Why Stand For A Flag?!

Of course you've all heard the news by now. San Franciso 49ers quarterback Colin Kapernick refused to stand during the national anthem in protest and it caused a national firestorm. Kapernick said,

 "People don't realize what's really going on in this country. There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren't being held accountable for. And that's something that needs to change. That's something that this country stands for freedom, liberty and justice for all. And it's not happening for all right now."

Kapernick is 100% accurate and absolutely right. America has always turned a blind eye when it comes to the lives of people of color. More concerned with pledging blind allegiance to a flag than pledging allegiance to the preservation of human life.

PR

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (8-27-2016)

A moron who sparked mass transit chaos when she brought live crickets and worms into a New York City subway car Wednesday and subsequently flew into a rage has revealed she is an actress who staged the incident to prove a point.

Though early reports said the woman released the critters into the train car herself, a woman named Zaida Pugh posted a new, lengthier video of the incident on Facebook late Friday. The clip showed a young man clearly knocking a container of the crickets and worms out of her hands, sending it flying into the air.

Local media sources noted that the video was “suspiciously well-produced,” contacted Pugh to ask her about it, and she admitted she was behind the whole thing........

“It was a prank,” she said, “I’m an actress. That was me.”

Pugh, an outrageous, second rate hack has gained notoriety for other viral stunts in the past, most infamously for a sick, graphic video last year in which she pretended to stab a baby to death.

In the cricket video, the men who knocked the bugs out of her hands were actors and the “attack” was planned in advance. Her apparent breakdown was just acting. But the hundreds of crickets and worms were real. (She also said she really did urinate on herself.)

But Pugh said that she never meant for the chaos to get so extreme.

“I’m sorry how it went,” she said. “I didn’t want it to go as bad as it ended up going.”

Pugh intended for the man to knock the crickets out of her hands, she said, but didn’t mean for the box to go flying into the air or for the insects to get on the train’s passengers. 

She also said she did not plan for one of the passengers to pull the train’s emergency brake, which stops the train in place. (It’s intended to be used in situations like a person getting caught in the doors.)

Passenger Ezra Mechaber tweeted during the incident that someone pulled the e-brake, and Pugh also recalls this happening. The NYPD told Fusion that the brake was never actually activated, but the video makes it clear that for one reason or another, the train came to a halt.

For his part, Mechaber says he was not part of the act. 

“Absolutely not in on it,” he told HuffPost in a Twitter message. “That woman’s intentions may have been a ‘prank’ but the fallout was very much real.”

Incidentally, another widely cited tweet mentioning “crickets in subway” around the same time as the incident turned out to be totally unrelated. The Twitter user later clarified that she works at a Subway sandwich store and there were some crickets in the building.

An anonymous police source also told the New York Post that Pugh could wind up facing charges for the stunt, but Pugh said she hasn’t heard anything about this from the police. 

She called the whole thing a “social experiment,” saying it made a point about how poorly people react in emergencies and how little people actually care about each other. For example, when the man was pretending to attack her, she says nobody intervened, though a lot of people started recording. And when she started freaking out, most of the train passengers were laughing or filming her, but didn’t try to help.

It’s unclear whether acting like a caricature of a person with a mentally illness and inadvertently causing mass panic will have any net positive outcomes for anyone who is homeless.

But when something real happens who is to say that people won't think that it's just another attention seeking moron staging a prank.

NO! It's not blood! This fool decided to take a bath in a tub of hot sauce like a human chicken wing!!!

Was he trying to raise money to "save the children" or for multiple skelosis? No! It was just a stupid stunt!!!! Enough said.

Face it: We’ve all done something stupid to impress someone we like. With that in mind, try to sympathize with Grant Birdsong.

The 22-year-old University of Pittsburgh student reportedly was attempting to woo a lady when he leaped between two buildings around 2 a.m. Tuesday.

“The young man met a girl, brought her up to a rooftop and decided to impress her by leaping from one roof to the next,” Pittsburgh public safety spokeswoman Sonya Toler said.

