- Reality dating shows have absolutely no redeeming qualities socially or culturally no matter their premise or whether they involve celebrities or just anonymous camera-whore regular folks looking to launch their acting career, er, find love from amongst a pack of 25 or so desperate, equally loser-ish strangers living in a tricked out mansion in southern California. As such, there is a tremendous amount of unintentional comedy any time a person associated with one of these shows attempts to paint it as anything other than what it is - a fundamentally worthless waste of one hour of a viewer’s time on a weekly basis. With that in mind, let’s hear from The Bachelor/Bachelorette creator Mike Fleiss as he explains the selection of former Bachelor skank Ashley Hebert as the fourth straight Bachelorette star (following DeAnna Pappas, Jillian Harris and Ali Fedotowsky) to emerge from the previous season of The Bachelor. “I think it's a cool lesson for young ladies out there to see an accomplished woman still struggling to put the personal side of her life together," Fleiss said. "That's something a lot of women can relate to. So she will be a different kind of Bachelorette." A good lesson for young women? How? By telling them that whoring out your love life by going on television and “seeking love” in one of the most artificial, contrived and unnatural settings imaginable is the way to go? By showing them that jamming a bunch of dudes into a mic-ed up and camera-covered house, going on dates with all of them in rapid-fire fashion, hooking up with as many as possible in a short span and having the world watching is desirable? Fleiss may or many not be right when he calls Hebert a "different kind" of Bachelorette. On some level, she may be different, but at her core she is no different than every other chick who has ever appeared on either one of Fleiss’ shows. Even cracking jokes about the announcement isn't going to help, but Fleiss did so anyhow. "Host-pimp Chris Harrison also says she'll "do great" in the role. Ashley Hebert is "a spitfire," he said. "If you get to know her, which you will, she has great charisma and charm that just puts everybody at ease." Nice try, Mikey. But if fellow reality dating loser Brad Womack rejected Hebert on The Bachelor, then I know everything I need to know about her……….
- Is any part of this circle of riots and excessive force ridiculous to everyone else or is it just me? Specifically, this refers to the current scene in Togo, which has become the latest African nation to grow a pair and step up to challenge the legitimacy of its underperforming government. That led to a confrontation Thursday in Lome in which Togolese security forces fired rubber bullets and canisters of tear gas in an attempt to prevent opposition militants from staging street demonstrations against the government's attempt to regulate public protests. Yes, a protest to oppose the government’s attempts to prevent protests. There’s something poetic about that, no doubt. There is also something poetic about angry militants fighting back against The Man and his tear gas by lobbing stones and any other projectiles they can get their hands on. "Enough is enough. They should not trample with our constitutional rights," bellowed one angry supporter of Jean-Pierre Fabre's National Alliance for Change party, which organized the demonstration. Others proclaimed themselves ready to die if need be in order to remove President Faure Gnassingbe from power. Clashes between protestors and security forces continued throughout the day and as the day wore on, some of the angrier demonstrators set tires ablaze along some of the streets in the capital and engaged in running street fights with soldiers. The government quickly denounced the protests and those involved. Col. Yark Damehane, commander of the National Gendarmerie in charge of the security forces, characterized Thursday's demonstrations as "unauthorized and therefore, illegal." The ANC heartily disagreed with those claims and in turn, alleged that several of its officers were among those arrested. The battle over laws regulating protests was bound to be heated no matter when it occurred and with the laws having been in place since they were introduced by the French colonial administration in 1946, that time has clearly come. However, simply dropping a blanket ban on protests isn't exactly a fair and well-reasoned revision. Rather, it seems like a blatant political maneuver to stifle the constitutional rights of the Togolese people to hold free, unfettered public demonstrations. "The Togo government is afraid of a spillover effect of the wind of change blowing from the north of Africa if public demos are not curbed," Fabre said last week. Well said, J.P. His supporters have demonstrated in the capital every Saturday since he lost to Gnassingbe in the March 2010 election based on their belief that the election was rigged. Fabre has also demanded the immediate removal of the new anti-protest measurers, a demand Gnassingbe’s administration has ignored. The problem, as the administration is discovering, is that people will not honor a ban they believe to be unjust, especially not if they have no respect for those enforcing it…………
- Yes! The Food and Drug Administration's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee concluded Friday after a year of reviewing the issue that taking menthol cigarettes off the market would benefit public health! We already knew that, but that has to mean this particular brand of cancer sticks is not long for American store shelves, right? Umm……not exactly. While the panel did definitively conclude that the country would be healthier and better off without menthol cigarettes, members stopped short of recommending specific regulatory action by the FDA. Instead of calling for a ban on these merchants of death, which are preferred by about 30 percent of smokers overall and 80 percent of African-American smokers, they gave the regulatory equivalent of a stern look and a shake of the head. That means minty menthol will remain the only cigarette flavor on the market as it has been since Congress gave the FDA regulatory authority over tobacco products in 2009. With the hammer in its hand, the FDA has an obligation to rid the country of all tobacco products (sorry, Big Tobacco and loser smokers) whether scientific evidence suggests menthol cigarettes are more likely to cause