- Anyone who was vacationing in Key West this past week and thought maybe they had stumbled into a bizarro world where every other guy they passed on the street was auditioning for a gig as a mall Santa Claus for the upcoming holiday season, rest assured that’s not the case. No, it was something different yet equally pathetic. Those stocky, bearded men were merely trying to win the title of looking most like one of American literature’s most famous and accomplished alcoholics, Ernest Hemingway. The “Papa” Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, a highlight of Key West’s annual Hemingway Days, took place Thursday through Saturday nights at Sloppy Joe’s Bar, a watering hole frequented by Hemingway when he resided in Key West throughout the 1930s. To be fair, pretty much every alcohol-serving establishment in any place Hemingway called home for more than 24 hours can boast that he spent a significant amount of time there, be it in the United States, Spain or elsewhere. Hemingway Days is a six-day festival built around the celebration of the author’s birthday, with the preliminary round of the “Papa” Hemingway Look-Alike Contest taking place Thursday night on Hemingway’s 112th birthday anniversary. More than 120 would-be Heimngways showed up for the competition, with the second round Friday night and the winner chosen Saturday night by a judging panel of past winners. Many contestants return year after year even though they never make it past the preliminary round of the contest, adding another level of pathetic-ness to the proceedings. Other festival events include a tongue-in-cheek “Running of the Bulls” as part of a Hemingway Street Fair on Saturday, the Key West Marlin Tournament and culmination of a short story contest directed by author and Hemingway’s granddaughter Lorian. The Running of the Bulls is an homage to the real Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, where Hemingway spent a significant amount of time as a correspondent for the Spanish Civil War. It was during his time living (and drinking heavily) in Key West that Hemingway wrote some of his most famous works including “Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “Green Hills of Africa” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” He would undoubtedly be honored by a bunch of flabby losers with ugly bears vying for the honor of winning a look-alike contest…………
- Exit one big-budget summer blockbuster from the top spot at the box office and slide another into the pole position as Captain America debuted with a solid first weekend and knocked the nerdy wizard world of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 from the No. 1 spot on the earnings list. Although its debut was nowhere close to matching the opening wizard dorks across America gave Harry Potter last weekend, Captain America did post $65.8 million domestically and should be well on its way to massive profits with star Chris Evans in the lead. Harry Potter fell to second in this weekend’s race, adding $48 million to its overall tally, which now stands at $274.1 million domestically for two weeks of work. Thoroughly unwatchable newcomer Friends with Benefits, fronted by Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, was the top new film and third overall thanks to an $18.5 million effort that wasn’t exactly impressive. Transformers: Dark of the Moon tumbled from second last weekend to fourth for this frame with $12 million and now has a four-week total of $325.7 million domestically. Completing the top five was Horrible Bosses, which also fell two spots in its third weekend of release, yet added $11.7 million to its coffers to puts its U.S. haul at $82.4 million and counting. The rest of the top 10 was populated by: the mind-numbingly awful Zookeeper (No. 6 with $8.7 million and just $59.2 million overall through three weeks), Cars 2 (No. 7 with an additional $5.7 million and $176.4 million in domestic earnings through five weeks), family friendly Winnie the Pooh (No. 8 after a 34-percent decline in earnings, making $5.1 million and with a two-week pot of a measly $17.5 million), the Cameron Diaz-fronted Bad Teacher (No. 9 with $2.6 and boasting a five-week tally of $94.3 million) and Midnight in Paris (holding strong at No. 10 with $1.9 million in appropriately enough, its 10th week of release for a running total of $44.8 million). Last weekend’s Nos. 8 and 9 films, Larry Crowne and Super 8 respectively, fell to Nos. 12 and 14 this time around…………
- This is not an especially proud day for Ohio. When a state is able to blow right by the pollution-generating giant that is California and claim the title as the state whose residents are most at risk in the United States from toxic emissions spewing from coal and oil-fired power plants, that’s not an occasion for celebration. But according to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Physicians for Social Responsibility, Ohio is at the top of the list of 20 states most affected by toxic air pollution. The two leading environmental groups cited Ohio for pollution from electricity generation and chemical processing that led to its dubious distinction. Pennsylvania just missed out on the top spot and Florida was close behind in generating toxic air pollution, which comes with the added benefit of causing and/or worsening ailments such as asthma and cancer. States that fell well short of their polluting potential and didn’t crack the top three included Kentucky (fourth) and Maryland (fifth), followed by: Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina. "Power plants are the biggest industrial toxic air polluters in our country, putting children and families at risk by dumping deadly and dangerous poisons into the air we breathe," said Dan Lashof, director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. The study is an analysis of toxic emissions data from 2009 released last month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its findings don’t paint such a rosy picture of the nation’s air quality. Researchers found that coal and oil-fired plants were responsible for nearly half of all toxic air pollution in America and in blue-collar, manufacturing-fueled states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, there aren’t many solutions for the problem that are easily and readily available. For those who wonder exactly how the report was compiled, it compared data from the electric utilities sector to those from other industry sectors and ranked on the basis of total emissions by sector. Elsewhere in the EPA data was the revelation that in 2009, electricity generation in America was responsible for 49 percent of all industrial toxic air pollution and accounted for about 75 percent of all mercury air pollution. Environmental groups are pointing to the data as evidence of the pressing need for strong action by the Environmental Protection Agency to push the manufacturing and energy industries to clean up the emissions. Oh, and the U.S. House of Representatives will consider legislation this week that is designed to block the EPA’s air pollution standards, so that should definitely help matters. The Republican-led House began piling on the EPA back in February, when it voted to thwart the EPA from making rules to limit mercury and other toxic emissions from cement plants. Well done, legisla-tools………..
