- The world should not need an invitation to visit
Ireland. It’s a country with an amazing history and culture, full of great
sights and yet, the Irish government is launching a huge push to convince
everyone with even the most obscure, tangential tie to the country to come
“home” in 2013. The Gathering Ireland 2013 is the largest tourism initiative ever staged
on the Emerald Isle, according to the project’s official website, and it is
rooted in a push to boost the local hospitality industry and project a positive
image in the face of lingering economic troubles. “We have reached out to
anyone who is Irish born, Irish bred or Irish in spirit worldwide and invited
them to return home in 2013,” said Bernard McMullan, a spokesman for Tourism
Ireland. The campaign’s ambitious goal is to reach out to the 70 million people
around the globe who feel linked with Ireland in some way and convince many of
them to visit the country to explore their roots, enjoy a pint of Guinness at
their new favorite pub or plant a kiss on the famed Blarney Stone. To assist in
the effort, Irishmen (and women) near and far have been asked to create fun,
local gatherings based on whatever links they can find – food, beer, clan
reunions – and ask their kin from abroad to come for a visit. McMullan claims more
than 2,500 such events have been scheduled so far and as any good tourism
spokesman should, shone sunshine like nobody’s business when speaking about the
campaign. “It’s taken on a life of its own,” he said. “There are lots of fun
and quirky gatherings, such as gatherings for redheaded people or left-handed
people, tall people, literally any category you might think of.” Ireland’s
hospitality industry is already seeing a lift from the effort, with 76 percent of hoteliers expecting a growth
in business this year as a direct result of the event, according to the Irish
Hotels Federation. Big-screen badasses such as Liam Neeson and former 007
Pierce Brosnan have endorsed the effort, although the requisite turd in the
punch bowl thus far has been actor Gabriel Byrne, who said Irish Americans felt
that the pressure to get them to visit Ireland this year was an effort to "shake
them down for a few quid.” Way to be a part of the problem and not the
solution, G………
- Why aren’t New Yorkers, specifically, young black men who
appear to be the unfairly selected targets of the New York Police Department’s stop and
frisk policy, more thankful about the increased level of personal attention from
the city’s finest? That question will hopefully be answered by a class-action
suit challenging the policy that got under way Monday. Attorney Darius Charney
of the Center for Constitutional Rights claimed that officers have been wrongly
stopping tens of thousands of young men based solely on their race, making what
would otherwise be a legal policy highly illegal. Charney argued that changes
must be ordered by a federal judge to stop the NYPD from wrongly targeting
black and Hispanic men. This bleeding heart liberal called many of the half
million annual stops a “frightening and degrading experience” for “thousands if
not millions” of New Yorkers over the last decade and denounced them as “arbitrary,
unnecessary and unconstitutional.” He also promised that the trial will offer “powerful testimonial and statistical
evidence” that New Yorkers are routinely stopped without legitimate suspicion.
Stories from more than a dozen alleged victims of unfair stops, all black or
Hispanic, are also on tap for the trial alongside testimony from police
officers and criminologists. So far, police have made about five million stops
under the new policy and this trial is viewed as a referendum on the policy. One
of the loudest voices in the trial is expected to be Adrian Schoolcraft, an
officer who was hauled off to a psych ward against his will after he said he
refused to fill illegal quotas. Hours of tapes with testimony from Schoolcraft
will be played at the trial, which is expected to last more than a month. U.S.
District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin has already expressed concerns about stop
and frisk, although she is not being asked to ban the policy, but rather order
reforms to it………
- European soccer and racism are inextricably intertwined. Whether
it’s fans chanting racist words or noises at black players or angry bigots
shooting paintball guns at members of their favorite team because those players
happen to be of a race they are biased against, intolerance is as much a part
of the sport as flopping and 0-0 ties. Men like AEK Athens midfielder Giorgos
Katidis work hard to make sure they display the right brand of idiocy to keep this
not-so-proud tradition alive. Katidis has earned scorn and ridicule from politicians,
other athletes and fans for getting loose with a Nazi salute in celebration of
a goal he scored in Greek league play. He can be seen in multiple photos giving
that Nazi salute after scoring the go-ahead goal in the 84th minute of a win over
visiting Veria on Saturday. The salute, which is banned in Germany and cause
for a fine and possible deportation if done by a foreigner visiting the
country, doesn’t carry the same legal ramifications in Greece, but is
nonetheless incredibly offensive and inappropriate. Worse still, AEK coach Ewald
Lienen is German. Lienen actually gave Katidis some leeway, saying his player
doesn't have an "idea about politics." What the did fool at the
center of the controversy have to say for himself? Katidis pleaded ignorance of
the meaning of extending his right arm with his hand straightened in the salute
given during Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror in Germany, claiming on his Twitter
feed that he detests fascism. It’s an odd claim because a person who detests fascism
would theoretically have a better idea about gestures that salute fascism.
