- It’s finally over. Of course, by “it,” I mean the first round of the NBA playoffs, which I believe started right around the same time as the presidential campaign….of 1984. But seriously, the first round is over after taking an interminably long time and it was wrapped up by two Game 7s in the Eastern Conference. Make no mistake about it, both series may have gone seven games, but Bulls-Celtics and Heat-Hawks could not have been more divergent. The Bulls and Celtics played seven thrilling games filled with buzzer beaters, clutch shots, overtimes and drama galore. The Hawks and Heat…..well, they played seven games. That;s about all you can say about a series in which every game was decided by double digits and the average margin of victory was more than 19 points. Whereas the Bulls-Celtics classic featured rookie Derrick Rose playing like one of the NBA’s best point guards, Ben Gordon channeling Vinnie Johnson and Andrew Toney and Ray Allen being an annoyingly accurate shooter in the most inopportune moments (assuming you were rooting against the Celtics), the Hawks and Heat played a series with exactly zero lead changes after the first quarter in the first six games. The only “drama” was Hawks forward Josh Smith going full-on bonehead and trying a between-the-legs windmill dunk in Game 5 with his team up double digits in the fourth quarter. Adding to the lack of drama for the series is fact that for more than half of it, both teams knew that if they won, their prize would be getting steamrolled by LeBron and the Cavaliers in the second round. At least the Bulls and Celtics knew that they’d get a seriously flawed, banged-up Orlando squad should they advance to round 2. But the underlying theme for all first round series was once again the idiotic, ill-reason, erratic and bogus scheduling done by the NBA that led to absurdly long gaps between games, uber-long series and a total lack of flow and momentum within series. Thanks for staying consistent on that one, NBA…….
- This is nice. A court in Saudi Arabia has granted an 8-year-old girl a divorce from her 47-year-old husband, after twice denying the divorce request previously. Thanks for that, Saudi court. After the entire civilized world threw a collective fit at the sight of an 8-year-old girl being forced into a marriage with a close friend of father to settle debts with the friend, you finally got around to ending this debacle. The court in the city of Onaiza approved the divorce decree Thursday, and the divorce is final. In addition to the global outrage over the marriage, a “series of pleas made by a number of officials in the region to the husband” also factored into the divorce. Of course, getting the divorce from the court hasn’t exactly been easy. When the girls mother went to court to try to get the marriage annulled, Saudi judge Habib al-Habib rejected the request on a legal technicality. This ass clown judge ruled that the mother -- who is separated from the girl's father -- was not the child's legal guardian and therefore could not represent her in court. However, al-Habib did make the very generous gesture of requiring the girl's husband to sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reaches puberty. How about this as a good rule for any society: If you need any sort of agreement specifying at what point a man can have sex with his wife because of her age, she’s too young to be married. Oh, and bonus points to the ever-fair judge for ruling that the girl could file a petition for a divorce when she reached puberty. However, the attorney for the mother claims that the girl lives with her and that the girl was never told that she was married. Seems to me that based on how this situation has unfolded the past few months, the mother is just about the only involved party who gives a crap about what’s best for the child. She bounced back from the rejection of her initial petition to annul the marriage and appealed the verdict to an appeals court in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Thankfully that court was smarter than Judge al-Habib and refused to certify the original ruling, in essence rejecting al-Habib's verdict, and sent the case back to him for reconsideration. However, al-Habib proved that while he’s neither smart nor competent, one thing he is is dogmatic when it comes to defending his indefensible choices. In early April, the he refused for a second time to annul the marriage. Soon after that decision, Saudi Arabia's justice minister told Al-Watan that he planned to enact a law that will protect young girls from such marriages. However, Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in January, “A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong, and they are being unfair to her.” Unfair to her? How? By demanding that she have the right to have some semblance of a childhood? By refusing to allow some pervy older dude who is closer to being a senior citizen than he is to the age of his prospective bride to marry her? Feel free to join the rest of us in the 21st century any time, Saudi Arabia………
- Consider this a blessing rather than a curse, 22 students at Slippery Rock University who will not be allowed to graduate at their school's main ceremony because they recently visited Mexico. While initially it might seem that being excluded from your university’s graduation ceremony because you spent a few weeks student teaching in Mexico is a bad thing, trust me when I tell you that it’s not. Fact is, a college graduation ceremony is among the most hollow and boring formal events you will ever attend. First, they are interminably long and unlike high school graduations, odds are that you won't know somewhere between 95 and 97.2 percent of your fellow graduates. Second, unless you are one of the tiny, tiny minority whose college doesn’t get an absolutely crap-tastic commencement speaker, you’re going to have to sit through 10-20 minutes of some a-hole cracking awkward jokes, relating irrelevant anecdotes and putting you to sleep with his or her every word. Lastly, you’re not even receiving your actual diploma at the ceremony, but rather some worthless piece of paper or placeholder because the school needs to calculate your grades for the current semester or quarter before officially allowing you to graduate. Thus, these 22 SRU students should feel blessed, not wronged. Even after they returned