- The call has gone out an apparently, not enough people have responded to what could fairly be deemed the opportunity of a lifetime. For a limited time, anyone with a few hundred million dollars lying around could own the world’s foremost online haven for pedophiles and their 9-year-old prey: MySpace. That’s right, News Corp. is looking for initial bids for the world’s fourth- or fifth-best social networking site by the end of the week and expects to announce a deal around June. To win the battle, potential buyers will have to beat out a field of at least a half-dozen suitors, including private equity firms. Be advised that News Corp. is seeking for minimum offers of $100 million, which is probably not the sort of return on investment the news giant had when it acquired MySpace for $580 million in 2005. When the asking price for a commodity is about one-sixth the purchase price just six years after purchase, it’s fair to say your investment hasn’t panned out the way you had hoped. Selling the pedophile paradise became even more difficult once News Corp. opened up MySpace's financial books for closer inspection in February. The number of interested parties plummeted once MySpace’s troubled finances were laid out for the world to see. At present, the chief pursuers for the troubled site are private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners and Criterion Capital Partners, which also owns social network Bebo. Rumors about a potential sale have also hinted at the possibility of a buyer eschewing an outright acquisition in favor of structuring a deal to leave News Corp. with a minority stake. An outside contender to by MySpace is an unidentified Chinese Internet company with whom News Corp. has held talks. Why not? After all, China already owns a ginormous chunk of America’s national debt; it may as well own the social networking existence of the vast majority of our pedophiles as well……….
- Professional athletes typically take pride in playing through injuries and being tough no matter how much pain they’re in (unless they are soccer players, of course), but that insistence on toughness can come back to hurt them in the long run, sometimes sooner than expected. Minnesota Twins All-Star catcher Joe Mauer is experiencing that reality firsthand, having been on the disabled list since April 15 with bilateral leg weakness, a condition team doctors say was brought on by a light workload in spring training while he worked his way back from arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. Suffering yet another leg injury has revived the debate over whether the Twins should move the three-time AL batting champion moving to another position to keep him healthy, but Mauer wants no part of the discussion. "I just think I can help the team a lot better when I'm behind the plate," Mauer said. "That's what I signed here to do is to catch. I think we're a better ballclub when I'm behind the plate." The signing he alluded to was the eight-year, $184 million contract he inked prior to the season, a deal the Twins would like to see him healthy enough to play all the way through. The team knew Mauer would likely not be at full strength at the start of the season after having surgery on his leg in December and indeed, he only played in eight games during spring training with the hopes of having less wear on his repaired leg going into the regular season. Twins head athletic trainer Rick McWane had a slightly different take on the situation and theorized that the soreness Mauer is experiencing is because his body just wasn't strong enough at the start of the season. "He, I don't think, has had the repetitions either for catching or anything else," McWane said. "Once the season started, he started to wear down." McWane seemed to suggest that playing more, not less, during spring training would have been the best choice for Mauer, who admitted he "really started to go downhill" after the second series of the season. His numbers were decidedly un-Mauer-like, with a .235 average, no homers and four RBIs in nine games. "I was out there fighting it and my body just said I couldn't go anymore," Mauer stated. "It's tough to admit that, especially with the things that guys play through. But it gets to a point where your body says you can't go anymore." He has no timetable for his return to the field and has yet to resume baseball activities. On top of the leg weakness, he has also been bogged down by a bout of the flu that circulated through the clubhouse. Not exactly the start to the season the Twins had hoped for from the franchise……….
- Not everyone in the world circled Friday on their calendar to engross themselves in the “drama” of the royal wedding. In Syria, an increasingly angry populace braced itself for a day of protests across the country against President Bashar Assad and those planning to take to the streets readied themselves for a crackdown. The increasingly popular call for a “Friday of Rage” went out across the country, with the raging to start after the Muslim noon prayers. With security forces maintaining a heavy presence in major cities and towns, including the restive city of Dara’a, that all but assured violent clashes. The inspiration for the “Friday of Rage” was commemorating the deaths of at least 112 Syrians who were killed last Friday, the greatest number of casualties yet seen in one day and a wealth of carnage that led to international condemnation for the Syrian government. As the day began Friday, media outlets reported gunfire in several cities and witnesses relayed stories of troops firing into the air to stop them from gathering Friday prayers. An eyewitness in the city of Latakia claimed to have seen police open fire on demonstrators there, injuring at least five. On some level, the events in Syria are uplifting because they show the power of one riot to inspire another and how the uprisings in Egypt, Yemen, Libya and other African and Middle Eastern nations have inspired the Syrian people to rise up as well. Yet even with those riots setting up a perfect storm for a Syrian uprising, the riots have taken many in the country by surprise, including several prominent figures in the political opposition. Assad has been president since 2000, inheriting office from his father Hafez, one of the Arab world’s most controlling and repressive rulers. He loomed over the nation with an iron fist for three decades and responded with brutal and excessive force when any dissent reared its ugly head. In 1982, he led a sweeping military campaign, including air attacks, to crush an uprising by Sunni Islamists centered in Hama. The death toll from the campaign was estimated to have exceeded 1,000 and possibly to have been as high as 40,000. The casualties from this new uprising may not have reached those levels yet, but with opposition groups vowing to stand their ground and fight to the death, things could be headed in that direction. Based on the possibility of demonstrations in Dara’a, the government reportedly moved 45 military units to the city on Thursday in a show of force designed to intimidate and silence dissenting voices. Snipers were posted in every street and alley and residents lamented shortages of bread and other foods, baby formula and water as they continued to live in virtual isolation. Human rights groups estimate that some 450 people have died since major protests began in the country on March 15 and with a “Friday of Rage” and other protests in the offing, that number is assured of trending upward…………
