Evil Empires strike again, Oprah throws her weight around and another French riot

- Noooooooooooooooooooo! Someone please tell me that this story about the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox talking about a trade for Minnesota Twins ace and arguably baseball’s best pitcher Johan Santana aren’t true. Santana is on the trade block for the same reason that many Twins star players have been over the years – it’s a small-market team with a miniscule payroll that can't afford to pay top dollar to elite players. Just this off-season, Minnesota let perennial Golden Glove winner Torii Hunter walk and sign with the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles in Southern California near Disney World rather than pay him the $16-18 million per year he wanted. For the same reason, the Twins are looking to deal Santana now, with a year left on his contract, so they don’t have to watch him leave via free agency next winter and get nothing in return. Still, the prospect of seeing him go to the original Evil Empire is horrifying, because no one outside of the Bronx wants the Yankees to get the starting pitching they so badly have needed for several years. The only thing worse at this point would be seeing Santana, with his filthy stuff and 15-20 wins per year go to the new Evil Empire, the Boston Red Sox. At this point, you can't really differentiate between the two and I now hate them both equally. They have nearly the same obscenely high payroll, the same arrogant, bandwagoning fan base with the same sense of entitlement and the same uneven playing field over the rest of baseball. Reportedly there are other teams in the market for Santana, including the Dodgers and Mets, so if he is going to be traded, let’s all hope for the sake of baseball that it’s to somewhere other than Boston or the Bronx.

 

- The power of Oprah compels you to vote for Barack Obama! The same unstoppable force that declares war on beef several years ago and has launched many a book to the top of the bestseller lists is throwing her considerable weight behind Obama as he seeks to beat out Sen. Hank Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2008 election. I don’t have any special preference for Obama except for the preference I have for the rest of the candidates in the Democratic and Republican primaries, namely that they are not Hank Clinton. Regardless of their position on any issue, I wholeheartedly support any candidate who is not a wishy-washy, double-talking, angry, militant feminist with a butch-hairdo like Hank Clinton. The thought of that dude running our country terrifies me, so if Oprah wants to throw her support behind Obama, then it’s my patriotic duty as an American to applaud her efforts. As part of those efforts, Oprah will be traveling to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to make campaign stops with Obama. In September, she held a fundraiser in California for Obama that raised $3 million for his campaign, but clearly that’s not enough for a man she calls “my favorite guy.” Tickets for the campaign stops will be regulated tightly, with precinct captains and campaign volunteers getting first dibs. Volunteers can actually guarantee a ticket by completing a four-hour volunteer shift prior to the event they wish to attend. Unfortunately, I don’t think Oprah will be giving out cars or plasma TVs to everyone who comes to one of these campaign stops, so I’ll be skipping them.

- Angry French youths riot. Those are four of the most beautiful words in any language if you’re a riot lover like me. You can substitute a different nationality in place of the French, but if angry youths are rioting anywhere in the world, I’m down with it. Not many things in this world are as much fun to see as angry rioters, and these French teens clearly know how to stage a great riot. It all started Sunday when two teens on a motorbike were killed in a crash with a police car just outside Paris. Residents of the troubled neighborhood claim that police left the scene without helping the boys, a claim that police officials say they doubt but will nonetheless investigate. Of course, that wasn’t nearly enough to placate the locals and so it was time, time to riot. In stellar riot fashion, some local teens went pyromaniac, torching dozens of cars around their neighborhood and tossing Molotov cocktails to get their message across. As I always say, it’s not a real riot until property is destroyed and things are set on fire. Bonus points for the Molotov cocktails, not too many people know how to make a proper one in order to get the biggest possible explosion. Of course, you are dealing with French law enforcement/authority figures, so you probably could have waved a few sparklers at them and they would have surrendered….just kidding, French police. I’m sure you’re very tough and imposing. I just hope for your sake that your men are telling the truth about what happened at that accident scene, because if they’re not, you’re going to be dodging Molotov cocktails and putting out car fires for quite a while. Riot on, angry French teenagers, riot on…..

 

- Today I’d like to take a moment to salute the utterly courageous efforts of Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams. Williams, of course, is the tree-smoking hippie/holistic healing student who in his spare time, when he’s not suspended by the NFL for failing drug tests, plays football. He’s been away from the NFL for two years on his latest suspension(s) and spent part of his time off playing in the Canadian Football League and the rest of it traveling and training for a return to the Dolphins. A few weeks ago, the NFL finally reinstated him, with the understanding that this would be his last chance. If he tested positive for drugs one more time, he was permanently banned from the league. So Ricky returned to the Dolphins, took part in a few practices and weight-lifting sessions and made his 2007 debut Monday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He took the field, starting in place of the injured Jesse Chatman, and proceeded to give his team all of six carries for 15 yards before tearing a pectoral muscle on a play where he lost a fumble and was inadvertently stepped on while on the ground. That’s it, six carries and now he’s out for the season with a torn pec. Good work, Rick. I’m sure your teammates appreciate all you contributed to the team this season. You’re not around for the first half of the year as the team stumbles to an 0-8 start; you come back and can’t even last one half. On the positive side, at least this time the reason you can’t play has everything to do with something that happened on the field and not in a lab somewhere where a scientist slapped a positive result on one of your drug tests. That might be of some consolation to Williams, but his teammates are probably less than impressed. Of course, I couldn’t be happier with this development, and it’s nothing against Williams. I actually like him, he seems like a cool, laid back guy (probably has a lot to do with being high so often), and as far as stoners go, he’s a likeable one. But the reason I’m pumped about his injury is that anything that can happen to disrupt Miami’s season and keep them off balance is good news for their chances to lock up the reverse perfect season so many of us are dreaming about. You don’t go 0-16 without a lot of breaks going your way, and this is just one more break to go against the Dolphins. Stay unfocused, guys, keep not doing what it takes to win and when you’re presented with a legitimate chance to win a game, don’t take advantage. I believe in you, and so does America…..

 

- Thanks for your generous concession, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., I’m thrilled that you extended yourself so far to capitulate to demands that you stop pedaling your death/cancer sticks in print ads. The death merchants at R.J. Reynolds have bowed to pressure from anti-smoking groups and members of Congress because of print ads that have been appearing in many national publications recently. The complaints focused on the fact that the colorful and feminine ads for Camel No. 9 cigarettes appeared mainly in fashion magazines and were targeted at young women, especially teens. Another of the company’s ads, a four-page spread in Rolling Stone, was blasted as eerily reminiscent of the Joe Camel ads blamed for contributing heavily to underage smoking in the 1980s and ‘90s. As a result of the outcry, R.J. Reynolds has stated that it will not advertise in newspapers or consumer magazines next year. Wow, what a magnanimous gesture, R.J. Reynolds, glad you could help. Now if you can just find a way to even things up for the tens of thousands of people who have developed lung cancer and other health problems from using your addictive products or even worse, from unwillingly inhaling secondhand smoke from someone else who’s using your death sticks, then we’ll be good. By the way, I’m still waiting for someone to show me a story, any story, of a person whose life has been dramatically improved because they became a smoker. Just as you won't find anyone whose life really took off when they became a stoner or crack addict, you likewise won't find anyone who really saw things turn around when they started choking down cancer sticks. You suck, tobacco companies, go away and stop killing people with your products.

 

- Did I miss something here? Since when did making illegal payments (i.e. bribes) to foreign governments to secure lucrative contracts for your oil business become illegal? Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt Jr. and I were both obviously under the impression that doing business this way was a-ok, because he’s just been sentenced to a year in jail after helping to corrupt the U.N.’s oil-for-food program through his, um, innovative business practices. The 83-year-old Wyatt will now do what so few rich people ever do, especially when they’re guilty of a crime, go to jail. Again, I have to ask what the problem is. So the United Nations has a program designed to provide food to needy people around the world and this already-rich dude took advantage of it to make even more money for himself at the expense of those far worse off. If we start quashing the entrepreneurial spirit of every person who wants to bribe foreign governments and corrupt U.N. food programs, we’re going to seriously cripple our nation’s economy. Lighten up, federal government, since when did illegal business practices hurt anyone, huh? Oh, wait….never mind on that one……

Riots in Malaysia, who's keeping in touch with Mike Vick and a new album to avoid

- In keeping with my propensity for talking about rioting and clashes with police worldwide and saluting those responsible for the social dissidence, props to my friends in Malaysia for taking to the streets en masse and violently clashing with police to protest discrimination against ethnic minority Indians in the country. In the heavily-Muslim country, clashes between minority groups such as the Indians and police are rare, but more than 10,000 Indians gathered for this rally and when police tried to put a stop to the gathering, things turned violent. Witnesses saw protestors beaten and dragged into trucks by police during the melee, but not before the cops also broke out the tear gas and water cannons. If you’re scoring at home, that’s a yes for beating, a yes for dragging, a yes for tear gas and a yes for water cannons, meaning the Malaysian police scored very high on the Citizen Abuse-O-Meter this time. But don’t worry, I’m sure that as with all police violence toward citizens everywhere in the world, this (ab)use of force was totally justified. I mean, who can show me even one instance where the cops went overboard, especially in dealing with a protest, rally or march, and used excessive force? Just as I thought…….

- If betting were legal in the United States, you’d be wise to put your money on the current Broadway strike ending long before the TV and film writers’ strike. Representatives for the union representing stagehands met with reps for theater producers Sunday to negotiate, which is a much more positive development than anything in the writers’ strike of late. The writers and networks/studios seem entrenched in their respective positions and increasingly hostile toward one another. At least with the stagehands and theater producers, there seems to be a spirit of communication and negotiation. The situation is still tricky and contentious, but with theaters heading into a third week of empty facilities and dark stages, the pressure for a resolution is mounting. Whereas the writers’ strike hasn’t fully impacted viewers yet because networks still have some new episodes filmed and not yet aired, the Broadway strike shut down most ongoing productions immediately. There are currently nine productions still running, with 26 shut down by the strike. This past weekend magnified the impact of the strike because the long Thanksgiving weekend is usually a profitable one for theaters and restaurants in the theater district. The issue continues to be the number of stagehands required to be on site for a production to go on, with the union wanting a fixed number so as many of its members can get paid as possible whether there’s work for them to do or not and the theaters wanting a flexible number so it can adapt to changing circumstances and not have unneeded stagehands on the clock with nothing to do. Right now the $20 million emergency fund the theaters set up in case of a strike is easing the pinch of no new revenue, but eventually they’re going to feel the impact if this isn’t resolved. Again, I think this strike ends much sooner than the writers’ strike, which is bad news for me and many of you because while we can’t or don’t go to many Broadway shows, nearly all of us have favorite TV shows that are going to disappear from the air without an agreement.

