Rapper Waka Flocka Flame performed for OU’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter last May, but he won’t be doing it again. I live in Oklahoma where bedlam battles between OU and OSU dominate much of the sports talk. It’s not often this state makes national news, and this is not the desired way to do it. You’ve probably heard about the video featuring a busful of OU SAE brothers chanting, “There will never be a n*** in SAE.” You can see the video on Twitter without a shoutout to OU President David Boren. Action came swiftly and with zero tolerance. Boren kicked the fraternity brothers out of their house and released the following statement:
To those who have misused their free speech in such a reprehensible way, I have a message for you. You are disgraceful. You have violated all that we stand for. You should not have the privilege of calling yourselves “Sooners.” Real Sooners are not racist. Real Sooners are not bigots. Real Sooners believe in equal opportunity. Real Sooners treat all people with respect. Real Sooners love each other and take care of each other like family members.
Effective immediately, all ties and affiliations between this University and the local SAE chapter are hereby severed. I direct that the house be closed and that members will remove their personal belongings from the house by midnight tomorrow. Those needing to make special arrangements for positions shall contact the Dean of Students.
All of us will redouble our efforts to create the strongest sense of family and community. We vow that we will be an example to the entire country of how to deal with this issue. There must be zero tolerance for racism everywhere in our nation.
[From University of Oklahoma on Facebook]
Boren made his decision to close the house without hesitation. Good. The frat boys are without a house, which is all that Boren can do (speech codes usually don’t hold up under the 1st amendment) without getting sued. SAE also released an official statement to close its OU chapter, saying the fraternity is “disgusted” and “embarrassed” at the brothers’ behavior. Oh, and there were Tri Delta girls on the bus. Their chapter is investigating too.
There’s more. These SAE boys booked Waka Flocka for a performance at their frat house later this month! The rapper cancelled his appearance with this Instagram caption: “SMFH.. I know for a fact the whole school and SAE don’t agree with those kids actions so know that I’m not madd at the whole #SAE just those disgusting kids!!!!!! #WFF We can’t change history but we damn sure can create our own future #DeathToRacism” Here’s more of Waka Flocka’s message.
Barbara Garcia of Oklahoma was being interviewed after losing her home, her neighborhood and her beloved dog in a deadly tornado. She was surprisingly calm despite all she’d gone through, but as she was being interviewed her eyes constantly scanned the area where she had been sitting with her dog before the tornado hit.
As she talks about her experience someone sees Barbara’s missing dog buried in the rubble.
“The dog!” a female voice is heard saying. “Hi puppy!” from another. Yet NO ONE moves to help rescue the dog from being buried. They simply keep filming.
Barbara turns around and sees her little black dog in the mess. “Oh..oh..oh!” she says with a heavy heart.
“Help me.”
She actually has to ask the idiots filming her to help uncover her dog.
The poor woman’s a senior citizen who has abrasions all over her arms, she’s just survived a tornado and these morons can’t even jump into action and help her when she needs it? I just don’t get it. I would not have been just standing on the sidelines squealing, “Oh, hi puppy!” as I continued filming. I would have been scooping that little fella up into my arms checking him out and passing him on over to Barbara. She was obviously struggling with bending over. Help the old woman out, you dipshits. Blows my mind.
On a serious note (not that I wasn’t serious before), I’m glad to see Barbara got her dog back, and my heart is with those who have been affected by the deadly tornadoes this week.
Is anyone else getting kind of obsessed with Benedict Cumberbatch’s mouth? I know his beautiful almond-shaped eyes are wildly popular amongst the Cumber Collective, but we need to start making his beautiful lips into a thing. Anyway, Star Trek Into Darkness opens in the UK tomorrow, but American Cumberbitches won’t get to see it until next weekend (CB promised to go with me!). So, we still have another week full of Cumbertastic interviews, although I swear that some of you are already over him. This is a marathon, Cumberbitches, not a sprint. Eat a power bar, take a nap and then obsess, obsess, obsess. Some interesting highlights from Cumby’s latest Time Out interview:
He’s a Star Trek agnostic: ‘Yes, very much agnostic, that would be the term. I didn’t reject it. I’m not Richard Dawkins. I’m not a “Star Trek” atheist! I got a sentimental kick during the reboot, though, so there must have been something there. I think because it was on BBC Two before the six o’clock news. But as far as escapism went, “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” got more under my skin. I’ve got a respect for “Star Trek” now. I remember even at the time thinking these were quite tight morality plays and it wasn’t just about the fastidiousness and endless detail that people can obsess over in the Trekkie universe. Which is great…’
Working on The Hobbit: ‘Working on “Star Trek”, you can marry your role slightly to real-life experiences but, playing Smaug in “The Hobbit”, it’s impossible to do that – he’s a 400-year-old firebreathing worm who lives on top of a pile of gold and likes eating doors. Obviously, I’m personally a biped rather than a serpent, so the motion-capture element is limited. I was mainly on my belly on the floor playing at being a dragon. It was like being a kid: no marks, no make-up, no continuity, no worries about camera positions. It was so much fun.’
On playing Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate: ‘I didn’t want to hang him out to dry, I wanted to give a fair account of him. It’s a living story, and the moral responsibility was very much part of the job. I tried to reach out to him, to communicate with him, and he was having none of it as far as a meeting goes. He felt that a meeting would condone a film he felt was too poisonous an account. He got hold of an old script and all sorts of issues blew up when we were filming. He tried to attack it and in his position I’d do the same, probably. We had a discussion, though, which was good. If Julian is feeling that way, politically, he’s right not to let [a meeting] happen, because it would be like a blessing.’
