Hey Roachman Look Who May Be My New Neighbor

http://www.sbnation.com/2010/6/18/1524515/jamarcus-russell-ufl-omaha-nighthawks

As recently as May 11, we've heard reports that teams have called about JaMarcus Russell. Well, either they're not interested anymore or his agent planted those stories because a new report emerged Friday morning that JaMarcus Russell is talking to one team.

The Omaha Nighthawks, according to Pro Football Talk.

A source with knowledge of the situation tells us that the expansion Omaha Nighthawks could be signing Russell, who would team up with running back Ahman Green in the team's backfield.

There's still a long way to go before Russell would actually join the team, the internal discussions have begun, and they will continue.

Talk about a fall.

Russell's business with the NFL isn't completely over as the Raiders are reportedly trying to recover almost $10 million of his bonus money.

One more reason I won't vore Republican

For all the talk about the GOP being a big tent party that welcomes all, that they aren't a bunch of aging, old white guys using tricks that play like they came right out of Nixon's Southern Strategy, ads like the one run by Dale Peterson, all point to the contrary.



Now, towards the end of the ad, Mr. Perterson catches a man with dirty clothing, wearing a worn-out cap, and dark skinned, and promptly does what any good southerner would do: scare the guy off by firing his gun!

Do I even need to pint out what Peterson was inadvertently saying during that last part?

Hissy Fits and Political Correctness

OK...so, in the days since Obama's Oval Office Speech on the oil spill, I've read some real vitriol at places like Democratic Underground and DailyKos - where I follow topics but, on the whole, don't post - directed toward MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, in particular, for saying in their analysis afterward that the speech was underwhelming compared to (a) the opportunity it afforded to outline a forward-thinking, bold vision and (b) the level of inspired rhetoric we came to expect from Obama thanks to the campaign he conducted.

Today, Olbermann responded on DKos, where he has been an occasional but prominent participant, by effectively checking out of the site until the tone of unequivocal-endorsement-or-else changes, and in particular calling out one of those upset with his criticisms for posting unverified rumors (to wit, that MSNBC brass told him to be critical for the sake of ratings) and impugning his integrity.

Full disclosure: I didn't watch either Olbermann's or Maddow's post-speech analysis. Other things were on the table that evening...and, to be frank, I found the speech itself to be rather lackluster, and who can summon up a whole lot of interest in analyzing the mundane?

But I do find stunning the level of anger and semi-childish "You're not my friend any more!" kind of behavior that has been the blogospheric fallout from all of this. It makes me worry that the tolerance and latitude more typically personified by the Left have been usurped by the lockstep, my-way-or-the-highway mindset of the trolls and freepers we cope with daily. We have seen the enemy and they is us, so to speak. We caught their disease.

What do you think? Has the progressive side of the political spectrum lost its taste for open dialogue and maintaining high, tough benchmarks for our standard-bearers in office? Are we in the grip of the very "never-criticize-your-own" mindset that we used to take the wingnuts to task for? Or is this just the output of a handful purporting to speak for the many?

I hope it's the latter. I think society is better served when the citizens maintain demanding expectations for all their elected officials, of whatever party and whomever is doing the constructive criticizing. It seems to me from the available info that such useful critique is what Maddow and Olbermann both were engaged in, rather than some kind of pointless and disrespectful teardown; and that effort seems to me necessary, valuable and right. They were completely fair. It wasn't a speech redolent with the kind of vision that the moment allowed for. It was measured, quiet, and honestly kind of banal. For my money, it was also a speech that should have been given AFTER the big meeting with BP execs, so that it could have included items like the announcement of the $20B compensation fund. The WH lost an opportunity by telegraphing the trajectory and letting BP talk about the outcome, instead of talking with them first and then taking the credit for the results, in the course of the speech.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts. We always knew that whatever approach Obama's speech took toward this disaster, it would be panned by Faux News, so we can omit consideration of that angle entirely. And it's fun to see the wingnut base eat their own...less fun to see the same appetite apparently rising on what is otherwise the sane side of the corral.

Congratulations LA :Lakers.

