- Since when is a 4:15 p.m. train ride south considered
provocation for war? When the involved parties are bitter geographic rivals
Kosovo and Serbia, that’s when. These two are forever linked and at odds even
though Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a connection Serbia maintains
largely by steadfastly refusing to recognize that independence. Relations
between the two have always been strained, but even more so following the
detention in France of Ramush Haradinaj, a former Kosovo prime minister, on an
arrest warrant from Serbia. Against that backdrop, there is now a brawl between
these nations because Kosovo considers Serbia's effort to launch a rail link
between the two countries as a provocation and an aggressive violation of its
sovereignty. That response came just hours after the Serbian government
announced it will launch a railway link between Belgrade and northern Mitrovica
in Kosovo, where most of the country's ethnic Serb minority is located. There
are plenty of facts in this case for both sides to latch onto and use to
bolster their respective claims that they are in the right here. State Minister
Edita Tahiri called on the European Union and the international community to
stop Serbia and went on to denounce Serbia as an entity that "is turning
into a threat to peace and stability in the region." That plea seems like
a hollow one given that previous EU-brokered talks to normalize Serbia-Kosovo
relations failed miserably, but at this point trying anything and everything to
avoid outright armed conflict appears to be worth trying…….
- Aging fans of soft-hitting mainstream pop/rock, there is
good news for you. Fleetwood Mac haven’t
released a studio album since 2003’s ‘Say You Will’ and while the band’s
fans are largely more likely to see the Grim Reaper at this point than a new
album from their favorite group, there is something resembling a new release
from at least part of the Mac. Fleetwood Mac members Lindsey Buckingham and
Christine McVie are working on a new album of duets, perhaps spurred on by the
band’s extensive time touring together in 2014 and 2015. McVie joined the band
for those tours after a decade and a half away and while the tours may have
drummed up false hope for at least one more Fleetwood Mac album, that has yet
to materialize. In the interim, McVie and Buckingham have now announced a new
album of duets, tentatively titled “Buckingham McVie,” a nod to “Buckingham
Nicks,” Buckingham’s pre-Fleetwood Mac album with Stevie Nicks. Although the
project will also feature Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, it won't be an
official FM album. “I’ve been sending Lindsey demos in their very raw form, and
he’s been doing his Lindsey magic on them, which I love,” Christine McVie said.
“It made sense to me with what she had given me and what I done with it. But we
still didn’t know how it was going to play out in the studio.” Whatever banner
it’s released under, the project is due out this May and will hopefully quench
the Fleetwood thirst of the band’s aging fan base……..
- Portable toilets: hazard to one and all whether you step
inside their unsanitary confines or not. Using one of these filth-cloaked
commodes is a last resort when out and about at a sporting event or festival,
but just because you don’t dare open one of the creaky plastic doors and enter
into the germy interior doesn’t mean a mobile toilet unit can’t harm you. Just
ask Brian Berg, who is suing Fox Run Golf Links in northern Illinois because he
claims he was hit and seriously injured by a portable toilet hauled by a
forklift driver while he played the seventh hole at the suburban course. Berg
recalls watching his 6-iron shot from the fairway to the front of the seventh
hole green, only to have disaster strike courtesy of a clueless golf course
worker who had driven a forklift off the golf cart path while toting the toilet
to a new location. According to a lawsuit Berg filed in Cook County Circuit
Court, the employee was driving “blind” as a portable toilet “completely
obscured his view,” and hit Berg from behind. Even then, the golfer claims, the
assault didn’t stop as the toilet struck him in the face and knocked him
unconscious. The suit lists the injuries suffered in the alleged assault,
including damage to Berg’s shoulder, a cut on his chin, a cracked rim and
bruises on his arms and legs. He’s suing the Elk Grove Park District, which
owns and operates Fox Run, and the employee who was driving the forklift for
more than $50,000 in damage, claiming in the suit that the worker was driving
“with complete and utter indifference to the probability that a golfer would be
in the path of a porta-potty.” The best part of the filing is the one accusing
the course of using “unsafe means and methods of transporting toilets,” which
begs the question of what IS a safe way to move one of those mobile crap
repositories……
- What a great gig it is to be a successful Major League
Baseball closer. You don’t have to pitch every day even during the season, you
can be involved in an ugly domestic violence incident and yet, when the
offseason rolls around you can gets a 75-percent pay raise. Enter All-Star
closer Jeurys Familia, who got a massive pay raise late last week from the New
York Mets even though all involved are still waiting to find out whether he'll
be suspended by Major League Baseball under the sport's domestic violence
policy. After banking a paltry $4.1 million last season, he’ll make $7,425,000
next season and strictly based on his on-field performance, it’s justifiable.
Familia led the majors with a franchise-record 51 saves last season, but his
biggest win came last month when judge dismissed a charge stemming from a
domestic violence complaint against him after the reliever's wife told a
prosecutor that her husband did not hurt her. In situations of alleged abuse,
having a victim back away from claims or not want to press charges is far too
common, but no one can deny that Familia’s wife, Bianca Rivas, made several
frantic 911 calls to Fort Lee, New Jersey, police on the morning of Oct. 31 in
which she described her husband as "drunk" and "going crazy.”
Rivas sustained scratches on her chest and a bruise on her right cheek, but the
judge dropped the charge after prosecutor Arthur Balsamo said he met with Rivas
and her lawyer and she sold the extremely dubious story that the scratch came
from the couple's 1-year-old child and the mark on her cheek came from leaning
on it. It’s the sort of story that makes you believe there will be more ugly,
harmful chapters ahead, because when a guy (allegedly) abuses his wife, gets
away with it without any legal repercussions AND his employer gives him a $3.1
million raise, there simply isn't a large incentive to change because from
everything you know, you didn’t really do anything wrong……..
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