- It’s not getting better, is it Venezuela? Not if your defense
minister is being asked to step into a bigger role in order to give the
military a tighter grip on the economy as your socialist-run country struggles
to combat severe shortages and stave off food riots. Yes, food riots are a
reality and to keep them from tearing the country apart even further, Defense
Minister Vladimir Padrin is getting a major promotion. Dictator/President
Nicolas Maduro announced that he was creating a new government initiative to
boost production and guarantee the smooth distribution of food supplies, which
sounds like a swell idea until you realize that the military historically has
been the arbiter of disputes in Venezuela and it’s really never gone well. Oh,
and Maduro is tightening his grip on the country at a time when polls show that
he is more unpopular than ever, so there’s that as well. This is a despot who
since taking power has enhanced the military's power and handed it key cabinet
posts with control over the economy, giving the citizens of his downtrodden
country even more reasons to be concerned. While Padrin is being elevated in
power and his job description says he will coordinate the work of every
ministry, odds are that he will abuse that power, overstep his bounds and give
everyone a whole new list of reasons to hate their dictatorial leader and try
to vote him out in the country’s next round of totally rigged national
elections…….
- The end is near if you believed quirky, often-brilliant
director Quentin Tarantino. The man who helmed “Pulp Fiction” and “The Hateful
Eight” has long stood on the promise that he plans to make only 10 films in his
career and during a recent speech at a film festival in Israel, he was asked if
he intends to stick to that plan after “Django Unchained” and “The Hateful
Eight” raised his current tally to eight. Technically, he’s cheating because “Kill
Bill” was originally filmed as one movie and split into two because the studio
figured people wouldn’t want to watch a five-hour behemoth, but even so, does
Tarantino really have just two movies left in his demented mind? “I’m planning
on stopping at 10. So it’ll be two more,” he said. “Even if at 75, if I have
this other story to tell, it would still kind of work because that would make
those 10. They would be there and that would be that. But the one he did when
he was an old f***ing man, that geriatric one exists completely on its own in
the old folks’ home and is never put in the same shelf next to the other 10.” Umm,
OK Q., whatever you say. This sounds oddly like the boxer who insists that he’s
done after he wins a nice, round number of fights, only to realize that life
without doing the thing he loves is kind of awful and that he misses the money,
fame and spotlight being on him, so he returns even though he’s well past his
prime and can’t land punches the way he once did………
- Maybe if the world embraced this method of going after law
enforcement, the world would be a better place. In Cleveland County, North
Carolina, authorities are claiming that deputies were taunted by employees and
served tampered food at a fast food restaurant while taking a lunch break in
their uniforms. The wife of a Cleveland County deputy posted a message in which
she claimed that “the boys in the back cooking the food started yelling at them
and calling them names," referring to her husband's trip to the Zaxby's
restaurant in Shelby. The wife claimed that her husband and his partner were
both on duty and in uniform and they “ignored the insults” before ordering,
sitting down to eat the food and realizing that the workers “had put the
hottest sauce possible on [his] wings - to the point where his food wasn't even
fit to eat.” The odds are that most food at a place like Zaxby’s isn't fit to
eat, but that didn’t assuage the rage of Cleveland County Capt. Joel Shores,
who sounds pretty angry about this. "Years ago, this profession was
respected, it was honored. Now to get ridiculed, to be a target, to possibly
get shot at, for little pay... what’s the motivation to be a police officer
other than do it because your heart’s in it to help the community?” Shores
said. My man, if everyone who has a problem with the cops merely made fun of
them and put the atomic wing sauce on their food, this country would be a much
safer place. Zaxby’s said in a statement it was investigating the claims and
"working quickly to resolve this issue." Sounds like a year’s worth
of free wings is on the way for these two men in blue……..
- You can sign on as many millionaires, billionaires and
power brokers as you want; it’s not going to make hosting the Olympics a good
idea for any American city or even something other than a surefire fiscal
apocalypse. That’s directed at you, Los Angeles, after hearing that you’ve
landed the chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Co. to be a part of your bid to
land the 2024 Olympics. Welcome aboard, Bob Iger, to serve as a vice chair of
the bid committee's board of directors, joining former Olympic champion swimmer
Janet Evans, retired NBA champion Magic Johnson, nine-time Paralympian Candace
Cable and labor leader Maria Elena Durazo. It’s an impressive group, but unless
these five are going to fund the Games all on their own, then it’s still a
terrible idea to bid for and host the Olympics. Venues are built that will be
needed for only a few weeks, gridlock is caused, people are displaced and the
host city spends billions of dollars it will never come close to recouping, all
in the name of….what, again? Hosting the Olympics used to be cool, but now so
many cities are in fiscal trouble and nations are struggling with their bottom
line to the point that it makes no sense to bid to host, all the while painting
a huge terrorist target over the entire city. Therefore, it could not matter
less that LA 2024 chairman Casey Wasserman says Iger has a proven track record
of reaching young people and families with content delivered through the latest
digital technology, because the real winning result for the United States would
be for one of the other bidding cities, maybe Rome, to “earn” the right to put
on the Games in eight years……..
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