- Of the many, many things a person can do in the name of God, pole dancing wouldn’t have been high on the list of anyone not currently residing in Old Town Spring, Tex. See, Old Town Spring is a different sort of place, a place where Victorian style shops line the streets, small town charm reigns and church-going women can channel their inner Ginger, Cinnamon or Destiny and take a pole dancing class set to Christian music. Once a month, these ladies of faith get together, writhe around on dirty brass poles and have some good, dirty fun. Yet class members and the instructor insist that the class is not about sex. "God gives us these bodies and they are suppose to be our temples and we are supposed to take care of them and that's what we are doing," instructor Crystal Dean said. "Some guy came up with his Bible and we were in class and he thumped on the door and was waving his Bible. People who want to sit there and judge it, you know, like well that is sacrilegious or you know. That doesn't make you a good Christian when you judge other people." Wait, someone has a problem with Pole Fitness for Jesus classes? Wow. If only someone could point to passages in the Bible that address things like taking off your clothes and engaging in activities normally reserved for hookers with cocaine addictions and daddy issues……but never mind that. Cardio-striptease classes have become increasingly popular among the non-hooker set and the idea that Christian women might want their own way to burn calories and feel stripper-ish for an hour or so once a month doesn’t seem to far-fetched. Some critics have suggested that the classes are fine as long as the women in the class aren’t faux-stripping in front of men, then there isn't an issue. Personally, anything that is going to help an increasingly FAT America burn calories and deal with its overall lack of fitness and physical conditioning is fine. Pumping some Christian rock music and pole dancing? Go for it. It does beg the question of what the Christian equivalent of Pour Some Sugar on Me is…………
- Those anxiously awaiting the return of Don Draper to television may have to wait longer than expected. The fifth season of AMC’s hit drama Mad Man may hit its targeted return date of this summer, but reports have surfaced that serious conflicts over what else, money, may push the series’ return back indefinitely. AMC is negotiating with Lionsgate and Lionsgate is also negotiating a deal with the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner. In an interview conducted back in January, Weiner explained that AMC and Lionsgate, “are fighting over a very lucrative property, and who is going to pay for it to get made; it’s one of the biggest perils of success — everyone wants a piece of it now, and they are fighting over who is gonna get the biggest chunk.” The conflict is serious enough that production and writing for the new season has not yet begun at a time when the show’s writing staff should be knee-deep in the new season and have a month’s worth of work already in. Production should also be humming along by now, but so far all is quiet. If nothing changes soon - very soon - then fans may have to wait until next year for Mad Men to spin its web of ad agency drama and throwback soap opera entertainment. Even with numerous online petitions currently being circulated by fans, the chances of a deal being reached in time to have the show on track for a summer debut are less than slim. After all, when was the last time that studios and networks battling over a deal worth millions of dollars to both sides sat back, considered what they might be doing to the fans by not reaching an agreement and reconsidered their negotiating position? Throwing another hurdle in the way of the show’s return is the fact that AMC’s scheduling may not leave room for Mad Men to return after its normal scheduling until late 2011 or early 2012…………
- Welcome to the party, Syria. The rest of your corner of the world has been busy rioting, rising up and trying to oust its ineffective governments and seeing you muster up the courage to fire up the protest machine and take to the streets Tuesday as hundreds of people marched to demand reforms was gratifying. That the protest took place in what had previously been a peaceful village in southern Syria made the uprising that much better. In a town not far from the epicenter of the march, troops and protesters faced off outside a mosque where demonstrators have taken shelter. The Syrian government had an odd response to the first real intrusion of the Arab world's political unrest, firing the governor of the southern province of Daraa, where security forces killed seven protesters in the main city of Daraa over the weekend. If the purpose of the move was to placate the angry citizenry, it failed miserably. Instead, protests extended to the village of Nawa, where hundreds of people marched demanding reforms. Troops attempted to reach the mosque in Daraa's historic center where protesters have taken refuge, but protesters reportedly placed large rocks in the streets near the al-Omari mosque to block the troops. Most shops in the area were closed for safety concerns in expectation of the oncoming violence. The spirit of dissent was also visible in Sanamein, near Daraa, where a clip posted on YouTube showed several hundred villagers inchanting "Freedom!" while another showed more than 100 activists gathered in the Hajar Aswad neighborhood of the capital. Those providing details on the protest are doing so under the condition of anonymity because they fear government reprisals. Protests were also reported Monday in the towns of Jasim and Inkhil near Daraa, witnesses said. Many of those taking to the streets demanded the departure of provincial governor Faisal Kalthoum after security forces used tear gas, water cannons and later live ammunition to drive back the crowds. If that wasn’t enough to fire up the crowd, the token firing of Kalthoum on Tuesday seemed to do the trick. The Damascus-based National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said "arbitrary and random arrests" were still occurring in areas that witnessed protests. Syria has long been seen as one of the Middle East’s most repressive countries, so seeing this sort of uprising is even more of an inspiration than it might otherwise be, along with standing as a challenge to any other nation out there under an oppressive government that has not yet grown a pair and started its own revolution…………..