Birdsong seems to have misjudged the distance. He fell into the space between the two buildings and became wedged between a Bruegger’s Bagels and Qdoba Mexican Grill.......LOLOLOLO!!!

It took rescue crews about four hours to free him from the space, which is 16 to 18 inches wide. The process involved breaking a hole in the Qdoba wall and, when that didn’t work, lowering a medic down on a rope.

Birdsong, who suffered an ankle injury, could be seen on camera flashing two thumbs up to reporters as he was loaded into an ambulance.

After all of that. I hope he at least got a date!!!

PR

Free To Rape.

America is a country that was founded, built, designed, and based on white prevailedge. While this fact has never been lost on those of us with our feet firmly planted in reality. Some examples are far too blatant and disturbing to be dismissed as business as usual. Perhaps the highest level of this prevailedge is that in which white males get to operate with ultimate autonomy. Taking liberties as if they are masters of the universe. This case is just one example.

An 18-year-old accused of sexually assaulting two high school classmates is facing two years of probation despite the district attorney's office's recommendation of two years in prison.

David Becker, of East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, was charged with two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault and battery, according to court documents, after an April 2 incident in which he was accused of digitally penetrating two girls who were sleeping in a bed after a house party. Becker and the alleged victims, who are not being identified, were all seniors.

On Aug. 15, Becker's case was ordered continued without a finding for two years by Palmer District Court Judge Thomas Estes.

As a part of his probation, Becker must remain drug- and alcohol-free and not contact the victims, the court documents state. He also has to undergo an evaluation for sex offender treatment, according to the Hampden District Attorney's Office. But this "punishment" is still nothing more than a minuscule slap on the wrist. 

Then to add insult to injury, the district attorney's office also said that if Becker does not violate his probation, he will not have to register as a sex offender, and there's more. The charges will be dismissed at the completion of probation.

In a continuance without a finding, the court agrees to continue a case without a guilty finding for a certain period, as long as the defendant adheres to the terms of his or her probation. If the probation is successfully completed, the case is dismissed.

According to police reports, Becker told investigators that when one of the girls "didn't protest," he assumed it was "OK." He denied having any physical contact with the other alleged victim.

A clerk for Estes' office told local media outlets that he could not comment on his decision to continue the case without a finding.

The Hampden District Attorney's Office recommended two years of prison time for Becker, which it considered "appropriate and fair, based on the facts and circumstances of the case," a district attorney's office spokesman said.

Scott Berkowitz, the president of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, was disappointed by the decision.

"It's really discouraging when everyone in the process does their job and ... then you see a sentence like this," he said.

"The judge's decision in this case is probably "discouraging for the victims" and likely "deters other people from reporting their crimes" and "putting themselves through this entire criminal justice process" because they will wonder, 'Is it worth it?'"

Berkowitz said sexual assault should be taken seriously, even with an 18-year-old.

"I don't think it would ever occur to a judge or lawyer that after someone was convicted of a murder, that they would just get probation because they deserve a second chance," he said. "There would be a universal understanding that there are consequences for committing a crime that bad."

Becker's defense attorney, Thomas Rooke, did not immediately respond to  requests for comment, but he told The Republican that his client "can now look forward to a productive life without being burdened with the stigma of having to register as a sex offender." Even though he clearly is a sex offender. Berlowitz then went on to say, "One of the things that people need to remember is that part of these cases involves being able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt," he said. "And there are going to be times that prosecutors are going to take a plea deal ... even if they believe in their heart of hearts that something horrible happened."

He added, "The prosecutors' decision to enter into a plea deal is most often about their concern either about being able to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt or, in some of these cases, for putting the victims through the trauma of a trial."

Since this story first surfaced there have been reports that one of the victims had oral sex with Becker on more than one occasion, as if this were an excuse for his actions. Even if this is true, he did not have the right to expect sex whenever he pleased. Expectation does not equal entitlement. At least not for most of us.

PR 

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (8-21-16)

Okay, I'll say it, & I need a rim shot. Because this next story is un-beelievable!!!........