- When you go to prison, you hope that people on the outside keep in touch and don’t forget about you. However, most inmates hope for family and friends to stay in touch, not state law enforcement authorities prosecuting a dogfighting case against you while you sit in federal prison after you’ve plead guilty to federal crimes stemming from the same dogfighting enterprise. But that’s the communication Vick received in federal prison from a local judge in Virginia who set the trial date for Vick on state dogfighting charges that are separate from the federal crimes he plead guilty to. The state trial will take place starting on Apr. 2, when a jury of Vick’s peers (Who are his peers, by the way? Underachieving, overpaid NFL quarterbacks? Dog murderers? People who try to sneak marijuana through airport security in “designer” water bottles? Dudes who sleep with random women and give them STDs while using fake names?) will decide whether or not he’s guilty of these state charges. Vick’s lawyer requested a trial by jury, so that’s what he’ll get. Certainly he’s hoping to find 12 people dumb enough to believe that he didn’t finance and operate a dogfighting ring and murder dogs who didn’t perform well, because let’s face it, in the American judicial system you have a decent chance of finding at least a few morons who really are that dumb any time you assemble a jury. With a judge or a panel of judges, your chances aren’t nearly as good. But when you gather 12 strangers randomly to decide your fate, you have a good chance to find people who are either dumb, indifferent, biased or otherwise handicapped, so to speak, when it comes to reaching an accurate verdict. On the plus side, though, at least Vick’s chances for staying out of trouble heading into this trial are a lot better now that he’s in prison. He won't have the chance to murder any more dogs, sneak his weed through airport security in a designer water bottle or give any more unsuspecting women STDs before April. Look on the positive side of things, Mike, find the silver lining. To that end, you might actually be better off sitting in prison than being part of an increasingly abominable season for your team, the Atlanta Falcons.

- Some music fans ask themselves a question along the lines of, “What new albums coming out this week do I want to hear?” I ask the same question, but I also ask another question, namely which albums coming out in a given week do I want to make sure I stay the hell away from. There are some good criteria I use; if the album is country, polka, dance, techno or mainstream pop, I’m avoiding it like the plague. Equally important to me is avoiding any and all albums put out from anyone who has ever appeared on American Karaoke, which leads me to this week’s album to avoid. It comes courtesy of Jordin Sparks, a former winner of TV’s most unwatchable glorified karaoke contest. Sparks has a new album out titled Young and in Love, but the title is irrelevant to me because Sparks has appeared on American Karaoke and thus is a musical pariah from where I stand. The only thing worse than an album by a former AK contestant is an album by a 17-year-old former AK contestant, because then not only do the songs suck musically, they have lame teeny-bopper titles like Shy Boy and Young and in Love. I don’t need to hear a glorified karaoke singer channel her inner-Britney and warble away with a drum machine and other technological aids try to cover for the fact that she’s a total hack. So there it is, my album to avoid for the week if you’re someone who’s a fan of real, legitimate music.
- Right now, if I’m the leader of a country anywhere in the world and I’m not currently engaged in a bitter feud with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, I’m feeling very left out. Chavez has problems with W., he has problems with King Juan Carlos of Spain and now he has problems with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. His issues with Uribe stem from Uribe’s decision to end the Venezuelan despot’s role in negotiating with leftist rebels in neighboring Colombia. Chavez, clearly not down with being told no or with anyone not letting him do exactly what he wants when he wants to do it, has threatened to put relations with Colombia “in the freezer.” If I knew what the frak that meant, I might have a lot more to say, but I don’t speak crazy dictator-ese. From what I can gather, I think Chavez is saying he won't have much to do with Colombia, although judging by how this whack job operates, he might actually be saying that he’s going to off Uribe and put his body in a freezer, I don’t know. What I do know is that Alvaro Uribe is my early leader in the clubhouse for Politician of the Week because he had the cahones to stand up to Hugo Chavez. Well played, Alvaro, now if I were you I’d make sure I boosted security and border defenses in my country because your neighbor is now one very pissed off dictator.

Chess champ in prison again, a bad weekend for love on TV and Semionole troubles in Florida

- Shouldn’t Gary Kasparov have his own jail cell by now, a special cell reserved just for him? He’s been harassed and thrown in prison often enough for being an outspoken leader of the opposition movement in Russia, he should at least have some frequent-visitor perks behind bars. His latest arrest and jailing come after leading a large protest in Moscow that ended in clashes with the police. Responding in the Communist fashion we’ve come to know and loathe, the police and government showed they have no tolerance for or appreciation of anyone trying to tell them they’re wrong, instead electing to exercise brute force and oppression. For his part in the protest, Kasparov has been sentenced to five days in jail, which is barely a slap on the wrist to him. You know me, I’m friend to any political or social dissident, be it individual or group, and I love protests like nobody’s business, so I’m 100 percent with Kasparov here. His gathering of 1,500 people may have been unsanctioned by the authorities, but that doesn’t mean that what they were saying was wrong. Their anti-government chants and resisting arrest are necessary because someone has to stand up to an unresponsive, abusive government that is slowly but surely dragging the country back to its Communist past. After the rally, during which Kasparov claims he was beaten (I believe him), two police officers lied and said they had been instructed before the rally to arrest him. Yeah, because you need to shut up someone who leads dissidents in speaking out against exclusionary election rules that have kept most opposition groups from taking part and changing a government they disagree with. The Kremlin has been busy trying to pave the way for a landslide victory for Putin’s party in the Dec. 2 parliamentary elections, and they obviously don’t mind paving that road with the blood of those who oppose them. Instead of actually addressing the issues raised by the opposition and other who accuse him and his administration of stifling democracy in Russia, Putin has chosen to beat down his opponents while pointing the finger at the West and accusing them of meddling in Russian politics. “Putin’s brakes don’t work,” Kasparov said in the courtroom. “I didn’t hear any orders from police, unless you count the strike of a club as an order.” I don’t, but Putin and his posse clearly do. Along with beating down protestors, the police also had mysterious men in black coats circulating through the crowd at the protest, shooting video, probably so they can identify protestors and make some sort of black list of who to seek out, harass and abuse in the months ahead. Also arrested after the rally was Eduard Limonov, author and leader of the National Bolshevik Party. He and Kasparov are two of the leaders of the coalition of anti-government organizations, which makes them good guys in my book. I’ll be looking forward to both of them being arrested and jailed several more times in the next few weeks just for speaking the truth…..

- Not a good weekend for the combination of love and television….first came news that the Hulkster, Hulk Hogan, will soon be shelling out a handsome divorce settlement after his wife of 24 years and co-star of the reality series Hogan Knows Best, filed for divorce. So whatcha gonna do, brother, whatcha gonna do, when the alimony payments run wild on YOU? Not only does Hogan know best, apparently Hogan also is about to know what it feels like to be a washed-up old divorcee. Still, at least the Hulkster didn’t find himself on the receiving end of the same kind of relationship pain that former Bachelor star (now there’s an oxymoron) Byron Velvick experienced recently. Velvick and the “love” of his life, Mary Delgado, had a bit of a domestic spat and the end result was Velvick with a busted lip after being punched by Delgado. Her name may be Mary Delgado, but bitch swings like Carlos Delgado. According to the police report, Delgado admits to striking Velvick and also that alcohol was a factor in the incident. I may be way out of bounds here, but personally I have no problem with what Delgado did. Why? Because after going on The Bachelor, that loser Velvick deserves whatever he gets. Punched in the face, blasted in the package, scratched on the arm, hit in the back of the head with a frying pan, I don’t care, dude deserves it. You contribute a single thing to that abomination of crap-ola that is one of the five worst TV shows of all time, you deserve any pain that can be inflicted upon you. If Delgado wants to break out the Chinese water torture or strap electrodes to Velvick’s body and crank of the voltage, let her do it. Maybe now prospective metrosexual tools, er, Bachelors will reconsider their decision to appear on the show. We can only hope……
- Every week/weekend of the college football season seems to get tagged with a catchy name, like Rivalry Week, Separation Saturday, etc. Maybe the name of this week should be Carnage Week, because head coaches are getting whacked at an alarming rate over the past few days and the firings don’t show any sign of slowing down. After Texas A&M (Dennis Franchione), Nebraska (Bill Callahan) and Mississippi (Ed Orgeron) went down in the first wave, Chan Gailey (Georgia Tech), Ted Roof (Duke) and Northern Illinois coach Joe Novak followed two days later. Coaches are fired or not retained after every season, but I can't remember anything close to this mass axing for as long as I’ve been a college football fan. Patience is becoming a rare, hard-to-come-by quality among athletic directors, university presidents, fans and boosters throughout college football. Coaches are being given a lot less time and leeway to build not just a winning program, but a perennial contender. Going 7-5 or 8-4 isn’t good enough at a lot of schools; you need to be 11-1 or 10-2 and going to a major bowl game nearly every year to keep your job. Also helpful are not making disparaging remarks about your athletic director in a book (as Callahan did) or selling inside information on your team to boosters in a pay-per-view newsletter (as Franchione did). Stay tuned for more coach firings, because I’m anxious to see if we can boost this up to double digits in the next week or so.

- Maybe all of those jokes about Native Americans and casinos aren’t that far off the mark. While many tribes have began sticking it to the white man (or pretty much any non-Indians) by taking their money at blackjack, roulette, poker, baccarat, craps, etc., to make up for the land we stole from them while driving them onto tiny reservations and subjecting them to all sorts of new diseases that killed thousands of them, the Seminole Tribe of Florida is having some issues with how their gambling revenues are spent. Leaders of the tribe, which was the first in the United States to offer high-stakes gambling, stand accused of spending millions of dollars in casino revenues on themselves and their friends and relatives instead of using the money to benefit to whole tribe. Those accusations have triggered a federal investigation and complaints from members of the tribe that the corruption has helped a select few at the expense of the whole. Each tribe member (about 3,400) does receive approximately $120,000 annually in profits from Seminole enterprises, but since 2000, Tribal Council members have spent more than $280 million from discretionary funds under their control on travel, posh homes, luxury vehicles, basketball courts, boxing rings and even cosmetic surgery. In other words, not only are the Seminole leaders busy suckering money from the white man through gambling, they’ve actually become the white man by engaging in all of his vices and luxuries. Just goes to show that corruption and greed are universal; a person from any race or nationality can turn into a lying, thieving, corrupt scumbag if given the proper opportunity and motivation.

