- The persecution of heroes continues. Northern Illinois linebacker Jamaal Bass is the latest victim of this disturbing trend in which bold men and women step up to do things most people don’t have the courage to do (though they wish they did) and are vilified for their actions. Bass’ supposed crime, according to a grand jury in Toledo, Ohio, is trucking a member of the Toledo marching band when the teams played in November. Band dorks have gotten the mistaken impression that they are a vital part of the game and that they belong on or near the field at all times, so Bass steamrolling some pimple-faced trombone player who was worrying about when to clean out his spit valve instead of paying attention to the charging horde of football players trying to get onto the field was a necessary act of violence. In spite of this, closed-minded grand jury members have stupidly indicted Bass on a felonious assault charge because he allegedly plowed into the aforementioned band dork on purpose. If convicted, Bass faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. The redshirt freshman remains in school at Northern Illinois and is still a member of the team, according to athletic department officials. Coach Dave Doeren didn’t even have the integrity to support Bass after the game, apologizing to the UT band and the university while saying his own program was embarrassed. Should this indefensible prosecution continue, maybe the next football player who has an inclination to jump shoulder-first into the face of a band dork and knock another down won't go through with it and the world will be a worse place for it………..
- Zoos have a few assets in large supply. One is idiot visitors not smart enough to stay out of the animals’ cages or avoid doing something to antagonize large vertebrates capable of eating them whole or snapping their spine. A second plentiful entity in the average zoo is crap, in the form of the tons of waste churned out on a daily basis by elephants, hippos, lions, bears and other creatures. The bright, forward-thinking minds at the Denver Zoo have assessed their situation, identified their strength and are cashing in on those strengths. On Wednesday, the zoo will debut a working prototype of a motorized rickshaw which runs on animal feces and trash. The vehicle, called a Tuk Tuk, e was built with patent-pending gasification technology created by Denver Zoo staff. The prototype will be used at the zoo’s newest exhibit, the corporately whored-out Toyota Elephant Passage. Its engine will utilize animal waste and human trash to create clean energy, zoo officials said. “We wanted an innovative energy solution that would help us eliminate our landfill waste,” said George Pond, the zoo’s vice president for planning and capital projects. “We immediately considered ways to create energy from animal poop and human trash. The result is astounding – an energy solution that can create clean energy from trash.” Before going to work at the elephant exhibit, the Tuk Tuk will make a trip around the southwestern United States, stopping at zoos in Colorado Springs, Albuquerque and Phoenix before concluding its voyage at the Association of Zoos and Aquariums mid-year meeting on March 27 in Palm Desert, Calif. After that, it’s back to Denver. The idea is a brilliant one and not just because there is no way to create a vehicle that runs on the stupidity of morons dumb enough to jump inside the lion’s cage……….
- It is a van Gogh. No, it’s not a van Gogh. Hang on, it really is a van Gogh. Museum officials at the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in the central Netherlands should make up their damn minds on whether a still life in their gallery once thought to be by Vincent van Gogh but later downgraded to the work of an anonymous artist because of doubts about its authenticity is the work of a master artist or not. The debate has gone back and forth and the latest Romney-esque flip-flop came Tuesday when researchers who have been studying the painting decided the painting, called "Still life with meadow flowers and roses," really is by Van Gogh. The tormented Dutch impressionist gets credit for the painting for the time behind after a new X-ray technique helped experts confirm what they already knew about the painting and draw on a growing pool of detailed Van Gogh research. Using a detailed X-ray of an underlying painting of two wrestlers and knowledge of van Gogh’s time spent at a Belgian art academy, researchers were able to definitively verify its authorship….for now. After its verification, museum officials hung the painting Tuesday among their other Van Gogh works. "All the pieces just fell into place," researcher Louis van Tilborgh explained of the research process. Van Tilborgh, a senior researcher at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum who took part in the process, admitted the analysis was a slow, painstaking process. The museum purchased the work, 40 inches wide by 31 inches tall, in 1974. It was originally thought to be from the artist's period living with his brother Theo in Paris from late 1886. "But when they hung it (in the museum), doubts crept in," Van Tilborgh explained. Skeptical experts questioned whether the canvas was too large for that period along with a composition deemed too busy and bright for its supposed time of origin. Add in the artist’s signature in the top right hand corner – an unusual spot for van Gogh – and the skepticism grew. Caving to pressure, the museum in 2003 decided to attribute the painting to an anonymous artist instead of to Van Gogh. Five years later the underlying image of the wrestlers was discovered and the plot thickened once more. The entire saga is detailed in a new publication by the Van Gogh Museum titled "Rehabilitation of a flower still life in the Kroeller-Mueller Museum and a lost Antwerp painting by Van Gogh” for those who love a good art mystery…………
