Thursday, August 06, 2015

Boston's mayor = sports hero, the threat of a Spice Skanks reunion and Utah's N-word Canyon


- Southern Utah officials have found an excuse and they’re going to ride or die with it. Facing heat to change a canyon's controversial name on the grounds that it, you know, contains a blatantly racist and offensive term from an ugly, bygone era in American history, these N-word deniers decided to keep Negro Bill Canyon the way it is. In so doing, they b*tch-smacked down a new push to change the title that's offensive to some but a point of historical pride for the state's largest NAACP chapter. Grand County Councilwoman Mary McGann revealed that he and his council mates voted 4-3 to keep the name of Negro Bill Canyon after a black cowboy whose cattle grazed there in the 1870s. She explained that the vote came even though she and others say the name is outdated and offensive. Good sense and sensitivity was obliterated by Salt Lake City NAACP president Jeanetta Williams, who actually rallied support for the name to remain intact because she and her sycophants claim their position is based on the fact that the name, while offensive and ugly, makes it clear that the canyon is named for a black historical figure. Calling it Black Bill Canyon, Black Dude Who Cared for Horses Canyon don’t appear to have been considered, but maybe they will be in the near future because McGann says she'll try again to re-name the picturesque hiking spot in Moab, about 230 miles south of Salt Lake City. This fight ain’t over, Utah, so print those t-shirts to make a quick buck off the drama and pick your side in the fight……….


- Someone needs to tell pop music hacks that despite round-number anniversaries being freaking cat nip for has beens to try to revive their never-were careers, it’s OK to say no to the idea of a reunion is acceptable. Oh, and someone needs to tell former Spice Skanks member and reality karaoke show judge Mel B about this idea because she hinted at a reunion of 1990s British pop girl group could get back together from the rocks under whence they have crawled for the group's 20th anniversary next year. Why next year? Because will mark two decades since the girl group's hauntingly awful breakthrough single “Wannabe,” which may have wanted to be a variety of things, but a good song was never among them. The sensible one here is fellow Spice Skank Emma Bunton, who brilliantly said that "families and schedules" could prevent all five members from reuniting. Mel B – a.k.a. Scary Spice – heard those wise words and rather than listen to their sheer brilliance, she fired back that  it's her "plan" to encourage celebrations. Appearing on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night NBC show, Mel B said it's "about time" for a Spice Girls reunion, a stance she re-affirmed on The Today Show, saying she wants to "gather the troops.” "When you say it’s our 20th anniversary coming up, it does make you think, ‘Oh, my gosh, it really has been that long," she said. "Hopefully, we’ll gather the troops around, and we'll get to do something to celebrate it next year. It’s in my plan, I don’t know about anybody else’s.” Hopefully? The only thing to hope for is all recordings of your dumpster fire of a group to be simultaneously destroyed and the world to have collective amnesia for the rest of eternity when it comes to the five minutes these hacks were sorta famous……….


- She won't back down. No, she won't back down. You can accuse her Cabinet chief of being the mastermind in the killing of three men allegedly connected to an ephedrine trafficking ring, but Argentina's president is gonna stand her ground. And she won't back down. President Cristina Fernandez  is adamant that the accusations against Anibal Fernandez are a politically motivated attack by the opposition aimed at affecting Sunday's primary elections and while that sounds like standard political double talk from a slimy, greasy criminal, er, elected official, let’s give el president the benefit of the doubt. If she says this is a deliberate smear attempt on Anibal Fernandez, who is running for governor of Buenos Aires province, maybe she’s right. A news report featured the claim by one of the men convicted in the 2008 killings that the hit was ordered by the Cabinet chief via an intermediary. If so, that is some straight-up gangsta sh*t and Anibal Fernandez is a Grade-A thug. Sadly, the president says she doesn't believe the allegation and chalked the claim up to a long-running feud with Grupo Clarin, one of Latin America's biggest media conglomerates, which just so happens to own the station that aired the controversial report. The likely truth is that the government is corrupt, dirty and dishonest and those stirring up trouble here have ulterior motives for their actions, meaning everyone is lying, bending the facts and looking to manipulate the public, just as it should be in any true, functional democracy…………


- Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh is on a freaking roll even if he’s trying to position himself as his city’s unofficial spoiler of supposed sports fun. Late last month, Walsh yanked his support for his city hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics, refusing to sign a document that would have seen taxpayers foot the bill for the inevitable cost overruns which come with hosting the Games. Within 24 hours, Boston’s bid to be the U.S. representative in the bidding process was dead and Walsh was one of the main heroes in its death. Now, Walsh was to drop a ban on dip, snuff and chewing tobacco at baseball fields throughout the city. With former Red Sox pitcher and mouth cancer survivor Curt Schilling at his side, the mayor proposed banning smokeless tobacco products from all city professional and amateur athletic venues. "Kids shouldn't have to watch their role models using tobacco, either at a neighborhood park or on TV," Walsh said during a cleverly staged media event at a South Boston baseball diamond. "Ballfields are places for mentoring and healthy development. They're no place for cancer-causing substances." The blowhard politician is right and while MLB players aren't banned from using smokeless tobacco products, their union contract does prevent them from using them during televised interviews and carrying  them around when fans are in the ballparks. Skoal and Copenhagen will certainly fight the proposed ban, which would cover professional, collegiate, high school or organized amateur sporting events and be effective April 1. Walsh noted that those managing sporting event sites would be responsible for assuring compliance and violators would be subject to a $250 fine. San Francisco has already imposed such a ban and Walsh is defining his target as any product containing "cut, ground, powdered, or leaf tobacco and is intended to be placed in the oral or nasal cavity.” Left out of the announcement was the mayor holding up a used Coke bottle half-filled with brownish juice from the mouth of a dip user and asking who wants to take a sip………..

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