- How do you know that your once-desirable head coaching job has become one of the jobs that no one really wants in the college football world? When you offer it to a guy who is the current head coach at Duke University and he turns you down cold, that’s when. Safe to say it has not been a good week for the University of Tennessee athletic department. At the beginning of the week, head football coach Lane “One and Done” Kiffin ditched UT after all of one year on the job so he could go back to coach at USC, where he was an assistant from 2001-06. Clearly without much of a sense of loyalty, Kiffin jettisoned the Volunteers faster than Rosie O’Donnell would consume a ten-pound block of fudge and did so just three week’s before the national signing day for incoming recruits. Having no coach with signing day looming is a terrible position for any school to be in, so UT acted quickly to fill its coaching void. One of the first calls they made was to Duke coach David Cutcliffe, a former offensive coordinator with the Vols. It would seem like a no-brainer, leaving a basement-dwelling program in a lackluster Atlantic Coast Conference for a storied, albeit struggling, program in the mighty SEC. After all, prior to Cucliffe’s arrival at Duke, the Blue Devils won only 10 games in the previous eight seasons combined. He has “turned around” the program and guided it to a 9-15 record the past two seasons, which wouldn’t count as a success anywhere other than lowly Duke. The ceiling isn't exactly high at Duke and there is no chance that Cutcliffe will ever contend for a national championship at the school. Conversely, if he were able to raise UT to the top of the SEC, he could definitely compete for a national championship on a regular basis. Yet Cutcliffe assessed the situation, talked with those close to him and decided that he would rather remain at Duke than move to Tennessee. "After much thought and consideration, Karen and I reached the decision that Duke is the place for our family," Cutcliffe said in a statement. "We have the best coaching staff in the country, and are convinced that we will continue to build a successful football program that both the Duke and Durham communities will be proud of." Prior to Cutcliffe rejecting the UT job, Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp did the same. Instead of those two or another qualified candidate, Tennessee ultimately settled for Louisiana Tech's Derek Dooley, who accumulated an impressive 17-20 record in three seasons. Oh, how the mighty in college football have stumbled…………
- Finally, the blight of censorship in China is lifting. Okay, so not really, but at least Google has lifted its self-censorship in the Communist nation. Now, users of Google.cn can actually look up entries for sensitive topics including the 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square, the Dalai Lama and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement. Previously, a search for "Tiananmen" netted only benign, pedestrian picture of the square on a normal, human-rights-being-repressed day. But as of Wednesday, Google.cn linked to pages with information about the bloody government crackdown in 1989, when tanks ran wild over protestors and people were murdered by their own government. Why is Google lifting its self-censorship now? Because apparently the company is tired of trying to placate the oppressive Chinese regime and will now do business on its own terms in the country. The final straw was what Google calls "sophisticated" cyber attacks originating from within China. The G-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were targeted and Google says the attacks "have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China." The issue was address bluntly by Google's chief legal officer David Drummond in an official blog post issued Wednesday. Drummond wrote that the company was "...No longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn...This may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China." But that was only the beginning, as later in the day, employees in Google's Beijing office were reportedly put on paid leave and security was tightened. The day’s developments sparked several Google users and fans of free speech to gather in front of the company's China headquarters in northwest Beijing to express their support. Althought Google has not directly accused the Chinese government of being involved in the cyber attacks, this week’s actions certainly imply as much. Over the next few weeks, Google plans to explore possibilities of being able to continue doing business in China, but dealing with the Communist regime there shouldn’t inspire much hope or optimism. The company has done business in China since launching its China-based search engine in 2006, but that business has never been booming. From its inception, the Google.cn filter and its censored results were unpopular. That’s a significant issue in a country with 300 million Internet users, more than any other. Hopefully Google’s decision to spit in the face of censorship will have positive ramipercussions in the long run and more people will be inspired to stand up to the Commie a-holes who run the Chinese government……………
- It didn’t take long for the sh*t to hit the fan after Washington Wizards point guard Gilbert Arenas went all Annie Oakley in the locker room to settle a dispute over a gambling debt with teammate Javaris Crittenton. NBA commissioner David Stern suspended him indefinitely after Arenas not only didn’t show contrition for his mistake but actually joked about it on Twitter and in pretending to shoot up his team’s huddle using his hands as imaginary six-shooters prior to a game the night after the incident broke. Now, a mere three weeks after the December 21 incident, Arenas has been charged with a felony gun violation. He has apparently reached a plea deal for the charge of carrying a pistol without a license, according to court documents filed Thursday. Prosecutors have agreed to ask for no more than six months of jail time, but the final decision on that will be made by Superior Court Judge Robert E. Morin as Arenas’ March 26 sentencing. If convicted at trial, he would have faced up to five years in prison. As it is, he will likely spend less than six months behind bars, but even that does not ensure that he will be back on an NBA court any time soon. His indefinite suspension by the league is in place only until Stern reaches a final decision on the situation, which will happen some time after the legal process has run its course. With Arenas likely headed to the big house for a few months, I’m not expecting Stern to do anything less than suspend him for a while longer. The big question now is whether Arenas finally grasps the seriousness of his situation and is ready to change his attitude and actions. He has previously described the incident as "a misguided effort to play a joke on a teammate" and seemed less than remorseful about it. The team has not gone out of its way to support Arenas in his stupidity, taking down a banner at its arena, the Verizon Center, that featured his likeness and replacing it with a team-oriented one. Arenas was also ripped from the pregame team highlight video and after the gun charge was filed against him, the team issued a statement that didn’t exactly rally behind him. "We are aware of the charge filed against Gilbert Arenas today and will continue to follow the ongoing legal process very carefully," the team said. "We will also cooperate fully with the proper authorities and the NBA." The big question now for the Wizards is whether or not they seek to void the remainder of Arenas’ contract, under which he is owed more than $80 million. There is nothing specific in the players' collective bargaining agreement regarding a legal threshold for such an action, but league officials believe a felony conviction would give the Wizards better standing should they choose to go that route. Losing that kind of money and possibly finding out that it has happened while you sit in an 8x10 cell wearing an orange jumpsuit. Guess you should have left the guns at home, Agent Zero………
- Have you been looking forward to seeing "Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark" on Broadway? If so, I’d advise you to have a little patience because the production is being delayed and the delay is significant enough to prompt its producers to offer refunds to theatergoers who had purchased tickets for performances. The show was originally scheduled to start Feb. 25, but while the producers said Tuesday that "the production is moving forward," there is no definite start date for performances. A new schedule for preview performances at the Hilton Theatre as well as an opening date for later this year will supposedly be announced shortly, so stay tuned for that. Current ticketholders can request an immediate refund from Ticketmaster or wait to exchange them for another date when the new performance schedule is announced. This particular musical is noteworthy for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that it features a score by Bono and The Edge of U2. It also has a budget that could hit the $50 million mark, so director Julie Taymor will have quite a production on her hands once the show is up and running. The troubled musical has endured numerous setbacks thus far, with work stopping last summer because of financial difficulties. At some point this year, the show may actually make it to the stage and start to earn back some of that massive budget…..or not……….
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