NFL front office cruelty, terrible names for Spanish hash-smuggling gangs and Jack White tries to do it all

- Quick question, America: Which is more terrifying to you, a) a creepy clown or b) a man with a snake? If you took more than half a second to answer that question, then you are a sick, sick freak and you really need some psychological counseling. The answer, as always, is the clown. It’s really redundant to write “creepy clown” because clowns are, by their very nature, creepy to the core. So hearing that North Dakota police say they are investigating a menacing report involving a clown and a man with a snake teaming up to scaring local children is horrifying, but the guy with the snake is the far less terrifying portion of the story. We’ve all known Snake Guy at some point in our life, usually in college when he insists that everyone who visits the off-campus house he shares with four other dudes come to his room and watch him feed a live mouse to his pet snake. According to police, this unsavory situation featured the clown and his weirdo friend, along with a boa constrictor about 3-to-4-feet-long. Amazingly, cops were able to track both men down and the duo could now face a felony charge of terrorizing children. Witnesses told police that the men approached the children, politely ask if they “wanted to see a dead body” and threatened to kill them. What makes this all humorously pathetic is that when the children fled, the two men walked back….TO THEIR OWN FREAKING APARTMENT IN A NEARBY BUILDING. Yes, they were too stupid to even commit their moronic act in a place far enough from their home so people couldn’t watch them walk back to their dwelling and tell police where to find them. Well done, ass hats, well done…….

- Jack White is trying to do it all. He’s been trying for some time now, taking part in multiple bands while juggling his solo career, running a record label and dabbling in other aspects of the entertainment industry, such as his upcoming documentary series, ‘American Epic.’ The series, which airs next month, explores the history of the 1920s, in which record companies traveled across America toting the very first electrical recording rig in search of new artists. White executive-produced the series along with Robert Redford and T Bone Burnett and now that its debut is near, White has also released details for the soundtrack, on which he will play a part alongside an impressive list of artists that includes Alabama Shakes, The Avett Brothers, Beck, Merle Haggard, Los Lobos, Lost Bayou Ramblers, Taj Mahal,Nas, Willie Nelson and Raphael Saadiq, among others. This will be a colossal monstrosity of a project, including a 100-song box set, original archived recordings and studio performances from ‘The American Epic Sessions.” Pairing a new series with an extended companion soundtrack such as this is a great way to maximize profits and coax every last ounce of fan interest out of it and the soundtrack is such an undertaking that it will be released by Legacy Recordings, Columbia and White’s record label Third Man Records. One record label clearly wasn’t enough to handle all of this, even if White seems determined to handle just about every aspect of every project his ever-evolving, expanding career comes to include…….

- The Chestnuts? Seriously, newly arrested drug smugglers taken down by Spanish police in raids carried out in cooperation with Morocco? The real reason to be upset here isn't that 30 drug smugglers were arrested to bust a ring that introduced hashish across the Strait of Gibraltar, although good, law-abiding citizen etiquette would demand that we all say hash is bad. No, don’t be upset that a unit of 150 agents raided 21 homes and warehouses in southern Spain early on Sunday, after which Moroccan police followed up by capturing the gang's leader and several other members who had fled from the raids. Be upset that a gang of people who apparently tried to position themselves as a legit criminal outfit couldn’t come up with a better name than "The Chestnuts" ("Las Castanas" in Spanish). Sure, it’s difficult to agree on a nickname when your enterprise is comprised of both Spaniards and Moroccans, meaning the language barrier could be an issue. But how the hell do you settle on The Chestnuts? The chestnut isn't even the most intimidating nut you could have chosen - everyone knows the walnut wins that battle 11 times out of 10. The name of your gang shouldn’t make people chuckle when they hear of its downfall and unless you’re smuggling all manner of spices and fresh fruits across the water, The Chestnuts cannot be an option. According to police, this poorly named outfit used small inflatable boats with powerful motors to smuggle the drugs into Spain from Morocco, bringing hashish to the masses…….

- There are few crueler things an employer can do than allow an employee to pour countless hours of overtime and sweat equity into a project, only to break said employee off unceremoniously the instant said project is done, with a chance to see it through to its final result. Now-former Buffalo Bills general manager Doug Whaley knows the feeling well because less than 24 hours after he and his staff completed the team’s draft, a process in which they invested thousands of man hours over the course of months and one they hoped would push the team over the playoff hump and back into the postseason after finishing 7-9 last season. The Bills were 30-34 in Whaley's four seasons as general manager and had just one winning season as they extend their postseason drought to 17 seasons. Firing the GM and his staff after that sort of run isn't a surprise, but allowing them to conduct the draft and shape the team’s future while you knew someone else would be dealing with the fruits of that draft seems both confused and short-sighted. "After a thorough review of our football operations over the past several months, Kim [Pegula] and I informed Doug this morning that we will be moving in a new direction," Bills co-owner Terry Pegula said in a statement. "We have enjoyed working with Doug. He is a good person and we want to thank him for his work and commitment to our football team. This was my decision. It was not an easy decision but I believe it's the right one for the future of the Buffalo Bills.”  With Whaley and the entire scouting staff gone, Pegula refused to say exactly why they were fired, but admitted that there were “ a few tears around the building, to be honest with you.” That’s fitting, because there have been lots of tears shed by Bills fans over the past 17 seasons………

Keep on Björk-ing, from lead paint to more lead paint and Riot Watch! Brazil

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It may be time to end the race and officially declare South America this year’s championship continent of rioting because multiple nations have been locked in a constant cycle of turmoil since the new year began and perhaps no nation has been as ass-deep in anger of late as Brazil, where rioters lit buses on fire, blocked roads and clashed with police during a general strike that brought transportation to a halt in many cities across Latin America's largest nation. Lighting massive vehicles on fire and throwing hands with police are two hallmarks of any good riot and this one was coupled with a strike protesting major changes to labor law and the pension system being considered by Congress. The strike seemed to energize thousands of angry Brazilians fed up with corruption and worried about the country’s future amid a deep recession and rising unemployment. Perhaps nowhere was the vitriol more apparent than Rio de Janeiro, where demonstrators brawled with police in front of the legislative building for several hours and chased that with an inspiring display of lighting several buses on fire. Over in Sao Paulo, thousands marched toward the home of President Michel Temer and hurled rocks at police, who responded with stun grenades when protestors attempted to barrel through barriers set up to stop them. Nationwide, millions stayed home, some because they supported the strike and others because they simply had no way to get to work. Temer is still struggling to get his proposals through Congress, which is an issue because his administration argues that more flexible labor rules will revive a comatose economy and warns the pension system will go bankrupt without changes. Temer tried to downplay the day of rioting to labeling the protesters as "small groups" that blocked the roads and streets, but he just seems to be living in the land of denial about what’s happening in his country……. 

- Hi there, sports fan. Have you been wondering what a past-his-prime, low-class, minimal-IQ Olympic swimmer has been up to since he and three teammates fled Brazil last summer in the wake of a massive scandal in which they vandalized a gas station and its restroom, then lied about being robbed at gunpoint to cover up their drunken antics? If so, you’ll be thrilled to know that Ryan Lochte is competing in the pool for the first time since his self-created, alcohol-fueled scandal during the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The man with more Olympic medals than IQ points to his credit finished second in the 100-yard breaststroke in 53.92 seconds and won the 200 individual medley in 1:44.21 Friday at the U.S. Masters Swimming Spring Nationals in Riverside, California. It’s one of the few places he can compete right now, as he is banned from domestic and international U.S. national team competitions through June 30 as part of his 10-month suspension. The reason the Jeeee-uh! One is able to compete because the age-group meet is sanctioned by a different governing body and now that the six-time Olympic champion lives in Los Angeles - a perfect fit for an ass hat like him - going to Riverside wasn’t too far of a drive. He’s also engaged to former Playboy model Kayla Rae Reid and the couple are expecting their first child in June. Once the kid is born and the suspension ends,  Lochte plans to swim in the U.S. Open on Long Island in early August. He’s also inked endorsement deals with swimwear maker Tyr and PowerBar after losing all of his previous deals following his idiocy in Rio…….

