- Who doesn’t love some good ol’ Cold War revival action? Stoking the coals of the 1980s showdown between the United States and the old U.S.S.R. is always a guaranteed good time, so it’s a shame it doesn’t happen more often. Of course, with Russia having steadily moved back toward Communism under outgoing president Vlad Putin, odds of these clashes increasing are pretty good. So let’s all hope that the pissing contest between the U.S. and Russian governments in which a total of five diplomats and military attaches were expelled from Russia and the United States by the opposing government is a sign of things to come. Things got going back on Nov. 6 when a New York-based Russian diplomat was expelled from the country. It took Russia a few months to respond, but they fired back by booting a U.S. diplomat from Moscow on April 14. The American response didn’t take nearly as long, coming with the expulsion of a Russian diplomat from Washington on April 22. That meant it was Russia turn to respond, which they did by giving two American military attaches at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow the heave-ho. Nothing like a good international pissing match, eh? Seeing heads of state for major world powers act like cranky 6-year-olds always inspires confidence in the government of your country. I’m also looking forward to memos calling one another “doody heads” and vowing that our president can beat up your president to be sent, that would really make this a conflict for the ages….
- Greek ventured back into the sports world Monday night, going back to the theme it hit on last season with the fraternity floor hockey tournament but with a twist. The Zeta Beta Zeta Fest was in full swing, with the sorority sponsoring a series of events designed to raise money for charity while also pitting the campus’ fraternities against one another. Events included shimmying the length of a long, horizontal wooden pole without touching the ground, sitting inside of a small wire cage and making phone calls to raise money for charity, a marathon relay session of frat members going up and down on a giant teeter-totter and lastly, a “Mr. Purr-fect” contest in the form of a beauty pageant, complete with a question-and-answer round, a “swimsuit” portion and a talent portion. Each fraternity had one of the ZBZ sisters as a coach, meaning Casey was coach of Lambda Sigma, Frannie coached the Omega Chi’s and Rebecca wound up with Kappa Tau thanks to her relationship with its president Cappie. When the KT’s showed their usual lack of interest, effort, punctuality and focus, Rebecca spent the entire week riding them, pushing them and making their lives miserable. That was doubly true for Rusty, who was designated assitant coach and ended up running all of Rebecca’s errands so she could focus on her coaching duties. But all of the KT members decided that under the Guy’s Code, they had to suffer with Rebecca’s insane demands and not let Cappie know how much they despised her. By week’s end, Rusty decided to buck the code and tell Cappie what everyone was thinking - that Rebecca was insufferable. That led Cappie to throw the Mr. Purr-fect contest in an attempt to show Rebecca that she’d taken winning too far - and the effort miraculously worked thanks to a terrible ventriloquist act with Rusty serving as Cappie’s dummy. The Omega Chi’s were having their own struggles with the ZBZ Fest, but their struggles were more about one person - Evan Chambers. His determination to win Casey back got help from an unlikely source - Frannie. She encouraged Evan to use his strengths and resources to get what he wanted after seeing him squirm at the sight of Casey flirting with Shane, the president of the Lambda Sigmas. Just as Casey and Shane were about to have their first date following Shane and his frat’s win in the contest, Evan stepped in and bought Shane off with $1,000 to get him to stop seeing Casey. That was followed by Evan stopping by the ZBZ house the next day to ask Casey out for a cup of coffee - allegedly as friends. He clearly has no intention of being just friends and that’s all she wants from him, so this should be interesting. The back-burner story for the episode was Calvin, the show’s resident gay guy, being set up by friend and ZBZ sister Ashleigh. She decided that the TA in her French class would be a good guy to set Calvin up with, so she arranged for Michael and Calvin to meet and go out for coffee. When Mike’s response to the date was sending flowers to Calvin at the Omega Chi house, Calvin had a problem with the nice, non-judgmental reaction from his frat brothers. He reasoned that they were being overly and unnaturally sensitive because he was gay. When he confronted Mike about it, Mike owned up to being a guy who filled nearly every stereotype about gay guys - exceptionally neat, given to interior decorating and all things feminine. In spite of that, he asked Calvin out again, this time to a gay film festival. Reluctantly, Calvin showed up (with a little encouragement from Ashleigh, who also went with him). Absent from the show this week but poised to make a big return next week is my least favorite Greek character Dale, who will be leading a charge that has the Greeks on the verge of being kicked off campus in next week’s episode. Dale will have the help of his militant, psycho-obsessed new anti-Greek friend Tina in that quest, so that’s something to look forward to for next Monday…..
