. . . we were told at a Regional Rally there are absolutely no Blonde jokes to be told around the coffee what so ever. It will be a written offense if so. This came right from the RD's mouth to about 100 SM's so communicate back to our stores at our own meetings.
It's like the time they told us we could not refer to Via as instant it must be called micro ground but then wrote instant on the packaging...great idea!-- Comment from the Starbucks Gossip blog
One, you hate Joe Six-Pack just as much as the GOP pols, basically. You'll go to the wall for the eugenicist swells of Planned Parenthood in ways you'd never consider going to the wall on behalf of -- for lack of a better word -- the proletariat.
An offbeat exchange between LSU football coach Les Miles and a retired Advocate reporter led to some awkward moments Monday at Miles’ weekly news conference.
Near the end of Miles’ question and answer session, former Advocate sportswriter Ted Castillo asked Miles about being interviewed by ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews.
“What is it like to be, and you can take the Fifth (Amendment) on this, but what is it like to be interviewed by a sweet, young thing like Erin Andrews?” Castillo asked.
Miles responded by saying: “If they had given that job to some old, big, ugly man, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. But what a joy it is to represent LSU in the postgame with victory and to celebrate victory in a postgame interview with a very talented, very attractive woman.”
Andrews was the subject of a celebrated invasion of privacy incident in 2009 when she was secretly videotaped in the nude through peepholes in her hotel room. Michael David Barrett pled guilty to interstate stalking and admitted he shot videos of Andrews on at least two occasions.
Barrett was sentenced in March to 27 months in prison.
The case became the subject of a follow-up statement by Castillo.
“You know they nabbed the guy who was filming her through the keyhole,” Castillo said to Miles.
“I’m not going to go there, Ted,” Miles replied.
“What I’d like to know is how that guy pulled that off,” Castillo continued, “because I’ve been peeping through keyholes for years and I’ve yet to see anything but a blank wall.”
Miles responded: “Ted, damn if I’m not impressed with your candor. I’m with ya,” before moving on to a question on a football-related topic by WBRZ sports director Michael Cauble.
Castillo, 86, worked for The Advocate from 1948-91 and for several years after that wrote stories for the newspaper as a freelance writer.
(snip)
ESPN’s Josh Krulewitz, vice president of public relations for college and news, did contact The Advocate and LSU seeking to learn more about what was said.
Contacted on Monday night, Krulewitz said: “We’re not going to dignify those offensive questions with a response.”
Miles called Andrews after the incident became public to offer his support and encouragement, according to Bonnette. Bonnette said Miles was sensitive to and supportive of Andrews’ situation.
Since his retirement, Castillo has frequently attended LSU sporting events and news conferences and often asks questions and offers his view on topics at Miles’ weekly media gathering.
“I consider Ted a longtime fixture in the media in Baton Rouge, and I have never considered it my position to block his participation in our news conferences,” Bonnette said. “In the past he has generally asked good questions. Coach Miles has enjoyed his relationship with Ted. He only sees him about 12 times a year, and he respects Ted and understands that he’s been around a long time and has a history about LSU to share.
“But that being said, what happened (Monday) was unfortunate and something that we don’t condone.”
NOW WE move from the newspaper realm to that of the Internet's East Coast snark patrol, where liberal hipsters all congregate to gratuitously make fun of people not like them.This is how we want to spend our (imaginary) retirement: asking LSU's football coach insane questions about Erin Andrews at the post-game press conference.THIS ONE'S a follow-up from Deadspin:
Andrews, a "very attractive" journalist for ESPN, interviewed LSU Coach Les Miles, prompting 86-year-old retired sportswriter Ted Castillo to ask, "What is it like to be -- and you can take the Fifth -- interviewed by a sweet, young thing like Erin Andrews?"
Castillo's voice is something akin to what you hear in your mind when you read phrases like "You boys ain't from around here, are ya?" Miles could only respond with: "What a joy it is to represent LSU in the postgame with victory and to celebrate victory in a postgame interview with a very talented, very attractive woman."