- Another day, another protest against Vladimir Putin, another police-administered beating to innocent protestors. Like death, taxes and gawd-awful music from American Karaoke, this cycle of protesting and police brutality in Russia are things you can now count on in life. This time, the protest took place in St. Petersburg, where hundreds of angry protestors gathered to demonstrate against the anti-opposition election policies and other unfair actions taken by the Kremlin and President Putin in an attempt to keep their iron-fisted grip on the country. Police violently dragged many protestors toward buses in an attempt to stop their demonstration and clear the area. Some of the protestors who tried to resist and escape were brutally beaten, which is so far out of line that I can’t even begin to explain to you how pissed I am. Just because they have the testicular fortitude to stand up and speak out against injustice in their country and won't back down when The Man tries to shut them up, that gives you the right to brutally beat them, Russian police? What year is this anyhow, 2007 or 1977? Who’s running your country, a democratic government or the oppressive iron fist of the Communist Party? And President Putin, allow me to quote legendary pro wrasslin’ tag team Degeneration X here: If you’re not down with what I’m saying, I’ve got two words for you…….SUCK IT!

A box office weekend for kids, an interesting Italian teacher and an Italian idiot buys an empty town

- Poor Joe Francis, things just keep getting worse for the poor, rich, white guy. Francis, the sleazeball who created the Girls Gone Wild franchise, is now taking his b*tching in a new direction after comparing the treatment he’s received to that a terrorism suspect gets and basically claiming he’s being railroaded on charges of tax evasion. His latest complaint is that while en route from Florida to Nevada, where he’ll face those tax-evasion charges, he was abused by guards at the Grady County Law Enforcement Center in Oklahoma. During his stay at the facility, from May 17 to June 4, Francis says guards denied him food and blankets and threatened to strap him naked to a chair. Ironically, Francis only minds being strapped naked to a chair if there’s not a curvy underage girl in the chair with him performing various sexual favors on film, but I digress. Grady officials deny the claims, and given Francis’ propensity for exaggeration and dramatization, I’m guessing the truth lies somewhere in between. Was he abused? I doubt it. But Joe, this is prison, you don’t call the shots and you don’t get what you want, when you want it. Now shut your mouth, pay your back taxes and maybe you’ll get to remember what life outside prison is like some time soon.

- Score one for hot, younger news anchors. Marina Kolbe, a former CNN anchor who sued the network, alleging age discrimination after her contract wasn’t renewed, has lost her lawsuit. A U.S. District Court judge in Atlanta ruled in favor of CNN after only five hours of deliberation. The judge decided that the network’s claim that it did not renew Kolbe’s contract because of average performance and failure to improve was true and that she was not let go because of her age. She worked for CNN’s International division for four years, but in 2003 her contract expired and she wasn’t brought back. Kolbe, then 42, was replaced by a South Asian anchor. What I love about this is that you can be sure that her age did play some part in this. Make no mistake about it, networks always want to put the most appealing, attractive faces on screen, so when Kolbe looked a little less attractive than a possible alternative, you can bet her superiors noticed. Now she may have in fact been an average news anchor, but if she was 28 and really hot, suddenly she goes from being an average anchor to one the network decides to keep around. But this time, CNN had enough truthiness, as Stephen Colbert would say, on its side to carry the day.

- How do you know when you’re too rich for your own good? When you start spending $3.8 million to buy an unpopulated, one-house town in a foreign country, that’s how. An unnamed Italian bidder made that winning offer for the town of Albert, Texas, a 13-acre hamlet with no permanent residents that is located about 60 miles north of San Antonio. This rich idiot paid nearly $4 million for an abandoned town with run-down 85-year-old dance hall, a tractor shed, single three-bedroom house and a few small peach and pecan orchards. the only time this place sees any life is on the weekends, when a tavern created out of the building where the old general store used to be is open. I know there’s a certain status trend with rich people in wanting to own unique things that no one else has so you can say you’re special, but you’ve got to be kidding me. You’re really proud of the fact that you own a one-horse town in Texas with no permanent residents? People are supposed to be impressed by this? What, are you going to fly over from Italy, rent a car and hold a parade through downtown and zeros and zeros of town residents cheer you on? Give your money to charity, buy an even bigger boat, send it to me, just stop doing stupid, pointless crap like this, please.

- Best teacher ever or unfit to be a part of your local school system? You decide, because I know where I stand on the case of Anna Ciriani, an Italian teacher who has been suspended after local authorities became aware of her extra-curricular activities as a porn star under the name “Madameweb.” Ciriani/Madameweb stars in hard-core videos on the Internet and at erotic shows, practices deemed as "not compatible with educational activity," by the head of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia education authority. Ciriani didn’t deny the allegations but insists that her after-hour behavior never affected the quality of her in-class performance. "My behavior at school has always been professional and irreproachable," she was quoted as saying by the AGI agency. "I am a normal woman, with my family and my work as a teacher. I am (also) looking for transgression and sex." Here I might have to disagree with Madameweb, as much as it pains me to do so. I don’t know if your porn career ever affected your teaching, but you’re wrong in saying that acting in hardcore porno videos is normal. There’s nothing normal about having graphic sex on video and getting paid for it. That is decidedly abnormal and sick, so you’re wrong there. Also, her porn career has been a factor in her teaching to some extent, because five years ago Ciriani was transferred from her post as teacher of Italian literature in a secondary school in the north-eastern town of Pordenone after students covered the toilets with nude photos of her downloaded from the Internet. Since then she has been giving evening classes to foreign adult students in a nearby town, who I assume are also familiar with her work. Madameweb's popularity surged after a video of her shot at the Venus erotica festival in Berlin last month attracted a wide Internet following, prompting the authorities to suspend her from teaching altogether. On one hand, I think nearly every straight guy who’s ever lived would like the idea of a porn star as his teacher, whether he’d admit or not, but I can see how Ciriani continuing to teach might be a problem. After all, it’s hard to have the respect of your students when they can go home and pop in a DVD of you getting after it with some stranger on camera. Clearly, the time has come for you to make a choice, Madameweb. Either you can give up porn and try to regain your teaching career (which would be tough to do), or you can just embrace your inner slut and become a full-time porn star. Hey, maybe you can even find a role where you play a teacher in one of your pornos, then you can still find the joy of teaching. Either way, your double life is over.

- It was an awesome weekend at the box office….if you’re under the age of 13. Enchanted, the Disney flick about fairy-tale characters living in the real world, was the top earner at $50 million for the long Thanksgiving weekend. This Christmas, the holiday drama featuring Loretta Devine, was second with $27.1 million in box office revenue. All told, seven of the top 10 films over the weekend in terms of earnings were rated G or PG-13, including Bee Movie, Fred Claus, August Rush and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (with my girl Natalie Portman). For the non-High School Musical age group, films like Hitman, American Gangster and sci-fi thriller The Mist rounded out the top 10. American Gangster is still the best movie on that list if you’re asking me, but far be it from me to stand in the way of the mega-machine that is Disney and their steamroller of family-friendly entertainment…..

Mayhem Friday, more Hugo Chavez craziness and Heroes heats up

- Hopefully none of you were injured in the carnage that was last Friday’s bum rush of every single store in America in order to secure the absolute best deals on any and every item on sale. It never ceases to amaze me how many morons get up and wait outside of Best Buy, Target, JC Penney, Circuit City, Office Max, Old Navy, etc. at 4 a.m. to try and snag the best bargains the day after Thanksgiving. Really, that’s the best way you can think of to spend your day off on the long holiday weekend, crowding with dozens of other morons outside the store and then running them over, shoving them, elbowing them out of the way and doing whatever else it takes to get your desired items once inside? Right, because clearly nothing screams “Christmas spirit!” quite like that. Is the person you’re giving a gift to really going to care if you got the item the day after Thanksgiving or if you looked around, shopped smart and found the same item for a comparable price a week later? And if you wait, you don’t have to worry about those unsightly blood stains on the packaging that will result when you use your keys to slash the arm of that other woman as she tries to grab the last Nintendo Wii off the shelf before you can get to it. As always, I’m here to help, holiday shoppers, I’m a wealth of sensical knowledge ready to assist in any way possible.

- You f’ with a bear long enough, eventually that bear is going to battle back. That lesson comes to us from Farmington, Pa., where an aspiring zookeeper who suffered a bite from a bear and needed eight stitches to close the wound. A second man, also unidentified, suffered minor injuries when trying to rescue the bite victim and had the bear scratch him. This occurred at Woodland Zoo and More (clearly, the place lives up to its name, what with the added bonus of bear attacks), a private zoo where the bite victim was in a program for budding zookeepers. According to Sonny Herring, owner of the zoo, both victims were home within a few hours. All we know about the primary victim here is that he is a Frostburg State University (Md.) student who was taking part in a behind-the-scenes tour of the zoo called “zookeeper for a day.” Based on the experience, I have the feeling this might have been this guy’s first, last and only day as a zookeeper…..

- My interest in the NFL is at an all-time low this year, but one thing keeps me riveted week after week, and it sure ain’t the New England Patriots and those arrogant bastards seeking the league’s first perfect season in 35 years. No, what has me locked in week after week is those amazin’ Miami Dolphins and their quest for the reverse perfect season, 0-16. Tonight, that dream season nearly came to a crashing halt due to rainy, muddy, sloppy conditions in Pittsburgh, where the Dolphins were playing the Steelers on Monday Night Football. Thankfully, the Dolphins dug deep, searched their souls and found the strength to do what it took to lose one more time. With the game scoreless late in the fourth quarter and lurching toward a sudden-death overtime period where anything could happen, the Miami defense and special teams capitalized on the ineptness of the Dolphin offense to hand the Steelers a win. After the offense failed to move the ball at all on its last possession and set up a punt from their own end zone, the special teams unit combined a bad punt and mediocre coverage to set Pittsburgh up inside the Miami 40-yard line. From there, the defense did its best Swiss cheese impression, allowing Pittsburgh’s offense too trudge through the mud to the 5-yard-line, where the Steelers set up a game-winning field goal that kicker Jeff Reed punched through. Final score: Steelers 3, Dolphins 0. Not pretty, but it accomplishes the goal, losing another game to drop to 0-11. Unfortunately, the remaining schedule for Miami scares the hell out of me, because there are at least two games they could actually slip up and win if they don’t stay focused. Next week’s game at home against the 2-9 New York Jets is the most frightening, because like Miami, the Jets have recently switched to a young, raw quarterback and have struggled on offense since the move (they struggled before too, so nothing has changed much). The Jets have already beaten the Dolphins once, but now they have to go to Miami and they’re just bad enough to lose this game. If the Dolphins can get the job done and lose this one, I think they have smooth sailing until their final game, Their next three are against Buffalo (5-6), New England (11-0, may win by 70 against Miami) and Baltimore (4-7 but with a great defense that should be able to shut down Miami). The last game of the schedule for Miami is nearly as scary as the Jets game: Cincinnati. The Bengals have an offense that is among the four or five most talented in the NFL, but a porous defense and erratic overall team performance make them an enigma that could blow Miami out 42-7 or could tank in a meaningless game and lose. But as the cliché goes, right now, the Dolphins need to take it one game at a time, continuing to not do what it takes to win and make sure the dream of a reverse perfect season comes true.

