- Guess Joe Paterno’s words don’t carry quite as much weight around the rest of the Big Ten as they do at Penn State. On campus in Happy Valley, Joe Pa is a virtual demigod, even if there is serious doubt as to whether he’s still alive or if his staff has been pulling a Weekend at Bernie’s with him for the past decade-plus. Outside of Happy Valley, Paterno’s suggestions aren’t exactly winning over the powers that be in the Big Ten officers. Last week, Paterno last week called on the Big Ten to expand, saying the conference goes "into hiding for six weeks" while other leagues hold championship games and play into the first week of December. In other words, because the league doesn’t have the requisite 12 teams to hold its own conference championship game, its regular season typically ends just the way it will this fall, when nine of 11 Big Ten teams will finish the regular season on Nov. 21, two weeks before teams from the other five BCS conferences. Being out of sight for those two weeks often means Big Ten (11) teams are out of mind when it comes to the polls that determine the participants in the BCS championship game and other BCS bowls. Of course, that has been a good thing for Ohio State the past few years, as they’ve been able to sit back and watch other top teams choke in those two weeks and sneak back up into the title picture. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has heard Paterno’s suggestions and let’s just say he’s not interested. The Big Ten has no immediate plans to expand, Delany said, and it would take more than a desire for a football championship game and a longer regular season for the league to add a 12th member. Perhaps Delany thinks that his league’s plan to add a permanent bye week beginning in the 2010 season, thus extending the regular season by one week. "Everybody else is playing playoffs on television," Paterno said. "You never see a Big Ten team mentioned, so I think that's a handicap." Maybe, but what’s really a handicap is that smooth six-game losing streak in BCS bowl games the Big Ten (11) is rocking and the fact that no Big Ten team has won the Rose Bowl since 2000. But I suppose it would only be fair to give Delany a chance to explain why he’s so against expansion, right? “The issue has come up with our football coaches a couple times -- with the extra week and if we did expand, would we be more competitive?” Delany said. "I would say in some years they might be right. But has it enhanced the competitiveness of the ACC in football? Has it enhanced the competitiveness of the WAC? I don't know. Just because you have a championship doesn't make you more competitive. It's about coaching the players. The SEC game has been a marketing bonanza. I wouldn't discount that. But others have struggled with it.” So because you might fail, you’re not even willing to try? No one would ever do anything if they subscribed to that theory. Delany even admits the lack of a championship game puts the Big Ten at a marketing disadvantage, yet he won’t heed the words of an 82-year-old Paterno, who has seen more college football and been a part of the game for six-plus decade. Instead, Delany characterizes the idea of expansion as “a back-burner issue right now.” Guess Joe Pa doesn’t rule the college football world after all……..
- Attention, nudists of Westmore, Vt. You all need to class your act up, because clearly the Vermont Department of Forest Parks and Recreation is not down with what you’ve been doing. No, I don’t mean the whole going to the beach and sitting around with no clothes on. That, apparently, the VDFPC is cool with. No, the agency has a beef with a group of nudists who frequent the picturesque Southwest Cove on Lake Willoughby in Westmore because the nudists were cutting down trees, digging sand out of the lake and other activities that were hurting the ecosystem at the beach. Why they were doing all of this, I don’t know. Then again, they are freaks who think going out in public with no clothes on is cool, so it’s not exactly a surprise that they would do other freaky things. And yes, I am categorizing all nudists as freaks, because the reality is that approximately 0.5 percent of the world’s population looks good without their clothes on and invariably, the people who live a nudist lifestyle are never among that 0.5 percent. Also, as Seinfeld taught us, there is good naked and bad naked, meaning some activities just shouldn’t be done without clothes on - ever. Going to a public beach and acting like it’s normal is one such activity. Yet oddly enough, local efforts to ban nudity at the beach have failed. Instead, the parks department is focusing on making sure that these nudist freaks don’t ruin the beach’s ecosystem while they are there. A memorandum of understanding between the Naturist Action Committee and the state says beach users won't move plants, cut trees, alter streams or build structures or fires. Those seems like things that should go without saying, but again, look at who you’re dealing with………
