- French brides beware: you had better be exactly who and what you claim to be, otherwise you may find yourself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from you soon-to-be ex-husband. A French judge ruled this week that a husband had the right to annul his marriage simply because his wife lied to him about her degree of experience in the bedroom. The woman, a student in her 20s, had claimed to be a virgin and her husband, an engineer in his 30s, believed her. When they finally tied the knot and began their life together, the husband discovered that he had been lied to as wasn’t particularly happy about it. I can see where you might be upset if your new bride lied to you about anything, especially this particular subject, but this guy was incensed and his first move was to go to court and seek to annul the marriage. This week, Judge Minister Rachida Dati agreed with the husband, ending the Muslim couple’s union less than two years after it began. The ruling caused concern that the country’s secular values system is being altered by the religious customs of immigrants, an ironic contrast to the United States where our previously faith-based traditions, ideals and mores are being altered and changed by secular views. This case was held behind closed doors in the city of Lille and the identities of the involved parties are not known, but the outrage and debate across France are raging nonetheless. The judge has asked for and received an appeal from the prosecution in the case, meaning that a panel of three judges could hear the appeal later this month. Interesting to see that a marriage can be totally wiped off the books for something like this, as it sets a dangerous precedent for an entire legal system. But hey, the French wouldn’t be the French if they didn’t allow people to quit or give up at the slightest hint of adversity, would they? Didn’t think so……
- Now this I might tune in every Thursday to watch this fall. Usually I’ve got better things to watch than Survivor even though it’s one of the two or three watchable reality shows out of the dozens on TV. I’d rather see Smallville or Lost on Thursday nights, but if there was an even-money chance that contestants would get eaten by an angry hippo during taping, that could change my mind. That’s what the show’s current season - Survivor: Gabon — Earth's Last Eden - is facing as it tries to get rolling. According to host Jeff Probst, production has hit several snags, among them wild hippopotami roaming the area. “We have a danger problem with animals that we're trying to figure out how to handle. We don't want the animals around for safety reasons, but we'd love to have a hippo sneak in every so often. I just got a call from our executive producer that we've got hippo tracks at base camp.” Yeah, you might want to handle that, lest you have some emaciated barista from L.A. get turned into lunch for a hungry, hungry hippo on Day 14 of the season. Compared to those dangers, the
month-long shipping delays, missing cargo hold containing $100,000 worth of food, a fallen crane, and housing problems for the crew seem like a small issue. The issues haven’t been enough to bring production to a complete halt, so all you Survivor fans out there don’t panic. Filming in the West African nation is scheduled to begin later this month and premiere — in high definition — this fall. The show has filmed in Africa before, but Season 3 in Kenya wasn’t quite so problematic. Stay tuned…..
- A quick question for all the ladies out there: where do you go to meet guys? The local bar? Maybe. To your church? Perhaps. Some of the more desperate sorts might even resort to using online dating services like Match.com or eHarmony. Somehow I don’t think that Craig’s List is on the agenda for most date and relationship seekers, so maybe an unidentified Boston-area woman got what she had coming for being so pathetic and gullible. This woman was cruising around craigslist.com and somewhere in between the dude selling his used bike and the couple looking to pawn their old condo, she found an ad placed by a man who claimed that he was former NBA player Jeff Turner. Turner played a few un-distinguished seasons with the Orlando Magic, never becoming more than an end-of-the-bench guy and retiring with most NBA fans having little or no idea who he was. That didn’t stop this chick from responding to the ad seeking a date, so she and Turner, a.k.a. Ronnie Craven, went out and things escalated. They had sex, they were getting along…..then a friend of the woman’s (if you’re really her friend, where are you when she brings up the idea of dating some dude she met on Craig’s List in the first place?) suggested that she do a little Internet research on her new man to see if he was who he claimed to be. When the woman dug into Craven’s story, she found that he wasn’t employed by the Seattle SuperSonics, wasn’t a former NBA player and was not, in fact, Jeff Turner. Once the woman found out the truth about her boyfriend, she broke up with him. Of course, Craven/Turner doesn’t seem too broken