- What a scene it was in Chicago earlier this week as former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich made what's expected to be his final speech before he heads checks in at the ol’ gray bar hotel, dons an orange jump suit and spends the next 14 years eating off plastic trays and trying to avoid getting shanked in the shower. With sign-wielding supporters all around him, the governor-turned-felon spoke to the masses one last time before heading o Colorado to start a 14-year prison sentence on a corruption conviction. "This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do," he told the crowd. "But this is the law and we follow the law." Heading off to prison was overdue for Blagojevich, who was convicted of corruption in June 2011 after a jury returned 17 guilty verdicts against him. His convictions stemmed from his auctioning off one of the state’s Senate seats once Barack Obama vacated it. He characterized his impending prison stint a "dark and hard journey," and said he should have been more humble. "We are so grateful and will never ever forget your kindness to us," he then said to the crowd. With his wife, Patti, in tow, Blagojevich faked plenty of emotion and recognized the hard time in a federal country club prison that lies ahead. "This, as bad as it is, is part of a long and hard journey that will only get worse before it gets better," Blagojevich said. He begins his prison term Tuesday and while his new-found humility looks good to the public, he’ll need to embrace his inner badass if he doesn’t want to become someone’s b*tch in a few days. The speech featured a dash of Blagojevich bravado as he accused U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of hiding taped evidence that would prove his innocence. With their patriarch in jail, Blagojevich’s family will have to find someone else to accept enough illegal bribes to support them. A sad day indeed………..
- What’s up with homeless people? Aside from the number of them lingering under bridges, overpasses and other slightly-hidden-from-the-elements places across America, of course? They’re taking up space and at last check, not contributing a lot to the world. Thankfully, technology has a way of including everyone in the mix and thanks to Manhattan-based advertising agency BBH Labs, homeless people in Austin, Tex. had a chance this past week to show what an asset they can be. With the hipster, tech and music worlds converging on Austin for the SXSW (South By Southwest) festival, BBH Labs knew there would be plenty of media and even regular folks armed with laptops and iPads who would want wireless access wherever they went. Putting two and two together, BBH realized Austin has plenty of homeless people and equipped those homeless people to help those in need of wireless access. No, they didn’t invest time and money into training them in the finer points of wireless technology because that would be silly. Instead, they sent homeless people out with a mobile wireless hotspot attached to a lanyard around their neck, essentially turning that homeless person into a mobile hotspot. They wore shirts with an ID number and pertinent information on them and attendees at SXSW concerts and events were encouraged to donate $2 for every 15 minutes of Internet usage. BBH would have everyone believe that giving homeless people both a job and a way to be useful to society was the impetus for their program, but critics claim the project was exploitative and their concerns prompted BBH to scrap plans to implement a similar program in New York. “We have no definite, specific future plans yet, in New York City or elsewhere. This was an initial trial program,” Emma Cookson, chairperson of BBH New York. “We are now listening carefully to the high level of feedback and we will then consider what is appropriate to do next.” In spite of the opposition, some activist groups and even participants in the program saw it as a positive initiative. There is more to the issue than simply selling wireless access, of course, and hopefully the buzz around the story will spark further discussion about it…………
- Two years after the fact and with an upcoming documentary chronicling the career of the iconic rock band that made him famous to promote, Keith Richards has concluded that it’s time to issue an apology for the derogatory comments he made about Mick Jagger in his 2010 memoir "Life." Asked about the drama created by “Life” and his accusations of egocentric and confrontational behavior on Jagger’s part during the band’s time together, Richards laughed and did his best to backpedal from the words he (theoretically) wrote and put on paper for all the world to read. “Mick’s right. He and I have had conversations over the last year of a kind we have not had for an extremely long time and that has been incredibly important to me. As far as the book goes, it was my story and it was very raw, as I meant it to be, but I know that some parts of it and some of the publicity really offended Mick and I regret that,” he said. Given the chance to respond, Jagger sounded a largely conciliatory tune as well. “Looking back at any career you are bound to recall both the highs and the lows. In the 1980s, for instance, Keith and I were not communicating very well. I got very involved with the business side of the Stones, mainly because I felt no one else was interested, but it’s plain now from the book that Keith felt excluded, which is a pity. Time I reckon to move on,” he explained. Richards didn’t speak about the tale from the book in which he snorted his father’s ashes from an urn on his mantle because he was so in need of a fix that most anything seemed snort-able, mostly because that story doesn’t need any explanation, only admiration for its sheer insanity and absurdity. That these two egomaniacs decided that getting along for a few minutes would create buzz for their forthcoming documentary better than continuing to be at each other’s throats is odd, but change can be good every now and then……….
