- Grab your instrument and make some freaking noise, New
Orleans. Normally, residents of the Big Easy wouldn’t need anyone to tell them
to get loud, but this is an exception. The exception needed to be made amidst
the ill-advised push for a tougher anti-noise ordinance in the city. That push was
gaining momentum and may have succeeded if not for a vociferous protest by the
Big Easy’s notoriously raucous musicians. As only New Orleans residents can, a cornucopia of brass, winds,
guitars, banjos and drums sounded off outside city hall and later brought the
noise to the chambers of the city council. Musician Glen David Andrews boldly called
for a "jazz funeral" for the noise ordinance, hailing its perceived
demise as his fellow musicians began playing "A Closer Walk With Thee.”
The entire uprising was organized by the Music and Culture Coalition of New
Orleans (MACCNO) — made up of musicians, bar owners and their advocates – and
in a truly inspiring display, the protestors continued their demonstration even
after the council’s Housing and Human Needs Committee canceled its meeting and
withdrew the ordinance. Nothing says we’re pissed off and we’re not going to
take it/we really like to entertain people quite like raging against the
machine even after the machine has tapped out. Had it passed, the measure would
have set sound levels for the French Quarter at pre-1997 levels and changed the
way noise complaints are measured throughout the city. In the face of stiff
opposition, the committee promised to “revisit” the issue and come back with an
amended proposal at its next scheduled meeting on Jan. 27. The fools behind the
proposed law are an ass-hatted group of city residents who say the city’s lofty
ambient noise levels need to be lowered, even on Bourbon Street and in the
French Quarter. Hey fools…you live in New Orleans, not New Haven. It’s a place
people come to party and you’re ruining it……..
- In a truly sweet and sentimental moment, the outgoing
commissioner of the NBA dealt one final financial blow to his longtime nemesis
on the way out the door. Commissioner David Stern will exit stage left – with his
immense ego and bottomless supply of condescension in tow – on Feb. 1, ending
30 years as commissioner. His biggest annoyance over the past 14 years has been
bombastic Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who has been fined a record 20
times for a total of $1.9 million in penalties. Cuban has ripped the league for
any number of issues, most of them centering on perceived injustices against
his team by the officials. His last fine from Stern (theoretically) came down
over the weekend and it came after Cuban asked for some sort of penalty as one
last tip of the cap before Stern stepped down. The commissioner obliged,
dinging Cuban $100,000 for confronting officials on the court and directing
inappropriate language toward them at the conclusion of the Mavs' 129-127 loss
to the Los Angeles Clippers. After being ordered to fork over $100,000, Cuban
took to Twitter to respond with a cheeky message: “I
couldnt let the commish go without a proper farewell. Its been a fun 14 years
of trying to create change and donating to the donut fund!”
Cuban added that he would donate an equal amount to a charity, meaning he was
able to both clear his mind of some anger and do some good for society. His
outburst came after the Mavs blew a 17-point lead and Clippers guard Jamal
Crawford scored the go-ahead points on free throws after a controversial foul
call against Dallas forward Shawn Marion. That gave Cuban a chance to live up
to a promise to be the final person Stern fined during his tenure. The two men
have gone back and forth since January 2000 and the reality that this could be
their final skirmish is a bit sad……….
- Once again….proof that smoking absolutely sucks. That
evidence may be unnecessary, but it came nonetheless as the American Lung Association released a new study
showing that children’s exposure to secondhand smoke markedly
increases the odds of being readmitted to the hospital for asthma. The study
found that 400,000-1,000,000
children with asthma have their condition worsened by exposure to secondhand
smoke. Researchers studied more than 600 children between the ages of 1-16 who
were admitted to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and measured their cotinine
levels and recorded information about tobacco exposure. They also followed each
subject for one year to keep track of how many of them were readmitted to the
hospital for treatment. Cotinine is a substance created when the body processes
nicotine and by measuring cotinine in the blood and saliva of the admitted
children, the research team was able to determine each participant’s amount of
tobacco exposure. The researchers found that, “measurement of cotinine in the
blood and saliva demonstrated a readmission risk in children exposed to
secondhand smoke more than twice that of children not exposed.” Senior study author
Dr. Robert Kahn of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital believes the ability to
measure cotinine levels “presents the possibility of an objective measure that
can be obtained when a child is seen in the emergency department or in the
hospital and may be used to predict future hospitalizations.” He noted that
monitoring tobacco levels could facilitate the targeting of “specific
interventions at caregivers of those children before discharge from the
hospital.” In other words, tell degenerate smokers to put down the cancer
sticks before they sicken and/or kill the children in their care. Thanks for
nothing, smokers………
- Thanks for that, Kasabian. The solid British indie rock
band that has churned out four quality albums but never really achieved a
significant impact on the music scene has finally done the world the honor of
weighing in on the walking train wreck/publicity stunt that is Miley Cyrus. The
former Disney Channel star and her twerking, grinding, chron-smoking ways are
thrown in the public’s face on a daily basis and while she may think of herself
as some sort of wrecking ball, Kasabian songwriter and guitarist Serge Pizzorno thinks of
her as something else entirely. Pizzorno denounced Cyrus as "a f*cking nightmare of the 21st
century" in the wake of a number of high-profile incidents, including her
much-discussed performance at the MTV VMA's in which she twerked her bizarre
self all over Robin Thicke. Cyrus has since tried to explain her actions away
by telling everyone that her actions are merely her playing a character, as if
that somehow makes every cool and allows her to do whatever the hell she wants
without any sort of judgment. Pizzorno isn't buying it and seems as confused by
Cyrus’ act as everyone else. "I don't really know what that world is man.
It's just a f*cking money making thing. We (the music industry) created Miley
Cyrus man, that's our fault,” Pizzorno said. “She's just a f*cking accumulation
of Internet porn, f*cking hip-hop, f*cking Disney World. She's just a f*cking
nightmare of the 21st century." It’s a commendable attempt to fall on a
grenade for the entire industry, but excusing Cyrus for her behavior is
actually as big a part of the problem as anything. There are many at fault
here, but it is primarily Cyrus herself who deserves the burden for the
dumpster fire she has become………
- Hey Greece…are you still looking for fugitive Christodoulos Xiros? Finding the escaped anarchist shouldn’t be as
difficult now that he has popped up online in a video in which he threatened the government with armed action,
accusing it of ruining the country with austerity measures. "I've
decided to fire the guerrilla shotgun against those who stole our lives and
sold our dreams for profit,” Xiros said in the footage. He was convicted in
2003 of belonging to the far-left November 17 organization and while using a
YouTube video to announce your return to arms isn't original or especially
menacing, there is a certain eerie quality to footage of an angry anarchist in
a grainy video against a generic backdrop ripping the media, the judiciary, the
police and his political opponents and promising to make them pay. The
political opponents in question would be the extreme right-wing Golden Dawn
party and Xiros made an offer in the video for Greece's security forces to join
with him against the enemy – of which they are apparently not a part. Later in
his rant, Xiros condemns the two parties in Greece's governing coalition, the
conservative New Democracy and the socialist Pasok, condemning them for treason
and stating that the "price of their treason is death.” Prior to the
posting of the video, Xiros’ whereabouts had been unknown since his escape
earlier this month while on leave from prison to visit his family. Giving such
a maniac a chance for a weekend at home with the fam wasn’t the wisest idea,
but maybe authorities simply forgot that since emerging in the mid-1970s, November
17 has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks against foreign
diplomats and Greek politicians and businessmen over nearly three decades,
killing at least 23 people. This story would appear to be far from over…….
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