Honeybees work in a hive located in an apple grove at Hartland Orchard, a family farm near the the Blue Ridge Mountains in Markham, Va., Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014. 

Three people were taken to a hospital after an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 bees escaped and stung people in a Walmart parking lot in southeast Oklahoma City.

Emergency Medical Services Authority spokeswoman Lara O'Leary says two people were transported in serious condition and the third was in good condition after being stung Saturday morning after the bees escaped from three hives.

Each of the three injured are adults, but no other information about them was released.

Oklahoma City Fire Battalion Chief Benny Fulkerson says the incident began about 10:30 a.m., when a person selling bee hives met a buyer in the parking lot and the bees escaped.

Fulkerson says beekeepers were called and gathered the insects. He said a firefighter was also stung, but did not require medical attention.

If kindness were a pop quiz, this man would pass with flying colors.

A man in Texas bought $97 of school supplies for a teacher at Walmart.

Lester Brown noticed Sabrina Drude, a teacher at Francis Scobee Middle School in San Antonio, at a register with a ton of school supplies and no children. So, he got behind her in line and struck up a conversation.

“He started asking me why I was buying all the supplies,” Drude told The Huffington Post. “Which is when I explained that I was a teacher who teaches in a low socio-economic area, and would rather have my students focus on learning than worry about their supplies.”

Brown then bought all of Drude’s supplies for her, which included bins, notebooks, pencil boxes, scissors, pencils, markers and colored pencils.

“I remember I had this hundred-dollar bill with the intention of responding to something in need, and God said to respond "Brown a pastor, father offive and  specialist for the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, said.

The kind act made Drude emotional.

“I told him it was unnecessary and started to cry,” she told HuffPost.“He said that teachers do too much and don’t receive recognition. I asked if I could hug him and take a photo with him, because I didn’t think anyone would believe this happened.”

Overwhelmed by the selfless act, Drude left the store before asking Brown for his name. She told HuffPost that she wanted to send him a thank you note and letters from her students for the supplies.

Drude took to social media in hopes of tracking Brown down, posting about the experience on Facebook and Reddit.

Eventually, someone posted one of Drude’s posts to Love What Matters Facebook page and Brown responded:

“It’s important that people who are trusted to empower kids are loved and appreciated for their effort,” Brown wrote in his Facebook comment. “Some of the greatest lessons I have learned that are central to my life came from outstanding teachers and coaches.”

A local media outlet saw the comment and put Drude in touch with Brown, Drude said.

Drude said that she and Brown have been talking ever since and she hopes he can meet her students in person and perhaps have a pizza party.

Drude hopes Brown’s good deed sheds some light on the efforts of teachers.

“I am not a rare example,” she told Huffpost. “Almost every teacher I know spends hundreds, if not thousands each year on their classes.”

Brown, on the other hand, challenges people to follow his lead, saying.

“I challenge you, whatever it is you can afford, to volunteer at a school, help a family.”

I just discovered the eighth Wonder of the World!......KFC sunscreen!!

In what is probably the most sensical pairing to ever exist, the crispy poultry purveyor is giving away sunscreen that smells like fried chicken. 

KFC has created an “exclusive and extremely limited run of fried chicken-scented sunscreen” that will be available on a first come, first served basis, according to a press release.

Their tagline is, fittingly, “The only skin that should be extra crispy this summer is on your fried chicken.” 

If anyone I know is dumb....., I mean adventurous enough to try this, let me know how it works out for you!

PR

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (8-13-2016)

This is probably the weirdest of weird news.....

A story about life, death and corporate customer service.

Facebook user Wes Metcalfe posted a photo this past weekend of a dead worm smushed across an otherwise delicious-looking cucumber. He described the details of what happened in a Facebook post on the wall of British grocery chain Tesco where he had purchased a cucumber to make sandwiches.

To make light of the situation, he had attempted to introduce his children to their “new pet,” William the worm, before realizing that the creature appeared to be deceased.

