- There probably won't be a great amount of wisdom,
intelligence or direct and concise answers to questions at Thursday's vice presidential debate at
Centre College in Danville, Ky. Vice President Joe Biden has never confused
anyone with Albert Einstein and in a political role destined to be filled by
forgettable individuals who are basically the second-stringer for the most
important job in the United States, he has been more forgettable than most. On
the opposing side if Republican contender Paul Ryan, who has quickly gained
fame as the congressman who likes to do the popular P90X workout videos and
claims to be a policy wonk/numbers guy yet rarely seems willing or able to
expound on key policy ideas of provide specific numbers and figures on issues.
Together, these two men are supposed to fill more than an hour of debate time
with intelligent, informed and informative comments? Unlikely. But no matter
how unwatchable the debate is, at least one member of the audience won’t be
able to turn his eyes away – literally. Thanks to the brothers of the Phi Delta
Theta fraternity, a key figure in the history of the college will be on hand to
witness whatever the hell actually happens Thursday night. Centre College
alumnus and former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson will
attend the debate – even though he died in 1953. The Phi Delta Thetas escorted
a portrait of Vinson that is known as "Dead Fred" into the auditorium
on Tuesday. Making trips to campus events is nothing new for Dead Fred, who has
never missed a Centre College home football game. Knowing how much he/it enjoys
such outings, the brothers said there was no way Dead Fred could miss the
debate. "Having Dead Fred on the sidelines here just reminds you that
every day you go out and get that support, and you're just doing everything for
the alumni," Centre College senior and Phi Delta Theta member Oakley
Watson said. If any deceased person deserves to have their portrait at the
debate, it has to be Vinson, who was also a member of Congress and served as
Secretary of the Treasury under President Harry Truman………
- Now THIS is a movie Hollywood should be making. Charlie
Brown has been an endearing comic-strip figure for decades and even though the
passing of cartoonist Charles Schulz meant the end of the comic strip’s run as
a staple in newspapers across the world, it is reassuring to know that Charlie
Brown and his pals Snoopy, Woodstock, Lucy, Linus, Pigpen and the rest of the crew have not
been forgotten. To keep their memory alive, Twentieth Century Fox Animation is
working toward a new animated feature film starring the Charlie Brown crew to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on Nov. 25, 2015.
The film is officially on track after two years of rights negotiations between
Twentieth Century Fox and the Schulz family. Charles Schulz died in 2000 after
drawing and writing the "Peanuts" comic strip for nearly 50 years.
The idea gave rise to classic holiday films like "A Charlie Brown
Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and now
it will spawn a big-screen film franchise. Charles Schulz’s son Craig wrote the
screenplay to the new film, along with grandson Bryan Shulz and Cornelius
Uliano. That the film will be something of a family project is appropriate and
the director’s chair will be filled by Steve Martino ("Horton Hears a
Who," "Ice Age: Continental Drift"). When the movie finally hits
theaters, it will definitely ride a wave of nostalgia, but hopefully it will
also connect with the next generation of movie fans as well……..
- Dammit, we should have seen this coming, human race. Who
doesn’t realize the threat posed by filthy, disgusting squirrels scurrying
about over dirty surfaces and collecting nuts for their winter hibernation?
