- France is feeling mighty magnanimous this week, thus the
French government has signed an accord to allow Holocaust museums in Paris and
in Washington, D.C., to digitize the vast French World War II archives — so
that the museums can more easily display information on the Vichy regime to the
public. French Veterans Minister Jean
Marc-Todeschini said the "rise of populism in parts of the world"
means that educating the younger generation about this period is paramount so
that nothing like the Third Reich ever happens again anywhere in the world. Those
who know know that France's Vichy-based government collaborated with the Nazis
under Marshal Petain and helped deport Jews to concentration camp and that’s a
part of history of which no nation is proud, yet France is cooperating with
those who want to preserve and educate the world about that history. Washington
Holocaust Memorial Museum Director Radu Ioanid said that the move by the French
government could help uncover more information on war criminals and
anti-Semitic crimes committed in France. Dozens of archivists will soon go to
work on the project, looking to bring history into the modern era and connect
those who prefer to access documents via touch screen and WiFi with information
that has previously dwelt exclusively in the world of microfiche. It should be
quite an endeavor for these bold historians……
- This is a Rick Roll no one needed to see. The man
responsible for hooking and clowning more Internet users than just about anyone
over the years pulled a real, raw and ugly Rick Roll of his own by covering a
classic song by one of the biggest rock bands in the world and now, none of us
can unsee or unhear it. Yes, Rick Astley has shared a video of him covering Foo
Fighters’ classic track ‘Everlong,’ which really seems like nothing more than a
shameless plug by the auteur of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ for an upcoming charity gig he’ll be playing in
London. In the video, which is one of the big singles from Foo Fighters’ “The
Color and Shape” album, Astley does his best to rock out despite being a
terrible ‘80s pop singer with no actual rock credibility. At the end, he
strikes a pose with a quizzical face and says: “I’ll be playing the drums, not
the guitar – so it will sound a lot better than that. Come and rock out with
us, December 23, Shepherds Bush Empire. It’s all for Nordoff Robbins, a
fantastic charity, come on. We’re going go to play a few Christmas songs as
well. Can’t be better than that. Come on.” No Rick, it can be better than that.
For example, it could involve someone other than you. Unless Dave Grohl and the
fellas will be headlining rather than starting work on a new album and
allegedly preparing to headline Glastonbury Festival 2017, then attendees would
be better off staying home, clicking on an outlandish link online and being
shoved face-first into the video for the only one of your songs that anyone
actually knows…….
- Speaking of Rick Rolls, zero credit to Larry Johnson, a
Connecticut man who RR’d a Waterbury, Conn. jewelry store by rolling into said
store in a wheelchair, asking to see a $37,000 watch and when handed the watch,
leaping out of the chair and sprinting out of the store. Unfortunately for this
would-be Rolex wearer, time ran out on him quickly even though his flawless
plan included him pepper spraying both a clerk and a security guard and
knocking the guard to the floor on the way out the door. The only real flaw in
his plan was the fact that a shiny, metal wheelchair is a very easy place to
find fingerprints even for someone who doesn’t actually need one and probably
doesn’t know too much about how to properly use or care for one and Johnson was
soon tied to the theft by a fingerprint on the wheelchair. It’s hard to see how
this brilliant scheme ever failed and that’s without hearing a surefire winner of
a plan for what to do with the watch if he actually got away with the theft. In
the end, Johnson was sentenced to six years in prison and eight years of
probation beyond that after he pleaded guilty to robbery, larceny and assault.
One has to wonder whether he’ll be allowed to be a fake cripple in prison, or
whether one of his new cellmates will render him in actual need of one if and
when he steps out of line and tries to thieve something that belongs to one of
them. Use the time behind bars to better yourself and come up with a much
better plan for how to become rich without deserving it, L……..
- One of the best scenes that will happen this entire
college basketball season went down this week in Washington State’s rivalry
game against Idaho. It happened because Washington State coach Ernie Kent bid
$2,000 to win an item in a live charity auction that included an all-access
pass to one of Idaho's games this season, complete with a chance to attend
Idaho's pregame shootaround, pregame meal and pregame talk in the locker room,
as well as sit on the bench and even call the first play of the game. He chose
to cash that in with his team playing the Vandals and began the game seated on
the Idaho bench next to coach Don Verlin. Kent won the package during the 15th
annual Coaches vs. Cancer gala in Spokane, Washington and so he spent the first
30 seconds of the game next to Verlin before the two shook hands and Kent
departed for his own bench. As odd as the sight was, Kent said it ranked near
the top of his favorite coaching memories, as it brought awareness to trying to
find a cure for cancer and both he and Verlin lost their fathers to cancer.
"I don't think anybody's ever seen that anywhere in the country, where
opposing coaches stood on one side of the field, sat on another team's bench,
sat in another team's dugout," Kent said. "But that's not the
importance of what transpired. It was the fact that you have coaches, again
coaches, standing up for such a worthy cause." It added a fun twist to the
oldest continuous rivalry west of the Mississippi, one in which the two
campuses are less than 10 miles apart, and the two teams play every season,
alternating home venues. Washington State won this round, 61-48, to snap a
two-game losing streak to the Vandals, but the best takeaway from this one was
clearly the sight of Kent on the wrong bench…….
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