- Freaking two awesome episodes of Lost in a row, I cannot remember the last time that happened. This week kicked off right where last week left off: Daniel Faraday marching into the camp of the Others/Hostiles, confronting Richard Alpert about the location of the hydrogen bomb the Others buried (at Daniel’s instructions) in 1954. Daniel is, of course, shot from behind and killed by his own mother, Eloise Hawking. She doesn’t know he’s her son because he’s from the future, but when Jack and Kate are caught hiding in the bushes nearby by 1977 Charles Widmore and another Other and brought into camp, the blanks begin to fill in for Eloise. After being roughed up by Widmore and placed inside Eloise’s tent as prisoners, Jack and Kate are questioned by Ms. Hawking herself about the journal she found in Daniel’s possession. She asks them if Daniel’s claims about the future are true, why he wanted to know where the bomb was buried and how her handwriting is inside the cover of the journal when she doesn’t ever remember writing in it . Jack verifies what is written in the journal and explains that if they follow its instructions, then Eloise killing her own son can be undone and all of the bad things currently happening on the island can be undone. Eloise believes Jack, even if Kate doesn’t, and agrees to take Richard Alpert along and show them where the bomb is. The problem is that the bomb is located directly under the barracks that the Dharma Initiative now calls home. We are then transported ahead in time 30 years to 2007, where John Locke walks back into the lives of the Others, who he is now supposed to be leading. Richard Alpert (very busy this episode) is there to greet him and wonders why he’s brought Ben Linus with him. Locke cryptically admits that Ben helped him get back to the island, neglecting to mention that Ben killed him to make that happen. Locke is in project mode immediately, informing Richard that they have an urgent task to complete. Ben is told to come along, to which he wonders if Locke is worried about leaving him behind with the Others, who used to be his people. “I’m not worried about anything you can do now,” Locke retorts. Ben decides to tag along and what happens next is freaking mind-blowing. In the middle of the jungle, in the middle of the night, Locke leads his posse to the scene of the crashed Beechcraft airplane that has been a fixture in pretty much every season of the show. The short story is that Mr. Eko, a now-dead inhabitant of the island with whom Locke shared a bond, was using the plane to smuggle heroin from Africa and the craft crashed on the island with the body of Eko’s murdered brother Yemi inside. The plane was lodged in a tree until Locke and Boone (another deceased islander, an Oceanic 815 survivor) found it and dislodged it. The plane fell to the ground and in last season’s finale, Locke sat in its cover after being shot by Ethan, an Other. As he sat beside the plane, bleeding from the leg, Richard walked out of the jungle and pulled the bullet from his leg. Richard also told Locke that he needed to bring back the Oceanic survivors who had left the island and told him he would have to die to accomplish the task. Locke then disappeared as one of the island’s time travel flashes/events hit and he was gone, not to return for a while. This is the scene that Ben, Locke and Richard happen upon. They emerge from the forst near the plane and Locke informs Richard that he has three minutes to “get this right.” What Locke means is that in three minutes, he will walk out from the brush with that gunshot wound to the leg and need Richard’s help - not the Locke who is talking to Richard at the moment, but a second Locke. Sure enough, Locke #2 limps out of the forest, sits down beside the plane and an amazed Ben watches from the treeline with Locke #1 was Richard does what he’s been told to do. He uses his first aid kit to pull out the bullet, tells Locke #2 exactly what Locke #1 told him to do (because he’s experienced this very scene before) and walks away after Locke #2 disappears just like he did the first time the scene happened. When Ben asks Locke how he knew this would happen and when to be at that exact spot, Locke answers that the island told him. The mission is accomplished and now it’s back to the Others’ camp, where Locke’s “people” are waitinf for him. These people include Sun, who has plead with both Locke and Alpert to help find a way to reunite her with Jin. When Sun asks Alpert if he knew Jin when he