- Believe it or not, white people have not cornered
America’s market on racism. That was proven on New Year’s Day when a bigoted
valet in Georgia delivered some Grade-A hatred to a married couple enjoying a
date night at
a popular local restaurant. U.S. Army Sgt. Major Sam Aarons and his wife Candea
headed to Spondivits, a trendy restaurant in the city East Point, and thought
nothing of the reaction of the valet who took their keys and parked their car.
They went in, enjoyed an overpriced meal and left a few hours later. Neither
paid attention to the valet tag on their car keys…until they got home and found
the words “jungle fever” scrawled on the tag. Sam Aarons is white and his wife
is black and as any good racist knows, the term jungle fever if used in a
derogatory fashion to describe interracial couples. "We have never been so
blatantly described in such a blatantly appalling manner ever," Candea
Aarons said. "I shouldn't have to feel this way.” Using the word blatantly
twice in one sentence is usually blatantly excessive, but in this case it’s not
nearly enough. Sam Aarons is an active duty military member just back from
Kuwait and deserving of respect, not hatred. When the couple contacted a local
television station to share their story, the restaurant responded by saying the
valet worked for a contractor called APS Valet and that the restaurant itself
does not tolerate and sort of racism. APS Valet's owner claimed the valet in
question is no long working with the company, but that did little to placate Candea
Aarons. "I was unaware, I was unprepared and I was unaware racism is alive
and well," she said. "We had no idea that the valet was looking at us
or thinking of us in such a manner.” To top it all off, the Aarons said the valet
was African-American and that means this fool has probably experienced some
racism of his own during his life………
- How does the world go about extinguishing the plague of
smoking? According to a new study conducted at the Center for Global Health Research of St.
Michael's Hospital in Toronto, by upping the price of lung darts even further. Dr.
Prabhat Jha, director the CGHR, directed the research and concluded that tripling
cigarette taxes around the world would prevent 200 million people from dying
prematurely over a century and shrink the number of smokers worldwide by
one-third. Jha postulated that tripling the taxes would have the biggest effect
in poorer countries, places where cigarettes are fairly affordable and continue
to grow in popularity amongst people who aren't sufficiently educated about the
evil they wreak on the body. "Death and taxes are inevitable, but they
don't need to be in that order," Jha said. "A higher tax on tobacco
is the single most effective intervention to lower smoking rates and to deter
future smokers." Very clever, Dr. J. Lame jokes aside, there is no reason
to doubt the claim that upping cigarette taxes would reduce deaths from lung
cancer and other diseases because cancer sticks suck and those who use them are
despicable losers who should be persecuted as much as possible. Jha and his
team estimated that doubling cigarette prices would prevent about 70,000 of
200,000 annual deaths from tobacco-related causes in people under 70 in the United
States and Canada alone. "Worldwide, around a half-billion children and
adults under the age of 35 are already -- or soon will be -- smokers and on
current patterns few will quit," study co-author Sir Richard Peto, a
professor at the University of Oxford, added. Keep up the great work, guys………
- Being a hipster favorite and the lead singer of a
successful indie rock band only goes so far, especially when that lead singer
is trying to reach way outside his comfort zone and break into the world of
acting. Bright
Eyes frontman Conor Oberst was hit squarely between the eyes with that reality
a few months back when he auditioned for the title role in the new Coen
Brothers film “Inside Llewyn Davis.”
