- Greeks have spent plenty of time raging against the
machine over the past two years. With their economy on the brink of collapse
and the European Union forcing austerity measures on its government in order to
obtain funding, the everyman has had every reason to be upset. The result, as
least for three farm foremen, seems to be a nasty case of trickle-down economic
violence. These three kooks, who are now the target of a police manhunt, are suspected of
shooting and wounding more than 20 migrant workers at a strawberry farm.
Shooting is apparently the prescribed response when a crowd of about 200 mostly
Bangladeshi immigrants are rising up and showing the gall to demand that they
be paid for their work. According to police, the workers were demanding wages that
had not been paid promised wages of $28.70 a day. "They keep telling us
that we will get paid in a month, and this has been going on for more than a
year," said one worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We
don't talk about it because we are afraid that we will be killed or kicked
out." The shooting indicates that those fears have some basis in reality
and with the strong anti-foreigner sentiment in a country where one worker in
four is unemployed after five years of recession, the fact that more such
incidents do not occur is the real surprise. The owner of the farm in the
southwestern town of Manolada, where the shooting took place, has been arrested
and the wounded were taken to a hospital, but none of the injuries was believed
to be serious. Greece is a popular point of transit for Asian and African
migrants trying to enter the European Union through its porous sea and land
borders and Greece, like the United States, has a large number of illegal
workers in its workforce……….
- Has Fall Out Boy looked in the mirror….ever? An objective
person would have to say no because if the pop-punkers had ever taken a
discerning look at themselves, there is no way bassist Pete Wentz could say that he and
his bandmates are the only group "willing to try and save rock n' roll"
and not burst out in an uncontrollable fit of laughter at the bald-faced lie he
just told. Yet there was Wentz, promoting his band’s new album, “Save Rock and
Roll,” and lamenting the lack of "rock star heroes" on today's music
scene. Wentz had the audacity to say that he – FALL OUT BOY BASSIST PETE WENTZ
– is tired of other bands all sounding the same. "Why are we the only band
willing to take up the challenge of saving rock n' roll?" he said. "I
want us to make kids feel the way I did watching Guns N' Roses videos as a kid
– you need rock star heroes." Great, but FOB has NEVER made anyone feel
that way. They make people feel as if pop music has been infused with a 5
percent concentration of watered-down punk rock and then force-fed down their
throats under the guise of being real rock and roll. Wentz based his criticism
on the fact that he spent a lot of time surveying the music scene during the
band’s recent hiatus. "In our time off, I listened to a lot of radio and
it all sounded the same,” Wentz added. Lead singer Patrick Stump backed up his
bandmate, saying, "People will be mad about our album title, but it’s so
sad when bands play it safe.” Of course, these two musical adventurers are the
same ones who feature Elton John and the walking attention whore that is
Courtney Love on their new album, so they may want to take stock of their own
work before casting aspersions on anyone else……..
- Yahoo is trying to deliver on its promise of offering users
a range of new mobile products over the next several months. In that quest, the
tech giant has released two new mobile apps, one each for weather and email, in
the hopes that such a move would alleviate the pressure it has felt in recent
years to adapt and grow as more and more tech users have migrated to mobile
devices, social apps and social networks. Yahoo has no social network or
smartphone and has thus fallen behind rivals Google, Apple and Facebook.
Controversial CEO Marissa Mayer said Tuesday during the company’s first-quarter
earnings call that the new apps are expected to change that reality. The new
Weather and Mail apps are designed to be user-friendly, intuitive and visually
appealing. The Weather app, which is available now for iPhone, iPad and iPod
touch, embodies this by featuring photos it displays in the background taken in
cities near the user’s location, which are supplied by users of Yahoo’s Flickr
photo-sharing service. The Mail app, which is available for iPad and Android
tablets, aims to “get rid of the noise,” Yahoo said, and function like a
digital magazine in which users can flip through emails and delete, star or
move messages with a quick swipe. “We’ve designed Yahoo Mail to take full advantage
of the tablet making reading your email faster, easier and just a little bit
more fun,” the company said in a blog post. Some of the Mail app’s organizational
features are strikingly similar (i.e. blatant rip-offs) of mobile emailing
applications offered by other companies. Early social media reaction to Yahoo’s
new apps has been largely mixed, but through the first three months of 2013,
the number of monthly, mobile active users on Yahoo surpassed 300 million for
the first time, Mayer said. There is plenty of ground left to make up, but at
least Yahoo is trying…….
