- The
NBA All-Star break is longer this season. It still won’t be long enough to fix
what ails the Houston Rockets. The star-studded Rockets, who limped into the
break at 27-28 after a 116-103 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, are leaking
oil and there are rumblings that star center Dwight Howard is on the trading
block as the trade deadline nears. Even interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff isn't
trying to put a positive spin on the pile of disappointing pieces that
comprises his team. "We're broken," Bickerstaff said. "It's that
simple. We're a broken team, and we all need to use this break to figure out
how we're going to impact change. If we don't want to impact change, then we
need to be made aware of that, too, and we'll go in a different direction. We
can't continue to go out and play this way. It's easy to see it's a fragmented
bunch. You can't win that way." Veteran guard Jason Terry seemed to agree,
saying the team has chemistry issues. When asked about those comments, Howard
declined and said he wanted to keep it positive, but one has to wonder how
positive it was when he and guard James Harden met with general manager Daryl
Morey and Bickerstaff "long into the night" after the loss to hash
out the team’s problems and its losing record after winning 56 games last
season and reaching the Western Conference finals before losing to the eventual
champion Golden State Warriors. After a 4-7 start, the Rockets axed coach Kevin
McHale, but they’ve barely been better under Bickerstaff, going 23-21 and
sliding out of the Western Conference playoff picture entering the break………..
- One could argue that the rates charged to use laundry machines
at your average apartment complex are robbery in and of themselves. That is not
the approach being taken by police in Madison, Wisconsin, who have charged a
local man with using a master key to steal thousands of dollars from laundry
machines at a downtown Madison apartment building. Madison police arrested
Carter J. Swopes after his former employer reported more than $6,000 in laundry
money had been stolen since August from The Embassy Apartments at 505
University Ave. and Swopes doesn’t appear to have a strong case for his
innocence. That will happen when a suspicious manager checks surveillance video
upon seeing income from the laundry machines drop off by $500 to $600 a month
and spots someone who looks an awful lot like you entering a dozen laundry
rooms in the multi-story building on more than one occasion and exiting moments
later looking a lot heavier than when you entered. According to the manager,
she suspects that Swopes, a former employee, made a master key allowing for
after-hours access to the building and used that key to abscond with thousands
of dollars in coins. Swopes was arrested on suspicion of burglary, although
police didn’t say whether they located him by listening closely for the jingle,
jingle, jingle in his pockets as he shuffled down the street to the nearest
bank to deposit his ill-gotten fortune………
- Could
another cult-favorite TV show be set for a temporary revival? It’s official
that “Gilmore Girls” is coming back for a short run with most of its original
cast and in that spirit, actor James Franco was asked about bringing back the
cult classic series “Freaks and Geeks,” which was
canceled by NBC in 2000 midway through its first season. Despite that
über-abbreviated run, the acclaimed teen comedy-drama and its 18 existing
episodes have a small, rabid following, as do executive producer Judd Apatow
and its stars, Franco and Seth Rogen. When the topic came up of reviving the
show the way Netflix has temporarily revived “Gilmore,” Franco said a similar
comeback for “Freaks” is "a possibility." That might just be a
hopeful answer to a wistful question, but Apatow and Franco have both sounded
positive notes on the idea. "All of those characters died in a Supermax
prison. You never know, It could happen. This year it won't happen. We'll see,”
Apatow said in the most obtuse way possible. Franco didn’t exactly paint the
rosiest picture of a future with “Freaks and Geeks” on some sort of streaming
service, but didn’t slam the door either. "I mean, I don't know what that
would look like. Everybody's kind of old. I think for the most part we've had
these little reunions just for photo shoots over the years, and everybody seems
to still really like each other and still have a great love for what we did on
that show," he said. "And obviously I still work very closely with
Seth [Rogen] all the time. So, if somebody came up with an idea that didn't
totally suck, I'm sure it's a possibility." Please, calm down guys, you’re
embarrassing yourself………
- Terrible
tragedy or unintended expedition of justice? Maybe someone can ask Pope Francis his opinion when he visits Mexico in the
days ahead because his opinion would seem to matter after a riot at a prison in northern
Mexico led to a fire that killed at
least 52 inmates just days ahead of a planned visit by the pontiff. Nuevo Leon
State Gov. Jaime Rodriguez attributed the riot to a battle between two rival
factions inside the Topo Chico prison in Monterrey and said one of the factions
was led by a member of the infamous Zetas drug cartel. In addition to those
killed in the fire, 12 inmates were left injured and rescue workers were seen
carrying those injured inmates away from the prison, at least some with burns. Footage
from the scene showed flames leaping from the prison and contrastingly, folks bundled
against the cold gathered outside the prison. The fire was finally extinguished
soon after sunrise, but sorting out the aftermath was more complicated because inmates'
relatives had been inside the facility for conjugal visits. In the hours after
the riot, police patrolled the streets near the prison. Witnesses claimed the
fire broke out just after midnight amid shouts and sounds of explosions and
soon after, a thick cloud of smoke rose, apparently from inmates burning
mattresses. Against this backdrop of inmate hijinks, Pope Francis began his
first trip to Mexico as pontiff on Friday and will visit a prison in the border
city of Ciudad Juarez next week. Maybe while he’s there, he can find solutions
for a prison system described as plagued by violence and cases of inmate
control, symptoms of corruption and lack of resources by a 2013 National Human
Rights Commission report. Then again, maybe it’s best to keep the elderly holy
man away from the maniac inmates who, according to that report, actually run 65
percent of Mexico’s prisons instead of the prison officials who are supposed to
be in charge of these correctional facilities……..
No comments:
Post a Comment