- America is a nation of idiotic sheep and now our idiocy is infecting the rest of the world. The idea of flash mobs is certainly not unique to the United States, but let’s face it: We’re the ones driving this crazy train. And while it might seem harmless when Ohio State University organizes a bunch of students to do a Glee-style flash mob/dance sequence to celebrate the opening of its new student union, but then you see other IQ-deprived fools getting inspired by the trend and they end up taking what should be the classiest, most beautiful day of their life - their wedding day - and turning it into a giant public spectacle at the mall. Meet Jon and Caroline Kleinman, who tied the knot in truly regrettable fashion in mid-December. Their marriage took place at the Prudential Center with the help of a flash mob. If you don’t know what a flash mob is…..I don’t know what to tell you, other than take your head out of your…..never mind. The debacle began as it always does with a flash mob, with one lone moron singing. That was followed by choreographed dancing, after which a bride appeared, followed by a groom. At that point, whether they liked it or not, every last person in the Prudential Center was invited to Jon and Caroline’s flash mob wedding. “We live off the beaten path a little bit, and I think that we wanted to reflect that in way we celebrated our love together,” said Jon Kleiman. To be fair, Jon and Caroline do have an unusual relationship. He is from Needham, Mass. and she is from Belgium. The two of them met in Africa last May, so perhaps a normal wedding was not appropriate for them. Having said that……get married while skydiving or bungee jumping. Enter into wedded bliss on the roof of the tallest building in the city or aboard a float in the Fourth of July parade. Wedding in an oversized shopping center surrounded by harried holiday shoppers is just ridiculous. Unfortunately, not only do the bride and groom not understand that, they actually seem pleased with themselves. “When we were there, we saw all of the people that we love. It was just fun and incredible,” Caroline Kleiman beamed. To coordinate the dance, the couple sent an instructional video along with the wedding invitation and held a rehearsal the morning of the wedding. “It was sloppy and the dancing was terrible, and for that it was perfect,” Jon Kleiman stated. In the end, the couple called the wedding “exactly what we imagined.” The video has since gone viral and as it circulated around the globe, the Kleinmans enjoyed a quiet honeymoon in Maine………..
- Not to be a complainer, but if doctors are going to prescribe powerful psychiatric medications that increase their risk of weight gain and diabetes to patients suffering from serious mental illnesses, shouldn’t those drugs provide a likely benefit of improved mental health? According to a new study by researchers in the department of medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals, that’s not always the case. “Atypical agents were once thought to be safer and possibly more effective,” says study researcher G. Caleb Alexander, MD, an assistant professor in the department of medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals. “And what we’ve learned over time is that they are not safer, and in the settings where there’s the best scientific evidence, they are no more effective.” In other words, take these drugs that are not guaranteed to help your condition but are likely to lead to weight gain and increase your risk of diabetes….awesome. Furthermore, experts say that even when these drugs, which are known as atypical antipsychotics, are prescribed as recommended, they may not be safer or more effective than the less expensive, older medications that they’ve replaced. Drugs to treat serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia were first introduced in the late 1950s and 1960s, but those drugs came with disfiguring and painful neurologic side effects like muscle spasms and tremors and caused involuntary movements like facial grimacing. That supposedly changed in 1989 with the introduction of a new atypical antipsychotic drug, Clozaril, which was introduced with the promise of being more effective than its predecessors, with fewer side effects. Clozaril was followed by what have become household names due to ubiquitous commercials pushing anti-depressants: Abilify, Geodon, Invega, Risperdal, Saphris, Seroquel, and Zyprexa. To read more about why taking such drugs might not be as swell, track down a copy of the latest edition of the journal Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety. There, you can read about how researchers found that the number of office visits in which a doctor documented a patient’s use of atypical antipsychotics more than doubled since the mid-1990s -- escalating from 6.2 million in 1995 to 14.3 million by 2008. That trend has made atypical antipsychotics the top-selling pharmaceutical drug class. Doctors also became more likely to prescribe these powerful medications for conditions in which they had not been rigorously studied or FDA approved, such as anxiety, depression, attention deficit disorder, and for aggression and agitation in dementia patients. Maybe this is another piece of the puzzle that explains why America is by far the FAT-test country in the world……….
