The NBA's Phoenix Suns, as sick to death of Arizona's racist illegal immigration law as the rest of us are (and anyone can make a rigged poll), have elected to take matters into their own hands and where a special jersey for tonights NBA Playoff Game against The San Antonio Spurs on Cinco de Mayo.
The jersey reads 'Los Suns' and is an obvious hat-tip to the plight of Phoenix Latino Community, which has to suffer with being singled out as a whole for the actions of a few, not to mention America's obvious love for Hot Irish Waitresses and Swedish Au-Pair Girls with expired VISAs.
Phoenix is a majority-minority city, with 41 percent of its population playing host to the same ethnic minority Arizona's racist illegal immigration law was really designed to target. It's not just a socially responsible act, but good business for the Phoenix Suns to take a stand against a racist law that hurts the people of its community.
Racist. A term that's thrown around a lot, and because some people use it in a weird attempt to stop others from pointing out racism. For example, the idea that a person's racist for recognizing a racist act or action. That's purely stupid, but it's the latest trick used by people who don't want to be forced to be introspective and realize that, even if it wasn't intentional, the act served to reject or cause a person to feel rejected because of the color of their skin, white, black or anything in between. That's racism.
Arizona' immigration law makes brown-skinned people feel rejected.
The Phoenix Suns are taking a grand stand to let Latino's know that they're not being rejected. Bravo. It's a move that shows what private business can do to turn this country in the right direction.
This isn't something that calls for the amount of time that Oakland Local's given to it, but there's someone in Oakland who has this silly idea that Oakland Local's going to "gentrify" the web. The idea is that Oakland Local will take traffic away from his website.
Well, there's one answer: make a better site.
The web is a wide open space. Not that there's room for everyone, but there's a lot of room. If the person who's concerned about losing traffic wants to have more of it, all they have to do is learn Search Engine Optimization.
And if they're concerned about Oakland Local, study how the site is designed and go from there.
But calling Oakland Local a name or saying that it's going to "gentrify" the World Wide Web is just plain silly.
It's funny how race-based thinking can cloud the view of people. In the case of Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square Bomb Suspect, his Pakistani origin and rumored but not confirmed story of going to Pakistan to learn bomb-making are perfect smoke-screens to cause any racist to go hunting for accomplices from Pakistan.
Who Faisal Shahzad really is can be summed up in one sentence: Faisal Shahzad is an unemployed, pissed off husband and father of two kids who's over $200,000 in debt and lost his home.
I realized this while watching CNN's complete account of Faisal Shahzad and feeling sorry for the other Faisal Shahzads who are on Facebook and who's photos were probably used by some overzealous media type looking to identify Faisal "ASAP." This whole thing was summed up when Anderson Cooper reported that Faisal Shahzad was laid off from his job and lost his house. Shahzad owned $200,000 on the home; so he and his family were kicked out of it.
That's the story, folks. It's not some Islamic terrorist group. It's not Osama Bin Laden. It's not even Shake-Your-Money, though Faisal Shahzad wished he had some money to shake. Shahzad wanted to just blow something up because his life was being blown up.
Somewhere along the way the stress of not being able to provide for his family just plain got to him. So, like Joseph Stack, who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS Building after a pattern of economic failures, job losses, and perceived overtaxation, Faisal Shazad just got fed up. He said he expected to be caught. He left a lot of clues. He's not a terrorist. He's a disgruntled American citizen.
So those of you who are frankly getting off on the idea that Faisal Shahzad is a terrorist who "abandoned his house" and is connected to some group are behaving in as psychotic a way as Faisal was before he realized he screwed up. The FBI needs to take off the racist blinders, stop trying to make connections that don't exist, and see the problem that's right in its face.
If Faisal Shazad had a job and was able to maintain his home and provide for his family, there would have been no Times Square bomb to talk about. Eventually, the FBI, you, and the rest of America will wake up and realize that I'm right about this guy.
The Time Square bomber Faisal Shahzad is being cooperative with investigators and is a treasure trove of information as was the trail he left.
There are many questions that of course leave New Yorkers wondering for instance how did he buy a one way ticket in cash and even get on an airplane to Dubai let alone anywhere else. Remember Sept. 11, the 2nd terrorist attack at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan? Apparently the person who took his money did not remember Sept. 11 or to check the no fly list which supposedly his name had been entered on that morning. When someone purchases a one way ticket to Dubai no less it is certainly a red light...yes? It was also reported he had a gun in his car parked in the lot of the airport. How did he purchase that gun?
