- Don’t Tase my pastor, bro, don’t Tase my pastor! Never thought anyone would have a need to utter that sentence, but welcome to Webster, Texas, where pastors are Tased after scuffling with police. Jose Moran of for the Iglesias Profetica Peniel Church is the pastor in question and he was Tased by police in Webster morning after interfering with the duties of a public servant in the parking lot of his church. Members of Moran’s church were also hit with pepper spray blasts by the cops for their role in the incident. According to police, Moran and his flock interfered with a traffic stop. According to Moran’s son, Omar, said his father was merely trying to help. Moran allegedly rolled up on a cop who was making a traffic stop in the church’s parking lot. He identified himself as the church's pastor and began yelling at the officer. The officer predictably responded by telling Moran to leave, an order the pastor refused. So much for following the part of the Bible that says to be obedient to those in authority, eh pastor? After hearing Moran bump his gums for a minute, the officer decided that he’d had enough and attempted to arrest him. At that point, Moran reacted like a third grader on the playground who didn’t want to get busted by the teacher for fighting. He shoved the officer and ran back into the church building. This is where it gets really interesting; the officer proceeded to kick in the church door and hit Moran with not one, but two Taser blasts. Members of the congregation were summarily pepper sprayed for interfering, but accounts of how it all went down are conflicting. Omar Moran insists that his father was only trying to help, although he didn’t explain how a pastor was going to help a police officer with a traffic stop. Police contend that Moran not only shoved the first officer, but also a second officer who arrived on the scene for backup. They also say that when Moran emerged from the church initially, dozens of members of the congregation came with him and surrounded the officer. Honestly, I don’t know what happened here and I don’t care. This is a surreal and hilarious scene, one in which a Taser was definitely used and one in which a church congregation apparently morphed into a bizarro Texas posse, good times all around…….
- Dear Diana Taurasi: Please remember that you are, in fact, Diana Taurasi and start acting accordingly. Here’s a hint of what that entails, since you don’t seem to understand. For starters, while other professional athletes in real, non-charity case leagues that aren’t kept afloat entirely by the unwarranted financial support of the NBA may drive drunk and even kill people while driving drunk and get away with little or no real punishment, you cannot do so. Donte Stallworth and Leonard Little play in the NFL, a league that people actually care about. That they get away with horrific drunken-driving related crimes is offensive and wrong, but it happens and our society allows it for some reason. However, when a WNBA player like yourself gets busted for DUI, Diana, the same doesn’t hold true. When a Phoenix police officer stops you early Thursday for speeding and smells alcohol on your breath, you are in big trouble. The cop isn't going to say, “Oh my God, I know you! You’re Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury! Listen, I’m not supposed to do this, but since you’re a huge star and I’m a big fan, I’m going to let you off with a warning and follow you to make sure you get some safe, okay?” No, that officer is going to administer several field sobriety tests and when you fail them, that officer is going to drive you driven to a mobile DUI van, take a blood sample and arrest you for driving drunk. Look, I realize how much of a high you must have been on after that all-important night's 93-81 win over the Seattle Storm, but you need to tone it down. The five fans who vote for the WNBA All-Star Game (I believe fans must vote a minimum of 500 times so the league looks like people actually care about it and it’s pathetic all-star game) may have made you the WNBA's leading fan vote-getter for the July 25 All-Star Game, but those same fans aren’t going to be so psyched about voting for you once they learn that you are out on the roads, all molared up and speeding around in a position to seriously injure or kill them or a loved one in a horrific accident. Check yourself, remember who you are and where your place is and act accordingly, D………..
- I suppose it was only a matter of time before this happened. Heck, just a few days ago I ruminated on the terrible idea that is Dance Your Ass Off on the Bravo network, featuring FAT people trying to lose weight by dancing. Apparently this is the summer of the FAT people on television, because Fox is joining in on the flabby fun with a reality show called More to Love. Because the FAT need love too, Fox has collected a couple dozen chubby chicks and a guy who likes portly women and jammed them into a reality series. The promos have just started running, but in short order you’ll be able to see overweight, lazy, no-willpower-having FAT chicks who can’t push away from the buffet vie for the “affection” of a guy to “love them the way they are.” Let me tell you something, FAT chicks…..the idea that being flabby, obese and unhealthy is beautiful is something that you all tell yourselves because you lack the discipline, work ethic and dedication to eating less and exercising more that it takes to lose weight. Don’t tell me that if getting thinner were as easy as staying FAT that you wouldn’t do it. You convince yourselves that being 5’8, 250 pounds is beautiful because you’re not willing to pay the price to shed those 70-80 extra pounds and since you have to live with that added girth, you tell yourself what you need to hear in order to be able to live with it. On top of that, reality dating shows for the FAT are no less a fraudulent charade than any other sort of dating show. No one finds love by being dropped into a tricked out mansion with two dozen other attention-starved losers and engaging in contrived competitions to win the “love” of the show’s central character. There is nothing real or genuine about these shows and nothing in the world is going to change that. So while you might be celebrating the fact that there are finally some FAT people representing their kind on TV, just know that no one other than FAT people will think this show is cool, fresh or interesting…….
