arm strength right now to throw the ball more than 15 yards, so any run-in with the cops is something you’re going to want to avoid. Maybe when you become a Heisman Trophy contender, you’ll start getting the star treatment around town, but not quite yet. On the bright side, at least you got popped for a misdemeanor and not for soliciting sex from an undercover cop posing as a hooker like your teammate Darrell Hand did earlier this summer.

- Fortunately for Clausen, his infraction was the least in what turned out to be a trio of arrests involving football players from Indiana and two other nearby states. At the University of Iowa, leading receiver Dominique Douglas was suspended from the team along with another player, Anthony Bowman, after their arrest on charges of unauthorized use of a credit card. Douglas and Bowman allegedly charged more than $2,000 worth of merchandise on stolen credit cards belonging to two people. Clearly these are not two of the smarter players on the UI squad, because if they were they would know that when a credit card is stolen, it’s fairly easy to find out when and where it was used and to figure out who used it. Nice try though, fellas, hope that shopping spree was worth potentially ruining your football careers and being convicted of a crime. Not to be outdone, two University of West Virginia football players have been arrested and charged with transferring and receiving stolen property. James Thomas and Ellis Lankster allegedly thieved someone else’s computer, although I’m sure they had a good excuse for their actions. Maybe they needed to do some research or write a paper for one of their summer classes and their own computer was on the fritz. It happens, all right? So perhaps this is all just a big misunderstanding. By that, of course, I mean that all of these players misunderstood what happens when you break the law and do so in a way that makes your crime incredibly easy to solve. Yes guys, you do get arrested, isn’t that amazing? Ah, the wail of police sirens and the scent of freshly signed arrest warrants wafting across campuses nationwide……that’s how you know college football season is finally here.


- Another great episode of Greek on ABC Family last night, continuing to prove my point that if you’re missing this show, you’re missing out. The two major themes of last night’s episode were love and cheating (academic, not romantic). Casey (Spencer Grammer) continued to find herself in the middle of a love triangle with current boyfriend Evan and former flame Cappie, a situation complicated by Evan “lavaliere-ing” her (no, lavaliere-ing isn’t a euphemism for sex), which is some sort of ritual at the fictitious Cyprus Rhodes University (which we found out last week is located in my home state of Ohio, very cool) akin to giving a girl your letterman’s jacket. News of the lavaliere-ing (which is apparently the first step to getting engaged) spurred Cappie to rig the selection process for a class project so he could be paired with Casey and try to win her back. That this storyline led to several recitations of Keanu Reeves lines from his best-known movies (both Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and The Matrix), except with a whole lot more acting ability than Keanu has ever shown. With a few episodes still left in the season, the writers obviously stuck to just dropping hints of a Cappie-Casey reunion and put off the big event for now, electing to stick with Casey and Evan as a couple for now. Our boy Rusty was the one facing the issue of cheating this week. He skipped an “optional” review session for an honors chemistry class and was horrified to learn that the professor had given the class an extra five chapters to learn at the session. In preparing for the midterm, Rusty is tempted to cheat to get by but ultimately doesn’t choose any of the normal “sitcom” paths to resolve the situation (i.e. find some sort of miraculous savant tutor to save him at the last minute, cheating but getting caught, studying really hard and managing to pass on his own, etc.) but instead cheated and got away with it by sneaking special candy bars purchased from a mysterious source and cribbing the formulas on the test from the ingredient lists on the bars, where all of the formulas had been hidden. An ingenious solution for sure, but as clever as that was, the way Rusty’s girlfriend Jen K. reacted to Rusty’s cheating plight was poorly done at best. The girl barely seemed to care that he cheated, first of all. Then, what hot sorority girl happily spends the night at the library with her boyfriend, sitting with him and smiling as he studies the molecular chemistry facts he cheated to get right on his midterm and now as taking the time to learn for real because he feels guilty? On the plus side, it was funny to see Dale, Rusty’s roommate, strike a “re-virginization-for-tutoring” bargain with the teacher’s assistant for the chemistry class, then have to go on a frantic last-minute search for drugs to find the speed his tutor needed to stay awake. All in all, taking unusual paths, making unconventional choices and mixing in a lot of good laughs (including a Latin language duel at Dobler’s, the popular campus bar) made for a great hour of television once again for Greek.

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