- 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……..
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