- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Everyone’s favorite overview of social dissidence ‘round the world is always dealing with important issues like inept governments, voting inequities and financial malfeasance, but today’s edition is especially important because it involves Haiti. The battered island nation, still attempting to recover from a deadly earthquake not many months ago, is now coping with hurricane induced floods that have led to a lethal cholera outbreak. The cholera outbreak is a major issue because the poor, largely uneducated people dealing with it don’t fully understand how cholera spreads and stopping its spread has proved all but impossible. With that weighing on their minds, thousands of angry Haitians took to the streets in the capital city of Port-Au-Prince to stage large-scale protests against the United Nations. The protests, which have been forming around the country, finally reached the capital and saw masses of angry people demanding the global body get out of their country. The demonstrations mirrored those earlier this week in the northern coastal city of Cap-Haitien and are based on unfounded assertions that U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal were responsible for starting the cholera outbreak that has claimed more than 1,100 lives and spread to eight of the nation's 10 departments. The United Nations is steadfast that its representatives are not responsible for the outbreak. The main protest in Port-au-Prince on Thursday began peacefully in the center of the city but quickly turned violent as it moved toward the presidential palace. Next thing you know, tear gas is in the air and it is ON. At the city’s central square, Champs de Mars Plaza, several hundred men in an angry pack blocked traffic and added some sizzle do the demonstrations by setting fire to tires in the street and turning over dumpsters. Others kicked it up a notch by lobbing rocks at a campaign poster for presidential candidate Jude Celestin, whose candidacy has been endorsed by outgoing president Rene Preval. A few forward-thinkers threw Molotov cocktails at the poster. To be sure, the floods have heaped even more suffering on an already beaten-down people who are seeking someone to blame. The U.N. is a convenient target and whether or not there is actual evidence to blame them, Haitians are simply looking for a scapegoat. The smallest provocation is enough to spark them to attack a government tractor being used to clear barricades blocking the streets, for example. None of this is meant to minimalize the cholera outbreak, which has led to 1,110 reported deaths and another 18,382 people hospitalized with the disease. It certainly comes as no surprise that the first riots occurred in Cap-Haitien, which has been hit hardest by the outbreak. Residents of the city came out en masse to demand the departure of U.N. peacekeepers because they believe those peacekeepers to be responsible for the cholera epidemic that has produced the highest fatality rate from cholera, 7.5 percent, of any Haitian province. If that means you need to riot and demand answers, then so be it………
- With the NFL and even NBA blowing right by it in terms of popularity in this country, Major League Baseball is in desperate need of something to give it a jolt and hold onto what remains of its dwindling fan base. Commissioner Bud Selig, who hit a home run when he added the wild card to baseball and thus put additional teams in the postseason, hopes that same concept will prove golden once again. Speaking at a series of meetings this week in Orlando with owners and general managers, Selig’s plan to expand baseball's playoffs to 10 teams gained enough momentum that the executives in attendance left all but resigned to the fact that the plan will soon become reality. Selig said his special 14-man committee will discuss adding two wild-card teams when it meets Dec. 7 during the winter meetings in nearby Lake Buena Vista. "We will move ahead, and move ahead pretty quickly," Selig said Thursday at the end of three days chocked full of meetings. Owners would need to approve that change and their next meeting will be Jan. 12-13 in Paradise Valley, Ariz. The players' association would also need to give its approval, although it has already said it is amenable to the extra round. Even if the additional teams are added, MLB would then need to sell those games to baseball's national television partners and fitted into a crowded postseason schedule that has already pushed the World Series into November in the past two years. However, the league would have an extra year to figure out all of the details because the added playoff teams could not happen until the 2012 season, after baseball’s current labor contract expires in December 2011. "I'm not going to rule out anything," Selig said. "We'll just proceed and whatever we decide, then we'll just see how fast we can get it done. Once we pass something, I'm always anxious to get it done." By the way, Selig's committee includes current managers Tony La Russa, Jim Leyland and Mike Scioscia and former manager Joe Torre. They will consider the idea of raising the number of wild-card teams in each league from one to two. Owners seem generally supportive of the idea thus far. "I think it's definitely worth looking at. I have no problem with that," New York Yankees co-owner Hank Steinbrenner said. One question to be answered would be the format of the new opening round of the playoffs, with some favoring a best-of-three series and others supporting one-game winner-take-all game. If implemented, the change would be the first to the postseason since 1995, when MLB expanded its playoff field from four to eight by adding the wild card to each league and changing each league from two to three divisions, creating one additional division winner. Selig remembers that change well, along with the heavy criticism he initially took for the idea. "I got ripped and torn apart, and it was pretty bad," Selig said. "If I had defiled motherhood I don't think I could have gotten ripped any more than I did. But now it's fascinating to me. Now they not only like it so much, they want more of it." Assuming that the playoffs don’t extend past Thanksgiving with this new idea (and don’t bet against that), it sounds like a solid concept…….
