Saturday, May 07, 2016

Frat bros v. femi-Nazis, Pink Floyd salutes hipsters and college football Twitter rage


- That the world at large knows who Texas A&M assistant football coach Aaron Moorehead is - that’s a bad sign. This ill-tempered, meathead coach is at the center of a rather ugly stretch for the Aggies in which two potential recruits withdrew from their previous commitments to the school after seeing coach Moorehead unable to keep his head and unleash a Twitter rant in which he blasted a highly touted quarterback recruit who announced he was breaking a verbal commitment to the Aggies. That led Moorehead to wax rage-aholic about loyalty and accountability on social media. “I feel sorry for ppl who never understand loyalty. I can't really even vibe with u. At the end of the day trust is 100 & everything else is BS,” he posted moments after quarterback Tate Martell, a top-ranked quarterback in the 2017 class, tweeted he was decommitting from Texas A&M and reopening his recruitment. Martell has been gradually backing away from his August commitment to the Aggies because, you know, he’s a teenage dude who’s being asked to decide where he’s going to spend the next four years of his life and shape his future in the process, so he’s likely to change his mind once or twice. He got zero understanding from coach Meathead, who went off so angrily that moments later, another A&M recruit, receiver Mannie Netherly, posted on Twitter that he was also reversing his commitment. More angry Meathead tweets folloed and the next day, so did an apology after undoubtedly getting chewed out by head coach Kevin Sumlin behind closed doors. "Last night, I made some impromptu comments on social media out of frustration and out of a true love for Texas A&M Football," Moorehead posted. "I want to apologize to all of the young men in high school who work so hard to achieve their dreams of playing college football & I wish them all well wherever they end up.” My, how your sentiments have changed, coach………

- On the list of surprising disappearances, the sudden vanishing of a pair of Colombians convicted in Portugal of drug-trafficking doesn’t crack the top 100. That doesn’t make the current plight - allegedly - of  Macias Nieto and Edil Luna, who were pursued by Interpol and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency before their 2012 arrest by Portuguese police, any less interesting, but two drug smugglers on another continent escaping legal supervision after failing to continue reporting to authorities, as required by the terms of their release from prison, is about as predictable as it gets. The men’s attorney, Tiago Melo Alves, said he was informed by a court that the men vanished after leaving a Lisbon high-security prison last month and given their high level of character and moral certitude, the lawyer had to be flabbergasted by the news. When you’ve got guys like Nieto and Luna, who were captured with 340 kilograms (750 pounds) of cocaine and sentenced to 11 and 8½ years in prison, respectively, you count on them to respect the law and honor the terms of their early release. That authorities had confiscated their passports doesn’t make a huge difference because Europe is almost entirely borderless at this point and unless you’re flying from country to country, you can move around with relative ease without a passport. Prison release while awaiting an appeal decision is customary in Portugal, but fleeing custody and going on the lam so hopefully some of your drug smuggling contacts can get you out of the country and back home is not as common……..


- Hipsters, today brings great musical news for you. An iconic band who recently had one of its members declare that its decades-long run is officially over announced that it will reissue its entire back-catalogue on vinyl, starting next month. Pink Floyd, which was last spotted releasing what member David Gilmour has called the band’s final album, “The Endless River,” in November 2014 without the input of legendary frontman Roger Waters, will re-release each of its albums on hipster-worshipped vinyl via the band's own Pink Floyd Records, in association with Columbia Records. This cash grab, er, chance to expose more fans to the magic of an iconic rock band on a medium that devotees claim gives a truer, richer sound than digital versions of music can ever hope to approximate, will begin with full-length re-releases of 1967's 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn', 1968's 'A Saucerful of Secrets' and 1969's 'More' soundtrack and 'Ummagumma' double album, all of which will be released on 180-gram vinyl on June 3, with the original packaging replicated for each release. To draw the process out and keep the hype going, the remainder of the band's discography will be reissued at several intervals throughout the year. However, this is (allegedly) no precursor to a revival of Pink Floyd, as Gilmour recently made it clear - and bands, boxers and old movie stars never lie about retirement or change their mind - that the band is done recording and touring, as its connection to Waters seems to have been permanently terminated……..


- Angry feminists are a hard group to placate, even when you make a loud, public statement in full, unwavering support of a cause that is extremely important to both them and society in general. Northwestern University fraternities, not normally thought of as centers for enlightenment and socially forward thinking, were trying to do their part by reminding their campus that it was Sex Assault Awareness Month, but the act of hanging banners reading, “This is Everyone’s Problem,” in reference to sexual assaults, noting that each fraternity “Stands With Survivors of Sexual Violence” and “Supports Survivors,” and showing their firm support for women’s safety was viewed as a declaration of war by some testy campus social justice warriors. These SJWs forced the fraternities to issue a blanket apology for their effort in hanging banners off the sides of their houses in a pro-women effort, decreeing that such banners might have “triggered” some students. In other words, maybe scumbags out there weren't planning on raping or assaulting women or were on the fence about whether they had time in their busy end-of-semester schedule to heinously violate a woman in a criminal manner, but seeing those banners reminded them that there is always time to rape or grope? It’s odd to think that simply recognizing sexual violence as a problem and informing your fellow students about the dangers of campus sexual assault is not OK even though campus feminists have been advocating for exactly that in recent months. Yet campus femi-Nazis at Northwestern published an op-ed in the campus paper, ripping the fraternities for their lack of self awareness in daring to address a “rampant” problem head on and decrying the banners as a “cruel reminder” that fraternities are havens of male privilege and impropriety. Clearly, nothing will stem the rising tide of rage from these prickly ladies……….

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