- The only thing worse than cheating in a boxing match and losing is cheating in a boxing match, losing and getting caught. Perhaps putting what is being described as a "plaster-like substance" on two pieces of gauze placed inside his gloves wasn’t the soundest strategy for Antonio Margarito heading into his bout Saturday night with Shane Mosley. Cheating didn’t help him win; Margarito suffered a ninth-round TKO after being pummeled for nearly the entire match. Prior to the fight, the California State Athletic Commission forced Margarito to rewrap his hands after Mosley's trainer, Nazim Richardson, reviewed the original wraps and found them to be too thick. As per those orders, his hands were rewrapped and Richardson said the wraps were doctored in a "deliberate" manner. Piling on was Richard Schaefer, Mosley's promoter, who called the doctored wraps “more than additional gauze, that's not a good thing to say. There was a white pad with a substance that was a grayish, concrete color on it. The thing is, you wonder now how many times he did it before.” Ironically, doctoring his wraps this way probably made Margarito’s hands a little slower and one of his chief problems in the bout was that Mosley was much, much faster. Yes, putting plaster in the wraps may have given Margarito’s punches more weight to them, but now all of the weight is pressing directly down on his reputation and threatening to undermine all of the success he’s had thus far in his career. Analysts and fans are rightfully questioning how many times Margarito has cheated before. Serves him right that the time he was caught, he lost the bout and a whole lot more……..
- What’s up with attempting to be fiscally responsible with the money you’re doling out, Congress? Since when did you all starting giving a crap whether money you allocate goes for practical, useful and necessary projects? That’s not the U.S. Congress I know and love. Very, very disturbing that Congress is making a concerted effort to prevent money from the proposed $825 billion stimulus package it recently approved from being used for zoos, aquariums, golf courses, swimming pools and casinos. Furthermore, Congress is making a clear effort to ensure the bill funds only what it calls the "highest quality" infrastructure projects. Huh? Where’s the pork? If no one is benefiting from this in an under-the-table, unnecessary-but-execessive-spending type of way, what’s the point? "The purpose of this bill is to direct funding at projects that are primarily and clearly aimed at benefiting the economic conditions of communities and the public at large," the bill states. "The federal government and all other levels of government are directed to look with a skeptical eye at projects that don't meet that test." Skeptical eye? How can you bozos even call yourselves senators and representatives? When the U.S. Conference of Mayors makes the effort to endorse "ready to go" stimulus projects like museum and zoo renovations, aquatic centers, skateboard parks and bike and horse paths, you slap a damn rubber stamp on that request and move on. How is a skateboard park NOT a “highest quality” infrastructure project? Did you not just see the Winter X Games and how awesome they were? Well, the Summer X Games won't have future stars with the right skills to amaze if you quit funding skateboard park projects, a-holes. Nor will your refusal to fund a $4.8 million polar bear exhibit at the Providence, Rhode Island, zoo help anyone. If you’re looking for a group to blame for this disturbing trend, that would be the House Appropriations Committee, which added those restrictions last week after criticism from watchdog groups like the National Taxpayers Union, which monitors government spending. Throw some blame at groups like the NTU as well, because they’re part of the problem. "To the people supporting them, these proposals aren't a joke," said Pete Sepp, the group's vice president. "But to the taxpayers funding them, yes this will be a joke for them, only they won't be laughing." No Pete, you’re the one who is a joke. You obviously don’t give a damn about skateboarders or polar bears, two key groups in this great nation. Quit trying to hijack the stimulus bill, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and steer it toward only practical, “highest quality” projects. This bill has been placed on the congressional fast-track and could land on President Obama's desk for enactment by Presidents Day. As such, your interference isn’t helping the bill, it’s hurting it and you shouldn’t be trying to ban projects like skateboard parks and polar bear habitats from receiving more funding, man……….
- Where is the honor among strippers? Does no one honor the stripper code anymore? I don’t know all the specifics of the code as I’m not a stripper and don’t know any strippers, but I feel confident in saying that stealing another dancer's bag, bikinis and underwear violates the code. You may ask yourself, where is this sort of crap going on? The answer is at the Mons Venus strip club in Tampa, Florida, where Tara Lynn Woodruff allegedly lifted the belongings of a fellow dancer. Weirdly enough, she lied when initially questioned about the theft, saying that she thought the bag and clothing were hers. She signed an affidavit to that effect, but when investigators reviewed the surveillance footage, it told them a different story. The tape shows Woodruff taking an orange-and-brown leather bag worth about $300 from an employee cubbyhole Jan. 16 and placing it into a larger black bag, then leaving the club. Hmm, that doesn’t sound like an accident to me. Maybe that’s why Woodruff has been charged with felony grand theft. What’s bizarre is that all Woodruff got from her mini-heist was three used bikinis each worth about $55 and several pairs of underwear. Who even wants to touch another person’s used underwear? Unless you’re one of those twisted pervs who gets off stealing women’s underwear (never got that one), what’s the point? But like I said before, what really pisses me off here is the total disregard of the stripper code and disrespect of a fellow skank, er, exotic dancer. If you can’t even leave your dirty underwear and bikinis in the dressing room without having them stolen, might be time to find a new line of business……
- You never want to be too tough on a person who has just lost his or her right hand and leg, especially a teenager. That being said, Wesley Kimmick, 17, of Latrobe, Pa. doesn’t exactly make the strongest case for sympathy. We’re always told not to play around with fireworks at that they’re very dangerous. That message clearly never sunk in with Wesley, who was playing with a large firecracker like an M-80 in his grandmother's house and for some reason decided to light the fuse. Lighting the fuse on a large firecracker that was basically a quarter stick of dynamite is a bad idea most anywhere, but especially indoors. Showing a stunning lack of intelligence, Wesley kept lighting and extinguishing and finally, the fuse wouldn't go out so he……you guessed it, put the firework between his thighs and covered it with his right hand in hopes of muffling the explosion. Good thinking, Wes. The explosion was muffled - muffled by his leg and hand, which were lost in the blast. Because of the tragic nature of the situation, I’m not even going to rip this kid for initially lying to police and telling them he had been the victim of some sort of attack. He was dealing with the shock of something terrible, so you can forgive the lying. What you can’t forgive it being so stupid as to shove a lit firecracker between your legs. Honestly, I don’t care where I am, what’s around me or how much damage might be done by letting a firework go off - I’m not shoving it between my legs. I could be in a jewelry store (not sure why I’d have a firework in a jewelry store, but play along) around millions of dollars in valuable jewels and I’m not putting the firework anywhere near my body in the hopes of “muffling the explosion.” So condolences on your injuries and what I’m sure must be a horrifically tragic time for you, Wesley, but you didn’t do yourself any favors, my man…….
- So it certainly appears that Bar-roid Bonds was lying about knowingly taking steroids, the question now is whether this revelation comes too late for anyone to care much about it. Authorities investigating charges that Bonds lied to a federal grand jury in 2003 that he used the designer steroids "cream" and the "clear" but did not know that they were performance-enhancing drugs have detected anabolic steroids in urine samples linked to Bonds that they gathered in their investigation. Early indications are that the urine samples prove the existence of other steroids in his body, which would definitely contradict Bonds’ assertion that he never knowingly took any steroids. With his perjury trial scheduled to begin March 2, this would not be what I call a fortunate break for Bonds’ defense. On top of that evidence, federal agents are turning up the heat on Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, who has repeatedly been jailed for refusing to comply with court orders to reveal what he knows about Bonds’ alleged ‘roid use. With Anderson remaining mum, agents raided the home of Anderson’s mother-in-law. Madeleine Gestas’ home was raided because she’s the target of a tax investigation that Anderson's lawyer says is aimed at pressuring the trainer to testify at Bonds' upcoming trial. Mark Geragos, a lawyer for Anderson, is payback for his refusal to tell them whether or not Anderson would testify in the trial. Honestly, I couldn’t care less why the raid took place, I just wish I could have been there when 20 FBI and IRS agents showed up at Gestas’ Redwood City, Calif., home with a search warrant and proceeded to seize miscellaneous documents. Nothing like watching nearly two dozen feds bust down the door of a home in a nice, suburban neighborhood raid the place as part of an alleged tax probe that Geragos alleges is nothing more than a blatant attempt at intimidation. "They trashed the place and took all kinds of stuff," he said. "The execution was illegal and a grotesque example of bullying." As far as Anderson testifying in the trial, don’t count on it. He’s served two terms in federal prison for refusing to appear in front of separate grand juries during the government's investigation of Bonds. You can be sure than Bonds is paying him handsomely to keep his mouth shut so that Anderson doesn’t testify about, among other things, that calendars and diary entries that document steroid use by a "BB" is in fact Bonds. Geragos has maintained for some time that Anderson will never testify against Bonds. "My client is never going to speak," he said in a March 2007 interview. That he could be sent back to prison if he refuses to talk this time likely won't be enough to budge Anderson, but with the damning blood evidence the feds have now, that may not even matter…….
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Riot Watch! time, a review of Smallville and Joaquin Phoenix makes a funny
- Crap. If you’re like me, you’ve grown uber-tired of the omnipresent commercials from one network after another, one famous face after another, reminding you that on February 17, 2009, television will make the transition to digital-only broadcasts and you need to be ready. By now, we can all recite line-for-line how you’re okay if you have digital, satellite or cable TV but if you’re one of the five people in America with rabbit ears perched on top of your 17” black-and-white TV in the kitchen/dining room of your trailer on a hill in the middle of nowhere, you’ll need a digital converter box, which you can get a coupon to help you pay for. Those damn commercials have been everywhere for what seems like a year now, but in a stroke of good fortune that I can only liken to being run over by a bulldozer and then eaten alive by wild, rabid wolverines, we may get four more freaking months of them! Yes, Congress is considering an emergency measure to delay until June the death of rabbit-ear television. Apparently senators are terrified of the static they'll see when the plug is pulled on analog television broadcasts in the United States, so they unanimously approved the bill Monday. It was rushed to the House floor for a vote and thankfully, the House didn’t give the bill the two-thirds majority it needed to pass, but another vote could be taken soon. Why the issues so late in the game? Well, a study by the Nielsen Co. reveals that some 6.5 million tools out there still haven’t bought the newer digital TVs or converters for their old sets. Here’s a thought for Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, the bill’s sponsor: if these knobs haven’t gotten the message yet, screw ‘em. I’ve seen the commercials no less than 200 times and so has everyone else. These people are either a) lazy and stupid, thus not deserving a break, b) financially unable to swing the converter box or cable and unlikely to suddenly become financially solvent between now and June, or c) dead. As such, there’s no need to allow stations to keep their old transmitters turned on until June 12. So rest assured, commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein of the Federal Communications Commission, that if this bill passes, your letter to Rockefeller and Sen. Henry Waxman this month "to express our deep concern" that the country is "nowhere near" ready for the signal switch hasn’t flown under my radar. I know you ass hats are part of the reason I may have to endure four more months of those damn commercials about the impending switch and I won't forget it. Your names are on my sh*t list and I’m coming for you. Maybe I’ll tie you both up and force you to watch those f’ing commercials at high volume on an endless loop for weeks on end…..seems like a fair recourse. After all, so far the federal government has spent least $200 million to explain to TV viewers how they need to prepare, so it’s time to stop the warnings and move this train on down the tracks……
- I’m tempted to call last night’s Smallville the show’s best episode ever, even though I’m pretty sure it’s not. Why? Point blank, any episode that contains so much screen time for the lovely, uber-hot Kristin Kreuk is stellar in my book. Even when she was a full-time cast member, I can’t remember KK getting so much face time in a single episode. This one alternated between past and present, telling the story of what really happened to Lana at the end of last season after snapping out of her BRAINIAC-induced coma and disappearing. Jump-starting that narrative was the news that Lana had gone missing in the present, with Clark learning about her disappearance after Chloe visited the Kent farm, found out about the Clark-Lana kiss at the Talon the night before and urged him to go to her apartment and talk to Miss Lang. Arriving there, CK finds Lana gone, the apartment a mess and Tess Mercer, of all people, there. Tess kicks off the tale of what really happened to Lana, revealing that the video she made and left for Clark about needing to disappear so she wouldn’t hold him back and keep him from his destiny wasn’t made of her own free will. She was being held at gunpoint by LuthorCorp henchmen, at Tess’s direction. That group then drugged her, put her in a van and was driving her out of town to points unknown when she attacked the two hired thugs, hijacked the van and escaped. After that, she showed up in Edge City and solicited the help of a mysterious man who had made a career of teaching toughness and mental discipline to Navy Seals. Lana learned from him and then headed off to Metropolis, where she began digging into secret LuthorCorp projects, looking to stop Lex Luthor once and for all. The man who taught her in Edge City kept in touch and tried to talk her out of her plan, but when she wouldn’t budge, he joined her plan and got a job as a consultant with Tess and LuthorCorp so he could spy for Lana and also keep an eye on her. While in Metropolis, Lana also was in touch with Chloe through a chance meeting at the Isis Foundation offices. Lana was there to hide a hard drive in a secret safe, but she also let Chloe in on the two LuthorCorp projects she was researching: Aries (now dead) and Prometheus. Lana also made Chloe promise not to tell Clark about what she was up to. That filled in the past, but the future was also pretty interesting. Seems Lana wasn’t kidnapped, but rather had set up a secret lab in Metropolis and hired away the scientist who had been working on the Prometheus project for Lex to work for her. She volunteered to be the guinea pig for the project, which involved removing the outer layer of skin through extreme dermal abrasion and replacing it with a “suit” made of DNA from aliens (garnered from Lex’s extensive past research with all things meteor freak and Kryptonian). The suit bestows Clark Kent-like powers on the person wearing it, so Lana wanted it to a) keep Lex from using it, and b) so she could be a force for good in the world like Clark and be invincible while doing so. The process worked, making Lana invincible and just in time, as Tess did some digging of her own, found the lab and was trying to shut Prometheus down for good. Instead, Lana got away and broke into the Luthor Mansion, ripping open a safe there and destroying all of Tess’s Prometheus research. Lana went on to tell Tess to stop allowing Lex to dominate her life and to move past him. With that advice dispensed, Lana zipped to the roof of the Daily Planet and asked Clark to meet her there. When he arrived, she explained what she had done, why she didn’t tell him (he would have tried to stop her because it was so dangerous) and what she hoped to do now. She told him that they could be together, changing the world. Clark was hesitant because he didn’t know how the Prometheus suit would affect her long-term, but was able to overlook it (for now, anyhow) and get in on another Clark-Lana lip lock, the second episode in a row to end that way. Judging by the previews, next week may not end so well and we many finally get a glimpse of the face of Lex Luthor, which has yet to happen this season. But he’ll be back with another of his diabolical plots, ready to make life miserable for Clark and Lana, just like old times. So until then…….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Even a great, raging riot can’t last forever, it’s true. The island of Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa, was been engulfed in violence for two straight days, Monday and Tuesday, but by mid-week the riots had subsided. I do regret the loss of 34 lives in the madness, no doubt about that. The Red Cross is reporting that number, which may change once the dust settles and people are accounted for. The positive to take from this is that hundreds of angry anti-government protesters gathered in a central square and raised hell to make their point, and that is always cool. Cooler still is that these bitchin’ protestors took it next level and set fire to the state-run media complex, leading to some nice visual images and even more bitter clashes with The Man. Whether it’s Athens, Mexico or Madagascar, storming state-run media institutions and seizing control of them is very in vogue on the riot circuit nowadays. Whether your merry band of angry social dissidents is looking to hijack a broadcast to get your message on the air or simply seeking to burn that mo’fo down, it’s a solid play. These particular protesters stormed the government's radio and television station in the capital, Antananrivo, n response to President Marc Ravalomanana shutting down opposition leader Andry Rajoelina's radio station. Again, fair is fair. The president shut down their voice unfairly, so they’re shutting down his. Can't really have a debate and discourse on the issues if only one side has the power to speak out, right? Plus, Ravalomanana has been pulling crap like this for some time now, with the move to close down Rajoelina's radio station coming just weeks after closing Rajoelina's television station after airing an interview with ousted ex-President Didier Ratsiraka. Opposition radio, Viva Radio, was actually back on air Tuesday, allowing protesters to shift their focus from restoring freedom of speech to targeting other government infrastructure. They’ve moved on to food distribution centers, as well as looting private electronic shops and grocery stores that sat alongside government buildings. Sadly, the United States is pushing for peace and looking to calm things down. Those of us in the know realize, however, that you can’t keep good rioters down……
- Personally, I don’t care if Joaquin Phoenix just perpetrating a big hoax about quitting acting and becoming a wrapper; I’m getting a good laugh out of his act either way. Watching entertainment magazines and TV shows cover the story and falling all over themselves trying to figure out what this guy is up to has been pure comedy, even if his terrible three-song debut as a rapper at a Las Vegas nightclub on Jan. 16 was nothing more than a sham of a performance assisted by friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck, who's ostensibly shooting a documentary about his career transition. Sources close to Phoenix say it was all a show, just a ploy and a project to amuse Phoenix and to mock arrogant actors and the uber-reactive media that covers their every move like it actually matters. So if he’s just been playing everyone by announcing that he was abandoning his career in movies to try to make it as a rap artist, I say keep it up, don’t break character now. That show you put on at the club in Vegas - a rambling, Britney Spears-awful performance that concluded with Phoenix falling off the stage - was hilarious. Maybe my man J. Phoenix is channeling his inner Andy Kaufman, maybe he’s lost his mind or perhaps it’s a combination of the two. With that Sasquatch-ean beard dude is sporting, the last of those three options seems most reasonable. He might actually be hiding the WMD’s in that shaggy, hirsute monster. For what it’s worth, he is noted for having a genuine interest in music (including his as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line as well as directing several music videos), so faking a music career to spoof the entertainment media wouldn’t be that implausible for him to pull off. Bottom line here is that whatever this is, Phoenix should keep it up because plenty of people out here are laughing right along with him…..