With three mourning children on his hands, Metcalfe was busy planning a funeral, he wrote.

A Tesco representative identified only as “Rob” replied that he had issued Metcalfe a £10.00 Tesco gift card to “cover the cost of the day.”

But that wasn’t quite enough for Metcalfe, who wanted Rob to make more of a personal contribution. He suggested a poem. It was then that Rob clearly began to understand the gravity of the situation

“I’ll be heading to a muddy festival shortly, trawling through the fields of damp grass and dirt, much like William would’ve during his happier times,” Rob wrote. But Rob made up for his absence with a beautiful poem ode to William.

There's dumb and then there's dumber, unfortunately this guy is bothdumb and dumber.

Tanis Ukena, has been arrested on accusations he put methamphetamine and THC into the drink of a uniformed police officer in Davis County, Utah.........Just let that sink in for a minute.........

The police officer knew something was wrong after he took three sips of the lemonade he ordered from a drive-thru sandwich shop.

He struggled to find the brake pedal of his patrol car at a red light. When he arrived at the police station in the city of Layton, he drifted off and couldn't answer questions.

His colleagues sent him to the hospital and later found out the police sergeant's drink had been spiked with methamphetamine and THC.

Investigators believe it was done intentionally by an 18-year-old Subway employee, who was arrested on suspicion of surreptitiously giving a poisonous substance.

Tanis Ukena denied the allegations but acknowledged what investigators learned after watching surveillance video: He was the only one to prepare and handle the beverage.

He posted $10,000 bail and left jail. He has not been formally charged yet, and it's not known if he has an attorney. No listed phone number for him could be found.

The unnamed sergeant was released from the hospital Monday night and was taking Tuesday to recover, but he was expected to be fine, police Lt. Travis Lyman said.

Investigators don't know why Ukena drugged the drink but are investigating if the sergeant was targeted because he's a police officer, Lyman said.

He said officers generally enjoy a good relationship with residents in the city of 74,000 people north of Salt Lake City, but animosity and distrust of police has been growing around the country in the wake of a number of officer-involved shootings.

"It's not a reach to make that connection based on the climate right now," Lyman said.

Subway spokesman Shawn Cook said the company is cooperating with authorities and hoping the sergeant makes a quick recovery. Cook would not say if Ukena is still employed.

"We are shocked by these charges," Cook said in an emailed statement. "The restaurant owners are working closely with the police in their investigation and will take appropriate action."

Lyman said police have not had any previous problems with the Subway or with Ukena, outside of stopping him for speeding.

The state crime lab is testing the drink to determine the amount of drugs it contained.

The incident has raised eyebrows for Layton police officers who commonly eat at drive-thrus as they move from call to call, Lyman said.

"This is pretty surprising to us, certainly," Lyman said. "I imagine officers will be bringing lunch from home for some time."

What do the Trump campaign and a circus have in common?! They both have more than one clown!!! 

Don’t worry, Katrina Pierson. Twitter users have got your back.

After Donald Trump's spokeswoman blundered Saturday by erroneously saying that Presidet Barack Obama was responsible for the invasion of Afghanistan, tweeters united to helpfully offer her a bunch of other hilariously false historical events she may like to claim as fact.

Under the globally trending #KatrinaPiersonHistory hashtag, they joked that it was actually TV host Larry King who gave Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” address in 1963 and that the breakup of The Beatles was also Obama's fault.

Here a just a few hilarious tweets!

PR

Here We Go AGAIN!! More murder.

PLEASE excuse the language. But, I do not want the impact of the words to get lost in editing.

"Bitch-a$$ motherf@&ker, f@&king shoot at us," a Chicago police officer told the bloodied, dying body of Paul O’Neal, an 18-year-old black man who was, to be clear, unarmed when officers shot and killed him on July 28. 

It’s not clear exactly what happened at the moment of the shooting. But it seems as if yet another police body camera has either fell or malfunctioned. You would think that police departments would purchase cameras who actually work or learn to attach them to their uniforms better. But there is footage of other officers of other officers arriving to the scene after a tense chase, finding O’Neal bloodied and near death behind a Chicago house. The footage was released on August 3rd.

