- Riot
Watch! Riot Watch! Armenia is small in size but large in rage at the moment, as
the world saw when police dispersed a protest
against electricity price hikes that was blocking a central avenue in the
capital, Yerevan. Several thousand demonstrators raged against the
establishment, breathing new life into a two-week-long protest that represents the
most serious unrest the former Soviet nation had seen in years. When it
appeared the rage had died down, it was a sad day for the world, but hopes were
revived to kick off the weekend thanks to rioters who clashed with police and
compelled the use of force to unblock the main road. Police spokesman Ashot
Agaronyan said 48 protesters who refused to disperse were detained in
relatively peaceful fashion and released within a few hours. The rage began in
earnest at the beginning of the summer with electricity rate increases, but the
government tried to calm the seas in early July by suspending those increases.
Pushing them back seemed to placate many, but thankfully not everyone is that
much of a sucker. Those who know postponing unfair rate hikes is merely putting
off a screw job were the ones who rose up this weekend e to demand that they be
annulled entirely. Armenia maintains close ties with Russia, maybe in the hopes
of avoiding Vlad Putin-compelled invasion and annexation attempts, and its
power grid is a subsidiary of a Russian electricity company. Protest organizers
claimed to have no political motives, but Russia is paying close attention to
the unrest in the event they need to start cracking some skulls to restore
order………
- Deceased
musicians appearing on stage as holograms…this is still a thing? Sadly, the answer
is yes. Three years after a hologram of the late
Tupac Shakur performed on stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at the Coachella
Music and Arts Festival in California, another famed, deceased artist will be
faux-taking to the stage so that fans desperate for one more glimpse of
something that looks and sounds like her can shell out big money to prove that
they really need to find a musician to like who is actually alive. Enter a hologram of Whitney Houston, set to tour the
United States with the blessing of the late pop singer’s family. The family
hopes it will give fans a "great opportunity" to celebrate her work
and while it’s a nice sentiment, it also reeks of being a cash grab and an
attempt to exploit the fame of a very talented woman who was done in by her
drug addiction demons. Fittingly, Houston passed away the same year the Tupac
hologram made its debut and since then, Michael Jackson has also done the whole
“I’m dead but a digital projection of me will still perform for you” thing. Pat
Houston, the late singer's sister-in-law and president of her estate, explained
the logic behind the tour. "It's a
great opportunity for her fans to see a reinvention of one of the most
celebrated female artists in history and to continue a legacy of performances
that will not be forgotten in years to come,” she said in a statement. Hologram
USA will produce the tour, which should at least be unique in that there won't
be any diva-ish demands of bowls of only red M&M’s or bottled water chilled
to precisely 32.5 degrees by its star. The concerts will also be streamed on a
free online app, FilmOn.com. Here’s hoping this doesn’t spawn a Biggie Smalls
or Doors hologram tour in the near future……….
- Screaming
babies on cross-country flights don’t seem so bad now. Sure, you might want to
slap a muzzle on that infant brat who just cries and cries for three hours
straight, but at least those whiners have diapers into which they can relieve
themselves, something that cannot be said for Oregon resident Jeff Rubin. Rubin
faces multiple charges after authorities say he
urinated on passengers on a flight from Anchorage to Portland and was arrested after JetBlue Flight 47 arrived
at Portland International Airport. According to a police report, airline
employees and passengers said Rubin slept for most of the flight before waking
up about 30 minutes before landing and proceeding to uncork both his bladder
and some of the most bizarre in-flight shenanigans ever seen. After waking,
Rubin began urinating through the crack between the seats in front of him,
providing the sort of liquid refreshment that the passengers seated directly in
front of him weren't really looking for. Rubin may or may not have had a drink
or seven before getting on board and in his possible inebriated state, he lost
his balance mid-leak, falling backward and splashing urine on passengers, seats
and luggage. Amazingly, the passengers in Rubin’s immediate vicinity managed to
remain relatively calm and avoid a major debable despite their unwanted golden
shower, keeping their cool as their urine attacker managed to fall asleep again.
When police boarded, they had to wake Rubin, who then spent about five hours in jail and was released on
his own recognizance. He now faces charges of criminal mischief and offensive
littering, all of which should earn him a punishment that the legal system may
not be able to deliver: a lifetime ban from air travel………
- No
credit for a) doing something you should have done years ago and b) only doing
it because the NCAA lost an antitrust lawsuit last year, Pac-12 officials. You
might remember that last year, a judge ruled in the Ed O'Bannon case that
schools should be allowed to make deferred payments of about $5,000 per year to
football and men's basketball players for the use of their names, images and
likenesses, making the former UCLA basketball player something of a trailblazer
for athletes who disliked being used by their schools to make millions of
dollars they themselves would never see. The antitrust lawsuit challenged the
association's use of athletes' names, images and likenesses to generate revenue
and with the loss, it became clear that colleges and universities should
probably do something about the unfair arrangement they have with athletes who
receive scholarships covering part of all of their tuition, but don’t earn any
money when the school sells, say, a replica jersey featuring their uniform
number on it. The Pac-12 has decided to stop being behind the times to an
embarrassing degree by proposing a chance to NCAA rules to allow college
athletes to use their names, images and likenesses for non-athletic business
ventures. It’s hardly evening the playing field the way it needs to be, but
it’s at least a small step in the right direction - or at least it will be
until the Pac-12's proposal is taken up and subsequently knocked down by the
Power 5 conferences (Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast Conference and
Southeastern Conference) at the NCAA convention in January. After all, it’s
hard to imagine rich, old men and women in suits and expensive watches sitting
around mahogany conference tables at some posh hotel or resort and feeling
genuinely bad about taking financial advantage of people a third of their age
and with very little actual leverage. Score one for the spirit of change and
betterment, even though this remains a massive uphill battle for athletes
everywhere……..
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