- Boy, that David Beckham experiment sure did revolutionize soccer in America, didn’t it? Becks coming to play Major League Soccer was going to change the way we viewed soccer, according to soccer honks who wanted to believe that a past-his-prime Euro in a tertiary sport would register as even a blip on the radar screen of the average American sports fan. Yeah, either that or Beckham would come, play an uneventful seasons for the Los Angeles Galaxy and leave the country to return to Europe just over a year later. Going to play for AC Milan was supposed to be an off-season gig for Beckham, whom the Galaxy “loaned” to the European club while the MLS was between seasons. Now, it appears the move could be permanent. For his part, Becks doesn’t exactly seem torn by the decision. He labeled the chance to play for AC Milan a "dream,” then referencing his contractual obligations to the Galaxy in less-than-glowing terms. Could it be because in California, he’s a nobody in a sport no one cares about, but in Italy, he’s a huge hit and actually matters? "To play here is the dream of any player," said Beckham in an interview. "But deciding is not easy; it's a situation that requires time. I am under contract and I have a lot of respect for Galaxy. But the possibility to play at Milan is something special. I knew I would have fun but I didn't expect to have so much fun.” Allow me to translate: I can make more money here, people in this part of the world give a damn about the sport I play and my ego can’t take being a nobody in America and wasting any good years left in my soccer career by toiling in anonymity. Heck, even Becks admits his time in the U.S. had been tough. "I have to admit that, having played in Europe, at times it has been frustrating to take part in certain games (in America)," he said. "But once in a while, going from state to state, I have also had fun." Yeah, it sound like you were having a blast. But who could have known this was coming, other than Stevie Wonder with ear plugs on? To hear soccer honks after Becks’ first game with the Galaxy, he was going to vault soccer to the elite level of American sports. As it turns out, he played for a team that lingered in last place most of the season and will be sold off to an Italian team before playing out even half of his MLS contract. Pro soccer in the United States, it’s fannnnnn-tastic…………
- I’m tempted to call last night’s Smallville the show’s best episode ever, even though I’m pretty sure it’s not. Why? Point blank, any episode that contains so much screen time for the lovely, uber-hot Kristin Kreuk is stellar in my book. Even when she was a full-time cast member, I can’t remember KK getting so much face time in a single episode. This one alternated between past and present, telling the story of what really happened to Lana at the end of last season after snapping out of her BRAINIAC-induced coma and disappearing. Jump-starting that narrative was the news that Lana had gone missing in the present, with Clark learning about her disappearance after Chloe visited the Kent farm, found out about the Clark-Lana kiss at the Talon the night before and urged him to go to her apartment and talk to Miss Lang. Arriving there, CK finds Lana gone, the apartment a mess and Tess Mercer, of all people, there. Tess kicks off the tale of what really happened to Lana, revealing that the video she made and left for Clark about needing to disappear so she wouldn’t hold him back and keep him from his destiny wasn’t made of her own free will. She was being held at gunpoint by LuthorCorp henchmen, at Tess’s direction. That group then drugged her, put her in a van and was driving her out of town to points unknown when she attacked the two hired thugs, hijacked the van and escaped. After that, she showed up in Edge City and solicited the help of a mysterious man who had made a career of teaching toughness and mental discipline to Navy Seals. Lana learned from him and then headed off to Metropolis, where she began digging into secret LuthorCorp projects, looking to stop Lex Luthor once and for all. The man who taught her in Edge City kept in touch and tried to talk her out of her plan, but when she wouldn’t budge, he joined her plan and got a job as a consultant with Tess and LuthorCorp so he could spy for Lana and also keep an eye on her. While in Metropolis, Lana also was in touch with Chloe through a chance meeting at the Isis Foundation offices. Lana was there to hide a hard drive in a secret safe, but she also let Chloe in on the two LuthorCorp projects she was researching: Aries (now dead) and Prometheus. Lana also made Chloe promise not to tell Clark about what she was up to. That filled in the past, but the future was also pretty interesting. Seems Lana wasn’t kidnapped, but rather had set up a secret lab in Metropolis and hired away the scientist who had been working on the Prometheus project for Lex to work for her. She volunteered to be the guinea pig for the project, which involved removing the outer layer of skin through extreme dermal abrasion and replacing it with a “suit” made of DNA from aliens (garnered from Lex’s extensive past research with all things meteor freak and Kryptonian). The suit bestows Clark Kent-like powers on the person wearing it, so Lana wanted it to a) keep Lex from using it, and b) so she could be a force for good in the world like Clark and be invincible while doing so. The process worked, making Lana invincible and just in time, as Tess did some digging of her own, found the lab and was trying to shut Prometheus down for good. Instead, Lana got away and broke into the Luthor Mansion, ripping open a safe there and destroying all of Tess’s Prometheus research. Lana went on to tell Tess to stop allowing Lex to dominate her life and to move past him. With that advice dispensed, Lana zipped to the roof of the Daily Planet and asked Clark to meet her there. When he arrived, she explained what she had done, why she didn’t tell him (he would have tried to stop her because it was so dangerous) and what she hoped to do now. She told him that they could be together, changing the world. Clark was hesitant because he didn’t know how the Prometheus suit would affect her long-term, but was able to overlook it (for now, anyhow) and get in on another Clark-Lana lip lock, the second episode in a row to end that way. Judging by the previews, next week may not end so well and we many finally get a glimpse of the face of Lex Luthor, which has yet to happen this season. But he’ll be back with another of his diabolical plots, ready to make life miserable for Clark and Lana, just like old times. So until then…….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Even a great, raging riot can’t last forever, it’s true. The island of Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa, was been engulfed in violence for two straight days, Monday and Tuesday, but by mid-week the riots had subsided. I do regret the loss of 34 lives in the madness, no doubt about that. The Red Cross is reporting that number, which may change once the dust settles and people are accounted for. The positive to take from this is that hundreds of angry anti-government protesters gathered in a central square and raised hell to make their point, and that is always cool. Cooler still is that these bitchin’ protestors took it next level and set fire to the state-run media complex, leading to some nice visual images and even more bitter clashes with The Man. Whether it’s Athens, Mexico or Madagascar, storming state-run media institutions and seizing control of them is very in vogue on the riot circuit nowadays. Whether your merry band of angry social dissidents is looking to hijack a broadcast to get your message on the air or simply seeking to burn that mo’fo down, it’s a solid play. These particular protesters stormed the government's radio and television station in the capital, Antananrivo, n response to President Marc Ravalomanana shutting down opposition leader Andry Rajoelina's radio station. Again, fair is fair. The president shut down their voice unfairly, so they’re shutting down his. Can't really have a debate and discourse on the issues if only one side has the power to speak out, right? Plus, Ravalomanana has been pulling crap like this for some time now, with the move to close down Rajoelina's radio station coming just weeks after closing Rajoelina's television station after airing an interview with ousted ex-President Didier Ratsiraka. Opposition radio, Viva Radio, was actually back on air Tuesday, allowing protesters to shift their focus from restoring freedom of speech to targeting other government infrastructure. They’ve moved on to food distribution centers, as well as looting private electronic shops and grocery stores that sat alongside government buildings. Sadly, the United States is pushing for peace and looking to calm things down. Those of us in the know realize, however, that you can’t keep good rioters down……
- Personally, I don’t care if Joaquin Phoenix just perpetrating a big hoax about quitting acting and becoming a wrapper; I’m getting a good laugh out of his act either way. Watching entertainment magazines and TV shows cover the story and falling all over themselves trying to figure out what this guy is up to has been pure comedy, even if his terrible three-song debut as a rapper at a Las Vegas nightclub on Jan. 16 was nothing more than a sham of a performance assisted by friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck, who's ostensibly shooting a documentary about his career transition. Sources close to Phoenix say it was all a show, just a ploy and a project to amuse Phoenix and to mock arrogant actors and the uber-reactive media that covers their every move like it actually matters. So if he’s just been playing everyone by announcing that he was abandoning his career in movies to try to make it as a rap artist, I say keep it up, don’t break character now. That show you put on at the club in Vegas - a rambling, Britney Spears-awful performance that concluded with Phoenix falling off the stage - was hilarious. Maybe my man J. Phoenix is channeling his inner Andy Kaufman, maybe he’s lost his mind or perhaps it’s a combination of the two. With that Sasquatch-ean beard dude is sporting, the last of those three options seems most reasonable. He might actually be hiding the WMD’s in that shaggy, hirsute monster. For what it’s worth, he is noted for having a genuine interest in music (including his as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line as well as directing several music videos), so faking a music career to spoof the entertainment media wouldn’t be that implausible for him to pull off. Bottom line here is that whatever this is, Phoenix should keep it up because plenty of people out here are laughing right along with him…..
- Boy, that David Beckham experiment sure did revolutionize soccer in America, didn’t it? Becks coming to play Major League Soccer was going to change the way we viewed soccer, according to soccer honks who wanted to believe that a past-his-prime Euro in a tertiary sport would register as even a blip on the radar screen of the average American sports fan. Yeah, either that or Beckham would come, play an uneventful seasons for the Los Angeles Galaxy and leave the country to return to Europe just over a year later. Going to play for AC Milan was supposed to be an off-season gig for Beckham, whom the Galaxy “loaned” to the European club while the MLS was between seasons. Now, it appears the move could be permanent. For his part, Becks doesn’t exactly seem torn by the decision. He labeled the chance to play for AC Milan a "dream,” then referencing his contractual obligations to the Galaxy in less-than-glowing terms. Could it be because in California, he’s a nobody in a sport no one cares about, but in Italy, he’s a huge hit and actually matters? "To play here is the dream of any player," said Beckham in an interview. "But deciding is not easy; it's a situation that requires time. I am under contract and I have a lot of respect for Galaxy. But the possibility to play at Milan is something special. I knew I would have fun but I didn't expect to have so much fun.” Allow me to translate: I can make more money here, people in this part of the world give a damn about the sport I play and my ego can’t take being a nobody in America and wasting any good years left in my soccer career by toiling in anonymity. Heck, even Becks admits his time in the U.S. had been tough. "I have to admit that, having played in Europe, at times it has been frustrating to take part in certain games (in America)," he said. "But once in a while, going from state to state, I have also had fun." Yeah, it sound like you were having a blast. But who could have known this was coming, other than Stevie Wonder with ear plugs on? To hear soccer honks after Becks’ first game with the Galaxy, he was going to vault soccer to the elite level of American sports. As it turns out, he played for a team that lingered in last place most of the season and will be sold off to an Italian team before playing out even half of his MLS contract. Pro soccer in the United States, it’s fannnnnn-tastic…………
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Recapping Lost, celebrating the end of a 51-game losing streak and I oppose the Wisconsin Supreme Court
- Far be it from me to differ with the esteemed legal minds of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but I differ with the esteemed legal minds of the Wisconsin Supreme Court when they rule that high school cheerleading is a contact sport. Is there contact in cheerleading? Sure. Is it a sport? No. The court ruling that it is a sport and therefore its participants cannot be sued for accidentally causing injuries may have decided one case, but it doesn’t mean cheerleading is actually a sport. Just because the people who participate in it are athletes and need a lot of athletic ability, it’s not a sport. You can’t make up a competition and scoring system for something that’s not a sport and then just start calling it a sport. Cheerleading is a bunch of girls (and sometimes dudes) showing up in ugly matching outfits and cheering for people playing actual sports. The type of competition that cheerleaders engage in is actually a big gymnastics competition, not cheerleading. To be clear, cheerleading is standing beside a field of play and leading cheers for people playing actual sports. Why do I even have to have this discussion? Well, because of a stupid lawsuit brought by Brittany Noffke, who was a varsity cheerleader at Holmen High School in western Wisconsin. Back in 2004, Noffke was practicing when she fell backward off the shoulders of another cheerleader and suffered a serious head injury. As with anyone injured in any way in American society post-2000, Noffke and her parents were looking to sue someone, namely the 16-year-old male teammate who was supposed to be her spotter but failed to catch her, along with the school district and the district's insurer. The case made its way up the judicial ladder to the state Supreme Court, where the court ruled that Noffke cannot sue the teammate who failed to stop her fall, nor can she sue her school district. The specific issue before the court in this case was whether cheerleaders qualify for immunity under a Wisconsin law that prevents participants in contact sports from suing each other for unintentional injuries. Justice Annette Ziegler said cheerleading involves "a significant amount of physical contact between the cheerleaders,” including stunts in which cheerleaders are tossed in the air like the one Noffke was injured taking part in. Because the law doesn’t specify which sports are contact sports, it was left to the legal system to decide. Last year, the District 4 Court of Appeals ruled last year cheerleading doesn't qualify because there's no contact between opposing teams, a victory for Noffke. However, the Supreme Court overturned that decision by ruling that Noffke's argument that "contact sports" should mean only aggressive sports such as football and hockey was invalid. While I’m glad to see a frivolous, greedy lawsuit rejected, ironically enough I agree with Noffke in that cheerleading isn’t a sport in the way that football, basketball, hockey, etc. are sports. But regardless of my very sound opinion, this ruling means cheerleaders in Wisconsin can be sued only for acting recklessly. Do with this what you will, cheerleading honks, just know that no court decision anywhere in the world is enough to elevate what you do to the status of being an actual sport………
- Amazing, isn’t it, that the very week he’s set to perform at halftime of the Super Bowl, Bruce Springsteenis dropping a brand-new studio album. It’s the third album Springsteen has released since reuniting the E Street Band in concert in 1999. The previous two albums - 2002's "The Rising" and 2007's "Magic" - were both commercial successes, which is not to be confused with being actual great albums. Despite having only a couple of good songs apiece, the albums were widely praised albums and the Boss’ legions of faithful, aged fans ate them up. Both had a pertinent cultural message as well -- one an effort to heal after 9/11, the other a bitter condemnation of the dark W. era in these here United States (a cause I can always get with). This new album doesn’t have such lofty cultural aspirations, which is good because to be honest, "Working on a Dream" wouldn’t meet them if it did. It’s a more positive, sunny album, which you realize when Springsteen proclaims "Our love will chase the trouble away" on the title track. That positive vibe continues on "My Lucky Day,” a song that is far too poppy and mainstream. There are still a couple of Debbie Downer-ish songs, tunes like "What Love Can Do" and "Life Itself," which comes across as a whiny plea by the Boss to a troubled lover in strained vocals. The biggest criticism of this album I have is that it’s just too mainstream, feels a little too canned and none of the tracks jumps out at you as a truly great song on the first, or even second, listen. If you’re a die-hard Springsteen fan you’re going to buy it anyhow, but if you’re not, save your money and pick up the new Ben Kweller album, out next week, instead…….
- Where to start with last night’s Lost? How about this….CHARLES WIDMORE WAS ON THE ISLAND AS AN OTHER IN 1954! Yup, we found that gem out while Locke, Sawyer, Juliet and all of the other Oceanic and freighter team survivors left on the island when Ben “moved” it in last season’s finale are jumping around through time and land in 1954, where they encounter the Others, circa 1954. This was not a great episode overall, but that storyline was very compelling. On the island in 1954, Locke, Juliet and Sawyer are in custody of the two Others they captured last week. The two men begin conversing in Latin, which Juliette understands because, as she puts it, learning Latin is part of “Others 101.” One of the Others softens and opens up once he realizes Juliet speaks Latin and also knows Richard Alpert, the never-aging second in command among the Others. Unfortunately, his Others pal doesn’t feel the same way and when the first one begins telling Juliette, Locke and Sawyer where the Others’ camp is, the second guy snaps his neck and takes off running through the jungle. Before leaving, he also reveals that the rest of the Oceanic survivors from the beach, along with Daniel, Charlotte and Miles from the freighter crew, were captured by another group of Others. Knowing that, Locke, Juliette and Sawyer track the escaping Other through the jungle and find the camp in a clearing. Daniel, Charlotte and Miles are already there and have learned that the Others suspect them of being U.S. Army members taking part in nuclear testing on the island. Daniel plays along to string things out and even agrees to disarm a massive “Jughead” nuclear warhead the army has brought to the island. In the process, he also fesses up to his love for Charlotte, but that’s for another time and place. When he sees the ginormous bomb and that it’s leaking nuclear material, he advises the Others to patch the leak with lead and bury the bomb. He also reveals that he knows it won't go off because 50 years in the future, the island is still there. That revelation results in the Other who accompanies Daniel to the bomb site having to process the notion that Daniel, along with Juliette and Sawyer (all of whom happen onto the scene) are from the future. Back at camp, Locke is busy talking with Alpert and trying to convince him that he too is from the future and is the leader of the Others. By giving Richard a compass that 2004 Richard gave him, Locke is able to partially convince Alpert of his story, but not enough for Richard to share how to get off the island so Locke can go about the important tasks that 2004 Richard told him he needed to complete upon leaving the island. Before Locke learns how to get off the island, he learns of Widmore’s presence there, but Locke is also caught up in the next flash of light to consume the sky and transport he and the rest of those on the island (besides the 1954 residents) through time once again. They end up back in the present day, it seems, but what’s next? No clue. In off-the-island business, Desmond is busy following up on the lucid dream/memory from the island he had last week, the one in which a back-in-time Daniel told him to go find Dan’s mother in Oxford and tell her where he was in 2004. Desmond arrives at Oxford University but finds no record of Daniel there. Since he once visited Daniel’s Oxford lab, Desmond goes back there and finds it closed for alleged fumigation. He breaks in anyhow and finds all of Daniel’s old equipment taken apart and covered in dust. A mysterious man walks into the room to confront Desmond, admitting that there is no fumigation but also saying that Daniel had done something terrible to “that girl” before giving Desmond some information on who the girl was and telling him to leave, tell no one what he had seen and never return. Desmond follows the man’s lead, tracks down an address at a flat in the city and visits it to find a woman named Teresa Spencer and another woman, Abigail, who says she’s the Teresa's sister (you may remember seeing Teresa in a sentimental, couple-ish pic wiht Daniel earlier last season). Abigail lets Des in, showing him Teresa, who is in some sort of trance or state of mental disability. She’s not even functional, doesn’t know who she is, where she is or what is going on around her. The woman reveals that Daniel is responsible for her condition, presumably because of his time travel research. When Des leaves, he’s even more confused and in a fit or rage, heads right for the office of his archenemy, Charles Widmore. Des and his wife Penny, who now have a son named Charlie (after Charlie Pearce, Desmond’s pal who died in the Season 3 finale diving down to a Dharma station beneath the water), have been avoiding Widmore, Penny’s father, but now Des chooses to confront him. He refuses to answer any of Widmore’s questions and demands one thing: the location of Daniel’s mother. Charles Widmore gives him her address in Los Angeles, but then warns Desmond to stay “out of this,” a situation he doesn’t give specifics on but says is bigger than Des or Penny and has been going on for some time. He’s referring to the island, of course, but what else? Penny has been begging Desmond to forget about the island and not have anything to do with the drama around it, but now he can’t seem ton extricate himself. That pretty much covers the episode, which is my problem. Last week, there was all of the drama with the Oceanic 6 and with Ben Linus being told by the mysterious woman who came out of some sort of subterranean bunker/lab beneath a dark, odd church sanctuary after punching numbers into an island/Dharma-like computer, using a ginormous pendulum and informing Ben that he has 70 hours to complete his task of returning the Oceanic 6 to the island. That ended the episode, but this week, with that deadline looming……nothing on the storyline at all. Hurley is now in custody, accused of three murders, and nothing? This is exactly like so freaking many episodes last season where too many key characters were ignored on a weekly basis. Not a good episode at all, this season is already mirroring last season in too many ways, few of them good………
- When you go to a hallowed, respected university like Stanford and come away with a law degree, I think it’s safe to say that you’re aiming high in life. To get into Stanford Law and walk away with a degree gives you a big edge and should put you on a solid career path. It could propel you into any number of jobs, corporate, government, opening your own law firm…..the list goes on. Notice I didn’t include running your own escort service and trying to skate on your taxes as one of the options available to people with law degrees from Stanford. Cristina L. Warthen, formerly known as Cristina L. Schultz, decided to make use of her Stanford education by founding and operating TouchofBrasil.net, a Web site which offered paid memberships for escort services and had Warthen/Schultz charging money in exchange for sexual acts and traveling throughout the country. Going by the name "Brazil" to run the Web site, she earned $133,000 in 2003 and grossing about $81,800 that year without reporting any income to the IRS. It’s understandable; what do you put in the occupation box on your tax forms? High-class madam? Pimp? Yes, it allowed her to get out of a tax bill that would have amounted to $25,424, but is that a huge problem? Oh, so it is. Sorry, I forgot for a moment that you can murder two people, assault someone, kidnap people and still get away with it in this country, but if you dare to try and cheat the IRS on your taxes, you’re going down, b’otch. Such is life for Warthen, who pleaded guilty in a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in which she admitted
\that she concealed her income by putting the money in a safe deposit box, buying money orders and cashiers checks without receipts and hiding cash in her apartment, a storage locker and an old law school book. That’s funny, because who holds onto their old books? You sell those things back, get screwed over by getting back a minute fraction of what you paid for them and that’s that. So what does Warthen have to do to get the government off her back? Well, for starters there was the guilty plea to tax evasion, followed by an agreement to turn over a $313,133.74 cashiers check to the U.S. Treasury no later than 20 days before her June 15 sentencing date. That’s an amount equal to the net proceeds of Warthen's unlawful activity and wraps up an agreement that has federal prosecutors agreeing to recommend a three-year probation period plus one-year home confinement sentence for Warthen. All things considered, not a bad deal for her. Maybe now that she has knowledge and experience with both the criminal and legal sides of the law, she can start putting her Stanford degree to use in a non-criminal way………
- I realize I’m few days late on this one, but I still want to make sure to congratulate the men’s basketball team at the New Jersey Institute of Technology for breaking a Division I-record 51-game losing streak with a win last Wednesday night in a home game against Bryant College. The game, held at NJIT’s home gym in Newark, ended nearly two years of frustration and disappointment for the Highlanders. Players like junior center Dan Stonkus did their best to drink in all of the excitement after Jheryl Wilson’s career-high 26 points helped lead them to a 61-51 victory over Bryant. "It was obviously frustrating, but we honestly didn't think too much of the streak," said Stonkus, the only member of the program to endure all 51 losses. "We just kept trying to think about the next game and then the next one. It never came down to where we thought we'd never get one. This feels great." The win was NJIT’s first since Feb. 19, 2007, when they defeated Longwood, another D-I independent and long-losing-streak sporter, 78-74. Also, it was NJIT's first home win since Feb. 8, 2007, against South Dakota State. To be fair, it’s only the school’s third season as a Division I program, and making the jump to that level is a difficult task for any school. The 6-71 the Highlanders sport since moving up from Division II isn’t good, but don’t be too hard on them. Officially, NJIT is in its final reclassifying year and will not be a full member of Division I until 2009-10, so technically their losing streak does not eclipse Sacramento State's record of 34 consecutive losses from 1997-99. Regardless of that, I’d have to imagine that the Highlanders are glad that they are no longer pushing toward the longest NCAA losing streak at any level -- 117 games -- held by Division III Rutgers-Camden, which did not win a game from Jan. 22, 1992, to Jan. 9, 1997. So congrats to first-year coach Jim Engles on the win, even if it is against Bryant, a school that is also is in the process of reclassifying into Division I. NJIT led this thing from early on in the game right through the second half, leading by 16 at halftime and allowing players, coaches and fans to savor the win fully……..
- Amazing, isn’t it, that the very week he’s set to perform at halftime of the Super Bowl, Bruce Springsteenis dropping a brand-new studio album. It’s the third album Springsteen has released since reuniting the E Street Band in concert in 1999. The previous two albums - 2002's "The Rising" and 2007's "Magic" - were both commercial successes, which is not to be confused with being actual great albums. Despite having only a couple of good songs apiece, the albums were widely praised albums and the Boss’ legions of faithful, aged fans ate them up. Both had a pertinent cultural message as well -- one an effort to heal after 9/11, the other a bitter condemnation of the dark W. era in these here United States (a cause I can always get with). This new album doesn’t have such lofty cultural aspirations, which is good because to be honest, "Working on a Dream" wouldn’t meet them if it did. It’s a more positive, sunny album, which you realize when Springsteen proclaims "Our love will chase the trouble away" on the title track. That positive vibe continues on "My Lucky Day,” a song that is far too poppy and mainstream. There are still a couple of Debbie Downer-ish songs, tunes like "What Love Can Do" and "Life Itself," which comes across as a whiny plea by the Boss to a troubled lover in strained vocals. The biggest criticism of this album I have is that it’s just too mainstream, feels a little too canned and none of the tracks jumps out at you as a truly great song on the first, or even second, listen. If you’re a die-hard Springsteen fan you’re going to buy it anyhow, but if you’re not, save your money and pick up the new Ben Kweller album, out next week, instead…….
- Where to start with last night’s Lost? How about this….CHARLES WIDMORE WAS ON THE ISLAND AS AN OTHER IN 1954! Yup, we found that gem out while Locke, Sawyer, Juliet and all of the other Oceanic and freighter team survivors left on the island when Ben “moved” it in last season’s finale are jumping around through time and land in 1954, where they encounter the Others, circa 1954. This was not a great episode overall, but that storyline was very compelling. On the island in 1954, Locke, Juliet and Sawyer are in custody of the two Others they captured last week. The two men begin conversing in Latin, which Juliette understands because, as she puts it, learning Latin is part of “Others 101.” One of the Others softens and opens up once he realizes Juliet speaks Latin and also knows Richard Alpert, the never-aging second in command among the Others. Unfortunately, his Others pal doesn’t feel the same way and when the first one begins telling Juliette, Locke and Sawyer where the Others’ camp is, the second guy snaps his neck and takes off running through the jungle. Before leaving, he also reveals that the rest of the Oceanic survivors from the beach, along with Daniel, Charlotte and Miles from the freighter crew, were captured by another group of Others. Knowing that, Locke, Juliette and Sawyer track the escaping Other through the jungle and find the camp in a clearing. Daniel, Charlotte and Miles are already there and have learned that the Others suspect them of being U.S. Army members taking part in nuclear testing on the island. Daniel plays along to string things out and even agrees to disarm a massive “Jughead” nuclear warhead the army has brought to the island. In the process, he also fesses up to his love for Charlotte, but that’s for another time and place. When he sees the ginormous bomb and that it’s leaking nuclear material, he advises the Others to patch the leak with lead and bury the bomb. He also reveals that he knows it won't go off because 50 years in the future, the island is still there. That revelation results in the Other who accompanies Daniel to the bomb site having to process the notion that Daniel, along with Juliette and Sawyer (all of whom happen onto the scene) are from the future. Back at camp, Locke is busy talking with Alpert and trying to convince him that he too is from the future and is the leader of the Others. By giving Richard a compass that 2004 Richard gave him, Locke is able to partially convince Alpert of his story, but not enough for Richard to share how to get off the island so Locke can go about the important tasks that 2004 Richard told him he needed to complete upon leaving the island. Before Locke learns how to get off the island, he learns of Widmore’s presence there, but Locke is also caught up in the next flash of light to consume the sky and transport he and the rest of those on the island (besides the 1954 residents) through time once again. They end up back in the present day, it seems, but what’s next? No clue. In off-the-island business, Desmond is busy following up on the lucid dream/memory from the island he had last week, the one in which a back-in-time Daniel told him to go find Dan’s mother in Oxford and tell her where he was in 2004. Desmond arrives at Oxford University but finds no record of Daniel there. Since he once visited Daniel’s Oxford lab, Desmond goes back there and finds it closed for alleged fumigation. He breaks in anyhow and finds all of Daniel’s old equipment taken apart and covered in dust. A mysterious man walks into the room to confront Desmond, admitting that there is no fumigation but also saying that Daniel had done something terrible to “that girl” before giving Desmond some information on who the girl was and telling him to leave, tell no one what he had seen and never return. Desmond follows the man’s lead, tracks down an address at a flat in the city and visits it to find a woman named Teresa Spencer and another woman, Abigail, who says she’s the Teresa's sister (you may remember seeing Teresa in a sentimental, couple-ish pic wiht Daniel earlier last season). Abigail lets Des in, showing him Teresa, who is in some sort of trance or state of mental disability. She’s not even functional, doesn’t know who she is, where she is or what is going on around her. The woman reveals that Daniel is responsible for her condition, presumably because of his time travel research. When Des leaves, he’s even more confused and in a fit or rage, heads right for the office of his archenemy, Charles Widmore. Des and his wife Penny, who now have a son named Charlie (after Charlie Pearce, Desmond’s pal who died in the Season 3 finale diving down to a Dharma station beneath the water), have been avoiding Widmore, Penny’s father, but now Des chooses to confront him. He refuses to answer any of Widmore’s questions and demands one thing: the location of Daniel’s mother. Charles Widmore gives him her address in Los Angeles, but then warns Desmond to stay “out of this,” a situation he doesn’t give specifics on but says is bigger than Des or Penny and has been going on for some time. He’s referring to the island, of course, but what else? Penny has been begging Desmond to forget about the island and not have anything to do with the drama around it, but now he can’t seem ton extricate himself. That pretty much covers the episode, which is my problem. Last week, there was all of the drama with the Oceanic 6 and with Ben Linus being told by the mysterious woman who came out of some sort of subterranean bunker/lab beneath a dark, odd church sanctuary after punching numbers into an island/Dharma-like computer, using a ginormous pendulum and informing Ben that he has 70 hours to complete his task of returning the Oceanic 6 to the island. That ended the episode, but this week, with that deadline looming……nothing on the storyline at all. Hurley is now in custody, accused of three murders, and nothing? This is exactly like so freaking many episodes last season where too many key characters were ignored on a weekly basis. Not a good episode at all, this season is already mirroring last season in too many ways, few of them good………
- When you go to a hallowed, respected university like Stanford and come away with a law degree, I think it’s safe to say that you’re aiming high in life. To get into Stanford Law and walk away with a degree gives you a big edge and should put you on a solid career path. It could propel you into any number of jobs, corporate, government, opening your own law firm…..the list goes on. Notice I didn’t include running your own escort service and trying to skate on your taxes as one of the options available to people with law degrees from Stanford. Cristina L. Warthen, formerly known as Cristina L. Schultz, decided to make use of her Stanford education by founding and operating TouchofBrasil.net, a Web site which offered paid memberships for escort services and had Warthen/Schultz charging money in exchange for sexual acts and traveling throughout the country. Going by the name "Brazil" to run the Web site, she earned $133,000 in 2003 and grossing about $81,800 that year without reporting any income to the IRS. It’s understandable; what do you put in the occupation box on your tax forms? High-class madam? Pimp? Yes, it allowed her to get out of a tax bill that would have amounted to $25,424, but is that a huge problem? Oh, so it is. Sorry, I forgot for a moment that you can murder two people, assault someone, kidnap people and still get away with it in this country, but if you dare to try and cheat the IRS on your taxes, you’re going down, b’otch. Such is life for Warthen, who pleaded guilty in a plea agreement with federal prosecutors in which she admitted
\that she concealed her income by putting the money in a safe deposit box, buying money orders and cashiers checks without receipts and hiding cash in her apartment, a storage locker and an old law school book. That’s funny, because who holds onto their old books? You sell those things back, get screwed over by getting back a minute fraction of what you paid for them and that’s that. So what does Warthen have to do to get the government off her back? Well, for starters there was the guilty plea to tax evasion, followed by an agreement to turn over a $313,133.74 cashiers check to the U.S. Treasury no later than 20 days before her June 15 sentencing date. That’s an amount equal to the net proceeds of Warthen's unlawful activity and wraps up an agreement that has federal prosecutors agreeing to recommend a three-year probation period plus one-year home confinement sentence for Warthen. All things considered, not a bad deal for her. Maybe now that she has knowledge and experience with both the criminal and legal sides of the law, she can start putting her Stanford degree to use in a non-criminal way………
- I realize I’m few days late on this one, but I still want to make sure to congratulate the men’s basketball team at the New Jersey Institute of Technology for breaking a Division I-record 51-game losing streak with a win last Wednesday night in a home game against Bryant College. The game, held at NJIT’s home gym in Newark, ended nearly two years of frustration and disappointment for the Highlanders. Players like junior center Dan Stonkus did their best to drink in all of the excitement after Jheryl Wilson’s career-high 26 points helped lead them to a 61-51 victory over Bryant. "It was obviously frustrating, but we honestly didn't think too much of the streak," said Stonkus, the only member of the program to endure all 51 losses. "We just kept trying to think about the next game and then the next one. It never came down to where we thought we'd never get one. This feels great." The win was NJIT’s first since Feb. 19, 2007, when they defeated Longwood, another D-I independent and long-losing-streak sporter, 78-74. Also, it was NJIT's first home win since Feb. 8, 2007, against South Dakota State. To be fair, it’s only the school’s third season as a Division I program, and making the jump to that level is a difficult task for any school. The 6-71 the Highlanders sport since moving up from Division II isn’t good, but don’t be too hard on them. Officially, NJIT is in its final reclassifying year and will not be a full member of Division I until 2009-10, so technically their losing streak does not eclipse Sacramento State's record of 34 consecutive losses from 1997-99. Regardless of that, I’d have to imagine that the Highlanders are glad that they are no longer pushing toward the longest NCAA losing streak at any level -- 117 games -- held by Division III Rutgers-Camden, which did not win a game from Jan. 22, 1992, to Jan. 9, 1997. So congrats to first-year coach Jim Engles on the win, even if it is against Bryant, a school that is also is in the process of reclassifying into Division I. NJIT led this thing from early on in the game right through the second half, leading by 16 at halftime and allowing players, coaches and fans to savor the win fully……..
