- Captain America just became a much bigger
hero than he’s ever been. According to one of the directors of the upcoming
blockbuster “Captain America: Winter Soldier,” the iconic superhero is not only
out to save the world, but he’s also going to war with the biggest attention
whore/pop music creation of the moment. Yes, Captain America is in
"complete conflict with the Miley Cyrus generation" in “Winter
Soldier,” according to co-director Anthony Russo. Russo and his brother Joe are
spearheading the project, which stars Chris Evans reprising his role as Steve
Rogers. Rogers is joined by Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow and Samuel L.
Jackson's Nick Fury for the film, with new additions Anthony Mackie (as a
superhero called the Falcon who has the ability to fly) and silver screen icon
Robert Redford in a brief appearance as a senior official within the secretive
spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. As Joe Russo lays it out, the fight in front of Captain
America is a vital one and one that should resonate with everyone who wants to
vomit the second they hear the first note of any one of Cyrus’ identical pop
music dumpster fires that she calls songs. "The conflict of the film is
that some of the values he's trying to bring forward from the greatest
generation are in complete conflict with the Miley Cyrus generation,” Joe Russo
said. His brother noted that Captain America hails from a period when “things
were very black and white, Nazis vs. Allies.” The logic makes sense, but unless
the captain is going to use his weapons to destroy some sort of cyborg Miley
Cyrus and rid humanity of the plague of her ridiculousness, the movie is now
going to feel like a disappointment. But there is always the third film in the
franchise for that, which the Russo brothers have already been asked to helm. “Winter
Soldier” hits theaters on April 4……….
- Big ups to China and Taiwan for making nice for the first
time in 65 years. The two Asian nations had not had any formal contact for six
and a half decades, but they broke the ice and agreed to set up a
communication mechanism after historic talks in the eastern Chinese city of
Nanjing earlier this week. . Wang Yu-chi, Taiwan’s minister of mainland
affairs, called the meeting the start of a “new chapter” in relations between
two sides. China and Taiwan previously refused to formally recognize each
other’s governments since a civil war ended in 1949, but both sides emerged
from the meeting talking of equal standing and showed mutual respect. “We
absolutely can’t let the relations between the two sides be turbulent again,
and even more, we can’t backtrack,” said Wang’s Chinese counterpart, Zhang
Zhijun. The animosity between the countries began after a Chinese civil war
forced Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists to flee to Taiwan in 1949. China
considers Taiwan part of its territory to be reclaimed by force if necessary,
but tensions have lessened in recent years as economic ties were strengthened.
China became Taiwan’s largest trade partner more than a decade ago and direct
flights between the territories began in 2008. Most experts believe this new
relationship will benefit regional stability even if a new Taiwanese government
is elected in 2016. That would be a stark contrast to 1996, when China fired
missiles into the stretch of water between the nations before Taiwan’s first
democratic presidential election. There is the interesting dynamic of China
maintaining 1,200 conventional missiles aimed at Taiwan, but good missile
threats make for good neighbors, right? In recent years, Taiwan athletes competed
at the Olympic Games under the flag of Chinese Taipei and joined the World
Trade Organization as the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen
and Matsu (Chinese Taipei). At least now the two nations are pretending to get
along, just like a real family………
- Love (or delusional fascination) knows no bounds or
limits on the embarrassment people will go to in order to find it. Witness the
tale of Maria Vila, a New York City artist from Chile whose missed
connection on the city’s infamous subway station is now a very public story of
pathetic desperation that is pestering much of Manhattan’s population of 8
million people. Those who ride the subway on a daily basis have likely seen the
posters that have been surfacing in several stations across the island. The
posters claim to be the work of someone – Vila – who is looking for a “missing
love.” Her poster asks New Yorkers to “pay attention” because someone’s heart
is at stake. What does that even mean? “I saw this guy in the subway and I
thought ‘He’s so beautiful,’” Vila said. “I want to connect with him.” That’s
right, she saw some dude she thought was cute on the subway platform and to
her, that means they are destined to fall in love. Never mind that thousands of
people undoubtedly see someone they perceive as attractive while riding the
subway on a daily basis; love is at stake and Vila is convinced. “I lost him
and I was like oh my God. I’m in New York,” she said. “It’s now or never and I
said I’m going to go looking for him and I will find him.” If this guy has any
idea that he’s the object of Vila’s creepy intentions, he has to be stocking up
on his disguises and mulling serious changes to his appearance because nothing
screams unhinged and desperate quite like stalking the manufactured love of
your life because of a five-second, long-distance non-encounter on a subway
platform. Villa printed and placed 300 posters detailing the man’s description
and what happened on the fateful day and believes that with help
from her fellow New Yorkers, “We can find him.” She views her crusade as romantic
despite friends who smartly tell her how insane she is, so this isn't ending
any time soon. Vila is asking tipsters to tweet or Instagram any tips on
finding her mystery man using the hashtag #MissingLove……..
