- Welcome to America, the land of the (sometimes) free and the home of the criminal element. That may sound jaded, but when you look at some of the year-end figures and statistics release by the Department of Justice recently, you realize it’s true: America is a nation of criminals. About one in every 31 adults in the U.S. was in prison, jail or on some type of supervised release from one of those places in the past year. Furthermore, an estimated 2.38 million people were incarcerated in federal or state prisons during that same time period, an increase of 2.8 percent over the previous year. So yes, it’s getting worse, not better. It isn’t just the same bad apples getting arrested and sent back to jail over and over; new criminals among us are joining in, showing that true spirit of American togetherness, even if it is in a felonious sense. Additionally, about 5 million people were either on probation or parole during the year, meaning you probably know one or more person who fits into this category as well. Oh, and the number of women in state and federal prisons was at an all-time high as well, with 112,498 ladies behind bars. Clearly the quest for female equality with men isn’t just going on in the workplace or the arena of athletic competition; the rate of women behind bars has grown at double the rate of men behind bars since 1980, so you ladies are definitely making up ground there, well done.
- I’m sorry, but is this really something you want to claim, that one of Kid Rock’s songs is a rip-off of a song you wrote? That’s like saying the Miami Dolphins stole a play you drew up for your own team or claiming that Paulie Shore ripped a movie idea from you and passed it off as his own. Yet here’s singer/songwriter Troy Landry having a lawsuit dismissed in federal court in New Orleans after he tried to sue Bob Ritchie, a.k.a. Kid Rock, for plagiarizing one of his tunes. Landry says an eight-second clip from Rock’s Somebody’s Gotta Feel This is stunningly similar to songs Landry wrote and released on a 1994 album. He also claimed in the lawsuit that the eight-second clip was repeated throughout Rock’s song and comprised about 45 percent of the tune. Atlantic Recording Corp., the record company with the bad sense to represent Kid Rock, was also named in the suit. However, the judge didn’t agree that Rock was guilty of plagiarizing Landry’s music. “The works are not so strikingly nor substantially similar as to preclude independent creation,” U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon (care to squeeze in few more names there, judge?) stated in her decision. “However, both songs are substantially bad as to declare them to be cruel and unusual punishment for anyone forced to listen to either of them.” All right, so I made that last part up….or did I? Just to be safe and to make sure this kind of situation never, ever happens again, how’s about both Troy Landry and Kid Rock stop making and recording music altogether? Sounds like a solution we can all live with and benefit from.
- See, rich people are no different than the rest of us. The put their pants on one leg at a time, just like you, and when those pants are on, many of them get busted for DUI, just like many regular Americans do. With Kiefer Sutherland beginning his time behind bars for a DUI while on probation for a previous DUI, actress Vivica A. Fox has been busted for driving while molared up too. I could argue that she got that drunk to try to wash away the memory of being part of the farce that is Dancing With the (D-List) Stars, but there’s not enough alcohol in the world for that and even if there were, there’s no excuse in the world for getting behind the wheel while that heavily intoxicated. Fox was busted in the San Fernando Valley earlier this year and has finally turned herself in to formally face charges after a judge threatened to issue a warrant for her arrest if she didn’t surrender. At the time of her drunken joy ride, er, trip home from the bar, Fox was driving 80 mph and weaving erratically between lanes on the Ventura Freeway. Speeding and swerving, always a good sign that you’re too hammered to drive. And no, Fox didn’t play the “Do you know who I am?” card….but rest assured, she went with something almost as good. She played the racist card, alleging that one of th cops who pulled her over was a “racist white cop.” Right, because a black, Hispanic, Asian or other minority cop wouldn’t think a large SUV speeding and driving erratically late at night was a problem. Nice try, V. Were you also drunk when you made that allegation, because that’s the only was to explain making an ignorant comment like that. You took a breath test and blew well over the legal limit of .08 percent. That makes you a drunk driver and even if the cop who pulled you over is the biggest racist of all time, anywhere in the world, you’re still guilty (allegedly). Here’s hoping you get dinged for the maximum of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for the drunk driving charge just to punish you for being so petty, idiotic and small-minded as to play the race card here.