Oberst has fronted a solid band for some time and also branched out on his own
for a solo career, but his acting chops must not match his musical skills
because the Coen Brothers had no interest in him for the lead role. That role
went to actor Oscar Isaac and the two men recently had a conversation about the
role that they were both up for. "I know I told you this when we met, but
I tried out for your role in Inside
Llewyn Davis — and thank God for everyone that I didn't get it,” Oberst
told Isaac. “But they auditioned a lot of musicians and actors for this part,
to the point where I heard the Coen brothers and T Bone Burnett say that they
had more or less given up on the idea of finding someone. And then you
appeared.” Give Oberst credit for not being bitter and understanding his
limitations because it would be easy to hold a grudge over being rejected. The
film itself, of course, is loosely based on The Mayor Of MacDougal Street,” the posthumous memoir of Dave
Van Ronk, a cult favorite folk singer whose career had close ties to Bob Dylan
and Joni Mitchell. Isaac’s performance in the project has received positive
reviews and the movie won the second-most prestigious prize, the Grand Prix
Award, at last year's Cannes Film Festival………
- Nelson Cruz now has plenty of time to enjoy the
slopes….but they might not be the wisest place for a free agent in search of a
team to invest millions of dollars in him to hang out. Cruz came free and clear
at the end of last season and after missing a huge chunk of the latter part of
the year while suspended for failing a drug test, he hadn't exactly engendered
a lot of goodwill with his present team, the Texas Rangers. As it turns out, he
had burned enough bridges that the team handed out a seven-year, $130 million
contract….to another, less productive outfielder. Shin-Soo Choo received that
huge payday from the Rangers and news reached Cruz as he was in Colorado on
a ski vacation, enjoying his first time on the slopes. He learned that his
replacement had been signed when the team announced their new leadoff hitter and left fielder. There
is no way a team can pay two non-superstar outfielders eight figures and with
the Rangers also in pursuit of much-hyped Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, so
Cruz is out and the thought of a known PED-using cheater out on the bunny hill
in his ski parka, boots and goggles, struggling to stay upright when he hears
that some above-average outfielder is getting $18 million a season to replace
him….priceless. Choo was introduced at a news conference at Rangers Ballpark in
Arlington wearing No. 17, Cruz's old number. General manager Jon Daniels said
he reached out to Cruz and agent Adam Katz when the Choo deal was completed and
wouldn't "100 percent close any doors" on a Cruz return, but giving
away someone’s number is a fairly surefire “eff you, goodbye” to a player……..
- One of the
most eerie stories of the week unfolded in Democratic Republic of Congo, where nearly
100 people were killed in when security forces clashed with supporters of a
self-proclaimed prophet who tried to seize control of the airport, a military
barracks and state television. The idea of self-proclaimed prophets is always
unnerving because someone that delusional simply has a creepy quality to them. The
attackers stormed the studios of the state television station in the capital
city of Kinshasa, shouting slogans in favor of disgruntled religious
leader Paul Joseph Mukungubila and against President Joseph Kabila before transmission
was shut down. "Gedeon Mukungubila has come to free you from the slavery
of the Rwandan," shouted one youth in the Lingala language on television,
while two panicked presenters stared at the camera. Kabila is viewed as
something of a traitor because he was educated in Tanzania and Uganda and his
opponents often accuse him of being a Rwandan in an attempt to tarnish his
reputation. On the other hand, the self-aggrandizing Mukungubila calls himself
"the prophet of the Eternal" and is nicknamed Gedeon by his
followers. He made a failed bid for the presidency against Kabila in 2006 and
he does not seem to have gotten over the loss. His supporters attacked the
airport, a military barracks and the state television headquarters in Kinshasa
and were repulsed by troops. Corpses laid on the ground outside the brightly
painted gates of the state television center after the attack and government
spokesman Lambert Mende estimated the numbed of casualties at nearly 100. Democratic
Republic of Congo continues to be plagued by the remnants of decades of
violence and instability, particularly in its east, in which millions of people
have died from hunger and disease. While a 21,000-strong United Nations
peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO) is stationed in the country and a local MONUSCO
staff member was wounded during shooting at the airport, the U.N. isn't exactly
equipped for this sort of situation. Whether a change in leadership is needed
or not from the rule of Kabila, who has presided over the mineral-rich African
nation since 2001 following the assassination of his father, Laurent, this
attempt to affect that change failed miserably……..
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