- How toxic has the climate become in Washington, D.C. as
the government shutdown hits the two-week mark? Toxic enough that the Senate’s
outspoken chaplain is using his daily time on the floor to passive-aggressively
blast the rich, privileged men and women of whom he serves the spiritual
guidance needs. Barry C. Black, the Senate chaplain, takes to the floor each day
after the president pro tem calls the chamber to order and the Pledge of
Allegiance is said. Black then steps up to deliver his morning prayers and of
late, he has been using those messages to God to send a message to the senators
who actually show up for work that early in the morning. "Remove from them
that stubborn pride, which imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism,”
Black opined in one of his prayers during the shutdown. That he’s speaking out
is no surprise, as Black is a retired rear admiral who clearly is used to
telling people where they’ve screwed up. He’s also a man with enough kahones to
wear a bow tie on a regular basis and as the Senate's first African-American
chaplain, he’s willing to speak his mind. His prayers during the lockout have
touched on the congressional gridlock itself, the resulting anger from the
public and the overall damage the impasse has inflicted on the country.
"Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while
being unreasonable," Black said in another prayer. "Remove the
burdens of those who are the collateral damage of this government
shutdown." He also happens to be part of that collateral damage, as he
hasn’t been paid since the shutdown began. Black’s regular Bible classes —
which are attended by senators four times a week — have been cancelled. Several
senators have expressed appreciation for Black’s willingness to speak out, even
if it is at their expense……….
- Promotional blitz or not, an adventure of high-seas
piratey goodness wasn’t enough to knock George Clooney and Sandra Bullock from the
top of the box office earnings list. For the second straight weekend, “Gravity”
rose above the pack and with $44.2 million, the outer space epic has banked
$123.4 million domestically through two weeks. Tom Hanks’ “Captain Phillips”
ranked second in its debut with $26 million against a relatively modest budget
of $55 million. Third place went to “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,”
which added $14.2 million to its coffers and has officially reached
profitability with $78.1 million through three weeks with a budget of $78
million. The weekend was not so kind to another new film, Charlie Sheen’s
“Machete Kills,” which limped in with $3.8 million in its debut and finished
fourth for the frame. “Runner Runner” power-walked to fifth place with a meager
$3.7 million to up its two-week haul to $14.1 million and claim the last spot
on the top half of the earnings list. “Prisoners” was up next in sixth place,
just out of the top five with $3.6 million to boost its cumulative domestic
earnings to $53.6 million in four weeks of work. “Insidious Chapter 2” placed
seventh and managed just $2.7 million, good enough to life the film’s domestic
total to $78.4 million in five weeks of release. In eighth place was “Rush,”
falling three spots and bringing in $2.4 million in its fourth weekend. So far,
the racing-themed movie has made $22.2 million and counting. The modest success
story of “Don Jon” continued for another weekend as the $6 million movie
amassed $2.3 million and has now more than tripled its small budget at $20.1
million and counting. “Baggage Claim” somehow overcame its sheer awfulness to
make $2 million and has stumbled its way to $18.2 million in three weeks of
release. “Enough Said” (No. 11) and “Pulling Strings” (No. 12) both fell out
from last weekend’s top 10……….
- The Burmese people are finally tasting freedom…and
freedom tastes like….sugary, carbonated, caffeine-laced refreshment. Yes, consumers in
long-isolated Myanmar are getting their first taste of beverage liberation as
two soft drink titans battle for their wallets. A sweet, fizzy soda showdown
facilitated by an end to international sanctions after decades of military rule
is pitting Coca-Cola and Pepsi against one another, with several local brands
in the mix as well. Coke is back in Myanmar after a 60-year absence and has
taken the lead in the race, seizing an estimated 80 percent of the market. As
recently as five months ago, Myanmar, North Korea and Cuba were the only
countries where Coke didn't have an official presence. Yes, there was a black
market for soda – really – and the wealthier side of the populace could find
illicitly imported Coke in upscale hotels and restaurants, but most commoners
went their entire life without consuming even a single drop. Some local
retailers have seen the demand for Coke spike so substantially that they have
stopped selling local brands entirely. Others have added Pepsi to their
repertoire, although the red, white and blue brand is clearly second in the
race at this point. Coke usually sells for about 400 kyat (around 40 cents) a
can, which is comparable with local brands, although back in the mid-1980s,
black market demand pushed the price as high as $1.50 a can. With international
conglomerates infringing on their borders, local soft drink producers are doing
everything in their power to hold onto a chunk of the market. Brands such as Blue
Mountain and Star don’t have the name recognition or massive corporate backing
to stand up to Coke and Pepsi, but the two corporate giants face their own challenges
in getting their message across to generations of consumers unused to the
language of global advertising. Rommel Fuentebella, Coca-Cola Myanmar's head of
marketing, explained how his company is attacking this hurdle. "We ended
up getting inspiration from Atlanta in 1886," Fuentebella said.