- Well, you’ve certainly done it, America. Your FAT-ness has reached another disturbing benchmark and the daily commute could be ruined or drastically altered for hundreds of thousands of city-dwelling Americans. The Federal Transit Administration has been backed into a corner (not literally, although given America’s girth, it might be literally) by obese Americans who are making public transit a hazard. The agency wants to revise its safety standards on the presumption that the average passenger now weighs 175 pounds, not 150, and takes up 1.75 square feet, not 1.5 square feet. Those revised safety standards will impact bus testing regulations and reduce the number of passengers allowed on a bus. The FTA stated that a number of buses have been tested without their all seats occupied and standing room filled “because doing so would have caused their actual weight to exceed either their gross vehicle weight rating.” Now that, my friends, is disturbing news. What it means is the test data might not reflect the actual performance of these buses during real-life service and that rush-hour commutes when operators frequently allow all seats and aisles to be filled could be a death ride. Operators often allow buses to carry in excess of their weight limits during peak hours, but if most passengers are packing on 25 or more additional pounds than they were a few years ago…….it could end badly. Just imagine being on a crowded city bus turning a corner at a busy intersection at rush hour and all the added weight from the über-FAT passengers suddenly shifting to one side of the bus, sending it tipping over and injuring dozens, all because those on board could not push away from the buffet table, stop after two double-fudge brownies or spare some time from their busy daily schedule of watching Jersey Shore, checking their Facebook news feeding and firing off a tweet about how the idiot in front of them at the supermarket had 14 items in the express lane instead of 12. Is that a burden you want on your shoulders, America? For the record, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the average man weighs 194.7 pounds and the average woman 164.7 pounds, the FTA said in its rule-changing docket. Needless to say, both of those figures are well over the 150-pound assumption. The FDA argued in its filing that
Adjusting the standards and testing for actual loads “will lessen premature structural fatigue and assist in avoiding catastrophic failures caused by overstressed and overworked structural and operational components,” the FTA has said. I’m guessing it’s too late to suggest a national binge diet to fix all of this…………
- Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A players’ union for a professional sport currently in the middle of a labor crisis is accusing its sport’s owners of being dishonest about the financial state of their franchises. Except this time, it’s not the interminable NFL labor dispute that has been raging on for months now and has finally resulted in a lockout by the league’s owners. No, it’s the other American professional sports league with a labor crisis on its hands, the NBA. The Association is facing an impending labor impasse of its own and a lockout is expected once the season ends, but for now the players and league are trading the sort of verbal jousts the NFL and NFLPA fired back and forth prior to their lockout. The National Basketball Players Association believes that only a "small number" of NBA teams are losing money and continues to reject the league’s push to put a hard salary cap into play as part of a new collective bargaining agreement. NBPA executive director Billy Hunter stated his union’s position forcefully in an interview last weekend and gave no indication that the union is willing to make the sort of concessions it will take to aver a work stoppage when the NBA's collective bargaining agreement with its players expires on June 30. According to the league, more than half its teams are losing money -- to the tune of more than $300 million a year. That argument has been soundly rejected by the NBPA, led by Hunter. "Our belief," Hunter said, "is that a small number of teams are suffering, and their problems can be addressed through revenue sharing." He added that the primary point of contention is the NBA's push for a hard salary cup, rather than a "franchise tag" or some other limit on the movement of top players. The union insists that a hard cap would effectively end guaranteed contracts which they view as "the lifeblood" of professional basketball. "We've had that right for years, and it's not something we're trying to give up," Hunter stated. "If you get a hard cap, owners get a guaranteed profit. And you get franchise values that go through the roof. That's what you get." Commissioner David Stern was equally adamant when he spoke about the labor battle at last month's NBA All-Star Game, saying that the players and league agree "about the numbers." Predictably, the union is questioning the league’s accounting methods and the path it took to arrive at its final financial figures. "It's not about wiping out losses," union lawyer Ronald Klempner said. "They're not running a Staples. They're not running a car dealership. Ownership of an NBA team is a completely different animal. What turns up at the bottom of a balance sheet is not the entire financial picture." Best of all, the union and league can't even agree on how much players are making right now. The union must also face the reality that the owners are better prepared financially to weather a work stoppage, although Hunter dismissed the idea that players are completely unprepared for the challenge. "That's the belief," he said. "That was put to rest and proven false in [the lockout of] 1998. And I can assure you that if the owners continue to push for the deal they've been pushing for for the last two years now, that the players will take a stand. They won't cave. And they'll ride through this lockout." Sounds like fun days are ahead…………
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