- Riot
Watch! Riot Watch! There is literally nothing about Catalonia’s long-running,
ongoing flirtation with secession from Spain that isn't a reason for those on
either side of the debate to lose their sh*t. Pro- and anti-secession groups
have loudly made their respective points on the issue and various legal and
electoral steps have been taken in the secession direction, but for now
Catalonia remains part of the motherland. The current drama involves the start of a Spanish court investigation into the
regional government's staging of a symbolic referendum on secession last year.
That development sparked a massive protest in Barcelona by thousands of
pro-Catalan independence supporters enraged by the investigation. This wasn’t some
ragtag group of renegades, either; new Barcelona mayor Ada Colau headed up the
protest and read a statement backing Catalonia's demand for the right to
self-determination. Sadly, there were no police cars overturned and set on
fire, no storefronts smashed and looted, no Molotov cocktails hurled at police
and none of the mayhem that much such gatherings truly epic. Amidst the
protesting, a regional official and a former regional deputy president appeared
for questioning over their suspected roles in holding the poll. The next man to
be questioned is acting regional President Artur Mas over his role in the Nov.
9, 2014, referendum Catalonia held even though Spain's Constitutional Court
suspended the vote. Undeterred, about 2.3 million Catalans — out of 5.4 million
eligible — voted anyhow, with 80 percent in favor of breaking away from Spain………..
- With
all the problems the NFL has - players involved in domestic violence incidents,
players driving drunk, former players suffering debilitating effects of
concussions sustained during their playing careers, just to name a few - and
especially when it comes to players abusing women and showing little contrition
until it’s beneficial to do so, wouldn’t it behoove the league to remove its
sartorial head from its way-too-tight ass and just let Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo
Williams think pink? Like most other NFLers, Williams is wearing pink shoes,
gloves, wristbands and other uniform accessories this month in honor of breast
cancer awareness. Where Williams diverges from the pack is his desire to keep
pinking up for the rest of the season because he lost his mother, Sandra Hill,
to breast cancer in May 2014. All he wanted was to wear pink shoes or pink
wristbands throughout the year, but he was told over the phone by NFL vice
president of football operations Troy Vincent that he would not be allowed to do so. Why? Because
the NFL, that’s why. The league that has uniform police who measure the length
of towels tucked into players’ waistbands and double-check the height of their
socks before games is so wardrobe-repressive that it seems to care more about
ensuring that all players’ gear looks the same than it is about eliminating
domestic violence from the league. Williams was told there are no exceptions to the uniform policy
and therefore, he cannot honor his mother and those who have lost loved ones to
breast cancer. "The same way it made you feel after you heard it -- like,
man," Williams said of his reaction to getting the news. "He told me
no. I'm assuming they are telling everybody else no as well. ... It wasn't
about selling it." Maybe if someone convinced the NFL there was a way to
increase its 10-figure annual profit by letting Williams pink it up for the
rest of the season………….
- There’s
going to be a brawl at the distribution end of the pizza oven at every
pie-making shop in Pickerington, Ohio in the event
Sycamore Creek Church decides it’s in need of another slab of dough covered in
cheap sauce and mozzarella cheese. Normally, pizza delivery drivers are either
high school or college students who can’t find a better gig or
down-on-their-luck stoners not capable of functioning in a gig more demanding
than carrying cheap cardboard boxes filled with greasy food to and from their
car and handing said boxes to paying customers, but the motivation to do a
largely thankless job tends to go up with a $1,000 tip is the end result. Enter
a Domino's driver who showed up to SCC when the Ohio church congregation
ordered a pizza during a service. At first, it didn’t seem like a promising
stop for the female driver, as it was a $5.99 pizza that seemed likely to
elicit a tip of just a few dollars. When the driver arrived, Rev. Steve Markle brought her onstage and
asked her the biggest tip she'd ever received. When the woman said $10 was the
largest gratuity anyone had ever given her, Markle responded by giving her more
than $1,000 that had been collected for the offering. The reverend explained
that the church had been about generosity so the congregation had taken up an
offering for her, at which point the driver broke into tears. The theme of the
sermon series? "I was Broke. Now I'm Not." The 500 to 600 people who attend SCC every week
definitely know how to make an impact on the life of a total stranger, even if
it means buying the world’s most expensive pizza……….
- Speaking
of crying at work…..Brand New singer Jesse Lacey. Aside
from minimum wage-earning pizza delivery drivers who receive $1,000 tips and
those who receive news of the death of a loved one or life-altering medical
news, people can not cry at work. Lacey, whose Long Island band has hinted that
it might release its fifth album this year, had himself a bad night at a show
in Nashville, Tennessee over the weekend. After Brand New debuted “Mene,” its first
studio recording in six years, back in April, fans began to get excited about
the possibility the band’s musical drought ending. That may still happen, but
even if it does, the good news train may not roll on for very long. During the
Nashville show, a tearful Lacey told the crowd that life has changed for both
he and the best and as a result, Brand New’s future was uncertain at best. "I’m
gonna have a new daughter. We’ll hopefully have a record for you. I wanna tell
you right here and now, this isn’t gonna last much longer, but it’s been so
special for so long,” Lacey said. “For as long as it does last, we're so
grateful to you all for being here." Hmm, very cryptic and ominous. Lacey
described it as their last show "for a while” and playing in Nashville is
great end point for a band in virtually any genre, but final show or not, you
cannot shed tears on stage unless someone just told you that a loved one died
or has a fatal illness or you just got the news that Nickelback is playing the
halftime show at next year’s Super Bowl. Crying at work is unacceptable for
adults, especially one whose band crafts some pretty angry lyrics…….
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