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Laktards on running their record to 3-9 Against Boston all time. Sure you needed Boston to be at less than full speed and an officiating crew to give you 20 more free throws to do it. But you get it done. beat Boston 6 more times in a row and your franchise will be as good as theirs.

Anyway congratulations LA you deserve it. What counts is the score board. Yeah I thought Boston got fucked hard with the calls and yes I think Boston wins with a full line up but what was the excuse for that egg Tuesday? Either way I am damn proud of this team.

One Last thought. I give this series a B-. Yeah it went 7 games but rarely was it really well played. Tonight wasn't a great basketball game. This had nothing on the 84 series or even the 85 or 87 series LA won in 6. I guess looking at impartially if I could it's better than the 08 series because that was not a close series really 87 wasn't either LA won 3 of their 4 games pretty easily.

Obviously This Family Believes In Honoring Thy Father

Man killed for wanting to watch World Cup

JOHANNESBURG -- Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match instead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family in the northeastern part of the country.

David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province, fought with his wife and two children for the remote control on Sunday because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show.

"He said, 'No, I want to watch soccer,'" police spokesman Mothemane Malefo said Thursday. "That is when the argument came about.

"In that argument, they started assaulting him."

Malefo said Makoeya got up to change the channel by hand after being refused the remote control and was attacked by his 68-year-old wife Francina and two children, 36-year-old son Collin and 23-year-old daughter Lebogang.

Malefo said he was not sure what the family used to kill Makoeya.

"It appears they banged his head against the wall," Malefo said. "They phoned the police only after he was badly injured, but by the time the police arrived the man was already dead."

All three were arrested Sunday night, but Lebogang was released on $200 bail Tuesday, Malefo said. The other two are still being held in custody.

Malefo said the mother and son will reappear in the local Seshego Magistrates Court on July 27.

"He was always a happy man, never violent," Makoeya's nieces, Miriam and Anna, told the Daily Sun newspaper. "On Saturday, we saw him the last time at a funeral."

The World Cup, being played in Africa for the first time, started Friday and runs through July 11.

Mr. Misogyny Is Baaaack

No, that’s not a character from Cats – it’s our reality-challenged friend who frequents the “Love-Shy” discussion board and is often C&P’d to Fundies Say The Darndest Things. I dropped in over there this evening (Jeremiah’s been so quiet!) and had to share this amusing rant. If you don’t mind, I’ll deconstruct as I go. (And do take a look at some of the comments at FSTDT. Priceless.)

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[An answer to the question, "what exactly is wrong with being a slut?"] 


Well, sluts are bad for men, women, and children. Did I miss anything? Oh yes, sluts destroy civilization.

There you go! A behavior that is not only universally evil and with us from the beginnings of society, but is still destroying civilization. Must not be doing a very good job of that last, if it’s taken them so many centuries and yet nations, buildings and even men, women and children still stand.



Sluts are bad for men because they only have sex with the "top" men. Most men have much less sex in a slut culture than in a monogamous culture where every man gets a woman.

Oh, yes, how splendid it would be to live in the kind of society where you could stop in at the Monogamy*Mart and pick up your ration of Woman. Talk about your sense of entitlement! News flash: a woman is a human being, not a commodity to which anybody is intrinsically entitled, or which everyone of the opposite gender automatically “gets.”

In a slut culture, men are trained to behave in whatever way attracts women. Sluts are attracted to jerks, so men are trained to be jerks. So the quality of men declines in a slut culture.

But, I thought sluts were only attracted to the “top” men. Does that mean these “top” men are also, by definition, jerks? This guy wants to have it both ways. Women aren’t interested in him, so he has to rationalize that either it’s because they’re only drawn to people more successful – whatever his definition of success might be – than he is, or to people that are jerks. It couldn’t be any of his own fault: no, it must be all those sluts out there.



In a slut culture, men constantly hit on women. This causes women to become hostile, rude, and obnoxious. Because men are desperate and will take anything, women lose any motivation to care about their appearance. So sluts become ugly hostile creatures.

Here’s my guess: in line with his views on the culture, this poster began to “constantly hit on women” with the line that he was “desperate and will take anything.” I doubt he can see how not-endearing an approach that would be. It is also very possible that he is misinterpreting as hostility, rudeness and obnoxiousness the fact that women have been telling him to buzz off. Why on earth might they do that? I mean, he’s desperate and will take anything!

 (Also, did you notice the moment in there where he slipped up and equated "women" with "sluts" without qualification? See a pattern emerging?)

As sluts age, they lose their ability to attract the "top" men, but still reject all other men. So they become spinsters. So now, not only are they ugly and hostile, but they are also miserable.

Translation: I can’t even get anybody on the rebound or on the far side of the speed-dating age to notice me. They must feel really miserable about this.



In a slut culture, illegitimacy rates go way up. Children are raised without fathers. This usually makes for a less happy childhood. So children are less happy in a slut culture.

Well, I personally believe in the nuclear family as an ideal, but not in this kind of blind, doctrinaire way. Children can be happy or unhappy in any flavor of family situation, depending on the family dynamics and, especially, on how they are nurtured in early childhood. This goes for whether you’re a single parent, in a traditional heterosexual marriage, or in a gay or lesbian partnership. Loving the child is what matters, period. The nature of the presence or absence of one or the other parent? Not so much. And I don’t think the children matter to this guy, anyway. Hop back a few points and you’ll see him saying that his imaginary “slut culture” is bad because it reduces the amount of sex that men – especially men like himself – are (or aren’t) getting. It’s pretty clear where his priorities are, and he's not focused on the kids.



In the book "Sex and Culture", Unwin showed that civilization depends on female chastity and that a civilized culture cannot survive more than three generations of sluts without collapsing. We can see this process before our eyes.

Ooh, let’s sound all scholarly by throwing in a gratuitous reference to something published and then purporting to quote what it says. I haven’t read this text myself, but I feel fairly safe in saying that it probably says nothing remotely close to this. Among other things, there are no many non-sequiturs in the claim that “civilization depends on female chastity,” I can hardly read that line without giggling. And we’re also officially full circle to the opening of this post, where I observed that centuries, let alone three generations, haven’t made a dent in the ability of some women to behave in a trashy way, nor have they yet resulted in the collapse of civilization as we know it. 


Any more questions?

A few, actually, buddy, and I’ll pose them to you directly even though I doubt you'll ever stop by this blog. The first one is…is your self-esteem really so abysmal that you have to blame everything that is wrong with civilization on a fantasy sociology you’ve built up from being turned down so consistently? Because it sure seems like you’re trying to assign responsibility for your own issues to big, zeitgeist-style movements that are conspiring to keep you from your rightful, guaranteed place in the world. Grow up and take ownership of your own life, successes and failures alike. Whining isn’t becoming, in or to anybody.

Second…as Sherlock Holmes said, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth. You’ve gone to great lengths to blame your poor appeal to women on anything and everything other than yourself – even extending that blame to a culture that somehow synergistically affects how all men, women and children on the planet behave. That’s one hell of a lot of projection, and it’s a house of cards that just doesn’t stand up. So, we have to eliminate it. And that leaves us with an inescapable conclusion. The problem? Is YOU. Not other men, women and children; not big societal tides of behavior and attitudes. People don’t like YOU.

Can we see why that might be? Well, gee. You seem to think you have some kind of innate right to a woman’s affection and attention, for starters. Do you think that kind of arrogance is attractive? You sound like you think a relationship is a guaranteed given. Like a cookie at kindergarten snack time, everybody gets one. WRONG.

You claim that this culture you posit causes men to behave in ways that simultaneously (a) make them jerks, (b) make them attractive to women and (c) cause them to constantly hit on women. Those would seem to be at odds. I am a woman, and I don’t know of any women, including myself, who find the experience of jerks or pests constantly “hitting on” me as remotely pleasant. Quit blaming your competition, pal, and turn your lens on yourself. If you’re not being noticed, it’s for other reasons than the way other men are behaving. It’s probably about your own misogynistic stances.

A final word of advice to our disturbed poster: think about the way you are thinking about women. You’re categorizing us into tidy boxes that line up with your world-view of victimization. When we reject you, it’s because WE are either “sluts” or “miserable” or “ugly and hostile” or “spinsters” or, I imagine, any number of other things.

How would you feel if I put you in boxes labeled “loser” or “predator” or “creep” or “fat-ass bastard” or whatever other pejoratives I could dream up? (Not to say that I'm not doing that...but, then, I'm not looking to proactively draw your attention in a positive way, am I?)

You need to quit labeling women as categories and start looking upon them as people not unlike yourself – imperfect, awkward, and hopefully with some redeeming qualities. I have yet to see any from you, I admit…and I likewise suspect that women you have approached have the same problem. Quit blaming the cosmos for your woes, find your best foot, and put it the hell forward. Nobody likes a narcissistic victim, and that's what your every post seems to show you to be.

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All the above is not to trivialize anyone's emotional life. It is replete with ups and downs, the ecstatic and the devastating, and we all experience both. But to see this fellow consistently appear on FSTDT bemoaning how unappreciated he is, while demonstrating with every post how much he has clearly invited and reinforced his own position...I'm sorry. That's funny.

Again It's The Truth

How cool is this?

The 'Touchdown Jesus' sculpture at the Solid Rock Church in Cincinnati, Ohio is no more. Apparently, lightning struck the sculpture of the Lord and Savior raising his hands to the Heavens, and promptly caught ablaze.

MONROE - Monroe fire officials set damage at $700,000 after lighting struck and burned down a 62-foot-high Jesus Christ statue and an adjacent amphitheater at Solid Rock Church late Monday.

Police are now ticketing motorists that are slowing down on I-75 to look at the landmark, one whose construction was nearly as controversial as its destruction.

Church leaders are vowing to rebuild the iconic "King of Kings" statue - also dubbed "Touchdown Jesus" - which alone was valued at $300,000.

Monroe Fire Capt. Richard Mascarella said the other $400,000 in damage was to the amphitheater when flames from the sculpture spread to the back wall and roof.

“The heat coming off the statue singed the entire back wall of the amphitheater and burned through it,” Mascarella said. “Portions of the roof are destroyed, so they will have to replace a large part of it.”

Here's the video:

It's Going To A Game 7.

LA Rolls Tonight.

Game 7 at LA.
They Have Popes Phil and Kobe who are 9 million and 0 when winning game 1 in a series.
Boston is beat up a little.
Really it's over. No excuse for LA not winning this. Series over really Boston has not shot. No really. Yep no shot for Boston.

Best. Awards. Program. Ever.

OK, Count – I know this isn’t the kind of thing that usually appears here – but part of my mission, on behalf of any closeted “Gleeks” amongst us, is to counterbalance the sports just a teensy bit. So, here is my take on….

Ten Reasons the Tony Awards Have It All Over Any Other
Entertainment Awards Show

(1) It’s Broadway. Before recording or film or television were born, all the world was a stage. Other entertainment awards all refer back here. Films are made about people with theatre ambitions, sometimes achieved by putting on a show in the barn. Record labels release cast albums. As for television – hello, Glee? Broadway is the hub of the entertainment wheel: everything else is a spoke.

(2) It’s a live event celebrating live events. Stage performers don’t get second and fifth and 23rd takes. It’s now or never. They don’t get things “fixed in Post.” They don’t get equalization filters and audio sweetening on their recordings. On stage it’s all there as it comes, and it has a level of reality and immediacy that other media, and other awards programs, can’t match.

(3) Real production numbers. Nobody knows how to mount a memorable performance like a Broadway stage does. How many of those lame medleys from Oscar or Emmy broadcasts linger in your memory in the same way as the rumble between the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story, or the dream ballet in Oklahoma, or the pre-intermission finale of Les Mis, or the “Circle of Life” number in The Lion King? No, those other awards programs are to the Tonys as karaoke is to, well, Broadway.

(4) Less politicking. I’ve worked on the tech side of the film industry. I know about the lobbying campaigns; the self-congratulatory ads that everyone is obliged to place in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety and Film Journal; the well-catered open screenings of obscure documentaries and the multiple "For Your Consideration" freebie DVDs sent to the voting members. The Tonys wear all that on their sleeves, not in their swag bags. Yes, they tout their nominations, but they don’t run it like bitter election rivals intent on out-bribing each other. There’s an artistic integrity that is unique to the Tonys that makes all the other awards shows look just a little cheap and tawdry and greed-driven by comparison.

