Illegal Tweets in the NFL, animal-shaped cities in the Sudan and trouble in Meat Cove

- As if living in freaking Nova Scotia wasn’t bad enough…..oh hey, Nova Scotians, didn’t see you there. Umm, as I was saying, Nova Scotia is an amazing place to live and as such, I feel absolutely terrible for residents of the remove Nova Scotia community of Meat Cove (real name, I kid you not) for what they are currently going through. A massive rainstorm slammed their town over the weekend, washing out the only road in and out of Meat Cove. Without the bridge, Meat Cove (yes, I’m going to say it as many times as possible) has been cut off from the rest of Cape Breton Island since early Sunday. The same high winds and torrential downpours slammed the entire area, but the small town of 100 people was hit hardest and now finds itself as a literal island unto itself. While they wait for the rest of the world to reestablish connection with them, the community's 100 residents have turned their community hall into a command post and comfort center for several dozen visitors who were enjoying the peace and tranquility of Meat Cove (told ya) when the storm hit. Additionally, the town has shown off its small-town kindness by having a local restaurant has been feeding tourists for free. "We're just devastated here in the community," said local resident Derrick MacLellan. "We totally lost our beach. We had a number of buildings out there and they're totally out in the ocean." The scariest moment of the weekend befell two German tourists who narrowly escaped when their car was washed away while they were parked at the beach. A massive cascade of water rushed down from a brook, wiping out the car and several buildings in the process. "The car just went with the flow," said MacLellan. "They were very, very lucky that they got up the side of the cliff or they would've lost their lives as well." On the upside, no homes were lost in the storm; on the downside, many residents are without drinking water. The only form of connection Meat Cove residents have with the outside world is local fishermen who are bringing supplies in by boat from neighboring towns and assisting people who need to leave. A boat also brought in Nova Scotia Deputy Premier Frank Corbett, who arrived in Meat Cove by boat Monday afternoon to assess the carnage. "We're here to see it ourselves," Corbett said. "To talk to the folks and see what we can get done and find out actually from the experts when we can get life back to normal for everybody.” In the meantime, helicopters will be used to fly out anyone in need of emergency medical attention as, surprise of all surprises, the 100-resident town of Meat Cove has no health facilities of its own. So stay strong, Meat Covians, you can make it…………

- Good to see that Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco is already in mid-season form even though the preseason is barely halfway done. The self-promoting, fun-loving, bombastic Bengal, one of the NFL’s most frequent Twitter users, has run afoul of the league’s rule that bans players from posting messages on social media websites starting 90 minutes before kickoff and until postgame media obligations are fulfilled. Ochocinco’s violations came before and during the Bengals' preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Aug. 20. He Tweeted twice during the restricted period, once at 6:50 p.m. ET and again at 9:53 p.m. ET for a game that kicked off at 8:07 p.m. ET. The Tweets resulted in two violations -- possessing an electronic device and posting messages on Twitter during the restricted period. For his efforts, the NFL fined Ochocinco $25,000 for his two infractions, which means some deserving charity in the greater Cincinnati area is going to be getting a much-needed donations to its coffers. So what was the content of the offending Tweets, those $12,500-apiece Tweets? Well, the second one was the more interesting of the two and read, "Man Im sick of getting hit like that , its the damn preseason [expletive]! 1day I'm gone jump up and start throwing hay makers , #Tylenolplease." The last “word” of that Tweet is of course a play on Ochocinco’s catchphrase, “Child please.” Something tells me this won’t be the last time Ochocinco makes an impromptu donation to a local charity in the name of Tweeting………

- A government agency employing translators to help it decipher the speech and other communication of groups with whom it does not share a common language is nothing new. However, when the language that needs translating is Ebonics, the story takes a much different tilt. Apparently Ebonics are so pervasive in drug deals nowadays that the Drug Enforcement Administration is actively seeking nine people to translate conversations featuring Ebonics that agents picked up on wiretaps during investigations. Special Agent Michael Sanders confirmed the plan to seek Ebonics translators and a solicitation was sent to contractors as part of a request to companies to provide hundreds of translators in 114 languages. "DEA's position is, it's a language form we have a need for," Sanders said. "I think it's a language form that DEA recognizes a need to have someone versed in to conduct investigations." The translators are need for the agency's Southeast Region -- which includes Atlanta, Georgia; Washington; New Orleans, Louisiana; Miami, Florida; and the Caribbean. Translators would listen to wiretaps, translate what was said and testify in court if necessary, Sanders attempted to justify the need for translators by explaining that Ebonics is no longer spoken only by African-Americans, terming it as "urban language" or "street language." He cited investigations in recent years in which the dialect was spoken by African-Americans, Latinos and white people. "It crosses over geographic, racial and ethnic backgrounds," he said. What I find interesting is that the DEA believes some criminals are “trying to use this to evade detection" while trafficking in drugs. Apparently, the DEA is currently relying solely on agents whose ability to translate Ebonics is limited to picking out a few random words on wiretaps. As brief history lesson for the linguistic-ignorant, "Ebonics" is a blend of "ebony" and "phonics" that first hit the public consciousness in 1996, when the Oakland, California, Unified School District proposed using it in teaching English. The school board came under fire later altered the plan and removed reference to Ebonics as "genetically based" and as the "primary language" of students. To be sure, there are still plenty of negative stereotypes and connotations associated with Ebonics and it is still viewed by most people as the language of the uneducated and ignorant. One group that refutes those claims is the Center for Applied Linguistics, a Washington-based nonprofit organization whose Web site says in part, "Because it has a set of rules that is distinct from those of standard American English, characterizations of the variety as bad English are incorrect. Speakers of AAE do not fail to speak standard American English, but succeed in speaking African American English." However you classify it, there’s no getting around the fact that if criminals are speaking the language and the DEA is trying to stop them, it needs people who speak Ebonics………

