That's Church

WTF?

A Westmoreland County man denies he was outside running around pretending to be a ninja, but acknowledges he did leave his 4-year-old son home alone sleeping while he went jogging.

But police insist Mr. Hurst was dressed all in black and “playing ninja” when they confronted him. They say Mr. Hurst claimed his mother was baby-sitting, but she told police she wasn’t.

Mr. Hurst is 28.

Thoughts:

• Are ninjas real? Or are they like leprechauns?
• He got caught. He must not be a very good ninja.
• My eight-year-old nephew “plays ninja” by wrapping his head and face in a shirt and running through the house all, “I AM A NINJA!”
• How does a 28-year-old man “play ninja”?
• Is it like LARPing except with more [awkward kung fu moves]?
• I think the last acceptable age for a person to pretend to be a ninja outside of Halloween or movie acting is 12. After that, it’s just creepy.
• Is there any kind of “jogging” that could be mistaken for “playing ninja” and if so, what would that jogging look like?
• I have some ideas in my head and THEY. ARE. AWESOME.
• [awkward kung fu moves]

I’ve had my eye on Pitt Alum, CMU creative writing professor Terrance Hayes since his face first showed up on the main page of the Post-Gazette last year telling me he had won a prestigious poetry award, namely the 2010 National Book Award for his poetry in “Lighthead.”

Now, he’s not a poet of the “Roses are red” variety or of the “Forsooth, to be or not to be, double double toil and trouble” variety, nor is he a poet of the [snap] [snap] [bongo beat] TRUTH! variety. Not everyone can be awesome like me. [snap!]

His poetry is wonderful to read, but more wonderful to hear performed.

Case in point:

There’s also this:

Indeed.

He’s married, girls.

He’s the next official Smokin’ Hot Burgher and his crown is in the mail and by “crown” I mean this poem I wrote for him:

Mrowr.

You make me swoon.

Why are you wearing two watches?

[bongo beat]

[takes a bow]

A few days ago Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson said about the NFL labor dispute:

“It’s modern-day slavery, you know? People kind of laugh at that, but there are people working at regular jobs who get treated the same way, too.”

Of course after several NFL players publicly disagreed with the statement, the usual backpedaling happened, with his agent claiming it was taken out of context, and some saying surely Peterson didn’t mean what he said in THAT way.

Maybe he didn’t. I should point out that Peterson is set to earn ten million dollars this year.

Now, in an epic display of WHY THE HELL PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES SHOULD NOT HAVE TWITTER ACCOUNTS UNLESS THEY ARE ONLY TWEETING PICTURES OF CUTE BABY ANIMALS, Rashard Mendenhall tweeted from his verified account:

This of course enraged many people asking how being paid millions to do something you love is anywhere near the same thing as being FORCED to do something you hate and not getting paid for it.

Rashard then decided the best way to explain his thoughts was to call us all a bunch of dumb asses and tell us to look up the word “parallel” in the dictionary:

If you visit Rashard’s Twitter page right now, you’ll see he’s taken to retweeting anyone that writes anything in support of him. How magnanimous of him.

First, I strongly disagree with his “mirror each other” comment because, just no. NO NO NO NO. You cannot tell me that a football player can EVER look a slave in the eyes, as there is modern day slavery, and say, “Brother. I may be earning ten million dollars a year to play 16 football games a year, but, brah, I know what you’re going through because I’m traveling a parallel path.” My god, I hope the slave punches that guy in the face.

They run the same course? Unless the course Mendy is running ends up with him having no freedom, no way to earn an income, no way to see his family, then I really don’t think they’re running the same course.  There is one huge word that means they ARE NOT running parallel courses … CHOICE. NFL players have choices. Slaves have none.

Classic KettlePotism. Rashard should take his own advice and not compare himself to a slave based on things he’s read, because unless he actually IS A SLAVE, he just sounds dumb.

Second, even if you see Rashard’s point of view, as a public persona, you would think Rashard knows there are certain things you NEVER draw comparisons to, and you certainly don’t do it on Twitter where you’re limited to explaining how the NFL runs a similar course to slavery in 140 characters or less. Hitler. Holocaust. Slavery. To name a few.

Compare it to the steel industry in the early 1900s. Compare it to the baseball lockout of 1994. DON’T try to explain on Twitter why you’re comparing the NFL to slavery because you will lose that battle, no matter how many fans’ tweets you retweet.

