- The Man is feeling mighty powerful in one Kansas town.
Yes, the overreaching powers that be in the upscale area of Overland Park are
using their bureaucratic muscle to squeeze a group that is artistic, creative
and looking for a good frame job. Yes, it’s John Q. Law vs. photographers and
the city is looking to levy a hefty permit fee for those looking to snap
professional pictures in its public parks. The permit is valid for a measly
five days and this is clearly a way for the city to wrangle extra money for its
budget out of a space the public is supposed to be able to use for free. Snapping
a selfie with your smartphone or taking a nature photo with your
professional-quality camera so you can share it with your bird watching buddies
will still be free, but taking engagement, high school senior pictures, family pictures, baby
photos and the like will necessitate a permit. Many local photographers use the
city’s 83 city parks, the arboretum and Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead for
their shoots and while the chilly weather of winter means there aren't many
outdoor shoots at the moment, spring is not far off and that’s when the pinch
will be felt. Overland Park Parks and Recreation Director Greg Ruether
ass-hattedly defended the decision by the city council to implement the new
law, saying the council made the change after reviewing a city ordinance that
technically bans commercial filming in parks. While the ordinance specifically
pertains to photos taken of subjects, either people or animals, the idea that
one consenting adult cannot take a photo of another consenting person who
happens to be paying them without purchasing a permit is asinine and then some.
Obviously, photographers will either stop using the park, up their fees and
pass the cost on to their customers or worse still, stage renegade photo shoots
at random times with distractions elsewhere in the park to district park
officials. Yet Ruether stupidly insists this decision has nothing to do with
making money. "This is not to make a profit. This is intended to have a
mechanism to allow certain activities including photography in our parks. Once
we get that request, we will discuss what the activity will be and can be aware
what’s going on out there," Ruether said. Nice try, tool……..
- Relationships keep on breaking around Sonic Youth
frontman Thurston Moore. First, his 27-year marriage to bandmate Kim Gordon
came to a sad end in 2011 and now, Moore’s new black metal band Twilight has
achieved the dubious honor of announcing their first album together and their
breakup on the same day. Moore joined the band in 2012 and “III: Beneath
Trident’s Tomb” is due out March 17. The announcement of the album’s release
date coincided nicely with its revelation that its members have decided to
split up immediately. Twilight
does – or did – consist of Stavros Giannopoulos (Atlas Moth), Wrest (Leviathan),
N Imperial (Krieg) and producer Sanford Parker. Aisde from their creepy, subtly
evil fake names, the average metal fan doesn’t exactly have a lot of
familiarity with the band, as evidence but the lackluster response to its
previous two albums, a self-titled release and “Monument to Time End,” neither
of which featured the Sonic Youth and Chelsea Light Moving frontman. The good
news for Moore is that he clearly has plenty of other projects and while he
might be well behind Jack White and Dave Grohl in the race for the busiest man
in rock and roll, he won't be sitting around with nothing to do. He is also
scheduled to appear in May at Liverpool Sound City 2014 as a keynote speaker
and in between now and then, maybe he can find another relationship in his life
to detonate. Just kidding, Thursty. Bands break up all the time over issues big
and small and Twilight is just one of many bands of varying levels of fame and
success that called it quits this week. Of course, none of those bands used the
occasion of releasing their third album and first with a new member to let the
world know that they could no longer co-exist and were going their separate
ways, but still……..
