- The grunting epidemic in women’s professional tennis has grown exponentially in the past few years, to the point that it sounds like a low-budget porno half the time when the players are exchanging backhands and serves at a tournament. The reason these chicks need to grunt so loudly and so often is….well, I don’t know. I don’t know and neither do some former greats in women’s tennis who are stepping up to call out today’s players and their need to UGGGGGHHHHH! every time they hit the ball. Chris Evert has joined former rival Martina Navratilova and a litany of others in saying that the grunting in women’s tennis has gotten out of hand. "Grunting is one thing but the shrill sound that you hear with players nowadays, and especially they get louder when they hit a winner, that's the thing that I observe as a player," Evert explained. "It comes before they hit the shot. That's the first thing you hear and you are kind of like thrown off guard as a player and then before you know the ball gets past you. It is distracting when you are hearing this and I think the grunts are getting louder and more shrill now.” I do have to take issue with Evert on one thing: she had the audacity to attack my girl Maria Sharapova, the beacon of hotness for all of women’s tennis. Evert questioned Sharapova’s need to grunt or shriek every time she looks to set up a winner, but I’ll be honest - I haven’t noticed a thing. Perhaps that’s because I’m content to put the mute on my TV and simply watch Sharapova move around the court…..but I digress. Ultimately, Evert admitted that she just doesn’t “understand the philosophy of it.” Navratilova has expressed similar sentiments in recent weeks and outgoing WTA chief Larry Scott seems to agree. “I agree, we started hearing about this and reading about it in a way we hadn't before outside Wimbledon,” Scott said of the noise-making. “Based on that we have started a process of looking at it more carefully," he said. He will be leaving his post soon, but the inquiry into ways to reduce the amount of grunting and shrieking on the court should go on once Scott leaves office. It is undoubtedly a bizarre and unnecessary part of the game, so any change would be a welcome one. The bottom line is that you do not need to make any noises with your mouth and vocal cords to hit a tennis ball, or any other kind of ball for that matter. More hitting and less grunting will be a good thing - except for in the case of my girl Maria Sharapova. She can continue to do whatever the heck she wants…….
- Someone has a healthy helping of judicial egg on her face, and yes, I’m looking right at you, Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor. Seems that the very judicial body you could be on the verge of being admitted to has issues with at least one of your previous rulings. In a split 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court sided Monday with white firefighters in a workplace discrimination lawsuit, a case that Sotomayor heard on her federal appeals court last year and sided with the city. The case pitted the white firefighters against the city of New Haven, Connecticut in a case of alleged reverse discrimination. The Court ruled that the city improperly threw out the results of promotional exams that officials said left too few minorities qualified. Sotomayor had her shot at the case and sided with the city, ruling that they could scrap the results of a test because there weren’t enough minority candidates smart enough to pass. One Latino and no African-American firefighters qualified for promotion based on the exam, so the city decided not to certify the results and issued no promotions. Never mind the fact that New Haven isn’t exactly a huge rife with minorities, let alone minority firefighters. The case went to court because a group of 20 mostly white firefighters sued, claiming reverse discrimination. At the heart of the case was the question as to whether there was still a need for special treatment for minorities, or if the existing laws have become obsolete. "The city rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions.” Taking up for the minority was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had the kahones to question the fairness of the test, which was 60 percent written and 40 percent oral. "Relying so heavily on pencil-and-paper exams to select firefighters is a dubious practice,” Ginsburg wrote. As with many cases that come before the Court, this one is more than a few years old. The actual promotional exams took place in 2003, so this has been six years in the making. The Senate is expected to question Sotomayor extensively about her role in the case once her confirmation hearings begin. And although she is expected to eventually be confirmed and join the nation’s highest court, it should be interesting to see how she meshes with the five justices who just shot down her vote in the most high-profile case of her career to this point…….
- Maybe the Bravo network got the wrong idea from all of the support that NBC’s has received. Biggest LoserBiggest Loser has now had several seasons of success showing über-FAT people losing massive amounts of weight by living on a compound and training daily with professional trainers. I myself have enjoyed the show because as I always say, anything that helps FAT, unhealthy people lose weight and gain increased fitness is good in my book. However, the new Bravo series Dance Your Ass Off isn’t going to find that same level of support for me or from most people, I’m guessing. It’s not that I’ve changed my stance on helping FAT people lose weight; I just don’t need to see flabby, jiggling physiques “dance” to terrible songs in an attempt to lose weight. Seeing a FAT person run, lift weights, ride a bike or some other sort of workout activity is one thing and even that can be jarring at times. However, putting these people in dance outfits that are going to inevitably be far too revealing and having their chubby, cellulite-laden selves doing dance moves to songs that are quite honestly going to suck and suck hard (dance music, by definition, blows, sorry) isn’t going to be good TV. No, it’s going to be horribly scarring and frightening for the retinas and minds of anyone who dares to tune in. Truthfully, the concept of dancing to help lose weight could even work and work well - as long as no one puts it on TV. Take the FAT people to any dance studio, gym or ballroom in the United States and let them dance their way to a thinner version of themselves, just don’t film it. Sorry Bravo network, but this is a patently awful idea and it’s time someone was honest with you…….
- If there was anyone celebrating the Tuesday deadline for American troops to leave towns and cities in Iraq harder than Iraqis themselves, it would be me. Sure, the Iraqi people may have held a street festival in Baghdad to mark the occasion. And yes, my one-man street festival may have not had quite the color or pageantry (but some killer cotton candy), but don’t let that diminish your opinion of my enthusiasm for this day. Seeing American troops contractually obligated to leave a place they never should have been sent and forced to put their lives on the line in in the first place is awesome, no doubt about. The Iraqi government called it "National Sovereignty Day" and newscasters on the state television network Al-Iraqiya draped Iraqi flags around their necks as an onscreen clock counted down to midnight. There were scenes of hundreds of people dancing and singing in a central Baghdad park. “I feel the same way as any Iraqi feels -- I will feel my freedom and liberation when I don't see an American stopping an Iraqi on the street," said Baghdad resident Awatef Jwad. No problem there, A. Most Americans don’t want to see any of our soldiers in your country any more than you want to see them there. Missing as the clock ticked down toward the official withdrawal deadline was the sight of massive American troop pullouts. Those pullouts had been going on gradually over the past few weeks and by the time the weekend hit, virtually all U.S. troops were out of Iraqi cities. The fear now is that insurgents will seize upon the opportunity to attack still-learning, relatively inexperienced Iraqi security forces now that they don’t have their American counterparts there to back them up. “Without the Americans, we were afraid of each other," said Hanaa Abdul Hassan, a Baghdad resident. "And now that the Americans are leaving, we will be more afraid. We knew the Americans were holding them back, so now I don't know what's going to happen.” The worrywarts among us would have you believe that the series of attacks taking place across Iraq over the past week and a half, attacks that have killed more than 200 Iraqis, are a sign of things to come. Yes, Saddam Hussein's former deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, is still at large and believed to be a leading figure in the insurgency. And yes, there will undoubtedly be tension and many difficult moments for the Iraqi government in the days ahead. However, those days will come no matter when American forces pull out of Iraq, whether it’s now or five years from now. To get to the stated end goal of a free, democratic nation, there will be the requisite growing pains. Not pulling out would only postpone those growing pains, not eliminate them. Once again, this is a place the U.S. had NO RIGHT to invade to begin with, so there can’t be a wrong time to withdraw. It is still not our place to rule Iraq or to tell the Iraqis how to run their country. So even though my one-man street festival may have seemed slightly comical, it was definitely in celebration of something meaningful…….
- Hear this and hear it well, America: the Baldwin brothers are not only good for appearances on lame-ass reality shows like I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. They can also gain weight (obviously) and now we know that they can do bizarre things like open a TV and movie production company in Portland, Oregon of all places. Daniel Baldwin would be the Baldwin brother involved in this one, as he and production partner Charles Wall announced plans for a major production company in Portland on Sunday. Baldwin explained the curious choice by declaring that he's ready to leave Hollywood and its bizarre culture behind. He and Wall would like to shoot three movies in Oregon to be produced by their yet-to-be-named production company within the next year. For years, Vancouver, B.C., Canada has been the hotspot for TV and movie production in the region and Portland has been little more than a place to stop for coffee on the way to or from Vancouver for those involved in such projects. Baldwin and Wall hope to change that and to do so for a state that Daniel Baldwin is confident in. He’s a huge fan of University of Oregon sports and cites the recent success of the movie "Coraline" and the TNT show "Leverage" as examples of what a great setting Portland can be for the entertainment industry. “We will not only make the film from pre-production and post-production, we will sell the film from Oregon," Baldwin said. He expects the state of Oregon to see millions of dollars in revenue from his business venture. Already, he and Wall have hosted a movie premier at the Morrison Bar. Their plans call for three movies, a Portland-based reality show and a documentary to be shot in and around the city in the next year. Who knows, this could be the start of something great and perhaps other D-list stars will be inspired to start their own production companies in non-traditional entertainment industry cities……
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