After all, squirrels are basically rats with busy tails who assail bird feeders
and chow down on seeds intended for the winged denizens of the sky, but because
some people believe squirrels are cute and don’t want to hurt them, the world
now faces a (potentially) dire threat. Simply put, a ground squirrel found at a popular campsite in California has tested
positive for exposure to the bacteria known to cause bubonic plague. That’s
right, the freaking bubonic plague and in the United States, no less. Someone
should let Dottie Merki, the county's environmental health program chief, know
that now would be a good time to panic….y’know, because she insists there is no
need to panic. This is the first time the deadly bacterium has been detected in
Riverside County in nearly a decade, but Merki wants everyone to remain calm. "We
don't want to incite panic in the public," Merki said. "Our first
reaction is just to make sure people are aware that it's out there so they can
take precautions to protect their families and their pets." The squirrel
was found D-E-D dead at the Fern Basin campground in the San Jacinto Mountains
on Step. 6 and a routine test showed the creature was infected with low levels
of the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Squirrels typically contract the virus when
they are bitten by infected fleas. Despite the plague’s presence, the Fern
Basin campgrounds remains open to visitors because the risk of exposure to the
disease is (allegedly) low. In previous cases, Riverside County has closed
campgrounds due to the disease. Health officials temporarily shuttered two
campgrounds in the San Jacinto Mountains when plague bacteria were discovered
in 2000, but Merki doesn’t believe such extreme measures are warranted this
time. "We normally only close the campground if there is a high level of
antibodies in the system and a high level of fleas," she explained. According
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, humans can contract the virus
if they handle an infected animal or if they are bitten by a rodent flea
carrying the bacterium. Unlike the dangerous state those infected with the
disease faced centuries ago, the plague is treatable with modern medicine and
cases of infected humans are rare, between 10-15 people in the U.S. each year.
Just to be safe, let’s take the squirrel threat a little more seriously from
here on out………
- News of the Occupy movement probably hasn’t had much of an
impact amongst native tribes and fishermen in the heart of Brazil's Amazon rainforest, but that doesn’t mean these
bold people can’t put their own spin on the concept. Indeed, a small, yet
mighty group of Amazonians have done exactly that in order to protest a huge
hydroelectric dam being built on the Xingu River. A group of about 100 Indians,
fishermen and other activists opposed to the dam are occupying one of its
construction sites and their occupation is already producing results. The Norte
Energia consortium, which building the Belo Monte dam, confirmed that the
protesters occupied the site Tuesday night and claimed that for security
reasons it halted work at the site and transferred nearly 1,000 men to other
work sites. In other words, these Occupiers actually are affecting change and
they are led by the activist group known as Xingu Alive Forever, which says the
work site was occupied to protest "plans to definitively dam the Xingu
River" jeopardizing the livelihoods of some 40,000 people who live in the
area where the dam is being built. That sounds like a damn fine reason to camp
out and force a work stoppage, even if the odds of winning the battle with so
much money and power involved are small. Those are often the most important
battles to fight and so here’s to the mighty Amazon Occupy Movement and its
quest to stop that damn dam……….
- He may be one of the biggest prizes on this winter’s
Major League Baseball free-agent market, but his current team doesn’t seem
overly eager to negotiate with reigning American League Most Valuable Player
Josh Hamilton. The veteran slugger just
completed his fifth season in Texas and batted .285 with 43 home runs and 128
RBIs, but he faltered down the stretch and had a memorable fielding error in
the AL West-deciding game in Oakland, dropping a fly ball in shallow center
field that turned a tie game into a 7-5 edge for the Athletics, who went on to
win the game and the division. Mix in him going 0-for-4 in Friday's AL
wild-card game loss to Baltimore, seeing just eight pitches and striking out
twice, and Rangers fans booing him loudly during the game, and the situation
becomes that much more complicated. Hamilton’s troubled history of drug use and
alcohol addiction that nearly cost him his career before coming to Texas are
two other key factors and after taking all of this into account, the Rangers
have decided that they will not be making any offers to Hamilton
before he hits the open market in free agency. Teams are allowed to negotiate
with their own prospective free agents, but Rangers general manager Jon Daniels
said he and Hamilton's representatives agreed that it would be best for the
slugger to test the market. "If you've gone this far, you're going to test
the market," Daniels said. "The realities are when a guy goes out and
tests the market and it's this close, you're not going to pre-empt it. I think
he's going to go out and test the market and see what's out there and get back
to us. No door has been closed.” CEO
Nolan Ryan said the Rangers won't let one bad stretch dictate whether or not
Hamilton is back, but the overall context of how his season ended will be
difficult to ignore when determining whether or not to offer him a nine-figure
contract for the better part of the next decade………
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