- Score another one for decades-overdue progress in the golf
world. First, Muirfield in Scotland avoided being removed from the rotation of
host sites for the British Open be finally agreeing to admit female members and
now, the course that will host the 2020 Olympic golf tournament has avoided
being stripped of the event by deciding to change its membership policy to do
the same. The Kasumigaseki Country Club finally decided to stop being stuck in
1920 when its executive board decided on the change following discussions among
its members. All of the furor over the membership policy ensued after Tokyo
Gov. Yuriko Koike urged the club to admit women as full members. Critics
quickly chimed in, arguing that the club's policy was contrary to the very
spirit of the Olympics. The club finally decided to get off its ass and do
something because in three days earlier, IOC President Thomas Bach warned the
club of consequences for upholding a ban on female members. "Should gender
equality not be respected, then we would look for another venue which would
ensure non-discrimination," Bach said. Yoshiro Mori, president of the
Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, applauded the change. "I'd like to
extend my gratitude to the members of the club for their understanding and
cooperation," Mori said. Until this forced change, the club's policy had
excluded women from full-fledged membership but not from playing or other types
of membership. It’s nice that one of Japan's oldest and most prestigious golf
clubs is making this change because some Japanese clubs still bar women from
playing, so maybe this will spur others to remove heads from asses soon……..
- Getting aboard a metal tube that goes rocketing through
the air some 30,000 feet above the ground is enough to spur more than a few
people to drink heavily. Most of the time, that’s not a problem as long as the
liquored-up individual keeps themselves under control, doesn’t cause trouble
during the flight and is able to drunkenly stumble down the aisle to disembark
once the trip ends. However, having a beer or eight too many is an issue when
you’re one of the pilots tasked with safely transporting everyone on board to
their next destination. Enter Miroslav Gronych, a pilot who passed out in a
cockpit before a scheduled flight in Canada and who has pleaded guilty to being
impaired while in control of an aircraft. Gronych was employed by Sunwing
Airlines on a work visa from Slovakia and he was slated to be a) sober and b)
in the cockpit for a flight to leave Calgary, Alberta, on Dec. 31 with stops in
Regina, Saskatchewan, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, before continuing to Cancun,
Mexico. Maybe he began his New Year’s celebration a bit early or maybe he’s
just a raging alcoholic, because prior to takeoff, he was found slumped over in
his seat and escorted off the plane. A statement of facts agreed to by the
prosecution and defense was read aloud in court and laid out a sad scene in
which police saw his pilot's wings attached upside down on his uniform and a
maid discovered an empty bottle of vodka in his hotel room. Oh, and he was also
an hour late checking in for the flight, so let’s just call this the end of his
flying career and keep moving……..
- Whether or not a sequel ultimately comes together with
LeBron James in the starring role or not, “Space Jam” lives on and remains pop
culturally relevant. For example, its iconic soundtrack is about to get a
special edition reissue, just in time for Record Store Day on April 22. In an
effort to introduce an album featuring R. Kelly‘s ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ as well
as D’Angelo, Quad City DJ’s, Seal, Salt-N-Pepa, Monica, Barry White (with Chris
Rock), Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, Method Man, Coolio, and B Real to a new
generation or just possibly cash in on hipsters’ overwhelming, never-ending fondness
for all things vinyl, Atlantic Records will re-release the soundtrack on vinyl.
It was the sonic backdrop for a movie starring Michael Jordan as the man chosen
to lead a collection of Looney Tunes characters including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck
to victory in a basketball game for Earth’s survival against a team of aliens
who had stolen the talents of some of Jordan’s NBA peers. Bill Murray and Wayne
Knight also appeared in the movie and the soundtrack was originally released on
vinyl in 1996, but few enough copies remain that the ones still out there often
sell for hundreds of dollars on various websites. Now, that market is about to
get diluted as fans can snag their own copy for a slightly more reasonable
price. As for the allegedly sure-to-happen remake with James at the center,
that’s harder to pin down………
- Boy, this sort of thing never happens with the
always-competent, never-off-the-mark operations of your average municipal
police department. It’s simply shocking to hear Columbus, Ohio police reveal
that they're investigating an employee's accidental deletion of about 100,000
dashboard camera video files, the sort of files that could come in handy should
someone arrested and/or prosecuted in the city ever come back and claim that
they were assaulted by, mistreated by or otherwise had their rights violated by
John Q. Law at the time of their apprehension. According to the department, its
Columbus Police Technical Services Bureau learned last week of the mass
deletion of the files. Police Chief Kim Jacobs said most of the files were from
2015 and added that the department has now called upon its resident
technological experts to determine whether any of the files can be retrieved. What
Jacobs is even less clear about is what impact the loss of the files will have
on pending cases and right now, city officials are attempting to figure out
which videos may have contained evidence and whether they had already been
transferred to detectives' or prosecutors' files. According to the chief, about
one in four of the files involve recordings that wouldn't be relevant to
criminal matter and within a department that just deleted 100,000 potentially
important pieces of footage, you can definitely take her word on all of that……..
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