And also, maybe don’t call us all a bunch of idiots who can’t comprehend the giant thoughts you have in your giant brain.

Because from where I’m sitting, we are not the idiots.

I had promised to share with you two additional questions and answers from my interview of Ian Rosenberger regarding Tassy Filsaime, the young Haitian who Ian brought to Pittsburgh for life-saving surgery.

Here they are interspersed with some photos of Tassy’s triumphant return to Haiti a few weeks ago, all photos courtesy of Team Tassy.

What’s next for this charitable effort? Is this the end of the road, or is there more work to be done for more Haitians?

If going to Haiti and meeting Tass did anything, it reminded us all just how much work we have to do. We could work forever and not get through  everything.  The nice thing about that is it makes it very easy to make a big differece quickly.  When you ask Haitians what they need to be successful long term, you always get the same answer.  Education and Jobs (its the same anywhere really).

 

So, Step One: Education. We’ve started an endowment that will help kids like Tassy from all over the world.  Kids with diseases and illnesses that are otherwise curable, but unable to be fixed in their home countries.  One on one attention.  One kid at a time.  We’ll help them get to the US and get healthy.  Then, we’ll find a good school to help them finish their prep education (either in the US or in their home countries) and mentor them through college, and finally back home again.  The back home part is key.  I’m always struck when I visit new countries by how few good leaders the desperate places in the world have. Team Tassy will help change that.

Step Two: Jobs. One of the first things I wrote down in my journal on my first trip to Haiti was “If Haiti can turn trash into money=good.”  They are swimming in trash, with no real way to do anything about it.  So we’re starting a for profit company that will take plastic trash from the streets and turn it into polyester fabric.  Companies like Patagonia have been doing it for years, but we can’t seem to find anybody who’s tried the developing world for source material.  Not only can we create jobs, we can clean up an otherwise crazy dirty place. It improves public health, environmental impact, and whole host of other stuff. Most of all gives somebody used to being handed sacks of rice the dignity of being able to go buy the rice themselves.  We’re just getting started, but eventually we’ll be making jackets, dresses, and shoes, all out of trash from the third world.

8.  Did you go into this thinking you would just save Tassy’s life and it grew into something more future-oriented, or did you always know that once you saved his life, you’d want to help him forge a successful future?

Haha.  Well, we had no idea things would get this big, we just wanted to find something cool to do to help.  We always knew we wanted to help him after surgery, we just had no idea what that would look like.  So many relief efforts, for lack of a better word, suck. Many times there isn’t a whole lot of thought put into helping in places like Haiti, which is why you see over 5,000 non-profits in Port-au-Prince and things not getting much better.

People donate money to crappy organizations without thinking where its going, and those donations many times cripple local economies. For example, we may donate 10 dollars, which goes to buy rice, not  realizing that many times rice that’s handed out for too long after a disater puts grocers and food wholsalers out of business.   The cycle of dependancy a place like Haiti gets stuck in can be so septic.  We just want to focus our time on finding things that help Haiti help itself.  Education and jobs.  Education and Jobs.  It started with Tassy.  Who knows where it will go next.  We’re just so excited Tass picked us to go along for the ride.

I’ll let reader James who sent this to me explain:

Sweetwater Brewery here in Atlanta brews some off the wall project beers from time to time, in what they call their Dank Tank series.  They don’t make them for very long, and when they are gone, they’re gone.

The latest is called Mean Joe Bean, and one look at the label tells us that SOMEONE there is a Steeler fan!

Click the picture to see the whole label of Mean Joe Bean:

So many questions!

Is that supposed to be Joe Greene wearing panties and heels?

Do they know something I don’t know?

Is Lady Gaga looking at this and getting some costume ideas?

Do I ever want to drink a beer that came from The Dank Tank even if it is described as “so good you’ll need your Terrible Towel to wipe the tears?”

Is coffee-flavored beer available anywhere around here so I can try it?

Will I ever be able to mind-erase the mental image of Joe Greene wearing panties and heels?

Is the Neuralyzer a thing yet?

Would Dank Tank make a good band name?

I NEED ANSWERS, PEOPLE.

Update: And some answers are rolling in thanks to Atlanta resident Allison who tells me that is the Dank Tank mascot and here’s a picture of him her it.

Yowza. I changed my mind. I want THIS picture Neuralyzed out of my brain.