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Spain divided against itself cannot stand….or at least so says Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Rajoy, speaking two days
after campaigning began for regional elections that could decide if the wealthy
northeastern region of Catalonia secedes or remains part of the country, ripped
Catalonia's pro-independence president, accusing Artur Mas of creating
uncertainty by effectively turning the Sept. 27 regional parliamentary election
into a for-or-against independence ballot. It’s a bold move to accuse someone
of hijacking elections for an ulterior motive, but Rajoy didn’t step lightly
around the issue. Instead, he stepped up to the mic in a hostile environment in
the Catalan city of Lleida and said Mas
"had divided Catalan society, families and workmates." He said it was
"a very large irresponsibility" to cause political and economic
uncertainty just as "Spanish and Catalan society is making efforts to
emerge from a financial crisis." Spain has been on the brink of fiscal
disaster for a while and its royal family has faced allegations of corruption
in recent years, but even with the unrest, it will still be a very tall task
for separatist parties to earn the necessary 68 seats to claim legitimacy in
the 135-member Catalan parliament. Being unhappy with your current regime is
one thing, but turning power over to separatists or going to the next step by
declaring your independence and starting the process of establishing the world’s
194th country is something else entirely. Still, revolutions are always
something to root for and turning the world on its ear is great viewing every
day of the week………..
- Watching
the Washington Nationals has been a painful experience the past few months. A
team all but bestowed with the National League East title and a berth in the
World Series before the season began on account of its über-talented roster and
lofty expectations has stumbled all season long, including imploding over the
past month to the point that it is now 10 games out of first place. The
Washington bullpen has been a disaster, its batting order has been a hot mess
of inconsistency and it all came to a head last week when the NL East-leading
New York Mets completed a three-game sweep that effectively terminated any
remaining playoff hopes for the Nationals. In the first two games of the
series, the Nats squandered large leads. One of the chief culprits was right-hander
Drew Storen, who gave up the go-ahead homer to Yoenis Cespedes in the eighth
inning of the second game in the series one day after walking three batters as the
Nationals blew a six-run lead against the Mets. Two straight days of abject failure
pushed the young reliever to the breaking point and break he did, fracturing his
right thumb slamming the lock box in his locker in frustration following the
second game in the series. Nationals manager Matt Williams, who demoted Storen
from closer to setup man following the acquisition of Jonathan Papelbon earlier
this season, didn’t find out about the
injury until Storen was unable to throw Friday in Miami. Storen flew back
to Washington to be examined by a hand specialist and Williams said the pitcher
was “a little bit embarrassed about it, of course.” Not nearly as embarrassed
as Nationals fans have been watching their team lately……….
- It’s
about damn time, campus rabbis of America. You all have been skating for far
too long on your flabby physiques and lack of physical conditioning and
finally, someone has stepped up to do something about it. Sure, campus rabbis’
main focus is lifting the spirits and providing spiritual counsel to Jewish
students in times of on-campus crisis, but is it really too much to ask that
your local Jewish man of the cloth not be rocking a massive gut and a body mass
index that leads the government to classify him as morbidly obese? The harsh
reality of poor campus rabbi fitness hit home a while back for Rabbi Moshe Gray, a man helping Jewish students and
campus community members at Dartmouth College. Gray, unlike so many of his
peers, actually has a personal trainer and that personal trainer pointed out
just how many rotund rabbis there are across the United States. Alarmed by the
plethora of overweight clergy, Gray urged an international outreach
organization for Jewish students to find a fitness program for his peers and
their wives. Chabad on Campus stepped up and began enlisting out-of-shape
clergy members to get medical checkups and establish fitness goals for
themselves, then offered online support groups and subsidized half the cost of
a personal trainer for six months. The effort attracted a group of 30
participants who lost 667 pounds, which isn't a massive number but is
encouraging in light of previous research showing that clergy members of all
faiths are at a higher risk for obesity and other health ailments than other
Americans due to factors including stress, long hours and low pay……….
- It’s
amaaaaaazin’…..that anyone thinks Steven Tyler is still relevant enough to care
that the frontman of a formerly great rock band going solo with what will
surely be a regrettable country music album is worth discussing. Tyler and
Aerosmith haven't really been relevant - save for their few loyal, aged-out
rocker fans stuck in 1985 - for years, having long ago gone the Rolling Stones
route of becoming a bunch of commercialized mainstream sellouts instead of the
great band they once were. Tyler became a reality karoke TV judge, a move that
may have inspired him to go the hack route as a solo act and release a solo
album on which he will bastardize some of his band’s songs in country music
form. Tyler
played the Melrose Ballroom in New York last week and used the performance as a
preview of the country sound of his forthcoming album. He trotted out
new material like the forgettable “Love is Your Name” - Tyler’s first Billboard Hot 100 appearance since 2001 – before making
the rock and roll gods weep with country versions of several Aerosmith songs,
among them “Cryin,’” “What It Takes” and “Pink.” Tyler announced the country
project earlier this year and while disappointing, it wasn’t a stunner. In the
past year alone, he’s performed with country singers such as Keith Urban, Jana
Cramer, Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley and he’s also on the same record
label as Taylor Swift. "I grew up in the woods of New Hampshire... I have
more country in me than people think,” Tyler previously said of the country
album, which is expected to be released in 2016. Maybe so, Steve, but we all
have bad sides of ourselves and that doesn’t mean we need to expose it to the
world. Perhaps being into his 60s has put Tyler in the mindset that old people
often get, a mindset in which they figure that they have seniority on most of
the people around them, they won't be around much longer anyhow and therefore,
they’re going to say and do whatever the hell they want. That doesn’t make a
Steven Tyler country music album any less depressing, but it might help explain
this disappointing spectacle………..
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