- One Tree Hill followed an annoying trend of its own and of other TV shows in recent memory by kicking off with a few scenes from the present and then zipping back in time to show us the hours leading up to those moments, after which we went through those opening scenes again and back into the present. This “time warp” TV rarely works and is almost always disorienting, as it was last night. There was Lucas, getting himself ejected from a game in which he was about the coach his Tree Hill Ravens to a win. His new strategy of run-and-gun, three-point-shooting galore was working and the opposing team resorted to fouling Quentin and his bad wrist to try to trip up the Ravens. When Q made his foul shots in spite of the bum wrist, the opposing Bear Creek team’s coach instructed his players to try to re-injure Quention’s wrist. Lucas saw it and lost his mind, first getting a technical foul, then getting ejected and grabbing the Bear Creek player who delivered the hard hack to Quentin by the shirt. That move will have serious repercussions for sure, and it all started with a phone call Lucas received from ex-fiancée Lindsey at halftime. She informed him that after a week-plus of not calling him at all that she’s now seeing someone else. That precipitated Lucas’ meltdown, but what ramiprecussions will it have? Other ramiprecussions came for Nathan and Haley, who continued to keep son Jamie from his grandfather Dan. When Jamie found his thank-you card to his grandpa in the trash courtesy of his mom, he decided to take the card and walk it to his grandpa’s house on his own. That led him out onto the open road, walking by himself. Fortunately Haley found him and picked him up, after which they had a long talk about why grandpa Dan is such a bad guy. It was the continuation of a tough day for Haley, who is having trouble and doubts about her new record with Peyton’s upstart record company. With Peyton’s other artist Mia (Kate Voegle) back in town and talking all about her crazy life on tour, Haley remembers what her own life was like when she was a touring musician and fears how she can go back to music while balancing her life and family at home. The balance at home was also tough to strike for Nathan and Jamie’s new nanny, Nathan’s mom Deb. With Deb delving into the world of online dating, Nathan inadvertently walked in on her in a compromising position during a video chat. Deb’s new online guy ended up in a compromising position of his own when he and Deb met at Tric. It turned out that Skillz Taylor, Mouth McFadden’s roommate and Lucas’ assistant coach, was the guy Deb had been chatting with. Despite their massive age difference, Skillz and Deb decided to hook up anyhow, a fling I’m sure won't be just a one-night stand. Mouth was getting an interesting opportunity of his own as the station manager tasked him to take a camera to the basketball game and find a story about the Tree Hill Ravens. When the incident with Lucas and the Bear Creek player takes place, the station manager wants footage of it. But out of deference to his friend, Mouth lies and says he didn’t get any. It’s a choice that could kill his career, but Mouth’s loyalty to his friends is clearly more important to him. The surgery on baby Angie’s heart was the most important thing for Brooke Davis this week, with the infant girl she has been in charge of while the girl visits the United States for the surgery. As Brooke waits impatiently for the outcome of the last-minute surgery, she has company in Lucas and Peyton, but in the end, it’s her sitting with Angie in the recovery room after the surgery, thankful that things went well. Not going as well is the wait for a heart transplant for Dan, who is now second on the donor list behind a local minister. Dan becomes very hostile with his doctor when the doctor states that the pastor is a good man, a statement Dan reads too much into and believes to mean that he’s not a good man. Dan also is given a pager that will go off if a heart becomes available, an issue you have to believe will be resolved in next week’s season finale. So an overall decent episode and until next time…
- Rappers just don’t commit violent crimes like they used to. Gone are the days of Biggie Smalls and Tupac being shot and killed, gone are the days of 50 Cent getting hit with nine bullets and gone are the days of Suge Knight dangling people off the edges of balconies (allegedly). Those crimes have been replaced by incidents like the one involved rapper Foxy Brown, who made use of technology in committing one of the softer, weaker rapper crimes in recent memory. Back in July, Foxy (real name Ingrid Marchand, very gangsta) was blasting her stereo outside of the Brooklyn apartment building where she lives. Neighbor Arlene Raymond took offense to the excessive volume and confronted Ingrid/Foxy, with a major argument ensuing. Following the argument, Ingrid/Foxy harassed Raymond via cell phone, which led to her pleading guilty to the menacing charge this past week. Fortunately for hardcore gangsta rapper Ingrid Marchand (just doesn’t sound right, does it?), as part of her plea deal she gets off with time already served for a different incident. That one was even more hardcore, even more gangsta (more gangsta than cell phone threats, hard to imagine, I know) because it centered on a dispute Ingrid Marchand has with manicurists at a nail salon. Who are you anyhow, a rapper or Britney Spears? You should be involved in drive-by shooting, brawls at nightclubs and run-ins with the cops, not having catfights with manicurists and phoning in cell phone threats to a neighbor who felt your stereo was too loud. Weak, Ingrid, very weak….
- Oh, if only more towns in America had mayors like Mayor Samuel Rivera of Passaic City, N.J. My main man Sammy R. was cruising along, governing his city like nobody’s business when some nasty allegations about his character came up. It seems some sort of sneaky, underhanded federal probe in the state has heightened attention to crimes of political corruption and some very unsavory characters had the audacity to allege that Mayor Rivera was himself guilty of those very crimes. The specific chargers against Rivera were attempted extortion and taking $5,000 in cash to influence government contracts. Thankfully for the people of Passaic City, their esteemed leader stared down those making the charges, took a stand and……plead guilty? Oh. So I guess he just didn’t want to drag the good name of Passaic City through the mud and put the city through the expense of a long, expensive trial. Rivera also resigned, making him the latest of about 130 public officials to be found guilty of corruption since the aforementioned 2002 federal probe. If only more cities in America had leaders who would stand up, put on a good front and keep their hand extended under the table for bribes, what a great place America would be…..
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