This is the scene of just the latest police shooting to trigger outrage from Black Lives Matter activists, who protest racial injustice in the criminal justice system. To many critics, it is just another example of a tragedy that quickly rose to the national spotlight after numerous police shootings across the country. 

The confrontation began on July 28 when Chicago police officers tried to stop a reportedly stolen car that O’Neal was driving. O’Neal didn’t stop  and rammed a police vehicle to get away from the officers. During this, police opened fire at the moving car, which is a blatant violation of department policy.

O’Neal crashed the car into another police vehicle, then took off running through nearby houses, based on footage released by the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) on August 5. After catching up to him, police shot him when he was behind a home. the shots are heard in the video footage, but not seen.

The police officers with functioning body cameras then ran around to the backyard, where O’Neal was bloodied, dying on the floor, and surrounded by police officers. That’s when one officer said, "Bitch-a$$ motherf@&ker, f@&king shoot at us." They then began cuffing him.

The shooting itself was not captured by video. But O’Neal was shot in the back and unarmed, showing that he could not have possibly shot at the officers, like one alleged. A source says that apparently the officers who fired the fatal shots thought O’Neal had shot at officers previously on the scene.

The fact that O’Neal couldn’t and didn’t fire a gun could be crucial to the ongoing investigation. For officers to legally use force, they must reasonably believe O’Neal posed a threat to them or others. Even though O’Neal didn’t have a gun, the officers may potentially argue that he proved to be a violent threat when he rammed a stolen car into police vehicles.

The shooting is under investigation by the IPRA. Sharon Fairley, chief administrator of the agency, said in a statement that the agency is working "as deliberately and expediently as possible in pursuit of a swift but fair determination" over the shooting. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson also stripped three officers of their police powers, saying they appeared to violate Chicago police policies.

On video, the officers involved in the chase and shooting are heard discussing the possible consequences of their actions — how the media will react and whether they’ll get placed on desk duty or fired. One officer remarked, "I’m going to be f@&king crucified."

This particular officer obviously had not been paying attention to the fact that law enforcement usually gets away with murder. If he had, he'd probably realize that he has nothing to worry about........

PR

Just When You Thought You Heard It All News (8-6-2016)

They all ganged up to stay out of gangs.

Four young men who live at LaGrange Housing Authority in Georgia have gotten summer jobs working for their community after months of persistence.

The clincher occurred when the teens confessed to Zsa Zsa Heard, CEO at LaGrange Housing Authority, that all four of them had been approached to join gangs and wanted to stay out of trouble. The interaction prompted Heard to write a moving Facebook post, in whichshe said:

“I hired them on the spot! The streets will not have our children!”

Dylik Smith, 13, Jalen Parham, 13, and twin brothers, Desmond and Deion Woodard, 14, now tend to a community garden, pass out flyers and perform other odd jobs around LaGrange Housing Authority for $7.25 an hour.

The teens have been consistently asking Heard for jobs since May, when their school year ended for summer break. But Heard assumed that the boys wanted to work purely for monetary reasons.

“I thought they just wanted to work for money,” she told HuffPost.

Heard finally gave the boys an opportunity on July 26, telling them she had to speak to the financial department at LaGrange Housing Authority about hiring them first, but if they came by her office the next day, she’d talk to them about possibilities.

She made an appointment with them for 11 a.m. for July 27. The young men arrived at her office the next day at 10:15 a.m.

Heard then asked the teens why they wanted to work, assuming that they would say they wanted money. The response Heard got instead surprised her.

“That’s when Desmond told me, ‘We just don’t want to be in gangs.’”

Heard said the other three teens turned their heads away, but Woodard pressed on. 

“He said, ‘Tell her the truth, tell her they’ve approached all of us, not just me.’”

The boys confirmed that they had been approached by gangs. 

“I knew then we had to put them to work fast,” Heard said.

