- This would not be my idea of school spirit. Actually, I’m more inclined to call this moronic, racist, bigoted, small-minded idiocy, a characterization I think you’ll agree with. That description is an apt one for three white Quinnipiac University students who have been arrested and dismissed from the school after an investigation into the racial harassment of black players on the school's men's and women's basketball teams. The school, located in Hamden, Conn., has expelled these three tools for offenses that just boggle the mind. The most vile and reprehensible of the three offenders is 18-year-old Charles Merritt of Clifton, Maine, who made threatening and harassing phone calls to three black players on the men's team on Monday. Quite a way to kick off your freshman year, a-hole. The kicker is that Merritt was a roommate of two of the players and knew the third. Who the frak makes those kinds of phone calls to their roommates? First, you have to be a sick freak to make those calls to begin with, but unless you are a total piece of crap, you would still have to be calling someone you didn’t really know in order to actually have the kahones to say those horrible things, right? Merritt stands charged with three counts of intimidation based on bigotry and bias, harassment and disorderly conduct. Sadly, he is not alone; joining him and representing the females out there are Emily Loschiavo of West Newbury, Vt., and Courtney Stellwag of Newburgh, N.Y. Both are accused in a separate incident of making harassing calls to a resident assistant's room at a Quinnipiac dorm and are charged with harassment. Quinnipiac president John L. Lahey said all three students have been expelled from the university. Oh, and in the case of Loschiavo and Stellwag, their calls to the RA’s room were answered by two black players on the women's basketball team who are friends with the RA, and when they answered the calls, both players were threatened with bodily harm. Quite a campus of solid character individuals you’ve got there, Quinnipiac……
- Apparently the U.S. Navy Blue Angels don’t just like to get their aerial freak on, they also like to get their freak on in the bedroom - with each other. A spokesman for the aerial stunt group says the stunt-flying team will be down one jet the rest of its season two members have been removed from active duty for having an “inappropriate relationship.” According to Capt. Tyson Dunkelberger, a spokesman for the team based at Naval Air Station Pensacola, the squadron will finish its last three air shows next month with five jets instead of the customary six. He refused to identify the two members but said the relationship was between a man and a woman. All six of the F-18 stunt pilots are men, but 23 of the 133-member squadron are women, so I guess there is a decent chance that something like this is going to happen, what with the high amount of time spent together, the relative isolation from the outside world at times, etc. But I’m guessing that there is more here than just two people hooking up on the down low, because if that were all that had happened, a military administrative hearing to determine further disciplinary actions would not be scheduled. The punishment could include removal from the military, so there have to be more layers to this story, which will hopefully come out sooner rather than later…..
- Hope that was worth it, twenty hospital workers at the Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center in northeast Florida who lost their jobs this week because they allegedly broke federal privacy rules by accessing the medical records of Jacksonville Jaguars offensive lineman Richard Collier, who was rushed to Shands Sept. 2 after a gunman walked up to Collier's SUV as he waited outside a Riverside apartment and opened fire, hitting Collier 14 times. After two surgeries and weeks in the trauma center, Collier sadly left the hospital paralyzed from the waist down and having lost one of his legs, but apparently that wasn’t enough to earn him some damn respect and privacy from the 20 nurses, admissions workers and patient relations staff at the hospital who stand accused of violating Collier's medical privacy by looking at Collier's medical file in the computer system. While Collier is now in rehab and said to have a positive attitude, as well as bigger issues on his mind, these tools who violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly called HIPP, got what they deserved. They have been fired after the hospital performed an audit on who accessed Collier's computer file. Predictably, the union representing the fired employees is trying to take up for them, saying that Shands went overboard, firing people who had legitimate reasons to access Collier's records and those who accessed the file accidentally. Uh huh, accidentally, sure. I’m no expert on hospital records systems, but I find it infinitely curious that so many employees “accidentally” stumbled upon the records of the hospital’s most famous patient at the time. The hospital wouldn’t comment on the specifics of the firings, but it did issue this statement Friday afternoon: “Any allegation of a breach in patient confidentiality is taken very seriously. All allegations are investigated thoroughly. If it has been determined that a violation has occurred, disciplinary action up to and including termination can be used. In order to maintain patient confidentiality we do not comment on any specific cases.” To top all of this off, while Collier was hospitalized, his family is no indication that any of the information staff is accused of accessing was leaked to the public, it doesn’t matter. Patients need to be confident that their personal information is being kept private, and if you can't abide by those rules, you don’t need to be working at any hospital….
- Let’s go ahead and count this as a “no” vote, albeit an unofficial one, for the people of Battle, a town in southern England who this weekend stuffing a giant effigy of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Paliun with fireworks and blowing her up to raucous cheers. The display might seem blatantly anti-American and misogynistic, but fear not, it was merely the climax of an annual bonfire celebration Saturday in the town, where political figures are a favorite target of a local tradition that sees a different icon go up in flames each year. This year, it just so happened to be a slightly unflattering depiction of the self-declared "hockey mom,” outfitted with a machine gun cradled in her muscular arms, bright red lipstick surrounding a menacing smile and a moose at her side. Scrawled beneath the visage was the slogan: “Too hot to handle.” And just so you don’t think the Brits are taking pot shots at only the GOP, a smaller effigy of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, wearing a military-style helmet, accompanied the Palin mock-up. Besides, the organizers of the event, say the politically-themed pyrotechnics weren’t meant to be offensive political statements. “We just felt she was one of the most interesting characters in the American elections,” Matt Southam declared. “It's tongue-in-cheek and she's getting more attention that the other two, so she seemed like an ideal candidate.” So don’t hate on an event that dates back to 1646, and has seen British Prime Ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair go down in flames the past few years. Chill out, take it in stride and get a laugh out of it, America…..just like you should come Tuesday when Palin and that senile old bastard McCain see their election hopes go up in smoke……
- The numbers may have been smaller this time, but once again, a group of singing, dancing teenagers in a formulaic, pedestrian movie have garnered the top spot at the box office for the weekend. Once again, Disney's “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” was the top film, bringing in $15 million to remain the top movie for the second straight weekend. The teeny-bopper flick starring Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens in a raised its 10-day total to $61.8 million and was followed in the earnings race by the controversial and largely mediocre Weinstein Co. comedy "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as pals who do a skin flick to dig themselves out of debt and which earned a meager $10.7 million for the weekend. On its heels was the horror sequel of a franchise that should have died four movies ago, "Saw V," which slipped to third place with $10.1 million. One notable stink bomb from the weekend was “RocknRolla” the new film from Guy Ritchie. It expanded from limited to nationwide release and despite trying to be an interesting crime drama starring Gerard Butler and Thandie Newton, the movie took in just $1.8 million. Not the pick-me-up Ritchie needed, what with his impending divorce from the Material Skank, Madonna. The couple announced their separation last month, so a good opening for the movie might have been at least some solace, but never mind on that. Overall, revenues for movies were down substantially from the same weekend last year. The top 12 movies took in $75.2 million, off 38 percent from the same weekend last year, when “American Gangster” led the way $43.6 million. Here is how the top 10 shook down from first to last: 1) "High School Musical 3," $15 million, 2) "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," $10.7 million, 3) "Saw V," $10.1 million, 4) "Changeling," $9.4 million, 5) "The Haunting of Molly Harvey," $6 million, 6) "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," 4.7 million, 7) "The Secret Life of Bees," $4 million, 8) "Max Payne," $3.7 million, 9) "Eagle Eye," $3.4 million, 10) "Pride and Glory," $3.3 million. Yes, there are some really bad movies in there….okay, so all ten of them are pretty much garbage. Maybe next weekend will be better……
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