- You can never totally evaluate any single episode of Heroes right after watching it because there’s just so much to digest, but Monday night’s episode had some good and bad points that are clear even though the show just ended. The drama and surprise factor were great, with the end-of-episode return of Sylar to New York the capper on the night. That Sylar is now in possession of Molly sets up next week’s drama, when you can bet he’ll demand that Mohinder give him the blood he’s taken from Claire to Sylar can be healed and regain his ability to take powers away from others and claim them as his own. He already returned to his murderous ways this week, killing Alejandro on the way to New York when the truth about his past, including killing his mother, came out. He uses the opportunity to form a bond with Maya, who knows the felling of being a killer. Sylar convinces her that she no longer needs her brother and that he resents her anyhow for all she’s done. He then kills Alejandro but keeps it from Maya, who thinks her brother has left to go back to Venezuela. Also back in NYC, a back-from-the-dead H.R.G. is in company custody as Mohinder treats him in a dingy observation room. Mohinder has clearly turned on H.R.G and no longer buys what he’s selling, because as H.R.G. continues to warn him about how evil the company is, Mohinder shoots him down and blames most of the recent problems on H.R.G. himself. Peter Petrelli and Adam Monroe have problems of their own, with Peter warning Adam about the virus the company has and how it is going to wipe out 93 percent of the world’s population by next year. That leads the two of them to travel to Maine, where they find Victoria Pratt, who created the virus back in 1977 for the company. Using his ability to read minds, Peter finds out from Victoria that the virus is being stored at Primatech Paper back in Odessa, Texas. This comes after Victoria delivers shotgun blasts to Peter and Adam, but since both of them can heal, they walk away unscathed. Speaking of 1977, Hiro Nakamura made his own trip there, time traveling back after finding out that in 1977, his father was the one who ordered Adam to be locked up. What Hiro finds is that his father, Kaito Nakamura, locked up Adam after he tried to release the virus. Adam claimed he had a plan and purpose, but off he went to lockup. When Hero returns to 2007, he heads to Odessa, where he helped to “Save the cheerleader” in Season 1, to confront Adam Monroe. When he gets there and stops time, he finds that Peter is there with Adam and refuses to allow Hiro to kill Adam. At episode’s end, Hiro is charging at Peter, brandishing a Takezo Kensei sword. Out in California, Claire Bennet is brandishing a weapon of her own; her fist. That weapon is aimed at Elle, daughter of Bob, head o the company, who has been assigned to keep tabs on Claire in the days after the supposed death of her father, H.R.G. As the Bennet family prepares to move to Salt Lake City to get away from trouble, they go to the cliffs near their house to spread H.R.G.’s ashes and say goodbye. While there, Claire spots Elle, watching from her rental car nearby. When Elle can’t get the car started in time to get away, she gets out to confront Claire, who chokes her and then threatens to expose the company for what they’ve done to he family. Claire vows to tell the world about her power and to bring the company’s heinous deeds to light, but the question is how. On the side, the other story line from the episode, one that predictably seems pointless and has little bearing on the big picture, involves Monica and Micah down in New Orleans. The Monica character has felt unnecessary and pointless every time she’s been on the show, and I still don’t know why she’s around, nor do I care. However, with Niki in town to visit Micah, Micah’s annoying cousin Damon steals his backpack, with valuable comic books and Micah’s dead father’s medal for bravery for saving a young girl’s life in a fire inside, and takes it to some neighborhood kids who promise to tell him how valuable the comics are. Instead, they jump him and steal the backpack, prompting Monica and Micah to go on a mission to get the items back. Things go awry, though, and Monica is caught by the guys who stole the backpack, knocked out and thrown into the back of their van. Again, this just seems like a total waste of time and it should just be axed from the show because it’s taking up screen time from characters we actually give a crap about. Also, I’m wondering why the vagueness about next week’s “finale”? I assume it’s a fall finale, as happened last season. Or maybe with the writers’ strike ongoing, it’s the finale for the foreseeable future, as NBC doesn’t know when the rest of the season will be completed. Either way, I wish they’d stop the cloak-and-dagger bullsh*t, because the way they’re talking sounds like it’s the end for the show, period. We all know that’s not true, because this series is just getting going, but that’s the vibe the network is giving off. Of course, the with strike now looking like it will go on at least another month, there’s no telling when the show will return…..Elsewhere in TV land, The Amazing Race was still in Africa, where Team Cougar (aging blondes Shana and Jennifer who still are under the mistaken impression that they’re as hot now as they were ten years ago) became the first team in this season’s race to make a shady, underhanded move to eliminate a team they perceived as a threat. With the team of dating couple Lorena and Jason already in last place and struggling to catch up, Team Cougar used a U-Turn, a maneuver that forces the U-Turned team to complete an additional challenge before moving ahead in the race, which set Lorena and Jason back far enough that they finished last and were eliminated from the race. Other teams had the class not to use the U-Turn, but Team Cougar did and other teams didn’t agree with it. Team Cougar did, however, excel at one challenge that required teams to learn and perform a traditional African tribal dance. Mixing in their own style clearly ripped from their cardio-striptease class, the Cougars danced their way to success. Still, the top two teams continue to be the brother-sister duo of Azakiah and Hendekiah and the dating team of Nate and Jen. The most likeable team continues to be Nicholas and Donald, the grandson and grandfather whose elder half in a crusty, salty old dude who has an awesome fire to him. Thank goodness this is one show that won't be affected by the writers' strike.

- If anyone disagrees with you, just brand them a traitor. Not only is that a great life mantra, it’s the new stance adopted by Venezuelan despot/dictator Hugo Chavez in regards to the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan citizens who have, gasp, had the audacity to oppose Chavez’s proposed constitutional reforms that would basically install him as the country’s dictator for life. Again, he made these inflammatory comments at a gathering of his supporters, which Chavez seems to be doing every day now. Seriously, it’s like this guy needs to meet with massive crowds of people who agree with him every day to boost his ego and reaffirm that he’s as great as he thinks he is. But it’s good of you to really dig deep, think insightfully and just lump everyone who doesn’t agree with you as a traitor, Hugo. Because clearly if they don’t blindly agree with everything you say as their leader, then they are traitors. Welcome to Venezuela, where there’s no room for differing opinions and if you don’t 100 percent fall in line with your leader, then you’re betraying your country. By the way, recent polls have shown that 49 percent of likely voters definitively oppose the proposed reforms, while only 39 percent support them. As for the other 12 percent, make up your freaking minds……

A conference about toilets, the EU won't take no for an answer and two ginormous turkeys

- Oh, it pains me that due to high travel costs and other scheduling conflicts, I’m unable to attend this year’s inaugural World Toilet Association conference, currently going on in South Korea. If there’s one thing I can’t get enough of, it’s discussion of sanitation issues. It just isn’t a party if you’re not talking toilets, bath tubs and plumbing fixtures. The WTA believes that bathrooms and sanitation have gotten a bad rap (gee, I wonder why) and hope to dispel what they see and bathroom myths as well as help save lives through better sanitation as a result of their gathering. On a serious note, I do applaud those who are making a point to attend, including government delegates and U.N. representatives, all of them focused on finding ways to improve restroom facilities worldwide for the 2.6 billion people (more than a third of the world’s total population) who lack access to proper bathroom facilities. Now, if you all solve those problems and still have some time left over, how’s about finding ways to improve the stench in portable toilets and raising the dividers between urinals in men’s restrooms worldwide to increase the privacy and separation just a bit…..

 

- Open up, Danes, because the rest of the European Union is ready to attempt to ram the euro down your throats one more time. Several times before, Danish citizens have rejected the offer to adopt the euro as their national currency, but despite their prior rejections, they’re being “offered” another chance to accept it. In the early 1990s, as most of Europe was moving toward a universal currency, the Danes decided to keep their own currency. In 2000, a referendum offered Danes the chance to change their minds, but once again the measure was defeated handily. Now, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a strong pro-EU advocate, wants voters to revisit the issue, clearly forgetting or simply choosing to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that not once but twice these people have said no to the euro as well as coalescing to the EU’s unified defense policies and law enforcement. Maybe, just maybe, the Danes want to retain their autonomy and individuality and not capitulate to the wishes of the rest of Europe. Thus, I’m throwing my weight firmly against this referendum and Prime Minister Rasmussen. Leave the Danes alone, let them have their independence and individuality!

 

- Think for a minute about your most valuable possession. Maybe it’s your computer, maybe it’s an expensive camera, a piece of jewelry, your plasma HDTV, whatever. Just imagine that item, then try to imagine circumstances under which you would leave that item unattended in the back seat of your car in a normal public parking lot, the doors to your car unlocked. Wouldn’t happen, right?  Well someone should have told that to Nicholas Orbovich, because while dude might be a concert-level violinist with the South Bend (Ind.) Symphony Orchestra, dude is clearly not very smart in matters non-musical. Orbovich left his prized violin, made in 1892 and worth $100,000, in the back seat of his car earlier this week and when he returned five minutes later, the instrument was gone. “I’m devastated,” he lamented. “It’s like losing an immediate family member.” Sorry for your loss, Nick, I really am, but if you’re so dumb that you leave something that valuable sitting in your car in plain sight, WITH THE DOORS UNLOCKED, then maybe you deserved to lose it. Too often, stupid is the one crime that goes unpunished. If I own a $100,000 violin and I have to go somewhere with it, it’s going to be in my possession at all times and probably chained to my person. If I’m at the laundromat doing a load of light-colored clothes, that violin is in one hand, laundry in the other. If I’m at the store trying on jeans, I use my right hand to hold the violin, the left hand to try on the jeans. But hey, don’t worry, I’m sure that whoever stole your violin really appreciates it – or at least they did until they sold it for $1,000 at the nearest pawn shop. Lock your freaking car doors, moron.