- Of all the places in the world to emerge as a battleground over the depiction of women and their bodies in advertising, the Middle East was not a top pick on most lists. Yet Israeli lawmakers have vaulted to the forefront of the fight by passing a new law supposedly trying to fight the spread of eating disorders by banning underweight models from local advertising and requiring publications to disclose when they alter images to make models appear thinner. The law, passed late Monday, is believed to be the first by any government to police a fashion industry trend of worshipping thinness and therefore promoting eating disorders and negative body images among young women. Of course, the law is total bullsh*t, but more on that in a moment. "We want to break the illusion that the model we see is real," said Liad Gil-Har, assistant to law sponsor Dr. Rachel Adato, who compared eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia to the struggle against smoking. Supporters believe the law will encourage the use of healthy models in advertising and heighten awareness of digitally altering images to make models appear unrealistically thin. The concept is absurd, of course. Requiring models to produce a medical report, dating back no more than three months, at every shoot that will be used on the Israeli market, stating that they are not malnourished by World Health Organization standards, will do nothing at all to address the problem. In no time flat, there will be a cottage industry of doctors willing to issue clean bills of health to models. The WHO’s standard for healthy weight is the body mass index, calculated by dividing weight by height. According to the WHO, a body-mass index below 18.5 is indicative of malnutrition. By those standards, a woman 5 feet 8 inches tall should weigh no less than 119 pounds. Advertisements published in Israeli markets will be required to contain a clearly written notice disclosing if the model used in it was digitally altered to make her, or him, look thinner. Those smartly opposing the bill decried its focus on weight instead of overall health. One top Israeli model, Adi Neumman, said she wouldn't pass under the new rules, because her BMI was 18.3. According to Adato, only 5 percent of women had BMI that naturally fell under 18.5. The entire debate is absurd because the real problem is a society wherein anyone uses what they see in a magazine ad or on a billboard as a standard for how they have to look. Eat better, exercise and don’t worry about whether you stack up well against a fashion model……….
- Michael Bay projects are known for a number of characteristics. They tend to have subpar acting, massive budgets, tons of explosions and a wealth of computer-generated effects. They aren't going to garner a lot of awards, but they will create plenty of hype and buzz because people like seeing things go boom. Thus, Bay’s new vision for a familiar entertainment franchise is neither surprising nor unexpected, yet that vision caused an uproar Monday following the filmmaker's announcement concerning Bay’s forthcoming reincarnation of the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and movie franchise. “When you see this movie, kids are going to believe, one day, that these turtles actually do exist when [we] are done with this movie," Bay said. "These turtles are from an alien race and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely lovable." The portion of his remarks that elicited the most vitriolic response was the alien angle, as fans were not down with the idea of completely changing a key aspect of the turtles’ back story. In the original concept, the turtles were created by a spill of some radioactive material into a sewer and from there, they morphed into crime-fighting, headband-wearing heroes. In Bay’s version of the story, the turtles will be actual aliens. After hearing angry diatribes from hundreds of fans, Bay issued a terse response on a website he often uses to make announcements. "Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script," he wrote. "Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.” His richer world is an abomination to one of the biggest cultural phenomena of the 1980s and early 90s in the minds of many fans. Those fans went online to voice their displeasure about the project. One of the actors associated with the original animated series even penned a letter excoriating Bay and posted it online. "You probably don’t know me but I did some voice work on the first set of movies that you are starting to talk about sodomizing," Robbie Riss wrote "I know believing in mutated talking turtles is kinda silly to begin with but am I supposed to be led to believe there are ninjas from another planet? The rape of our childhood memories continues." Yes, he really did reach for a sexual assault analogy. Good perspective………….
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