His rising level of fame: ‘Yes, everyone’s saying that… “It’s going to go to another level”, “Benedict blasts off”, “It’s going to go into warp drive”, and all those terrible puns! But I go: “Well, yeah, I know James McAvoy, and he’s okay. Michael Fassbender, I know a little bit, and he’s doing fine.” It’s possible to remain grounded. It’s all a bit of an adjustment. I can’t be anything but flattered because of the attention towards the work.’
On being his ‘Sexiest’ title: ‘It’s very nice. As you can see, I’m okay-looking. I don’t really get it.’
[From Time Out]
When I first read this, it kind of bugged me that Cumby is comparing himself – again! – to Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Tom Hardy (that was in the last interview). But when you think about it… he pretty much IS at the same level. It’s not like he’s comparing himself to Daniel Day-Lewis or something. At the age of 36, Cumby IS around the same age as Fassbender (36), Hardy (35), and McAvoy (34), and as far as the work goes… much like Fassbender in particular, there’s a slow-burn quality to Cumby’s career. Cumby has been working for years and it wasn’t until Sherlock that he suddenly became a real celebrity. And 2013 is The Year of Cumby, much like 2011 was The Year of Fassbender. But… Cumby name-drops his contemporaries so often, and he compares himself publicly to those guys so often, it does seem… Goopy. He should just let other people praise him and do the comparisons, you know?
Oh, and Cumby also has a new piece in USA Today – it’s mostly a snooze, just stuff we’ve already heard before. But at the end, Cumby is asked about his Star Wars love, and he goes off on a wonderful tangent:
Immersing himself in sci-fi, though, is a bit of childhood wish fulfillment. While he enjoyed the morality tales of the original Star Trek reruns he watched over biscuits and tea in the early evening, he grew up adoring Star Wars — along with Indiana Jones, Han Solo was one of “the coolest, most aspirational heroes of my childhood,” he says.
Ask Cumberbatch if he’s available for Abrams’ upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII, and he lets loose an impressive Wookiee roar in return.
“Where’s Chewbacca in all of this? You want little baby Ewok-sized Chewbacca and a whole family of Chewbaccas,” the actor says, fan-casting a subplot to the upcoming movie. (If you play a dragon in a movie, you can probably also play a furry co-pilot who growls a lot.)
“It’s safe to say that J.J. knows my work and has my number. It would be great fun. Just promise me you won’t have a banner headline where it goes, ‘USA TODAY exclusive: Cumberbatch wants in with Star Wars director J.J. Abrams,’ ” he adds, laughing. “The worst way to try and get a job I think is to tout it in a national newspaper.”
[From USA Today]
I want to hear Cumby’s Chewbacca roar. RAWR!! You know he turned everything into a whooshing light-saber when he was a kid. LOL, Cumby is such a geek. I love it.
Oh, and Cumby was on The Late Show last night. I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but here’s the video:
Chihuahua Victory, the 1-year-old amazing dog that was born with disabled front legs, will be able to walk again thanks to charitable donations!
Nicknamed the “kangaroo” dog, Victory was found on the streets of Dearborn, Michigan and taken into a local animal shelter a few weeks ago. Since then no one attempted to claim her.
Although there was no surgery available to help the little pups, the shelter’s staff knew what could help: a combo of three orthopedic devices. The problem was it would cost about $2k, but with the help of newsletter that went out giving Victory some media attention, the staff was able to collect more than three times the amount, about $7k!
It looks like soon Victory will receive a ‘protective vest, a set of wheels and a sled-like apparatus to improve her mobility’, and once she’s able to get used to her new body, she’ll be eligible to be adopted to a forever home to some lucky person/people.
With the world the way it is today, it’s always refreshing and welcome to hear stories about good people doing good things, isn’t it? Here’s one for you.
A homeless man from Kansas City, Missouri has returned somebody’s platinum and diamond engagement ring after they accidentally dropped it in his change cup last Friday.
Mr. Billy Ray Harris was begging for spare change last week when a woman by the name of Sarah Darling stopped to drop a handful of coins in his cup…or at least that’s all she thought she was giving him.
Neither Sarah or Harris realized it right away but after an hour, the nice man checked his cup and saw the expensive ring.
He told Kansas City’s KCTV5, “The ring was so big that I knew if it was real, it was expensive.”
The woman told the news station that she’d taken the ring off and put it in her change purse because it was bothering her, and she hadn’t noticed it was missing until the next day. Obviously she was upset, and she says it was more for sentimental reasons than financial.
That next day Darling says she went back to where Mr. Harris was sitting to ask him if she’d left her ring with him. He immediately gave it back to her.
Said the woman, “It seemed like a miracle. I thought for sure there was no way I would get it back. I think in our world we often jump to like the worst conclusion, and it just makes you realize that there are good people out there.”
Appreciative for his honesty, Darling gave the gentlemen the cash she held in her wallet, though Harris says he just did as he was raised to do.
He told the news station, “Thank the good Lord, it’s a blessing, but I do still have some character.”
Fun fact: Mr. Harris once had found a Super Bowl ring that belonged to a retired Oakland Raiders player. He returned that one as well.
I too like to think I’ve been raised well and once, when I was a server, someone left their wallet behind. Of course I called them to tell them. But if I was homeless and begging on the streets, I’d hope that I would still do the same. This man is a good soul and so is this Darling lady!
