- What is the price of insensitive, bigoted comments made by a football coach at a major Division I university in a public setting? Allow me to answer that by pointing you to the case of Hawaii coach Greg McMackin, who was suspended for 30 days without pay and has volunteered to take an additional 7 percent pay cut from his $1.1 million salary for making a derogatory comment while describing Notre Dame's chant before last year's Hawaii Bowl. Speaking at the Western Athletic Conference football preview in Salt Lake City, a bitter McMackin called the chant “gay,” then asked media members to let his comment go. Probably shouldn’t be making that comment at your conference media day, but that’s just me. The outcry once McMackin’s comments became publicly known was swift and severe. Gov. Linda Lingle has stepped up to rip the coach, as have gay and lesbian groups. On Friday, a tearful McMackin addressed the issue after meeting with school officials for several hours. “I just want to say I made a big mistake. I want to apologize to everyone and anyone that I offended with my remarks," he said. "I'm committed to do whatever I can to use this as a life lesson to learn from my mistake. When we make mistakes, we have to learn from it and make better people of ourselves.” McMackin’s lesson will lessen his 2009 salary by $169,000, but dude will remain with the team on a voluntary basis during the suspension. Yes, he’s basically just forfeiting a small chunk of his salary that he can more than afford to lose. I realize that he didn’t commit a crime and that his words were not hateful and malignant, but if you’re going to punish a guy for using a homosexual slur in a public setting and embarrassing your university in the process, at least make his suspension a real one. Keep him from the team for 30 days if you truly want to punish the guy. Zero props to Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw for not doing more than issue McMackin a small slap on the wrist. “We all recognize that Coach McMackin made a serious mistake that has hurt many people and brought negative attention to our state and university," Hinshaw said. Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis has also chimed in on McMackin’s comments and although Weis admitted he and his program were offended by them, he believes it’s time to move on. “Coach McMackin demonstrated poor judgment when, while making comments critical of our football program, he used a derogatory word," Weis said in a statement. "Speaking only for our football program, we were offended by the remarks.” I’m with Weis and I do think that these comments are not the end of the world or cause to crucify McMackin and end his career. Sure, these words will stick to him and he’ll have a stigma attached to his name for a while, but he deserves it. As for the University of Hawaii, hopefully the administration learns how to either a) hand out actual punishment/discipline when warranted or b) gives up the false pretense of doing so and just makes it official policy to let everything slide……
- Philadelphia, perhaps not the city of brotherly love? Or at least not the city of love for brothers, not if you believe the claims made in a civil complaint filed against the city by black employees at a city waste transfer plant. The workers claim they were harassed, humiliated and discriminated against by their supervisor for decades. Among the allegations in the complaint is that for decades, John Gill, the Northwest Transfer Station's superintendent, limited one restroom to whites only and called it the "supervisors' bathroom.”
Some time around 1996, black employees clued in to the fact that Gill was mistreating them. “If you tried to use the bathroom, you might get suspended," said Leslie Young, a former worker at the facility. She and former co-worker Gibson Trowery, who still works at the station, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in October 2007. They allege that Gill had a lock put on the bathroom door and only gave keys to white workers. The nearest restroom for black employees, the suit alleges, was down five flights of stairs and was "not in the greatest condition.” Gill isn’t exactly coming across as incredibly likeable or right in addressing the claims made in the suit, saying, "If you want to write a fair story, wait for after the trial to finish writing it.” Notice there’s no, “This is a bogus lawsuit, its claims are false and I will be vindicated.” He’s merely issuing a terse reply urging everyone to shut up and leave him alone until after the trial. But I guess that’ll happen to an (alleged) racist whose enemies are seeking his dismissal and monetary damages. At this point, perhaps you’re asking why all of this fuss is being made over a bathroom. I might agree with you except for the fact that this dispute extends far beyond a convenient commode. Black employees at the transfer station complained that they were stuck with the oldest garbage trucks while whites were often upgraded to newer vehicles. “Gill would hide the white drivers' keys and pretend that he didn't know where they were," Trowery said. "But I saw him keep the keys in his drawer." Another allegation made against Gill in the lawsuit is that in the especially hot summer of 2007, he would only allow whites access to a water cooler kept in his barricaded office while black employees were forced to use a water fountain elsewhere in the building. Yet another former employee at the facility, Walter Bingham, claims that Gill made a point of allowing white workers to schedule their vacation times for the coming year on December 31, leaving black employees with the leftover dates for their own vacation time. On one hand I hope these allegations aren’t true because they’re pretty freaking ugly and offensive. I just don’t want to believe that there is someone out there with such a bigoted, backwards attitude to people of a different race. Unfortunately I know better and something tells me there’s at least some truth to what is being alleged……..