- After a lengthy and often controversial musical career, who knew that British rocker Morrissey actually fancied himself as the next Tolstoy? Okay, so technically Morrissey’s upcoming memoir only checks in at 600 pages, but it is the rocker’s equivalent of “War and Peace” and this thick, weighty tome could soon be on the shelves (hopefully reinforced shelves) of Borders and Barnes and Noble locations around the globe soon. The former Smiths frontman is looking to Penguin Books to publish the work through their 'Classics' series though the book franchise typically distributes in established literary classics. That would indicate a relatively high opinion of the book on the part of its author and when Morrissey’s spokesperson issued a statement about the book and the request for Penguin to include it in its “Classics” series, that indication proved accurate: "There is a natural fit between Morrissey's sensibility, his artistic achievements and Penguin Classics. [His] book could be published as a Penguin Classic because it is a classic in the making," the spokesperson explained. Those boastful words stand in stark contrast to the story Morrissey was selling prior to shopping his book. He claimed in one interview that he wasn't sure anyone would want to read his autobiography. "I'm really not that interesting, so I don't know why I've written so much," he fretted. "I have been through the whole life. I just wonder if 660 pages are too much for people to bear. And then I sit down and think, well, are six pages too much for people to bear? I really don't know. [It's] baffling." At the time, he also spoke of how he was in the "re-drafting, trimming stage," of writing his autobiography. If this is the “trimmed” version of the book, then I don’t think I want to know how long the original version was. In its 600 pages, the book is expected to cover everything from Morrissey’s relationship with controversial bandmate Johnny Marr to his relationship with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. No word on whether it will explain why the heck Morrissey is so freaking melancholy all the time………
- Maybe this is off-base, but aren’t hunky city firefighters supposed to pose for calendars to delight the masses and appeal to the legions of ladies who love the idea of a strapping hero saving lives and rescuing puppies and kids from burning buildings? Not in Philadelphia, they’re not. Otherwise, the Philadelphia Fire Department would not be in the midst of its current drama involving New York-based photographer Katherine Kostreva and firefighter Jack Slivinski. Slivinski, a chiseled city firefighter, posed shirtless for Kostreva last week in front of the Logan Circle fountain. Slivinski and hunky firefighters from 11 other major cities were supposed to be featured in a calendar scheduled to be released later this year by Kostreva's company, On Point Publishing, with all of the proceeds are going to charity. Slivinski and Bill Gault, president of Fire Fighters Local 22, planned to give their share of the profits from the calendar to the widows of local firefighters. It seemed like a great idea, a bit of harmless fun and a chance to entertain the masses while also helping a deserving group of people. But as with so many plans in which small-minded bureaucrats are involved, a win-win situation wasn’t going to happen without a fight. The numb-nutted bureaucrat in this case was Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers, who ripped Slivinski’s coveted assignment with Engine 1, 4th Street and Girard Avenue from him and launched an internal investigation for violating several protocols in posing for the calendar. Why the outrage over something so harmless? Ayers claims the department has long been opposed to its members posing for "beefcake calendars" because, well, they don’t buy into the stereotype of dreamy firefighters being eye candy for the ladies. "We don't sell sex, we sell safety.," Ayers said. "That's been our mantra for the longest time." According to Ayers, the union and all of the department's firefighters know that they must seek approval from their superiors if they want to be featured in an outside publicatio. Slivinski didn't ask for permission and as such, he’s in deep sh*t. Gault tried to step in and diffuse some of the tension by covering for Slivinski, saying, "I should've called the commissioner and let him know, and I didn't. At the same time, this was done with no malice. He [Slivinski] is a good guy, and we wanted to do something to benefit our widows." Whether that will be enough to get Slivinski’s post back from him is up to those conducting the internal review. The assignment with Rescue 1 is considered a top assignment because of its status as an elite unit that receives advanced training. For the time being, Slivinski is being transferred to another unit and not given a chance to work any overtime. Yet Ayers insists he "has nothing against" Slivinski and is merely following protocol. Slivinski faces penalties ranging from having a letter of reprimand added to his personnel file to a suspension. Worst still, his photo likely won't be used in the calendar after all the trouble he has been through. Maybe he can take solace from the fact that, as Ayers alleges, his suffering will benefit the children. "We get letters from children. They look up to us," Ayers said. "We cannot allow them to be showing nipples in photographs of Philadelphia firefighters." Umm, the nipples of female firefighters, sure. But dudes…….not as big of an issue. Kostreva has continued on with her project and is photographing firefighters in New Orleans and has plans to photograph others in San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis and Las Vegas. "Everything is working out perfectly with the other cities. This is the only one where we're having a problem," she said. "Everybody has pure intentions," she said. "I think the commissioner is just overreacting." Good to know that there are still a few small-minded ass hats around who can’t enjoy a little harmless fun…………
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