up about it. “I lied to her. Does that mean I can go out there and represent the Sonics? No. Does that mean that I did it to get some (sex)? Absolutely.” Wow….pretty ballsy to say something like that, even if it’s what most guys would be thinking. Dude isn't ashamed of what he did, nor does he regret it one bit. “Does that mean that I did it to get some (sex)? Absolutely.” wow. Ronnie, my man, I don’t know if anyone has told you this, but you are a piece of crap. While I might marvel at a guy who is willing and able to pull off this scam, you are absolute garbage if you do it. Still, I have to wonder what kind of tail Craven could have gotten if he’d posed as Luc Longley or Bill Wennington? How many chicks could he have pulled pretending to be, say, Chris Dudley? Personally if I’m stooping so low as to pretend to be a former pro athlete to get women, I’m aiming higher than a career bench player. I understand that there’s a tipping point here, that you need to pick someone obscure enough that people won't recognize the name and immediately know you’re not really him, but you couldn’t aim higher than Jeff Turner? I do have to give Craven bonus points for a blatant rip-off of O.J. Simpson’s famous “People die every day line,” a comment the Juice made while saying he would have traded places with wife Nicole when someone (him) decapitated her and her friend Ron Goldman but that he wouldn’t have swapped places with Goldman because people die every day.” Craven’s take on his scam was “People get lied to all the time. Did I do anything illegal against the Sonics? No. Did I go out and represent the Sonics in any fashion? I'm not actually proposing that I did that. Did I do this for the broad? Yes.” People get lied to all the time? Is that supposed to make what you do okay? And you did go out and represent the Sonics on Craig’s List, even if you didn’t do it in a major public venue. The bottom line here, other than Craven being a total scumbag, is that Craig’s List, maybe not the best place to look for a date…..
- For those of you who were getting yourselves psyched for the season premiere of Prison Break on Aug. 25 (hey, some of us like to get ready early), push your excitement back one week. Fox announced this week that instead of debuting its best show the same week as the Democratic National Convention, the show will kick off its fourth season on Sept. 1. The premiere will still be a two-hour blowout, with Michael Scofield continuing his quest to bring down the Company and avenge the death of his father and his girlfriend Sarah Tancredi. Even with the one-week delay for the season premiere, PB is still one of the earliest shows to return in the fall, so you can't be too upset about it. During the show’s off time, another Company assassin has been added to the cast, Cress Williams, formerly of Grey’s Anatomy notoriety. So whenever it finally kicks off, Season 4 should be another great ride….
- Dodger Stadium may not be the only pro sports venue where lesbians aren’t welcome. There was a much-publicized incident at a Dodgers game several years ago in which two lesbians were asked to leave the park by an usher after they were spotted kissing. The extent of their physicality has been debated, but what is known is that an usher approached them and after confirming that they were in fact lesbians, asked them to vacate the premises. An eerily similar incident took place during a Seattle Mariners game on May 26 at Safeco Field in the Emerald City, where Sibrina Guerrero and her date were approached by a stadium usher and asked to stop kissing because a woman seated nearby was uncomfortable having to see them lock lips. The woman apparently felt that it would be a problem for parents, having to explain to their children why two women were kissing. Bad news for you, lady, but your kids have seen two women kissing and probably a whole lot more on the Internet. Kids are exposed to a lot of that kind of thing, not like it was a few decades ago when you were growing up. Never mind that a lot of guys in the stands were probably rooting Guerrero and her lady friend on…..but I digress. The Mariners are trying to get ahead of this story and spin it in their favor but are having a tough time doing so. Team spokeswoman Rebecca Hale explained that the usher was responding to a report of two women “making out” and “groping,” but that the club was investigating the matter. For the team’s sake, I hope that what Hale is alleging is true. Fact is, anyone who gets into a hardcore make-out session at a sporting event needs to tone it down. You want to do that, go to a dark movie theater or some other venue where mass quantities of people don’t have to see you having what amounts to clothed sex. But if the women were merely kissing and not getting overly physical, then the team is going to end up apologizing to them and making some sort of donation to a gay and lesbian organization to smooth things over. I guess you never know what you’re going to get when you go to the ballpark….
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