- At this point, is there anyone who cares whether or not Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix’s documentary/mockumentary, I’m Still Here, is a complete hoax or not? Both men have waffled on the issue so many times and offered so many varying explanations that no one is quite sure where the truth lies, but the film is nowhere near good enough to waste time and energy caring at this point. For those unfamiliar with the project, the movie chronicles Phoenix’s highly public, supposed psychological meltdown, complete with a drug addiction, attempted rap career and overall life crisis. Phoenix supposedly went temporarily loco, left the acting business and began growing a hobo beard and doing stupid sh*t like showing up on stage at some random club and busting a horrible rap song so awful that is sparked a brawl between he and a patron. Affleck has hinted that the documentary was real and he’s more recently tended toward admitting that it’s all a big ruse between he and his brother-in-law. Phoenix seemed to bring clarity to the situation in September when he admitted on David Letterman’s show that the project was a sham, ‘fessing up to his mumbling, grumbling appearance on the show in February of 2009. But with the project scheduled for release on DVD next week, Affleck and Phoenix need to do something - anything - to inject life and interest into a project that has thus far failed miserably. Hence, their “stunning” revelation on the movie’s DVD audio commentary that they weren’t the only ones in on the hoax. Many of the other stars who appear in the film — including Ben Stiller and Diddy — knew exactly what was going on. Diddy appears in the film when he appears to legitimately consider Phoenix’s plea to produce his album. He kept up the sham by later insisting to reporters that the actor’s rap career was authentic. Affleck and Phoenix cop to Diddy’s part in their hoax during the DVD commentary. “Puff was great. He invited us over to his house, and we actually went over and we explained what the movie was to him and you know, sat with him for about a half an hour and sort of talked him through it. And all he said was that he was in,” Affleck said. “Puff… took direction very well.” Stiller, who appears in one of the film’s more dramatic scenes as he pitches a potential movie role to Phoenix. “We actually filmed this scene after Joaquin’s appearance on Letterman, after the Oscars, when Ben makes fun of him,” Affleck revealed. “And then we went back and we shot this scene so we could put it earlier in the movie and give Ben a reason. We had to sort of justify why [Ben] would be making fun of him that way. Give him a kind of personal motivation. And he was totally game.” As for the infamous rap effort at a Las Vegas club, Phoenix admitted that the stunt was inspired by Chevy Chase. “Most of my life I’ve been consumed and plagued with the fear of falling or tripping in public for some reason. And any time I walk the red carpet or go on to a talk show or something, I’m certain that I’m going to fall and make a fool of myself. And I just thought that this was kind of a perfect opportunity to see the character fall,” Phoenix stated. “I was always a fan of slapstick comedy, and Chevy Chase always used to do this thing where he’d fall over and jump up immediately, like he was fine. And I just basically tried to steal it from him.” Also in on the joke were Natalie Portman and Edward James Olmos, although Affleck refused to comment on whether Letterman was in on the joke. At this point, who really gives a rat’s ass……….
- The Philadelphia Eagles go green every Sunday anyhow, but now the team that put on one of the most explosive offensive shows in the NFL this season wants to go green full-time, in the environmental sense. Their home turf, Lincoln Financial Field, was built before the true advent of green construction. That isn’t stopping owner Jeffrey Luria from turning the stadium into the greenest stadium in the world. By the time next season begins, the team plans to have the entire upper rim of the stadium adorned with 100 spiral-shape wind turbines and to place some 2,500 solar panels over portions of the roof and facade, tilting south. Furthermore, in non-parking areas of the stadium’s main parking lot, the Eagles will build a cogeneration power plant that can run on biodiesel or natural gas. Adding these three enviro-friendly power sources together, the team believes they will have enough energy to power everything needed to stage a game, even a night game where lights are used. In essence, the Eagles have removed themselves from the energy grid. They won't be consuming power from traditional energy sources, although their system will actually be connected to the grid so it can send any unneeded power back to that grid. Everyone made certain to salute the Eagles for their achievement, from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to a sustainability expert at Carnegie Mellon University who called the plan "impressive" and said it would bring important publicity to alternative energy. Not only that, the new system will reportedly save the team some $60 million in energy costs over the next two decades. "We never really accepted the notion that to do great by the environment would not be a wise business practice, or too costly," Lurie said. As for the claim that the Linc will be the greenest stadium in the world……that’s going to be difficult to verify. Other contenders for the title include Taiwan's 100 percent solar-powered Dragon Stadium and the Stade de Suisse arena in Bern, Switzerland, also powered entirely by solar energy. In the United States, 18 other professional sports venues have some form of solar power and nine more have been granted LEED certification, a green rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. Outgoing California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to join the trend last month by signing a bill paving the way for construction of an $800 million green stadium in Los Angeles to lure an NFL team back to the city. Whether or not that plan succeeds, it’s certainly good to see teams doing something to benefit the environment………
- Not being a huge fan of The Man (a designation including pretty much anyone in authority, including law enforcement), I find this next story incredibly amusing. Any time police officers are forced to do something truly humiliating, something that has nothing to do with stopping actual lawbreakers and misfits looking to get over on society, it’s worth a solid laugh or ten. When multiple officers are called in to apprehend a bovine escapee terrorizing their town, that definitely qualifies as hilarious. The scene for this small-town shenanigan is Decatur, Ala., where local police were called in to catch a stray cow wandering the streets after leaving a parking lot at a local shopping center. At first, only a few officers joined the pursuit, but the longer it went on, the more cops put their doughnuts down and got in on the action. When that wasn’t enough, another bevy of helpers were brought in from the local stockyard. But try as they may, this motley crew was unable to capture one cantankerous cow and were only able to secure their prey when the animal tired after an hour on the run. At that point, officers used a lasso to secure the cow and after plenty of wrangling, they were able to move her into a cattle trailer to take her to the stockyard. My only regret in all of this is not being there to watch this delightful real-life comedy. You know it’s far better than any crappy, half-baked CBS sitcom that airs in a given week and it’s almost enough to make you wish you lived the small-town life in a place like Decatur……almost……..
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