- Give the people what they want. That’s what British
authorities have done by evicting a group of squatters who moved into a vacant
mansion in one of London's priciest neighborhoods to draw attention to the
problem of homelessness. It was a true catch-22 for police, who technically had
to enforce the law by removing unauthorized residents, but in so doing gave the
protestors the very publicity they were seeking with their stunt. It was quite
a scene as police and bailiffs descended on the five-story town house in posh
Eaton Square at dawn armed with a court ruling that the squatters could be
evicted. After The Man barged in, about a dozen people emerged from the house
with bags of clothes and blankets and boxes of food, apparent members of a
group calling themselves the Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians, who
had occupied the property for about a week. They and other housing campaigners
say thousands of London homes are unoccupied, many of them owned by wealthy
overseas investors, and they feel like this is unfair to the city’s many
homeless residents. According to multiple reports, the Eaton Square property is
owned by Russian banker Andrey Goncharenko, who is a very wealthy man who will
probably have his third, fourth or fifth home - whichever this one happens to
be on his list of mansions ‘round the world - deep-cleaned from top to bottom
to rid it of the squalor and filth brought inside by the presence of the great
unwashed……..
- Big Ten football recruits have had themselves quite a
week. First, an Ohio State recruit making a late visit to campus found himself
off the Buckeyes’ list for a scholarship offer after he was cited for marijuana
possession during said campus visit. But even he had a good week compared to Michigan
State commit Donovan Winter, who wasn’t able to make it to a fax machine to
send in his letter of intent Wednesday because he was inside a jail cell. Police
in Florida arrested Winter and charged the Bishop Moore Catholic High School
(Orlando) senior with burglary and larceny of a firearm, although apparently
he’s not really a Bishop Moore student because he’s apparently no longer
enrolled at the school. Bishop Moore head coach confirmed that Winter wouldn’t
sign a letter of intent but didn’t elaborate on the reason - but given the
availability of online police records, there’s no reason. Winter has himself
about a month to get ready for his next court appearance in the case, during
which time the three-star defensive end prospect can try to figure out which
junior college with a willingness to accept accused criminals he’ll try to
attend this fall - assuming he’s not in jail at this point. Perhaps the
pressure of actually making good on his commitment to Michigan State after
verbally promising to play for the Spartans back in June. Between now and his
next court appearance, he won't be hard for potential new schools to find, as
he will be required to wear a GPS monitoring device………
- Hot dog venders of New York City, prepare to wear your
scarlet letters with pride. They may not technically be scarlet letters, but
they definitely could be for some street vendors if New York City Council follows
through with a proposed bill that would require street food vendors to display
letter grades from the health department, just like restaurants. Street vendors
have often walked a fine line between dangerously unsanitary and simply
disgusting with their cleanliness and food quality standards, but now the
council wants them to abide by the same principles as restaurants, to which city
health officials began issuing letter grades on sanitary inspections in 2010. Right
now, food carts are inspected and subject to fines, but no matter how low the
letter grade, they don’t have to display the results. If this bill becomes law,
after inspectors check the street carts for food safety, facility maintenance,
personal hygiene and other checkpoints, vendors would have to let the world
know how they fared. “They are inspected, not often, (and) they should be
inspected more often,” said the bill’s sponsor, councilwoman Karen Koslowitz
(D-Queens). “We want to make sure that people know what’s inside the cart that
they’re purchasing their food from.” Hmm….but do the people buying food from
your average hot dog vendor on the street really want to know what’s inside, be
it inside the cart, inside their food or inside anything else involved in the
process? Koslowitz believes the bill would help reassure customers that their
favorite food cart complies with sanitary regulations, but that might not be a
huge boost……..
- This is right about where Courtney Love belongs. She rode
the coattails of her late husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, into the
spotlight and has tried desperately to remain there in the years since his
demise, but appearing in a leading role in a new Lifetime TV movie about the
infamous Menendez brothers is just about perfect for a C-lister with marginal
talent at best. Lyle and Erik Menendez are known to the world for murdering
their parents, wealthy L.A. entertainment executive Jose Menéndez and wife
Kitty, amidst rumors that their parents had written them out of their wills and
with equally ugly claims at their trial that they had been driven to murder by
years of abuse from both parents, including repeated sexual molestation by
their father. Lifetime, a network whose made-for-TV movies all seem to follow
in the same general pattern of family, drama, sexual abuse and murder, claims
that the movie will focus on the “extreme abuse the brothers endured at their
father’s hands, while their mother looked the other way.” Yes, nothing like
trying to rosy up the picture of two men who brutally killed their parents.
Love has been cast as Kitty Menendez, but the roles of Lyle and Erik Menendez are
still up for grabs because, well, this is a C-list basic cable movie and real
stars aren't exactly clearing their schedules to be a part of this one. Still,
producers should probably cast the two primary roles soon because shooting is
due to start in Vancouver some time this month and while the Menendez brothers
are currently serving life sentences in separate prisons for their crimes and
have plenty of time on their hands, a film like this with what is almost surely
a modest and limited budget doesn’t have nearly as much time to spare……..
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