 

- The results of the strike by TV writers are already showing through if you look at the schedule for the coming week. Rather than continue reruns of recent shows, The Tonight Show has made the ever-trendy decision to go retro, airing the first appearances of celebrities like Matt Damon, Jennifer Aniston and Johnny Depp on the show. Jay Leno gets the added bonus of looking younger for a week, the show doesn’t have to put out extra effort and no one really watches, it’s a win-win-win. Meanwhile, CBS, you lost me at Ricky Martin. The network is airing a special on Friday called Night at the Grammys, theoretically featuring some of the most “legendary” performances in the history of the show. However, the instant I saw a commercial for this program and saw Ricky Martin’s ugly mug, with his frosted lettuce and lip-syncing act, I knew that either Night at the Grammys was some sort of practical joke or it was a hideously awful show I didn’t need to see. Seriously, no musical program of any kind that features former man-banders like Ricky Martin and his lame-ass act can be legendary. One more TV note, going back to NBC for a minute: American Gladiators is coming back in January, and I for one am pumped. It’s been too long since we’ve seen games like Break Through and Conquer, Joust and The Eliminator. Who doesn’t love ‘roided-up gladiators with greasy mullets, female gladiators with disgustingly ripped physiques and competitors in those neon-colored spandex outfits? Bring it on, gladiators, bring it on…..

 

- Feel free to send me your leftovers, Rich and Andra Portnoy. The two siblings, clearly neither having much of a life and never having gotten over the super-competitive-with-sibling phase of life, have an annual contest to see which of them can cook the bigger Thanksgiving turkey. In a tradition nearly as dumb (not quite) at the president annually “pardoning” a turkey at the White House, these two attempt to one-up each other and this year, big brother Rich won by cooking a 72-pound turkey in his 36-inch wide, chef-quality oven to best his sister, who could only muster a 49-pound bird. Why these two are cooking ginormous turkeys at their respective homes instead of, I don’t know, spending Thanksgiving together, I don’t know. After all, Andra only lives in Reston, Va., not that far from her brother in Minnesota, so it’s not like they’re living on opposite sides of the country. At least Rich and his wife invited 26 people to their home for Thanksgiving, so most of the turkey probably got eaten. Still, any leftovers can be FedEx-ed to me at my home, as long as it’s white meat, no dark meat please….

Why I hate The Bachelor even more now, problems for immigrants and I told you so, LSU

- Ever been to the deli or BMV and taken a number from the dispenser to get a spot in line? If so, you probably know the feeling of pulling a number waaaaay down the line and realizing that you're going to be waiting a long, long time for service. Now multiply that feeling several hundred times over and you know what the people who have applied for U.S. citizenship within the past few months feel like. That’s because these unfortunate individuals will have to wait a year before becoming American citizens due to a huge onslaught of applications received by Citizen and Immigration Services after June 1 of this year. The reason for the sudden deluge of applications? Money, of course. Upcoming fee increases for naturalization, legal residency, work permits, international adoptions and other immigration services “inspired” a whole bunch of applicants. Now, the delay will prevent many of them from being able to vote in next November’s elections, but hey, if you’re gate crashing in a new country, you can’t be too choosy on how fast things go.

- I have no problem saying I told you so, LSU, so I told you so. I said back while LSU was still just another one-loss team trying to climb back into the college football national title hunt that I didn’t think they were title-worthy or the best of the one-loss teams. Well, through the attrition of the schedule and other teams ahead of them falling, the Tigers found their way back into the #1 spot in the BCS….only to fall today at the hands of unranked Arkansas, 50-48 in 3 OT. It was a back-and-forth battle all game long, a game that spanned nearly five hours from start to finish. Arkansas sealed the win with an interception of Matt Flynn’s two-point conversion pass attempt in the third overtime, setting off a jubilant celebration on the exhausted-but-exhilarated Arkansas sideline. With the loss, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise, LSU is done in terms of having a chance to play for the national championship. Ohio State has already finished their regular season with only one loss, so LSU won’t leap over them. With Kansas, Missouri and West Virginia all with zero or one in the loss column, the likelihood of LSU sneaking back up from wherever they fall in the BCS is nada. But don’t sweat it, LSU fan, because you lost something you didn’t deserve it the first place.

- College athletic directors, swing your axes early and often today. Not that I need to tell several AD’s that, because clearly the lead administrators in the athletic departments at the University of Mississippi, University of Nebraska and Texas A&M University already got the message. At Nebraska, interim AD Tom Osborne went out of his way to say in the days leading up to the Huskers’ final game that no decision had been made on the fate of coach Bill Callahan. Of course, we all knew that was a lie and that Osborne had his hand poised over the eject button, ready to jettison Callahan the second the Huskers’ brutal season ended with that 65-51 loss to Colorado to drop to 5-7. Osborne was never a good fit in Nebraska and any relationship he has with Osborne is negative, so after leading his team to some of the worst home losses in the program’s history and not going to a bowl game, clearly he had to go. Ditto for Ed Orgeron at Mississippi, canned after only 2/3 years at the helm. Then again, a 3-9 season and an 0-8 conference record tend to work against you no matter how many seasons you’ve been at a school. At Texas A&M, Dennis Franchione may have technically resigned, but make no mistake about it, he was gone one way or the other. If he hadn’t resigned, the school would have fired him in a heartbeat. The Aggies’ pedestrian 7-5 record, coupled with the mini-scandal Franchione created with his pay-for-inside-info newsletter to boosters, were more than enough ammo to light a fire under his a** and shoot him straight out of town. Of the three programs, Nebraska has the best chance for success soon, but only because they play in a weak division of the Big 12 and because they have a lot of former Cornhuskers out there who are good head coaches and would be eager to come home and rebuild the program. Then again, after this season, all three of these programs can’t go much of anywhere but up.

- You’re going soft, New York City. If you don’t watch out, pretty soon other major cities will be picking on you, knocking you off the monkey bars at recess, stealing your lunch money, pushing you down in mud puddles, etc. Of course, you could look at the murder rate in NYC dropping to its lowest in more than four decades and be proud, but personally I’ve always though of New York as a city with and edge and that was part of what made it cool. Now, though, the city has had only 428 murders in the past twelve months, just more than one per day. Yes, millions of people on one small island and only about 1.17 per day (and no, I don’t know how you murder 0.17 people, whether killing a midget or dwarf counts, etc., so don’t ask) being murdered. It’s a far cry from 1990, when a national-high 2,245 people were murdered in the city, making it the murder capital of the nation. Now, you can buy a hot dog from a street vendor or a knockoff purse or DVD in some tiny corner shop without having to worry about whether or not you’ll make it home that night to enjoy your new purchase. You’ve become a shell of your former self, NYC, and now I worry you’ll never make it back to your top form…..
- What the hell did I just spend an hour every (insert whatever night or nights this insipid show airs here) watching? That’s what fans, i.e. middle-aged women, of The Bachelor have to be asking themselves after the season came to an end with whatever metrosexual tool they picked to be this season’s bachelor decided not to have a relationship with either of the final two contestants on the show. All right, hold on….my crack research staff informs me that the name of the metrosexual tool this season is Brad Womack. But back to more important things – this idiot goes through an entire season of fake drama, fake dates, contrived “getting to know you” sessions, hot tub sessions with the surgically-enhanced skanks on the show, and he basically decides to make the hole thing an even bigger waste than it already was by choosing none of them? Great show, ABC, really quality programming there. It’s bad enough that contrived crap like this even makes it on the air in the first place, but at least make your metrosexual tool of choice pick one of the women to be his girlfriend for a few weeks. They’re going to break up anyhow, no matter how in love they profess to be, so pick one, go to a few red-carpet events and then break up with the usual clichéd excuses. As insulting and worthless as your show is, going through the whole thing and basically admitting that you wasted everyone’s time and money is even more insulting. You suck, anyone and everyone who has even appeared on or been affiliated with The Bachelor in any way.

Mormon lovin', pardoning turkeys and Butch Davis' gift

- So what is the penalty for arranging an incestuous marriage involving a 14-year-old minor who weds her 19-year-old cousin? As it turns out, the penalty is five years in jail, in case you’ve been wondering. And where else would this story come but from the fine state of Utah, where bigamy is still big with me (ok, it’s not a great joke, but I’m running short on bigamy jokes these days).Warren Jeffs, 51, a polygamous-sect leader who is the head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or F.C.J.C.L.D.S. for short), has been sentenced to five years behind bars by a judge in St. George, Utah this week. Jeffs was convicted on two counts of rape as an accomplice after marrying a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin, after which the kissin’ cousins presumably consummated the marriage. Jeffs’ church isn’t connected to the mainstream Mormon church, which formally renounced polygamy more than a century ago. All in all, just a creepy story and one that you’d expect to come from Appalachia, all things considered. But let it be a rule of life that marrying your cousin is a bad idea, and unless you’re Jerry Lee Lewis, marrying a girl in the 13-14 age range is also a bad idea.

 

- If I told you there was a ceremony at this White House this week involving the pardoning of a turkey, how many of you would have guessed that W. and several members of his administration were involved? All of you? Just as I thought. Well, it was not actually one of W.’s moronic administration henchmen receiving the pardon, but rather the continuation of one of those uber-lame holiday traditions, the pardoning of two turkeys by our nation’s biggest turkey. It ranks right up there with the oh, so predictable reports from the airport on the local news the night before a holiday about how the airport is just packed and traveling is going to be difficult. In this particular lame tradition, the president gives “pardons” to two turkeys who would theoretically otherwise be killed and end up on someone’s holiday table. Instead, the two birds, named “May” and “Flower” (ah, turkey nomenclature humor, hilarious) were given “pardons” by W. and will headed to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., to be honorary grand marshals of the parade there. When asked to comment on their pardons….the turkeys said nothing. They’re turkeys, people, what did you expect. The bigger turkey, W., headed off to Camp David to spend his Thanksgiving trying to figure out why they call a football a pigskin if it’s made from the hide of a cow. It will be the fifteenth straight Thanksgiving he’s contemplated the exact same question.

