- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Tunisia is the place and hundreds of angry Salafists were the instigators as they took to the streets of the capital city of Tunis to rage against their government. The Salafists (one letter away from being the Salsa Fists, oddly enough) are a group of ultraconservative Islamists who took to the streets after Friday prayers condemning comments by the president that they were an insignificant minority. Nothing shows a group’s significance quite like a small-scale riot forcing police to don their protective gear and use tear gas to disperse participants. Protesters carried signs calling for Islamic law and chanted God is the greatest, firing a shot across the bow of the country’s more moderate Islamic government. Tunisia’s political landscape has changed drastically since January 2011, when El Abidine Ben Ali’s 23-year rule came to an end and with it, his secular ideology and strict limits on political Islam. Since then, Islamic groups have flourished and the Salafists are a prime example of their prevalence. Even though a more moderate Islamist political party won elections in October, the government clearly should not overlook minorities like the Salafists. And if it takes marching on the capital with signs, chanting and clashing with police to get that point across, so be it…………
- Needless to say, there are plenty of people in this world who love their dogs….a little too much. Those who act as if their dog is a human being, feed it accordingly and pamper it like a real child are in plentiful supply, so it should come as no surprise that a new study has shown that a woman is more satisfied in her relationship when her partner feels the same about her pet as she does. In other words, if she’s obsessing over her Labradoodle, he needs to be doing the same and if she treats the dog with more detachment, he needs to follow suit. The same doesn’t hold true for male dog owners, according to study researcher Kristen Capuozzo, a doctoral candidate at the University of Houston. "Either they're unaware or they don't care," Capuozzo explained. "It doesn't matter to them." Capuozzo drew on her own life as a dog owner and decided to embark upon the study following conversations with a few pet-owning friends. One of her friends had just dumped a guy she was dating because he didn't like her dog. "I started thinking, 'I wonder if that actually does affect people's relationships?'" Capuozzo said. She and her team recruited 120 cohabitating heterosexual couples to answer online questionnaires about how close they felt to their pets and how happy they were with their lives and relationships. Each partner in a relationship filled out their own separate survey, with 75 percent of respondents being dog owners. There weren’t enough cat or other pet owners for an accurate sample of how animal type might play into the results. Women in the study reported being happier with their relationship when their partner reported similar levels of closeness to their pet. Men did not place a high level of importance on their partner’s feelings about their pet matching their own. "Females are much more in-tune with the harmony of the household," Capuozzo. said. "Is everybody getting along? Is there any kind of disagreement, any discord? If I'm super-attached to my pet and my husband isn't, then that might cause some disharmony: 'Why is that pet in my bed? Why are you spending so much money on that pet?'" Women also showed a high amount of jealousy if their partner was closer to their pet, a trend that did not hold for men……….
- What do rich, successful professional golfers spend their hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars on when they’ve built a nice home, have a sweet ride? Iconic cars from classic ’80s TV shows with racist symbols of hate emblazoned on the top, of course. At least PGA Tour golfer Bubba Watson does and he threw down $110,000 for the "General Lee," the car from the television series "The Dukes of Hazzard." Watson recently bought the car at an auction for $110,000 and rather than leave it in a garage somewhere, he had an idea. Based on his friendship with NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin, Watson teamed with the racing circuit for the idea of driving the car at Phoenix International Raceway next month on a parade lap before the March 4 Sprint Cup series race. NASCAR has scrapped those plans for a very simple reason: the car has a large Confederate flag on its roof, just as it did when it appeared on the show. "The image of the Confederate flag is not something that should play an official role in our sport as we continue to reach out to new fans and make NASCAR more inclusive," NASCAR spokesman David Higdon said in a statement Friday. Wait, the racing circuit that began with southern moonshiners trying to outrun the law, souping up their cars and sparking the idea to race against each other doesn’t want a bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger with the preeminent