(5) Serious drama. The Best Picture award at the Oscars, for instance, is just a popularity contest compared to the Best Play award at the Tonys. Oscar voters are thinking box-office return as much as they are anything else. Tony voters are looking at substance, at staying power, at lasting value. There’s a reason this year’s award went to Red, an in-depth exploration, through the personae of artist Mark Rothko and his young assistant, of the power of art to sustain the human psyche. That may not pack them into the Cineplex on a June weekend, but it does resonate with the theatre-minded Tony type.

(6) People who do their own stuff. You can fake it in film or TV. Just ask Marni Nixon. Ever hear of her? She was the singing voice for Gertrude Lawrence in The King and I, Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, AND for Peggy Wood (the Mother Abbess) in The Sound of Music…where, thankfully, she also had a rare on-screen role as one of the nuns. Milli Vanilli didn’t invent this kind of sham performing. And how many guest artists on Saturday Night Live (note the prominence of the word "Live" in that show's own title...) have you seen lip-syncing? Or at any other awards program? Not the Tonys. It’s real. Heck, the microphone glitches prove it.

(7) Real valuing/honoring of long-term reputation. Yes, at the awards programs that depend on a lens, you can see the obligatory standing ovations. But there’s a hesitance. A wince. A restless sense of “who cares about this boring oldster any more? Bring on the Jonah Hill.” Not at the Tonys. Angela Lansbury isn’t seen or received as a reluctantly-acknowledged dinosaur, but as a national treasure, and an elder with wisdom to impart. The Tonys have a sense of tradition that greener awards shows can’t hope to equal. They value their elder statesmen/women in a more genuine way.

(8) No dependence on a Host from Without. Look who’s hosted Oscar in most of our recent lifetimes: comedians with little film connection. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but still on the whole not from deep roots in the community. Emmy hosts have fared rather better, at least coming from within their own industry. But, still, really. In 2008, Emmy hosting was shared amongst Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel, Jeff Probst, and Ryan Seacrest. How BOTB – Bottom Of The Barrel – is that? Ahhh, but the Tonys! Hugh Jackman. Bernadette Peters. Gregory Hines. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Anthony Hopkins and Liza Minnelli, for crying out loud! Which starting lineup would you prefer? Tony wins it, hands-down.

(9) Genuine glamour. Oh, yeah, talk all you like about the red carpet at the Oscars or Emmys or Grammys, and dish on who-wore-what. You won’t find the likes of the cast of High School Musical or other manufactured celebrities on the runway at the Tonys. Notoriety alone isn't a ticket to the front of the line; and, when it means you get the likes of Helen Mirren rather than Justin Bieber? That's a good thing.

Finally,

(10) Real entertainment value. Yes, you might get a few laughs from the hosts of those other shows….but probably not more than you would get from them on any given night on Comedy Central. And you might ooh and ahh at a contrived production number…and then forget it three minutes later. But what you see at the Tonys stays with you. Look….I wasn’t impressed by Fela! I found it contrived, didn’t see it as a sustainable concept for an entire theatrical evening, and couldn’t imagine sitting in a theatre through a night like that. But what I saw from them last night? Is still on replay inside my head. It made an impact.

At the end of the day, Banned and Dangerous aficionados, I have to proclaim that nothing is as entertaining as live theatre or as an awards program that honors live theatre. In a word – That’s Entertainment!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

The Big 12 Is A Live!

Dan Beebe put together a deal that saved the remaining 10 schools for the Big XII. Supposedly the deal was put together with Rupert Murdoch money. Here is the deal. Texas runs the show. They get everything they wanted and more. The other 9 schools including Oklahoma which, OBTW has better football tradition than Texas are all Texas' bitch. Congratulations to the other 9 schools. You are going to have a BCS school to call home. Bad news when Texas says jump you jump. And OBTW when it's time for Texas to dump your ass you will be gone.