- Now that The Amazing Race is pretty much the only show I watch airing new episodes each week (although Smallville does return with a new, holiday-themed episode this Thursday), I have more thought and insight to devote to the globe-trotting teams still left on this season’s version of the show. This week, the show remained in former Soviet Bloc nations, going from Lithuania to Croatia with nary a competitor being felled by a stray bullet from a rogue militant army rifle. Only six teams remained at the episode’s outset, with five having been eliminated so far this season. For the first time this season, the teams were spread amongst three different flights from one location to another, with the turmoil getting tickets at the Vilnius Airport costing Azariah and Hendekiah, previously one of the race’s strongest teams. They got out of line at the ticket counter at the airport to try and book tickets via the phone on the advice of Ronald and Cristina, the father/daughter tandem who actually won this leg of the race, but the move backfired. Even as the other teams fumbled, stumbled, sniped and snarked their way onto different flights, Azariah and Hendekiah ended up a couple of hours behind after missing out on each of the first few flights that all of the other teams ended up on. They thought they were on one of those flights but were given business class tickets and didn’t realize the error until too late. See, the race prohibits teams from flying anything other than economy class, so by the time they tried to exchange their tickets, it was too late. Once in Croatia, teams made their way to Dubrovnik and had to complete a road block in which one teammate sorted through what was allegedly a pile of 150 stones to find one of only eight that fit into a spot on one of the city’s walls that was being rebuilt from damage during bombing in the many civil wars that raged in the country in the 1990s. No one seemed to have that much trouble with it and although Donald, the grandfather in the grandpa/grandson team of Nick and Donald, did take longer than his grandson would have liked. But hey, anything that means more screen time for Don is something I’m ok with. That is one crusty, salty old dude that cracks me up and he doesn’t seem to be nearly as bitter as many older people tend to be. Once teams found a stone that fit, they could choose one of two options in a detour that showed off the amazing beauty and atmosphere of Dubrovnik. The options, after taking a zip line from the top of one historic fort, over the harbor and to the top of another historic fort, were taking a second zip line down to the water and rowing a boat around the city’s outer walls to a spot in a small inlet, or rappelling down the side of the fort they just arrived at, running to another fort, scaling the wall on a rope ladder and navigating their way through the city’s confusing old town. Most teams chose the boats, which led to yet another awkward, contentious moment between Nate and Jen, the combustible dating duo that spends most of each episode telling one another how much they hate each other and saying that they don’t want to be in the race anymore. This time, though, I was actually able to laugh as they sniped, disagreed and called each other all sorts of names. It was still uncomfortable and felt like that couple we all know that makes everyone very uncomfortable by having loud arguments in public places, but at least this time I was able to laugh at these two unlikable individuals. They capped their error-filled run by initially failing to get a taxi because they were wearing wet clothes and talking a civilian into driving them to the end of the leg, at which point they were forced to go back and take a taxi from the same spot they just came from because having a civilian drive them was against the rules of the race. They survived in third place, behind Ronald and Cristina and Goth couple Kynt and Vyxsin (love those two, they’re good with me) and ahead of my favorite team in this year’s race, TK and Rachel, who continue to be the two most chill, relaxed stoners ever to run this race. I don’t mean that in a negative sense, either; these two are awesome, Bohemian to the core and easy going through and through. They may be fourth right now, but I seriously hope they hang around and win this thing. Nick and Donald came through to finish fifth, leaving Azariah and Hendekiah bringing up the rear in sixth place. The question was whether this would be one of the non-elimination legs in the race, which seemed likely because there hadn’t been a single one of them yet this season. But surprisingly, the run of elimination legs continued and Azariah and Hendekiah were booted, leaving five teams. Next week the show is not on, not sure why, probably some moronic, inane awards show on CBS, but it returns in two weeks and I feel confident in predicting that it will be a non-elimination leg….I think….it has to be…..doesn’t it?
- It may have taken a while, but federal investigators looking into the murder of 17 innocent Iraqi civilians by guards of the private murder, er, security firm Blackwater Worldwide have zeroed in on three individuals they believe to be responsible for the killings. By offering immunity to some of those involved to lesser degrees in the shootings in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square, the investigators have been able to narrow their focus down to as few as three killers, er, guards and will now proceed to build a case against those a-holes. I wouldn’t be opposed to leaving their trial and punishment up to the Iraqis, because after all, they did kill Iraqi citizens on Iraqi soil. So why not let the Iraqi justice system take care of them, because the prospect of hanging from the gallows or being beheaded seems like a fitting punishment for individuals who so needlessly and senselessly murdered more than a dozen innocent people…..
- In a shocking but true development, the United Nations has revealed that Gen. Than Shwe, the ruling military junta of Myanmar, lied about how many people were killed in his government’s crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators a couple months ago. The junta, a man renowned for his brutality, despotism and lack of fairness, had claimed that 15 civilians were killed by his army when they fired on groups of protestors in the country’s capital city, but through its own investigation, the U.N. has discovered that more twice that many, 31 to be exact, were killed. A U.N.-appointed human-rights activist found that 16 people (at least) had been killed in addition to the 15 previously admitted to by the junta. But seriously, who would have guessed that a politician, especially a despotic dictator ruling by force and oppressing the people of his country, would lie about how many dissidents his forces had killed in seeking to suppress opposition to his government? What’s next, are you going to tell me that the presidents of some countries go around starting unnecessary, unjustified wars that last for years, cost tens of billions of dollars and have no end in sight? Seriously, how gullible do you think I am? Never mind on that…..
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