Saturday, March 26, 2016

AC/DC + Fatsel Rose, when police machismo = cop-on-cop violence and Riot Watch! Bangladesh


- Say it ain’t so, AC/DC. There was a time when learning that the screeching, booming pipes of one Axl Rose would be filling in as the voice of the iconic rock band would have been the best news ever, but that was one “Chinese Democracy” and about 125 pounds ago for the man now more commonly known as Fatsel Rose. According to the son of AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young, the Guns N' Roses frontman will fill in for Brian Johnson as the band's lead singer for the rest of its U.S. tour. The Australian rockers recently rescheduled a handful of live dates after Johnson was advised by doctors to stop touring immediately or risk total hearing loss and rather than allow noise concerns to shut the whole tour down, AC/DC went in search of a capable singer to fill in and after they couldn’t find one of those, they settled on Rose. The group issued a statement on their official website confirming that the remaining dates of their tour will be "made up later in the year, likely with a guest vocalist, but the truth is that Rose is so out of shape and has been so beaten down by his hard-living ways that he can't hit anything close to the notes he used to hit with ease and is more likely to be out of breath and gasping for air on stage than wailing in key and hitting all of the right notes. Ross Young, the son of Malcolm Young - who retired from AC/DC in 2014 due to dementia - confirmed rumors of Rose’s addition to the tour. He posted a link to online reports on Facebook and in comments wrote: "It's true," and "He can and he will." Though he later deleted the posts, it’s fair to say that an AC/DC tour sans Malcolm Young and Brian Johnson isn’t really an AC/DC tour at all………


- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Religious rage tends to be the realest of the real and that’s typically true regardless of what faith you’re discussing or where in the world the discord is taking place. Folks get mighty sensitive when the faith upon which they base their entire life is threatened or challenged and nowhere is that clearer right now than Bangladesh, where thousands of Muslims have rallied in the capital city, Dhaka, to rise up and denounce a court petition seeking to remove Islam as the country's official state religion. Some 3,000 Muslims protested outside the national mosque in Dhaka against the petition, which was filed by a group of prominent citizens and will be taken up by the High Court on Sunday. Credit to these bold souls for being willing to file what they had to know would be a wildly unpopular petition in a country where more than 90 percent of the 160 million people are Muslim and should this petition pass, it’s going to be interesting to see how life inside Bangladesh is for these people and their families. Islam has been the state religion since 1988, when it was used as a political pawn by dictator H.M. Ershad, who declared Islam the state religion to win support during a campaign by major political parties to oust him from power. Then in 2011, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina brought back secularism as a pillar of the constitution, but retained Islam as the state religion. Nothing says you value a religion quite like using it for political currency, although that designation isn't likely to sway the feelings of the thousands of maddened Muslims who made their voices heard in Dhaka this week……….


- It’s depressing how quickly Roger Federer is getting old - at least in terms of the tennis world. The former No. 1 player in the world won't be serving up any aces on the court in the near future and he can thank a 1-2 punch of old man status and poor health for that. First, he withdrew from his opening match at the Miami Open against Juan Martin del Potro with a stomach virus and the very next day, the Swiss star suffered a knee injury preparing a bath for his twin daughters. Yes, dude got injured giving his daughters a bath and while that’s a cute dad moment, it also resulted in the first surgery of his career. "I am very sorry that I have to pull out of the Miami Open with a stomach virus," Federer said in a statement. "I feel bad for the tournament and the fans as I have rarely ever had to withdraw at such short notice. I have not felt great for a few days, and unfortunately it got worse in the last 24 hours. I was really excited to have my comeback in Miami but I am in no condition to play. I tried to warm up this morning, but it was clear that I could not compete." Now, Federer hasn’t played a match since falling to Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open semifinals on Jan. 28 and his return to the court is to be determined. Seeing once-great, classy stars age out of their prime is always discouraging, but at least you want to see them tear, break or strain something trying to return a 140 mph serve or racing to the net to reach a well-placed drop shot and not witness their decline because they pivoted too quickly on slick bathroom tile and wrecked their knee trying to reach the bubble bath on the top shelf of the linen closet. Get well soon, Fed………


- To everyone who believes that cops are testosterone-fueled, God-complex-having ass hats who believe they are above the rest of us….yup. At least that’s true of Stephen Green and Joseph Tyer, a pair of officers with the Atlanta Police Department who are in varying stages of losing their jobs following a fight at a restaurant over which officer would be faster in a foot race. Wow….two young, relatively fit dudes in a profession where machismo is part of the job description allowed their pride and arrogance to get the best of them and commit acts so over the line that it could cost both of them their jobs? Shocker. Tyer has already resigned, while Green is on administrative leave after an incident that occurred around 5 a.m. at the R. Thomas Restaurant on the 1800 block of Peachtree Street in Atlanta. The best part of all of this is that the reason the men were together was for a meeting with the members of the High Intensity Traffic Team so yes, they’re traffic cops and that makes it all the better, as does the name of their traffic team and their willingness to go above and beyond to live up to that name. When Green tried to assert his supposedly superior speed, Tyer allegedly became upset and told Green that he was going to "punch him in the face." In the sort of development that usually leads to someone calling the police to a scene, the dispute carried outside and a physical fight ensued. Other officers remembered what a cop is supposed to do and broke up the fight, but not before Tyer pulled out a gun but did not fire a shot. All in all, a thoroughly impressive night for the police department and one that has to instill great confidence in the police among residents. Then again, at least these fools were being unjustly violent to one another instead of toward the public……..

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