We have video of the bizarre line of questioning Les Miles dealt with during his "Lunch With Les" press conference this morning. Furthermore, we've ascertained the identity of the mysterious "Ted" who is so curious about Ms. Andrews.AND HERE, from Down South, Mr. SEC gets into the act:The "Ted" in question is Ted Castillo formerly of the (Baton Rouge) Advocate. He has a reputation for asking off-the-wall questions, and judging by Miles's reaction, as well as the rest of the room's reaction, we don't doubt that for a second.
A retired sportswriter for The Baton Rouge Advocate has stirred up a controversy by asking Les Miles what it’s like “to be interviewed by a sweet, young think like Erin Andrews.”I THINK we are agreed that Ted Castillo committed a serious breach of political correctness, forgetting this isn't 1967 and that humor is no laughing matter, Mister.
In case you haven’t seen, the exchange has already made national news on sites like Deadspin.com.
Here’s a little background: Ted Castillo is an 86-year-old man. LSU allows him to still take part in media events. According to Deadspin, “He has a reputation for asking off-the-wall questions.”
Miles took the “sweet, young thing” question and responded as follows: “If they had given that job to some old, big, ugly man, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. But what a joy it is to represent LSU in the postgame with victory and to celebrate victory in a postgame interview with a very talented, very attractive woman.”
Better answer? “Come on, Ted. I’m not going there. Andrews does a very good job.”
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SO WHAT do "progressives" think O'Donnell's Achilles' heel is? She's against masturbation.Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee had a hand pardoning or commuting many more prisoners than his three immediate predecessors combined. Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in Sunday's slaying of four Seattle-area police officers, was among them.IT USED TO BE that when someone screwed up badly enough, they'd publicly repent of their sins, put on sackcloth garments and cover themselves in ashes as a sign of penance.
For a politician considering another run for the White House, Clemmons could become Huckabee's Willie Horton.
"In a primary between a law-and-order Republican and him, I think it could definitely be a vulnerability," said Art English, a political scientist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "It is very damaging when you have someone like that whose sentence was commuted. That's pretty high profile and very devastating and very tragic."
English said it's hard to avoid comparing the case to Horton, a convicted killer who raped a woman and assaulted her fiance while on release as part of a prison furlough program supported by Michael Dukakis when he was governor of Massachusetts.
Allies of former President George H.W. Bush ran ads criticizing Dukakis for his support of the program, undermining the Democrat's presidential campaign.
(snip)
Huckabee's role in gaining the release of a convicted rapist, Wayne DuMond, was the subject of an attack ad during his presidential run. While Huckabee's predecessor, Tucker, reduced DuMond's sentence making him eligible for parole, Huckabee took steps almost immediately after taking office to win DuMond's release.
Two members of the state parole board said Huckabee pressured them to show DuMond mercy, while Huckabee publicly questioned whether DuMond was guilty of the rape of a teenage girl. During the presidential primaries, a conservative group aired television commercials in South Carolina featuring the mother of Carol Sue Shields, whom DuMond killed in 2000 after his release.
Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley, whose office opposed Clemmons' parole in 2000 and 2004, said Huckabee created a flaw in the Arkansas justice system by freeing the number of prisoners he did.
"(Clemmons) should have stayed locked up like the jury wanted him and we wouldn't even be having this discussion," Jegley said.
"I just have been figuratively holding my breath and hoping something like this wouldn't happen," Jegley said. "I just think that a lot of the people that were subjects of clemency during that period of time were some very dangerous people who didn't need to be let out."
Oh, what fools we have been.
We used to think marriage -- matrimony -- was "the union of man and woman as husband and wife."
We used to think this marriage thing existed as a sacrament, a "covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring."
Idiots that we are, we used to think this was so self-evident that no one had to spell it out in the law. We thought it was holy, created by God at the beginning, more or less, and that you just didn't mess with holy things.
ABOVE ALL, we thought this conception of marriage was so blatantly logical as to be unassailable by anyone of sound mind or serious intent.
We were wrong.
Soon enough, the dominoes began falling. Divorce. Artificial contraception. Abortion. No-fault divorce. "Open" marriage. Single-parent chic.
And now another "same-sex marriage" domino has fallen in Iowa. Iowa!
The Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state — and the first in the nation's heartland — to allow same-sex couples to wed.