smoking-related illnesses than regular cigarettes or not. I am certain this viewpoint is shared by those who do not wish to see thousands of African Americans dying young due to lung cancer, emphysema or other smoking-related illnesses, which is likely to be the case as long as African Americans find it more difficult to quit smoking menthol cigarettes than non-menthol cigarettes, which the committee found in its research. The FDA doesn’t seem to be embracing that duty, as it has no deadline for taking action related to menthol cigarettes, according to Lawrence “Larry-D” Deyton, director of the agency's Center for Tobacco Products. "We reached a very important milestone today," Deyton said. "But I need to be very clear that … the report does not set FDA policy." Instead, the agency will conduct its own review of the science related to menthol cigarettes, i.e. drag its feet in typical bureaucratic, red-tape fashion, and issue its first "progress report" in about 90 days - give or take a year. Predictably, Big Tobacco tried to shoot holes in the panel’s findings and Murray Kessler, president and CEO of Lorillard, which makes top-selling menthol brand Newport, called the advisory panel's conclusion about menthol cigarettes' impact on the public health "unsubstantiated." As a quick aside, Murray Kessler sounds exactly like the name of the antagonist in a John Grisham novel about a tobacco company knowingly loading up its products with cancer-causing agents and killing people more quickly as a result……but I digress. Big Tobacco would also have us all to believe that a menthol ban would spur an illegal market. Not if we launch a full-fledged war to eliminate any and all tobacco products from our fine nation once and for all, it won’t. Stop growing the ingredients, jail those who attempt to and deport anyone caught with a cigar, cigarette or pipe. If nothing else, America would be a healthier and better-smelling place…………
- Wine powers people and in Frederick County, Md., wind powers the people that make the wine that powers people…..to do incredibly stupid things. Linganore Winecellars, located in the small town of Mount Airy, is using wind to power its operation. President and winemaker Anthony Allen, whose winery is Maryland’s largest and greenest, believes that his winery can serve as an example for other winemakers in the state and beyond. “I would like to see the 50 wineries in the state be totally wind-powered, be the first industry in the state to be totally wind-powered. That’s my ultimate goal,” Allen said. With all of the green energy flowing through Linganore, 100 percent of the company’s electricity now comes from wind power through Maryland-based “Clean Currents.” Where does the wind power come from? Oddly enough, it is not all generated locally. Much of the wind power being used at the winery is coming from as far away as Texas and Michigan. The lights powered by that energy are compact fluorescent and the wood is recycled. So green is the entire operation that the winery donates potassium tartrate to a local preschool to use as Play-Doh. “I want to be environmentally sound,” Allen said. “Glass, apper, aluminium, cardboard—you name it, our recycle bin is larger than our trash bin.” It all makes for great public relations for the state’s largest winemaker and Allen hopes that goodwill results in more of the 600,000 bottles of wine Linganore produces every year being bought at premium prices. Coupled with the money Allen has saved by going green and making his operation more efficient, it’s say to say that renewable energy has been very profitable for Linganore Winecellars. The next step in the plan is to have charging stations in the parking lot so people visiting the winery can charge their electric-powered vehicles. Perhaps wind-powered breath tests for sobriety before people can drive away would also be a solid idea…………
- Was anyone actually asking Ken Griffey Jr. about why he suddenly retired from baseball last June? Last I checked, his retirement had been accepted and everyone had just moved on. Even though he did little more than issue a prepared statement and then walk away without saying another word about it, the topic wasn’t exactly the subject of incessant speculation all offseason long. Now working with the Seattle Mariners in an advisory capacity, mentoring minor leaguers and doing occasional television work, Griffey believes for some reason that he needs to speak about his decision to leave the game. He arrived at spring training in Arizona on Wednesday and discussed his reasons for leaving the game and the way he did it while insisting it will be the only time he addresses it. "I just felt that it was more important for me to retire and instead of being a distraction, it no longer became the Seattle Mariners, it became, 'When is Ken doing this? When is Ken doing that?' and that's something I didn't want to have my teammates, who I truly cared about, having to answer these types of questions day in and day out," Griffey said in Peoria, Ariz. “There are a lot of people that are friends of mine that would have tried to talk me out of it. And I just felt that it was best for me and the organization to retire. You want me to apologize for something that I felt was right? I had to do what I thought was right for me." Nope, no apology needed. For a player who was batting .184 with no home runs and seven RBIs when he retired on June 2, no explanation is needed. The game had passed you by and everyone could see it. A 22-season career or not, at some point the ride has to end. Being able to retire from the team that drafted you No. 1 overall in 1987 and for who you played 13 of your 22 seasons is as much as any athlete can reasonably hope for. As for his strained relationship with manager Don Wakamatsu and the stories that he had fallen asleep in the clubhouse during a game in May, Griffey wasn’t exactly in a talking mood. "My phone rings," Griffey said of his relationship with Wakamatsu. "That's just the way it is." Umm, okay? Look, no one is asking Griffey to talk about his career or why it ended, not at this point. He needs to sit back, wait five years until he’s eligible for the Hall of Fame and take pride in the fact that he retired with 630 home runs -- fifth all-time -- as well as 2,781 hits, a .284 career batting average and 1,836 RBIs to rank 14th all-time…………
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