- When a foreign dignitary is about to visit your country,
you want to clean up, prepare and make sure that any area he or she will visit
(and be photographed) looks as presentable as possible. Simply put, get rid of
the wasps, yo. Sri Lanka knows what’s up and that’s why authorities there have
removed thousands of wasps from a tea growing region ahead of a visit this week
by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Sri Lankans don’t want the prime
minister showing up and swelling up after getting stung by angry wasps and
since he’s scheduled to fly by helicopter to a tea plantation to open an
Indian-funded hospital and speak to planation workers with of Indian heritage
after visiting the Colombo, the cleanup was a rush job. Workers removed two
wasp nests from tall trees near two helipads where Modi and Sri Lankan leaders
are expected to land - a landing area chosen, by the way, due to fears that the
helicopters might disturb the wasps and prompt them to sting people within 1.2
miles of the site. Tissa Bandara Thambawita of the Bee Protection Organization
announced the operation and noted that the wasps were released in a nearby
jungle, with eight people from the BPO posted in the area until Modi finishes
his visit. The prime minister is slated to arrive Thursday as the chief guest
for the Buddhist celebration of Vesak, which marks the birth, enlightenment and
passing away of the Buddha. Sri Lanka just has to keep its wasps in check until
Modi leaves the country on Friday……..
- It’s difficult to convince an aging despot to relinquish
his or her grip on power and accept that it’s time to accept a diminished role.
In other words, Arsenal management has let head coach Arsene Wenger know that
he must accept a radical overhaul of his backroom staff and the structure of
the club if he wants to survive the next two years. Wenger’s contract ends this
summer and ahead of that deadline, the club is reportedly working to less the
control he has built up over his two decades in charge. He, it seems, has been
loath to loosen his grip on control at Arsenal if he is to stay and chafing at
the notion of the club hiring a sporting director as long as he remains its
coach. Arsenal chairman Sir Chips Keswick and chief executive Ivan Gazidis are
clearly preparing for a future after Wenger's departure and most likely, a time
when the team is run by someone who doesn’t have the extensive reach that
Wenger has enjoyed during his two decades in charge. They’ve apparently let
Wenger know that they intend to revamp the club's scouting setup and have a new
department that is not controlled solely by the coach, along with the
possibility of hiring a director of football to take over some of the duties
Wenger assumed since the departure of David Dein from the role of vice-chairman
at Arsenal a decade ago. It’s quite the power struggle and quite possibly the
end of an era for one of the top clubs in English soccer, but the battle is
only just beginning for Arsenal and all of its fans…….
- And another great American sporting/cultural institution
goes by the wayside. It happened this week in Texas, where the long arm of the
lam cam crashing down and brought an untimely end to a community-uniting
cockfighting event at a Fort Worth home. The police raid sent attendees fleeing
as authorities made several arrests and confiscated 141 birds – including 16
dead roosters – after spotting a large group of people, several chicken coops
and a fighting ring in the backyard. “All 90 fighting roosters were humanely
euthanized upon arrival to spare them anymore suffering,” city spokeswoman
Diane Covey said. “Most were still wearing gaffs, they were bleeding from
wounds, and/or near death.” Just because the chickens were wearing spurs in
their feet commonly used for fighting to the death is no reason to jump to conclusions,
D. Police arrested Andres Hernandez, Melecio Diaz and Jorge Orozco-Carmona and
issued citations to five others for being spectators to a cockfight and were
able to place some of the birds that were kept alive with area rescue groups. According
to police, they found cockfighting weapons in a backpack and lunchbox that Diaz
and Hernandez were carrying. One of the true losers here is Orozco-Carmona, a
kind-hearted man who told officers that he let people stage cockfights on his
property because they had nowhere else to do so. So this man gave friends a
place to hold an uplifting sporting event and now, he’s facing criminal charges
for it. America simply isn't what it used to be…….
- Because #KanyeWest. When word comes down that the
egomaniacal rapper and aspiring fashionista is writing his next album at a
remote mountaintop retreat in Wyoming, no one should be surprised because of
course a man who thinks he’s above it all would find the tallest place around
and look to use it as the launching pad for his next creative venture. West’s
last album, “The Life of Pablo,” dropped all the way back in February 2016,
which means it’s time to get to work on the successor to a project that featured
an all-star cast of collaborators that included Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna and
Young Thug. Ever the egomaniac, er, perfectionist, West continued to fiddle
with the album - though sadly, he didn’t actually add any fiddle parts to any
of its tracks - after its release, describing the work as a “living breathing
changing creative expression” on his Twitter account. That statement reeks of
his trademark arrogance, so of course when he headed back to the studio, it
would be a studio where he could conduct recording sessions at a mountaintop
retreat in Wyoming. Go, spend a few weeks in a place where the population is
typically whiter than a mid-winter snow and spend time perched high above the
world, looking down on it the same way you look down at the rest of the rap
world, the music industry and humanity in general. Word on the street is that
West has been to the retreat a few times in the past few months and is now back
for another run as he artists his way toward what will undoubtedly be another
self-glorifying project that will tell that world what a badass Kanye West is,
how many hot women he’s been with and how much richer he is than anyone
listening to the project……
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