was on the island in 1977, he confirms that he knew Jin and the other Oceanic 6 members who posed as Dharma Initiative recruits - Jack, Kate and Hurley. However, Alpert then drops a bombshell: he claims to have seen all of them die. Yet Locke tells Sun he’s not sold on Alpert’s claims and will do everything possible to find Jin. Back in 1977, life has gotten very painful for Sawyer and Juliet, who were discovered last week to have captured fellow Dharma member Phil and held him hostage in their home after he found security footage showing Kate and Sawyer taking young Ben Linus outside the barracks and to the Hostiles’ territory. Sawyer is brutalized by Radzinsky, one of the Dharma Initiative’s leaders and its chief enforcer. The group’s main leader, Horace Goodspeed, is also on hand. Sawyer is peppered with questions about Kate’s whereabouts and also the location of the Hostiles. He refuses to answer and is bleeding profusely within minutes. When it becomes clear he won't crack, Horace demands that they stop the beating. Radzinsky doesn’t like that idea and stages a little coup, telling Horace that he’s no longer in charge and that Radzinsky will be calling the shots from here on out. Phil then chimes in with an idea for getting Sawyer to talk: beating the crap out of Juliet instead. That draws an outburst of rage from Sawyer, who threatens to kill Phil. In the meantime, another of the DI’s leaders, Dr. Chang, is pursuing a strategy of his own for solving the current crisis. He continues to think about Daniel Faraday’s warning of an impending explosion at the Swan Station if the workers there continue drilling. When Chang spots Hurley sneaking out of camp with his belongings and a cache of food in his backpack, he follows and finds the big guy meeting up with Miles and Jin in the woods as they prepare to flee for the beach, as per Sawyer’s plan from last week. Chang asks the three men if they really are from the future and Hurley tries to keep up the lie. However, he can’t manage a single right answer when Chang asks him about what year he was born in or who is the President of the United States, so Hurley finally admits, “Yeah dude, we’re from the future.” Chang then asks Miles if Daniel was right about Miles being his son and is told that the claim is true. That leads Chang to ask Miles if Daniel’s warning to evacuate the island in advance of the impending explosion is right and Miles confesses that Daniel has been right about everything up to that point. Chang orders the evacuation and when he goes to tell Horace about it, he finds the brutal interrogation scene featuring a bloodied Sawyer and Juliet. When Chang asks what’s going on, Radzinsky informs him that he’s supplanted Horace as the first in command. Sawyer still has enough energy to cofnrim Chang’s warning about evacuating the island and asks for he and Juliet to be placed on the submarine with the rest of the evacuees. Radzinsky agrees, but only if Sawyer draws a map to show where the Hostiles are. Sawyer capitulates and shortly thereafter, he and Juliet are driven to the dock and placed on the sub. Miles, Jin and Hurley watch via binoculars from the brush and wonder where Sawyer is going. “Don’t worry, Sawyer always has a plan,” Hurley rationalizes. Inside the sub, Juliet and Sawyer are handcuffed to statonary objects and told not to cause trouble. They tell each other than they love the other and Sawyer muses about buying Microsoft stock, betting on the Cowboys to win the 1978 Super Bowl and getting rich. He also tells Juliet that they aren’t going to Ann Arbor, which is the destination for everyone on board. At the first port they reach, he explains, they are free. Going free isn’t what Locke has in mind in 2007, as he returns to the Others’ camp and immediately demands that he and Richard go see Jacob, the mysterious leader of the Others who no one has ever seen, yet who gives orders than run their lives. Despite his objections, Richard agrees to show Locke the way to Jacob’s cabin. Before they leave, Locke demands to speak to the entire group. He tells them about Jacob and wonders why a man none of them - not even Ben - has ever seen runs their lives. He then tells them that he’s going to see Jacob and wants them to come along. Again, Ben and Alpert are stunned and angered, with Alpert reminding Ben that he said previously that Locke would be trouble. “Why do you think I tried to kill him?” Ben asks rhetorically. Yet off the group goes, marching down the beach through the night. As the sun rises and they continue their trek, Ben sidles up to Locke and informs him of Richard’s dissent. Locke thanks Ben for clueing him in and when Ben asks about Locke talking to Jacob for help in reuniting with “his people,” i.e. the Oceanic 6. That was