- Wait, there are still countries where it’s necessary to
sign official documents classifying rape as unacceptable? Sadly there are and
one of them is the Congo, where Congolese army commanders
have signed a declaration to combat rape in war. Rape and war have been sadly
intertwined for virtually as long as both have existed and sometimes rape is
even used as a weapon or as the spoils to the winning side in a conflict, but at
least one of the most bass-ackwards nations in the world is taking a step
toward addressing the problem. The United Nations hailed the measure as an
important step in the fight against sexual violence during conflicts and should
it hold up, it would be just that. The declaration was signed in Congo's
capital, Kinshasa, and it is another piece of government plan adopted in
September to end sexual violence by soldiers. It requires every Congolese
military commander to pledge to take a series of actions including respecting
human rights and international humanitarian law on sexual violence in conflict,
ensuring prosecution of alleged perpetrators under their command and educating
soldiers about the "zero tolerance policy" on sexual violence in
conflict. Zainab Hawa Bangura, the U.N. special representative on sexual
violence in conflict, called the signing of the document "a giant leap forward in the
fight" against rape in war. Ending the war would also be a giant leap
forward but because men are incapable of living in peace and seem intent on
solving their problems through killing one another, tackling rape will have to
suffice………
- Nick Saban is still a liar. In case anyone forgot, the man
who famously insisted he would not be the next head coach at Alabama before
becoming the next head coach at Alabama weeks later is not known for being
forthright and so when he claims that he is "very, very sorry for the way this worked out” in regards to signing
Jonathan Taylor, he’s full of sh*t. For those who don’t know, Taylor was
arrested on a domestic violence charge and dismissed from the team before
playing a single game for the Crimson Tide. It came nearly a year after he was
dismissed by Georgia following an arrest for felony aggravated assault and
family violence for allegedly choking his then-girlfriend. Saban, athletic
director Bill Battle and the Alabama administration gave what they called a
"second chance" in January, entirely because he’s a 6-foot-4,
335-pound behemoth who can plug the middle of a defensive line that was whipped
by Ohio State in January’s College Football Playoff championship game. It had
nothing to do with giving a deserving young man a second chance at
success, so to hear Saban pretend he’s apologetic about anything to do with
this mess is insulting to one and all. "I'm
not sorry for giving him an opportunity. I'm sorry for the way things worked
out," Saban said. “I'm not apologizing for the opportunity that we gave
him. I wanted to try to help the guy make it work. It didn't work. So we're
sorry that it didn't work and we're sorry there was an incident and we're sorry
for the people that were involved in the incident. But we're not apologizing
for what we did.” Right, because everyone knows you prize difference-making
players over character every day of the week and if that means taking on a guy
now charged with domestic violence third-degree assault and domestic violence
third-degree criminal mischief in Tuscaloosa for a brawl that left a hole
punched in a bedroom door and the aforementioned incident in Georgia, so be
it……….
- You have to be a special brand of scumbag to use a charity
that purported to help victims of international child
trafficking to rip people off of copious amounts of money. You have to be
someone like Peter Senese, the director of a nonprofit organization who has
been arrested in New York City on fraud charges. Federal prosecutors announced
the charges against him in a criminal complaint that accuses Senese of
defrauding parents through an organization called I CARE. The I CARE name makes
all of this especially d-baggish, even more so than collecting large fees on
false promises to reunite abducted children with their families would otherwise
be. The whole sham is so absurd and so offensive, complete with Senese telling
clients he was traveling the world as part of his efforts when in truth he
never left the United States. Of course, if you’re going to bilk that
many people out of that much money and use a story about traveling the world
tracking down abducted children like you’re Liam Neeson in “Taken,” then maybe
you should just go ahead and use some of that fraud money to travel the world
so you can at least pretend like you’re trying to do what you promised to do.
Hell, grab a glass of wine in Paris, check out the Great Wall in China and kick
it at Carnival in Rio and snap a few pictures from local slums to make it look
like you’re legit. Instead, this ass hat was content to con naïve people into
giving him massive chunks of money and sitting on his ass in Manhattan, hoping
he didn’t run into any of them on the subway or grabbing a hot dog from a
street vendor. Poor execution all around………..
- The latest cash grab by one of the most iconic rock bands
of all time has gone interactive. Led Zeppelin is trying to cash in on its
catalog despite not having all of its members still living and therefore
precluding it from releasing any legit new material by reissuing its classic
album “Physical Graffiti” and they know that they cannot simply remaster the
old album and slap it on iTunes if they expect people to buy it in large
quantities – well, they can and a lot of bands do, but it doesn’t really
maximize earning potential. Tricking out an iconic album is no easy task, but Led
Zep has found a way and it has nothing to do with the music itself. No, Page,
Plant and Co. have instead decided to bring the album’s famed cover to life and
hope that a three-dimensional take on the image is enough to draw attention to
their efforts to line their pockets with even more wads of cash. The
centerpiece of this effort is an interactive clip for one of the bonus tracks
from the album, part of a video that allows viewers to navigate their way
through the house from the “Physical Graffiti” album cover. The video is the
creation of , which also crafted Bob Dylan’s interactive video for “Like a
Rolling Stone.” On some level, maybe bands and artists who have faded from
mainstream consciousness and need a boost to capture any attention amongst the
sea of man bands and overproduced pop hacks need this sort of assistance if
they have any hope of connecting with music fans of the 21st century, but that
too is a sad notion. A re-release of Led Zep’s sixth studio album, with a rough
mix of “Trampled Under Foot” retitled as “Brandy & Coke”? can hardly be
construed as a bad thing, but all of the excess around it isn't exactly making
the band seem any cooler………
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