- Nuns have gotten a free ride for far too long. Just because they are religious figures who pledge themselves to a life of good, of sacrifice and of serving others, people take it easy on nuns and don’t hassle them nearly enough. Well, I say it’s time we take off the kid gloves and give nuns what they’ve had coming to them for a long time. That’s exactly what’s happening in Honolulu, where a team of nuns has been providing a library and reading lessons to the children of Kalihi Valley Homes, a state housing project for the past 24 years. Their cozy little arrangement came to an end recently when a boulder struck their apartment in the project. For some odd reason (which I don’t need explained to me), that caused the state government to review the nuns’ work and evict them. Furthermore, the state declared their reading program over. According to the state housing program, one reason it evicted the nuns was because their arrangement violated laws separating church and state while the program needed all the units it can get for family housing. Whatever story you need to sell, state housing program, is fine with me. Kick that rascal Sister Pat and her fellow nuns out and let someone else help the local kids with their reading. I feel confident in saying that if you surveyed the resident of Kalihi Valley Homes, you would find scores of horror stories about what a menace the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet were. They probably celebrated when two huge boulders which struck the hillside housing complex in January and shut the sisters down. Who needs a local library provided by Catholic nuns anyhow? So what if two nuns lived there as residents in return for turning their unit into a comfortable library? I think these nuns received better treatment than they deserved when they were temporarily relocated to another unit in the complex for several months. When they finally heard word on their fate, it was not what they were hoping to hear. “It was definitely a big part of our life and it was a big loss,” said Sister Brenda Lau, who said she and Sister Pat are now sharing a house with other nuns in their order. So save it, all of you who would argue that these thugs have been providing the reading program since 1986 under a memorandum of agreement with the housing authority and deserve to continue their good works. I don’t care if the nuns were also full-time employees of other state agencies and were living in the apartment rent-free. They may have donated the income from their jobs to their order, further perpetuating that image of being goodie two-shoes. I am squarely behind new director of the Hawaii Housing Authority, Denise Wise, who insisted that the arrangement the nuns had operated under for years was no longer feasible. “We could not provide exclusive use to a religious organization on any of our properties,” Wise said. “Even if it’s one unit at a time, we have a tremendous amount of pressure on our waiting list right now.” Stop complaining, displaced nuns, and be thankful that you didn’t get what you had coming to you sooner…………
- Dare I say it? There appears to be a touch of racism in the World Cup and it’s directed at none other than English-speaking teams. In preparing for the world’s biggest soccer tournament, World Cup referees have been given a crash course on English-language obscenities so they may properly punish those who curse them out. While reckless play and dirty tactics will still earn players yellow or red cards, the heightened focus on verbal abuse of referees, specifically by English-speaking players, is a new tact for the Cup. Cursing is certainly nothing new in soccer or any other sport and no fan is shocked to see a player on either his team or an opposing team let loose with an F-bomb or other profanity. Whether it’s Korean, Swahili, Japanese or English, players let their emotions go on the field and now, referees will be there to penalize them for it. "At the end of the day, you don't understand half of it," former Premier League and FIFA referee Graham Barber said. "So what do you do about it? Say 'I think he swore he at me, so I sent him off?' You don't, do you?" Well, the answer in this year’s World Cup is yes, at least if the player doing the cursing speaks English. FIFA requires World Cup referees and assistants to be proficient only in English, but the organization denied reports that match officials have been given lists of swear words. That doesn’t jibe with the claims of referee Carlos Simon, who will officiate a Saturday match in Rustenburg, assisted by Roberto Braatz and Altemir Hausmann. "All players swear and we know we will hear a few," Hausmann stated, adding that he and his crew have been brushing up on English and American curses. Perhaps all of this is framed by the fact that FIFA prides itself on its family friendly entertainment. It met with each team before the World Cup, reminding players they could be carded or ejected for profane language or obscene gestures. Now if the referees could only eject fans from the game for similar hooligan-ish behavior…………