what Locke had said was the purpose for the trip, at least in part. That’s when Locke drops another bomb: he’s not going to see Jacob for help finding anyone, not even helping Sun reunite with Jin. “I’m going to kill him,” Locke tells Ben. That news stops Ben dead in his tracks: Locke intends to kill Jacob. Jack and Kate also have big things planned, making their way through the jungle toward the bomb. When they arrive at a stream, the trek stops and Eloise tells them that to reach the bomb, they must swim downward and through a submerged tunnel. At this point, Kate reveals that she has no intention of continuing on. She doesn’t agree with Jack’s plan to blow up the bomb, stop the Swan Station hatch from ever being built and thus alter the entire course of history. A discussion in Eloise’s tent on the subject led to Jack wishing he could rewrite history to save the lives of all who had died on the island following the crash of Oceanic 815, with Kate countering that their lives post-crash had not all been misery and that the crash had led to them meeting one another, which was good. When Kate tries to leave Jack, Eloise and Alpert and head back to warn the Dharma Initiative of what they are up to, several Others with guns demand that she stop or be shot. Jack tries to shield her, but the guns remain trained on Kate and suddenly, a shot rings out. Kate looks down to see if she’s been hit, but it’s not her that has been shot. The Others are the victims, having been shot by none other than freaking Sayid, finally popping back up on the radar. He kills the two Others who are about to shoot Kate, then has a sit-down talk with Jack and Kate in which he a) learns of Jack’s plan, courtesy of Daniel Faraday, and b) finds out that Ben Linus survived after Sayid shot him. Kate is infuriated by talk of shooting children and blowing up hydrogen bombs being acceptable and storms off, back to the barracks. Of course, she’s persona non grata there and is captured by Phil, who herds her onto the submarine and creates a very awkward, love triangle-ish moment by handcuffing her right next to Juliet. Jack and Sayid continue on with Eloise and Alpert, diving down under the water, swimming through the submerged tunnel and coming up inside another maze of tunnels. Sayid asks Jack if he trusts Eloise and Jack says he does because “in 30 years, she’s the one who tells us how to get back.” The group soldiers on and follows a tunnel to some sort of cave where Eloise pulls the cover off the bomb and asks, “Now what?” Alpert has been the one claiming he has a way to move the bomb to the Swan Station, so perhaps he’ll be the one to take the lead. Or will the DI people left on the island use Sawyer’s map to find them and put a stop to the plan? Next week is the season finale, so those questions will probably be answered and a dozen new ones will be posed to set up next season, be sure to tune in……
- Duuuude, this is bogus. The University of Kansas is being majorly uncool here and someone needs to call them out on it. Okay, okay, I’ll do it. UK, what is with you ratting students out to their parents when they are cited for alcohol and drug violations and under the age of 21? Beginning this fall, the university will start telling parents about by students under the age of 21. Yes, I understand that there have been two alcohol-related deaths at the university and you need to address that problem. My issue is that you’re ratting out individuals who are legally adults, meaning you shouldn’t be firing off a letter to mom and dad about what they’re up to. It’s up to the student what he or she tells their parents, so back off. I’m okay with the policy change that will have the university make more efforts to educate students on drinking and begin an amnesty policy meant to encourage students to seek help for friends having alcohol-related emergencies. Do all of that you want, just realize that these kids know exactly what they are doing when they drink. They realize that bad things may happen when they get drunk; they just don’t care. Shooting off a letter to ensure that "parents and/or legal guardians are be notified after the first known violation of university policy or state law regarding drugs, after the first violation involving alcohol that endangered the health or welfare of the student and/or another person or after the second known violation of the university alcohol policy” is absolute bullsh*t. You are wildly overstepping your bounds and being totally, totally uncool here. If students wants to bake or get hammered, you need to stay the frak out of their way and allow them to experience this essential part of college life. At the very least, cite them and move on. Just don’t go ratting them out by sending letters back home……..