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
China becomes the bird flu champ, stealing an amputated foot and T.O. with a new project to stroke his own massive ego
- Bjork’s job just got a little tougher. The singer has founded a venture capital fund looking to revitalize the economy of her native Iceland, but the country’s faltering economy took another step backward yesterday when its ruling coalition resigned, three months after the collapse of the country's currency, stock market and several major banks. The resignation came after months of public protests, with President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson officially accepting Prime Minister Geir Haarde's resignation but asking him and other Cabinet members to continue in an interim capacity until a new government can be formed. There is no firm deadline for that to happen, but at least the hard-working protestors who were pushing for a change will have a chance to take a break. They’ve been at it for weeks, marching in the streets, holding up signs and making their voices heard. An estimated 6,000 to 7,000 people were out demonstrating Saturday, renewing their calls for the government to step down and this time, it happened. Ironically, Saturday's demonstration was peaceful even though it was also the last one before the movement’s goal was achieved, given the fact that protestors squared off with riot police during protests earlier in the week, facing pepper spray and multiple arrests, two causes any good movement of social dissidence is likely to incur. And what better to protest than a government that has presided over the total collapse of your country’s financial system and currency? Whatever government emerges from meetings between the two parties that make up Iceland's coalition government -- the Independence Party and the Social Democrats -- will find it hard to do any worse of a job than the previous regime. Sometimes I wish we had the type of government here in the U.S. that would allow for the removal of one regime when it abysmally fails and has the president meeting with the leaders of the main political parties to find out what type of government they think should be formed. After those meetings, President Ólafur Ragnar GrÃmsson will give the job of forming a new government to whichever party he feels best suited make it happen and that party will try to form a new coalition government. A big undertaking to be sure, but one that is necessary after a financial crisis so severe that the International Monetary Fund felt compelled to intervene. That came after Iceland’s government was forced to nationalize three banks to keep its faltering economy from totally tanking. Trading on the country's stock market was suspended for nearly a week, inflation jumped to more than 12 percent and the IMF stepped up in November with a $827 million boost to the Icelandic economy immediately, followed by another $1.3 billion in eight installments. Even Iceland's Nordic neighbors -- the governments of Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden -- have stepped in to lend a hand, offering Iceland loans amounting to $2.5 billion. But no worries, Bjork is on the job so this should all work out just fine……
- This should really help assuage the belief that Terrell Owens is an attention-starved, egotistical jerk who is more about himself, his stats and his contract than winning and being a good teammate. Rather than locking himself in the gym and training like a maniac to better his game and help him team rebound from a disastrous season in which it failed to even make the playoffs despite one of the best collections of talent in the NFL, Owens will instead star in his own show on VH1 this summer. Ostensibly the angle of the show is to give fans a look into Owens’ life off the field, but history would seem to indicate that feeding Owens’ sizeable ego is also a big part of doing the show. The series is set in the offseason, so this won't be a foray into the locker room or onto the field. Sadly, Owens’ former publicist Kim Ethridge, she of the “Terrell has 25 million reasons to be alive” comment after his “accidental overdose/alleged suicide attempt” a couple of years ago, won't be involved as she no longer works for him. Instead, Owens’ best friends and publicists -- Monique Jackson and Kita Williams -- will “help him re-examine his personal life,” working as "matchmakers and therapists" for him. Reality TV is nothing new for the Cowboys, who were featured on HBO's "Hard Knocks" during their training camp last year. However, make no mistake about it: this show is all about T.O., his persona and ego, not about football or his team. Not exactly what you’d hope for from a guy who is supposed to be one of the top players on a team in turmoil and needing to rebound from a huge end-of-the-year choke job that cost them a playoff spot they seemed to have wrapped up in November. Still looking out for No. 1, eh T.O…………….
- Nothing like accusations that a megachurch paid a 20-year-old man to keep silent about a sexual relationship he had with a former pastor to boost morale among the faithful. Such is life at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where disgraced evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, used to work. He was fired back in 2006 for allegedly doing some decidedly un-pastorly things such as using drugs and being a customer for a male prostitute. Now, Rev. Brady Boyd, a senior pastor at the church, is saying that the male hooker wasn’t Haggard only homosexual relationship. Boyd admitted this week that Haggard had a sexual relationship with a second man -- a 20-year-old volunteer at his megachurch, and that the church agreed to pay the man hush money in exchange for his promises not to talk publicly about the relationship. Boyd was referring to a settlement reached by the man's lawyer and the church's insurance company, a deal which dictated that the church provide the man money for college tuition, moving expenses and counseling. "This was compassionate assistance. It was to help him move forward, not a settlement to keep him quiet," said Boyd, senior pastor. Riiiiiight. Because you had nothing to gain by keeping him quiet and keeping your church’s name from being dragged through the mud one more time. Because a big, messy lawsuit wouldn’t have bothered you one bit, right? Ironic that Haggard could bring both immense suffering and immense benefit to the same place. He founded New Life in his basement in 1984 helped grow it into an influential megachurch with 15,000 members, yet he’s helped to tear down much of what he built with his actions the past 2-3 years. He’s done so by having a three-year relationship with Mike Jones, a male escort, involving drugs and sex for money, among other things. That led to him being fired by the very church he founded, but with their trouble former leader gone, New Life members probably figured Haggard and his hazards were behind them - until Friday, when New Life Church announced Haggard's relationship with the volunteer in a letter to the congregation. The church didn’t come forward on this voluntarily; they did so because the young man told church leaders that he was considering going public with his story in order to combat Haggard’s attempts to paint himself as a victim of the system in the upcoming HBO documentary called "The Trial of Ted Haggard." Quite a pair of stones Haggard must have, playing the victim card after soliciting a male prostitute multiple times over the course of three years, using methamphetamine in the presence of said male hooker and having an affair with a male volunteer at his church. Then again, Haggard does have a good excuse, claiming that he received a massage from Jones, but never had sex with him. Yeah, because lots of guys solicit prostitutes for a massage and nothing more. There are people for that specific purpose, and they’re called licensed masseurs. Even better is Haggard’s claim that he bought methamphetamine, but threw it away instead of using it. Again, who buys drugs and doesn’t use them? Meth isn’t cheap (see my post from Monday for more on meth’s stunning comeback in the U.S.) and if you buy it, you’re using it. None of this done anything for Christianity, that’s for sure. When a so-called religious leader who denounced homosexual sex in a documentary called "Friends of God" turns around and engages in the very behavior he condemned in such public fashion, that’s the height of hypocrisy. In the midst of all of this, New Life Church is doing pretty well, with Boyd claiming that the church has added 1,500 people in the last 18 months. Here’s hoping that it’s headed in a vastly different direction than the one it was in prior to 2006…….
- I’ll warn you before I get going that this next tale is more than a little revolting. Firefighters, paramedics and other first responders deal with tragic, gruesome scenes on a regular basis and you need special people with strong stomach and tough mindsets to do that day in, day out. You’d like to think that people who sign up for that sort of job do so because they like helping people and making the world a better place and not because they do things like taking a man's amputated foot home with them following a car crash. You’d like to think that, but people like former St. Lucie County (Fla.) firefighter Cindy Economou unfortunately prove otherwise. Economou (sounds like some cut-rate motor inn) has been arrested on charges that she took home the amputated foot of a man who t was traveling south on Interstate 95 in Port St. Lucie when his Chevrolet pickup collided with another vehicle, flipped and struck a tree. When a rescue crew arrived on the scene and began working to free the man from his truck, they realized that the foot would need to be amputated in order to get him out. They made the tough call and cut off the foot, but I’m guessing they didn’t expect anyone to come along and pick up the foot, take it home and put it in their freezer. But maybe they would have expected it if they knew what a piece of crap Economou is. She picks up amputated feet from crash scenes and stashes them in her freezer so she can use them later on in cadaver-dog training that she did outside of her gig with the fire department. No word on how authorities were tipped off about her possession of the foot, but however it happened, an arrest warrant was issued late last week and Economou was picked up Monday. She is charged with petit theft, a second-degree misdemeanor, but sadly being a soul-less human being isn’t something you can be charged with a crime for…….
- Add cultivating a great environment for the spread of the bird flu to the ever-growing list of things that new global superpower China excels at. We already know they can make lead-paint-covered toys like no one’s business, put out toxic food products and toothpaste containing chemicals more commonly used for anti-freeze and repress human rights like no other nation, but facilitating a bird flu epidemic might be their best skill year. In the past month, the country has had six confirmed cases of the virus, with the latest being a man in southwest China who is in critical condition after testing positive for bird flu. The man fell ill on January 15 in Guizhou province and tested positive for the H5N1 virus on Sunday, but so far no one he came into contact with has shown any symptoms of being infected. As you might expect, China's health ministry has been busy lying and trying to cover up, er, allaying fears over a bird flu outbreak. Actually, they appear to know something the rest of us don’t or possess some mythical power over the bird flu, because while they admitted that further human bird flu cases were possible throughout China, there wouldn't be a large-scale outbreak. Awesome, good to hear. No one else has found a way to completely control and manage this disease, but you’ve managed to lock it up. I’d like to believe you, but the facts don’t bear out your claims. This thing is getting worse, not better. The train is coming off the tracks, not getting back on them. After all, a woman from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far northwest died from the virus over the weekend, 16-year-old boy in the city of Huaihua in central Hunan province died during the same time frame and just one week ago, a woman from eastern China died of bird flu. The World Health Organization isn’t helping your case either by reporting that a two-year-old girl in northern Shanxi province had tested positive for bird flu. Leave it to China to portray itself as the defeater of a virus that has infected numerous species of birds in more than 60 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa and doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. Thankfully the H5N1 virus hasn’t been found in birds in North or South America or the Caribbean, even though this disease has been making the rounds among humans ever since China reported its first human-to-human infection case in 2005. No worries, though, only 23 of the 34 cases confirmed to date in China 23 have been fatal, a mere 67.64 percent……..
- This should really help assuage the belief that Terrell Owens is an attention-starved, egotistical jerk who is more about himself, his stats and his contract than winning and being a good teammate. Rather than locking himself in the gym and training like a maniac to better his game and help him team rebound from a disastrous season in which it failed to even make the playoffs despite one of the best collections of talent in the NFL, Owens will instead star in his own show on VH1 this summer. Ostensibly the angle of the show is to give fans a look into Owens’ life off the field, but history would seem to indicate that feeding Owens’ sizeable ego is also a big part of doing the show. The series is set in the offseason, so this won't be a foray into the locker room or onto the field. Sadly, Owens’ former publicist Kim Ethridge, she of the “Terrell has 25 million reasons to be alive” comment after his “accidental overdose/alleged suicide attempt” a couple of years ago, won't be involved as she no longer works for him. Instead, Owens’ best friends and publicists -- Monique Jackson and Kita Williams -- will “help him re-examine his personal life,” working as "matchmakers and therapists" for him. Reality TV is nothing new for the Cowboys, who were featured on HBO's "Hard Knocks" during their training camp last year. However, make no mistake about it: this show is all about T.O., his persona and ego, not about football or his team. Not exactly what you’d hope for from a guy who is supposed to be one of the top players on a team in turmoil and needing to rebound from a huge end-of-the-year choke job that cost them a playoff spot they seemed to have wrapped up in November. Still looking out for No. 1, eh T.O…………….
- Nothing like accusations that a megachurch paid a 20-year-old man to keep silent about a sexual relationship he had with a former pastor to boost morale among the faithful. Such is life at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where disgraced evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, used to work. He was fired back in 2006 for allegedly doing some decidedly un-pastorly things such as using drugs and being a customer for a male prostitute. Now, Rev. Brady Boyd, a senior pastor at the church, is saying that the male hooker wasn’t Haggard only homosexual relationship. Boyd admitted this week that Haggard had a sexual relationship with a second man -- a 20-year-old volunteer at his megachurch, and that the church agreed to pay the man hush money in exchange for his promises not to talk publicly about the relationship. Boyd was referring to a settlement reached by the man's lawyer and the church's insurance company, a deal which dictated that the church provide the man money for college tuition, moving expenses and counseling. "This was compassionate assistance. It was to help him move forward, not a settlement to keep him quiet," said Boyd, senior pastor. Riiiiiight. Because you had nothing to gain by keeping him quiet and keeping your church’s name from being dragged through the mud one more time. Because a big, messy lawsuit wouldn’t have bothered you one bit, right? Ironic that Haggard could bring both immense suffering and immense benefit to the same place. He founded New Life in his basement in 1984 helped grow it into an influential megachurch with 15,000 members, yet he’s helped to tear down much of what he built with his actions the past 2-3 years. He’s done so by having a three-year relationship with Mike Jones, a male escort, involving drugs and sex for money, among other things. That led to him being fired by the very church he founded, but with their trouble former leader gone, New Life members probably figured Haggard and his hazards were behind them - until Friday, when New Life Church announced Haggard's relationship with the volunteer in a letter to the congregation. The church didn’t come forward on this voluntarily; they did so because the young man told church leaders that he was considering going public with his story in order to combat Haggard’s attempts to paint himself as a victim of the system in the upcoming HBO documentary called "The Trial of Ted Haggard." Quite a pair of stones Haggard must have, playing the victim card after soliciting a male prostitute multiple times over the course of three years, using methamphetamine in the presence of said male hooker and having an affair with a male volunteer at his church. Then again, Haggard does have a good excuse, claiming that he received a massage from Jones, but never had sex with him. Yeah, because lots of guys solicit prostitutes for a massage and nothing more. There are people for that specific purpose, and they’re called licensed masseurs. Even better is Haggard’s claim that he bought methamphetamine, but threw it away instead of using it. Again, who buys drugs and doesn’t use them? Meth isn’t cheap (see my post from Monday for more on meth’s stunning comeback in the U.S.) and if you buy it, you’re using it. None of this done anything for Christianity, that’s for sure. When a so-called religious leader who denounced homosexual sex in a documentary called "Friends of God" turns around and engages in the very behavior he condemned in such public fashion, that’s the height of hypocrisy. In the midst of all of this, New Life Church is doing pretty well, with Boyd claiming that the church has added 1,500 people in the last 18 months. Here’s hoping that it’s headed in a vastly different direction than the one it was in prior to 2006…….
- I’ll warn you before I get going that this next tale is more than a little revolting. Firefighters, paramedics and other first responders deal with tragic, gruesome scenes on a regular basis and you need special people with strong stomach and tough mindsets to do that day in, day out. You’d like to think that people who sign up for that sort of job do so because they like helping people and making the world a better place and not because they do things like taking a man's amputated foot home with them following a car crash. You’d like to think that, but people like former St. Lucie County (Fla.) firefighter Cindy Economou unfortunately prove otherwise. Economou (sounds like some cut-rate motor inn) has been arrested on charges that she took home the amputated foot of a man who t was traveling south on Interstate 95 in Port St. Lucie when his Chevrolet pickup collided with another vehicle, flipped and struck a tree. When a rescue crew arrived on the scene and began working to free the man from his truck, they realized that the foot would need to be amputated in order to get him out. They made the tough call and cut off the foot, but I’m guessing they didn’t expect anyone to come along and pick up the foot, take it home and put it in their freezer. But maybe they would have expected it if they knew what a piece of crap Economou is. She picks up amputated feet from crash scenes and stashes them in her freezer so she can use them later on in cadaver-dog training that she did outside of her gig with the fire department. No word on how authorities were tipped off about her possession of the foot, but however it happened, an arrest warrant was issued late last week and Economou was picked up Monday. She is charged with petit theft, a second-degree misdemeanor, but sadly being a soul-less human being isn’t something you can be charged with a crime for…….
- Add cultivating a great environment for the spread of the bird flu to the ever-growing list of things that new global superpower China excels at. We already know they can make lead-paint-covered toys like no one’s business, put out toxic food products and toothpaste containing chemicals more commonly used for anti-freeze and repress human rights like no other nation, but facilitating a bird flu epidemic might be their best skill year. In the past month, the country has had six confirmed cases of the virus, with the latest being a man in southwest China who is in critical condition after testing positive for bird flu. The man fell ill on January 15 in Guizhou province and tested positive for the H5N1 virus on Sunday, but so far no one he came into contact with has shown any symptoms of being infected. As you might expect, China's health ministry has been busy lying and trying to cover up, er, allaying fears over a bird flu outbreak. Actually, they appear to know something the rest of us don’t or possess some mythical power over the bird flu, because while they admitted that further human bird flu cases were possible throughout China, there wouldn't be a large-scale outbreak. Awesome, good to hear. No one else has found a way to completely control and manage this disease, but you’ve managed to lock it up. I’d like to believe you, but the facts don’t bear out your claims. This thing is getting worse, not better. The train is coming off the tracks, not getting back on them. After all, a woman from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far northwest died from the virus over the weekend, 16-year-old boy in the city of Huaihua in central Hunan province died during the same time frame and just one week ago, a woman from eastern China died of bird flu. The World Health Organization isn’t helping your case either by reporting that a two-year-old girl in northern Shanxi province had tested positive for bird flu. Leave it to China to portray itself as the defeater of a virus that has infected numerous species of birds in more than 60 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa and doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. Thankfully the H5N1 virus hasn’t been found in birds in North or South America or the Caribbean, even though this disease has been making the rounds among humans ever since China reported its first human-to-human infection case in 2005. No worries, though, only 23 of the 34 cases confirmed to date in China 23 have been fatal, a mere 67.64 percent……..
