- Very
few sports fans are paying attention to Major League Baseball right now. The
NFL draft is coming up this weekend, the NBA playoffs are in full swing and
unless something really unusual happens in baseball, MLB isn't grabbing much of
the sports spotlight. For better or worse, Detroit Tigers outfielder Tyler
Collins was that something unusual during his team’s 7-3 win over the Oakland
Athletics. Collins, a young outfielder with a lot to learn on and off the
field, lost Marcus Semien's fly ball in the lights and when it dropped, the
crowd booed him lustily. An error was also assessed to left fielder Justin
Upton when the ball dropped for a double, but the boos were clearly meant for
Collins and he knew it. He elected to respond by extending his middle finger to
the crowd. He wasn’t bashful about it, but by the time the game ended and his
manager and teammates had the chance to talk to him, Collins was telling a
different tale. "To hear boos after that play hit a trigger inside of me
and I lashed out, completely inappropriately," Collins said. "I'm
absolutely embarrassed, and I'm very sorry to everyone in Detroit."
Detroit is already suffering enough, with its NBA and NHL teams bounced in the
first round of their respective playoffs and by virtue of being a bankrupt,
downtrodden hell hole of a city on the constant verge of fiscal collapse, so
having one of its own athletes flip the bird to an entire ballpark doesn’t
really help. "I just wanted you guys to understand that I love this team
and I want to win, so when we come home and get booed, it's tough to swallow,
but like I said, I apologize completely," Collins said. It’s a long
season, Ty, so learn how to deal with your anger and find a way to redeem
yourself on the field………..
- Many
people have suffered intense pain at the hands of their dentist. Very few
people get the satisfaction of seeing their dentist thrown in prison for
inflicting that pain, but a very relieved set of Frenchmen received that happy
feeling when a French court found a Dutch dentist guilty of assault and fraud
and sentenced him to eight years in prison. Jacobus Van Nierop is clearly a
troubled, weird dude, as evidenced by his total lack of emotion when the court
in the central town of Nevers returned its verdict. He was convicted of 85
counts of assault, including 45 counts of mutilation, and of 61 counts of fraud
against patients, their health insurance companies and the local social
security agency after he committed a litany of evil acts of dentistry from 2009
to 2012, including having multiple healthy teeth removed, leaving drills bits
in patients’ gums and teeth, abscesses, recurrent infections and misshapen
mouths after he did work on patients. Nearly 100 plaintiffs filed complaints
against Van Nierop, who was accurately dubbed the "horror dentist" by
the French media. As part of the ruling, the judges banned this kook from
practicing dentistry for life, although he was actually acquitted of six counts
of assault and some counts of fraud. For someone who overcharged patients and
billed them for imaginary procedures, a fine of 10,500 euros ($12,000) and to-be-determined
damages due to 62 plaintiffs is actually
getting off easy. Van Nierop may have 10 days to file an appeal, but at this
point he may just want to absorb the karma that’s coming his way………..
- What’s
coming down the pipeline from Disney, other than as many Star Wars movie as it
can possibly crank out? More sequels, of course. The studio has confirmed that it will release a sequel to its live-action
version of “The Jungle Book,” a decision that was clearly in the works long
before the film debuted earlier this year at the box office to solid results. According
to Disney, director Jon Favreau will return for the second movie alongside
writer Justin Marks. The live-action movie is of course a remake of an animated
classic, which in turns is ripped directly from Rudyard Kipling's children's
book, making this second movie the sequel of a remake of an adaptation of an
original story. In other words, about the least original thing imaginable,
which also makes it perfect for Disney and Hollywood right now. The first
Favreau-led movie features the vocal talents of Idris Elba, Ben Kingsley,
Scarlett Johnson and other big names, which helped give the project a major boost
both in the United States and internationally. The only human to actually
appear on screen is Neel Sethi, who plays Mowgli, although the studio didn’t say
if that will also be the case for the sequel. Not only is Disney doing a sequel
for “Jungle Book,” but it also revealed several more projects that are in the
pipeline including two more sequels: a “Maleficent”
sequel starring Angelina Jolie and a “Mary
Poppins” sequel featuring Emily Blunt. Mix in a “101 Dalmatians” spin-off, titled “Cruella,” and Disney may have very literally run out of or given
up on original ideas………
- If all
city council meetings were this awesome, then a hell of a lot more people would
attend city council meetings. Alexander City, Alabama is the sort of place most
people never go and quickly forget if they pass through, but those people are
missing out on the treasures that are Mayor Charles Raford Shaw, his wife Laverne
Jackson Shaw and councilman Tony Goss. The mayor and his wife, who are 71 and
72 years old by the way, were both charged with assault third degree and
released on $1,000 bond for their roles in a meeting room brawl with Goss.
According to council president Bob Howard, animosity because the mayor and Goss
had been mounting for the past several years and as so often happens when
building drama boils over, this one exploded because of money. According to
other members of the council, the two men were on opposing sides of the battle
when an audit firm was brought into the meeting to discuss bringing financial
audits up to date. Howard, sensing that sh*t was about to go off, adjourned the
meeting because it turned into a shouting match. He made the mistake of
thinking the mayor left the room, but the loud sound of two grown men throwing
hands suggested otherwise and Howard looked up to see the two men in a physical
altercation. Sadly, others in the room rushed to separate the two men rather
than allow these two out-of-shape, over-the-hill wind bags to wear themselves
out after a few errant slap-punches and wildly inaccurate kicks. There are reports that the mayor punched Goss, prompting
Howard to call the incident “uncalled for” and “unprofessional.” “We need
to be working together in a positive energy rather than bringing attention to
ourselves in this way,” he said. Shaw and his wife turned themselves in to the
Tallapoosa County Sheriff's Department to face the consequences of their
actions, but anyone lining up to hate on them needs to check themselves and
realize that a lot more people are interested in the economics of Alexander
City than they were before these two governmental gladiators did battle………
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