- How
many DUI convictions does it take to get to the center of a jail cell on a
permanent basis? It’s not quite, “How many licks does it take to get to the
center of a Tootsie Pop?” but it’s a query that has finally been answered by Ivy Ray Eberhardt of Weatherford, Texas. Eberhardt is
six decades into his run on this planet and has run out of time as a free
member of society after a judge concerned about public safety sentenced him to
life in prison for his 10th drunken driving conviction since the 1980s. Judge
Craig Towson decided to step up where so many of his peers have whiffed,
delivering the harshest possible sentence to a man who seems to live his life
with a 40-ounce can in both hands and no one willing or able to take away his
keys and keep him from going on the road while hammered. "Part of my job
is to protect the citizens of Parker County, and the only way that I can think
of to do that from somebody that has 12 DWI arrests and 10 DWI convictions is
to put you in a place that you can't drive for as long as I possibly can,"
Towson said as he addressed Eberhardt in court. The most recent drunk driving
case - although almost certainly not the most recent time Eberhardt drove drunk
- involved an April 2014 incident in which Eberhardt's blood alcohol level was
almost four times the 0.08 legal limit for driving in Texas. If your BAC is
nearly at the one-third mark - i.e. .32 or .33 - it’s a minor miracle that you
even survive that escapade, but this lush wasn’t done. While free on bond in that
DWI case, Eberhardt cut off an electronic ankle monitor and fled to Colorado,
where his long run to freedom came to a familiar ending when he was again
arrested for drunken driving. He’s already served three prison terms for his
previous convictions, but No. 4 is the one that should stick………..
- Fans
of a band or musician will go to extreme lengths to get a little bit of face
time with their favorite artist. Be it trying to sneak backstage at a show,
waiting outside a hotel for hours in the extreme heat or cold or trying to bum
rush the stage during the encore, it’s safe to say that meeting someone you
don’t even know and have no person connection with means a bit too much to
certain people. Enter a Weezer fan who has paid
$25,000 to go bird-watching with frontman Rivers Cuomo, a prize this person
snagged as part of the 'Weezer Experience Bundle' the band made available to
fans pre-ordering their new album. That anyone pre-orders an album in the
digital music era is mildly amazing - because they’re going to run out of
digital copies if you just wait until the day it’s actually released - but the
standard copy of the album this fan bought also came with a digital download
and vinyl formats of the album and the chance to pay even more money to take a
trip to the Galapagos Islands with Cuomo in order to spot rare birds together. The
band laid out the offer in a post on its website: “Take a Greyhound to the Galapagos with Rivers where you’ll stay only
for a limited time. Once you get to the islands, you’ll go bird watching to try
and find the elusive White-cheeked pintail. You’ll go on a catamaran ride
to Charles Darwin Research Station. Sing 'the British are coming' with Rivers
in the Galapagos but replace every lyric about “old king george” to “lonesome George.”
Enjoy your complimentary
signed copy of the album and a pair of tickets to see the band on their summer
tour with Panic! At The Disco. Finally, you will be named King of the World for a day.” It’s quite an
offer for an album that takes its name from a Beatles release, “The White
Album,” although Weezer has named three
previous album solely after colors. This one drops April 1…………
- Saudi
Arabia has been in more than a few showdowns in recent months, including a few
with other Middle Eastern nations. The kingdom’s current battle is within its
borders and its foes are knights, rooks, bishops and pawns. Yes, Saudi Arabia
has declared war on chess. Sheikh Abdul Aziz
bin-Abdullah al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, made an appearance on a religious
TV channel and fielded questions from the masses about what’s good in life,
what’s not so good and what’s downright evil. The kingdom's top cleric was
getting after it, doling out wisdom to the masses and then, it happened. A
caller asked a seemingly innocuous question about chess, a question that seemed
relatively benign until the mufti made it clear that chess and similar games
are "forbidden" in Islam because they're a form of gambling. The
cleric supported his statement with a verse from the Quran: "Indeed wine,
gambling, idols and the divining arrows are abominations of Satan's doing, so
avoid them, so that you may be felicitous." Wait….huh? Chess is typically
a game played by relatively boring (old) dudes who aren’t putting big money on
the game, but merely looking for the intellectual capital of outsmarting their
foe. Yet al-Sheikh labeled hess "a waste of time, money and a reason for
the enmity between players." Again….what? Enmity between players? Who the
hell is beefing and maintaining an intense hate for someone else over that
opening gambit that sprung a major upset at the chess table? A member of the
Saudi Chess Association - and yes, that is a thing - said the group was
surprised by the video. Still, the chess association held a two-day
championship in Mecca over the weekend and another two-day tournament, the
Riyadh Chess Championship, is scheduled for early June………
- NBA
fans are rarely emotionally attached to their coach. They typically don’t give
a damn who’s calling the plays and giving speeches in the huddle as long as
their team wins and players are far more likely to have a strong bond with the
fan base than the guy in an expensive suit diagramming plays on a dry erase
board during timeouts. Yet the Cleveland Cavaliers suddenly have far fewer fans
in Israel and it has everything to do with their head coach. After the Cavs
stunned the basketball world on Friday by firing head coach David Blatt, the
judgment has come flying from the Middle East, where the Boston-born Blatt had
his first real head coaching success. News of his firing topped all Israeli
newscasts Saturday, inexplicably bumping coverage of Middle East violence from
the top of the newscasts. Maybe reporting on senseless acts of violence and
unnecessary deaths gets a bit tiresome day after day because Israel went off on
the Cavs, specifically star LeBron James, who was apparently judged to be the
reason Blatt was axed. An Israeli news show ranked it the top story of the week
and one panelist outright stated that Blatt’s tenure with the Cavs ended
"because of one man: LeBron James." Never mind that a news panelist
in Israel almost certainly has no direct knowledge of why Blatt was fired; dammit,
blame LeBron. Others joked that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would blame
the firing on President Barack Obama and on some level, it makes sense. Blatt
is possibly Israel's favorite son, having called Israel home since 1981, when
he first arrived to play for the U.S. at the Maccabiah Games, and posting a
solid playing career in the Israeli league before winning some 700 games
coaching in Europe and Israel. He married an Israeli woman and raised his four
children here, with the oldest two having completed their required military
service. Heck, the man speaks Hebrew and is a popular pitchman for TV ads. He
has even expressed a desire to one day serve as an ambassador for the country
and his crowning moment came in 2014 when he led Maccabi Tel Aviv to a dramatic
Euroleague championship title. Now, he’s a man with no home and a country ready
to rage in his support………
No comments:
Post a Comment