- Like the resident on a remote country road who installs a
lavishly decorated, painted mailbox made of thin aluminum and has to know that
eventually that mailbox will meet its demise at the hands of a car full of
teenagers armed with a baseball bat, the Swedish city of Gavle cannot be the
least bit surprised. The city has unveiled a giant decorative goat made of
straw and wood for 50 years running and while Sweden's Christmas Goat is a
nice, creative addition to the holiday season, it’s also an annual Yuletide for
some local pyromaniac with access to an accelerant and matches to set it ablaze
and watch it burn. Gavle has set up this wood-and-straw goat for five decades
and for virtually every year it has been up, the goat has gone down - in
flames, that is. The goat rarely makes it through the holiday season intact, so
it’s really only a matter of time and a question of who will be the one to send
it up in flames. This year was no different and this incarnation of the goat
had one of the shortest life spans to date. It was set ablaze just hours after
it was inaugurated and what’s funny is that a webcam run by the local tourist
office showed the frame of the goat was still standing but all the straw was
gone. The question, Gavle tourist office, is why you aren't using that camera
to find out who set the goat on fire. As of now, there is no word on suspects
and honestly, it couldn’t matter less……..
- Manchester United has been wildly disappointing again this
season, so why penalize the one part of the team that has been consistently
entertaining up to this point? Jose Mourinho may not be doing a great job as
coach given that his team is a distant third behind Arsenal and Tottenham in
the Premier League standings, but at least the outspoken Portuguese has made
for good viewing during the first half of the season. His latest antics came
after being charged with improper conduct following his second dismissal in the
space of the month during Manchester United's 1-1 draw with West Ham. Because
of his growing list of misdeeds, Mourinho could be hit with a three-game
touchline ban by the Football Association. His ban is expected to be shorter
than the maximum, but he could get three games because he also served a
one-game ban during the 3-1 Premier League victory at Swansea City earlier this
month after admitting an FA charge of using "abusive and/or insulting
words to an official" before being sent to the stands by referee Mark
Clattenburg during the Old Trafford draw against Burnley in October. He chased
that by having referee Jon Moss banish him in the 27th minute against West Ham
for his reaction to a yellow card being shown to United midfielder Paul Pogba.
The FA will also factor in a fine of nearly $60,000 earlier this month when
Mourinho made public comments referee Anthony Taylor -- the fourth official
against West Ham coincidentally - and at this rate, Mourinho might not get a
three-game suspension right now, but he’s going to earn one eventually…….
- In one remote corner of South Dakota, the jokes about a
priest, a pastor and a rabbi walking into a bar haven’t been applicable for
quite a while. That’s because the state’s small, tight-knit Jewish community
has been without a rabbi for several years, but that reality is about to
change. This winter, Rabbi Mendel Alperowitz and his wife, Mussie, will arrive
from New York to open a Jewish community center. Alperowitz will open a Chabad House in Sioux Falls that
will offer religious education, worship services and other programs. He’ll be
based in Sioux Falls, but will also travel across the sparsely populated
prairie state to connect with Jews — observant and nonobservant — who might
want to reconnect with their faith. "It will be an open home. ... Our
primary goal is to help ensure that there isn't one Jew in the entire state of
South Dakota that feels lonely and disconnected and that every individual feels
at home and inspired by our traditions,” Alperowitz said. As part of his
duties, the house will host social and cultural activities for children and
adults, including events for women only.
The rabbi will make his big splash by leading Hanukkah activities in the
state when the holiday is observed next month. Jews first settled in what is
now South Dakota during the gold rush more than 150 years ago, landing in
Deadwood and carving out a niche selling hardware, groceries, dry goods and
more. By 1920, the Jewish population swelled to about 1,300, but that number
now rests around 400 people — less than a tenth of 1 percent of South Dakota's
population. The optimistic Alperowitz estimates the number is closer to 1,000
and he’ll find out when he arrives to replace South Dakota's last rabbi,
Stephen Forstein, a part-time rabbi who also operated a lighting supply
business that took him around the state……..
- The NFL and a bunch of fictional television zombies now
have a lot in common. Both are trying to figure out why the hell their
television ratings keep dropping and what to do in order to turn those numbers
around. While the NFL has leaned on the just-concluded presidential election to
try to explain some of its reduced ratings, an über-low rating for a great game
Sunday night between Kansas City and Denver suggests the problems run deeper.
Now, about those zombies….numbers for “The Walking Dead” have bottomed out
since the premiere episode of the show’s seventh season a few weeks ago. That
season premiere drew in some 17.1 million viewers, becoming the second-highest
rated episode in the show’s history. That number has steadily declined over the
ensuing weeks and reached a concerning point with the fifth episode of the
season, which aired last week and drew less than 11 million viewers. That
number is worth noting because it’s the first time the show has had fewer than
11 million viewers since Season 3. Much like the NFL, AMC and the remaining
fans of the show are attempting to determine why ratings are down. One theory
is that viewers don’t like the way each episode this season moves to a
completely different story and set of characters. That lack of continuity
doesn’t seem to be good for business and continues a downward trend since the
zombie drama hit its high-water mark in the Season 5 premiere, which remains
the highest-rated episode in series history with 17.3 million viewers. There’s
always the chance that the show has simply run out of steam after seven seasons
and maybe AMC will have to move on to its next hit show………
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