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A surprisingly simple episode of 24, a coach fired for winning too big and how Sen. Oprah almost happened
- Gotta like it when 24 makes an episode easy to follow. Not a ton of locations and changes of location last night, but good action. First, Jack and Tony arrived with Emerson and the rest of his team at an abandoned hangar at an unidentified airport with Prime Minister Ule Motobu and his wife as their prisoners. While they waited for Emerson’s boss and intermediary with Col. Ike Dubaku to arrive, things got tense. After Jack asked some pointed questions about how Emerson got Tony out CTU and kept him alive, Emerson figured out that something was up with Jack and Tony and their involvement in Motobu’s kidnapping. When Emerson grabs Jack from behind and puts a gun to his head, Tony shoots him and shoots the other member of the crew at the hangar, leaving both to bleed out and die and Jack and Tony the only ones alive on the scene for the moment. On their way are Bill Buchanan and Chloe, who have stopped first to dig up FBI Agent Renee Walker, whom Jack pretended to shoot and buried alive last episode in order to make Emerson believe she really was dead. Bill and Chloe dig up Agent Walker and have to go Pulp Fiction on her with an adrenaline shot to get her heart going again before heading to the hangar. Once there, they find that Jack has been able to talk Motobu and his wife into being a part of their plan to find Dubaku. The plan is to place a transmitter on Motobu and allow the men coming to pick him up to lead Jack and his crew right to Dubaku. The plan nearly backfires because the men who show up have orders to kill anyone still alive from Emerson’s crew once they have Motobu. Fortunately, Jack and Tony anticipate the move and Jack is hiding on a catwalk with a rifle, saving Tony from being shot. However, Tony is able to talk the men who tried to kill him into taking the Motobus and leaving, just as they had planned to do after killing him. The loss of life at the hangar was nothing compared to what Dubaku unleashed when the deadline for President Taylor to withdraw American troops from the waters off the coast of Sangala passes with no action. Dubaku uses the CIP device to crash two planes, one a commercial airliner out of Chicago and the other a small private charter plane, killing 270 people in a crash that occurs not far from the White House and is visible out the window of the Oval Office. Yet President Taylor refuses to give in and order the troop pull-out, even when Dubaku promises 10,000 more deaths within the hour if she doesn’t comply. Members of her own administration are adamant that she should accept the demands and order the withdrawal, especially the Secretary of State, who is so angry at the President’s refusal that he resigns. Ethan Kanan (or Warden Norton from Shawshank Redemption, as I like to call him), one of the president’s chief advisors, also supports a pull-out but isn’t resigning when it doesn’t come. Instead, he decides to try and call in President Taylor’s husband Henry to convince her to authorize the withdrawal. Unfortunately, Henry is still at the apartment of Samantha Roth, former fiancée of his late son Roger, with whom he has been looking into Roger’s death with the belief that it was murder, not suicide. Last week, Secret Service Agent Brian Gedge took Henry to the apartment after Henry received a flash drive with information about what led to Roger’s murder from Samantha on the ruse that the apartment belonged to a friend of Gedge’s who could get the encrypted data off the drive. Once there, Gedge revealed he had poisoned Henry via his coffee with a muscular paralytic, rendering him unable to move or speak. Once another agent in on the conspiracy brings Samantha to the apartment, Gedge jumps her from behind, stabs her to death and places the knife in Taylor’s hand to set him up for the murder. With what done, he readies a noose on the second floor balcony of the apartment and as he’s about to hang Henry and finish the job, Henry regains enough muscle control to fight back and send Gedge over the railing, crashing through a table and to the floor below. Unfortunately, Henry falls with him and lands on top of Gedge, with both ending up flat on the floor. The only difference is that Henry is still alive, while Gedge appears dead. Like I said, not a complicated episode but an exciting one, setting up next week’s requisite first big breakthrough of the season that’s just the set-up for the next, bigger part of the evil plot to take over the world. In other words, next week Jack and Co. find Dubaku, who has since launched a plan to take out a nuclear plant in Kidron, Ohio and release nuclear material into the air, killing an entire town of 30,000 people. The problem? Dubaku isn’t the chief bad guy for the season, not even close. But that’s what makes the show interesting, layer after layer of complicated plots and deceit, so tune in next week for more of it…..
- Is it bluster and hype to sell a book or is current L.A. Dodgers and former New York Yankees manager Joe Torre really taking aim at the Yankees by calling many of his former players prima donnas, saying he lost faith in the team’s top executives long before leaving New York and accusing general manager Brian Cashman of betraying him? The book is the result of Torre’s work with co-author Tom Verducci, a longtime Sports Illustrated reporter who tells Torre’s tale through interviews. The book is called The Yankee Years, and early buzz has Torre attacking, among others, star third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who Torre says was called "A-Fraud" by his teammates. Torre claims those criticisms came after Rodriguez developed a "Single White Female"-like obsession with team captain Derek Jeter and asked for a personal clubhouse assistant to run errands for him. In other portions of the book, Torre also take’s issue with Cashman’s handling of the manager’s 2007 departure from the team. Central to Torre’s beef is that Cashman never told the team’s executives that the manager wanted a two-year deal and elected to remain silent during Torre's final meeting with the bosses. In all, the book is 477 pages, published by Doubleday and if it turns out to be as harsh in tone as advertised, would be totally out of character for Torre, known for being a class act. Not at all what you’d expect after he managed the Yankees for 12 successful seasons from 1996 to 2007, winning four world championships, which wasn’t enough for demanding, unreasonable owner George Steinbrenner. Because he dared to go more than 3-4 seasons without winning a world championship, Torre was shown the door in the fall of 2007 after a 20-minute meeting over his contract with Steinbrenner and other Yankee officials at the team's Tampa, Fla., office. Torre went in seeking a two-year contract with the possibility of a buyout, but all the team would offer him was a one-year deal at a 30 percent pay cut. Now that George Steinbrenner has stepped down as owner because of health issues and left the team to his sons, Hank and Hal, Torre is apparently willing to share some of the dirt he’s accumulated on the Yankees for the sake of making a few extra bucks on a book. Now we just have to wait and see if this book turns out to be as vitriolic and mean-spirited as it’s being alleged to be……..
- Other than removing a lying, bribe-taking, corrupt political official from office, the impeachment proceedings against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich may have some unintended-but-hilarious side benefits. The hearings began Monday in the state Senate, but my man Blago is apparently following through on his plans to skip the trial and instead appear on several television programs. Because he deems the impeachment proceedings unfair, unjust and politically motivated, Blagojevich seems to think he’s making a point by now showing up for the hearings even as he is staring down federal corruption allegations, including trying to trade or sell the Senate seat that became vacant after Barack Obama was elected president. Rather than show up for hearings which could remove him from office, he made the first TV appearance of his personal press tour Monday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America" before moving on to "The View," where he appeared with his wife in a shameless ploy to portray himself as a solid family man before wrapping up the day on CNN's "Larry King Live." Among the gems Blagojevich dropped on the day was that he actually considered appointing Oprah Winfrey as Obama's Senate replacement. I can see that, because after all, Oprah is one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in America, so she could have offered Blagojevich some sweet bribes, fo’ sho. Plus, who wouldn’t love seeing Oprah on the Senate floor? “And now, a bill……ON URBAN DEVELOPMENT!!! AND YOU GET A NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT! AND YOU GET A NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT! EVERYBODY GETS A NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT!” Yes, what an era in U.S. history that would have been. So how did Blagojevich attempt to justify his notion to appoint a talk show how with no political experience even though it’s painfully obvious that he doesn’t have an actual reason? Glad you asked. "She seemed to be someone who had helped Barack Obama in a significant way become president," he said. "She was obviously someone with a much broader bully pulpit than other senators." So she has influence and can reach a wide range of people? Why not Bono, in that case? Brian Urlacher is an Illinois resident, why not him? Lovie Smith coaches the Bears, so he definitely reaches a lot people with his messages, why not him? Good thing you sold the seat to, er, um, appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris instead, because as bad as your legacy is going to be once you’re impeached, having appointed Oprah Winfrey as a senator would have made it that much worse. Oh, and thanks for the good chuckle I got from your complaints about the "unconstitutional" impeachment trial, which "denies me the right to call witnesses to defend myself and prove my innocence." Impeachment is constitutional in its very nature by way of it being in your state’s constitution. Your state’s legislature follow the procedure, impeached you and you can’t deal with it, so you’re crying, “No fair!” like an angry first grader on the playground. At least you got one thing right, Governor: the Illinois Senate will vote to remove you from office and they will demand you step down "relatively soon." Sooner or later, you’re going to have to own what you did and accept responsibility or you’ll always be nothing more than a punchline…..
- For almost as long as it’s been on the air, ABC’s Ugly Betty has been the prototypical cult favorite; a show with a decent, not overwhelming, following but never a ratings darling. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it and while it’s not a show I’d personally watch on a regular basis, it also seems to be a pretty decent show that would definitely appeal to a certain demographic. In other words, it’s not nearly as bad as a lot of the garbage networks like ABC tend to throw up on their airwaves. However, as often happens with really good shows that just don’t click with a ginormous number of viewers and thus allow networks to rake in the maximum amount of advertising dollars, Betty appears to be in danger of extinction very soon. In a just-announced Thursday night scheduling change, ABC is pulling the show from its normal time slot beginning March 26 and replacing it with episodes of Samantha Who? and the new Megan Mullally-Cheryl Hines comedy In the Motherhood. In other words, they’re yanking it for the very kind of abysmal, nauseatingly bad sh*t I was referring to just a few sentences ago. Samantha Who? has been a terrible show ever since it’s been on the air, but being a bad show is rarely occasion to be canceled in the land of network TV. In a release from the network, ABC’s suits state that, "Ugly Betty will return to Thursday nights at 8:00 p.m. following the run of In the Motherhood and Samantha Who?". Estimates would place that return some time during the month of June, which is typically the time of year reserved for shows that the network is looking to kill off while not interfering with its normal schedule. In trying to put a positive spin on a bad decision, an ABC spokesperson labeled Ugly Betty “a solid performer” and said “there is no question that it will definitely be back to complete its season, just without repeats.” Not that I’m tuning in to your crap-tacular network for anything but Lost, but a big thumbs down on this decision for ABC, showing why it has no real shot to be America’s top network any time soon, by anyone’s standard……..
- When is a beatdown too much of a beatdown? It’s a subjective matter, but I think we can all agree that when you throw up a 100-0 whitewash in a high school basketball game, you’ve crossed the line. In that respect, I can see where the Covenant School of Dallas, a private Christian school, might be upset with coach Micah Grimes. He was the one leasding the charge as Covenant continued to hoist and make 3-pointers deep into the fourth quarter even after being up 59-0 at halftime. Grimes also did nothing while spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points, electing to keep coaching as if the game were still being hotly contested. When you are the coach of a good team taking on a very bad team with only eight girls on its varsity team and about 20 girls in its high school, that sort of coaching behavior could rightly be construed as inappropriate and insensitive. Dallas Academy hasn’t won a game the last four seasons and admirably, it specializes in teaching students struggling with "learning differences," such as short attention spans or dyslexia. In other words, it takes on the challenge of teaching students most other schools would prefer not to deal with. They clearly don’t place a high emphasis on having successful athletic programs, but that doesn’t mean you need to crush their spirits and pour it on by a 100-point margin. That being said, I don’t agree with the decision by officials at the Covenant School to fire Grimes because of the lopsided win. Yes, Grimes is on the record as saying he will not apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity." Also, the school does appear legitimately embarrassed by the rout, posting a statement on its Web site last week lamenting the outcome of its Jan. 13 shutout win over Dallas Academy. "It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition," said the statement, signed the head of the school and its board chair. Again, I agree with the school on this one as it pertains to the game and its outcome being just plain wrong. However, Grimes’ actions and subsequent response don’t merit a firing - unless there’s more to the story. If he’s done this sort of thing before or was already on thin ice because of past mistakes and indiscretions, then fine. This could be the sort of last straw to push him out the door. But if there’s nothing else against him, then a 100-0 rout should earn him a suspension and nothing more. Suspend him for five games, eight games, whatever. Tell him he must apologize and serve the suspension or he’ll be fired, but don’t can him immediately. Unless there is some sort of criminal conduct or blatant violation committed, a coach shouldn’t be fired for something like this. You’re firing him for something very much subjective and that’s not right. Of course, neither is Grimes insisting that “my values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent.” Umm, that’s exactly what you did, M. Now it’s cost you your coaching gig and even though the punishment may not fit the crime, you didn’t do anything to help your case…..
- Is it bluster and hype to sell a book or is current L.A. Dodgers and former New York Yankees manager Joe Torre really taking aim at the Yankees by calling many of his former players prima donnas, saying he lost faith in the team’s top executives long before leaving New York and accusing general manager Brian Cashman of betraying him? The book is the result of Torre’s work with co-author Tom Verducci, a longtime Sports Illustrated reporter who tells Torre’s tale through interviews. The book is called The Yankee Years, and early buzz has Torre attacking, among others, star third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who Torre says was called "A-Fraud" by his teammates. Torre claims those criticisms came after Rodriguez developed a "Single White Female"-like obsession with team captain Derek Jeter and asked for a personal clubhouse assistant to run errands for him. In other portions of the book, Torre also take’s issue with Cashman’s handling of the manager’s 2007 departure from the team. Central to Torre’s beef is that Cashman never told the team’s executives that the manager wanted a two-year deal and elected to remain silent during Torre's final meeting with the bosses. In all, the book is 477 pages, published by Doubleday and if it turns out to be as harsh in tone as advertised, would be totally out of character for Torre, known for being a class act. Not at all what you’d expect after he managed the Yankees for 12 successful seasons from 1996 to 2007, winning four world championships, which wasn’t enough for demanding, unreasonable owner George Steinbrenner. Because he dared to go more than 3-4 seasons without winning a world championship, Torre was shown the door in the fall of 2007 after a 20-minute meeting over his contract with Steinbrenner and other Yankee officials at the team's Tampa, Fla., office. Torre went in seeking a two-year contract with the possibility of a buyout, but all the team would offer him was a one-year deal at a 30 percent pay cut. Now that George Steinbrenner has stepped down as owner because of health issues and left the team to his sons, Hank and Hal, Torre is apparently willing to share some of the dirt he’s accumulated on the Yankees for the sake of making a few extra bucks on a book. Now we just have to wait and see if this book turns out to be as vitriolic and mean-spirited as it’s being alleged to be……..
- Other than removing a lying, bribe-taking, corrupt political official from office, the impeachment proceedings against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich may have some unintended-but-hilarious side benefits. The hearings began Monday in the state Senate, but my man Blago is apparently following through on his plans to skip the trial and instead appear on several television programs. Because he deems the impeachment proceedings unfair, unjust and politically motivated, Blagojevich seems to think he’s making a point by now showing up for the hearings even as he is staring down federal corruption allegations, including trying to trade or sell the Senate seat that became vacant after Barack Obama was elected president. Rather than show up for hearings which could remove him from office, he made the first TV appearance of his personal press tour Monday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America" before moving on to "The View," where he appeared with his wife in a shameless ploy to portray himself as a solid family man before wrapping up the day on CNN's "Larry King Live." Among the gems Blagojevich dropped on the day was that he actually considered appointing Oprah Winfrey as Obama's Senate replacement. I can see that, because after all, Oprah is one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in America, so she could have offered Blagojevich some sweet bribes, fo’ sho. Plus, who wouldn’t love seeing Oprah on the Senate floor? “And now, a bill……ON URBAN DEVELOPMENT!!! AND YOU GET A NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT! AND YOU GET A NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT! EVERYBODY GETS A NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT!” Yes, what an era in U.S. history that would have been. So how did Blagojevich attempt to justify his notion to appoint a talk show how with no political experience even though it’s painfully obvious that he doesn’t have an actual reason? Glad you asked. "She seemed to be someone who had helped Barack Obama in a significant way become president," he said. "She was obviously someone with a much broader bully pulpit than other senators." So she has influence and can reach a wide range of people? Why not Bono, in that case? Brian Urlacher is an Illinois resident, why not him? Lovie Smith coaches the Bears, so he definitely reaches a lot people with his messages, why not him? Good thing you sold the seat to, er, um, appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris instead, because as bad as your legacy is going to be once you’re impeached, having appointed Oprah Winfrey as a senator would have made it that much worse. Oh, and thanks for the good chuckle I got from your complaints about the "unconstitutional" impeachment trial, which "denies me the right to call witnesses to defend myself and prove my innocence." Impeachment is constitutional in its very nature by way of it being in your state’s constitution. Your state’s legislature follow the procedure, impeached you and you can’t deal with it, so you’re crying, “No fair!” like an angry first grader on the playground. At least you got one thing right, Governor: the Illinois Senate will vote to remove you from office and they will demand you step down "relatively soon." Sooner or later, you’re going to have to own what you did and accept responsibility or you’ll always be nothing more than a punchline…..