 

- Butch Davis has never been able to regain the glory days he had as head coach at the University of Miami in the late ‘90s. He completely bombed out in the NFL as the coach/curmudgeon of the Cleveland Browns, ultimately getting chased out of the league and running with his tail between his legs back to college football. He landed at the University of North Carolina, where he has proceeded to…well, not accomplish much of anything. This year, with Davis in his first season as coach, the Tar Heels have absolutely surged….to a 3-8 record, 2-5 in conference and good for fifth out of six teams in the ACC’s Coastal Division. For that, most coaches would be on the hot seat, possibly fired but definitely under intense pressure to turn things around. Not Butch Davis, though – he’s just received a contract extension for his underwhelming performance. A one-year extension takes Davis’ current deal through 2014, and the extension also includes a $291,000-per-year raise. Yes, this guy finishes second to last in his division, wins three (possibly four, with one game left to play) games and he gets an extension and a raise. I believe North Carolina is following the Enron business plan here, so good work fellas. With a knob like Butch Davis as your head coach, you should be able to continue rewarding him for subpar coaching for years to come.

 

- I personally wouldn’t take the time to listen to a CD prominently featuring Josh Groban and Billy Joel, but I still salute both performers for agreeing to collaborate with Five for Fighting front man John Ondrasik on a special 13-song album exclusively for American military personnel worldwide. The three artists have come together and produced the unimaginatively titled CD For the Troops (gosh, I wonder who it’s for) and 200,000 hard copies of the album will be distributed to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. For those soldiers looking to pad their iPod play lists, the songs are also available for download on the Army & Air Force Service Exchange website. You theoretically need a military ID to download the music, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it’s going to take all of five seconds for a non-military individual to get their hands on the tunes. In other words, the songs will end up being for everyone, regardless of the original intent. Still, it’s great to see musicians using their talents to do something good for our troops. That’s true whether you oppose the war in Iraq and think it’s the most moronic, indefensible atrocity in the history of war (count me in there) or not.

 

- How much is an Oscar worth? Well, according to a lawsuit filed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, $10. That’s how much the academy says it should be allowed to purchase two Oscars given to the late actress Mary Pickford rather than allow the trophies to go to a public sale. A judge has agreed with the academy at least partially, ruling that the lawsuit over Pickford’s two Oscars as well as one belonging to her former husband Buddy Rogers, should go to trial. On the other side is Kim Boyer, niece of Rogers’ second wife and one of three heirs in possession of the Oscars. Boyer says that she only wants to sell one of the Oscars and because it’s the one Pickford won in 1930 for Coquette, it’s not subject to academy bylaws that require a seller to give the academy a chance to buy the statues for $10 each before they go on the market. The bylaws only date back to 1950, so Boyer would seem to have an argument. But if not, these Oscars will join a long list of trophies and awards to be hocked for a buck, right up there with the national championship ring of former Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips and the American League championship ring of disgraced slugger, author and VH1 Surreal Life star Jose Canseco.

Even with celebrities, the Apprentice sucks, advice for ABC Family the League of Dictators

- Hmm, if you take an unwatchable reality show, mix in a dozen or so celebrities of varying degrees of fame, some of them hot women, does that show suddenly become watchable? My vote is no, so I’m going to go ahead and plan on missing Celebrity Apprentice. Yes, Jennie Finch is smokin’ hot. Yes, Trump’s own daughter Ivanka, who appears regularly on the show, is a hot blonde as well. Yes, having two hot blondes in the same room fulfills a major fantasy for a lot of guys. Still, why do I want to spend an hour each week watching Lennox Lewis, Gene Simmons, Stephen Baldwin, etc. vying to win this competition? So the winner gets $250,000 to donate to their favorite charity? Great, except all of these people could donate that amount  ten times over without the help of the show. Now if you want to have an all-Baldwin brothers Apprentice, then we can talk, because you get those four together with all of their issues, you have something. Besides, wasn’t a big part of the appeal of the original Apprentice seeing aspiring businessmen and women pushing for their big break, for their chance to work for the famous Donald Trump and build a distinguished career in his business ventures? These celebrities all have careers in acting, sports, etc., and they’ve all made a fair amount of money on their own that they could donate to charity. What do they need this show for, as a nice diversion from their normal lives so they can pretend to be real working men and women? Nice try, NBC, but this franchise is dead and it has been since right around the time you gave that insider-trading domestic diva Martha Stewart her own version of the show. Besides, any time a reality show plays the celebrity-edition card, you know the show has jumped the shark and isn’t long for the airwaves.

 

- Memo to ABC Family: Your concept of 25 Days of Christmas was lame to begin with. Ditto for your 13 
Night of Halloween. Showing 13 or 25 nights of movies all centered around the theme of a specific holiday is something no one really wants to see, so what I’m about to say should be painfully obvious to you, but clearly it is not. When you have a countdown to something, as you have with the aforementioned programming ideas, the most moronic idea possible is to have a countdown…..to your countdown. Freaking asinine, ABC Family. Why you’re having a countdown to your countdown of 25 Days of Christmas is stupefying and infuriating. Why not just extend the countdown year round and have an endless string of countdowns, with each countdown preceded by another countdown, right into infinity? Look, I know that your network is mostly reruns of old shows, with a few new ones (most bad, with the exception of Greek, set to return around March), so you need to be really creative to try and drum up viewers, but this isn’t the way to go about it. You’re really just making yourself look pathetic by trying to stretch an already bad idea out a few more days to cover more time in your schedule. It’s not cute, it’s not clever, it’s not even marginally intelligent. And while you’re at it, stop boasting about having countless hours of America’s Funniest Home Videos like that’s a good thing. The videos on the show are lame, they’re staged, they’re the same four or five basic scenarios over and over and they’re not actually funny now, nor were they ever. I’m here if you need any other help with programming decisions, ABC Family, don’t hesitate to ask.

- New motto for Liverpool John Moores University in jolly old England: We will, we will, rock you! Either that or “We are the champions, my friend. And weeeee’ll keep on fighting….till the end….” but that just sounds a bit show-offish. Why the rock and specifically Queen-centric mottoes, you ask? Well, early next year the university will name former Queen guitarist Brian May as its chancellor. May, who recently earned his PhD in astrophysics, will now occupy what is largely a figurehead position at the school, which is a renowned astrophysics institution. The university’s vice chancellor, Michael Brown, lauded May’s appointment as a welcome addition to the school. “In this age of celebrity culture, it is rare to find someone who has fame, fortune and universal acclaim and yet remains true to his core values of learning and enlightenment. In other words, most rock stars would rather get with groupies, snort coke, drink whiskey and sleep til noon. Again, as I said when May earned his doctorate back in the month of May, kudos to him for returning to school nearly four decades after leaving to join Queen, and props for scoring a cushy job where he can earn even more money he doesn’t need.

- There’s the American League, the National League, the League of Women’s Voters, the League of Justice…and now the league of despotic dictators, membership: two. Those two would be Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez, he of the shooting civilians who dare protest his proposed constitutional reforms, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian fascist dictator whose country consistently oppresses and abuses women. Chavez, visiting Ahmadinejad earlier this week, joined with his Iranian partner in despotism by saying that the two of them are united “like a single fist” in opposing American influence around the world. Yes, like a single fist, sharing a single, tiny brain….but I digress. Chavez, like so many anti-American voices globally, cited the fall of the value of the U.S. dollar as a sign that “the U.S. empire is coming down.” First, you ass hat, there is no “U.S. empire,” we’re a democracy and a republic, not an empire. Second, we and our dollar will be just fine in about a year when we get rid of that big tub of dead weight we’ve been dragging around since, oh, about 2001…at least I think that’s when W. took office. But once we eject him from the Oval Office and back to the third grade where he belongs, our country and our currency will rebound just fine. Now go back to your second-tier, riot-laden country and keep our name out your mouth…..

 

- If there’s one thing the French excel at, it’s quitting. Point so much as a squirt gun at them and you can get their army to surrender….sorry Frenchies, but history says I’m right on that one. Well, one particular group of Frenchmen is doing a great job of quitting right now, and it’s you, French civil servants. Rail workers stretched their strike into a ninth day Wednesday, continuing to cripple the country’s transportation system. The striking rail workers were joined on Tuesday by other French civil servants, a sort of mass quitting if you will. The moves are designed to put pressure on President Nikolas Sarkozy to backtrack on some of his recent political and economic reforms which have affected the striking workers negatively. The question is, how do you have a successful negotiation when both parties are French and thus apt to surrender and acquiesce to the other side’s demands at any moment? Best wishes for both sides in this one, you both need it.

 

- What exactly is your problem, New York Knicks fans? You act like your team is off to a 2-8 start, has lost seven in a row, was recently the plaintiff in a sexual harassment lawsuit, hasn’t made the playoffs in several years and has an inept coach/GM who once ran an entire basketball league into the ground, then lost another coaching job before coming to your team, acquiring an entire roster of vastly overpaid guys who all play the same position and ran your franchise right into the ground. Oh, you mean that is what you’re mad about? That’s why you could be heard chanting “Fire Isaiah!” during Tuesday night’s l08-82 loss to the Golden State Warriors….now it makes sense. Honestly, there’s not a single person who can fault you for booing or chanting to fire Isaiah Thomas, because his reign of incompetence might be the single most inept ongoing regime in the entire United States if not for that ginormous tool in the Oval Office at the moment. Unfortunately for you, Knicks fan, the man in charge for the Knicks, owner James Dolan, is nearly as big a moron as Thomas, so he’s electing to stick with the embattled coach/GM. Heck, late last season Dolan gave Thomas a contract extension because the Knicks actually looked like they were moving from the abyss of crappy play they’d been in toward mediocrity. Of course, as soon as Thomas got that extension the team went down the drain, bombing out to finish the season and continuing their poor play to start this season. The Knicks are 6-23 since Thomas received his extension, making this quite possibly the soonest any owner has regretted giving someone a new contract in NBA history. I wish I could tell you this will get better soon and that you’ll get your wish and have Thomas fired, but that’s anything but a guarantee at this point.

