- South Florida football coach Charlie Strong has only been
on the job for four months. In the eyes of one prominent SF alum, that’s long
enough to be held accountable for the legal troubles in which some of his
players are now mired. Hillsborough County Judge Margaret Taylor presided over
a hearing in the case of South Florida defensive end LaDarrius Jackson, who is
charged with sexual battery and false imprisonment stemming from an incident
earlier this week, took the opportunity to throw an unprovoked haymaker at the
school’s football program. Taylor said she was ashamed to be an alumnus of the
school and questioned whether Strong had control of his players, given that
Jackson is the second South Florida player to be charged with violent crimes in
the past two months. One of his teammates, defensive back Hassan Childs, was
charged with aggravated assault and marijuana possession in an incident in
which he was shot three times. Childs is now a former teammate because Strong
later dismissed him from the program, but the judge wasn’t impressed. "I
graduated from USF in 1989, long before there was a football team,” Taylor
said. “And while USF may not be the top-ranked school in the nation, I was
never ashamed of being an alum until now.
I'm embarrassed and ashamed, Mr. Jackson. Let's just say my
USF diploma is not proudly hanging in my office right now." It was an
impressive bit of grandstanding by Taylor, given that Strong suspended Jackson
shortly after his arrest. "Coach Strong, if you are listening, in the last
couple of months there have been two arrests of your players for very violent
felonies. This court, and I'm sure I'm not alone, questions whether you have
control over your players,” Taylor added. “It's fairly clear you do not have
control of them off the field, and I guess only time will tell whether you have
control over them on the field.” Take that, coach. Maybe the judge needs to set
up shop in the locker room and deal with player discipline more directly………
- Someone is feeling mighty ambitious today, eh Somali
President Mohammed Abdullahi Mohammed. The man whose name is its own anagram
says his country has a comprehensive plan to defeat the extremist group
al-Shabab within two years and while that might sound like the sort of
blow-hardery normally flowing from the orange-framed mouth of American
Creamsicle in Chief Donald Trump, Mohammed A. Mohammed made his proclamation…in
another country, not the one he governs. Yes, he threw down that gauntlet
during his first visit to neighboring Ethiopia since taking office in February,
because nothing says governing badass quite like crossing the border out of
your country and then declare how tough you’re going to be. Defeating
Somalia-based al-Shabab is a worthy goal because the group has stepped up
attacks since his election and vowed revenge for Somalia's new military
offensive against the group, so Mohammed says his government's plan to defeat
al-Shabab includes support from regional countries. He denounced the group as
"a disease" that isn't interested in humanity, a collection of
extremists who pose a massive danger to the entire nation. Mohammed’s pal,
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, has called on the international
community to come up with a plan for Somalia's reconstruction after a
quarter-century of chaos. Ethiopia already has troops with an African Union
mission in Somalia fighting al-Shabab and with a London conference on Somalia
next week, the country is clearly making a push to rally as much support as
possible…….
- Nothing says free speech and reclaiming what’s great about
America quite like banning one of the world’s best rock bands from shooting
their latest video after it was dubbed too “anti-government” to film in its
selected location. Rise Against have long been a socially aware, politically
active band, so when it came time to film the music video for their new track,
“The Violence,” the four-man rock outfit selected a field in Virginia which is
home to 43 giant concrete busts of former presidents. At first, they received a
permit to film in the field, but the board of directors who govern the site
later doubled back, according to the band. “They decided we were ‘anti-government,’” the
band wrote in a Facebook post. “The song talks about whether violence is an
inevitability of the human condition, or whether it’s a choice we make, and
therefore, can reject. The video would attempt to distill this concept. Our
director approached us with the idea of filming in a field full of the
Presidential busts (basically the giant concrete heads of Roosevelt, Lincoln,
Washington, etc)… We found this location compelling as the President heads
represent power on both sides of the aisle. Rise Against has unapologetically
spoken truth to power.” The presidential heads, in varying states of decay, are
part of Presidents Park, a former open-air sculpture museum in Williamsburg,
Virginia. It’s not a holy or sacred site in any sense, but apparently allowing
a band to use it in a way that dares to criticize the powers that be in America
was just too much to stomach……..
- Being a man or woman of the cloth typically doesn’t pay
well. It’s one of those jobs you don’t get into if you hope to be rich - save
for the publicity-whoring, Gospel of Prosperity-preaching televangelist type
like Joel Osteen - but rather to make a difference in the world. One Boston
pastor is definitely making a difference in his world, just not the kind of
different a preacher typically making. Dorchester resident Willie Wilkerson is
facing numerous charges after police said they found drugs and cash while
executing search warrants at his Baker Avenue home, and for Mission Church and
Victoria’s Kitchen Food Trailer on Quincy Street. Yes, dude was (allegedly) drug
trafficking at a church food pantry. “I’d like some ramen noodles, a gallon of
milk, two loaves of bread, some peanut butter and a vial of crack cocaine,
please.” When police made those raids, they seized 34 grams of crack cocaine,
11 grams of fentanyl, 50 Percocet pills, 87 Suboxone strips, 32 Klonopin pills
and about $10,400 in cash. Hell, they even found items that were recently
reported stolen during a breaking and entering at an excavating company, so
this appears to be a multi-faceted criminal enterprise. Members of the City
Wide Drug Control Unit, along with District B-2 Neighborhood DCU, executed the
search warrants that completed Wilkerson’s downfall, and one would have to
imagine brought and end to his time in the pulpit………
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