I am an artist and I consider my life performance art. I am an emotional nudist. I let it all hang out and usually like a stand up comic. Example: When mayor Mike Bloomberg says "progress" he means get the moving van! When I read The New York Times front page article on the trail Faisal Shahzad left, I could not help feeling alarmed as in "TMI"...TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!!! I am glad the powers that be held back just a little but does the press really need access to almost all inside information to share with us and the terrorists reading these articles?
In the meantime New York City apparently is the hot spot for terror attacks and wannabe terrorists eager to make a name for themselves like a serial killers on a bigger scale but we, NYC, can't seem to get the support of The White House for the Federal funding that we have more than proven with how many thousands of people mass murdered, destruction of Lower Manhattan yet to be rebuilt and I will leave out the economy because here in NYC, I blame that collapse of our economy on the greed, stupidity and arrogance of Wall Street and the mayor's reckless equally arrogant, greedy, reckless tsunami of community crushing development along with some of the greediest, arrogant self serving politicians that are suppose to be representing the people of New York rather than their self serving agendas and egos.
One example currently in play is the fact Albany has still not balanced the budget which was suppose to be done April 1. The accusations that Pedro Espada has stolen $14 million dollars of tax payer money, and the successfully prosecution of one city council member Miguel Martinez, Larry Seabrook's senior staff and Kendall Stewar's for stealing tax payer and on going investigation in to some city council members that I am praying will bring high profile arrests at City Hall. I can't blame the terrorist for the bad economy -- that is self-inflicted.
The Time Square bomber is singing and that is good but The White House has to wake up and give NYC, the number one hot spot, the support we need.
Miley Cyrus' Can't Be Tamed video is out and this blogger likes it. Frankly, this is a new sound for Miley Cyrus and when an artists takes a new direction it's always at considerable risk. This corner didn't think she could pull it off.
So wrong. So very wrong.
Can't Be Tamed isn't a new or daring sound and it's very much like Britney Spears' works of the mid first decade of the 21st Century. But the sound is new for Miley and the lyrics sound more like a proclamation of adulthood for the teen pop star.
Plus, Can't Be Tamed is ripe for remixing by D.J.s. Just wait a view days and watch for the variations to pop up around the Internet and then in night clubs around the World.
If Miley Cyrus is true to the song, she plans to go through guys like money through her hands. If I didn't know better, I'd swear Cyrus commissioned Paris Hilton and Britney Spears - who went through their own wild period, to write Can't Be Tamed.
Can't Be Tamed: a new direction, and a new hit for Cyrus. Ryan Seacrest interviewed Cyrus; we'll look at that soon.
In 1969, on a dare, Morganna Roberts jumped over a fence and went out to plant a kiss on the mouth of then-Cincinnati Reds Third Baseman Pete Rose.
Morganna, then dubbed "Morganna The Kissing Bandit," continued to jump onto Major League Baseball fields and kiss unsuspecting baseball players.
Morganna The Kissing Bandit was never tasered or tackled and went on to fame, starring in shows like To Tell The Truth in 1978:
In that contest, I can't see the logic in law enforcement officials tasering a 17-year-old boy. I listened to the really ridiculous argument offered by ESPN's Skip Bayless this morning and howled. Bayless went on a rant about how "this 17-year-old boy" could have been a dangerous person and about how there are rules that must be followed. Bayless bellowed that he was happy the boy was hit with a taser; I'd love to see Bayless support that idea if it happened to him.
This is the scene at the Phillies game:
Bayless would not have supported the tasing of Morganna The Kissing Bandit, and if he did there would have to be something wrong with him. The horrible bottom line is law enforcement all too often saves its most violent reactions for men. It's as if because the person's 17 and a boy it's OK to harm him. It's not OK. It's wrong.
Using the "Morganna The Kissing Bandit" test, I argue the action was excessive force done by a member of a society, ours, that's become neurotic at a level that can only be called psychotic.
Suppose that kid has a heart condition? The taser could have triggered a heart attack leading to an on-the-field death. The action was a pure example of aggression and stupidity. What to do? Well, catch him. It's not his fault the security people are out of shape. A little running around's good for them.