- Maybe this is a question for a housing or health and human safety expert, but doesn’t moving from one lead-paint-laden residence to another lead-paint-laden residence defeat the whole purpose of trying to escape the lead paint at the first residence? That’s a question worth pondering upon learning that lead paint was discovered outside nearly half of the units intended for families leaving an Indiana public-housing complex due to - wait for it! - lead contamination. Court documents show that lead paint was found near 13 units intended as emergency housing for families leaving East Chicago's West Calumet Housing Complex and yes, these are people fleeing what is one of the most economically troubled, frequently dangerous areas in the country. These folks were expected to move into homes where lead paint was on the outside of the building or in door frames or jambs, window casings, housing lintels, porch areas, or stair posts or railings. That’s not really what you’d hope for when seeking a new domicile for families who previously lived at a complex that was built on a site previously occupied by a lead-products factory. Last summer, officials did soil testing which found some yards with lead levels more than 70 times the federal safety standard and they quickly looked to move people out. The testing wasn’t exactly voluntary; it was required under a civil rights agreement reached in November. Through April 21, 17 West Calumet families had moved into the emergency units and into new led-laden dwellings. Of course, East Chicago Housing Authority officials claim the paint hazards were remediate and the housing agency believes it is in full compliance with federal regulations, but not everyone agrees. The Chicago-based Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law refuted those claims, arguing that the lead inspections "expose widespread noncompliance" with federal laws. All in all, proof that bureaucracy is gonna keep bureau-crating, no matter what problems that may cause…….

- Keep on Bjork-ing, Bjork. The bizarre, eccentric Icelandic pop singer who loves to incorporate art and creativity into her musical career is at it again, releasing what would normally be a yawner of a book project, except she hopes to make it a must-read. She’s releasing a career-spanning songbook, titled ’34 Scores for Piano, Organ, Harpsichord and Celeste,” a title that on the surface makes it seem like the single most boring book ever released by any musician, anywhere, at any time. But let’s see what’s inside….arrangements from ‘Debut’, ‘Post’, ‘Homogenic’, ‘Selmasongs’, ‘Vespertine’, ‘Medúlla’, Björk’s Drawing Restraint 9 soundtrack, ‘Volta’ and ‘Vulnicura.” Yup, that does sound boring as hell. But according to the tome’s description, it “reimagines what can be achieved with traditional sheet music, continuing Björk’s history of exploiting new technologies for creative innovation.” Nope, still sounds boring as hell. This book, which may be so immensely popular that pre-ordering is essential, will be released on June 5 via Wise Publications. Further enhancing its rock and roll credibility, it was made in collaboration with pianist Jonas Sen, design house M/M Paris and engraver Werner Wolff. For those who aren't on board with this project, just know that you have lots and lots of company on the subject………

Billy Ray Cyrus v. irrelevance, college football felons roll on and Riot Watch! Venezuela

- You can change your stage name, but you can't change the fact that people don’t give a damn about you. It may have worked for Prince, but he had actual musical talent, whereas Billy Ray Cyrus has an exceptionally freaky (and equally musically awful) daughter and a famous mullet, but little else in the way of sonic capabilities. Knowing that he hasn’t been relevant in more than two decades, the ‘90s country singer, actor and father to Miley Cyrus is trying to revive his long-dead career with the tired, lame “change my name” stunt. He wants to change his stage name to Cyrus, dropping the Billy Ray portion because….#irrelevancesucks.  “I always went by Cyrus, and I begged Mercury Records to call me Cyrus in the beginning because that’s what I was comfortable with,” he said. “I’m going to the hospital where I was born in Bellefonte, Kentucky, and legally changing my name.” Wait…you’re so desperate for people to remember you’re alive and still own a guitar and microphone that you’re trying to channel your inner Brazilian soccer star and become known by only one name? Oh, and any doubt that this is nothing more than a lame publicity stunt can be dismissed given the timing of the change, as it coincides with the release of a new 25th anniversary version of the musician’s 1992 single “Achey Breaky Heart,” for which he just happens to have released an updated versions, with promises that he has both a Spanglish and an EDM version of the song ready to go. Yes, because terrible music should always be available in a language that can torment people of all religions, ethnicities and nationalities……..

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Venezuela is still pissed off and its primary target o’ rage remains despotic leader Nicolas Maduro, whom opposition leaders accuse of everything from stifling dissent to refusing to allow elections that would likely oust him from office. The most recent reason to revolt came this week as hundreds of Maduro’s opponents marched to a military prison outside Caracas to demand the release of Leopoldo Lopez and other jailed activists they consider political prisoners. Marching toward a Venezuelan prison while the country is under the leadership of a dictator like Maduro or his successor/mentor Hugo Chavez can always be viewed as possibly marching to your (immediate) future residence, but in this case, the marchers didn’t end up staying at the prison and merely served as the latest human salvo in an intensifying campaign by the opposition to force Maduro from office. Four weeks of angry street uprisings have led to 28 people being killed and more than 400 injured as citizens clash with security forces and pro-government groups. This march was largely a symbolic gesture given that light armored vehicles and national guardsmen are blocking access to the facility where Lopez is serving a nearly 14-year sentence and protestors didn’t bring the requisite weapon to break out a man bogusly convicted of inciting violence during a previous round of anti-government unrest in 2014. Still, it was a heartwarming scene when his wife Lilian Tintori was at the front of a group carrying a large Venezuelan flag making its way to the prison, even if the march didn’t accomplish its largest goal………

- Ah, the scent of college football in the spring: a mix of the drying ink on police blotters, the metallic scents of handcuffs and the distinct smell of rage from coaches who find out in the middle of the night that some of their players just took a ride downtown in the back of a squad car. It’s the hallmark of the sport in the spring, when spring practices have ended and players are left with more free time and less football on their schedule. It even extends to also-ran, mid-major programs like Louisiana-Lafayette, which has indefinitely suspended 13 football players facing charges of criminal conspiracy to commit felony theft. The list of suspended players includes tight end Matthew Barnes; defensive ends Joe Dillon and Jarvis Jeffries; offensive linemen Robert Hunt and D'Aquin Withrow; linebacker Terik Miller; defensive backs Denarius Howard, Damar'ren Mitchell, Simeon Thomas and Levarious Varnado; defensive tackle LaDarrius Kidd; and running backs Trey Ragas and Jordan Wright, a massive group that proved it knows how to work together, even if the endeavor is straight-up illegal. If you ask school officials, the players were suspended "for a violation of team rules," but if you ask University of Louisiana-Lafayette police, the 13 players barged into a dorm room April 5 and took several items worth a total of about $2,400. Amazingly, these would-be Mensa members didn’t realize that the dorm had video surveillance and with that footage, they were quickly identified. In the aftermath, head coach Mark Hudspeth issued the requisite statement. "I would like to apologize to Cajun Nation and the University," Hudspeth said. "We do not condone the behavior that was represented and we expect higher standards of our student-athletes.” You might, but any knowledgeable college football fan did not……..

- There are many miserable aspects to a minimum-wage job at a fast food restaurant. Typically, those are limited to working horrible hours, dealing with angry customers’ ridiculous dietary demands, handling unsavory and filthy substances like french fry grease and uniforms soaked with the stench of fatty fast foods. For a worker at a Kansas City Jimmy John’s location, you can add staring down the barrel of a gun toted by a robber to the list of reasons to hate showing up for work each day, but to his credit, this employee managed to stay incredibly calm while facing possible death at the hands of a scumbag who would rather carry out an armed robbery than attempt to earn money through legal means. Around 9 p.m., the suspect - wearing a light blue hoodie - entered the restaurant and kept up the whole “I’m a customer” charade by placing an order, but giving up the gig by pulling a gun from his pocket instead of his wallet, pointing the firearm at the cashier’s head. The cashier responded by removing money from the register and handing it over, even going so far as to attempt to give the robber the whole cash register tray - customer service with a smile! - but the ungrateful robber pushed the tray back at the worker before fleeing. Given the sophisticated nature of this heist, it’s outright shocking to hear that police were able to identify and arrest the suspect within 24 hours. Anyone criminally brilliant enough to shove a gun into their pocket and rob some zit-faced high school student at a sandwich shop at 9 p.m. on a weeknight really would seem to be savvy enough to evade the long arm of the law for at least 48 hours, but clearly police and those who phoned in tips were simply too wise for their future prison inmate to overcome……..