- This is why people like me freaking hate freaking law enforcement - well, among many other reasons. Police in the town of Tenaha, Texas, near the Louisiana state line, are showing just what a bunch of absolute douche bags they are. Actually, that’s not fair. They’ve been showing it for some time now, but finally those they’ve been mistreating are finally fighting back. Dozens of motorists who have been stopped by Tenaha police are part of a lawsuit seeking to end what plaintiff's lawyer David Guillory calls a systematic fleecing of drivers passing through the town of about 1,000. Guillory alleges that Tenaha police take advantage of a Texas law that allows police to confiscate drug money and other personal property they believe are used in the commission of a crime. If no charges are filed or the person is acquitted, the property has to be returned. But Guillory's lawsuit states that Tenaha and surrounding Shelby County don't bother to return much of what they confiscate. This practice is best illustrated by the cases of individuals like Roderick Daniels, who was traveling through East Texas on U.S. Highway 59 in October 2007 when he was the victim of an alleged highway robbery by the cops. The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car. The officer who stopped Daniels told him he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone and inexplicably hauled him off to jail, where he was threatened with money-laundering charges -- but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property. “I actually thought this was a joke,” Daniels said. Nevertheless, he signed because he was far from home and legitimately scared at what might happen if he didn’t. Now, he looks back on what happened and concurs with Guillory’s assessment that it was “a piracy operation.” As you might expect, the local government is backing its police department. George Bowers, Tenaha's longtime mayor, says his police follow the law. Through her lawyers, Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell was singing the same song and denying any impropriety. The sad part of this story is that Roderick Daniels’ story isn’t even the most offensive one of the lot. Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson said they agreed to forfeit their property after Russell threatened to have their children taken away. Like Daniels, the couple says they were carrying a large amount of cash --- about $6,000 -- to buy a car when they were stopped in Tenaha in 2007. Boatright claims that Russell came to the Tenaha police station to berate her and threaten to separate the family. “I said, 'If it's the money you want, you can take it, if that's what it takes to keep my children with me and not separate them from us. Take the money,' “ she said. The document Henderson signed, which bears Russell's signature, states that in exchange for forfeiting the cash, "no criminal charges shall be filed ... and our children shall not be turned over" to the state's child protective services agency. Why their children would be taken for them simply as a result of a simple traffic stop, I don’t know. But if their story seems to bizarre to be true, realize that Maryland resident Amanee Busbee said she also was threatened with losing custody of her child after being stopped in Tenaha with her fiancé and his business partner. They were headed to Houston with $50,000 to complete the purchase of a restaurant. “The police officer would say things to me like, 'Your son is going to child protective services because you are not saying what we need to hear,'” Busbee said. Call me crazy, but it sure sounds like the old cliché of local cops targeting out-of-state drivers and figuring those people won't put up much of a fight because they just want to get where they’re going, combined with a new twist of extortion. All told, Guillory estimates authorities in Tenaha seized $3 million between 2006 and 2008 in about 150 cases. Better still, most of these cases involved black or Latino drivers. So extortion with a hint of racism, very nice. “They are disproportionately going after racial minorities," Guillory said. "My take on the matter is that the police in Tenaha, Texas, were picking on and preying on people that were least likely to fight back." Daniels even alleges that one of the cops who stopped him tried on some of his jewelry on the spot, rubbing it in his face. So it was a nice racket you had going, cops of Tenaha and surrounding Shelby County, but your gig is up………
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