The AMA's are a fraud, 1 DUI too many for Purdue football and GPS for whales

- Sometimes I need to make a point about how ridiculous and fraudulent things are, and sometimes those things make the point for me. Case in point would be the American Music Awards, which proved what a total joke they are based on the fact that the award for Breakthrough Performer went to a former American Karaoke contestant. Sorry, fans of that show, but anyone who gives an award to one of your beloved karaoke-ers instantly loses any and all musical legitimacy. Of course, the AMA’s were already a joke to me, so it’s not a big loss in credibility for them with me. Serious music fans don’t have much to do with the self-congratulatory award show circuit, especially its habit of parading the same tired, lame artists out year after year and paying little or no attention to the real talent on the scene. Of the top 100 artists in music today, maybe ten of them would get even a shred of recognition by the AMA’s. Yet the show has time for has-beens like Duran Duran to attempt to revive their career by performing their one hit song and the incredibly lame first single from their new album? Really? You have time for Duran Duran but you can’t carve out time for the New Pornographers, Thermals, Hold Steady, Death Cab for Cutie, Silversun Pickups or the Dandy Warhols? But oh wait, there’s performance time for those hack poseurs in Maroon 5, for Avril Lavigne and Mary J. Blige? Are you freaking kidding me? Why not just rename yourself the Shitty Worthless Past Our Prime Music Awards? Your best male artist, Justin Timberlake, doesn’t have a single idea he hasn’t ripped off from Michael Jackson, sounds like a weasel who just inhaled an industrial-sized tank of helium and is a former man-bander. Your best female artist, Fergie, draws from a deep well of musical inspiration to come up with an entire album of songs about how hot and cool she is, has zero actual singing ability and is a creation of the amazing wonders a studio full of editing equipment and effects can offer. I hate you, American Music Awards, I hate you. The only value you have for me is that I know any artist who wins one of your awards or performs on your show is one I never have to worry about listening to because I know they suck.

- I have a riddle for you: How many DUI arrests within the space of one year does it take to get kicked off the Purdue football team? The answer, as it turns out, is two. We know that thanks to now-former Boilermaker Selwyn Lymon, who got dinged with his second DUI charge of 2007 and now finds himself off the team courtesy of coach Joe Tiller and the athletic department administration. Lymon was pulled over Sunday morning at 3:15 a.m. (you know this is going downhill if for no other reason than the phrase “3:15 a.m.”) and a breath test revealed a blood-alcohol content of 0.15 percent, nearly twice the legal limit in Indiana and most other states. But Lymon wasn’t content with getting busted for driving drunk, so he got belligerent with the cops and got a charge of resisting arrest tacked on. Nothing like a belligerent drunk guy fighting with the cops in the early hours of a Sunday morning, eh? Dare I say that Selwyn Lymon is the Ricky Williams of Purdue? Williams missed most of the last three seasons from the NFL because he couldn’t stop smoking weed and clearly getting high was more important to him than playing football. Lymon will now miss out on his chance to play Big Ten football because he couldn’t stop drinking and driving, so clearly getting hammered and breaking the law by driving afterward is more important to him than school and football. Good decision making, S. You know what, I don’t think you even need that college degree. You obviously have great reasoning and decision-making skills, so why waste any more time in school. You’ve shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can handle your business like a man. Now go serve your jail time and meet your new probation officer.

- What is it that moviegoers want to see most? The answer, at least this past weekend, was Angelina Jolie in a skin-tight body suit. Jolie stars in Beowulf, a movie based on the book that nearly every one of us was forced to read and learned to despise in high school, hundreds of pages of out-of-date writing masquerading as classic literature. However, you mix in one of the five hottest women in Hollywood, some great CGI effects and a well-orchestrated soundtrack and you’ve got the weekend’s top box-office earner with $28.1 million in earnings. The next two movies on the earning toteboard were the top two from the past two weekend, Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie and the crime thriller American Gangster starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Personally, I don’t care how hot Angelina Jolie is or how much humanitarian work she does (and really, isn’t that what most guys care about anyhow), even she’s not enough for me to pay $8.50 to go see a Medieval battle-centric movie. Of course, I’m more likely to go see it than I am to see Fred Claus, but I’m more likely to pay money to stare at my own shoes than I am to go see Fred Claus……

- I’d like everyone to join in on a new cause I’ve just started: GPS for whales. I was inspired to establish this cause after reading about the story of one particular minke whale in Brazil that has found itself caught in sandbars twice in the past week and has necessitated major search and rescue efforts by the Brazilian government. The unnamed (I propose naming the whale Sandbar) 18-foot mammal entered the Amazon River at some point last week, swam more than 1,000 miles upstream and became trapped on a sandbar near the city of Santarem. After being freed Friday, Sandbar the whale became stranded on a sandbar for a second time early this week. The Brazilian Environmental Protection Agency had called off its search for the massive mammal before news of the second beaching occurred, so clearly someone needs to step in and help Sandbar the whale, and that someone is me. With your support, we can buy a GPS system made especially for our whale friend, equipping him with what he needs to avoid future beachings. We can teach him how to use the system and that way, he can avoid any further trouble. Maybe this will even vault him up to the top of his group of whale friends and he’ll be the cool one with the new GPS system that gets to decide where to go on the group’s next big trip. Yes, that’s me, saving the ecosystem one ginormous whale and one GPS system at a time.

- The ongoing writers’ strike isn’t the only divisive issue in the world of television right now. Another topic that’s a source of widespread anger and hostility, at least among football fans, is the availability (or lack thereof) of specialty networks like the NFL Network or Big Ten Network for the average cable subscriber. These two networks have sprung up in the past couple years because the NFL and Big Ten both decided that they needed new ways to make money, so they followed the lead of the New York Yankees are created their own cable networks. The problem is that getting most cable systems to carry these new channels has been tough because the people running them want the cable companies to pay high charges to do so, charges that would of course be passed on to consumers. Many cable companies have refused to do so, meaning that fans with cable have been shut out from seeing their favorite team play. It happened several times this season with Big Ten football, which had a rule that each team in the league had to play on the BTN at least once. The most notable situation was late in the year when Ohio State hosted Wisconsin and it was on BTN, meaning all across Ohio, Ohio State fans either had to find a friend who had satellite and thus got the BTN or go to a sports bar that had it if they wanted to see the game. The issue will carry over to basketball season as well, plus it gets more fuel added to the fire this week when NFL Network starts its customary Thursday night games that run for the last six weeks of the season. Starting with tomorrow’s Colts-Falcons tilt that looks much less appealing now that the Falcons’ star player is sitting in a federal prison, NFL Network will have one game on each Thursday night for the remainder of the season. That will become a huge issue next week when the two premier teams in the NFC this season, the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers, square off on the NFL Network and only a miniscule fraction of football fans across America can see two 9-1 teams do battle. Even though I’m one of those who will get to see the game, I honestly think it’s bullsh*t that games are on networks that so few people have access to. Either find a way to get these channels on everywhere or you don’t get to broadcast games, period. You’re alienating a whole lot of people who are rabid and devoted to their teams and it needs to stop.

Nick Saban needs to stop talking, Mississippi football players need to stop stealing and some Heroes thoughts

- Memo to all hotels in cities where the University of Mississippi football team will be visiting: Nail down everything in the room you don’t want stolen. It’s only a fair warning given the behavior of Mississippi football players so far this season, behavior detailed in a release from Mississippi head coach Ed Orgeron. Coach O, as he’s known, explains that 20 Rebel players have been placed on probation by the program after twice stealing items from hotel rooms during road trips. The players have been made to pay for the items they stole, which include radios and pillows. Small-time items to be sure, but swiping things other than bath towels from hotels is just plain ghetto. The probation, which may or may not be double super-secret, is indefinite. Value for the items ranges from $15 to $40. Again, I know you’re a college athlete and you are basically used to make a lot of money for the university and you get only a scholarship in return instead of getting paid, but you really can’t be swiping gear from hotels. I don’t care if it’s some sort of dare or a little competition with you and your boys on the team, you can’t do it. One bath towel stuffed in the suitcase, fine. A clock radio, no. Hotels tend to notice things like that are missing. Props, though, for not trying to steal a television, although I suspect that one of you tools would have tried had it not been so hard to conceal in your travel bag.

- One quick NFL note from Sunday, and it has nothing to do with anything that happened on the field. Prior to last night’s Sunday Night Football game in Buffalo between the Bills and the New England Cheatriots, a video was played on the scoreboard at Ralph Wilson Stadium featuring Kevin Everett, the Buffalo tight end who suffered a serious spinal cord injury in a game earlier this season and has been fighting to regain his motor skills and use of his limbs ever since. In the video, Everett talked about his injury, the recovery process and how thankful he is for all of the support and encouragement he has received from fans, teammates and other players. After the video, NBC commentator Al Michaels shared a conversation he had with Bills owner Ralph Wilson in which Wilson told him that Everett is now back at home, he has been able to walk and that he recently visited a local supermarket and was able to push a cart around the store on his own as he shopped. That, to me, was far and away the best story of the day, bigger than any four-touchdown game by a star wide receiver or big win for a team to break a losing streak. As corny as it sounds, hearing that Everett was able to do something as basic as push a shopping cart was hugely uplifting and encouraging. Keep up the fight, K., because even though your football career may be over, there are a whole lot of people out here, me included, who are rooting for you even louder than we ever were on the field.

- Been having trouble sleeping lately? Man, do I have the cure for your insomnia. This week marks the release of the latest album from Vegas lounge act and proven sedative extraordinaire Celine Dion. Her new album, Taking Chances, fails to live up to its name and instead delivers a stupefyingly bad group of tracks that could put a caffeine addict on speed to sleep in under five seconds flat. Even Dion herself looks heavily sedated or possibly fatigued on the album cover. She’s brought in songwriters like Linda Perry, collaborators like former Evanescence (lame-o) guitarist Ben Moody, but underneath some new polish, it’s the same old Celine Dion turd. Maybe she should go back to wowing middle aged women, gay men and people with nothing better to do with their time on a trip to Vegas by reviving that little lounge act she had going in Sin City. Still, hers isn’t the only bad idea of an album out this week. No, Duran Duran continues to try and reach back in time to their one and only hit, Hungry Like the Wolf, and make people think that they’re actually relevant, which of course they never were. This time, to new wavers from the ‘80s try a little help from the uber-overexposed Timbaland, who apparently had time in between his weekly collaborations with Justin “Weasel on Helium” Timberlake and Nelly Furtado on the same freaking song they do over and over again but shoot new videos for every other time, to come and lend an un-helping hand. Simon LeBon and John Taylor don’t have a sound that meshes well with Timbaland and his bubble-gum hip-hop, but that doesn’t deter them from releasing crap-tastic tracks like Skin Divers or the album’s first single, Falling Down. Ironically, that’s exactly what this album will do, fall down rapidly from whatever lower-tier spot on the Billboard charts it debuts at. No, not a great week for music, coming on the heels of yet another self-congratulatory, filled-with-poseurs-and-hacks awards show like the American Music Awards Sunday night. It is, however, a good week for buying ear plugs…..