- How do you know the United States is not involved in a sports story? When people are fighting over the credit for creating soccer, that’s how. Americans fight to stay away from soccer and keep it out of their lives, while the rest of the world brawls when their team wins or loses a match, when someone claims to have created soccer and doesn’t give them any credit and pretty much any time the word soccer is mentioned. The most recent soccer brawl originated when English Premier League chairman Dave Richards accused FIFA and UEFA, two of the sport’s governing bodies of stealing soccer from the English during a conference Wednesday on sports and security. With FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Hussein of Jordan and International Cricket Council chief executive Haroon Lorgat in attendance, Richards boldly proclaimed that the world had England to thank for soccer – assuming that credit is the word most would use. "England gave the world football. It gave the best legacy anyone could give. We gave them the game," Richards declared. "For 50 years, we owned the game ... We were the governance of the game. We wrote the rules, designed the pitches and everything else. Then, 50 years later, some guy came along and said you're liars and they actually stole it. It was called FIFA. Fifty years later, another gang came along called UEFA and stole a bit more." Hussein wasn’t about to allow Richards’ arrogance to go unchecked and reminded him that there was still a debate over whether the Chinese or the English invented the game. "It started in Sheffield 150 years ago ...," Richards said, the volume of his voice escalating quickly. "We started the game and wrote the rules and took it the world. The Chinese may say they own it but the British own it and we gave it to the rest of the world." Even when Hussein attempted to shift the focus to how the world (U.S. excluded) shares and loves the game today, Richards was dismissive. He then continued his defiant day by taking a run at Qatar, which won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, by questioning cultural differences and the availability of alcohol in the Middle Eastern nation for the 2022 World Cup. Stay classy, Dave………
- Who’s up for more African instability and violence? That’s what I thought. Since everyone not currently in danger of having their city shelled by a warlord or maniacal dictator can safely gawk at the violence from afar, let’s sink our teeth into another brewing conflict. This one doesn’t involve Syria or Egypt, coming from further south along the continent. It could put Ethiopia and Eritrea against one another and seems more likely than not after Ethiopia announced it had sent troops into its sworn enemy's territory for the first time in more than a decade. Ethiopian forces carried out a dawn raid on Thursday in neighboring Eritrea in what it described as a successful attack against military targets. Government spokesman Shimeles Kemal said Ethiopia launched the military assault because Eritrea was training "subversive groups" that had carried out attacks on its territory. According to Kemal, Eritrea used the bases to train an Ethiopian rebel group that killed five tourists and kidnapped two others in Ethiopia's Afar region in January. Eritrea, which was annexed by Ethiopia in 1952 but gained independence in 1993 after a 30-year war, has steadfastly denied any involvement in the attack. Feeling extremely superior, Kemal went on to belittle Eritrea’s capability for any military response. "The Eritrean defense force is not in a position to launch an attack against Ethiopia and were they to try to do so, the results would be disastrous,” he declared. Properly equipped or not, having a neighboring country crash your borders and carry out a military operation is a huge slap across the face and in short, it’s a reason to turn your rings around and throw hands. There had been no violence between the two countries since a border war from 1998 to 2000 that left 70,000 people dead, although Eritrea has alleged other attacks since. Osman Saleh, the country’s foreign affairs minister, said Ethiopia had to have the backing of the United States and UN security council for the attack. "The objective of the attack … is to divert attention from the central issue of the regime's flagrant violation of international law and illegal occupation of sovereign Eritrean territories," the foreign ministry said in a statement. For now, Eritrea is adamant that it will not retaliate. A border dispute does remain between the countries because ownership of the village of Badme was not resolved at the end of the war and even though the Hague-based Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission ruled in 2002 that the border village of Badme belonged to Eritrea, the village remains in Ethiopia. Eritrea has never accepted this fact and remains bitter to this day. Sounds like a recipe for war…………
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