Katidis also failed to explain where he picked up the gesture, as it’s not one
that is common anywhere in the civilized world because, you know, everyone
knows it conjures up horrific thoughts of a terrible time in the history of
humanity. Nice try, Giorgos, now go back to flopping around on the pitch like a
beached marlin after goals like every other soccer player in the world………
- Science exists to explain the mysteries of the
universe….right? That means it’s about damn time that the dorks in lab coats
get around to determining why nature’s alarm clocks, a.k.a. roosters, so
commonly crow at dawn. Japanese researchers have stepped their game up to
unravel this mystery and in a study that could also lead to an explanation for why dogs
bark and cats meow, determined that roosters
are genetically programmed to crow with the dawn. The common belief has been
that roosters were simply reacting to their environment when they crowed and
woke everyone on the farm up to start their day at an ungodly hour. Not so,
says Takashi Yoshimura of Nagoya University. “‘Cock-a-doodle-doo’ symbolizes
the break of dawn in many countries,” Yoshimura nerdily explained. “But it
wasn’t clear whether crowing is under the control of a biological clock or is
simply a response to external stimuli.” Other, non-natural lights can also set
off a rooster, creating some of the uncertainty about the real cause of the
crowing. Yoshimura and colleagues kept their roosters under round-the-clock dim
lighting in order to eliminate any question about the root cause of crowing.
The nonstop lighting did not deter the roosters, which kept crowing each
morning just before dawn. The researchers concluded that this is firm proof
that their vocal heralding of the dawn is the result of a circadian rhythm. Other animals and
even some plants have such an internalized timing mechanism and human beings
tend to eat, sleep, exercise and perform other daily tasks at a consistent time
of day. Eventually, the body adapts to this schedule and over generations, it
can become ingrained to the point where breaking the habit is über-difficult. Yoshimura
and his colleagues plan to continue their studies into the roosters’ innate
vocalizations and extend the scope of their work to the “speech” patterns of
other creatures. “We still do not know why a dog says ‘bow-wow’ and a cat says
‘meow,’” Yoshimura said. “We are interested in the mechanism of this
genetically controlled behavior and believe that chickens provide an excellent
model.” Well played, Takashi, well played……….
- The mental image of Sacha Baron Cohen playing an iconic
rock star and pop culture figure such as late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury
may be enough to send shudders down the spine of fans of the band, but the
project is slowly marching onward and now is closing in on a director. Cohen,
typically seen on the big screen playing hideously stereotype-steeped
characters who do stupid sh*t like defacate on people’s heads from several
stories up in the air or run around naked in public places, is under contract
to play Mercury in the long-planned biopic that has been pushed back numerous
times since his casting in 2010. Rather than take those delays as a sign the
movie gods don’t want the project to ever see the light of day, producers are
pushing ahead and are closing in on a deal with “Les Misérables” director Tom
Hooper. Hooper recently directed Cohen in “Les Misérables” and is reportedly
nearing a deal to helm the film, which has a script by Peter Morgan, the
Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon.” The script
reportedly starts with the formation of the band in the early ‘70s and
progresses through its legendary Live Aid performance in 1985. Queen members
Brian May and Roger Taylor have given their input for the movie and in October,
May wrote on his website that "the pieces are all falling into place"
and said shooting would begin this spring. Thankfully, rumors that swirled last
summer of pop hack Katy Perry being linked to the film in the role of Mary
Austin, Mercury's close friend and former girlfriend, have proven to be untrue.
Cohen in all of his “Borat” and “The Dictator” ridiculousness is enough of a
sideshow to derail the finished product without Perry’s pop-hackiness added to
the mix. Maybe Hooper can convince Cohen’s “Les Misérables” co-star Russell
Crowe to join the cast because there’s nothing that screams Russell Crowe quite
like a flamboyant 1970s rock biopic……..
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