Wednesday, May 27, 2015

A$AP Rocky v. Rita Ora, Cash-for-Grass (No Ass) in Cali and racist athletes owned by Snapchat


- Gas, cash or rebates…nobody gets a green lawn for free in today’s California. The state is locked in a brutal drought that has Gov. Jerry Brown ordering mandatory cuts in urban water usage and preventing
many from watering their lawns. Brown is the new green in California these days, but there might be a way to return some of that lost green to the lives of locals thanks to cash-for-grass program that has proven so wildly popular that a water wholesaler is considering boosting the budget for turf replacement rebates. Under this unique program, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California pays homeowners and businesses $2 per square foot to replace grass with drought-friendly landscaping. In other words, get rid of your grass and put in mulch, colored rocks or some other substitute for a green lawn. That offer – or more specifically the chance to pad their pockets with some cash in a ruggedly tough economy – has proven to be such a draw that the MWDSC’s board members will meet to discuss adding $350 million to its lawn rebate program. The program's current budget is $100 million, but that amount, which once looked pretty substantial, has begun to shrink in relative since residents and businesses bum-rushed the agency to request the rebates since April, when the program debuted. If the cash doesn’t dry up the way lawns are in the state, this could prove to be the best way for Californians to earn money for their next round of Botox since that oft-overlooked plan to offer the rest of the country a chance to become an honorary member of the Kardashian family for a day for just the low, low cost of their dignity and self-respect………..


- Athletes around the world should really know by now. Anything said or done with a smartphone nearby is fodder to come back and bite you in the ass by means of any number of social media services. You know who still hasn’t fully grasped this lesson? The three Brazilian gymnasts suspended by their country’s gymnastics confederation for comments made to a black teammate that were caught on video. The confederation said the suspension of Arthur Nory Mariano, Fellipe Arakawa and Henrique Flores would be for 30 days, or until a final ruling is reached in the case. They’re banned from entering any national or international competition and lose their rights to any financial incentives they might have been receiving, all for telling teammate Angelo Assumpcao, who is black, that a smartphone's screen is white when it works and black when it doesn't, and that supermarket bags are white and trash bags are black. The humor is lame, trite and subpar at best, but it was enough to merit the suspension and for the case to be analyzed by a local gymnastics sports tribunal. Assumpcao and the three suspended gymnasts are expected to be questioned by the tribunal and it happened after one of the gymnasts was dumb enough to send out the video on Snapchat. It later leaked to media outlets, prompting the confederation to open an investigation last week. These genius gymnasts thought they could release another video saying they wanted to publicly apologize to Assumpcao, insist that they were joking and that viewers misunderstood them and blew the incident out of proportion and it would all be forgotten. "There are no hard feelings," Assumpcao said in the video, sitting alongside his teammates. "We are friends." You might be friends, Angelo, but your friends are morons………


- Shock jocks aren't so different no matter where they carry out their zany antics. Be they holding down the morning drive time spot in Chicago, rocking the lunch hour in New York City or claiming they clubbed a young rabbit to death on air with a bicycle pump in Copenhagen, there just isn't that much to differentiate between these microphone-rocking maniacs. Oh, you hadn't heard? Meet Kristoffer Eriksen, the co-host of a morning show for Danish public broadcaster Radio24syv, whose actions have set off a storm of angry protests after he and his broadcast partner said they had beaten a live rabbit to death during their show and later posted a video on Facebook allegedly showing the cooking of a rabbit and an English-language explanation about the action. That came after zookeeper Jesper Lauritzen claimed had advised the channel on how to put down the nine-week old rabbit as painlessly as possible, advice that presumably did not include any bicycle repair tools or blunt force trauma to the rabbit. Eriksen said the morning show stunt was aimed at initiating a debate about "the vast hypocrisy surrounding our relationship with animals,” but what he actually meant was the he did it to get ratings and attention and in that respect, his act was wildly successful. A group claiming more than 800 supporters have appealed to listeners for a boycott of the broadcaster and while that number is laughable in terms of affecting any real change, it’s enough to make this a global story for a few days and let a much larger number of people know who Kristoffer Eriksen is…………


- Speaking of stunts done to draw as much attention as possible, A$AP Rocky has sparked controversy with lyrics from his track “Better Things.” The track is the one making headlines off the rapper’s new album, “At.Long.Last.A$AP,” which drew some early buzz when it was surprise-released one week early Tuesday. The  album is the successor to A$AP Rocky’s much-hyped 2013 debut “Long.Live.ASAP” and after just one day on the market, it’s already poised to get more attention based largely on allegedly offensive lyrics which allude to an alleged sexual encounter with singer Rita Ora: "I swear that b*tch Rita Ora got a big mouth. Next time I see her might curse the b*tch out. Kicked the bitch out once cause she b*tched out. Spit my kids out, j*zzed up all in her mouth and made the b*tch bounce." Aside from being a bit too reliant on the word “b*tch,” the lyrics are under fire for being, among other tings, disrespectful and possibly even misogynistic. Of course, anyone who is upset by these words has clearly not listened to much rap because there are 1,000 songs more hate-filled and woman-bashing that have been released the past year alone. A more intelligent point of view is that A$AP is being immature because you don’t hook up with someone and then turn around and clown her to the world, but then again, if you date a foul-mouthed rapper and even consider having kids with him, you have to assume that he’s going to take parts of your relationship and turn them into lyrical fodder for his next diss track. Hell, odds are high that Rocky himself will say or do something infinitely more offensive to either women or society in general during the course of promoting and touring in support of the album, so let’s all avoid burning too much of the fuel in our respective rage reservoirs in anticipation of what’s to come. Oh, and be sure that Ora will likely respond with some bile of her own, which will likely be followed by the two of them hookimg up again at some point in the future because, you know, famous people………

No comments: