- What do you get when you mix a massive NCAA rules scandal encompassing the men’s basketball and football programs and a new football coach with a proclivity for breaking those same NCAA rules and a new athletic director hell-bent on cleaning up the athletic department? If you said an atmosphere of complete and total paranoia, you would be 100 percent correct. Southern California is still reeling after being put under significant NCAA sanctions during the summer after a four-year investigation into the athletic department. The NCAA punished the Trojans for extra benefits allegedly provided to Heisman Trophy-winning tailback Reggie Bush by two aspiring sports marketers and for illegal perks and benefits provided to former men’s basketball player O.J. Mayo. Athletic director Mike Garrett was fired for haphazardly presiding over the whole mess and new AD Pat Hayden came in with a mandate to clean things up. He inherited coach Lane Kiffin, hired by Garrett before his own firing. Kiffin knows that he’s walking along the edge of a cliff every day and one small slip would mean disaster, so clearly he’s being incredibly oversensitive to every minor misstep or possible misstep by one of his players. Hence, freshman tailback Dillon Baxter being ruled ineligible to compete for the Trojans because he solicited a ride in a golf cart on USC's campus from an NFLPA-certified agent Thursday in violation of NCAA rules concerning extra benefits. School officials confirmed the decision after self-reporting the infraction and filing an official request with the NCAA for Baxter's reinstatement. In filing the request, USC put a nominal value on the golf cart ride that Baxter would have to repay, likely to a charity. "We're hoping that that this is going to be the end of it and the NCAA will understand that we acted proactively and quickly," USC vice president for athletic compliance David Roberts said. "Obviously we'll take further action in this coming week to make sure that there are no other contacts between these people and our players." So why is an agent tooling around the USC campus in a golf cart? Well, because the agent is Teague Egan (his real - and stupid - name), the CEO of First Round Enterprises, a company that represents multiple recording artists and lists itself as a provider of sports representation, and Teague Egan is also currently a student at USC, according to official school records. Egan is clearly not subtle or polished when it comes to his operation, as his biography on the agency's website includes a claim that he has "befriended many athletes on the USC football team." Gee, think you might want to be a little less blunt about that, chief? Yes, one of Egan’s partners is former Trojans linebacker Jordan Campbell, the first USC player to defect post-sanctions when he transferred to Louisville in June, and longtime NFL agent and current USC adjunct professor of law Fred Fenster is also listed as the legal senior adviser for the company. Bearing all of this in mind, is it coincidence that Baxter did not practice Thursday after being hospitalized earlier in the day with an unspecified illness and dehydration? Could be, but you have to love the thought of the arrogant, brash Kiffin panicking every time a player says or does something even remotely close to being an NCAA rules violation……..
- Y’all, I hate to be over-reactive and panicky, but I believe that I’m acting in everyone’s best interests when I say that it’s time to seriously consider canceling ABC’s hack-tastic reality dancing show, Dancing With the (D-List) Stars. First, Bristol Palin’s presence on the show inspires a Connecticut man to open fire on his teleivision with a shotgun (as you read here on Wednesday) and now, the show has infuriated one unstable citizen enough for him or her to mail a threatening letter with white powder inside to the DWTDLS production office. Now I know what you’re thinking and no, I did not send that letter. To be honest, I’m not wasting postage or any white powdery substance - cocaine, baking soda, salt, sugar, heroin, talcum powder, etc. - in order to send a letter to the kooks who run that show. But someone was definitely fired up enough to mail that letter and staff in the office immediately notified security and city authorities after the letter arrived Friday evening. Hilariously, investigators later advised ABC that the substance inside was talcum powder. "Measures were taken to secure the area and ensure the safety of personnel," ABC spokeswoman Amy Astley said. The letter will be tested further at a regional laboratory as authorities' investigation continues, but I have a better and simpler solution. Just shut down the show right away, destroy any and all evidence that it existed and promise the world that never again will you foist anything remotely like this train wreck of D-listers on them again. Then, people will no longer have to shoot their televisions or mail personal hygiene products and threatening letters to you ever again…..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Egypt, it has been far too long since everyone’s favorite overview of social dissidence ‘round the world made a stop in your little corner of the world. It’s great to be back and of course, the reason for returning is the awesome, explosive clashes that erupted between security forces and opposition supporters Friday as elections near. Even though tensions is most major Egyptian cities appeared to have simmered down by Saturday, Friday’s clashes were some of the most violent in recent memory. Opposition groups brawled with police, who predictably overreacted by busting out the tear gas and rubber bullets. They arrested dozens of Muslim Brotherhood supporters ahead of November 28 parliamentary election and the riots weren’t only in Cairo. Clashes between The Man and the little guy also broke out in Alexandria, where 33 people were injured as demonstrators threw rocks at security forces trying to disperse a crowd from one neighborhood. The banned Muslim Brotherhood group is just one of many opposition groups speaking out against The Man, although the MB is more furious than anyone because its candidates are forced to run as independents. Nearly all of the opposition groups have accused the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of