But a taser was not the answer. They wouldn't do it to Morganna The Kissing Bandit so they should not do it to him.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (AMPAS) is celebrating the great career of Ray Harryhausen.
Ray's a legendary special effects pioneer known for creating and advancing the technique of "stop-motion" live-action animation called "Dynamation" and used in It Came from beneath the Sea (1955), Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960), One Million Years B.C. (1966) and the original Clash of the Titans (1981).
AMPAS summer exhibition "The Fantastical Worlds of Ray Harryhausen," is opening to the public on Friday, May 14, 10 a.m. in the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Admission is free.
Additionally, the Gallery will have "Chuck Jones: An Animator’s Life From A to Z-Z-Z-Z."
The exhibition will feature iconic characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Pepe Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote and many others that were created or developed by Oscar-winning animator and humorist Chuck Jones (1912 - 2002).
The battle between Waste Management and Recology for garbage supremacy in San Francisco has an interesting twist. To recap, Houston-based Waste Management has owned the contractual right to collect San Francisco's waste and dump it in a place called the Altamont Landfill, which is located in Livermore, California. NorCal Waste, now called "Recology,' has been the company that collects garbage in San Francisco, then hands it over to Waste Management for storage in Livermore.
But Recology wanted to have the piece of the business Waste Management held for years. To that end, the upstart San Francisco-based firm submitted a bid for the contract this year, and to the San Francisco Commission on the Environment, and to the surprise of many, beat Waste Management. So it's all over, and Recology gets to work, right. No.
Both Recology and the San Francisco Commission on the Environment unknowningly swatted a giant bat at a hornet's nest of interlocking interests connecting Waste Management, The Sierra Club, and The City of Livermore. It works like this, basically: Waste Management is paid to dump at the Livermore Altamont Landfill; the City of Livermore and The Sierra Club, which helped set up a land-protection and garbage cap agreement 11 years ago, get millions of dollars from the dumping activity.
Because Recology wants to take the garbage to another location and not Altamont Pass, Livermore, The Sierra Club, and Waste Management have all cried foul and asserted that the more expensive Waste Management proposal used more state of the art trucks, among the other claims. But the real issue is all three entities would stand to lose millions.
But if that's the case, and it is, why in 1999 did Livermore fight against the very same Altamont Pass waste dump that it now is trying to defend? That's right, defend. This letter below (sent to this blogger by an activist who did not wish to be named) is from Livermore's Mayor Marsnall Kamena.
The letter brags about Livermore's roll as "host community to more than one landfill." And it outlines a number of reasons why Recology should not have the dumping contract. But it does not mention that for Livermore, it's a revenue issue, and it does not explain that Livermore itself doesn't even use the same dump it's advocating that San Francisco use.
What's strange is that in 1999, the City of Livermore fought vigorously to control the size and level of dumping at Altamont Pass. The Sierra Club was a party in a lawsuit to block expansion of use of the site, but the Sierra Club carved a nice revenue source for itself in the process. The Altamont Landfill Open Space Fund has earned over $10 million since 1999. That money is based on a charge of 75 cents per ton. If San Francisco's waste goes way, the fund revenue is reduced.
But the point is, San Francisco's waste going elsewhere would seem to be what the City of Livermore wants. After all, even Livermore dumps its own trash somewhere else.
That's right. According to the City of Livermore's website, it uses the Republic Services Landfill, and not the Altamont Pass.
so what's this Waste Management v. Recology in SF tussle all about: money. All of the Waste Management and Sierra Clubs parties are concerned about losing money, and not saving the environment, especially The City of Livermore.
This blogger has flown on United Airlines since the age of four. For four decades of my life United Airlines has carefully crafted a brand identity that can be called "American-hip." United Airlines planes always had some variation of the colors red, white, and blue. But with the merger with Continental Airlines, United Airlines killed that brand and replaced it with the Continental brand - one that reads boringly efficient.
United's brand was marked by the creation of the famous "From here to there U" logo that came to dominate aviation and gave the "Friendly Skies" an unmistakably futuristic yet warm look and feel. In one literal fell-swoop Bass transformed United from also-ran to trend-setter. Suddenly, United was cool and my Mother, who was an excellent reservation sales agent, and her friends were at the center of a really American, hip corporation.