The boys were hired that day!

So far the post has received over 600 shares, over 400 likes and comments from people beaming with support.

Heard told HuffPost that the boys are hard workers that don’t turn up their noses at any task — even when tending to the community’s new chickens.

“Even cleaning out the chicken coop yesterday, they do it and they don’t complain at all,” Heard said. “Anything we ask they do it.”

When a rolling car bumped into a Walmart in Wayne, West Virginia, on Friday, witnesses probably didn’t expect to find mans best friends behind the wheel. 

The owner of the car says she left her two dogs in the vehicle while she went shopping. She left the car running in order to keep the pups cool.

Big mistake!!!!! The wonder dogs shifted the car out of park and took a little joyride.

Confused shoppers watched as the slow-moving vehicle collided with the building.

The incident is yet another lesson in why it’s a bad idea to leave your dog in ahot car, even if the air conditioning is on. 

Witnesses said the car owner appeared to be in her late 70s. The station reported that the dogs were fine and that both the car and the building sustained only minor damage.

Now, if the dogs do decide to take another shot at driving, perhaps they should first visit New Zealand, where a very talented pair of canines completed adriving test in 2012 on live TV.

These West Virginia dogs could learn a thing or two about checking your blind spot and making a left turn.

 On their own, neither of Leroy Black’s two obituaries is anything out of the ordinary.

But placed side by side, as they were in New Jersey's Press of Atlantic City they’ve been raising some eyebrows.

Black, 55, who lived in Egg Harbor Township, died of cancer on Aug. 2. The top obituary published in the paper on Aug. 5 states that he “is survived by his loving wife, Bearetta Harrison Black.” Another obituary, placed directly below the first, makes no mention of the wife, but notes that Black is survived by “his long-tome [sic] girlfriend, Princess Hall.”

 “The wife wanted it that way,” Joe Greenidge of Greenidge Funeral Home said when asked why the so-called dueling obituaries were run side by side. Greenidge said he didn’t know whether there was any animosity between the wife and girlfriend or whether they were both fine with the situation.

An unidentified man who answered the phone at the funeral home said that both women knew the double-obit situation was happening, and that they were printed that way because “the wife wanted it one way, and the girlfriend wanted it another way.”

PR

His Ice Is Colder......

I've had the opportunity to speak to a few African-American Trump supporters over the past few weeks and I am amazed by their vehement support. Especially in the face of harsh criticism from their peers.  But the thing that amazes me the most is the fact that the very same African-Americans who seem to love Donald Trump seem to hate Barack Obama. While they're quick to profess that their preference is soley based on each mans politics, this proclamation rings hollow given the fact that Trump knows little if anything about politics, or diplomacy. These people are not only willing to overlook his lack of experience, or ideas, they are also willing to overlook the fact that he is a racist, sexist, moron who apparently has a disdain for crying babies. These are not frivolous accusations without merit. They are documented facts for which he is not apologetic or repentant. The very same African-Americans who seem to find endless amounts of forgiveness in their hearts for Donald Trumps brand of idiotacy wanted to tar and feather Barack Obama over accusations that were not even true. They said that he was a Muslim. Which is a lie. They would say that he was not born in this country, which is also a lie. They believed each and every rumor, and the vast majority of them had nothing to do with politics. I guess you can't really blame some of us for our cultural conditioning. Some of us have knowledge of self and some of us don't. Some of us know who we are, and some of us are still searching for ourselves.

I would like to urge all African-American Trump supporters to take a moment for introspection, and reflection before they cast their votes. Ask yourselves this question. Do you really like Donald Trump or do you like the fact that he is not somebody like you?

This reminds me of a story that I heard years ago.

A black man started his own ice business. One day he stopped by a black woman's home to sell some ice, she said no thanks. While still in the neighborhood, a white man drove up to this black women's home. He saw the exchange of money and he saw the white man taking ice into the house.

The black man knocked on the black woman's door and asked, why would you buy his ice and not mine. The black women said, his ice is colder.

Sincerely,

PRBrown