- It had been awhile since China foisted a poisonous, deadly product on the world, so it’s about time they got back on track. We’ve had toothpaste laced with a chemical typically found in antifreeze, lead paint-covered toys……and now we have contaminated milk power from China, already the cause of the deaths of two young children. In addition to the two deaths of children who consumed the contaminated milk powder, more than 1,200 others have been sickened. Better still, of that number, 340 infants are hospitalized and 53 are considered to be in serious condition. But hey, I’m sure the Chinese are right on top of this. They know what’s going on and the responsible company has been identified and shut do-……wait, what’s that? Government inspectors are still testing baby formula around don’t know exactly what’s going on yet?
Sure, the manufacturer, Sanlu Group, has recalled more than 8,200 tons of the tainted formula, but that’s the best you’ve got? No word on why babies who consume the product are developing kidney stones? One of your country’s leading dairy producers has also sealed off more than 2,100 tons of contaminated product, and another 700 tons are still in need of being recalled and you don’t have more information? The most informative party here is Sanlu itself, which did some internal testing and found tripolycyanamide, also known as melamine, in 700 tons of its product. I’m just hazarding a guess here because I’m not a food manufacturer, but tripolycyanamide doesn’t sound like something that should be in food, does it? I’m thinking that the display put on by China at the Olympics that showed everyone that they were ready to be a world power and a global player isn't something to be concerned over, because how worried do we need to be about a country that will probably kill off the bulk of its own population through tainted, toxic products? China’s worst enemy at this point seems to be manufacturers working within its own borders……
- Star power can buy you a lot in the movie world, most notably the top spot in the weekend box office earnings race. Joel and Ethan Coen scored their most profitable opener to date by bringing in $19.4 million in ticket sales for their new comedy “Burn After Reading.” As movies made a comeback from a seven-week attendance slide at theaters, the offbeat comedy starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney and John Malkovich raked in $7 million more than the Coen brothers’ last box-office hit, the 2004 comedy “The Ladykillers.” Coming in second was Tyler Perry's “The Family That Preys,” starring Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard in a drama about two families from different social classes, with $18 m”llion in its opening weekend. Finishing third in the race for the cash at the box office was Overture Film's "Righteous Kill” with $16.5 million, proving that even at their advanced age, stars Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino still draw fans. Proving that older women can still pull moviegoers, Picturehouse's “The Women” -- starring Meg Ryan and Annette No. 4 with $10.1 million. All told, the weekend's total box-office draw surpassed $100 million, breaking a seven-week slide in ticket revenue. It was also a sold weekend for the Batman sequel “The Dark Knight,” which continued to rack up its gross with another $4 million for total box office revenue of $517.7 million to date. Still no chance to run down “Titanic” for the title of all-time earnings king, but at least “Dark Knight” isn't the worst three and a half hours of cinema I’ve ever seen……..
- Maybe this is asking the obvious, but what kind of reaction do you expect when you hand out free cash in an impoverished, Third World nation? The surprise isn't that 21 people were crushed to death Sunday during a cash handout in an eastern Indonesian town, it’s that the number is that low and also that this isn't a more regular occurrence. As is typically the case in this type of tragedy, the victims were mostly women, children and the elderly. They had lined up in the town of Pasuruan, about 500 miles (804 kilometers) from the capital of Jakarta, to accept 40,000 rupiah ($4.25) each from a wealthy businessman.
Cash handouts are common in the Muslim country during the Islamic month of fasting, Ramadan. A stampede ensued after panic broke out, pushing some into a fence, local media reports said.
"The local government had no prior knowledge of this handout, therefore the necessary personnel needed to secure the process was not in place," said Pasuruan mayor Aminurrohman, who like many Indonesians go by one name.
- Week 4 of the Greek semester came last night, and it was a “whopper” of an episode. You’ll understand that joke by the time I’m done…..hopefully. It was a tough week for the pledges of Kappa Tau, with a test about every active member of KT at Cyprus Rhodes bearing down on them. Pledges were scurrying to learn obscure facts like which active barks at parked cars, which one loves the music of Sting and which one likes chasing dorks. In his geek-dom, pledge Rusty Cartwright even downloaded a list of active frat members from the KT national website and found one name that no one seems to recognize: Joshua Whopper. Paranoid that it’s some sort of inside joke or trap to trick the pledges, cause them to fail the test and end up on toilet-scrubbing duty until initiation, Rusty and fellow pledge Ben Bennett begin a quest to find the elusive Joshua Whopper. What they find, after sneaking into the registrar’s office and procuring Whopper’s schedule, then trying to find him on campus coming out of one of his classes, is that no one seems to have ever seen Joshua Whopper. Rusty develops a theory that, because Whopper is a man of mystery, has had tons of majors and is smart, that KT president Cappie is really Joshua Whopper. When he springs the theory on Cappie, he learns the truth: in 1984, when the university went to a computerized grading system, a KT pledge developed a program designed to hack into the system and create a mythical KT member who would be enrolled in a few large lecture classes each semester and be given an A, thus boosting the house’s GPA enough to keep the university from shutting them down. This mythical KT member’s name? Joshua Whopper, of course. Without him, the house’s GPA would be so low that the KT’s would have been shut down long ago. With him, they stay above the minimum GPA. Unfortunately, in asking around, Rusty accidentally tips off a professor who digs into Whopper’s identity and can’t find his midterm exam in her files - because it obviously doesn’t exist. To cover, Cappie poses as Joshua Whopper, crams for the exam in women’s studies and earns a miracle A, prompting the KT’s to throw a “Congratulation Joshua Whopper” party. The drama was also high for Rusty’s big sis Casey, who has a crush on Rusty’s RA Max and wants to know if she likes him. First, she talks her way into a tutoring session with him for her astronomy class, then she talks Rusty into seeing if Max likes her too. When Rusty finds out that Max keeps a picture of a girl he calls his girlfriend on his desk, Casey is bummed. She finds out, after Max shows up at the Zeta Beta house and kisses her, that the girl in the picture was Max’s girlfriend, but she passed away from cancer six months ago. Initially, Max is hesitant to jump into a new relationship, but ultimately decides to give it a shot. While Casey is getting into a relationship, her little sorority sis Rebecca Logan is dealing with getting out of her relationship with Cappie. After last week’s breakup, Rebecca is binging on cereal and listening to mellow music on her iPod when ZBZ sis Ashleigh invites her to tag along to a local gay bar where Ashleigh is meeting pal Calvin and his boyfriend Michael. Calvin goes to the bar because Michael insists he doesn’t have enough gay friends, so they have a night out at Gentleman’s Choice. Ashleigh also has her ongoing quest to find a job so she can pay her enormous credit card bill. After numerous flops in the search, she finds a gig giving campus tours, which she seems happy about. AWOL in the episode were Frannie and Evan, the new power couple on campus. Rusty’s roommate Dale was sadly back with some screen time, although he was broken up after learning that Casey had a crush on someone on the engineering floor and it wasn’t him. A pretty funny episode for the most part, especially when the KT guys were helping Cappie cram for his exam and they got in touch with their sensitive side. Until next time, kids…….