Meanwhile, Continental Airlines was, well, Continental Airlines. It had and has a design that says nothing about the company as providing an experience you want to be a part of. It's brand says "We will get you from points A to B." It also said "We're not the biggest, the best, or the hippest. We're just here."
That's it.
...Killed for this?
Regardless of the reasons, that United Airlines elected to kill its brand and slap its name on the Continental Airlines brand is upsetting. It sends a signal that while United Airlines may have merged with Continental, Continental, not United, got the better of the deal.
United Airlines as I knew it is dead. An American Icon killed by corporate efficiency in the credit crunch age.
Saul Bass must be boiling in Heaven to see his glorious creation that's lasted since 1974 replaced by a stick-figure sideways globe that reads "We will get you from points A to B and bore you to death in the process."
While Conan's joking about the 60 Minutes interview on Twitter...
Hey kids, check me out on '60 Minutes' tonight. Watch for the part of the interview where I start crying and admit to mail fraud.
8:02 AM May 2nd via web
And CBS enjoyed a ratings bounce from Conan's interview, drawing enough viewers to come close to competitor Celebrity Apprenticeaccording to Deadline.com..
NBC is not laughing at all.
According to TMZ, which broke the story at 1 AM Tuesday, this is what went down:
Network sources tell TMZ Conan was flat out wrong when he said NBC gave him the axe rather than Leno because Jay's buyout would have been bigger. Sources say the buyouts for Conan and Jay were roughly the same. TMZ broke the story Conan took home $32.5 million from his severance package with NBC.
And our network sources say Coco was just plain lying in response to Steve Kroft's question:
Kroft: "They said that the -- for the first time in history, 'The Tonight Show' was losing money."
Conan: "I don't see how that's, I honestly don't see how that's possible. It's really not possible. It isn't possible."
Then one TMZ source claimed Conan O'Brien knew that was the case, so NBC's calling Conan a liar!
If you missed the Conan O'Brien CBS 60 Minutes interview, here it is in full (the statement in question appears in Part II):
In hindsight, while Conan O'Brien may think his interview was cathartic, an angry NBC may take another look at his contract clause about defamation and cry foul. Still, it would be a scare tactic. The Insider showed how such agreements can be thwarted without sound legal recourse.
In the "Well, that was fast" department we have the arrest of alleged Times Square car bomb suspect Shahzad Faisal, who's causing a lot of problems for all of the guys nameed "Shahzad Faisal" on Facebook and his 115 friends.
When one Googles "Shahzad Faisal," there's one Facebook profile page that pops up, but if you search for the name a lot of Shahzad Faisal's come up. You've got to feel story for all of the other Shahzad's out there who have the burden of saying "It's not me."
We know. It's one guy. A man who reportedly lives in Connecticut and who NY Police claim purchased the Nissan Pathfinder with cash and filled out no paperwork.
That SUV was armed with a kind of make shift bomb that failed to work. Interestingly it led an Islamic Terrorist group to claim responsibility for ..it's failure.
Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, if you're Shahzad Faisal and on Facebook, put a disclaimer somewhere on your profile. One that reads "It's not me!"
Yeardley Love is an unusual name, even on Facebook where she had over 1,000 friends. But now the name Yeardley Love is known for the UVA Lacrosse player death allegedly by George Huguely. The shocking news has the Virginia college student community facing yet more national attention for another student crime. The last time America focused on Virginia in this way was during the The Virginia Tech massacre of 2007.
But this crime is between two people: Yeardley Love and George Huguely, both 22 years old.
George Huguely on paper would seem to be the perfect young man to be a woman's boyfriend or a star of a college athletic program: All-American and starting quaterback at Landon School and an honor roll student before he came to The University of Virginia. But according to Charlottesville Police Yeardley Love and George Huguely at one point has a romantic relationship and something led them to believe George killed Yeardley Love.
Mainstream media articles all tell the same story as above and Virginia blogs are largely unhelpful in providing more clues as of this writing. Morever, the accounts - like the one in the Washington Post - are largely obits on the accomplishments of Huguely and Love, who was a star student at Notre Dame Prep in Baltimore.
But the bottom line is someone killed Yeardley Love is her home; maybe it was George and maybe not. Someone knows.