"When Coke was first introduced in Atlanta, the marketing strategy focused
on what Coca-Cola tasted like – it simply described the unique flavor of
Coca-Cola. We decided to use two words to form the core of the Myanmar campaign
— 'delicious, refreshing' — which now appear, in the Myanmar language, on all
locally produced products and advertisements.” Coke has also taken to
distributing free samples and so far, the approach seems to be working. Part of
Coke’s Burmese edge over its longtime rival is that it has two plants now
operating in the country, while Pepsi is still relying on imports, with plans
to begin domestic production soon. Diabetes is just a few sweet sips away,
Myanmar, so drink up………
- After flunking itself out of last year's postseason because it failed to meet NCAA academic
requirements in years past, the Connecticut's men's basketball team may have
actually stepped its academic game up enough to earn the right to be eligible
for March Madness once more. UConn went 20-10 on the court during the 2012-13
basketball season and likely would have been an NCAA tournament team, but the
program was banned from both the Big East tournament and the NCAA tournament
based on the APR scores from the 2007-08 through 2010-11 academic years. In its
first post-ban checkpoint, the school has submitted a perfect academic progress
rate for last season. The new report covers the 2012-13 school year and will
not be official until the NCAA comes out with its annual academic progress
report in May. Head coach Kevin Ollie is confident that the results won't
change during that time. "We got a thousand," Ollie said, referring
to the numerical perfect score UConn expects to receive. "If you want to
wait until May, you can find out in May. But it's a thousand." Senior
guard Shabazz Napier noted that last year’s postseason ban was the fault of
previous Huskies and insisted the current players value their academic success.
In order to boost its academic performance, UConn has affected several changes
in the classroom rules and standards for players. Among those new policies are
mandated sanctions for any player who misses three or more classes during the
academic year and daily checks of course work for players with a grade-point
average of 2.3 or lower. Additionally, players must attend at least nine hours
of summer school each year and adhere to a "graduation plan" created
to ensure they remain on path to graduate even if they leave school early for
the NBA. It’s worth noting that the APR doesn't track grades, only whether
students are in good academic standing. Athletes receive one point per semester
for remaining academically eligible. The school’s claimed score of 1,000 is an
improvement over its tally of 978 out of 1000 in 2010-11 and a 947 for the
2011-12 school year. It’s the first A+ the Huskies have seen for their
basketball program in a while…….
- Your wife and children may not like it much, but elephants
know what you’re doing when you point in a specific direction an expect them to
get moving. A point and grunt can lead to domestic troubles for a husband who
is expecting his lady to comply and get marching, but a study by researchers at Scotland's
University of St. Andrews found elephants understand pointing by humans without
being trained. Dr. Richard W. Byrne and graduate student Anna Smet studied 11
elephants in Zimbabwe for two months and tested the beasts’ ability to
understand simple hand gestures. Smet would put fruit in one of two buckets
without allowing the elephants to see what she was doing, then point at the one
with the fruit in it. The elephant would then pick one of the two baskets and
67.5 percent of the time, the subject picked the correct basket and received
their tasty reward. The results are unique because primates and other generally
intelligent animals have been put through similar tests and failed miserably. There
is a caveat here, in that the elephants used in the test were domesticated
creatures that work at an elephant-back safari attraction. They routinely
interact with humans and their reaction to the test could be substantially
different than those of a wild elephant. Byrne and Smet said they plan to
address this issue and investigate whether wild elephants can point to each
other. That would be even more remarkable, given their noticeable lack of
opposable thumbs and the fact that they don’t have any spare limbs not used for
walking……..
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