- The NCAA spends most of its time with its head up its ass.
This was a rare chance to do something awesome and not be a bunch of
bureaucratic ass hats. As is its custom, the governing body for most of college
sports swung and missed badly, ruling a decorated Army veteran ineligible and
not allowed to compete during the 2016-17 season. Oakland's Isaiah Brock, who
received an Army Commendation Medal and other honors for his services as a
mortuary affairs specialist in Afghanistan, wants to suit up for the school’s
men’s basketball team, but the NCAA says no. He allowed to practice with the
team and receive financial aid, but he cannot participate in games. Why?
Because the NCAA rejected Oakland's request to grant the 6-foot-8 Brock
immediate eligibility for the upcoming season. "It was definitely kind of
devastating," Brock said. The school plans to appeal the decision. Brock
claims to have taken two online classes while deployed in Afghanistan in 2013,
receiving an A and B in those courses. He then earned two B's in the summer
courses he took at Oakland, a school he landed at after meeting Oakland coach
Greg Kampe during a Troops First event in Kuwait. His problem stems from the
fact that he was not an academic qualifier out of high school. He has since penned
a letter explaining to the NCAA that he did not take his academics as seriously
as he should have in high school but cited his military experience as a
catalyst for his growth. Apparently being one of the heroes who served in the
Army by retrieving the bodies of fallen soldiers, performing autopsies and
preparing those men and women for their trips home to their families isn't
enough to change the NCAA’s minds……..
- Score one for Third World countries demanding that ugly
Westerners check their self-centeredness at the door when they visit. Myanmar
is a predominantly Buddhist country and that fact should not have escaped Klaas
Haytema and his girlfriend when they decided to visit the nation formerly known
as Burma for a fall vacation. Haytema was staying at a hotel in Mandalay, the
country's cultural capital, when his attempts to relax and get some rest were
interrupted by a late-night Buddhist sermon being broadcast through the area on
a speaker system. He decided that his right to sleep trumped the right of those
in the area to hear the sermon and so he unplugged an amplifier blasting that
message out to the masses. Things escalated quickly when a crowd gathered
around his hotel in protest after Haytema turned off the loudspeakers at a
nearby religious hall. Matters got worse when the man who was reciting the
sermon pressed charges against Haytema and he was arrested. Now, a Myanmar
court has sentenced the Dutch citizen to three months in prison for interfering
with a religious observance. In addition to his three months behind bars in a
foreign country, Haytema was also fined 100,000 kyats (about $100) for
violating visa regulations requiring him to respect the culture. As bad as that
seems, he could have been sentenced to two years in prison for insulting
religion in Myanmar. If ol’ Klaas is smart, he’ll keep his mouth shut for the
next three months, keep his hands off all electrical equipment and get the hell
out of town as soon as he’s released……..
- It’s been seven years and former Interpol bassist Carlos D
seems to still have some issues with the band that helped make him famous. Dengler
famously left the well-respected New York City indie rock outfit after the
completion but before the release of their self-titled fourth album in 2010 and
decided to chase an acting career. Now, he’s taking a moment to explain why he
bolted and let’s just say the warm fuzzies between he and his former bandmates
clearly died on both sides long before he walked out the door. Dengler said
feeling “bored while watching Coldplay' was when he had his realization to
leave the group, which sounds like an odd time to walk away. Sure, plenty of
haters rip Coldplay for not exactly rocking everyone’s socks off, but just
because Chris Martin and his crew aren’t your cup of musical tea, why walk
away? “I was experiencing so much pain
being in the band, being in the music industry,” Dengler said. “I have to admit
that I couldn’t help but to feel that the band was constraining a creative
impulse. It wasn’t for lack of actually trying to make it work; it was still
three tortuous years of trying to… I got sober and I said, ‘Okay, enough of
this fucking rock star shit. Who am I really?'” Ah, the old rock star identity
crisis, it happens to all of the great ones. This probably won't smooth things
over with Interpol frontman Paul Banks, who previously said his ex-bassist was
'an asshole' but 'a genius.’ Dengler did make a short-lived musical comeback
when he appeared on “Late Night With Seth Myers” to play the bass, but largely
ignored late-night talk shows appear to be the extent of his musical pursuits
right now……..
- World, prepare to be shocked. A prison in Maryland was not
a wholesome, upright house of reform for those incarcerated there, but rather a
place where seedy insiders and outsiders conspired to funnel all manner of
illegal drugs in and out of the facility. Thanks to a tip from a concerned
prison guard, we now have the single largest federal case in Maryland's history,
one in which 80 people including corrections officers, inmates and
"outside facilitators" have been charged with orchestrating a vast
contraband smuggling enterprise that involved trading drugs, pornography,
tobacco and cellphones to state prisoners for money and sex. This wide-ranging
case came to light thanks to two federal indictments unsealed this week,
revealing a sweeping racketeering scheme infiltrated the Eastern Correctional
Institution in Westover — Maryland's largest state prison — in which 18 prison
guards, 35 inmates and 27 civilians allegedly assisted in maintaining the flow
of drugs and other contraband. It’s nice to see guards and the inmates with
whom they could have such animosity all working together in the name of coitus
and capitalism, not to mention bridging the gap between inmates and the rest of
society by connecting those 27 civilians to their endeavor. The FBI was able to
snuff out the scheme by relying heavily on wiretaps and the narc who ratted out
the guilty guards and prisoners and now, the good men of the Eastern
Correctional Institution will have to find another way to get their illicit
drug fix……..
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