- Reality television in general is a joke. Even the name is a misnomer because there is nothing less realistic than reality TV. Perhaps the G4 network is looking to change that by ordering a new reality show called Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan, which will follow an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Afghanistan. If that sounds familiar, it should be. That was the basic premise of last year’s The Hurt Locker, which was billed as a realistic portrayal of the dangerous environment in which American soldiers operate on a daily basis as part of life in a war zone but ultimately became a totally trumped-up, unrealistic Hollywood production that bore little to no resemblance to the real thing. Could Bomb Patrol be any different? Well, the most obvious step for improvement over Hurt Locker is to steer clear of the existential debate over the nature of modern warfare that dragged the movie down. Bomb Patrol isn’t set to air until next spring, so there’s still time to cast some hunky co-stars with great abs and bleached teeth, along with some hot female leads who can sex up scenes and draw in the male demographic to the show. Sure, that would be wholly unrealistic and absurd, but this is reality TV, not a documentary. Maybe this is just to sort of frivolous fluff, er, realistic war drama that the American public needs to re-energize and galvanize its support for the war in Afghanistan, which has become nearly as unpopular as the man who launched it, the worst president of this or any other generation, W. You still suck, by the way, W………

- How often have you found yourself thinking that if only you had a good reason to visit Sudan, you would buy your plane ticket and make the trip? If so, your prayers have been answered and they have been answered by the only thing that could truly turn a Third World African nation into a tourist hotspot: animal-shaped cities. That’s right, the government of Southern Sudan this week unveiled urban blueprints to rebuild cities in the shape of animals. For example, there could be an amusement park situated in the ear of a rhinoceros and a five-star hotel as the beast’s eye. Perhaps a giraffe-shaped city with a plush, leafy golf course on its chest. The world-class visionary behind the plan is Housing and Physical Planning Ministry undersecretary Daniel Wani, who admitted the attention has bolstered his efforts and reenergized his cause. "The reaction has been very good. We have been getting calls from everywhere," Wani declared. "Generally, the feedback we are receiving indicates that we are on a positive track." This is a whopper of a plan, spanning several decades and operating on a budget of $10.1 billion. Re-creating Southern Sudan's 10 state capitals into intricately-shaped animal towns sounds ridiculous on the surface, given that the region is one of the poorest places on earth. On top of that, the region lacks any paved roads outside its three main cities. The only thing injecting even a modicum of hope into this ridiculous scheme is the prospect of Southern Sudan achieving independence next year through a January secession referendum promised in a 2005 peace deal that granted the region self-rule until the vote. Proposing a plan of this scale is definitely a way to generate attention and interest, but the reality is that Southern Sudan's total budget for 2010 is less than $2 billion. Critics of the plan are many and powerful, but then again, there are always critics and naysayers when you try to do something great. Even an expected boon from oil resources in the region isn’t swaying the doubters, but Wani insists that dreaming big is essential for not only his region’s future, but also its present. "The shapes are what is innovative about the whole idea, that is what is attracting all the attention," Wani says. Getting this plan off the ground may ultimately rest on the government’s ability to do what many American professional sports franchises have done in order to secure shiny, expensive new stadiums for themselves - secure private funding. The government hopes that ultimately, more than 70 percent of the project will be financed privately. They’ve hosted visits from businessmen from Japan and the cradle of modern excess, Abu Dhabi, since the plans were unveiled. Another hurdle for the plan is approval by the nation's executive Cabinet. That isn’t discouraging Wani, who is almost maniacal in his devotion to turning capital cities into elephants, rhinos and wildebeests. "We are implementing the plan, definitely," he defiantly declared……….