- There are difference makers in the world and those
difference makers cannot be afraid of negative public reaction when they drop
their truth bombs on the world. Hawaii state Rep. Tom Brower is one such difference maker and he is not the most
popular man in the world after stepping up and using a sledgehammer to disable
stolen and abandoned shopping carts to clean up his district. Because many of
those carts belonged to homeless people, Brower is facing criticism for
attacking those who are down and out. His office has fielded dozens of calls
from people on both sides of the issue. Brower initially took action because of
his desire to take direct action to affect the lives of those he represents
rather than simply pass laws. This tool-wielding vigilante took to scouring the
streets
for shopping carts that homeless people use to transport their belongings and
going Thor on them by using his Sledgehammer of Justice to wreck the carts. Brower
showed the TV News crew how he scours then and uses a sledgehammer to destroy
them. “I find abandoned junk, specifically shopping carts, and I remove them,” Brower
explained. “I also create a situation where those carts can’t be pushed around
the city. I think it’s a good thing.” Various groups advocating for the rights
of homeless people have denounced the cart wrecking as a negative message about
violence against the homeless. Others pointed out that because some homeless
people suffer from mental illnesses, Brower’s actions could lead to a violent
confrontation between the lawmaker and the owner of a destroyed cart. Brower
claimed he hasn’t yet taken a shopping cart out of the hands of a homeless
person, but would not rule such an action out. According to the group Retail Merchants of Hawaii, shopping cart
retrievals statewide average about 100 a month, with carts equipped with a
security device costing stores $300 per car and those without one costing $100.
Presented with those facts, Brower responded that he doesn’t believe he
destroyed valuable private property because the carts he wrecked were damaged
and unusable………
- Dear God….please, no. With the über-ugly and forgettable
disco era behind humanity, the twin perils of man-band music and country music
are the primary threats to the ears of humanity in the modern era. Combining
the two would produce the sort of unholy alliance not seen since…..well,
earlier this month, when Avril Lavigne dropped her crap-tacular new album with
a duet from husband and partner in assassinating music as we know it Chad
Kroeger. Yet this doesn’t lessen the sheer horror of the threat now looming
after former man-bander and current Michael Jackson rip-off Justin Timberlake
revealed that he wants to embark on a career in country music. Timberlake, who still
sounds like a weasel that downed an industrial-sized tank of helium every time
he sings, recently made his return to music with his album “The 20/20
Experience” and dropped the second part of the double album in September.
Perhaps tired of being a mainstream pop throwaway, Timberlake saw an opening
when he was asked if he was interested in pursuing a different sort of music in
the future. "They're still alive. I just did an interview earlier today
and I said, 'I'm America, that's what I am – in all senses of the word,”
Timberlake said of his country music ambitions. “I grew up outside of Memphis,
Tennessee, and I listened to country music, R&B music, classic rock...
everything." The best part of that quote is him proclaiming himself to be
“America…in all senses of the word.” If this tool is America, then it would go
a long way toward explaining why the rest of the world hates the United States
– that and its unbreakable habit of being the world’s policeman and
self-determined social conscience. But there’s Timberlake, casting his eyes
toward the horizon and dreaming of a Grammy in a new genre. "I still got
my eyes on a Best Country Album. There's time for that,” he added. No, man
bander, ain’t nobody got time for that………
- Native Americans, time to slow your roll about the white
man coming across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe and stealing your land. According
to DNA analysis done on a sample from a prehistoric Siberian boy, Native Americans
may have come from the same place as the people who sailed across the ocean and
stole their land while gifting them smallpox-infested blankets and musket
blasts to the back of the head. Yes, those who occupied the American continents
before Europeans arrived across the ancient land bridge from Asia, the location
of the present-day Bering Strait. However, previous generations of their people
may have lived on the same continent as the United States’ first border
crashers. DNA samples taken from modern-day Native Americans include genetic
signatures known to originate from Western Eurasia, which is tangential link to
European ancestry. Some scientists believe these elements of the genetic code
must have been added to the mix since Christopher Columbus arrived and that
true Native Americans who passed through Siberia on their way to America were
not at all closely related to the groups who would one day become Europeans.