Riot Watch! Macedonia, La La Land goes to TV and absurd pro sports facial hair rules

- Personal grooming rules in professional sports are lame. There are few things lamer than telling highly paid (sometimes millionaire) professional athletes who play a game for a living that they can't have a) facial hair, b) long hair, c) tattoos or d) dyed hair on account of maintaining a “professional” appearance as if fans follow a team based in any way on whether or not their center fielder looks enough like their insurance agent. The New York Yankees remain the gold standard for overly stuffy, self-important organizations who ban insane things such as beards and goatees, but these idiotic policies hit home for other organizations too. For example, Atlanta Braves reliever Jason Motte, whom the team just recalled Triple-A Gwinnett, where he was forced to shave his beard to comply with organization rules that forbid facial hair for minor league players. When Motte was a successful closer with the St. Louis Cardinals, the beard was a mainstay. A few days in some forgotten small town in Georgia and suddenly, it’s gonzo. "My daughter's 4½, so she ended up shaving it for me," Motte told. "She was pretty excited to help me shave it. She did say, 'You look weird. Put it back on.' But it's all part of it. It'll be back." In order to grow it back, Motte needs to pitch well for the Braves, who  have no rules about facial hair at the major league level. According to Braves manager Brian Snitker,  he plans to use Motte as a middle reliever during the sixth or seventh innings, where theoretically his powers of pitching will grow stronger as his facial hair grows longer…….

- If you find a good crime you seem to enjoy - or at least aren't remotely troubled by - then you may as well do it again, right? Let’s meet Keiyenne Mynx Hijin, who also goes by the name Geoffrey Roberson (probably best not to ask why) and is now staring down serious jail time for leaving his 1-year-old child alone in his truck for more than an hour - and doing it twice. Hijin was first charged last month after his initial arrest for abandoning his child in a hot vehicle in North Carolina. The parental stupidity began when this kook left his child in the car while he went to go work out at Planet Fitness on Feb. 3. Yes, toting your child around while you grind your way through leg day at the gym is a pain, but not nearly as painful as facing fines and jail time for living her in the car. But even the legal entanglement that befell Hijin after his first arrest clearly did not deter him because he has now been accused of committing the same crime, this time at a different location. According to investigator, this ass hat was arrested this week for the same offense when he left his daughter alone in a car next to a filthy mess and someone recognized him at Cloninger Ford on Jake Alexander Boulevard. The witness called police and detectives arrived to find Hijin’s daughter in the car, which was running with the windows down, sitting next to a toddler toilet that had waste in it. Fractional points for actually having a toddler toilet and not just expecting the kid to go in an old paint tray you set up under her car seat, but amazingly, a judge let Hijin go before the second warrant could be served and now, it appears the local legal system is nearly as incompetent as Hijin is as a parent…….

- Damien Chazelle may never be hotter than he is right now. He’s still riding the wave of awards and acclaim from “La La Land” and sifting through the myriad opportunities that have come his way since his singing, dancing walk through the daisies waltzed its way to Oscar success. So it’s not hard to see why the director would make plans to craft a television drama based on the Paris music scene from the movie. When you win a Best Director Oscar for a movie, it’s logical to squeeze every last ounce of creative juice you can out of the concept and so it is that we have “The Eddy,” a musical drama set in modern-day Paris. While the concept is still taking shape, the musical is expected to focus on a club and its owner, along with the house band (of what will surely be a collection of wild and wacky characters) and the ever-unpredictable city in which they all reside. This one could go any number of different directions given that ‘Harry Potter and The Cursed Child’ writer Jack Thorne will pen the project, though adding magic or quidditch to the equation would probably skew a tad to the ridiculous side. Either way, Chazelle is clearly not ready to let go of his most successful project to date and if he can coax a few more big paydays out of “La La Land,” then he’ll simply be doing what everyone else in Hollywood does, namely try to get as much money and mileage out of an existing franchise without having to break new entertainment ground…….

- Now THAT is how a legislature should work. Look no further than the southern reaches of Europe, where a few forward-thinking citizens busted through a police cordon and entered Macedonia's parliament, where they proceeded to make sure government worked for them by violently attacking lawmakers to protest the election of a new speaker despite a months-long deadlock in talks to form a new government. Maybe the United States Congress would work better - and faster - if the senators and representatives currently clogging up the legislative process with a slew of personal agendas, bribes, ulterior motives and dishonesty had to worry about angry constituents wearing masks and storming parliament in order to make their voices heard. The Macedonian uprising came after the country's opposition Social Democrats and parties representing Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority voted for a new speaker, which spurred rioters to shout, throw chairs and in some cases, remove their shirts while attacking lawmakers, including opposition leader Zoran Zaev, who television footage showed bleeding from the forehead. What should become YouTube’s favorite video for a long time, i.e. television footage of the carnage, showed Zaev and other Social Democrat lawmakers surrounded by protesters waving national flags, shouting "traitors" and refusing to allow them to leave. It was a hellaciously inspiring scene that included police firing flash grenades and grappling with protestors in front of the building, none of which was remotely surprising in a country that has been without a government since December. That’s when Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's conservative party won elections, but without enough votes to form a government, and coalition talks broke down over ethnic Albanian demands that Albanian be recognized as an official second language. The Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, as the Macedonian parliament is known, has now been deadlocked for three weeks over electing a new speaker, but clearly the populace has no problem doing a little speaking of its own with its fists and unmitigated fury…….

Inmates v. jailhouse decency, Cypress Hill + London Symphony Orchestra and Pittsburgh Pirates = United Nations of MLB

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The tried-and-true protest technique of trying to use a mass of humanity linked by nothing more than shared beliefs and intertwined limbs was on full display as Greek and Turkish Cypriot activists formed a human chain across Cyprus' ethnic divide to protest Turkey's planned nuclear power station. The activists claim the plan poses real dangers to the nearby east Mediterranean island, which is why about 100 of them linked arms across the 70-meter U.N.-controlled buffer zone between the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and the internationally recognized south in the medieval heart of the capital, Nicosia, a display that would have been much more memorable had they set something on fire, looted, rioted or tossed a Molotov cocktail or two around, but there’s still time. Turkey plans to build the Russian-made plant in Akkuyu, 56 miles from Cyprus' northern shoreline, but it’s not happening tomorrow and that means there will be more chances to stage better uprisings for men and women like Turkish Cypriot activist Murat Kanatli, who was a part of this gathering and said there are serious concerns about nuclear waste disposal, the nuclear plant's impact on marine life as well as its vulnerability to regional seismic activity. Mix in Turkey's current political upheaval and the ever-looming specter of terrorism and you can see where this is quite the combustible mix into which to drop a nuclear power plant……..