- I understand pride in your state’s athletic teams, be they collegiate or professional. I also get that when one of your teams or your teams’ players wins an award or championship, you want to mark the occasion. Having said that, I don’t know that Auburn's Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton is the guy you want to honor by declaring a day to be "Cameron Newton Day" in Alabama. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley has designated Saturday as such, just two days before Newton and the Tigers take the field in Monday's national title game in Glendale, Ariz., against Oregon. Sure, Riley said the special day also will honor Newton's work off the field mentoring children. And yes, Riley gave a similar honor last year to Alabama running back and 2009 Heisman winner Mark Ingram before the Crimson Tide defeated Texas in the national championship game. Maybe the governor is hoping that luck will smile on Auburn by giving Newton this honor in the same way it did for Ingram…..but Ingram’s father wasn’t fingered for shopping his son around and demanding six figures for his kid to attend a school. Even though the nincompoops at the NCAA weren’t able to directly tie Cam Newton to his father’s misdeeds, the odds of a parent doing what Cecil Newton did and his or her son not knowing about it……I’m simply saying that giving the kid his own day might not send a great message. Just don’t tell that to Riley, who went on to boast that he could become the first governor who can brag about back-to-back national champions and Heisman winners from the same state. Good perspective on the situation, governor……….
- Should I hold out more optimism for the Farrelly brothers’ remake of “The Three Stooges” in film form? Combining the consummate voices in lowbrow comedy with the most lowbrow comedic franchise of the past century (one of them, anyhow) could be great……or it could be a total train wreck. Rumors abound for the project, which has been “in process” for many years now. The latest rumors have Jackass star Johnny Knoxville being cast as Moe and Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg as Larry. Those reports were quickly debunked by Peter Farrelly. “You don’t want people to think ‘they already cast that thing,’ because we haven’t,” Peter Farrelly said. “It’s wide open to everybody.” Peter and his brother Bobby have been developing the project for nearly a decade. Along the way, some of Hollywood’s biggest names have been linked to the project, names like Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Jim Carrey. “That was real. Sean Penn wanted to do it and when Sean wanted to do it, everyone wanted to do it. But he is extremely involved in Haiti right now,” Farrelly said. “We heard that if we waited a couple years, we could probably get him, but we’ve already waited a few years.” After a decade of delays, Fox and the Farrelly brothers hope to start the project in mid-April in Atlanta. In shooting down the rumors that Knoxville and Samberg have been cast, Peter Farrelly admitted that he does like both actors, but that neither has auditioned yet. “Right now, I don’t know. There is no leader in the clubhouse,” he said. The plot for the movie is based on taking the Moe, Larry and Curly personas and placing them in a new story. “It’s The Three Stooges just like the [old shorts],” Farrelly explained. “They’re going to look the same, dress the same, sound the same, act the same, with the same sound effects.” The film will be structured in three acts, each a stand-alone story like the original episodes, but connected in some way. Most of the film will be set in modern times as well. In the end, Farrelly says he wants to be sure that actors are cast who are willing to fully commit to portraying the Stooges as they already are and not as they interpret the characters. “I don’t want ‘somebody’s version of Moe,’” Farrelly declared. “It’s not like Batman where you can have your own take on Batman.” Good, but part of me still worries that this project is going to end up as a bomb………..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Never have I been prouder of dissidents rising up and taking it to The Man than I am right now. This shows the true power of riots and uprisings and it shows that power in an inspiring way. Because of massive riots in Algeria, a national soccer league in the African nation has canceled matches scheduled for Friday and Saturday after riots in the capital and elsewhere this week. The Algerian National Football League announced the cancellations in a local newspaper as part of a push to prevent large groups of young people from gathering. The riots are because of rising prices for food staples like milk and sugar. Those soaring costs sparked massive protests all week and many citizens and government officials fear more violence will erupt. With soccer matches canceled and other strict rules in place, the streets were mostly calm in the Algerian capital on Friday and many imams pleaded for calm during morning prayers. Perhaps seeking to further calm the waters, Algerian Minister of Trade Mustapha Benbada said the price of staples will go down next week, but he did not provide any further details. The riots were mostly led by young men, who were spotted burning tires, breaking into buildings, looting, pillaging and plundering. All in all, an epic display of rioting for the most fundamental of reasons - keeping the cost of living affordable. Mix in high rates of unemployment and housing issues that have existed in Algeria for a long time and, well…..you’re going to have a mess on your hands. The government hasn’t helped matters by blaming the rising prices and other issues on the global economic crisis. Step up and accept the blame, Algerian government. If you don’t, you get chaotic, incendiary and bitter uprisings in which protestors and police are injured and riot police are breaking out tear gas to “fix” the problem. But hey, if a few out-of-control riots are enough to bring soccer to a grinding halt, then perhaps riots are more powerful than even I realized………
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