- Well, the official word is in and you’ll all be disappointed to know that in fact, President Barack Obama did not appear in Tag Team's 1993 music video for hip-hop jam 'Whoomp! (There It Is).' Rumors had been buzzing all week long that Obama was the mysterious man throwing dice and rocking a ginormous old-school cell phone about one minute into the video, but White House spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield shot down those rumors (and our dreams) when pressed on the issue this week. "It is not him," Bedingfield unequivocally declared. Another source familiar with the situation, Judd Miner, a colleague of Obama's from his Chicago law days, also pooh-poohed the rumors. "I've never heard of this before," Miner said. "Barack never had an earring." Not that you know of, Judd. How do you know dude wasn’t rocking jewelry in his ear after hours? The talk of Obama’s possible cameo in the video even got back to Tag Team member DC the Brain Supreme, who admitted he was stunned by the attention and had received calls from 'Inside Edition' and New York magazine since the weekend. "This is like an episode of 'South Park.' You can't pay for that kind of publicity," the rapper, real name Cecil Glenn, said. However, he admitted that to the best of his knowledge, the man in the video was not Obama. "It doesn't add up. It's hard to say he was in Atlanta and said, 'Ooh, I want to be in the 'Whoomp! (There It Is)' video. I can't be for sure because that was a real big video shoot and thousands of people showed up," Glenn stated. The video was shot at a fairground in Atlanta, with word put out by a local radio station and word of mouth. Hundreds of wannabes showed up that day to be a part of the shoot, but unfortunately our current president does not appear to have been one of them……….
- Dammit, this is so not going to help bring down the cost of an eight ball of coke or a dime bag in my hood. No one looks out for the best interests of Average Joe Drug User like me and as such, I cannot help but be horrified by the arrest of the alleged leader of a regional branch of the Los Zetas drug cartel by the Mexican Army Wednesday,. Hector Raul Luna Luna, known by his amigos as "El Tori," was arrested during a "precision operation" by the personnel of the Seventh Military Zone in Monterrey, in northern Mexico. The military immediately spun lies about Luna confessing to participating in a grenade attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey on October 12, 2008, under the orders of Sigifredo Najera Talamantes, alias "El Canicon." Talamantes was arrested on March 20 of last year, which also did nothing to lower the price of illegal narcotics for those who need and covet them most. Since March, the Mexican Army has been hunting Luna, who is also suspect of killing six members of the Mexican Army and being the perpetrator of an attack against the secretariat of public security in the municipality of Escobedo, in Coahuila state, near the Texas border, and the subsequent attack on the then-secretary of public safety, retired general Hermelindo Lara Cruz. It’s an impressive laundry list of crimes, to be sure, but where is your proof? Arresting Luna and alleged accomplice David Eduardo Fuentes Martinez, known by the aliases "El Chile" and "El Mantequilla," doesn’t tell me much. Yes, the two men were carrying an impressive arsenal of weapons with them, including a 55 mm Barrett rifle, commonly used for piercing through shields and other materials. But who among you can tell me that you don’t always have a shield-piercing rifle handy for just such an occasion? What also infuriates me, aside from arresting key cartel figures and thus driving up the cartels’ cost of doing business and the subsequent price of drugs for the average junkie, is the Mexican Army holding a new conference Thursday and sending Brig. Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas Melendez out to allege that Talamantes and Martinez were arrested as part of the country's comprehensive strategy to combat drug trafficking. I prefer to marvel at these guys’ cool aliases (seriously, "El Mantequilla") and their massive stash of weapons that included: a 40 mm grenade launcher, a 5.7 x 28 mm pistol, two fragmentation grenades, two 40 mm grenades, chargers and 30 cell phones. UK8. I also weep over the 20 kilograms of marijuana, 110 doses of the same material, and 58 doses of cocaine seized by the military and the effect it will have on friendly Joe Pothead or Crackhead…………
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