Friday, January 27, 2017

Indonesian legal corruption, Elton John + Prada and leaving the Seahwks for a holy calling


- Not every NFL assistant coach who leaves a team does so in search of a more prominent position with another franchise. Sometimes, a higher power points them in a new direction and so it is with Seattle Seahawks assistant head coach/defense Rocky Seto, who is bolting Pete Carroll’s staff to pursue a career in ministry. Seto, a Christian, coached with Carroll at USC and made the jump to the NFL in 2010 as a quality control coach on defense, beginning a fast rise through the ranks. He was soon promoted to assistant defensive backs coach, working with the Seahawks' safeties, before jumping to offense as the passing game coordinator. He proved his versatility once more after Kris Richard took over as defensive coordinator, flipping back to the other side of the ball as assistant head coach/defense. One of his biggest contributions was the implementation of the Seahawks' rugby-style tackling. "Rocky has been most integral," Carroll said of the effort.  "He has been really the bell cow for us on this one. He is the one that does all of the teaching [of] it in the meetings. He's got a real passion for making the point, and he's always been involved with it with us.” He’s commented in the past about wanting to keep his family as a priority and not become so consumed by coaching that he forgot to be a good husband and father and apparently, he and his family will now be heading in a new direction, one that will pay considerably less - and presumably involve a hell of a lot less profanity - than his previous gig………


- Teach these kids how to fish, anonymous Johnston, Iowa do-gooder. This good Samaritan thought he or she was really making an impact and changing the lives of children in need by paying off the negative lunch account balances for every elementary student in the Johnston Community School District, but did they really? "Seeing an act like that come forward, and knowing it affected almost 150 students is something we haven't experienced here in this district," said district communications director Laura Sprague. Affected, yes. Positively? Maybe not. Chipping off $13,250 to clear the debts for nearly 150 students district-wide sends a message and that message is that if you just wait patiently, someone will come along and take care of that which you do not take care of yourself. As Sprague noted, there are few anonymous donations of this sort to the district, which is probably because a) people are inherently selfish and b) those who have the spare cash know that if they bail these kids out now, it’s only a matter of time before they’re bailing them out as hapless adults who never learned to fend for themselves. The school clearly can't afford to foot the bill for every student whose family can’t afford to pay for lunch each day, but the children are still allowed to eat because for some reason, turning away a hungry child isn’t fair. According to the district, one in five of its students comes from a food insecure home, so there are plenty of people who could receive temporary assistant from these anonymous donor types. But in the end, the kids are going to have to learn a hard lesson eventually……..


- Rarely has there been a better match of writer and project. The eternally sequined, bedazzled and neon-colored Elton John is co-writing the new musical adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada” for the stage, reinventing the project once more after the film adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel – which starred Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway – was a surprise success story both critically and at the box office back in 2006. That success was bound to inspire another take on the idea and after more than a decade, that new take is happening courtesy of Fox Stage Productions, which is now helping take Weisberger’s work to the stage in the form of a musical. The company announced that they have inked the auteur of “Tiny Dancer” to co-write the script for the production alongside playwright Paul Rudnick. The entire effort is in its early stages and is cloaked in a bit of mystery at this point; no casting choices have been announced and other than having John and Rudnick on board to write it, the rest of the musical is a massive work in progress. The addition of John makes a lot of sense, as he penned the music for the stage adaptation of “The Lion King” following his acclaimed work with the 1994 Disney film. He also contributed to stage versions of “Billy Elliot” and “Aida,” so he has a solid base of experience in working on theater projects and clearly has an appreciation for the medium……….. 


- To quote George Costanza, was that wrong? Seriously, is it an issue when your country’s anti-graft commission arrests one of the nation’s most senior judges on suspicion of taking a bribe in a Constitutional Court case? Indonesia, you seem to have a bit of an issue if the judges tasked with administering the law and helping maintain order by way of justice are being caught "red-handed" along with 10 other suspects in an anti-graft sting. Such is the fate of Constitutional Court Judge Patrialis Akbar, whose arrest was announced by the deputy chairwoman of the independent Corruption Eradication Commission, Basaria Panjaitan, after the judge allegedly received $161,000 from a meat importer in connection with the court's judicial review of a revision to a law on animal husbandry. This is one of the first and possibly only times animal husbandry will be associated with the takedown of a top legal official, but amazingly, Akbar, a deeply conservative former law and human rights minister, is actually the second judge on the Constitutional Court to be arrested in a corruption case. The first was Akil Mochtar, chairman of the court's nine-member judge panel, who was arrested in October 2013 and later sentenced to life imprisonment. To the untrained legal outsider, it would appear that this particular court doesn’t have a firm grasp on the law it is tasked with applying, or it’s simply staffed by dishonest scumbags wholly and sorely lacking in any sort of integrity or a moral compass………

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