- For all the bad music news that has come across the wire lately (thanks Hack Eyed Peas!), here’s some positive news. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are reuniting and despite numerous side projects including Chad Smith another Chickenfoot tour and the first release of his instrumental side band Chad Smith's Bombastic Meatbats, the drummer is ready to rejoin his RHCP bandmates and end a one-year break that turned into two after touring to support 2005's "Stadium Arcadium." The reunion is definite, but that’s the only thing that the band has decided on at this point. Smith says he and his bandmates also "haven't talked about" who will produce or when the album will be released, although Rick Rubin has been at the board to produce the group’s last five albums and in Smiths words, "always ends up being the guy.” Smith explains that bassist Flea and guitarist John Frusciante will likely come in with some ideas for how the album should sound, but for the most part the band will simply jam, brainstorm and allow the writing process to take them wherever it wants. There is also a question of how Smith will be able to balance his work with Chickenfoot and the new Chili Peppers album, but the other members of the all-star group have assured him they'll continue to work according to his schedule. Up ahead for Chickenfoot is a tour that commences Aug. 2 in Halifax and will film one or two more of its upcoming shows for a possible DVD release. As of all of that wasn’t enough, Smith seems determined to channel his inner Jack White and have as many projects going on simultaneously as possible. While White has the White Stripes, Raconteurs and Dead Weather, Smith has three projects of his own and seems pretty pumped to get Meatbats, a group that formed a few years back as an outgrowth of Smith, guitarist Jeff Kolman and keyboardist Ed Roth's work with Glenn Hughes, out there. The band formed in 2007 and have worked together sporadically since then, although their upcoming album will be their first as a band. The debut album, which comes out Sept. 15, will be followed by a second project that the Meatbats have already recorded and which will be out in early 2010, along with a live album at the Baked Potato in Los Angeles. Having said all of that, I have to imagine that the RHCP reunion is the one that will draw the most interest and excitement from music fans and I can’t really argue with that…….
- Think this bride would like a mulligan on her nuptials? I don’t know the woman’s name or anything about her, but I know plenty about her new husband and that’s what has me thinking that she might want to reconsider her choice of spouse. Sean Kelly said his “I do’s” with his new bride on July 26 and the ceremony itself apparently went well enough. It was at the reception where the day took a wrong turn for Kelly, who decided at some point between the best man’s speech and the Macarena that it was a good time to throw down with his roommate and new brother-in-law Jason Wiesk. Maybe there were words exchanged about who would get the 27” color TV from their living room when Kelly moved out, I don’t know. What I do know is that Kelly hit Wiesk with a haymaker and sparked off a brawl between his family and his new wife’s family. Things spun out of control and someone had the good sense to call the police, who rolled up on the wedding in Woodstock, Illinois, arrested the groom and charged him with domestic battery. Had the evening ended there, it would have been bad enough, but of course there’s more. With the cops on the scene, Kelly asked to go to his car to give some things to his brothers before heading off to spend his wedding night in the can. What did he want to give to his brothers? Maybe their groomsmen’s gifts or something else wedding-related? No, that would make too much sense. Kelly returned from his car with six unregistered guns and thirty-nine rounds of ammunition, making him the single dumbest man in the state of Illinois. Carrying unregistered guns and ammo right in front of cops you know are there is the textbook definition of moronic. In addition to that charge of domestic battery, Kelly was charged with seven counts of possession of firearms without a proper license. My condolences to his wife for a) the worst wedding day ever and b) marrying such a ginormous tool……..
- Big time for you, Afghans. It’s your chance to catch up to the rest of the civilized world when it comes to downloading porn, buying useless crap off of eBay and following the completely mundane details of ordinary people’s lives on Twitter. In case you hadn’t guessed by now what I’m referring to, it’s the rapid expansion of Afghanistan’s fiber-optic network that will drive down prices for Internet services dramatically, extending access to ordinary Afghans and giving them a chance to experience the same twisted online world that the rest of us have grown to love. With fiber-optic cables running to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Average Joe Afghan will finally be able to get reasonably priced Internet service. In the past, the only option had been through satellite links to other nations, a very expensive choice that limited Internet usage to just 3 percent of the Afghan population. Afghan officials believe that these new cables will substantially expand business and educational opportunities in a country where both are in short supply. What I think is that the Internet in Afghanistan is going to go the exact same way it has gone in every other country where the Internet has become available: chiefly as a means for the freaks, pervs and degenerates of society to get their freak on, mostly in the form of downloading as much porn as possible. Like it or not, that’s fact. But back to the theoretical positive benefits that Afghan officials would like to believe are what this project is all about. “The project of fiber was supposed to last 18 months, and it is [now] seven years," says Mohammad him Yousufi, managing director of a Kabul-based Internet service provider (ISP) called Afghan ICT Solution. Afghans can thank the World Bank for funding this project, which will loop the country's major cities along a giant ring with spurs heading off to neighboring nations. However, the country’s raging war(s) between various factions and foreign militaries occupying parts of Afghanistan have left huge, important chunks of the line incomplete. The new Tajik line completed last month delivered the critical first outside connection and it was followed by the connection to Uzbekistan. This project puts Afghanistan on the same level as nearby Nepal and Bangladesh in porn-downloading, er, Internet access capabilities. Officials in Afghanistan are hoping that the new fiber-optic network will entice companies to consider opening call centers in Afghanistan as well. If nothing else, the people of Afghanistan can now have the same chance as everyone else to infect their computers with a virus when they attempt to download that video of Erin Andrews undressing in her hotel room…….
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