- The biggest scud yet in the Ohio State football scandal involving scores of illegal benefits for players and subsequent cover-ups by then-coach Jim Tressel has come and gone and the Buckeyes are still standing. While an Aug. 12 hearing with the NCAA's committee on infractions still looms, Ohio State learned Thursday it won't face the most severe charges possible in the memorabilia-for-cash and tattoos scandal that cost Tressel his job. NCAA investigators, whose work lacks much bite because they don’t have subpoena power, said they found no evidence that Ohio State failed to properly monitor its football program or any evidence of a lack of institutional control and also that they have not found any new violations. "Considering the institution's rules education and monitoring efforts, the enforcement staff did not believe a failure to monitor charge was appropriate in this case," the NCAA said in the letter sent to the OSU athletic department. The letter clears OSU of the most serious of institutional breaches and is viewed as a major break for the university. The infractions committee could simply accept the über-light penalties Ohio State already placed on itself or could add recruiting restrictions, bowl bans and other, stiffer sanctions to the list. If the program does dodge more serious sanctions, it will likely be because the NCAA determined that Tressel was the only university official who knew about the violations involving his players and did not convey that information to anyone else at the school. More serious allegations of widespread violations were reported in a piece by Sports Illustrated, but the NCAA and its lack of subpoena power were unable to uncover evidence to support those claims. Tressel resigned/retired (depending on whether you believe the university’s bogus version of his departure) in May after details of his involvement in covering up his players' involvement with a Columbus tattoo parlor owner became public. After its own internal investigation confirmed the five players involved in the scandal were ineligible for the entire 2010 season, Ohio State announced it would vacate the entire year, including its Allstate Sugar Bowl victory over Arkansas and its share of the Big Ten championship. A two-year NCAA probation and five-game suspensions for the five players were also included in the self-imposed punishment, which looks less impressive now that the biggest name among the suspended players - quarterback Terrelle Pryor - has left the program and ended his college career. To further the perception that it really is going to change and mend its ways, Ohio State has also announced that it will overhaul its compliance office by the end of the year, creating a centralized office that will oversee athletics as well as other university departments. The collective sigh of relief emanating from Columbus after this weekend can probably be heard from coast to coast…………
- When it comes to international political intrigue, Latvia is general not among the top producers. For a limited time, that is going to change. Latvian voters are expected to vote on Monday to dissolve parliament in a referendum that is part of a campaign to crack down on rampant governmental corruption. Experts believe the referendum may actually strengthen Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis’ deficit-cutting government. Opinion polls have shown that nearly 80 percent of voters support former President Valdis Zatlers’ demand to oust parliament after it refused to lift the immunity of a legislator targeted by a corruption probe. Oddly enough, that seemed to give off the impression of protecting a guilty man. Should the referendum pass, it would set up parliamentary elections on Sept. 17. Zatlers and Dombrovskis have led the charge to strip power from wealthy businessmen and legislators who built their fortunes and gained significant political influence when the country sold state assets after the Soviet Union collapsed. Zatlers sounded a bit nutty in May when he warned of attempts to “privatize democracy” and criticized three politicians as oligarchs who he said influence policy and may secretly own companies, but very few are laughing at him now. Dombrovskis’ biggest accomplishment to date was successfully pushing a deficit-cutting package equal to 16 percent of gross domestic product after Latvia turned to the European Union and International Monetary Fund for a $10.6 billion bailout in 2008. More belt-tightening is needed if Latvia is to bring its budget deficit below the EU limit of 3 percent of GDP next year from 7.6 percent in 2010 and qualify for euro adoption in 2014 - $202 million of budget-tightening to be exact. Dombrovskis hopes to lead the next government if the current one is ousted and his experience working with the international political scene is his major selling point for his leadership. That potential leadership change would not be possible without Zatlers, who called the referendum on May 28 by naming lawmakers Ainars Slesers and Andris Skele, as well as Aivars Lembergs, mayor of the port city of Ventspils, as oligarchs and guilty of corruption and other abuses of power. Even after he lost his bid for re-election as lawmakers voted 53-41 in favor of Andris Berzins, a 66-year-old former banker, Zatlers did not stop his crusade and Dombrovskis has bolstered the effort. “A main goal of the elections will be to ensure that oligarchs, and the parties supporting oligarchs, do not control a majority in the next parliament,” Dombrovskis said in a July 21 interview. “If this will happen, then I would say the former president’s initiative of dissolving the parliament will pay off.” New elections would almost certainly mean a major reshuffling of governing coalition, which currently consists of Dombrovskis’ Unity Party, with 33 seats in the 100-member legislature, and the Greens & Farmers, with 22. It would also be a step forward in developing the country’s democracy. Zatlers, who will officially form his Reform Party Monday, plans to nominate his own candidate for prime minister if the party wins seats in parliament. From there, let the uncertainty and chaos rule………….
No comments:
Post a Comment