- Karma is proving to be a long and drawn-out ordeal for Mike Nifong, the former Durham County district attorney who so diligently prosecuted the case against three Duke University lacrosse players despite a lack of actual evidence, a lack of credible witnesses and having little or no chance to win the case. Sure enough, the case fell apart before it even went to trial and charges against all three players were dismissed, but the residual force of the case has been haunting Nifong ever since, even though we’re more than a year past the case ending. Already, he’s been forced to resign, he’s been disbarred and stripped of his license to practice law and publicly excoriated for his mishandling of the case. Now, he’s been cited for criminal contempt of court for lying to a judge while pursuing the rape case and has been ordered to spend a day in jail. Not exactly a harsh punishment, but it’s just one more indignity suffered by a man who so pompously and erroneously paraded in front of the cameras over and over again and tried to ruin the lives of three young men who were innocent of the charges he was trying to drum up against them, all to help him in his bid for re-election. Nifong was actually re-elected before being forced to resign, but other than that re-election, this really hasn’t turned out very well for him, has it?
- You’ll have to excuse me if I view the pledge by political leaders from Britain and France to increase their efforts to help the catastrophically awful situation in the Darfur Region of the Sudan. There isn’t a person or country in the world with any sort of knowledge bout the crisis in Darfur that doesn’t think it’s terrible, but in spite of that next to no one has actually stepped up and done anything significant to help the problem. However, British and French leaders have promised to step up the pressure on their allies to deploy more soldiers to the tumultuous region and ramp up the threat of increased sanctions against both sides in the conflict. In case you haven’t kept up with the grisly statistics from the conflict, it has now raged on for 4½ years, resulted in more than 200,000 casualties and forced 2.5 million people to abandon their homes and live the life of nomads. I hope that the Brits and French will also step up their own efforts in Darfur and I do wish them much success in spurring their allies to do the same, because those with the means to make a difference in this conflict, especially large nations with the resources to make a major impact, need to step in and help.
- So it appears that drunk driving convictions, shady financial practices and other miscellaneous crimes aren’t enough to get you kicked out of the U.S. Senate, but being a pervert who pleads guilty to charges of lewd conduct in an airport restroom is enough to get you railroaded out of the nation’s highest legislative body. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Id., will resign from the Senate on September 30 under heavy pressure from fellow senators, especially his Republican colleagues. It didn’t take long for the pressure to get to Craig, either; his resignation announcement comes a mere four days after he plead guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge stemming from his actions in a restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on June 11. Not only that, but the state of Idaho already has a replacement chosen, Lt. Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter. By the way, may I say that Sen. Butch Otter has a nice, woodsy, lumberjack-ish feel to it, very appropriate for the state of Idaho. Craig’s biggest concern right now, besides leaving the Senate, appears to be reassuring everyone that he’s not a homosexual. “I’m not gay. I never have been gay,” he stated at a news conference. Man, I thought it was only athletes like Mike Piazza and Michael Vick who held news conferences to dispel rumors that they were gay, but apparently politicians do so as well. Adios to you, Craig, here’s hoping you and I never, ever walk into the same public restroom at the same time.
- Ah, political correctness, how I loathe thee. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has become one of the first in what will undoubtedly be a new movement on college campuses around the country to accommodate the dietary preferences of Jewish and Muslim students. The school has opened up a kosher-meat kitchen in one of its dining rooms to accommodate Jewish students and will also make special accommodations for Muslim students and their dietary standards. UW has about 4,000 Jewish students, making it one of the largest Jewish student populations at U.S. public universities. I don’t have a problem with Jewish or Muslim students needing special meals, I just hate the idea that we cant offend anyone, so we bend over backwards to ensure that no one is left out of anything, no matter what lengths we have to go to. Most college students make a point of avoiding dining hall food anyhow, so unless Taco Bell starts offering late-night kosher tacos and burritos, I don’t see the impact of this new trend being that big. UW spent more than $129,000 to buy equipment for the kitchen, which I’m sure they didn’t take out of their own pockets, but rather out of the pockets of their students and their student fees. Besides, I could be wrong but I believe that ramen noodles, mac n’ cheese and Doritos are bother kosher and acceptable by Muslim dietary standards, so what’s the big deal anyhow?
- Nothing is worse for a musician than being seen as a fake and a fraud. No artist wants their fans and critics to think that they don’t know anything about what they sing about, whether it’s rock, rap, hip hip, country, alternative, etc. When 50 Cent sings about bein’ in da club, you assume he’s rapping from experience. In that spirit, Amy Winehouse, the chanteuse responsible for one of the more annoying and irritating songs of this year, is reportedly living out the sort of lifestyle that would give her all of the source material she needs to write songs like Rehab. The dark, heavily tattooed popstress is reportedly a coke head of epic proportions. That’s the word from Courtney Love, a truly loathsome woman who nonetheless knows what she’s talking about when it comes to drugs and alcohol consumption. “I’ve been with lots of people when they’ve taken coke, including stars like Kate Moss and Lindsay Lohan,” Love was recently quoted as saying. “But I’ve never seen anyone take as much coke as Amy. Even I wasn’t that bad.” Well, apparently Courtney love is the preferred coke buddy for famous people, in case you’re scoring at home. Do celebs have her on retainer so when they’re looking to get their fix, they can have her on speed dial and fly her to wherever they are to do a few lines with them? And don’t tell me that you just happen to be around all of these people doing coke but you yourself aren’t doing any, C., I’m not buying it. Still, if C. Love thinks you’re out of control, then you probably have a serious coke problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment