Monday, June 05, 2017

Hollow GNR promises, biased unbiased people in Yemen and too many athlete DWIs


- There’s nothing worse than a biased neutral party. Know who understands that very well? Yemen's Shiite rebels and their allies, who have boldly rejected the U.N. special envoy to the country as a peace negotiator, calling him biased because….in their minds, envoy Ismail Ould Sheikh is "not desirable" for resolving the country's conflict. Sheikh got slammed in very public fashion, as his putdown came in a speech televised on rebel television as the leader of a pro-rebel political council in Yemen's fractious war ripped him and said that the United Nations should know he is "is not wanted after today." Saleh al-Samad spoke on behalf of the rebels, known as Houthis, and they later backed his stand in a statement. The country has been neck-deep in a brutal, bloody civil war since September 2014, when the rebels swept into the capital of Sanaa and overthrew the internationally recognized government. The conflict even got Hollywood-ized with scenes fictionally set in Yemen for much of the short run of the limited-event return of Fox’s drama “Prison Break,” but this battle is very much real and a Saudi-led, U.S.-backed coalition opposes the Iran-backed rebel, who still control the capital and much of the north. All efforts at peace have fallen flat in a hurry and this is merely the latest swing and miss by those trying to bring the war to an end and restore order to a country in chaos…….


- Dear Roger Lewis: Know this, sir, you are no Tiger Woods. Hell, you’re not even Derek Fisher. In other words, stop getting behind the wheel impaired because some former undrafted free agent receiver, a fourth or fifth option for Eli Manning and the perennially underachieving New York Giants has less than zero right to put lives in danger because he can't figure how to use the Uber app on his phone. Lewis became the latest current or former professional athlete/coach to get himself arrested and charged with operating a vehicle while impaired, getting picked up early in the morning by Reynoldsburg, Ohio, police. After the Giants had an OTA on Friday, Lewis headed home to the Columbus suburb for the weekend and clearly it didn’t take him long to run into some sort of drugs or alcohol because he ended up in the back of a squad car within 24 hours. The good news is that this at least isn't the same type of violent crime with which he was charged in high school, when he was accused of two counts of rape, though a jury acquitted him on one count but deadlocked on the other. He eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for falsification and served three years on probation, which coincidentally ended last September. If your record is finally cleared, why not muddy it up again by getting liquored or drugged up and getting behind the wheel. Oh, and it’s not as if Lewis’ rep is sterling; he was one of the four players on the Giants' infamous Miami boat trip made known far and wide by Odell Beckham’s Instagram account. Lewis is the third athlete or former athlete with a DWI in the past two weeks and clearly, he doesn’t have the resume of the other two. Simply put, back away from the ignition and go away, Rog……..


- Everyone wants the cool parent. Johnny Eden has one and because of her, he received a prom that borders on insane but probably lands somewhere in the vicinity of excessively extravagant. His mother, Saudia Shuler, is a badass lady who fought cancer and suffered from a stroke in the past few years and along the way, made herself a unqiue promise. Shuler told herself that if she made it through physical ailmements that kill some people, she would throw a massive prom for her son. Eden, who is probably simply happy that he still has his mother alive and well, got the night of his life, as Shuler spent $25,000 on a camel, three tons of sand and exotic cars. Not only that, her son got to have himself a threesome - of prom dates, that is. He brought three dates, all in custom-made gowns, and wore three different outfits himself, which sounds excessive until you learn that Shuler originally thought about sending her son to the wonderland of excess that is Dubai. But in lieu of a trip to the United Arab Emirates, she brought Dubai to Philadelphia for the night, mixing in luxury cars, including a Rolls Royce and a Lamborghini, that were on loan for the evening. It was a memorable evening for all involved, but it’s going to be awfully difficult to top for future special events in Eden’s life………


- Pencil it in, metal fans. In a decade, you’ll get the next wildly disappointing album from Axl Rose and friends. So says guitarist Richard Fortus, who claims Guns N’ Roses are planning a new album. You might remember that last time fans were promised a new GNR alubm, they waited a freaking decade for 2008’s infamously delayed ‘Chinese Democracy,” which ended up being less of an actual GNR album and more of an “Axl Rose and whoever the hell he can find to stomach his massive ego long enough to record a sh*tty album that sounds ridiculous and nothing like Guns N’ Roses.” Yet the metal men reunited with original members Slash and Duff McKagan for the first time in two decades last year and since they haven’t released an album since “Chinese Democracy,” it’s apparently time to start work on a new one. Fortus has been a member of the band since 2002, but Slash and McKagan haven’t featured on a GNR record since 1993’s ‘The Spaghetti Incident?’ “We haven’t started recording anything, when I say that, as far as in the studio doing an album,” Fortus said. “We’ve been recording a lot of stuff, just ideas, assembling ideas, but not going into a studio and actually tracking a new record. It’s sort of too good not to happen at this point, that’s how I feel about it. This band is really a force right now, and I definitely hope that we do, and I think we’re all sort of counting on it, and we’re also planning on it.” Fortus salted Rose’s songwriting skills and oddly enough, those have rarely been questioned by anyone. Rose’s personality, decency, reliability, physical fitness and dedication to not being a colossal asshole, on the other hand, are frequently in serious, serious doubt…….

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