- Not a stellar few days for crack cocaine. Normally you don’t feel bad for crack when it has a terrible weekend, but this weekend was worse than most for blow. First, Catholic priest on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana, Ill. was charged with selling cocaine from his church office and rectory. The Reverend Christopher Layden, who I’m guessing was very popular on the UI campus, pleaded not guilty Thursday to two counts of delivery of less than 1 gram of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a church and one count of possession with intent to deliver 1 to 15 grams of cocaine near a church. He was arrested Wednesday at St. John's Catholic Newman Center after investigators found 3 grams of cocaine and drug paraphernalia while searching his home and office. Dude, I remember seeing this once before…..on an episode of the now-defunct CW series Veronica Mars, a priest selling drugs out of his church. I’d be interested to know if Rev. Layden was a coke dealer before becoming a member of the clergy and looked to the profession as a way to extend his business, or if he actually became a reverend and then was co-opted by the dark side. Either way, way to turn to house of God into the friendly neighborhood coke den, Reverend. But now that you’re captured, where will the good cokeheads at UI get their blow? I doubt there are any other local religious leaders whose moral and ethical standards are as low as yours…..but that’s not the end of cocaine’s bad weekend. Things took an additional turn for the worst when the U.S. Coast Guard seized seven tons of cocaine with an estimated street value of $8.4 million and arrested four suspected smugglers after boarding the stateless vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 350 miles west of Guatemala, on Saturday. The seized vessel is a submarine-like ship known as a self-propelled semi-submersible, which moves below the surface of the water but can’t submerge completely like a true submarine. When its crew of fine, upstanding entrepreneurs saw the Coast Guard boarding their vessel, they immediately threw the engines into reverse in an attempt to throw them into the water. Not to be deterred when they saw that tactic failed, the alleged smugglers tried to sink their ship. In the end, they surrendered, dealing another blow to a cocaine industry that was not having a weekend to remember. So if you see your friendly neighborhood crack dealer walking around and he has a frown on his face, you’ll know why. Say hello, maybe do something nice to brighten his day, because you know he’d do the same for you if the roles were reversed…….or maybe not……
- Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand. It did, didn’t it? One day, the Milwaukee Brewers are one of the hottest teams in Major League Baseball, pushing the Chicago Cubs for the NL Central title and a shoo-in for the playoffs. Their lead in the National League wild card race is so secure that checking the standings seems like a pointless exercise. Then, next thing you know, the mighty Brewer offense goes cold, the bullpen starts pouring gasoline all over the infield every time one of them enters the game and busting out their blow torches to try and burn the stadium down instead of putting out fires started by the Brewer starters. The Cubs begin playing well after a slump, bump their division lead up to 8 games and the Brewers are run down by the Philadelphia Phillies in the wild care race. The Houston Astros nearly catch them too, leaving Milwaukee’s once-sure playoff plans in major, major jeopardy. The fall guy for that swan dive/choke job has been identified and it’s none other than manager Ned Yost, fired on Monday. Replacing Yost, at least for the final 12 games of Milwaukee’s floundering season will be third-base coach Dale Sveum, who will become interim manager. “This was a very difficult move to make, and we appreciate all of the work that Ned has done to develop this team into a contender,” general manager Doug Melvin said. “In the end, this was a collaborative decision made to put our club in the best position for the final two weeks of the season.” It seems like a bizarre move, coming at this pivotal point in a season when your team is in the thick of the playoff race, but when you consider the current state of the Brewers, it makes more sense. The team traded for portly ace CC Sabathia at midseason, knowing it wouldn’t be able to re-sign him this offseason when he becomes a free agent. Their co-ace Ben Sheets will also be a free agent after this season and it’s unlikely that the Brewers can afford to re-sign him either. So knowing that this is their last legit shot at a championship before they take two huge hits in the offseason that could set them back years, they are (and have been) in win-now mode all second half. Firing Yost now seems rash, but if they felt like he wasn’t going to get them where they wanted to go right NOW, then it was a move they had to make……
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