- For almost as long as it’s been on the air, ABC’s Ugly Betty has been the prototypical cult favorite; a show with a decent, not overwhelming, following but never a ratings darling. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it and while it’s not a show I’d personally watch on a regular basis, it also seems to be a pretty decent show that would definitely appeal to a certain demographic. In other words, it’s not nearly as bad as a lot of the garbage networks like ABC tend to throw up on their airwaves. However, as often happens with really good shows that just don’t click with a ginormous number of viewers and thus allow networks to rake in the maximum amount of advertising dollars, Betty appears to be in danger of extinction very soon. In a just-announced Thursday night scheduling change, ABC is pulling the show from its normal time slot beginning March 26 and replacing it with episodes of Samantha Who? and the new Megan Mullally-Cheryl Hines comedy In the Motherhood. In other words, they’re yanking it for the very kind of abysmal, nauseatingly bad sh*t I was referring to just a few sentences ago. Samantha Who? has been a terrible show ever since it’s been on the air, but being a bad show is rarely occasion to be canceled in the land of network TV. In a release from the network, ABC’s suits state that, "Ugly Betty will return to Thursday nights at 8:00 p.m. following the run of In the Motherhood and Samantha Who?". Estimates would place that return some time during the month of June, which is typically the time of year reserved for shows that the network is looking to kill off while not interfering with its normal schedule. In trying to put a positive spin on a bad decision, an ABC spokesperson labeled Ugly Betty “a solid performer” and said “there is no question that it will definitely be back to complete its season, just without repeats.” Not that I’m tuning in to your crap-tacular network for anything but Lost, but a big thumbs down on this decision for ABC, showing why it has no real shot to be America’s top network any time soon, by anyone’s standard……..
- When is a beatdown too much of a beatdown? It’s a subjective matter, but I think we can all agree that when you throw up a 100-0 whitewash in a high school basketball game, you’ve crossed the line. In that respect, I can see where the Covenant School of Dallas, a private Christian school, might be upset with coach Micah Grimes. He was the one leasding the charge as Covenant continued to hoist and make 3-pointers deep into the fourth quarter even after being up 59-0 at halftime. Grimes also did nothing while spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points, electing to keep coaching as if the game were still being hotly contested. When you are the coach of a good team taking on a very bad team with only eight girls on its varsity team and about 20 girls in its high school, that sort of coaching behavior could rightly be construed as inappropriate and insensitive. Dallas Academy hasn’t won a game the last four seasons and admirably, it specializes in teaching students struggling with "learning differences," such as short attention spans or dyslexia. In other words, it takes on the challenge of teaching students most other schools would prefer not to deal with. They clearly don’t place a high emphasis on having successful athletic programs, but that doesn’t mean you need to crush their spirits and pour it on by a 100-point margin. That being said, I don’t agree with the decision by officials at the Covenant School to fire Grimes because of the lopsided win. Yes, Grimes is on the record as saying he will not apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity." Also, the school does appear legitimately embarrassed by the rout, posting a statement on its Web site last week lamenting the outcome of its Jan. 13 shutout win over Dallas Academy. "It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened. This clearly does not reflect a Christlike and honorable approach to competition," said the statement, signed the head of the school and its board chair. Again, I agree with the school on this one as it pertains to the game and its outcome being just plain wrong. However, Grimes’ actions and subsequent response don’t merit a firing - unless there’s more to the story. If he’s done this sort of thing before or was already on thin ice because of past mistakes and indiscretions, then fine. This could be the sort of last straw to push him out the door. But if there’s nothing else against him, then a 100-0 rout should earn him a suspension and nothing more. Suspend him for five games, eight games, whatever. Tell him he must apologize and serve the suspension or he’ll be fired, but don’t can him immediately. Unless there is some sort of criminal conduct or blatant violation committed, a coach shouldn’t be fired for something like this. You’re firing him for something very much subjective and that’s not right. Of course, neither is Grimes insisting that “my values and my beliefs would not allow me to run up the score on any opponent.” Umm, that’s exactly what you did, M. Now it’s cost you your coaching gig and even though the punishment may not fit the crime, you didn’t do anything to help your case…..
Monday, January 26, 2009
Meth making a comeback, some Winter X Games thoughts and the weekend movie lowdown
- Welcome back meth! You’ve been on a decided downturn for several years, but like I always say, you can’t keep a good, potentially deadly and very illegal stimulant down. Like me, I’m sure you’ve watched the past few years as our old friend meth took a dramatic decline and shook your head in disgust. But fear not, because in 2008, the availability of methamphetamine began to creep up. That trend, reported by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), may concern law enforcement agencies, but not me. I look at the more than 17,000 methamphetamine labs that were discovered in 2004, inside homes, barns, and vehicles and I see a solid year. Then I look at 2007, two years after Congress passed restrictions on ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, two key ingredients used in meth production and found in cold and allergy medicines, and see that agents found just 5,910 labs. In other words, within three years, there was a 65 percent reduction in the number of meth labs discovered, which would seem to indicate that the meth industry was in serious trouble. Yes, you might avoid some of the drug’s more dangerous byproducts - toxic waste and explosions - but you’re missing out on a stimulant that brings so much joy to say many. Plus, you had Mexico jumping into the fray and looking to make life tougher for meth producers by banning all imports containing either ephedrine or pseudoephedrine in an attempt to curb exports by large-scale traffickers. That maneuver had the effect of creating methamphetamine shortages in many parts of the U.S. during 2007 and the first part of 2008, but that’s where the can-do attitude of the American spirit kicked in. See, domestic production has stepped up to fill the void, with the little guy coming through big. According to authorities, more small-time cooks are finding ways around federal regulations to obtain what they need to manufacture the drug. The result of those efforts was that other “little guys,” you average meth user on a budget, benefited from a 30 percent fall in the per-gram price of pure methamphetamine, from $267.74 to $184.09, between the last quarter of 2007 and the third quarter of this year. Unfortunately, with more people looking to produce meth, you’re inevitably going to get more idiots involved. It’s just basic logic, with so many morons in the world, when you involve more people in any activity of any kind, you’re going to end up with more than a few tools. That majority of those tools seem to reside in Michigan, where 127 sites were raided between January and July of 2008. In case you’re looking to get in on the action and start your own meth lab, maybe get a few friends together and go in together, the restrictions I referred to earlier place daily and monthly limits on how many grams of ephedrine-based products may be purchased. Businesses are required to check customers' identification and log the amounts into a store or chain-wide database to ensure compliance. However, a technique called "smurfing" has become popular for those looking to circumvent these rules. Smurfing involves small groups who know two or three cooks traveling from store to store, buying the maximum allowable amount of ingredients and later trading medications for finished methamphetamine or cash. Add it all up and you have an impressive comeback for meth after a few years going the wrong direction, financially speaking……..
- America, you do know that making a terrible movie the top earner at the box office two weekends in a row doesn’t somehow transform it into a good movie, right? You also know that it says nothing good about you or America as a nation that for two straight weekends, a clunker like "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" was the highest-grossing film in your country, right? Maybe not, because otherwise this steaming, stinking turd of a movie wouldn’t have made $21.5 million to secure the No. 1 slot for the second week in a row. An overweight mall security guard trying to protect the mall where he works from criminals just doesn’t pass for good cinema in my corner of the world. That being said, the film has now grossed $64.8 million in its two weeks of release and appears to be a near-lock to surpass $100 million. Coming in second place was "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans," which is a prequel examining the roots of a feud between vampires and werewolves but is actually the third installment of the "Underworld" series. The movie opened well, scoring a pay day of $20.7 million. That’s slightly less than its two predecessors — "Underworld" and "Underworld: Evolution" — which earned $21.7 million and $26.8 million, respectively, in their opening weekends. Another sci-fi/fantasy flick wasn’t as successful in its opening weekend, as the fantasy adventure "Inkheart" earned a mere $7.7 million in its debut. Yes, I know it’s shocking that a movie starring an acting legend and master thespian like Brendan Fraser would struggle so badly, but it’s true. Some films that had been out for a little while received a boost from being nominated for Academy Awards, as well as being expanded into wider release. That includes "Slumdog Millionaire," the drama about a game-show contestant from the slums of Mumbai, which earned $10.6 million this weekend as it was shown in more than 1,400 theaters. The top 10 shakes out this way, from top to bottom: 1) "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," $21.5 million, 2) "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans," $20.7 million, 3) "Gran Torino," $16 million, 4) "Hotel for Dogs," $12.4 million, 5) "Slumdog Millionaire," $10.6 million, 6) "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," $10.1 million, 7) "Inkheart," $7.7 million, 8) "Bride Wars," $7 million, 9) "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," $6 million, 10) "Notorious," $5.7 million. Some pretty solid movies in there, what with Gran Torino and Notorious, but a lot of crap, especially near the top of the list. You can do better than that, America……
- Every nationality on the face of the Earth likes to think that its women are the most beautiful and desirable. That’s true whether you’re in Europe, Africa, Asia, North or South America, even Australia. Thinking your chicas are hotter than those residing in every other country in the world is one thing, but implying that your women are so beautiful they need military escorts to avoid being raped, quite another. Leave it to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi to do just that, suggesting that Italy's women were in need of those military escorts in order to avoid getting raped. His comments came in response to questions about his proposal to deploy 300,000 soldiers in the streets to fight crime. That decision was precipitated by a series of violent attacks, including a rape in Rome on New Year's Eve and another outside the capital this week, which have led to a public outcry for the government to step in and address the issue. "We would have to have so many soldiers because our women are so beautiful," he declared. Opposition leaders didn’t seem to take those words with a sense of humor, definitely not Giovanna Melandri of the opposition Democratic Party, said Berlusconi's comments were "profoundly offensive." Melandri’s argument is that the pain of rape could never be joked about, which I have to agree with. Berlusconi attempted to double back and explain what he really meant by saying that he was complimenting Italian women "because there are only about 100,000 people in law enforcement, while there are millions of beautiful women." He went on to make the PR play of stressing that rape was a serious and "disgraceful" crime, but then proceeded to submarine his efforts by adding that people should never forget a sense of "levity and good humor" whenever his comments are concerned. Hey Silvio, you may or may not know this, but being a billionaire media-mogul-turned politician with a history of being an ass and sticking his foot in his mouth doesn’t give you carte blanche to say whatever the heck you feel like saying. There’s no “Manny being Manny” principle in play here, where you can do something bizarre, moronic or offensive and chalk it up to “Silvio being Silvio.” You have to be responsible for what you say, whether it’s comparing a German politician to a Nazi camp guard, saying shortly after 9/11 that Western civilization was superior to Islam or this rape comment. Stop saying everything that pops into your mind, exercise a little discretion or go away and stay away, your choice……
- Hopefully you tuned in this past weekend to catch all or part of Winter X 13, the 13th installment of the winter version of the X Games. Whether it was snowboarding, skiing or snowmobiles, the action was flat out awesome, right up to the signature event of the Games, the men’s Snowboard Superpipe Sunday night. The event featured a showdown between two of the biggest rivals in extreme sports, Shaun White (a.k.a. the Flying Tomato) and Kevin Pearce, two riders with decidedly different approaches to the sport. Pearce is a guy who has made a point of saying that the most important part of his career is being able to share it with his friends and enjoy the ride, while White has subjected himself to a rugged training and competition schedule in order to be successful both in the Summer and Winter X-Games sports. He’s a snowboarder in the winter, a skateboarder in the summer and a spokesman for numerous products all year round. He’s the most public face of extreme sports right now and has the medals to back that rep up. Pearce and White have been dueling it out at competitions all over the world the past couple of years, with Pearce one of the few riders to beat White on nights when the Flying Tomato was at his best. Last night, White wasn’t at his best for his first two runs of the Superpipe, which was a problem because the finals of the event are a best-of-three runs, with eight finalists getting three runs and taking their best individual run score. White fell on his first two runs, as did several other riders on a slick pipe that was also subjected to snowfall and pretty solid winds midway through the final round. Pearce was able to throw up a 90.66 on his second run to take the lead and it stood until the final run of the final round, when White was awarded a score of 91.66 that didn’t seem nearly as impressive or technically sound as Pearce’s run. Pearce got up higher on his tricks and it certainly seemed that the judges had to be giving White a little too much credit based on his reputation and not basing his score enough on his actual performance. The win gave White his tenth X-Games gold medal, putting him higher up on the list of X legends that includes names like Tony Hawk and Travis Pastrana. Regardless of your take on the final result, it was a thrilling capper for another awesome installment of the X Games, which don’t get nearly the credit or attention they and their competitors deserve…….
- What’s up, Frenchies? I thought you all were supposed to be the world’s greatest lovers, bar none. If that’s true, why is French President Nicolas Sarkozy having to subject himself to an intense exercise regimen in the past 10 months under the direction of personal trainer Julie Imperiali in order to shed nine pounds, two pants sizes and of course, make him better in bed? Yes, that’s what Imperiali said in a recent interview, that the French head of state has also reaped benefits from his workout routine in the form of improved sex, thanks to her Tectonic method of exercise that targets muscles in the pelvic floor. While I’m perfectly content going the rest of my life without ever hearing or writing the phrase pelvic floor again, you have to admit it’s funny to hear this. For one thing, don’t the French pride themselves on being great lovers, regardless of their physical conditioning? Second…..duh. Who doesn’t know that being in better condition would make you better in the sack? Only makes sense that if you’re stronger, more flexible and have better endurance, that’s going to be the case. Hard to have too good of a time between the sheets if your partner is so out of shape that he or she is winded two minutes in or seems on the brink of a heart attack at the most minimal level of exertion. Either way, consider this the first and last time you’ll ever see me writing about the sex life of a foreign leader for any reason…….
- America, you do know that making a terrible movie the top earner at the box office two weekends in a row doesn’t somehow transform it into a good movie, right? You also know that it says nothing good about you or America as a nation that for two straight weekends, a clunker like "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" was the highest-grossing film in your country, right? Maybe not, because otherwise this steaming, stinking turd of a movie wouldn’t have made $21.5 million to secure the No. 1 slot for the second week in a row. An overweight mall security guard trying to protect the mall where he works from criminals just doesn’t pass for good cinema in my corner of the world. That being said, the film has now grossed $64.8 million in its two weeks of release and appears to be a near-lock to surpass $100 million. Coming in second place was "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans," which is a prequel examining the roots of a feud between vampires and werewolves but is actually the third installment of the "Underworld" series. The movie opened well, scoring a pay day of $20.7 million. That’s slightly less than its two predecessors — "Underworld" and "Underworld: Evolution" — which earned $21.7 million and $26.8 million, respectively, in their opening weekends. Another sci-fi/fantasy flick wasn’t as successful in its opening weekend, as the fantasy adventure "Inkheart" earned a mere $7.7 million in its debut. Yes, I know it’s shocking that a movie starring an acting legend and master thespian like Brendan Fraser would struggle so badly, but it’s true. Some films that had been out for a little while received a boost from being nominated for Academy Awards, as well as being expanded into wider release. That includes "Slumdog Millionaire," the drama about a game-show contestant from the slums of Mumbai, which earned $10.6 million this weekend as it was shown in more than 1,400 theaters. The top 10 shakes out this way, from top to bottom: 1) "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," $21.5 million, 2) "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans," $20.7 million, 3) "Gran Torino," $16 million, 4) "Hotel for Dogs," $12.4 million, 5) "Slumdog Millionaire," $10.6 million, 6) "My Bloody Valentine 3-D," $10.1 million, 7) "Inkheart," $7.7 million, 8) "Bride Wars," $7 million, 9) "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," $6 million, 10) "Notorious," $5.7 million. Some pretty solid movies in there, what with Gran Torino and Notorious, but a lot of crap, especially near the top of the list. You can do better than that, America……
- Every nationality on the face of the Earth likes to think that its women are the most beautiful and desirable. That’s true whether you’re in Europe, Africa, Asia, North or South America, even Australia. Thinking your chicas are hotter than those residing in every other country in the world is one thing, but implying that your women are so beautiful they need military escorts to avoid being raped, quite another. Leave it to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi to do just that, suggesting that Italy's women were in need of those military escorts in order to avoid getting raped. His comments came in response to questions about his proposal to deploy 300,000 soldiers in the streets to fight crime. That decision was precipitated by a series of violent attacks, including a rape in Rome on New Year's Eve and another outside the capital this week, which have led to a public outcry for the government to step in and address the issue. "We would have to have so many soldiers because our women are so beautiful," he declared. Opposition leaders didn’t seem to take those words with a sense of humor, definitely not Giovanna Melandri of the opposition Democratic Party, said Berlusconi's comments were "profoundly offensive." Melandri’s argument is that the pain of rape could never be joked about, which I have to agree with. Berlusconi attempted to double back and explain what he really meant by saying that he was complimenting Italian women "because there are only about 100,000 people in law enforcement, while there are millions of beautiful women." He went on to make the PR play of stressing that rape was a serious and "disgraceful" crime, but then proceeded to submarine his efforts by adding that people should never forget a sense of "levity and good humor" whenever his comments are concerned. Hey Silvio, you may or may not know this, but being a billionaire media-mogul-turned politician with a history of being an ass and sticking his foot in his mouth doesn’t give you carte blanche to say whatever the heck you feel like saying. There’s no “Manny being Manny” principle in play here, where you can do something bizarre, moronic or offensive and chalk it up to “Silvio being Silvio.” You have to be responsible for what you say, whether it’s comparing a German politician to a Nazi camp guard, saying shortly after 9/11 that Western civilization was superior to Islam or this rape comment. Stop saying everything that pops into your mind, exercise a little discretion or go away and stay away, your choice……
- Hopefully you tuned in this past weekend to catch all or part of Winter X 13, the 13th installment of the winter version of the X Games. Whether it was snowboarding, skiing or snowmobiles, the action was flat out awesome, right up to the signature event of the Games, the men’s Snowboard Superpipe Sunday night. The event featured a showdown between two of the biggest rivals in extreme sports, Shaun White (a.k.a. the Flying Tomato) and Kevin Pearce, two riders with decidedly different approaches to the sport. Pearce is a guy who has made a point of saying that the most important part of his career is being able to share it with his friends and enjoy the ride, while White has subjected himself to a rugged training and competition schedule in order to be successful both in the Summer and Winter X-Games sports. He’s a snowboarder in the winter, a skateboarder in the summer and a spokesman for numerous products all year round. He’s the most public face of extreme sports right now and has the medals to back that rep up. Pearce and White have been dueling it out at competitions all over the world the past couple of years, with Pearce one of the few riders to beat White on nights when the Flying Tomato was at his best. Last night, White wasn’t at his best for his first two runs of the Superpipe, which was a problem because the finals of the event are a best-of-three runs, with eight finalists getting three runs and taking their best individual run score. White fell on his first two runs, as did several other riders on a slick pipe that was also subjected to snowfall and pretty solid winds midway through the final round. Pearce was able to throw up a 90.66 on his second run to take the lead and it stood until the final run of the final round, when White was awarded a score of 91.66 that didn’t seem nearly as impressive or technically sound as Pearce’s run. Pearce got up higher on his tricks and it certainly seemed that the judges had to be giving White a little too much credit based on his reputation and not basing his score enough on his actual performance. The win gave White his tenth X-Games gold medal, putting him higher up on the list of X legends that includes names like Tony Hawk and Travis Pastrana. Regardless of your take on the final result, it was a thrilling capper for another awesome installment of the X Games, which don’t get nearly the credit or attention they and their competitors deserve…….