- The Pittsburgh Pirates: the United Nations of Major League Baseball. First, the Pirates make reliever Dovydos Neverauskas the first Lithuania-born and raised player to pitch in the majors when he appeared Monday in a loss to the Chicago Cubs and now that he’s had his chance and filled in where needed, he’s been sent back to the minors as the team called up infielder Gift Ngoepe, making him the first player from Africa to reach the major leagues. They recalled Ngoepe from Triple-A Indianapolis on Wednesday and sent Neverauskas to the minors, in a sense part of the ever-revolving door that is MLB, but also creating a unique situation in calling up a player who was the first from his country to make it to the majors and then sending him down to make way for a guy who’s the first from his continent to make it to the majors. Ngoepe was born in Pietersburg, South Africa, and attended high school in the suburbs of Johannesburg, so it’s not as if he was a guy born in a faraway land but raised in the United States. He’s as rooted in Africa as a person can be while playing sports half a world away and it’s been a long journey, as Ngoepe signed with Pittsburgh in 2008 and was batting .241 in Triple-A when he was promoted. He’s widely considered the best defensive prospect in the Pirates' organization and for a team that hit the midway point of this week tied for the most errors in the majors, a solid glove is all that matters, regardless where in the world its owner comes from……..

- There’s always a lingering question of just how shittily America can treat its prison population without technically violating any laws. That particular issue is litigated often by aggrieved inmates who feel like the supposedly subhuman conditions in which they’ve been forced to reside skew on the illegal side of the ledger. It’s the one being pursued by two men once detained at the Jackson County jail who have filed separate - yet equally (literally) filthy lawsuits claiming sewage frequently backed up in their cells and the stench was so intense at times that they could not sleep. Joshua Riechmann filed one of the first suit, in federal court in Kansas City, Missouri, and he alleges his jail cell stunk like a sewer and that human waste backed up into his toilet when inmates in adjoining cells flushed. A separate federal lawsuit by Nicholas Ayers alleges he had to haul water to his second-floor cell from the floor below to get his toilet to flush and if there’s anything crappier than a prison toilet, it’s having to supply to H2O to get it to work. His problems allegedly arose when he suffered a serious injury on account of falling while carrying a plastic trash can full of water at night when the smell in his cell was so bad he couldn't sleep. Both men agree that jail staff was indifferent to addressing inmate complaints, but a very convincing statement by Jackson County Executive Frank White's office said that the detention center has roughly 1,000 toilets and hundreds of showers and sinks, making leaks and clogs routine. With a rousing two lumbers on staff and a contract with an outside vendor to respond to emergency plumbing needs after hours and on weekends, it’s hard to see how anything could go awry here. As for Riechmann, he was booked into the jail last September on a warrant for a still-pending DWI case in Carroll County and Ayers is now serving a 15-year prison sentence for assault and armed criminal action, so they aren't the most sympathetic figures, but they don’t need to be to win their respective cases………

- They’ve always made sense as a dynamic musical duo and after “The Simpsons” finally had the vision to combine them some 21 years ago, it’s a shame it’s taken more than two decades for them to find their way back together. Yes, few musical acts blend like peanut butter and jelly in the same jar quite as well as Cypress Hill and the London Symphony Orchestra, which might seem mismatched as a seminal hip-hop act and a bunch of tuxedoed-up classical musicians sitting ramrod straight in the orchestra pit at a classical music hall, but that’s only to the musically unsophisticated ear. Those who know know that when the two acts appeared together on the 1996 episode 'Homerpalooza,' in which “Simpsons” patriarch Homer Simpson joined a traveling music festival, it was a moment years in the making. The episode was part of the show’s much-acclaimed seventh season and it featured Homer joining the fictional traveling music festival ‘Hullabalooza’ on a bill which also includes Smashing Pumpkins, Peter Frampton and Sonic Youth. In one of the episode’s memorable scenes,  a roadie asks the festival’s bands if any of them have hired the London Symphony Orchestra – “possibly while high? Cypress Hill, I’m looking in your direction.” Thus, an epic collaboration was born in which Cypress Hill asked the orchestra if they know ‘Insane In The Brain.” The two sides recently linked up on Twitter, with the rappers extending an invite to the orchestra to “make something happen for real” – an offer the orchestra happily accepted, setting the stage for what should be some true musical magic……

Madonna suddnely hates publicity, Larry Bird moves on and thieves doing calisthenics

- Madonna has always been a publicity whore. So it’s always surprising when someone - anyone - wants to shine more of the spotlight on her and she’s opposed to the idea. Her bizarre turn in stance comes in response to news that a biopic film called “Blond Ambition” is in the works, a project penned by rising screenwriter Elyse Hollander. It’s thought of as one of Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays and it’s already been picked up by Universal Pictures. The Material Skank took to Twitter to make it clear that this project most certainly does NOT have her approval. “Nobody knows what I know and what I have seen. Only I can tell my story. Anyone else who tries is a charlatan and a fool,” she wrote. “Looking for instant gratification without doing the work. This is a disease in our society.” In a sense, using the word charlatan in an Instagram post is a pretty bold reach, given that media hardly existed the last time that word was actually part of modern language, let alone social media. Blessing or not, the movie will reportedly zero in on Madonna’s formative years in New York City, perhaps incorporating the legendary story in which she took a flight from her hometown of Detroit to New York City in 1978 with only $37 in her pocket and told a taxi driver to take her to “the center of everything.” As the tale goes, he dropped her off in Times Square and she spent the next five years working as a model, dancer and waitress while playing in the bands Emmy and Breakfast Club. She later became a solo artist and spent lots of time hanging out at the iconic nightclub Danceteria before finally breaking through in the pop music world in 1983 with her self-titled debut album and going on to become one of the single most overrated musicians in the history of the industry……..

- The practice of executing people is undergoing major changes around the world. Many places in the United States are having to consider alternative methods of sending condemned criminals shuffling off this mortal coil because of a dearth of the drugs used to kill people by lethal injection…and then there’s Scotland. Specifically, there’s the western city of Glasgow, where a candidate for city council says she wants to bring back the guillotine as a means of terminating the lives of the convicted with malice. Gisela Allen, the populist U.K. Independence Party's candidate for Garscadden/Scotstounhill, is breaking new/old ground by saying that not only should the death penalty should be reinstituted in the country, but suggesting that the guillotine could take place of hanging. "I want the death penalty to be re-enacted. It doesn't necessarily have to be hanging," Allen said of her plan. "You could have the guillotine. I think the public is entitled to protection." She made it clear that her stance represented personal beliefs and not party policy, which then freed Allen up to offer another unpopular proposal, this one to raise the age of retirement to 70 while also eliminating free bus passes and sex education in schools. Furthermore, she wants to yank support for nurseries because in her bygone-era-themed world view, the best idea is for women to stay home with their families. "I don't want increased child care," Allen stated. "Women with small children should stay at home and look after their own children. Nurseries shouldn't get support. No sex education in school and I don't want any LGBT community — it's private life, none of anyone's business." Some of her policies are downright kook-tastic, as she has advocated for a reopening of public toilets and an abolishment of golf course because they’re some sort of environmental and safety threat. Yes, trying to eradicate golf in the home of golf, it’s almost enough to make people wish they had a guillotine to use………

- Nothing says truly troubled by your team getting swept out in the first round of the NBA playoffs and intent on figuring out what to do with a superstar player entering the final year of his contract quite like cramming into an Indy car and zipping through downtown Manhattan. But such is life when your town wants to host the NBA All-Star Game and your team president has a) spare time on his hands, b) access to an Indy car and clearance to drive four blocks down Fifth Avenue in said specially themed car to deliver your team’s bid to host the 2021 game to NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Such is life for Indiana Paces president Larry Bird, a Hall of Famer who is an Indiana native and had driven an Indy car only once, during a practice run for his drive. At 6-foot-9, jamming into the car wasn’t easy. "It's a little rough ride," he said. "No suspension or anything, but it's fun." About 200 people gathered around as Bird maneuvered along the left lane, exited his yellow and blue "Larry Bird" car and quickly lamented the combination of the car's small pedals and his big feet. That his team was eliminated from the playoffs in a first-round sweep by defending champion Cleveland didn’t seem to dampen Bird’s spirit. "It's like a bucket list thing. It's in New York, so you've got to do it," Bird said. "If I was driving around my neighborhood I don't think I'd have had any interest in it. But coming up to New York and ride down the street for a few blocks, it's something that I wish everybody could do." The odds seem high for the bid to succeed, as Indiana hasn't hosted the NBA All-Star Game since 1985 but has plenty of experience staging big events, including the Super Bowl and seven NCAA men's Final Fours. The Hoosier State is basketball heaven for many, so the Association will likely send All-Star weekend there soon……..