- Since Prison Break is on hiatus until Jan. 24, I’ve decided to group my favorite Sunday night show, The Amazing Race, in with my weekly Heroes review to round out my TV insights. Well, for this week and the next two, anyhow, at which point Heroes will be going on hiatus as well. This week I actually had the chance to watch the entire episode of Amazing Race and I’m glad I did. For one, Donald, one half of the grandfather-grandson team with grandson Nicholas, went an entire episode without stripping down to his underwear to help him complete a challenge. I’m not trying to be harsh, because actually Donald seems like a cool guy, but there is not a 68-year-old in the world that we need to see on TV in their underwear. Other positive from the episode included the requisite mental breakdown by the psycho, overly emotional chick on a given season. This time, it was Lorena, running the race with boyfriend Jason and looking like she’s on the verge of losing her mind every episode. This week, she finally snapped at a challenge in the west African nation of Burkina Faso, where a challenge called for one team member to milk a camel. Unable to get enough milk out of her camel to complete the challenge, Lorena burst into tears and began wailing like a banshee as other teams finished the challenge and passed her. A flash rainstorm didn’t help matters, but finally the crazy chick got it done and her team actually wasn’t eliminated. That (dis)honor went to Marianna and Julia, two uber-hot Latina sisters that Donald actually made some nice observations on earlier in the episode. Actually, his observations began and ended with saying they were hot and he wouldn’t mind getting with them even though they’re “a little bitchy,” but still, well said, Don. Also interesting this week was the total arrogance and lack of sensitivity from Shana and Jennifer, or as I like to call them, Team Cougar, as they rode a train through some of the poor, dirty, run down areas in Burkina Faso. Instead of seeing the squalor people there live in and having sympathy or being impacted in a meaningful way, these two past-their-prime, spoiled bimbos basically looked down their noses at the local people, remarked about how filthy everything was, how they could never live there and mocking the clothing styles of the people they saw. Very classy, ladies, very classy. Again, you might think you’re so hot and so stylish, and ten years ago, you probably were. Now, you’re just past your prime but looking more pathetic because you’re holding on to the same attitude and persona you had back when you were young and hot. Speaking of young and hot….what the frak are the writers and producers on Heroes doing to my girl Kristen Bell? The former star of cult and personal favorite show Veronica Mars (you still suck for canceling it, CW) made her debut on Heroes a few episodes ago and I was pumped. Now that I’ve seen the role they’ve given her…..substantially less pumped. When I heard people criticizing Bell’s character, Elle, as an annoying, slutty nympho, I disagreed at first. Now, though, I’m seeing that label as an accurate one. For example, in last night’s episode, which was zoned in on a few select characters and excluding of everyone else, Elle and her father Bob, the head of “the company,” were in Costa Verde, Calif. with Mohinder to try and convince Noah Bennet, a.k.a. H.R.G., to give them his daughter Claire so her blood, carrying her own healing superpower with it, could be used to save ill or injured people. For most of the first segment of the show, as Elle, Bob and Mohinder prepared to meet H.R.G., Elle hung all over Mohinder and basically flirted with him in the most obvious way possible, not because she actually was interested in him, but more in the sense of liking the flirting and letting out her inner nympho. Thankfully, that didn’t keep going throughout the episode, but why it’s a part of her character in the first place, I don’t know. As the company’s trio is preparing for the meeting, H.R.G. is dealing with his own problems. Claire is refusing to leave town with her family, which H.R.G. is moving for safety reasons. She instead goes to school and tries to make amends with boyfriend West, who freaked out and stopped talking to her when he realized that her dad was the man who abducted him and did experiments on him when he was 12. West still isn’t sure what to think, so he decides to get some answers from H.R.G. himself. West flies in and snatches his nemesis as H.R.G. walks out the front door and whisks him up in the air several thousand feet for an unusual interrogation. By the time West’s strength gives out and he and H.R.G. land, West is convinced that Claire wasn’t pretending to like in so she could spy on him for H.R.G. In a twist, H.R.G. asks West for his help in saving Claire because she’s in danger from the company. First, they meet with Mohinder and Elle, with West’s ability to fly coming in handy when he captures Elle and takes her back to H.R.G.’s house. However, upon arriving H.R.G. and West learn that Claire has been abducted by Bob. H.R.G. sets up a plan to exchange Elle, Bob’s daughter, for his own daughter. At the exchange, things go horribly wrong when West, under orders from H.R.G., takes Claire and flies away with her. Elle doesn’t let that happen, shooting them down with one of her lightning bolts. That leads H.R.G. to shoot Elle, then Mohinder shoots H.R.G. when the latter refuses to put down his gun. The scene unfolds just like it was shown in Isaac Mendez’s series of eight paintings, right down to the bullet going through H.R.G.’s left eye. Claire has to watch her father die, but West whisks her away. She believers her dad is dead and he is….for the moment. At episode’s end, Bob uses some blood he took from Claire to revive her dad, who is now under custody of the company. Hiro Nakamura is struggling with his father’s death as well, having just returned to present-day life after teleporting to 1671 for a while. He returns to learn that his father is dead, but at his funeral, Hiro can’t give the eulogy because that would mean admitting his father is really gone. Initially Hiro decides to go back in time a week to keep his father from being murdered, but after teleporting with his dad back in time 17 years ago to show his father the grief Hiro himself experienced when his mother died to illustrate why he couldn’t lose his dad as well, something weird happens. After meeting himself from 17 years ago and seeing his father’s own reaction, Hiro realizes he must accept what has happened, go back to 2007 and allow his father to die, just as it happened the first time around. This time, though, Hiro is there to stop time. He doesn’t save his father, but he does freeze time long enough to see who it was that killed him – Adam Monroe/Takezo Kensei. Now, Hiro has to figure out how to get revenge on the man who killed his father, a man who can’t be killed and can recover from any wound. The third story line from this episode centers on Matt Parkman, who is starting to use his ability to control people’s brain functions and read their thoughts. At first he does it to Molly, who he harmlessly forces to return to the breakfast table to finish her cereal. Realizing his powers, though, Parkman steps things up by manipulating the thoughts of his boss at the police department so he can continue investigating the death of Kaito Nakamura, a case the department believes is closed because Angela Petrelli has confessed. Parkman knows from reading her thoughts that she didn’t do it, but using his new power he also forces her to tell him who did – Adam Monroe. He also compels her to identify all of the other people in the old company photograph that is serving as a hit list for Monroe as he seeks revenge for being locked up for 30 years. Angela resists to the point that blood begins flowing from her nose and she accuses Parkman of being no different than his father, who had the same power and used it to commit unspeakable atrocities. That doesn’t deter Parkman, who coaxes the last name out of her and now has everyone from the photograph identified. There were a ton of central characters omitted from this episode, including Peter and Nathan Petrelli, Sylar, Niki, Micah and more. It was again a good episode but it’s becoming extremely frustrating that most of the characters seem to be on an every-other-week basis for screen time. This wasn’t nearly as big of an issue last season and maybe the show’s writers can use their time on strike to get away, refocus and get back to what made the show so great last year. It’s still good, but it’s not on the same level as last season to this point. Even the so-called “blow your mind” episodes like “Four Months Ago” that aired last week are falling short of expectations. Here’s hoping for something much better the next two weeks before the show goes on holiday hiatus.
- This might seem counterintuitive for a football coach because coaches typically talk a lot and are very vocal, but Nick Saban might want to think about taking a break from this whole speaking thing for a while. Only bad things happen when this two-faced, dishonest mercenary speaks, so he may want to voluntarily become a mute for the foreseeable future. Last year, while under contract with the Miami Dolphins, Saban bristled repeatedly when asked about rumors that he would take the vacant head coaching job at the University of Alabama. Finally, a frazzled Nick-ster snapped, “I will not be the head coach at Alabama,” and repeated that he’d been clear on this point and didn’t know why he was still being asked about it. A few short weeks later, wonder of wonders, he was the new head coach at Alabama, proving that he lied to everyone, including his team, his owner and his fans. He nonetheless moved on to Tuscaloosa, where he took over a team that had been falling well short of its lofty goals season after season. The Crimson Tide started strong but have fallen on hard time of late, stumbling to a 6-5 record after an embarrassing 21-14 loss to lowly non-conference opponent Louisiana-Monroe. The loss was bad, but the resulting remarks from Saban in his weekly news conference were worse, no matter what the spin doctors and spokesmen for the university would like you to believe. “Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event,” Saban told those assembled at his weekly news conference. “It may be 9-11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event.” Wow, great insight coach, your team will change and rebound from its loss just like America rebounded from 9-11 or how our country fought back after Pearl Harbor, eh? Great, except that neither of those two things has even the remotest connection to a freaking football game, you tool. I know you were digging down deep into your bag of coach speak and clichés, but you need to reach for something else because likening a loss in a meaningless football game to national tragedies in which thousands of Americans died makes you look like an ignorant ass hat. No, I’m not going to go on some patriotic tirade about how it’s disrespectful to those who died to draw such an ignorant analogy. I will, however, point out that Saban clearly has a major disconnect between mouth and brain, because he says things that no intelligent, logical person would say if they took a second to consider what they were about to say. Stop lying about taking other jobs, coach (p.s. the Michigan job is open, I bet if you ask nicely they might give it to you), stop comparing football games to national tragedies involving the deaths of thousands and lastly, stop having athletic department spokesmen apologizing for the asinine remarks you make. For more on that, read the following: “What Coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with tragedy; everyone needs to understand that. He was not equating losing football games to those catastrophic events,” football spokesman Jeff Purington said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. Those were two tremendous examples that everyone can identify with.” Nice try, spin doctor. Just realize that your feeble attempt at an clarification on this one is a waste of time. If Saban wasn’t correlating losing a football game with tragedy, then why did he reference two of the most memorable tragedies in our nation’s history when specifically describing a difficult loss in a football game. I know you need to make nice and smooth things over because that’s your job, but stop insulting us by telling us that we’re all mistaken and didn’t understand what your coach said. We understood him just fine, we get the analogy. He thinks losing a football game to an opponent he had no business losing to is similar to 9-11, Pearl Harbor and World War II. But don’t worry, Purington, knowing Nick Saban, he’ll be moving on to a new job in a few months and you won't have to apologize for any more of his idiotic remarks.