- What’s up, Frenchies? I thought you all were supposed to be the world’s greatest lovers, bar none. If that’s true, why is French President Nicolas Sarkozy having to subject himself to an intense exercise regimen in the past 10 months under the direction of personal trainer Julie Imperiali in order to shed nine pounds, two pants sizes and of course, make him better in bed? Yes, that’s what Imperiali said in a recent interview, that the French head of state has also reaped benefits from his workout routine in the form of improved sex, thanks to her Tectonic method of exercise that targets muscles in the pelvic floor. While I’m perfectly content going the rest of my life without ever hearing or writing the phrase pelvic floor again, you have to admit it’s funny to hear this. For one thing, don’t the French pride themselves on being great lovers, regardless of their physical conditioning? Second…..duh. Who doesn’t know that being in better condition would make you better in the sack? Only makes sense that if you’re stronger, more flexible and have better endurance, that’s going to be the case. Hard to have too good of a time between the sheets if your partner is so out of shape that he or she is winded two minutes in or seems on the brink of a heart attack at the most minimal level of exertion. Either way, consider this the first and last time you’ll ever see me writing about the sex life of a foreign leader for any reason…….
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The wealthy of SoCal can rest easier, Leroy Hill takes the wrong approach to landing a big contract and Riot Watch! is back, b'otch
- Never thought I would see this day: the day someone asserts that there’s actually something valuable to be stolen from the set of the NBC show "Lipstick Jungle." You’d think that with a show that abysmally crappy that anything associated with the show would be worthless, no matter how high it’s value in a vacuum, away from the show. But there’s the Brooklyn district attorney's office charging Arthur Moreira a stage manager on production facilities for the show, with stealing almost $30,000 in designer fashion from the show’s wardrobe collection. What’s truly funny is that Moreira was caught as part of a sting operation. Yes, we have sting operations to catch drug dealers and terrorists, but dammit, more importantly we have sting operations to catch people stealing outfits from crappy, third-rate sitcoms and selling them out of their apartment. That’s where Moreira was apprehended, at his apartment where he sold stolen items to undercover operatives. Credit for the bust goes in large part to employees of French designer Sylvia Toledano, who spotted several items that the fashion house had lent to the show on eBay. All told, 16 items were stolen from Brooklyn-based Broadway Ventures, which owns the production and storage facilities used by "Lipstick Jungle." Included were items like sequined mosaic clutches, an Oscar de la Renta snakeskin bag and Gucci coats. So we know two things about Moreira based on this: 1) he’s a thief, and 2) he’s very, very gay. In case you’re sitting there bewildered, knowing nothing about "Lipstick Jungle" because you’ve never heard of it….well, it’s supposed to be a comedy-drama hybrid about three high-powered friends, played by Brooke Shields, Kim Raver and Lindsay Price. Don’t worry, it’ll be canceled soon enough, so don’t worry about making any effort to watch it and see how bad it truly is……..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch, b’otch! That’s right, the world’s favorite celebration of violent (and non-violent) social dissidence is back and wouldn’t you know it, it’s those crazy anarchists in Athens, Greece who are leading the way. Several hundreds of these advocates of the right to riot and oppose their government fought with police in central Athens Saturday after a march to demand the release of people arrested during riots last month. I suppose this is some sort of bizarre cycle of rioting, or chain-rioting as I’m choosing to call it. Just like you smoker losers light one cancer stick off of another to get your nicotine fix, these riots are sparking other riots because inevitably in any riot, some people are arrested and jailed and that makes others in their group even angrier, thus leading to more riots. Plus, nothing like the horrified looks on the faces of shoppers jamming into Athens' main shopping district for winter sales when they’re confronted with the sight of marchers covering their faces with motorcycle helmets and bandanas and carrying sticks and iron bars. Not quite worth it to risk getting smashed in the head with a lead pipe in order to get a good price on some Ugg boots, is it? What has me particularly excited about these riots is that there was property destruction and looting, with a Nike shop was smashed and looted. For one, Nike can afford it with the ridonkulous (yes, it’s a word if I want it to be) prices it charges for its sneaks and gear, and second, The Man isn’t going to take notice until things start getting broken. That preceded violent outbursts in which rioters tried to smash a security camera and riot police armed with batons charged them. At least three arrests were made, but this wasn’t the only battleground for the day. Clashes also occurred outside the main University of Athens building, with the rioters throwing stones and police firing back with pepper spray. Plus, nearly 300 rioters continued their march toward the district of Exarchia, which serves as the anarchists' base, setting fire to trash cans, smashing pavement and throwing chunks of the broken pavement at police. Just an awesome scene, one made that much better when riot police fired back with tear gas and a bum rush of the main Exarchia square, dispersing the crowd. But wait, there’s more! There was another march in the western city of Patras, where protesters attacked a newspaper building and inflicted property damage. All of this because these angry anarchists (which would be a great name for a punk rock band) claim a total of 67 people — 50 in Athens and the rest in other Greek cities — are being held for taking part in violent riots in Athens and other Greek cities in December. They want those people released immediately and honestly….I could go either way on this one. If those jailed are released, there will be that many more angry anarchists on the street, which can’t be bad. If they remain in jail, we get more rioting. It’s the quintessential win-win situation, can’t be beaten…….
- I am not a sports agent, nor do I have a lot of experience in counseling NFL free agents about maximizing their chance for a big pay day and landing a fat contract from a team. However, I feel confident in saying that the way Seattle Seahawks linebacker Leroy Hill has kicked off this offseason is a bad approach. Hill, who is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent Feb. 27, faces a misdemeanor charge for marijuana possession after authorities found him passed out behind the wheel at an intersection in suburban Atlanta. While it’s good that he started Super Bowl XL as a rookie, has started 50 regular-season games in four NFL seasons and led the Seahawks in tackles or tied for the lead five times in seven playoff games, having teams find out that you’re a stoner who gets high and drives around town doesn’t exactly scream, “Sign me to a huge free-agent contract and put your faith in me to lead your defense for the next 4 to 5 years!” Hill was found at an intersection passed out behind the wheel and a search of his car turned up two bags of marijuana. What’s funny is that prior to this incident, Seahawks general manager Tim Ruskell recently stated that the team would consider naming Hill its franchise player, which would mean he would be paid as one of the top five players at his position in the entire NFL next season. I’m just guessing here, but if the team knew that getting baked was so important to Hill before Ruskell made those comments, he might have taken a different approach. So stop taking career advice from Ricky Williams and Willie Nelson, hit up one of those sweet celebrity rehab centers and put down the bong, Leroy, before you throw away a great chance at making some nice bank……
- Boy, this is a real burden lifted off of my weary mind. The rich, snobbish people of Los Angeles can finally rest easier, knowing that the thieves who have been hitting up homes of the rich for years and stealing more than $10 million worth of valuables and cash from 150 homes in upscale neighborhoods such as Bel Air, Pacific Palisades and Beverly Hills have apparently been caught. "These guys were real good," said L.A. City Councilman Jack Weiss, who oversees Bel Air where some of the burglaries were committed. "They were professionals." And who doesn’t feel bad when Hollywood celebrities, professional athletes and multimillionaires are touched up for loot? Look, I know that anyone whose home was broken into would feel violated and that losing your possessions sucks no matter who you are, but when you’ve got so much crap that your closet is crammed with expensive outfits you’ve never worn, you have a car for every day of the week and you can never actually spend all of the money you make, absorbing the hit of a burglary must be a tad easier. Plus, this band of thieves showed good taste, striking back at musicians who have foisted so much hurt on so many: country music artists. They hit up the home of country music stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, and to be honest, whatever amount of money and goods they stole from that home is not nearly enough payback for the hurt inflicted on anyone who has ever been unwillingly subjected to either Hill or McGraw’s sad excuses for music. For all of the above reasons, I’m just not as upset as most of you probably are with Troy Corsby Thomas and his crew, dubbed the "Hillside Burglars." Thomas was arrested near L.A. International Airport last weekend. He’s now being held on $2 million bail, having pleaded not guilty to two charges of residential burglary, one in January 2006 and another in March 2008. He’s likely to face additional charges at his next court appearance on Thursday, and the wealthy residents of SoCal couldn’t be happier. "We're delighted," said Robert René, president of Brentwood Homeowners Association, which represents about 800 homes. "We are very fortunate to have the due diligence of the Westside LAPD." Yes, amazing how rich people get that help so often. Now scurry off to your 3 p.m. tee time, driving your black Mercedes down your paved, tree-lined driveway in front of your $5 million home while talking on one of your three Blackberry devices and deciding whether to go out with your Botox-filled wife or mistress tonight and don’t bother me again. I don’t think in Watts or Compton that you’re going to have people doing things like donating $8,000 for infrared cameras that can spot burglars in the dark, as happened here. As always, kudos on looking out for your own and ensuring that the wealthy stay nice and protected, rich people of SoCal……
- Not a fan of alt-country/rock band the Silver Jews, but I did get a kick of of the band’s mastermind, David Berman, and the way he announced his plans to quit music. Dude posted messages on the Drag City Records Web site, saying that a Jan. 31 show at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tenn., will be the group's last. "I guess I am moving over to another category. Screenwriting or muckraking. I've got to move on. Can't be like all the careerists doncha know," Berman wrote. "I'm forty two and I know what to do. I'm a writer, see?" Before finishing, he also took a swipe at Michael Stipe and R.E.M., saying, “If I continue to record I might accidentally write the answer song to 'Shiny Happy People'," one of Stipe’s band’s hits. However, Berman didn’t stop there and reserved his harshest comments for dead ol’ dad, veteran Washington lobbyist Richard Berman. David Berman took shots at his father for his work with organizations that seek to freeze the minimum wage and raise blood-alcohol arrest levels. "Previously I thought, through songs and poems and drawings I could find and build a refuge away from his world," he wrote. "But there is the matter of justice. And I'll tell you it's not just a metaphor. The desire for it actually burns. It hurts. There needs to be something more. I'll see what that might be." Well, my dislike of his musical genre of choice notwithstanding, that’s one of the better retirement announcements I’ve ever heard, pot-shotting legendary bands and family members alike and holding nothing back. Well done, Dave……..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch, b’otch! That’s right, the world’s favorite celebration of violent (and non-violent) social dissidence is back and wouldn’t you know it, it’s those crazy anarchists in Athens, Greece who are leading the way. Several hundreds of these advocates of the right to riot and oppose their government fought with police in central Athens Saturday after a march to demand the release of people arrested during riots last month. I suppose this is some sort of bizarre cycle of rioting, or chain-rioting as I’m choosing to call it. Just like you smoker losers light one cancer stick off of another to get your nicotine fix, these riots are sparking other riots because inevitably in any riot, some people are arrested and jailed and that makes others in their group even angrier, thus leading to more riots. Plus, nothing like the horrified looks on the faces of shoppers jamming into Athens' main shopping district for winter sales when they’re confronted with the sight of marchers covering their faces with motorcycle helmets and bandanas and carrying sticks and iron bars. Not quite worth it to risk getting smashed in the head with a lead pipe in order to get a good price on some Ugg boots, is it? What has me particularly excited about these riots is that there was property destruction and looting, with a Nike shop was smashed and looted. For one, Nike can afford it with the ridonkulous (yes, it’s a word if I want it to be) prices it charges for its sneaks and gear, and second, The Man isn’t going to take notice until things start getting broken. That preceded violent outbursts in which rioters tried to smash a security camera and riot police armed with batons charged them. At least three arrests were made, but this wasn’t the only battleground for the day. Clashes also occurred outside the main University of Athens building, with the rioters throwing stones and police firing back with pepper spray. Plus, nearly 300 rioters continued their march toward the district of Exarchia, which serves as the anarchists' base, setting fire to trash cans, smashing pavement and throwing chunks of the broken pavement at police. Just an awesome scene, one made that much better when riot police fired back with tear gas and a bum rush of the main Exarchia square, dispersing the crowd. But wait, there’s more! There was another march in the western city of Patras, where protesters attacked a newspaper building and inflicted property damage. All of this because these angry anarchists (which would be a great name for a punk rock band) claim a total of 67 people — 50 in Athens and the rest in other Greek cities — are being held for taking part in violent riots in Athens and other Greek cities in December. They want those people released immediately and honestly….I could go either way on this one. If those jailed are released, there will be that many more angry anarchists on the street, which can’t be bad. If they remain in jail, we get more rioting. It’s the quintessential win-win situation, can’t be beaten…….
- I am not a sports agent, nor do I have a lot of experience in counseling NFL free agents about maximizing their chance for a big pay day and landing a fat contract from a team. However, I feel confident in saying that the way Seattle Seahawks linebacker Leroy Hill has kicked off this offseason is a bad approach. Hill, who is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent Feb. 27, faces a misdemeanor charge for marijuana possession after authorities found him passed out behind the wheel at an intersection in suburban Atlanta. While it’s good that he started Super Bowl XL as a rookie, has started 50 regular-season games in four NFL seasons and led the Seahawks in tackles or tied for the lead five times in seven playoff games, having teams find out that you’re a stoner who gets high and drives around town doesn’t exactly scream, “Sign me to a huge free-agent contract and put your faith in me to lead your defense for the next 4 to 5 years!” Hill was found at an intersection passed out behind the wheel and a search of his car turned up two bags of marijuana. What’s funny is that prior to this incident, Seahawks general manager Tim Ruskell recently stated that the team would consider naming Hill its franchise player, which would mean he would be paid as one of the top five players at his position in the entire NFL next season. I’m just guessing here, but if the team knew that getting baked was so important to Hill before Ruskell made those comments, he might have taken a different approach. So stop taking career advice from Ricky Williams and Willie Nelson, hit up one of those sweet celebrity rehab centers and put down the bong, Leroy, before you throw away a great chance at making some nice bank……
- Boy, this is a real burden lifted off of my weary mind. The rich, snobbish people of Los Angeles can finally rest easier, knowing that the thieves who have been hitting up homes of the rich for years and stealing more than $10 million worth of valuables and cash from 150 homes in upscale neighborhoods such as Bel Air, Pacific Palisades and Beverly Hills have apparently been caught. "These guys were real good," said L.A. City Councilman Jack Weiss, who oversees Bel Air where some of the burglaries were committed. "They were professionals." And who doesn’t feel bad when Hollywood celebrities, professional athletes and multimillionaires are touched up for loot? Look, I know that anyone whose home was broken into would feel violated and that losing your possessions sucks no matter who you are, but when you’ve got so much crap that your closet is crammed with expensive outfits you’ve never worn, you have a car for every day of the week and you can never actually spend all of the money you make, absorbing the hit of a burglary must be a tad easier. Plus, this band of thieves showed good taste, striking back at musicians who have foisted so much hurt on so many: country music artists. They hit up the home of country music stars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, and to be honest, whatever amount of money and goods they stole from that home is not nearly enough payback for the hurt inflicted on anyone who has ever been unwillingly subjected to either Hill or McGraw’s sad excuses for music. For all of the above reasons, I’m just not as upset as most of you probably are with Troy Corsby Thomas and his crew, dubbed the "Hillside Burglars." Thomas was arrested near L.A. International Airport last weekend. He’s now being held on $2 million bail, having pleaded not guilty to two charges of residential burglary, one in January 2006 and another in March 2008. He’s likely to face additional charges at his next court appearance on Thursday, and the wealthy residents of SoCal couldn’t be happier. "We're delighted," said Robert René, president of Brentwood Homeowners Association, which represents about 800 homes. "We are very fortunate to have the due diligence of the Westside LAPD." Yes, amazing how rich people get that help so often. Now scurry off to your 3 p.m. tee time, driving your black Mercedes down your paved, tree-lined driveway in front of your $5 million home while talking on one of your three Blackberry devices and deciding whether to go out with your Botox-filled wife or mistress tonight and don’t bother me again. I don’t think in Watts or Compton that you’re going to have people doing things like donating $8,000 for infrared cameras that can spot burglars in the dark, as happened here. As always, kudos on looking out for your own and ensuring that the wealthy stay nice and protected, rich people of SoCal……
- Not a fan of alt-country/rock band the Silver Jews, but I did get a kick of of the band’s mastermind, David Berman, and the way he announced his plans to quit music. Dude posted messages on the Drag City Records Web site, saying that a Jan. 31 show at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tenn., will be the group's last. "I guess I am moving over to another category. Screenwriting or muckraking. I've got to move on. Can't be like all the careerists doncha know," Berman wrote. "I'm forty two and I know what to do. I'm a writer, see?" Before finishing, he also took a swipe at Michael Stipe and R.E.M., saying, “If I continue to record I might accidentally write the answer song to 'Shiny Happy People'," one of Stipe’s band’s hits. However, Berman didn’t stop there and reserved his harshest comments for dead ol’ dad, veteran Washington lobbyist Richard Berman. David Berman took shots at his father for his work with organizations that seek to freeze the minimum wage and raise blood-alcohol arrest levels. "Previously I thought, through songs and poems and drawings I could find and build a refuge away from his world," he wrote. "But there is the matter of justice. And I'll tell you it's not just a metaphor. The desire for it actually burns. It hurts. There needs to be something more. I'll see what that might be." Well, my dislike of his musical genre of choice notwithstanding, that’s one of the better retirement announcements I’ve ever heard, pot-shotting legendary bands and family members alike and holding nothing back. Well done, Dave……..