Those scientists need to check out this new research, which includes sequencing
of the genome of a Siberian boy who (allegedly) died some 24,000 years ago when
the land bridge was still there and the migration into what is now known as
Alaska who in full swing. More testing was done on a second Siberian believed
to have died 17,000 years ago and in both cases, the results showed a larger dose
of genetic signatures similar to proto-Europeans. “Our findings reveal that western Eurasian genetic signatures in
modern-day Native Americans derive not only from post-Columbian admixture, as
commonly thought, but also from a mixed ancestry of the First Americans,” the
researchers wrote in their report, suggesting that the first Native Americans
were likely the first wave of European colonization……..
- Speaking of England and the reason people fled its
shores…look at the Church of England, stepping its evolution process up and
voting overwhelmingly
in favor of female bishops. A vote on a package of measures to endorse women
bishops was supported by 378 members of the General Synod, with just eight
votes against and 25 abstentions. The vote ends a 20-year impasse and clears
the way for women to be ordained as senior clergy by the end of 2014. Months of
behind-the-scenes talks between reformers and traditionalists preceded the vote
and prevented a repeat of a vote last year that saw an angry minority succeed in
rejecting draft legislation on women bishops. The measure lost by six votes at
that time, leaving the church in crisis and one senior church official deeming
the result a “train crash.” The vote also spawned a committee to bridge the gap
between the two sides and that committee’s proposals won widespread acceptance
in the Synod this week. "The train is on the tracks, the train is moving
forwards, and we now have some stations to pass along the way but we can begin
to see the end of this particular journey," Bishop of Rochester James
Langstaff said after the vote. While the bishop may have ridden the trail
analogy several stations too far, there is no getting around the reality that
the church is changing. The Synod will discuss the legislation at its next
meeting in February and a vote on final approval is likely in 2014. Female
clergy members have long divided Anglicanism, with ladies serving as bishops in
the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Opponents of the practice
counter that Jesus chose only men as his apostles. The spiritual head of the
Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, supports women
bishops and Prime Minister David Cameron also voiced support for the church’s
decision even though supporters of female bishops were warned not to "open
the champagne bottles" just yet as there were still major issues to be
resolved. Aren’t there always, though……..
- The entertainment value of Alex Rodriguez as a baseball
player may be dead, but A-Fraud’s Q-rating as a piece of troubled performance
art has never been higher. The disgraced New York Yankees slugger made
headlines with a completely contrived and canned temper tantrum in which is
slammed his fists on a table, kicked a briefcase and punched a wall while
shouting obscenities as he stormed out of an arbitration hearing regarding his
appeal of a 211-game suspension by Major League Baseball for his role in the Biogenesis wellness clinic scandal.
A-Fraud is contesting his 211-game ban and was incensed when arbitrator Fredric
Horowitz refused to compel commissioner Bud Selig to testify. When that
happened, A-Fraud went to the script his representatives had laid out for him,
throwing a fit and noisily exiting the room before issuing a pre-written
statement denouncing the process and those responsible for it before going on a
pre-planned media tour to profess his innocence and engage in blatant
demagoguery. His attorneys continued to charade Thursday as the arbitration
hearing resumed sans its star, with Fraud-riguez’s attorneys vowing to
"release all of the evidence" and preparing to take the case into
federal court regardless of how Horowitz rules. "We're going to open up
everything," said Ron Berkowitz, a spokesman for Rodriguez. "We're
going to show everything we have to the press so they can show it to the
American public." After A-Fraud spewed all manner of nonsense about Selig
not being man enough to visit his city and face him down and how much he loves
New York, Thursday’s theatrics were more of the same. Even if he and his team
of high-paid legal scumbags release transcripts of witness testimony, sworn
affidavits and whatever information was supplied to the Fraud-riguez team by a
"whistle-blower" who allegedly works for Major League Baseball, none
of that changes the fact that he has previously admitted to PED use and was
only surrounded by what he decried as “liars and felons” during his hearing
because those are the people he has rolled with in recent years. Keep the show
going, A-Fraud, because that’s the only way anyone is going to enjoy your
performing from here on out…….
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