using its power to suppress voices critical of President Mubarak's almost-20-plus-year rule. The groups are demanding international election monitors, a demand that ruling party general secretary Safwat al-Shareef dismissed as unnecessary. Egypt's Supreme Election Committee and "civil community groups will guarantee free and transparent elections, Al-Shareef said. Uh-huh, sure they won't. I don’t care if 76 Egyptian civil organizations will be allowed to monitor the polls, the reality is that the government could very easily have those groups under its thumb. With 800 candidates from the ruling party, 250 from the liberal al-Wafd Party and 130 from the Muslim Brotherhood running for the parliament's 508 seats, this election is going to be contentious throughout and having some impartial observers on hand would help. Smaller parties and opposition movements have already declared they are boycotting the elections over transparency concerns, so perhaps adding impartial third-party monitors would convince them to rejoin the proceedings………
- Residents of Washington, Pa., you have a mighty fine police department protecting you - or at least protecting fake murder victims at fake murder scenes at ghetto-fabulous hotels. An impressive display of their serving and protecting came this week when firefighters were called to a fire at the old George Washington Hotel and found a room splattered with blood and empty liquor bottles. Police were called in and even Washington Police Chief J.R. Blyth thought the messy room was the most grisly murder scene in his 35 years in law enforcement. Blyth assigned several investigators to the crime scene and they went to work figuring out what had happened before realizing that the entire scene was nothing more than a set for a horror movie. "I was mad at first because we declared it a crime scene. I had to call my detectives out -- that's eight hours of overtime," Blythe said. Hey chief, it’s no one else’s fault that you aren’t smart enough to know fake blood from real blood and a movie set from an actual crime scene. Has you been a little sharper, you may not have used up more than eight hours of overtime for the investigation. "I had no idea what was going on -- blood on the floor, the mattress, the pillows, piece of a scalp with hair still attached in the center of the bed," Blythe explained. For the record, the room is on the fourth floor of the 10-story hotel on South Main Street, where four people have died since current owner Kyrk Pyros bought the hotel seven years ago. The room was used for what can truly be described as a horror movie, with Corey Haim as its biggest-name cast member. Two long years ago, the room was used for a scene in a straight-to-DVD flick called "New Terminal Hotel" with Haim. After filming wrapped, the room was left uncleaned because Pyros wasn't sure if the movie crew would have to come back and do re-shoots. "We had a laugh and I said we had 'Terminal Hotel' filmed there and they put blood on the walls and they did a nice job making it look good," Pyros remembered. The hotel itself has a national reputation for being haunted and more than a dozen people have died in the hotel since it was built in 1923. Presidents and famous actors have stayed there and now it’s the scene of one of the dumbest police investigations in our nation’s history………
- In case you didn’t know, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. That’s ironic because only about 3,600 of the majestic predators remain in the wild, putting tigers on the verge of extinction because of habitat-loss and poaching. With that precarious situation in mind, Russian Prime Minister (and communism lover) Vladimir Putin and the World Bank will co-host the International Forum on Tiger Conservation, beginning Sunday and bringing together 13 nations to discuss what could be the best and last chance to save the wild tiger. The 13 nations gathering represent every major tiger country in the world. The summit marks a first in the history of tiger conservation and oddly enough, it will be hosted by a noted Communist and former totalitarian ruler of a country better known for vodka and Siberia. Putin is a tiger activist and has been ever since 2008, when he received a female tiger cub as a birthday gift. The cub, named Mashenka, spent at least three days sleeping in a wicker basket at Putin's home before being given to a zoo. Putin was in front of every camera he could find during those three days and images of him with Mashenka flooded the media. Later that year, Putin traveled to Siberia's conservation area and got between an angry tigress and some volunteers. After tranquilizing the animal, he helped put a tracking collar on her and she became a prominent image on his personal website. Barney Long, the head of the WWF U.S. Tiger Program, credits the scale and importance of the summit "almost solely to Putin. It is he who is reaching out, turning this from technical meetings into a real political event." And so it is that leaders of tiger-having countries around the world will journey to St. Petersburg, Russia this week. Leaders from Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam will all attend and take part in breakout sessions, brainstorming meetings and other fun seminar activities to figure out ways to save wild tigers. Russia’s tiger population consists of roughly 400 Siberian tigers in its far-eastern region, accounting for 9 percent of wild tigers in the world. Conservation experts have applauded Russia's conservation formula -- strict legislation targeting poaching and illegal trade in tiger parts - and say it is important for other nations to know that the formula can find success elsewhere. So what nation is the biggest problem in the case of the rapidly disappearing wild tiger? Prepare to be shocked because its……freaking China. China still fuels the market for tiger parts despite government efforts to curb the trade and it’s not just because tigers, like humans, must breathe the toxic air hovering over most of the country and thus die early from respiratory illnesses. As a lover of all living things, here’s hoping that Bad Vlad Putin and friends can find a way to get China in line and protect the remaining wild tigers of the world………
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