- Not enough thieves take time to properly prepare before committing their crimes. Not so for a suspect who robbed a local Dunkin’ Donuts in North Philadelphia and showed that he wasn’t just going to barge through the door unprepared for what might come next. Knowing that even though he was entering the building shortly before 7 a.m. on a Saturday, he may still have to evade and outrun the long arm of the law after making the heist, the thief was captured on video doing some much-needed stretching before entering the store. Yes, stretching in a parking lot while wearing all black, latex gloves and a ski mask does look odd, but how many people are cruising an urban area at 7 a.m. on a weekend and could see an oddly dressed and suspicious individual doing stretches right before walking in, hurdling the counter - see, stretching did pay off - and pointing a gun at an employee before demanding, “You have 20 seconds to give me the money from the registers,” before jumping back over the counter and fleeing? According to police, the suspect stole over $300 from the registers and was last seen leaving the parking lot, but in a nice bit of proof that pre-theft calisthenics do indeed work, the suspect remains at large and one would have to imagine, free of any nagging hamstring or quadriceps pain or post-robbery back soreness. Score one for being willing to put in the work before committing a crime that you commit so you don’t have to do something resembling actual work……..

MLB and "aggressive actions," Croatia smacks down censorship and The Chainsmokers can't sppel

- As always, people will sell (and traffic) in whatever they can make money selling. That means if you live in a godforsaken outpost of a state like South Dakota, you may some day end up being indicted for illegally trafficking eagles and other migratory birds after a two-year undercover operation potentially involving hundreds of birds. Federal officials in South Dakota, led by U.S. Attorney Randy Seiler, announced the arrests and claim that they expect "significant" additional federal charges in the case, which focused on trafficking of eagles and eagle parts such as feathers for profit. There really aren't enough people out there willing to extend a massive middle finger to the laws protecting these privileged birds, so it seems harsh to prosecute those willing to fly in the face of convention, but such is life. According to authorities, the case involves more than 100 eagles, a number that could climb as high as 250 in what Seiler coldly described as essentially a "chop-shop for eagles" in which eagle feathers were stuffed into garbage bags, so clearly this was a sophisticated, high-end operation. Seiler stated the obvious by noting that this was clear that it was a moneymaking operation and that the feathers and other eagle parts such as talons and beaks were treated as merchandise. "There was no cultural sensitivity. There was no spirituality," Seiler said. "There was no tradition in the manner in which these defendants handled these birds." Perhaps the best part of this whole story is that three Rapid City men charged in the case are involved with Buffalo Dreamers, which performs Native American dance programs, yet they’ve flown in the face of so much of what Native Americans are supposed to be about when it comes to land and nature……..

- At least they got the city right …. sort of. The Chainsmokers are everyone’s favorite electro-pop outfit at the moment, teaming up with Coldplay and showing up everywhere you can possibly cram a pop song these days, but they may not stay at the top for long if they can't show proper respect to the cities where they perform. Artists on tour who forget which city they’re in on a given night is nothing new and some of the biggest names in music history have made the error of saying how happy they are to be in a city other than the one where they currently occupy a stage, but The Chainsmokers fumbled the ball in a different way when they misspelled Pittsburgh in an on-screen message thanking the city’s fans at the end of a recent gig. During the encore, the band displayed a thank-you message to fans, a message that read, ‘Thank You Pittsburg.’ Either the band had recently played a show in Pittsburg, Kansas or they have someone on their crew who doesn’t know how to spell, but after band member Andrew Taggart made it a point to talk about how great the city had been to The Chainsmokers and shamelessly pandered to the crowd by telling them that they were more enthusiastic than other cities in which the band had played, the spelling faux paus was especially awkward. The duo addressed the error after the show in a since-deleted tweet in which they wrote, “lol totally putting our visual guy on blast for misspelling Pittsburgh at the end.” The good or bad news is that there are still plenty of cities left on the band’s current tour and the crew member tasked with putting those thank you messages together will have a lot of chances to redeem or further embarrass themselves…….

- Score one for….anti-censorship? In a bizarre twist, Croatian police have intervened to protect the right of a controversial play that contains scenes of nudity and rape to go on by preventing a group of extreme nationalists from disrupting a performance of Oliver Frljic's "Our violence and Your Violence,” which deals with Europe's refugee crisis and has been denounced by the Catholic church and previously also by Muslims. The play’s message had the ire up for about a dozen right-wing supporters toting a hastily made banner reading "Satan, leave our city," as they chanted extremist slogans and sang nationalist songs inside the theater in the coastal town of Split before police pushed them out. Those who attend this particular performance definitely had a theather experience to remember as the play was further delayed by a bomb threat and all of this came after a few hundred nationalists staged a protest outside the theater demanding that the performance be canceled prior to the curtain going up. Predominantly Catholic Croatia is a predictable backdrop for this drama to play out, as the church has said the play is insulting for Christian believers. Of course, this drama plays precisely into Frljic's hands, as his plays often stir controversy and spark protest, drumming up a lot more interest than they would otherwise incite given their overall quality and content. Score one for clever self-promotion by means of inciting ass hats………

- Sounds like someone has gotten a wee bit oversensitive, eh Major League Baseball? No one loves to get riled up about their secret code of conduct quite like MLB, where there’s a “right way” to play the game that even players themselves can’t fully explain - but they can damn sure tell you a code violation when they see one. The league office has its standards too, which is why Minnesota Twins third baseman Miguel Sano has been suspended for one game and fined by MLB for what it deemed "aggressive actions" that caused benches to clear during a game against the Detroit Tigers last weekend. No, not for any actual fight, but because after Detroit's JaCoby Jones was hit in the face by a pitch from Justin Haley in the third inning of the Tigers' 5-4 victory, it took the Tigers two innings to respond in the form of Detroit's Matthew Boyd throwing behind Sano, who pointed his bat toward Boyd and yelled out at the mound. From there, it was truly tame MLB rage of display as Tigers catcher James McCann intervened and appeared to put his mitt in the face of Sano, who responded immediately with a right hand to McCann's mask. That was enough to net a one-game ban for Sano, although the players' association appealed, allowing him to continue playing until the appeal is heard and decided. Amazingly, all Boyd received was a fine after MLB concluded he intentionally threw a pitch at Sano, with Twins general manager Thad Levine saying  the organization will support Sano's decision to appeal "by providing video and some commentary around the situation that Major League Baseball may otherwise not have the benefit of." Sano is adamant that in his mind he “didn't do anything wrong, so we'll see what happens,” which probably means this will see some form of reduced punishment and we’ll all move on and forget that either of these two teams exist because neither has a shot in hell of winning a World Series title this season……..

Treasure hunters are still kooks, Jared Leto is still The Joker and Crazy Rod D rules the Philippines

- He went from NBA All-Star to dude eating Vaseline on U-Stream on a dare to icon halfway around the world and purveyor of surprisingly stylish and affordable basketball shoes….but the end may be near for Starbury. In a surprising, yet not at all surprising development, the Chinese Basketball Association's Beijing Ducks announced Stephon Marbury's departure. The move to terminate his two-year contract due to the dispute over Marbury's role and salary in the next season ends a remarkably productive tenure with the team for a guy who fell from the basketball heights of being one of the best players in the NBA for a short period of time to out of the sport before heading to China and reinventing himself, becoming a star in a new land and leading his team to remarkable heights. However, his contract with the Ducks included a team option for Marbury as a player or an assistant coach for the 2017-18 season, which led to several rounds of negotiations and concluded with Marbury turning down the assistant coach offer, insisting to play for another season. The team rejected that idea and decided it was time to part ways with the man known in some circles as Starbury. The veteran guard penned a letter to fans on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, and didn’t exactly smooth things over. "First, the team did not decide who would be the head coach, apparently the team is in a rebuilding progress,” he wrote. “Coach Min who led this team to [three championships] might not be the head coach anymore which makes it hard for me to accept the offer of becoming an assistant coach.” There may not be many options left for Marbury in basketball now, not if he wants to keep making a lot of money and balling at his advanced hoops age…….. 

