- There
are reasons to fight and then there are REASONS TO FIGHT. In Turkey, likening
the country’s despotic leader to a certain pale, lurching “Lord of the Rings”
character is apparently one of the REASONS TO FIGHT. If it weren't, Bilgin
Ciftci would not be facing serious prison time or comparing dictator Recep
Tayyip Erdogan to the pasty, cave-dwelling “LOTR” character known as Gollum. Ciftci, a
doctor who . is accused of sharing images of the two, is facing up to two years
in prison and will have his fate decided by a Turkish court. Insulting the
country’s leader is considered a crime, but the court must decide if a comparison to the muttering, gangrel
creature from J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels and the hugely successful films
is a punishable offense. The best part is that a court in the western province
of Aydin was unable to determine a physical resemblance on its own, so it asked
a group of experts -- two academics, two psychologists and one movie expert --
to testify as to whether the comparison was an insult. Best of all, the judge
presiding over the case admitted he has not seen the movies in question. As for
Ciftci, he was fired from the hospital where he worked and briefly detained in
October for sharing images comparing Erdogan's facial expressions to Gollum and
quickly became the latest victim in a ridiculous crackdown on journalists,
bloggers and citizens who are being taken to court on charges of insulting
Erdogan and other top officials. Even former Miss Turkey Merve Buyuksarac went
on trial this year on charges of insulting the president and if hot chicks aren't
immune to this treatment, then no one is………
- The
forecast for next year’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil certainly
isn't getting any better. What with aquatic athletes who have battled
flesh-eating bacteria infections after participating in exhibition events in
the waters to be used for the Games and constant concerns about cost overruns,
Rio isn't exactly inspiring confidence in its ability to successful execute the
biggest sporting event in the world. But nothing screams on sound financial
ground with nothing to worry about quite like ripping basic amenities like air
conditioning from athletes’ rooms at the Olympic village. Such will be life for
the 10,500 athletes at next year's Olympics, many of who will feel the heat in
their rooms and have no relief from it unless their respective national
federations foot the bill. The decision to yank climate control is part of what
games organizers call finding "fat" and cutting it Mario Andrada,
spokesman for the Rio Games, said the cuts have expanded to include 2 billion
reals ($520 million) that needed to be eliminated to balance the operating
budget of 7.4 billion reals ($1.9 billion). "We don't think it's going to
be critical [to have air conditioning] there,” Andrada said of the athletes’
quarters. Sure, the games take place in the South American winter, but temps in
Rio this August reached 95.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Good luck to poorer nations
trying to pay for AC for their athletes. Sure, Brazil is battling a deep
recession, a steep fall in the value of the local currency against the dollar
and a spreading corruption scandal involving state-run oil giant Petrobras that
in part has triggered impeachment proceedings against Brazilian President Dilma
Rousseff, but it’s still bad news to cut AC, along with cutting 10 percent of
the Games’ projected 5,000 employees……….
- As
always, at least there’s a good reason someone was beaten within inches of
their life. If you’re going to break out a crudely made weapon that the A-Team
might have assembled in a heyday because it couldn’t find a conveniently
forgotten old vehicle to modify in less than an hour with enough firepower to
conquer a Third World nation and use said weapon to beat the holy hell out of
two men, you had best have a solid justification for doing so. Alabama resident George Weakley "Old School" Rhodes Jr. has
just such a reason and he put it to good use when he was getting his drink on
with two other men over the summer and looking to add some culinary
satisfaction to the mix, only to have one of the men refuse to share his hot
dogs with the rest of the group. That didn’t sit well with Rhodes, who despite
being 66 years old and presumably past this sort of nonsense, went looking for
something to convince his friend that sharing might be in his best interest.
Rhodes delivered his message by assaulting two men with a nail-spiked piece of
lumber, according to Florence police Detective Justin Wright. Using a 2x4 with
a rusty nail sticking out of it is more than a little ghetto, but the weapon
worked as both men were hospitalized and later released. As for Rhodes, he has
been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of
second-degree assault. Maybe his fellow beer drinkers from that day should have
taken his threats more seriously before he lumbered up, given that he previously
served a five-year sentence for manslaughter. At least this time, he
de-escalated from leaving someone lifeless to possibly leaving them with a
nasty cut and a case of tetanus………
- Does
being the child of one of the biggest movie stars and a mediocre former rapper
lead to growing up extremely weird and with a tenuous grasp on reality? Let’s
ask Jaden Smith, the 17-year-old son of Will Smith
and Jada Pinkett Smith, who seems to fancy himself a modern-day Socrates who
tries to cultivate a sagacious persona for himself with a Twitter feed that
includes such cryptic gems as: "How Can Mirrors Be Real If Our Eyes Aren't
Real.” It’s the sort of thing a really intense hipster might say to try to
impress a girl with his depth on a first date, but that gem may be just the
start if the rumor is true that he plans to pen a series of spiritual, mystical
essays. Word on the street is that
Smith sees himself as a modern-day prophet and is keen on writing a
collection of essays he believes will shed new light on string theory and chaos
theory, but with a mystical slant. He reportedly believes he has spiritual ties
to people in other dimensions and galaxies and that those people help him with
his writings. Maybe in those other dimensions, people are fortunate enough to
have no idea about D-minus movies Smith has made such as “The Karate Kid” and
“After Earth,” or perhaps his deep fount of wisdom can help explain why all of
his films are so terrible. Smith’s plan is to balance his other-worldly writing
with more acting and he is a part of the
cast of “The Get Down,”
Netflix's forthcoming music-driven drama series from Moulin Rouge! and “Romeo
+ Juliet” director Baz Luhrmann. Luhrmann best be on point when dealing
with Smith as part of a motley crew of teenagers from the underprivileged South
Bronx district as they become involved in the city's innovative new hip-hop,
punk and disco scenes, or else this nut bag will substitute his existential
ramblings for his assigned dialogue and put everyone to sleep in the process…….
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