symbol of slavery on its roof driving around in front of tens of thousands of fans? Higdon explained the decision was made jointly by NASCAR, the racetrack, and track ownership group International Speedway Corp. Watson drove the car to the Phoenix Open golf tournament in anticipation of his big day on the track and was disappointed with the decision. "Sorry to say @nascar won't let me drive The General Lee at the @PhoenixRaceway !!! #dreamcrushed," he tweeted. The irony of the flag flying from many RVs and trailers of fans in the infield at NASCAR events is noteworthy, of course. Watson made is clear after his round Friday at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles that the car only has the flag on it because that's the way it looked on the show. "The show was not racist. But I understand why people would get upset with the flag," Watson said. Even though he can’t drive the car at Phoenix, Waston plans to restore its interior and has no plans to sell it. He still plans to attend the race and have Hamlin caddy for him in the Par 3 tournament at the Masters. "Me and Denny have been friends for a couple of years," Watson said. "I'll still go to the race, even though I can't drive around the race track." Good to know that a $110,000 impulse buy won’t go to waste………
- The initial impulse when hearing that country-popster Miranda Lambert is beefing with hack R&B-er Chris Brown is to say, “Who cares?” Lambert is a marginal artist in a genre many music fans can't stand and know nothing about and Brown is a drastically overrated artist who succeeds more on his dance moves and looks than on his musical skills. But after last Sunday's Chris Brown Grammy lovefest, Lambert decided she’d heard enough praise for a confirmed woman-abuser who famously struck then-girlfriend Rihanna and destroyed her cell phone in a 2009 incident. Nearly three years have passed since the incident, Brown has released a new album since then and the world has moved on…..but not Lambert. Brown was featured on not one but two performances during the Grammy Awards and received a warm reception at the event. That didn’t sit well with Lambert, who ripped Brown both on Twitter and during a recent concert in Amherst, Mass. "Chris Brown twice? I don’t get it. He beat on a girl," she tweeted. "He needs to listen to Gunpowder and lead and be put back in his place." For those who don’t know the catalog of a B-list country singer, "Gunpowder and Lead" is Lambert’s song about a woman preparing to kill her abusive husband. She performed the song at her show Thursday in Amherst and tagged it with a message for Brown. Before starting the song, she held up a poster "Take Notes Chris Brown." She suggested the audience snap a picture with their camera phones and tweet it out. "Get a good picture now, put it on Twitter," she said. "I’ve been in a world of hurt with Chris Brown fans ... but see, I have to speak my mind because where I come from beating up on a woman is never okay.” During the song, she continued her rant by proclaiming, "So that's why my daddy taught me early on in life how to use a shotgun." Just think how compelling this story might be if either one of its principals were really talented………
- A new breed of toy store has arrived and Danvers, Mass. is its home. For too long, parents have been dragged to the toy store by their children and forced to listen to their whiny kids beg for overpriced toys they don’t need and will stop playing with in a week when something newer and shinier comes along. The Green Elephant toy store in Danvers has an opportunity to remedy this problem even if the solution happened upon them more so than the store’s owners coming up with the idea. The toy store is located where Natalie’s Restaurant was supposed to be and like any restaurant seeking to make a decent profit, Natalie’s applied for a liquor license. Town officials forwarded the application on to the state last spring and Gov. Deval Patrick approved it. However, plans restaurant had been abandoned by the time the license was granted and The Green Elephant had taken over the property at 13 Elm Street. The store has a soft opening in the summer and opened its doors for good in the fall. “Throughout the summer we worked on making it what it is and then September first we opened up the doors permanently,” said Jennifer LaMontagne, Green Elephant co-owner. She had no idea anyone had applied for a liquor license and was surprised when it arrived. “It was very shocking to us,” she said. “We heard about it yesterday, that was the first time we had heard about it. Technically the liquor license is only good for the restaurant whose name was on the application and won’t transfer to the toy store, but it should. “The town could not transfer that license to anyone else,” said Rep. Ted Speliotis of Danvers. Bad idea, Ted. Toy stores serving hard liquor to miserable parents toy shopping with their children is a brilliant idea whose time has come……….
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