- As if he’s feeling overlooked in world where Kim Jong-Un, Vlad Putin and Nicolas Maduro are grabbing all the despotic headlines by leading their respective nations into potential world-wrecking calamity on a daily basis, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is ramping up the rhetoric and amping up his shenanigans, with his latest outlandish remarks featuring him claiming he could be "50 times" more brutal than Muslim militants who stage beheadings and insisting he could even "eat" the extremists if they're captured alive by troops. Crazy Rod D has repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death, but during a speech during the opening of a national sports tournament, he used the occasion to make sure all eyes were on him. Speaking about what he could do to terrorists who have staged beheadings and other gruesome attacks and having ordered troops to kill fleeing Muslim militants behind a foiled attack in the central resort province of Bohol and not bring them to him alive, labeled the extremists "animals” and then proceeded to tell the world that he could be a wild beast too. "If you want me to be an animal, I'm also used to that. We're just the same," Duterte said. "I can dish out, go down what you can 50 times over." Duterte is known for his R-rated remarks, but this is a new dimension even for him, telling a crowd that was laughing at a possible joke that if a terrorist was presented to him when he's in a bas mood, "Give me salt and vinegar and I'll eat his liver." His pledge to battle illegal drugs, corruption and terrorism sounded swell when he won the presidency in May, but now that thousands have died under his anti-drug crackdown, the world is seeing that he might deserve a spot on the list of the world’s most unstable despots……..

- Yes, “Suicide Squad” was a wildly disappointing movie that failed to come close to living up to its immense pre-release hype, but that doesn’t mean the franchise and its characters are going away. One of the most-hyped performances in the film belonged to 30 Second To Mars frontman Jared Leto, which is trying to build hype for his next stint as The Jokers via his Instagram account. Leto dropped a heavy hint that he may reprise the role in a new film that pits the white-faced villain against Batman, posting an image of himself dressed as The Joker holding a knife to Batman’s throat, with the cryptic caption “@thejoker_clan ?” Having played the iconic DC Comics character in “Suicide Squad,” Leto got a lot of attention for the ways in which he took his performance to the extreme on set, but there was speculation that his role was actually trimmed down significantly David Ayer and Leto himself said after the movie’s release that his part was “more of a supporting part than it could have been.” That might seem to make another turn as The Joker unlikely, but there is growing belief that he’s like to reprise the role in the forthcoming film “The Batman,”  which will star Ben Affleck in the title role even though Affleck himself as been the target of rampant speculation that he’s looking to get out of playing the Caped Crusader and take himself in a new cinematic direction, i.e. a role he can fill without being terrible and making utterly, totally forgettable films……..

- Oh, treasure hunters. You kooks scour the beaches of the world before the lifeguards arrive for the first shift of the morning, you believe in legends and tall tales of bygone ages and you believe that if you search long enough and hard enough, you can become filthy rich without having to ever get a real job. Or n the case of ex-treasure hunter Tommy Thompson, an Ohio man who has been warned by a federal judge that he could face another contempt-of-court charge if he doesn't reveal the location of 500 missing gold coins, a threat that doesn’t seem to have moved Thompson to spill his secrets thus far. Algenon Marbley ordered Thompson to cooperate by granting power of attorney to allow the government to figure out if a trust in Belize knows the coins' whereabouts while also rejecting Thompson's request to appoint a civil attorney to help him review records. This showdown has been going on for nearly a year and a half, during which time Marbley has held Thompson in contempt of court since December 2015 for violating terms of a plea deal by refusing to respond to questions about the coins' locations. Thompson’s treasure in question is a collection of coins valued up to $4 million and which were minted from gold taken from the S.S. Central America, which sank in an 1857 hurricane. It’s quite a story, the sort for which treasure hunters live and breathe, or in this case live in perpetual danger of jail time……..

Organized crime v. E-ZPass, Puddle of Mud(dy idiocy) and taking that for data

- Take that for data, NBA league office. The quote of the year in the Association was uttered by Memphis Grizzlies coach David Fizdale in the wake of his team's Game 2 loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Fizdale didn’t fizzle out when he blasted the officiating after the game, ripped the zebras for giving the Spurs more free throws and blasted the league for not giving Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley the respect Fizdale believes he deserves. “Take that for data,” was the punch line in the rant and the rest of the monologue was strong as well, strong enough that the league dinged him with a $30,000 fine. It didn’t take long for Conley and his teammates to rally behind their coach, who makes less than most of them, promising that they will pay the fine. "We told him right away, you're not going to have to pay that.” Conley said, adding that he sent Fizdale a "thank you" text at 4 a.m following the rant. Among the memorable moments from the diatribe were Fizdale blasting the officiating after the Grizzlies' 96-82 loss to the Spurs, calling the work of veteran crew Danny Crawford, Rodney Mott and Bill Spooner "unprofessional" and "unacceptable" and punctuating his words by smashing his first into a table and storming off. In one of the most unnecessary comments in the league in years, Fizdale said he knew the fine was coming but didn’t care. “You're fighting for your team and you're fighting for your life in the playoffs, and you just don't have room to let things go into the next year. "The series can be over, so you're always going to fight for your guys,” he said. Fight on, D. Fizz……..

- Why couldn’t America have been this fortunate last year? In the first round of our presidential selection process, why couldn’t we have come up with no candidates? No president would likely have been a better option than the one we got, so let’s take a lesson from Albania, whose parliament has failed to elect the country's new president, with no candidates nominated for the first round of voting. If there aren't any suitable candidates, don’t nominate one….just as Albania’s governing left-wing coalition, which declined to put forward a candidate for the post. Technically, this is being sold as an expression of good faith for parliament's center-right opposition, as the opposition has boycotted Parliament since February and wants a caretaker Cabinet to take the country to a June 18 parliamentary election. Their argument is that the current government will manipulate the vote and in a place such as Albania, those beliefs aren't unreasonable. In the Eastern European nation, presidential candidates are proposed by a group of at least 20 lawmakers and much like the queen of England, the five-year presidency has a largely ceremonial role. There’s a two-term limit and Albania's 140-seat Parliament picks the president in five rounds, with candidates needing to win at least three-fifths of the vote, or 84 backers, in the first three rounds. But if there are no candidates……..

- Dear Puddle of Mudd singer Wes Scantlin…. you do know that you’re Puddle of Mudd singer Wes Scantlin and not Mick Jagger, right? You’re the frontman for a middling, nondescript arena rock band that hasn’t accomplished much since your lone hit, “She Hates Me,” dropped all the way back in 2011…so maybe you don’t want to keep storming off stage mid-show as if you have a dozen platinum albums and double-digit Grammys to your credit. But Scantlin has done it over and over again, most recently at a gig in Dallas earlier this month. The band were in the middle of playing their only hint when Scantlin allowed the crowd to sing some of the lyrics, but rather than serve as a moment of cool crowd participation, it was merely a cover for Scantlin to walk toward the back of the stage to intently watch drummer Dave Moreno perform. Curiously, Scantlin then asked, ‘David, why?’ before picking up his bag and leaving, never to return. Maybe this was payback for the show in the United Kingdom last year which he was left on stage by his bandmates midway through a gig in a disastrous outing that left fans infuriated. That was nearly a year ago, with the band citing Scantlin’s erratic on-stage behavior as the reason they cut their performance short. That show, in Doncaster, was eerily similar to a February 2016 show in Ohio in which Scantlin stopped the show and began shouting at an unidentified audience member. Ol’ Wesley doesn’t seem to understand that he’s not nearly a big enough rock star to treat fans like sh*t and get away with it for long………