- Pretty much everything North Korea does these days is considered provocative and threatening. Kim Jong Il could blow his nose and eat a cheese sandwich and the rest of the world would spend days debating what the aims and motives of the actions were. It has become almost comical to watch the United States, South Korea and their allies fly into a full-fledged panic every time the North so much as has a thought about any sort of military activity. The latest news is that North Korea fired several short-range missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Saturday as the U.S. kept a close eye on the proceedings. The North fired fired seven short-range missiles in less than seven hours, although that could have merely been their Fourth of July fireworks display. The missiles were apparently Scud-type, estimated to have a range of about 310 miles. Estimates by South Korean intelligence puts the numbers of such missiles in North Korea’s arsenal at about 700. The missiles were followed up four similar missiles launched by North Korea off the east coast Thursday. These test-firings aren’t exactly a surprise; North Korea issued a warning to mariners to avoid an area in the Sea of Japan at certain times between June 24 and July 9 because of a "military firing exercise.” I suppose it could be coincidental that the North is conducting so many “tests” of its arsenal at the same time that the U.S. and the United Nations Security Council are coming down harder on it in terms of economic sanctions, but that seems unlikely. Since May, the North has conducted a nuclear test, and threatened U.S. and South Korean ships near its territorial waters and now this round of missile tests. I did get a kick out of one U.S. official saying that, “This type of North Korea behavior is not helpful.” Interesting way to describe it, not helpful. I prefer to think of not helpful as someone standing in your way when you’re trying to carry a heavy object down the sidewalk, but I suppose you can label actions that could touch off World War III as not helpful as well. Thanks for livening things up, North Korea, I can always count on you for that……
- As we’ve all known for some time, the sea lion is a friend of stoners the whole world ‘round. That is the valuable lesson I took from a story that came out of Newport, California late last month. Two Orange County sheriff's deputies, James Slikker and Tracy Sizemore, decided that it would be a good idea to harass some kids allegedly spotted firing up some joints on a dock in Newport Harbor. Instead of allowing these stoners to get baked, play hackey sack and listen to Phish on their iPods, the deputies answered the call of some do-gooder and made life miserable for the kids. However, their night became much more complicated when they returned to their boat. On the dock, the deputies found an angry young sea lion (aren’t they all), snapping at people walking past. Slikker and Sizemore thought they would be smart and lure the sea lion onto their boat, release it in a safe area away from people. However, the sea lion had no intention of cooperating with cops who had just finished up harassing some innocent stoners who weren’t hurting anyone. This intrepid, stoner-friendly sea lion got onto the boat and waited until Slikker and Sizemore ventured into the boat's main control area. Then, Sparky (what I’ve chosen to call this particular sea lion on account of both alliteration and its friendliness toward stoners) snuck into the foul-weather station, which has a secondary steering wheel and set of controls. The boat’s emergency lights, deck lights and various other equipment began flickering on and off, and the deputies realized that the boat was moving without them steering it. Being the brilliant law enforcement minds they are, the deputies went to investigate and found Sparky in the driver's seat "randomly flipping switches," sheriff's spokesman John McDonald explained. "He tried to bite the Deputies when they attempted to shoo him away. They managed to bring the boat to Marine Operations Headquarters despite the unruly sea lion.” Damn straight they needed Marine Operations Headquarters to help diffuse the situation. Eventually Slikker and Sizemore were able to shoo Sparky from the boat by spraying him with a hose long enough to annoy him. Sparky scampered across the deck and jumped into the water, but not before having extracted a little bit of revenge for his stoner friends back on the dock. Well done, Sparky and stoners, keep it up……..
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