CULTURE BUZZ – 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina of Puerto Rico requested to be kept upright for his wake. Here’s the hot new trend in putting the word “fun” back in funerals!
CULTURE BUZZ – A man defending himself tries to fake a heart attack to get out of his trial. After they check his vitals and realize nothing is wrong, his plan quickly backfires. However, it’s his commitment to this horrible lie that is incredibly admirable.
CULTURE BUZZ – A group of 100 college presidents have banded together in an effort to lower the drinking age. The movement, called the Amethyst Initiative, began over a year ago in hopes of starting debate over the old highway funding laws which bumped it from 18 to 21 in the first place. Naturally, MADD isn’t happy. In fact, they’re quite mad.
CULTURE BUZZ – Artist/activist James Powderly becomes the first American detained by the Chinese at the Olympic Games. Powderly, who was protesting China’s involvement in Tibet through his work with Graffiti Research Lab, was arrested before debuting a new laser-based work. A short time later, 5 other activists were also arrested for a GRL-style protest.
SPORTS BUZZ – Young wrestler Henry Cejudo, the son of unauthorized migrants, has just won the gold for the U.S. American nativists want him deported. Thanks to the Olympics, I’m having an epiphany that there are a lot of really racist people in the world.
CULTURE BUZZ – Broadway musicals are dropping like flies due to tough economic times. Godspell, Brigadoon, and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf have been scrapped before opening, and others are threatening the same. We say, what gives? Why is it that when pennies must be pinched, tap shoes and glitter are always the first things to go? Sigh.
TECH BUZZ – There’s something odd about watching the faces in a few recent motion-capture CGI demos. Something…uncanny. New technology has allowed animators to make CGI faces look more and more like real live moving corpses. Should they scale back toward cartoons?
CULTURE BUZZ – An angry but real obituary that recently ran in the Times-Herald of Napa/Sonoma. “Dolores had no real hobbies,” it reads, “made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life.” Not surprisingly, there will no service (or prayers, or closure).
SPORTS BUZZ – A round-up of girls kissing at the Olympics. This photo deserves the tagline “Every Parents’ Nightmare” possibly more so than those Gossip Girl ads.