Saturday, January 24, 2009
A toddler who smokes, a reason to possibly follow men's tennis and a knife-wielding brawl over chicken wings
- This next story just flat-out amazes me. The fact that anyone - let alone someone charged with serving and protecting the public and catching criminals - would for one second think it’s okay to beat someone who is restrained to a wheelchair is stunning. The idiot in question would be veteran police officer William Cozzi of Chicago, Illinois, who was videotaped beating a man restrained in a wheelchair at a hospital emergency room and pleaded guilty Thursday to using "excessive or unreasonable force" against the victim. This case has been winding its way through the legal system for a couple of years, so Cozzi’s beating of Randle Miles isn’t all that recent, but that makes it no less egregiously awful. Not when Miles was sitting in the emergency room after being taken to Norwegian American Hospital after being stabbed and getting beaten down by Cozzi because he was deemed to be “loud and verbally abusive.” That led Cozzi to handcuff and shackle the man, after which he "used a 'sap,' a dangerous weapon, to repeatedly strike [the victim] in the face and body," even though the victim posed no physical threat. Oh, and Cozzi also prepared a false arrest report stating Miles had tried to punch him, but omitting that Cozzi had struck Miles. Nice job there, botching justice on virtually every count. Thankfully, Cozzi was indicted on the civil rights charge last April, has now been convicted and will be sentenced March 26 before U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning. Johnny, tell Mr. Cozzi what he’s won! That’s right, an all-expenses paid trip to a federal penitentiary not of his choosing for as many as 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000! Readers, all of this can be yours as well if only you too are willing to violently assault a stabbing victim for no real reason in your local hospital’s emergency room…….
- I’ve been looking for that little something extra to spark my interest in professional men’s tennis - okay, so that’s a lie, I couldn’t care less if I ever have an interest in it - and I may have found it. While the women’s game has the uber, uber-hot Maria Sharapova (when healthy) parading around the court with her sweet Russian smile and never-ending legs, the men’s game doesn’t really have anything to garner my attention. That would change if there were more matches like the third-round Australian Open contest between Novak Djokovic and Amer Delic. At the Melbourne-based tournament, violence erupted outside the stadium after their match Friday, with the melee including the throwing of several chairs, one of which left a woman briefly unconscious. Also thrown around in heavy doses were insults and water bottles, with arrests aplenty made and dozens of people ejected from Melbourne Park. This looks to be just the type of scene organizers feared when they announced before the tournament that there would be a no-tolerance policy for disruptions. But they got them anyhow, right after Djokovic, a Serbian-born player, and the Bosnian-born Delic finished their match. As their respective supporters watched on a big-screen TV outside the stadium showing the match, a fight broke out. The chief culprits appear to be about 30 Bosnian and Serbian youths who were ejected from Melbourne Park. Among those charged with crimes were two men hit with charges of riotous behavior and a third individual who was fined on the spot. Oddly enough, neither of the players had their fans’ backs when it came to the brawl. "There's absolutely no place for that here. This is a tennis match," said Delic, who actually lives in Jacksonville, Fla., not in Bosnia. "As I'm sure you all saw at the end, Novak and I are friends. We're both competitors. In the end it was a fair match, and there was no reason for such things." Djokovic did a slightly better job of not putting a knife in the backs of his loyal fans, saying only that players can't control their fans. So neither of these two appear to share my enthusiasm for the infusion of violence into their sport, which is fine. Heck, Delic even posted messages on his website to ask his supporters, who were extremely disruptive in the his first two matches, to tone it down. With an attitude like that, no wonder I and many others don’t care enough to pay attention to your sport, A. Either you get on board with this and incite your fans to violence at every opportunity or I’m going to keep tuning in to watch the lovely Miss Sharapova bounce around the court while ignoring men’s tennis……
- As always, you like to know that when one sibling pulls a knife on a brother or sister and threatens to cut them, there’s a good reason. Thankfully, that’s the case in an incident near Fort Pierce, Florida, where a disagreement over chicken wings between two siblings landed one in jail after he allegedly pulled a knife and threatened to go O.J. on his brother. Okay, so he didn’t threaten to cut him quite that badly, but Calvin Edwards does still face aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery charges following the Tuesday incident. But as I said, he did have a good reason. See, he and his brother were arguing over some chicken wings. Edwards said he was looking in the oven for a wing, and planned to take out a tray of wings when his brother told him to get the other tray and both his mother and brother started yelling at him and said he felt the need “to defend himself.” In order to settle the dispute, Calvin pulled a small pocket knife and threatened to cut his brother. A reasonable reaction, I have to say. Who among us with a sibling hasn’t argued dozens of times over who gets a certain food item or the bigger portion of said item? And who among us hasn’t gone right past name calling, hair pulling, slapping, punching and headlocks right to pulling a knife? You know you’ve done it, so don’t deny it. Plus, how proud must Edwards’ mother have been two seen her two adult sons in her kitchen, looking to go gang warfare on one another over some chicken wings? Thankfully no one was hurt because Edwards’ brother backed away and went to notify authorities, fearing his brother would follow through on his threat. Ultimately, the brother received only a scratch on the wrist from Calvin….and sadly, no chicken wings. It’s just good that this wasn’t a pointless, violent incident over something silly and stupid, because then it would just be a pathetic tale…….
- And everyone thought Britney Spears was a terrible mother just because she asked her toddler son to fetch her cigarettes for her, calling them “mommy’s lollipops.” As bad as that may be, Spears still has a leg up on Kelly Marie Pocock, a British mother who has been given a suspended jail sentence after her toddler was filmed smoking a cigarette in front of her. Pocock pleaded guilty to one count of cruelty to a child under 16 at a hearing last month in the Merthyr Crown Court. According to prosecutor Jonathan Rees, the video shows the child “placing a cigarette into his mouth, lighting it with a lighter and sucking, drawing smoke clearly into the lungs and he seems to do it with some accomplishment.” Rees went on to say that the boy showed no signs of discomfort and did all of this while seated on a chair close to his mother, who was busy talking on the phone. Judging by the video, this isn’t the first time this kid has seen a lighter or cigarette and he has a pretty good idea of how to use both of them. How did this video come to be shot? Well, Pocock’s friend Natasha Dudley happened to be visiting and filmed it on her camera phone. Seems Dudley went looking for the boy while visiting Pocock's home just after Christmas 2007 and found him under a bed with the aforementioned cigarettes, smoking one of them. In Dudley’s humble opinion, it looked like the boy had been smoking “for many years.” Given his age (3), many doesn’t seem like an apt description unless you’re implying that reincarnation was involved and that he smoked in a former life as say, a New York cab driver. But wait, it gets better. Dudley took the boy downstairs, where he apparently went into the living room, picked up a cigarette butt from an ashtray and smoked it. Still, his mother was sat idly by, talking on the phone. That’s when Dudley filmed the boy and later forwarded it to social services. Oh, you may also be interested to know that Pocock claims that she hadn't seen her son smoking on that occasion, or ever before, going so far as to say that she was "shocked" when the matter was drawn to her attention. Well, now she can be shocked by something else: 40 weeks imprisonment, suspended for two years, and a 12 month supervision requirement as part of the sentence. No word on whether she will also be required to also take her son to regular Narcotics Anonymous meetings……..
- What I’m about to say is true whether a famous person is involved or not: if you attempt to extort money from someone in relation to the death of one of their loved ones, you are a piece of crap. A family is in a time of immense grief and your only response is, “Hey, this is a good chance for me to make a dishonest living by extorting money from them.” I always hesitate to say that someone is irredeemable, but if you engage in this type of activity you just might be. That means I don’t hold out much hope from the yet-to-be-identified individual who tried to extort money from John Travolta in relation to the death of his son. The matter is currently under investigation in the Bahamas. "We received an official report regarding an attempted extortion," said Bahamian Assistant Police Commissioner Raymond Gibson. "At this time we have two persons in custody who are assisting us with this investigation." Not a lot of details and so far, no explanation as to how the investigation got started or how the extortion scam was done, but does it really matter? If it’s true, then whoever is involved is absolute garbage and can’t possibly receive a stiff enough sentence. Nothing like looking to capitalize financially on Travolta's son Jett, 16, being found unconscious on January 2 while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas' West End, being taken to a hospital and pronounced dead on arrival to shake your faith in humanity. The family isn’t commenting on the matter and they really don’t need to; let the investigation play out and whomever is behind this plot will be sufficiently vilified in due time……
- I’ve been looking for that little something extra to spark my interest in professional men’s tennis - okay, so that’s a lie, I couldn’t care less if I ever have an interest in it - and I may have found it. While the women’s game has the uber, uber-hot Maria Sharapova (when healthy) parading around the court with her sweet Russian smile and never-ending legs, the men’s game doesn’t really have anything to garner my attention. That would change if there were more matches like the third-round Australian Open contest between Novak Djokovic and Amer Delic. At the Melbourne-based tournament, violence erupted outside the stadium after their match Friday, with the melee including the throwing of several chairs, one of which left a woman briefly unconscious. Also thrown around in heavy doses were insults and water bottles, with arrests aplenty made and dozens of people ejected from Melbourne Park. This looks to be just the type of scene organizers feared when they announced before the tournament that there would be a no-tolerance policy for disruptions. But they got them anyhow, right after Djokovic, a Serbian-born player, and the Bosnian-born Delic finished their match. As their respective supporters watched on a big-screen TV outside the stadium showing the match, a fight broke out. The chief culprits appear to be about 30 Bosnian and Serbian youths who were ejected from Melbourne Park. Among those charged with crimes were two men hit with charges of riotous behavior and a third individual who was fined on the spot. Oddly enough, neither of the players had their fans’ backs when it came to the brawl. "There's absolutely no place for that here. This is a tennis match," said Delic, who actually lives in Jacksonville, Fla., not in Bosnia. "As I'm sure you all saw at the end, Novak and I are friends. We're both competitors. In the end it was a fair match, and there was no reason for such things." Djokovic did a slightly better job of not putting a knife in the backs of his loyal fans, saying only that players can't control their fans. So neither of these two appear to share my enthusiasm for the infusion of violence into their sport, which is fine. Heck, Delic even posted messages on his website to ask his supporters, who were extremely disruptive in the his first two matches, to tone it down. With an attitude like that, no wonder I and many others don’t care enough to pay attention to your sport, A. Either you get on board with this and incite your fans to violence at every opportunity or I’m going to keep tuning in to watch the lovely Miss Sharapova bounce around the court while ignoring men’s tennis……
- As always, you like to know that when one sibling pulls a knife on a brother or sister and threatens to cut them, there’s a good reason. Thankfully, that’s the case in an incident near Fort Pierce, Florida, where a disagreement over chicken wings between two siblings landed one in jail after he allegedly pulled a knife and threatened to go O.J. on his brother. Okay, so he didn’t threaten to cut him quite that badly, but Calvin Edwards does still face aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery charges following the Tuesday incident. But as I said, he did have a good reason. See, he and his brother were arguing over some chicken wings. Edwards said he was looking in the oven for a wing, and planned to take out a tray of wings when his brother told him to get the other tray and both his mother and brother started yelling at him and said he felt the need “to defend himself.” In order to settle the dispute, Calvin pulled a small pocket knife and threatened to cut his brother. A reasonable reaction, I have to say. Who among us with a sibling hasn’t argued dozens of times over who gets a certain food item or the bigger portion of said item? And who among us hasn’t gone right past name calling, hair pulling, slapping, punching and headlocks right to pulling a knife? You know you’ve done it, so don’t deny it. Plus, how proud must Edwards’ mother have been two seen her two adult sons in her kitchen, looking to go gang warfare on one another over some chicken wings? Thankfully no one was hurt because Edwards’ brother backed away and went to notify authorities, fearing his brother would follow through on his threat. Ultimately, the brother received only a scratch on the wrist from Calvin….and sadly, no chicken wings. It’s just good that this wasn’t a pointless, violent incident over something silly and stupid, because then it would just be a pathetic tale…….
- And everyone thought Britney Spears was a terrible mother just because she asked her toddler son to fetch her cigarettes for her, calling them “mommy’s lollipops.” As bad as that may be, Spears still has a leg up on Kelly Marie Pocock, a British mother who has been given a suspended jail sentence after her toddler was filmed smoking a cigarette in front of her. Pocock pleaded guilty to one count of cruelty to a child under 16 at a hearing last month in the Merthyr Crown Court. According to prosecutor Jonathan Rees, the video shows the child “placing a cigarette into his mouth, lighting it with a lighter and sucking, drawing smoke clearly into the lungs and he seems to do it with some accomplishment.” Rees went on to say that the boy showed no signs of discomfort and did all of this while seated on a chair close to his mother, who was busy talking on the phone. Judging by the video, this isn’t the first time this kid has seen a lighter or cigarette and he has a pretty good idea of how to use both of them. How did this video come to be shot? Well, Pocock’s friend Natasha Dudley happened to be visiting and filmed it on her camera phone. Seems Dudley went looking for the boy while visiting Pocock's home just after Christmas 2007 and found him under a bed with the aforementioned cigarettes, smoking one of them. In Dudley’s humble opinion, it looked like the boy had been smoking “for many years.” Given his age (3), many doesn’t seem like an apt description unless you’re implying that reincarnation was involved and that he smoked in a former life as say, a New York cab driver. But wait, it gets better. Dudley took the boy downstairs, where he apparently went into the living room, picked up a cigarette butt from an ashtray and smoked it. Still, his mother was sat idly by, talking on the phone. That’s when Dudley filmed the boy and later forwarded it to social services. Oh, you may also be interested to know that Pocock claims that she hadn't seen her son smoking on that occasion, or ever before, going so far as to say that she was "shocked" when the matter was drawn to her attention. Well, now she can be shocked by something else: 40 weeks imprisonment, suspended for two years, and a 12 month supervision requirement as part of the sentence. No word on whether she will also be required to also take her son to regular Narcotics Anonymous meetings……..
- What I’m about to say is true whether a famous person is involved or not: if you attempt to extort money from someone in relation to the death of one of their loved ones, you are a piece of crap. A family is in a time of immense grief and your only response is, “Hey, this is a good chance for me to make a dishonest living by extorting money from them.” I always hesitate to say that someone is irredeemable, but if you engage in this type of activity you just might be. That means I don’t hold out much hope from the yet-to-be-identified individual who tried to extort money from John Travolta in relation to the death of his son. The matter is currently under investigation in the Bahamas. "We received an official report regarding an attempted extortion," said Bahamian Assistant Police Commissioner Raymond Gibson. "At this time we have two persons in custody who are assisting us with this investigation." Not a lot of details and so far, no explanation as to how the investigation got started or how the extortion scam was done, but does it really matter? If it’s true, then whoever is involved is absolute garbage and can’t possibly receive a stiff enough sentence. Nothing like looking to capitalize financially on Travolta's son Jett, 16, being found unconscious on January 2 while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas' West End, being taken to a hospital and pronounced dead on arrival to shake your faith in humanity. The family isn’t commenting on the matter and they really don’t need to; let the investigation play out and whomever is behind this plot will be sufficiently vilified in due time……
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