Greetings and Salutations, people! Happy International Tuba Day!
VSR and Fake Radio are brought to you by Amazon.com. (Clip 97)
Tweet of the Week:
kellyoxford kelly oxford
"WHOA THIS LADY RIGHT HERE IS FAT. A FAT FAT LADY. RIGHT HERE." - 2yr old daughter, to everyone in the food court today
Today on VSR – In celebration of International Tuba Day, we’ll play what very well may be the first Tuba Game Show in the history of earth…a little game I like to call, “It takes 2 to Tuba” or “Name that Tuba”…I can’t quite decide which name I like better. We’ll finally get to the newest round of “Would you rather?” We’ll discuss my least favorite Superhero Superman and his latest controversial move, I have a insane lawsuit roundup that we may get to if we have time, and we might even talk a bit about Benny Laden and his reported death, I’ve got a new 5 minutes with Luke, and depending on how I feel, I may even play the saddest clip ever heard in the history of Fake Radio. That’s far more than I can hope to get to today, but we’ll do our best to get to as much as we can.
Give out the phone number - (646) 716-6831 OR 6-HOP-1-MOVE-1
Voice Mail – 720-CUB-1-ACE
Twitter: @socnorb777
Let’s get to the news… (Play News Music – Clip 03)
LONDON – It's official: Smokey the cat has roared her way into Guinness World Records having achieved the loudest purr by a domestic cat.
Guinness says the gray-and-white tabby earned her place with record-setting 67.7 decibels. In a video on the cat's
website, the 12-year-old, ordinary-size feline purrs with a sound akin to the cooing of an angry dove, the decibel level is roughly equivalent to a vacuum cleaner running.
Smokey first rose to prominence in February, when her owner, Ruth Adams, ran a local competition for the most powerful purr. A community college recorded the purr and submitted it to Guinness, who accepted Smokey’s purr as a world Record. (Clip 28)
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio – An Ohio hotel has been fending off angry phone calls because a broken rope on its flagpole led some to think the business was mourning the death of Osama bin Laden.
The rope left the U.S. flag stuck at half-staff for several days this
week outside a Hampton Inn in Springfield in western Ohio.
Hotel Assistant general manager Connie Smith said the hotel "started getting calls left and right" from people assuming the management supported bin Laden.
Smith says one man threatened to cut down the flagpole.
She says the town is "obviously patriotic."
The newspaper reports the rope broke as the hotel was trying to be respectful of Old Glory by replacing a flag that had frayed.
CLAY, N.Y. – It was ALMOST the perfect crime, that is until an ill-timed, inadvertent 911 call led police to three larceny suspects who had just completed a theft and were planning their next caper. That was when one of the criminal’s cell phone’s “pocket dialed” 911. Without any of the men knowing, the 911 operator overheard the trio celebrating their heist and planning their next series of break-ins in upstate New York.
Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh says the police were already looking for a suspicious person in connection with a robbery of some tools from a business in the Syracuse suburb of Clay when they got the unlikely assist of the theif’s cell phone tattling on him.
As the dispatcher relayed the conversation to officers in the field, the men discussed their plans, described their surroundings and even commented, "there go the cops now."
Walsh says that was enough for a deputy to turn around and stop the Kia Sportage full of the just stolen tools. The dispatcher then heard the driver being asked for his license and registration.
I’m Craig, and that is the news… (Play News Music – Clip 03)
Bring on Face and The Whale:
Tuba Game Show– Name that tune – It takes 2 to Tuba
Would you Rather??? (Theme music – Clip 6)
-Go about your normal day naked or fall asleep for a year
-Be 3 feet tall or 8 feet tall?
-Give up your computer or your television forever.
-Always lose or never play?
-Would you rather live forever or live a normal life and die?
-Rich and ugly or poor and good looking?
-Be the most popular person alive or the smartest person alive?
-Forget who you are but remember who everyone else is or Forget who everyone else is and remember who you are?
-Only be able to whisper or only be able to shout
-Would you rather have to spend the next year repeating the fourth grade (at your current age), or spend a month in jail for a crime you did not commit?
-Would you rather date a girl who is a perfect 10, but 7’6 tall, or a 6 or a 7, but who was two inches shorter than you?
Superman is renouncing his citizenship:
Time to tweak that catchphrase "truth, justice and the American way"? Superman is renouncing his U.S. citizenship in DC's new "Action Comics #900."
In the new comic book, Superman is scolded by a member of the president's security staff for appearing at a protest in Iran, with the notion that Superman's actions reflect the positions of U.S. government as a whole.
The Man of Steel’s declaration, “I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy,” follows accusations that he caused an international incident in Tehran. Superman flew to the country during a huge protest, where he stood silent for one day, to show his support for the demonstrators. The 24 hours pass with a mix of appreciation (flowers and flags) and fear (hurled Molotov cocktails). But the government of Iran sees Superman as an agent of the United States and feels his action is an act of war. “Truth, justice and the American way – it’s not enough anymore,” Superman tells the president’s national security adviser. “The world’s too small. Too connected.” He then makes the decision to go before the United Nations and renounce his American citizenship.
Dumb Lawsuit Roundup:
A Manhattan mom is suing a pricey preschool for dumping her "very smart" 4-year-old with tykes half her age and boring her with lessons about shapes and colors.
In court papers, Nicole Imprescia suggests York Avenue Preschool jeopardized little Lucia's chances of getting into an elite private school or, one day, the Ivy League.
She's demanding a refund of the $19,000 tuition and class-action status for other toddlers who weren't properly prepped for the standardized test that can mean the difference between Dalton and - gasp! - public school.
A Wheeling, Illinois woman claiming her new Adidas shoes were made of materials that stuck together, causing her to fall, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the shoe company.
Anna Bourtseva claims she was injured during a June 12, 2010, fall because her new Adidas Midiru shoes stuck together, according to a suit filed in Cook County Circuit Court.
Bourtseva claims she purchased the shoes June 6, 2010, from an Adidas Outlet Store not knowing the shoe’s materials would cause them to stick together. The suit claims she fell forward and suffered serious internal and external injuries, including bruises, contusions and lacerations.
Bourtseva claims Adidas North America Inc. manufactured, assembled, constructed and designed shoes made of materials that had a tendency to stick together when they came into contact with each other. She also claims the shoes posed a tripping hazard that Adidas failed to warn her about.
The two-count suit seeks more than $50,000 plus the cost of the suit.
An Indiana woman is suing Carnival Cruise Lines after alleging a ship she was on was “going too fast.” Doris Beard says the immense speed of the vessel caused her to become sick.
According to the court document, Beard said, quote, “due to the speed of the ship I became very sick, my body swayed terrible on the ship I had bleeding, which I had not has in three years. The ship was moving so fast everyone on board became sick, even the workers.”
She filed her claim in August 2009, but the amount she’s seeking was not specified. It also wasn’t specified which ship she was on, but most of Carnival’s fleet max out at 25 to 28 miles per hour.
Carnival hasn’t commented on the case, except to request that the suit be filed in the state of Florida, where the company is based, instead of Indiana. They also say the woman’s claim wasn’t filed within the one-year statute of limitations specified in the cruise contract.
This woman thinks she suffered? Maybe she needs to watch Speed 2: Cruise Control. THOSE people suffered. Not the cruise passengers. The people who went to see the movie.
Crestwood, MISSOURI - The Starbucks coffee shop here should have known it was inviting trouble by placing a tip jar on an open counter, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the estate of a customer who died defending it.
The suit, filed Monday in St. Louis County Circuit Court, seeks unspecified damages from the Starbucks Corp. on behalf of the estate of Roger Kreutz and his father, Edward Kreutz Sr.
Roger Kreutz, 54, of Crestwood, was a customer at the Starbucks, 9590 Watson Road, on March 3, 2008, when he saw a teenager snatch the jar. Kreutz gave chase on foot.
Rushing to escape, Aaron Poisson, then 19, struggled with his pursuer over a car door and backed his Ford out of a parking space, knocking Kreutz to the pavement. He died two days later of head injuries.
Poisson, of Cumming, Ga., drove off and was captured later in St. Louis. He eventually pleaded guilty of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to one year in jail.
The tip jar contained less than $5.
Poisson was a reluctant attendee at an unusual reunion at the store last year, in which two of Kreutz's brothers and other relatives rewarded Poisson with forgiveness, saying they knew he intended no harm. They hugged and cried together and planted a memorial tree.
Poisson was not named in the suit.
It alleges that Starbucks "did not employ security to prevent the perpetration of such crimes" and that it "invited the act of perpetration of said crime" by having a tip jar.
As a "direct and proximate" result of this, Kreutz was killed after he was hit by the car, the filing claims.
It says Starbucks had a duty to "exercise reasonable care" to protect Kreutz or give him adequate warning against harm.
An NBA referee has called a technical foul against an Associated Press writer.
Referee Bill Spooner has filed a lawsuit against AP writer Jon Krawczynski for posting a message on Twitter over an alleged conversation Spooner had with Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Kurt Rambis, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal.
The incident took place during a Jan. 24 game between the Timberwolves and the Houston Rockets.
The suit claims Rambis became upset over a called foul on one of his players. Spooner says he would look at the call at half time, while Rambis asked him how his team would get the points back.
The lawsuit claims the 22-year NBA referee didn't answer Rambis' question, but that's when the AP writer's Tweet happened.
"Ref Bill Spooner told Rambis he'd 'get it back' after a bad call. Then he made an even worse call on Rockets. That's NBA officiating folks," Krawczynski's Tweet said.