- The
Philadelphia 76ers are achieving their goals in spectacular fashion. A team
undeniably built to tank and earn as many ping pong balls as possible in this
spring’s NBA draft lottery started out a stunning 3-0, but has since come
crashing back to Earth in spectacular fashion. Not only have the Sixers lost 38
of their last 50 games (for an impressive losing percentage of .760), but they
are dropping games in record-setting fashion. With embarrassingly bad losses on
consecutive nights, they made history and came up just shy of a truly dubious
achievement. Their ignominy began Sunday night when they were curb-stomped
123-78 by the Los Angeles Clippers in a game they trailed by 56 points in the
third quarter. The Clippers had a mini-dunk party during the game, waltzing to
the basket and ramming home lob passes with impunity. After that sort of
embarrassment, one would think a group of proud, competitive professional
athletes would rather cut off both arms than allow the same thing to happen the
very next night. One would be wrong. The margin of defeat was slightly less,
but the lack of effort was equally glaring Monday night at Oracle Arena in
Oakland. The Sixers dropped a 123-80 decision, in the process becoming just the
second team in NBA history to lose two straight games by at least 40 points
each. The only other team to achieve the feat? That would be the 1993-94
Philadelphia 76ers, who lost back-to-back games in April 1994 by a combined 93
points. "It's hard for everybody," Sixers coach Brett Brown said.
"At times, you look up and you have to keep going and keep on playing with
some level of dignity, and it's hard doing that." By the time media
members were allowed in the locker room Monday night, the players were mostly
gone. Then again, they were absent from the court each of the past two nights,
so no surprise there. Maybe the Sixers can man up and keep it within 35 when
they place one of the Western Conference’s worst teams, Utah, on Wednesday in
their final game before the much-needed All-Star break……….
- Where did the bottle gourd come from? The question that
has perplexed humanity for many, many…..well, a few years at most, finally has
an answer. The distinctively shaped gourd is well-known for its endless uses
and according to a team of anthropologists, geneticists, engineers and
oceanographers scattered across the United States, led by evolutionary
molecular biologist Beth A. Shapiro of the University of California-Santa Cruz,
it likely floated on ocean currents from its native Africa to South America
inside the span of a year. That’s right, the gourd went pilgrim all on its own,
floating across an entire ocean with its seeds still intact and ready to
propagate itself in a new world. Also known as the calabash or long melon, Lagenaria
sicenaria was one of the first domesticated plants and is believed to have
been used by humans from east Asia to the Americas as long as 11,000 years ago.
It has functioned as a drinking vessel, a fishing tool, a medicine bottle and
even a musical instrument, yet no one knew how it arrived in South America
after being used during the Ice Age in Asia as a canteen. Some archaeologists
theorized that Paleoindians carried it with them as they migrated across the
Bering land bridge with another domesticated species, the dog. This theory has
holes in it, namely that there is little evidence of the bottle gourd's
widespread use among Siberian or Alaskan inhabitants of the Late Pleistocene
era and the fact that the region’s growing season was likely too short and too
cold to grow an African gourd. To solve the riddle, Shapiro and her team used
genomic analysis and models of ancient ocean currents to explore the
plausibility of the bottle gourd floating across the ocean to its new home. The
team collected modern domestic gourds from across North, Central and South
America and compared DNA from ground-up gourds with those of domestic gourds
grown in Africa. The results showed American gourds to have the same genetic
imprint as those from Africa. Using a wide range of oceanographic and
atmospheric research, the researchers estimated that the gourd would have had
to make its journey in one year or less. One of their models showed that a
bobbing gourd could make its way from Africa's shores to American shores
between Florida and Brazil in anywhere from 248 to 331 days. Once it arrived,
the gourd began its new life in America just like so many other immigrants………..
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