- Organized crime will target whatever industries its leaders believe will make them the most money. Be it casinos, be it scamming federal gas taxes or in the Keystone State, making millions of dollars renting out fraudulently obtained license plates, primarily in New York City. Pennsylvania's attorney general's office is charging a dozen people as part of an organized crime ring that it accuses of taking part in the scheme, with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro alleging that the ring rented to people who used the plates to evade law enforcement, parking tickets and highway tolls. It’s not exactly hardened criminals using stolen plates to disguise cars being used to commit murders and robberies, but apparently it’s still illegal for a group to use a stolen notary seal to get vehicles retitled, enabling it to get new license plates through businesses set up as dealerships or transporters. These conniving plate peddlers allegedly rented out thousands of Pennsylvania license plates for $400 or more a month and proving that they were a full-service organized crime outfit, they also provided fraudulent insurance paperwork. That level of customer service should really be rewarded and not punished, but suddenly it’s wrong that people used this valuable service avoided paying nearly $2 million for parking, E-ZPass toll collection accounts, insurance and car loans in multiple states. As always, nothing spurs the government into action quite like people depriving it of the money it has used its own powers to boldly declare to legally belong to it………

Cash unites The Rock and Vin Diesel, South Dakota v. cults and Ronaldo's thin skin

- Never, ever forget that many of the world’s biggest athletes have some of the world’s thinnest skin and largest rabbit ears. Take Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo as one of the many examples less than an hour after he became the first player to score 100 goals in the Champions League by netting a hat trick against Bayern Munich to help his side win its Champions League quarterfinal tilt with their German rivals. After making little impact and appearing disturbingly idle for much of the game, he was jeered by some home fans for not working hard enough off the ball as Madrid fell behind 2-1. However, the Portuguese star surged late with three goals to rally his team through to the semifinals with a 4-2 win on the night, 6-3 on aggregate. After the match, he had something on his mind and that was whining about his treatment by the great unwashed. "I don't tell them to be quiet, never, I only ask that they do not whistle," he said. "Because I always give my best in every game, although sometimes I do not score goals I try and work hard to help Real Madrid. I am sticking to positive things. The team has been fine, we played well and obviously I am happy for the goals." Ah, no whistling. What are you, R., an international soccer star or a woman walking down the street in a busy city and wishing the pervy dudes around her would stop their catcalls? It’s impressive that you became the first player to score 100 goals in European competition and reached the mark ahead of rival Lionel Messi, who has 94 goals, but what would be even more impressive is if you’d chased that by ignoring the jeers of the crowd and just simply balled out………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! There’s something a bit backwards about this one, given that it’s usually the angry masses on one side and the long arm of the law on the other, abusing its power and using excessive force like it has an expiration date. But in the West African nation of Burkina Faso, it’s the police who have staged a nationwide protest that may lack the necessary rage to affect real change, but it what officers promise to be the first salvo in a series of demonstrations against corruption and a lack of transparency among their leaders. It’s never good when the rank and file are publicly calling out their law enforcement superiors, but in an impoverished nation where it’s easy to get your way by throwing some perks and benefits the way of the law, bribing the powers that be is often the quickest way to accomplish your goals. Protest leader Patrice Sanou promised that more protests would follow in a country where tensions within the law enforcement community have spiked significantly in recent month and where the police union has warned authorities about unfair treatment and pay among those guarding private buildings including banks, mining companies and hotels. The union wants written contracts with companies who hire the police and for the government to address the growing threat over extremist attacks in the region, the latter of which is amping up pressure on police already dealing with a litany of issues and constraints. It’s usually a solid idea to keep the men and women tasked with enforcing the law happy or at least non pissed off, so now would be a great time for the powers that be to tackle these issues……..

- Behold the power of massive stacks of cash to bring people together - or at least convince them to share a set and a few scenes over the course of the weeks it takes to film a movie. So despite rampant rumors that they had a major beef with one another on the set of the current biggest movie in the world, “The Fate Of The Furious,” Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Vin Diesel have reportedly agreed to appear in the next Fast And Furious film - the first of what are slated to be the final two of 10 movies in the massive, sprawling and full-of-excess action franchise. Most of the stories about clashes between the two posited that their issues stemmed from who received the most screen time, best action scenes and chances to show off their chiseled arms. They shared precious few scenes in “Fate,” which only fueled fire of the rift and given that Johnson previously fired off a few social media shots at unidentified male cast members with whom he had issues, there’s too much noise around this one for there to be no issue at all. Johnson did try to smooth things over by saying publicly that it was Diesel’s movie franchise and the two have since tried to convince everyone that they’re resolved their issues…which they may have, given that their latest collaboration broke the opening-weekend box office record set by ‘The Force Awakens’ in 2015. Money has a funny way of bringing people together and mending many a broken fence……..

- There are certain tasks for which a state legislature is well-equipped….namely, issuing hollow proclamations honoring people who win sporting competitions and other such contests or appearing at public functions to lend an air of quasi-officiality to the proceedings. But studying a secretive polygamous sect's outpost in the far western reaches of their fine state? Not so much. Having said that….wise choice, South Dakota lawmakers who smartly decided against studying the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' compound near Pringle after Republican Rep. Tim Goodwin proposed looking into the group, focusing on dicey issues such as whether polygamy or sex trafficking are taking place there. The latter is obviously a very serious and important issue - polygamy a bit less so, but still one that many care deeply about - and presented with a chance to overlook a potentially sticky subject that was among more than 20 proposals, lawmakers elected to take an easier - and some would argue more relevant - path by voting to study a water issue and workforce housing. House Speaker Mark Mickelson addressing the issue by saying it's up to law enforcement to investigate and after Goodwin's proposal ranked low in a survey of lawmakers, there was clearly for that stance. Undeterred by the indifference and reticence of his Mount Rushmore State colleagues, Goodwin, whose district includes the compound, boldly proclaimed that he's not "giving up the fight." Nice to see that a state politician gives a damn about an issue that doesn’t promise to line his pockets with cash from lobbyists……..

Riot Watch! 'Nam, NHL toughness has limits and Deadmau5 v. Chainsmokers

- Dealing with veterans isn't always an easy endeavor. Both on positive and negative sides, those who have served in the military and may have seen combat have both strengths and challenges that require others to be understanding and educated, which means it makes a lot of sense that Texas A&M University – San Antonio, with about 20 percent of its student population of just over 5,500 associated with the military, has become the first college or university in the nation to require all faculty and staff to take military competency training. The school has a stated mission to embrace student veteran and the goal of this training is to help faculty and staff to understand and appreciate the experiences, strengths and skills of student veterans and to assist those veterans in transitioning to life after the military and in this case, as students. “Student veterans have learned to work hard for a common purpose. They have a great number of skill sets; our job is to help them leverage those skill sets and rediscover or create a new mission,” K.C. Kalmbach, a psychology professor who led the creation of the training, said of the new policy. Efforts to promote the hiring and appreciation of veterans in all walks of life, including the workforce, have ramped up in recent years and should continue for as long and as much as they are needed, so maybe other colleges and universities with large military ties will implement the same sort of training…….

- How ironic is it for a man whose professional life is lived with massive mouse-like headgear obscuring everything about him from the shoulders up to call out another recording artist for using a ghost producer on their debut album? Not ironic enough to deter Deadmau5 from accusing The Chainsmokers of said ghost producer usage. The DJ called the duo out on Twitter, which has become a trendy thing to do as The Chainsmokers have become extremely mainstream (hello there, collaboration with Coldplay!) and the duo, comprised of Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, released their first full-length record ‘Memories… Do Not Open’ last week. The unprovoked shot on the group came when Deadmau5 responded to a tweet from a third party that promoted a podcast that featured an in-depth discussion on The Chainsmokers and asked the question, “How do you solve a problem like The Chainsmokers?” It’s debatable whether the duo actually represents any problem at all, but Deadmau5 took the bait and wrote, “Easy. You suck a shitload of Grammy dick and pay a ghost producer. Next question.” It took The Chainsmokers less than an hour to respond with a tweet of their own. “Learning so much everyday! Really feeling lucky to be in the position we are. We catch lots of heat but we are doing what we love and have the best fans,” they wrote. “And that’s all that matters. Not everyone is gonna get it or like it but a lot of you guys do and that’s what pushes us. So long story short. We aren’t going anywhere. love y’all good night!” Exactly the sort of retort you’d expect from a happy, poppy mainstream act that’s all about feel-good music for the masses……..