In its decision, the high court upheld a lower court's ruling that found a state law restricting marriage to between a man and woman violated Iowa's constitution.
"We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective," the Supreme Court wrote in its decision. "The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."
The ruling set off celebration among the state's gay-marriage proponents.
"Iowa is about justice, and that's what happened here today," said Laura Fefchak, who was hosting a verdict party in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale with partner of 13 years, Nancy Robinson.
Robinson added: "To tell the truth, I didn't think I'd see this day."
Richard Socarides, an attorney and former senior adviser on gay rights to President Clinton, said the ruling carries extra significance coming from Iowa.
"It's a big win because, coming from Iowa, it represents the mainstreaming of gay marriage. And it shows that despite attempts stop gay marriage through right-wing ballot initiatives, like in California, the courts will continue to support the case for equal rights for gays," he said.
IT IS THE MAINSTREAMING of gay marriage.
Up is down, black is white, right is left and the epitome of pointlessness has been turned into a civil right. It's not enough to have civil arrangements so that gay partners might have the same legal rights afforded family members. No, our postmodern world will not be sated until meaning has been evacuated from all things once seen as holy.
The new gods of our existence will not be happy until we believe -- and do -- three impossible things every day. You know, achieve endless economic growth without producing anything of value, fight successful loser-bankrolled foreign wars of conquest . . . and give Heather two mommies.
Or two daddies, as the case may be.
FRANKLY, if it's unconstitutional for two guys (or two gals) to be denied the right to "marry" one another, I don't know what we now say to the Muslim who wants four wives or the fundamentalist Mormon who wants 44. Personally, I've found one wife for the past quarter century to be almost more than I can handle -- but I guess that's just me.
But as long as we're committing ourselves as a society to the worship of the pointlessly implausible, I'm sure polygamy will be embraced shortly. Then we'll move on to a brave new world where "men are men, and sheep are nervous."
Yes, sheep are backwards, but I'm sure they'll "see the light" soon enough. (Baa the way, would it be murder to make your wife into mutton?)
Now we truly live in a world of endless possibilities, where the old TV sitcom My Mother the Car has just become a lot less ridiculous. As has this. (Contains some vulgar language, not to mention the general creepiness of the subject matter. But what do I know? I'm not very open-minded.)
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President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday defended his choice of a popular evangelical minister to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, rejecting criticism that it slights gays.ACTUALLY, the word I heard thrown around was "bigot." That's the label you're hung with by the agents of one-way "tolerance" if you are so gauche to believe some fundamental tenets of historical Christianity.
The selection of Pastor Rick Warren brought objections from gay rights advocates, who strongly supported Obama during the election campaign. The advocates are angry over Warren's backing of a California ballot initiative banning gay marriage. That measure was approved by voters last month.
But Obama told reporters in Chicago that America needs to "come together," even when there's disagreement on social issues. "That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about," he said.
Obama also said he's known to be a "fierce advocate for equality" for gays and lesbians, and will remain so.
Warren, a best-selling author and leader of a Southern California megachurch, is one of a new breed of evangelicals who stress the need for action on social issues such as reducing poverty and protecting the environment, alongside traditional theological themes.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization, said Warren's opposition to gay marriage is a sign of intolerance.
"The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."THE SECULAR notion of marriage hews pretty closely to this view, not because the state is in the religion business, but because the state -- historically -- has recognized fundamental realities when it is confronted with them. To ignore fundamental realities, and basic biology and sociology, is to reap the whirlwind.
"Intolerant Christian fundamentalists" seem insane to "the world" solely because of perspective. The delusional always think it's everybody else who are nuts.An Oregon man who used to be a woman says he is pregnant with a baby girl.
Thomas Beatie's first-person story appears in a recent issue of The Advocate, a Los Angeles-based newsmagazine for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people.
According to the story, Thomas was born a woman but decided to become a transgender male and legally changed his sex to male. He had his breasts surgically removed and started bimonthly testosterone injections, but kept his vagina.
Now identifying as male, Thomas legally married Nancy, the story says. The pair wanted a biological baby but Nancy was unable to carry a child. So they decided Thomas would.
"How does it feel to be a pregnant man?" Thomas writes in the article. "Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child . . . I will be my daughter's father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family."
