- In yet another example of how rich, famous people are just like the rest of us, it turns out that the whole incident of singer (I use that term loosely) Chris Brown assaulting girlfriend and fellow singer (term used even more loosely here) Rihanna started over her finding a text message on his cell phone from "a woman who Brown had a previous sexual relationship with," according to a sworn police statement. Yes, just like the alcoholic dude living four trailers down from the corner in yoru local trailer park, Brown decided to beat his woman because she found a text message from an old girlfriend and confronted him about it. That of course led to Brown's arrest on felony assault charges and charges of making criminal threats. Rihanna, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty. According to the police report, “Brown was driving a vehicle with Robyn F. as the front passenger on an unknown street in Los Angeles. Robyn F. picked up Brown's cellular phone and observed a three-page text message from a woman who Brown had a previous sexual relationship with. “A verbal argument ensued and Brown pulled the vehicle over on an unknown street, reached over Robyn F. with his right hand, opened the car door and attempted to force her out. Brown was unable to force Robyn F. out of the vehicle because she was wearing a seat belt. When he could not force her to exit, he took his right hand and shoved her head against the passenger window of the vehicle, causing an approximate one-inch raised circular contusion. Robyn F. turned to face Brown and he punched her in the left eye with his right hand. He then drove away in the vehicle and continued to punch her in the face with his right hand while steering the vehicle with his left hand. The assault caused Robyn F.'s mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter all over her clothing and the interior of the vehicle. "After Robyn F. faked the call, Brown looked at her and stated, 'You just did the stupidest thing ever! Now I'm really going to kill you!' Wow….just wow. This isn’t some incident where he shoved her once or smacked her with an open hand and immediately regretted his actions. No, dude tried to force her out of the car and when he couldn’t do that, he commenced with beating her senseless. Suddenly the possibility of up to four years and eight months in prison doesn’t sound so severe, nor does Brown’s apology sound very important. That’s even truer when you read on in the report and see that Fenty “interlocked her fingers behind her head and brought her elbows forward to protect her face. She then bent over at the waist, placing her elbows and face near her lap in [an] attempt to protect her face and head from the barrage of punches being levied upon her by Brown.” When she tried to send a text message to her other personal assistant, Brown snatched the cellular telephone out of her hand and threw it out of the window onto an unknown street. When Fenty got a hold of Brown’s phone and tried to use it to make a call, he placed her in a head lock with his right hand and continued to drive the vehicle with his left hand, then “pulled Robyn F. close to him and bit her on her left ear.” So on the running Abuse-O-Meter we have punches, attempts to force her from a moving vehicle, a headlock, destruction of property and oh yeah, a threat to “beat the s--t out of you when we get home! You wait and see!'” I’m sorry, beat the shit out of her? What had you been doing prior to that? Softening her up? My man, I’m sorry you’re not smart enough not to leave texts from old girlfriends on your cell, but you can’t go Mike Tyson (appropriate reference with the punches and the biting of the ear) on your current girlfriend when she finds said text message. Aside from the nice side benefit of not having to be subjected to any crappy music from you if you should go to jail for this, time in the hole might do you some good, as I hear that inmates just love dudes who beat women…..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Another week, another prison riot and wouldn’t you know it, this one went down in the troubled Mexican border town of Juarez. Juarez is a freaking hotbed of criminal activity right now, all sorts of drugs, gangs and murders going on every week it seems. But perhaps no place in the city is more violent than the Cereso Estatal de Ciudad Juarez prison, where a riot two days ago left 20 dead and 15 wounded, an official said. According to Enrique Torres, a spokesman for the joint law enforcement operation at the prison, none of the dead were police or military officials. That’s all well and good, but I think you all know how much riots pump me up, so what say we learn a little more about this act of social upheaval. Let’s just say it started at 7 a.m. local time and raged on for a solid two hours. Not spectacular or drawn out, but it did take 200 federal police agents and 50 army soldiers to help put down the riot, along with two helicopters and an airplane. What started the pyrotechnics? According to Torres, the fighting began when rival gangs clashed at the end of conjugal visits. I get it, these guys had their hookers, er, lady friends in to visit them, someone didn’t like how a member of a rival gang looked at his woman and boom, things exploded. You’ve got a bunch of violent guys with a lot of adrenaline (among other things) coursing through their veins and one wrong this is said, so it’s go time. The involved gangs were "Los Artistas Asesinos," or the Assassin Artists, and the Aztecas drug gang. Apparently the two gangs have been tussling recently over control within the prison, which is a big deal in a high-security prison that houses many of the nation's most dangerous drug traffickers. What I love about this riot is that it took place at a prison located in a semi-desert area 17 miles south of Ciudad Juarez. In other words, put a bunch of dangerous criminals in a confined space in the middle of nowhere, placing two rival gangs in close proximity on a daily basis and wait for the fireworks to begin.