to the U.S. early because they were worried the border would be closed and they'd miss out on walking at their graduation, the school decided that the risk posed by them attending commencement would be too great. Instead, they'll be walking in their own graduation, without any of their classmates, because the college feared they made have been exposed to the H1N1/swine flu outbreak in Mexico. And as with all major news, I’m sure the students were thrilled to be notified of the decision via an e-mail from the university's vice president explaining the change. Hmm, think you could swing a phone call or in-person explanation, university VP? “The university has received hundreds of calls from students and parents who were worried about being exposed at the commencement ceremonies," the e-mail said. “We have an obligation to protect others from what they perceive is possible exposure to this virus.” Thankfully, most of the 22 black-listed students seem to be taking the whole thing in stride. Instead of the real thing, they will get a ceremony of their own and the main graduation will see a video of their ceremony. Senior Ryan Brisini is a perfect example of what I’m talking about here, because he thinks this bizarre graduation may be even better than the real thing. He won't have to sit next to a bunch of people he won't know, and he won't have to endure the lingering theatrics of a regular ceremony. “I think its kind of cool because when you are with people for an entire month you bond with them, and I can say I'm genuinely excited for everyone graduating, whereas at the main graduation I'd be with a bunch of kids I don't know. With this I can clap and cheer for everyone and genuinely be happy for them.” Well said, Ryan, well said……
- Memo to the people of Overland Park, Kan.: be wary if someone claiming to be a census worker shows up at your front door. Because even if that person really is a census worker and not some kook looking to sell you something, case your home for a future burglary or abduct you, you still might be coming face to face with the same freak show who knocked on the door of Overland Park resident Kim Mertin on Monday. Mertin, a resident of the affluent Overland Park area, opened her door and was engaged by a man who said he was a census worker asked her some questionable questions, including whether or not she "was wearing pink undies.” But this wasn’t your ordinary, low-IQ pervert. He didn’t lead with his pink undies question, because clearly that would just be stupid and low class. No, he started with the expected questions -- "How many people live here?" -- but it didn't take long before the talk headed in the wrong direction. Mertin said the man commented about her clothing, asked if she'd like a back rub. Hmm, I don’t see how the yes/no on a back rub is relevant to the census, but let’s give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Tell more, Kim Mertin. “On several occasions, he touched himself," she said. Oh…..never mind then. At that point, Mertin had the same reaction that most of us probably would have in a similar situation - well, those of us who didn’t immediately reach for our Taser or 9mm, that is. She went inside, locked the door and called police and fired off an email to the Census Bureau, assuming the man must be an impersonator. Mertin was stunned to learn that the man was really a Census worker. “It was shocking,” said Sydnee Chattin-Reynolds of the Census Bureau. If it’s shocking, maybe that’s because the bureau has a little too much confidence in the “vigorous” background checks and additional screenings that all employees go through once hired. After this entire ordeal, Kim Mertin wasn’t even told whether the man who performed his one-man pervert act on her front porch was fired. The bureau cited privacy laws and told her only that the matter had been handled. “I felt I should have been told right then and there that this gentlemen would no longer be out doing what he was doing,” Mertin said. Agreed and agreed, let’s just keep moving……..
- I’ll say this for Chuck star Zachary Levi: at least he’s not going into hiding or becoming terse and unapproachable as the fate of his show hangs in the balance. The suits at NBC are debating whether to bring back the show for a third season even though it’s clearly one of the network’s better shows. You know Levi has to be approached constantly by fans, critics, etc. and asked what’s going on with the show, but he seems to be keeping an upbeat attitude about it. Levi says he's feeling optimistic that NBC will renew his spy comedy for a third season. "I think the chances are good that we'll come back," he said. “But television is in a weird, fickle place right now, so you never know. We're supposed to find out on Monday." Of course, that prognostication changed today, when Levi said that a call from the show’s producers indicated that a final decision on Chuck’s fate won’t come at NBC’s up front (events where networks premiere their fall schedule, invariably resulting in a lot of time being wasted on crap-tacular shows that will be canceled after a few episodes). Instead, fans, cast and crew will likely have to wait another week or two to find out whether their show will be back in the fall. In the meantime, the various grassroots campaigns that have sprouted up to save the show will march on. “It feels awesome to know we have dedicated fans," says Levi. “People were sending the network nerds -- candy ones, not human ones as that would have cost a lot more postage and there are probably some legal issues with mailing a human. They were also going out and buying Subway foot-longs because they are one of our main advertisers. I hope we get another season. I love being Chuck and I love the people I work. And the season finale was not meant to be the end of the series. It did not wrap it all up with a bow. They did not write it to be the end, so it would be unsatisfying to leave it there.” Here’s hoping that the long wait is rewarded with a renewal for the show, because this season’s finale left a lot of possibilities in play. Chuck being downloaded with real spy abilities - kung fu among them - instead of just a litany of classified files and data as he had prior to the latter portion of this season, that could make for some very interesting episodes……..
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