- Former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre may have
left the octagon, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped throwing punches. Speaking
in his native French, the Quebec native explained that the reason he vacated
his title and stepped away from the sport that made him rich and famous is the promotion's
stance on drug testing. St-Pierre questioned what he perceived to be a lack of
support from the UFC in his quest involve the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association
in the drug testing of a title fight against Johny Hendricks at UFC 167 in Las
Vegas in November. “It bothered me
greatly," St-Pierre said. "It was one of the reasons I decided to
step aside. I tried to change things
and unfortunately -- maybe for money reasons, maybe for image -- they were not
ready to do that. I tried in a
very diplomatic way and it didn't work.” The fight took place on Nov. 16 and
before it went down, St-Pierre confirmed his participation in a voluntary
program under VADA and invited his
opponent to do the same. Hendricks refused, saying he didn't trust the
relationship between St-Pierre and VADA. He instead underwent drug testing
performed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Both fighters passed all
tests they took and neither has ever has tested positive for performance-enhancing
drugs, but the incident was a breaking point for St-Pierre. UFC CEO and
co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta said he was shocked by the remarks and UFC president
Dana White denounced them as “insane.” "We've actually advocated
for harsher penalties for PEDs,” Fertitta said. . "Maybe Georges didn't understand the level of drug testing
Nevada was doing.” There could be more to the issue, as St-Pierre also referred
to the UFC as a "monopoly” and claimed it might prevent other fighters
from speaking publicly about the PED problem in MMA. Not exactly the words one
expects to hear from one of the most accomplished champions in UFC history……..
- Very clever, Facebook. And by very clever, take that to
mean once again ripping off one of its biggest rivals. Stealing a trick from
Twitter, Facebook
is launching a new Trending feature that will show users the most popular
topics being discussed on the social network. The feature is already rolling
out and it will provide users with a series of topics that are spiking in
popularity on Facebook. It will reside in the top right of users' news feeds
and its presence represents Facebook’s burning desire to be the place the world
goes when something interesting happens and they want to read ill-informed opinions
and rants about it. Natural disasters, lame awards shows and the like are
always more meaningful when they can be shared digitally with quasi-friends and
random people you know from all walks of life, so this all makes perfect sense.
Twitter has long trumped Facebook when it comes to immediacy, whereas Facebook
excels for long-winded moping and whining that don’t fit into 140 characters. Getting
in on that action means more traffic and therefore, more advertising dollars. It
is the latest attempt to copy what people like about Twitter and bring it to
Facebook, coming on the heels of Facebook incorporating hashtags last year. "Facebook
is a space where people from all over the world gather every day to share their
thoughts and participate in real-time conversations, from the highlights of the
Golden Globes to the passing of Nelson Mandela," wrote Chris Struhar, an
engineering manager at Facebook, in a blog post. "Today we're announcing
Trending, a new product that's designed to surface interesting and relevant
conversations in order to help you discover the best content from all across
Facebook." Struhar added that each topic will be accompanied by a headline
that briefly explains why it is trending and users can click on that headline
to see posts from their friends who happen to be talking about that topic. The
feature will eventually expand to Facebook users on mobile devices…….
- Discrimination is everywhere in the world. It’s even in
Israeli rip-offs of crappy American/British reality karaoke TV shows, as Rose Fostanes
now knows. Miss Fostanes is a Filipino migrant worker who won Israel’s version
of the "X Factor (Karaoke)" even though she didn’t sing a single word
in Hebrew during the contest. She hacked up tunes such as Queen’s “Bohemian
Rhapsody” and Lady Gaga’s “You and I,” out-hacking her fellow aspiring
karaoke-ers to snag the valuable recording contract that goes to the winner. As
with so many of the attention whores who seek fame and musical fortune via
reality TV, Fostanes has a heart-tugging life story that includes moving to
Israel six years ago with nothing and earning a living cleaning and caring for
an ailing older woman. She works to cobble together money for her family back
home and lives in a crowded apartment with seven other people in Tel Aviv
(possibly while eating ramen noodles for every meal every day) to save cash. She
is also a legal midget (in some countries), standing 4 feet 11 inches tall. As
she progressed through the rounds of hack-dom in the contest, she became a
favorite thousands of foreign workers, including the 20,000 Filipinos in Israel.
Like so many immigrants, many of them hold low-paying jobs. Fostanes noted that
she hoped her popularity on the show would shine a spotlight on these
people and it has….in a backwards way. See, her special caregiver visa bars her
from earning money in any other line of work, including singing. Israel's
Population, Immigration and Border Authority (PIBA) has rules that prevent her
from earning money as a singer in the country. She can perform for free, but no
one can give her a dime. Israeli law states that, "A foreign worker cannot
work in any job that is not permitted on their work visa, not even on weekends
or in their free time." Doing so constitutes a violation of their visa………
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