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Vietnam’s capital is locked in a pitched battle at the moment between angry villagers and the communist government tasked with oppressing them on a daily basis. The source of this particular showdown is a land dispute that has prompted villagers in the city of Hanoi to hold dozens of policemen in a land dispute in a rare display of defiance against their communist overlords. The mayhem began over the weekend in the suburban district of My Duc when police clashed with villagers who allege their land was illegally seized for sale by a military-run telecoms firm. Governments wresting land wrongfully from the feeble hands of overmatched citizens is a common problem around the globe and in an Third World nation where the majority of the populace is impoverished is especially egregious. Several villagers were arrested in the initial burst of chaos and in response, the villagers took some 30 people, many of them riot police, hostage. According to attorney Tran Vu Hai, Hanoi Mayor Nguyen Duc Chung assured villagers in a phone call that six of their number had been released and promised direct talks to address their grievances, which proves that taking a few hostages to fire a shot at your government can work from time to time, even if they may come back later on and burn your village to the ground in retaliation…….

- Not even hockey players are invincible. In the NHL, injuries that would sideline athletes in most any other sport are merely a flesh wound and players go to the training room, get patched up and return to the ice sans teeth, with lots of stitches and in plenty of pain. However, there are injuries that even an NHLer can’t shrug off and for that reason, Columbus defenseman Zach Werenski will miss the rest of the postseason because of a broken cheekbone. Granted, his team’s postseason won’t last much longer, given that their opponent, the Pittsburgh Penguins, won 5-4 in overtime for a 3-0 lead in their first-round series in the same game in which Werenski took a puck to the grill on a shot by Pittsburgh's Phil Kessel. The hardened rubber sphere to the melon opened a gash on Werenski's right cheek in the second period and true to hockey player form, he  played a couple shifts in the third period with a full facemask, but his eye swelled shut and he had to sit out the rest of the game. Trying to play through it clearly wasn’t an option when he tweeted a photo of his face after the game that showed his eye nearly swollen shut in a grisly image that looks like a purple blotch has enveloped about one-third of his face. Of course, if the team’s medical staff would allow him to play, Werenski would probably try, but at this point the Blue Jackets are in a three-game hole and would need to pull off a miraculous four-game winning streak to win the series, so maybe it’s time to sit this one out……

Bill Nye + street cred, soccer riots on and lazy-ass bank robbers

- Enjoy that Guatemalan vacation, former governor of Mexico's Veracruz state Javier Duarte? Hopefully you did because as a fugitive from justice, that’s probably the last time you’ll be enjoying a cozy, tropical getaway for the foreseeable future, what with being  accused of running a corruption ring to plunder state coffers and being detained with the cooperation of Guatemalan police and the country's Interpol office in the municipality of Panajachel. If this really was Duarte’s last hurrah, he went out in style, living it up in a picturesque tourist town on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala's highlands. Javy D. was wanted on suspicion of money laundering and organized crime, which are some heavy charges for a guy once entrusted with running an entire state. In the wake of his arrest, prosecutors directed the Foreign Relations Department to request Duarte's extradition via its Guatemalan counterpart. It was quite a scene as a bespectacled Duarte, decked out in a gray shirt and black jacket-vest, was escorted by Interpol agents and the ironically named Manuel Noriega, deputy director of Interpol in Guatemala, confirmed that Duarte was located at a hotel where he was staying with his wife. His capture was a bit anticlimactic as he was asked to leave his room, did so voluntarily and then was arrested without incident in the lobby. It was an ignominious ending for a guy who was governor of Veracruz from 2010 until he left office Oct. 12, 2016, fleeing justice while not-so-believably denying having links to phantom businesses that allegedly won state contracts and insisting that he had not stolen a single peso of state money or diverted government funds overseas………

- They’re the most natural pair in hip-hop circles since Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart teamed up for a basic cable reality show. It’s the dynamic duo of Tyler, The Creator and Bill Nye, TV scientist and host of old-school children’s science show “Bill Nye The Science Guy.” Nye is making a quasi-comeback with his new Netflix show “Bill Nye Saves The World,” in which he won't actually do any world-saving, but will have a theme song written and performed by Tyler, The Creator. The show will debut on the streaming service this week and to promote the show, the streaming service shared a chat between Nye and the rapper, who discuss the theme song for Nye’s old program. “The first one is really sick,” Tyler said. “I love the fast pacedness of it. You take out that snare, it could be a house song.” Yes, because house music and Bill Nye are the peanut butter and jelly of the entertainment world. It really goes without saying why Nye chose Tyler to write the new theme song, as getting one of the biggest rappers in the world to do a theme song for a TV show about a scientist’s small-scale attempts to save/better the world is something anyone in Nye’s shoes would embrace. “He’s the man. He got the beat,” Nye said of his new collaborator. Whatever makes the two of you happy……..

- Riot on, soccer, riot on. No matter where in the world one of your glorified pickup games on a grassy knoll takes place, there’s a legit chance that something will be set afire, looted or assaulted - be it before the game, after the final whistle or right on the damn pitch in the middle of the second half. The first soccer riot of what will surely be a busy week of them came during a Ligue 1 match between Bastia and Lyon that was abandoned after home fans invaded the pitch at the Stade Armand Cesari and attacked players on two occasions. France is not normally considered a violent place - surrender is more its thing - but this was a different day, as kickoff was delayed by almost an hour after Bastia fans came onto the pitch and appeared to attempt to attack Lyon players as they warmed up. Stadium security quickly got the players away from the pitch-invading kooks and somehow, officials managed to convince visiting Lyon to go forward with the game even after initially refusing to do so, but a second incident as the teams tried to leave the field at halftime ended the game and prompted a rather weak statement from the French Football League. "Following the incident at the end of the first period, the LFP decided to stop SC Bastia-Olympique Lyonnais,” the statement explained. "The LFP condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the incidents which occurred.'' And yet, there will be another ugly incident involving hooligans, an excess of alcohol and a paucity of intelligence and common sense before long……..

- Dear would-be criminals of the world….don’t half-ass it if you’re looking to be America’s next great bank robber. That means do your research before looking to plunder the safe at your local banking establishment, making sure you have the proper tools for your plot and of course, not dressing like some couch-dwelling slacker who stumbled out the door at the last minute with Cheetoh stains on their ratty t-shirt and rocking a pair of pajama pants on their lower half. That goes out to you, wanted Utah woman whom police are searching for after you and your pajama-pants-wearing lazy self tried to rob five banks in a 90-minute period in Salt Lake County between 9:21 a.m. and 11:55 a.m. This lackluster attempt at a fast payday also includes a robbery the previous afternoon at a sixth Salt Lake County bank and while police say the woman netted cash in five of the heists, her run ended poorly as she ran out of a bank empty handed apparently after becoming spooked. “It’s very brazen; she feels like she can get away with it,” Unified Police Lt. Brian Lohrke said. “Maybe she is from out of town because she is not covering her face and hopefully somebody would have recognized her by now.” Or she’s just such a lazy ass that she never ventures out of the house and expects other people to do her tasks and chores for her - except trying to illegally obtain money, of course. The M.O. was the same at each bank, as the woman handed a teller at each bank a note demanding money, but never displayed a weapon. The suspect is described as a white 5-foot-5 female in her 30s with dark hair in a ponytail, wearing prescription glasses, with a noticeable mole under her right eye and rocking a blue bandana wrapped around her head……….