Better these guys killed than the 1,800 people who have been killed in the city since January 2008, many of them innocent civilians. With all of this in mind, and also considering the fact that there were more than 17,000 car thefts and 1,650 carjackings in 2008, Juarez probably should not be in your travel plans for the foreseeable future…….
- So maybe Charles Barkley is half-right about rich people and going to jail. Barkley once said in an interview that only poor people go to jail, but after his Dec. 31 DUI arrest in Scottsdale, Ariz. and subsequent guilty plea, the Chuck-ster found himself sentenced to 10 days behind bars. It certainly looked like he was being proven wrong and that even former NBA greats can end up in the slam if they do something really dumb. However, it appears that the law does indeed favor the rich if you factor in the decision of the judge in this case to reduce Barkley’s original 10-day sentence by seven days if he completes an alcohol treatment program. I suppose this option might be available to others in a similar situation - provided they are first-time offenders - but it shouldn’t be. Drunk driving is a selfish, moronic, short-sighted and extremely offensive crime with potentially disastrous implications. Anyone convicted of it should receive no leniency and no breaks, period. A person convicted of drunken driving should serve the maximum jail sentence allowable under the law AND complete an alcohol treatment program without receiving any sort of break for doing so. What that person shouldn’t get is a long, three-day weekend in jail, which is what Barkley is in store for when he reports to jail on Saturday morning. The lesson, as always, is that the American judicial system doesn’t work and probably never will, especially if you’re rich……
- As a big Seinfeld fan, I’m excited to hear that the cast of one of the best television shows ever will be making an appearance together on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm this fall. As someone who has never watched Curb and couldn’t give a damn about that show, I’m not that excited, but let’s proceed anyhow. The four famous faces that made Seinfeld everyone’s favorite show about nothing - Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards - will be featured in a multiple-episode story arc on the current hit show of Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld. It will mark the first time that all four actors have appeared together in a scripted TV show since Seinfeld went off the air nearly 11 years ago. The episodes are currently shooting in Los Angeles, but at present there is no date for their airing. They’ll be part of Curb's seventh season (proof that shows that often don’t deserve prolonged runs on air get them and shows that do deserve them often die early), which will run for 10 weeks. It’s not surprising that David was able to talk the four ex¬-Seinfeld funny men and women into appearing on his show, as he’s maintained a solid relationship with them since their Seinfeld days. Also, Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfus, and Alexander have made individual appearances on the award-winning series over the years, so only Richards will be making his initial appearance. Maybe it’ll be a nice way to put his racist rant at a comedy club last year into the past and re-establish some goodwill with fans……
- Who doesn’t like them a little racism in their judiciary process? What’s not cool about a Volusia County (Fla.) judge making racist, bigoted public comments about African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians? I just don’t see how anyone can have a problem with Judge David Walsh when he says, "I have been somewhat disheartened at the sometimes lack of certain members of certain races to serve as jurors. And I don't think it's without our attempts to try to get them here. Sometimes they just don't come. Not just African American, but others such as Asians. Hispanics, especially.” Hmm, so you’re implying that people of those races are either too lazy, not socially minded enough or just don’t care enough to show up when summoned for jury duty? Walsh made his comments near the end of jury selection for a fairly high-profile trial. For some odd reason Antonio Herndon, who is black and on trial, objected to the fact there were no blacks on the jury and reacted immediately when he heard Walsh's comments. Defense attorney Mike Lambert had some choice words of his own when he learned of the judge’s ill-advised words. "'You've never been black. Have you ever been black? You don't know what I'm going through.' Once he said that I realized, I have not. I've never walked in his shoes or a black mans shoes," said Lambert. Because of the comments and the resulting uproar, Judge Walsh has recused himself from the case and now Herndon will hopefully find a judge with a more open mind, a better filter on his thoughts before speaking and without such blatant biases…...
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