Spooner is seeking more than $75,000 in damages, saying the Tweet was a defamatory accusation of game fixing. He also wants the message to be unpublished and a retraction, according to the paper.
The Associated Press is standing by its writer.
"We believe all of the facts we reported from the game in question were accurate," Dave Tomlin, AP associate general counsel, said in a statement to the paper.
The organization has yet to receive the lawsuit that was filed Monday in Minneapolis' U.S. District Court.
The Rockets won the game 129-125.
Closure – Ted Anthony
To surf American airwaves, to read American comments on the Internet by the thousands, to walk American streets on the day after Osama bin Laden's astonishing demise meant you'd almost certainly hear some variation of a single telling word: "closure."
As in ending. As in end of story — at least, the primary story arc of Osama bin Laden, which for most Americans began in the eastern United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and ended in Pakistan in the early moments of May 2, 2011, in one of the most dramatic undoings imaginable.
While Americans reveled in the demise of global terrorism's most public face, the prevailing mood was unsurprising for the culture that produced Hollywood: After so many years of uncertainty and mass aggravation over no resolution at all, here, finally, was some kind of coherent ending.
Listen to Republican Rep. Peter King, one of many whose satisfaction in the hours after bin Laden's death focused on resolution and wrap-up. Of the 9/11 victims' families, he said this: "Now they can finally have some sense of closure and some sense of justice."
Or Mike Low of Batesville, Ark., whose flight attendant daughter died aboard American Airlines Flight 11: "It certainly brings an ending to a major quest for all of us."
Or Lisa Ramaci, celebrating early Monday in New York's streets, where the champagne-and-goodbye-chants atmosphere at times resembled that of a major pro sports victory: "We had this 10 years of frustration just building and building, wanting this guy dead, and now he is."
Surely one man's eradication cannot offset survivors' years of pain. But the American hunger for definitive Hollywood endings is boundless — to the point where we grow deeply irritated if something seems too open-ended. The quick-cut, sound-bite culture so frustrating to politicians and other leaders produces an appetite for resolution that's hard to satisfy.
Add to that the enduring, horrific echoes of 9/11 and two protracted wars that have no discernible endpoints in sight, and you have a populace primed to applaud the end of a major chapter, even if it isn't unfettered victory.
Part of it is the nature of U.S. warfare in recent decades. Americans today are as likely to fight wars against amorphous enemies as they are nation-states. Because of that, conflicts tend to lack distinct endings or formal surrenders like a Yorktown or an Appomattox — events that say, "Hey, the war's over."
There was no Treaty of Versailles with Saddam Hussein, and certainly no one in America expects ever to have a V-E Day or V-J Day with al-Qaida. In modern U.S.-backed warfare, the big, solemn, identifiable ending is virtually obsolete. So a major milestone like bin Laden's death is, for the United States, a cause for buoyancy in a frustratingly unresolved conflict.
That's how Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer cast it. "The war on terror is not over," he said Monday on MSNBC, "but maybe this was the Saratoga or the Gettysburg where things turned."
But there's something else at play, too. Bin Laden himself was the closest thing the modern world had to a James Bond-style supervillain — someone who, to hundreds of millions of Westerners, was truly, monochromatically dastardly.
Owen Gleiberman, writing on Entertainment Weekly's website, identified it immediately in a piece called "Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy."
"That perception of 9/11 as big-screen-action-disaster-gone-real, widespread though it was, seemed rather indefensible at the time because to say it, or even to think it, risked trivializing the devastation," Gleiberman wrote.
"Yet 9/11, there's almost no denying it, did live in our minds like a giant motion picture," he wrote, "and part of what made it so wasn't simply the vastness, the sheer terrifying spectacle, of the tragedy. It was that behind it lay a villain of nearly mythological proportion."
And now we get to the heart of the matter. Could it be that, for a worried and weary nation, such a soul-wrenching event as 9/11 required an appropriately cataclysmic resolution for the man who masterminded it? Would a bomb from the air — or, worse, a revelation years later that he had died — have been as satisfying?
Would a less sharply defined bin Laden death have allowed for the jubilant summoning of American resoluteness that was being bandied about so freely Monday from the White House to the streets of New York City and Washington?
When you take in the words that people in America used Monday — "emotionally held hostage," "finally," "a symbol," "an important milestone" — you realize what the ending of bin Laden means right here, right now: It gives Americans something to pin their feelings on, to carry with us when we say, "What has all this meant?"
It means, for now, that one of the key demands of a story — that something actually happens that means something — has just unfolded before our eyes. The fact that the manner of bin Laden's death might have fit perfectly into a pre-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger movie is not incidental.
For the moment, Americans have our resolution — something to pin our feelings on. We have all-important closure, even though — in the real, messier, non-cinematic world — the country of big endings still must wake up tomorrow and fight another day.
Vertically Striped Music Recommendation:
Colin Hay – Waiting for my real life to begin (Clip 81)
Shalom and Good Evening to you all!
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