- Politicians never do enough to recognize themselves. One
member of the
Tennessee General Assembly is keenly aware of this problem and it’s why, as the
legislature’s current session winds down, State Representative Jon Lundberg is
ramping up – his efforts to give himself more credit, that is. Lundberg is
using the final days of the current session to introduce a resolution honoring
the 20th anniversary of his company, Bristol-based The Corporate Image. In
Lundberg’s defense, he is looking to generate business and publicity by
capitalizing on his status as an elected official, er, to do what any president
of a company marking its 20th anniversary would do. "You know frankly, I
think its much ado about nothing." Lundberg lamented. "The
interesting paradigm in that spot, is your the president of a company that does
celebrate 20 years, and has employed people, and you would like this kind of
recognition...you've done it before...way before being involved in
politics...what do you do?" It’s an interesting question and one that
certainly can’t be answered by suggesting that he actually work on bills that
would benefit his constituents who don’t happen to be himself. The legislature
has passed 476 resolutions so far this year to honor outstanding achievements
by Tennesseans across the state, along with anniversaries and memorials for
those that have recently passed away. Government watchdogs tend to red-flag
such actions as wastes of time and money and while they’re right because a
resolution can cost a few hundred dollars to write, format, and print, it’s
virtually impossible to put a price tag on the benefit of self-exultation by a
lowly state representative. In response to the critics, Lundberg said that his
staff at his business wrote and formatted the resolution, and that he paid $20
for the paper that it was printed on, thereby eliminating the cost to
taxpayers. In the end, there is no sense in wondering what Lundberg could have
accomplished with the time he’s spent on this resolution so far………
- Rarely do analysts and experts give an NBA team no chance
of winning a series before it even begins. The Milwaukee Bucks are that rare
squad that no one – not even their own families if made to answer under the
influence of truth serum – believes can win because their opponents, the Miami
Heat, just submitted one of the best seasons in NBA history. The Heat went
66-16, have the best player in the world and are the reigning NBA champions. On
the other hand, the Bucks are 38-44 and they are the only team with a losing
record to make this year’s playoffs. They have gone 12-17 since a midseason trade that netted shooting guard
J.J. Redick and enter Game 1 of their first-round series with the Heat on
Sunday as one of the biggest postseason underdogs in NBA history. Bucks point
guard Brandon Jennings knows all of that and he doesn’t give a damn. He showed
up on his team’s official Twitter feed with the following message: “We’re Gonna Win
In Six. - Brandon Jennings on #BucksPlayoffs.” Earlier this season, the third-year point guard
said he wanted to play the Heat in the playoffs because they "match up
well." Matching up well did allow the Bucks to beat the Heat once in four
matchups this seasons, so perhaps Jennings has a point. Either way, the Heat
don’t seem too concerned about his hubris and with good reason. They will roll
over the Bucks with or without bulletin board material and Heat coach Erik
Spoelstra doesn’t sound concerned. " That wouldn't deserve me bringing it
up. This series will be decided between those four lines," Spoelstra said
when asked after Friday's practice about Jennings' comment. "And you can't hide from that.” The
Heat’s best player was equally nonplussed when questioned about the
braggadocious words from a player who hasn’t accomplished 1 percent of what he
has in his career. "Whatever their confidence or motivation is, that's for
them to figure out," LeBron James said. "We're only concentrated on
what we're doing here." Jennings’ words might carry more gravity if the
Bucks hadn’t lost seven of their last night games and the Heat weren’t 37-2 in
their last 39 games……
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