Friday, September 23, 2011
Florida’s Leo Nunez has been playing under an assumed name
AP: Florida’s Leo Nunez has been playing under an assumed name
Being ‘an absolute jerk’ cost Kris Humphries a Kansas offer
Turns out it isn't just Kim Kardashian's sisters that Kris Humphries has rubbed the wrong way.
The former University of Minnesota star and new Mr. Kardashian apparently has a long history of bad first impressions dating all the way back to when he took an official visit to Kansas during his senior year of high school.
In an excerpt from the soon-to-be-released book"Beyond the Phog: Untold Stories from Kansas Basketball's Most Dominant Decade," former guard Keith Langford told author Jason King of Yahoo! Sportswhy Humphries never became a Jayhawk. Langford said he and his teammates were so disgusted with Humphries' arrogance that they encouraged then-Kansas coach Roy Williams to stop recruiting him.
Kris Humphries came on a visit and tried to commit. He really wanted to come here. But no one on the team liked Kris Humphries. He was arrogant. He told everyone he was going to come in and be the leading scorer as a freshman and that we'd all have to take a backseat to him. We were trying to be respectful and not say anything. But he was an absolute jerk. It was tough, because Roy was really excited about him. Kris Humphries was a big deal. He was a one-and-done or a two-and-done kind of player. Roy wanted him to commit on his visit. But we told him, "Coach, you can't bring this guy in. You can't do it." You'd figure Roy would say something like, "Let's work on him," or "Let's give him another chance." Instead he told Humphries, "Sorry, but you can't come."
That Williams would turn down a McDonald's All-American for his team demonstrates why he's so revered by his players and how confident he was that he could attract enough top prospects to be selective. Langford said current Kansas coach Bill Self did the same thing when future Louisville star Terrence Williams didn't mesh well with the team.
After Kansas turned down Humphries, the 6-foot-9 Minneapolis native eventually chose Duke before changing his mind and attending hometown Minnesota instead. Humphries scored 21.7 points and grabbed 10.1 rebounds a game in his lone season with the Gophers, but the team struggled, flailing its way to a 12-18 record and a 3-13 mark in Big Ten play.
In defense of Humphries, his former coach still thinks highly of him. Ex-Minnesota coach and current Long Beach State coach Dan Monson reconnected with Humphries in March when the NBA forward called to personally invite him to his wedding.
Here's what Monson told ESPN.com that Humphries said to him during that conversation: "I've been thinking a lot about you. I'm in a really good place professionally. I've met somebody special. I've been reflecting back, and you had a lot to do with that. I never got a chance to thank you."
So perhaps Humphries has matured since his younger days. Now all he has to do is focus on winning over his sisters-in-law.
Runner carries injured foe half mile to help in middle of race
Josh Ripley didn't have to stop. Running in a recent cross country meet for Andover (Minn.) High, the junior varsity runner was making his way through the trail at the Applejack Invite when he heard a loud scream during the first mile of a two-mile race. Most of the other kids running didn't pay much attention to Lakeville South runner Mark Paulauskas, who was writhing in pain at the time, as they passed by.
The only person who decided to pay attention was Ripley. As an Anoka-Hennepin school district releasereported, Ripley immediately noticed Paulauskas holding his bloody ankle. Then, instead of running back and calling for help, he did the only thing he could think of: He carried the injured runner a half mile back to coaches and family members.
"I didn't think about my race, I knew I needed to stop and help him," Ripley said in the school district release. "It was something I would expect my other teammates to do. I'm nothing special; I was just in the right place at the right time."
It was a good thing Ripley had the foresight to carry Paulauskas so he could be rushed to the emergency room. When Paulauskas arrived at the hospital, doctors realized he had been accidentally spiked by another runner's shoe during the race. The injury required 20 stitches and a walking boot to keep the wounded area from opening up.
Andover cross country coach Scott Clark couldn't believe what he heard when word got to him that Ripley was carrying another runner back to the starting line.
"Then Josh comes jogging into view carrying a runner," Clark said. "I noticed the blood on the runner's ankle as Josh handed him off to one of the coaches from Lakeville. Josh was tired and you could tell his focus was off as he started back on the course."
Amazingly, the story gets even better from there.
After dropping Paulauskas off with his coaches, Ripley proceeded to go back and finish the race -- even after carrying a kid for a half mile on the running trail. Admittedly he was a bit winded, but still completed the course as scheduled.
It's safe to say the average athlete would have taken a breather and called off the rest of the race after such a harrowing and intense experience. Luckily, Ripley is clearly not the average athlete. Fittingly, he'll be honored at a school board meeting next week. Talk about an incredible example of sportsmanship.
Friday, September 16, 2011
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Thursday, September 15, 2011
Rotana to sue UAE singer Hussein Al-Jasmi
Rotana to sue UAE singer Hussein Al-Jasmi
It was said that Al-Jasmi had broken the terms of the contract between him and Rotana by releasing a number of singles and selling them to different radio stations without getting prior approval from the company.
Al-Jasmi, however, stressed that he was convinced with what he did, and he did not believe to be at fault, as releasing the singles was something he benefited from.
Officials at the company attempted to reach a compromise with Al-Jasmi to avoid legal actions, but negotiations between the two parties fizzled out. As a result, Rotana decided to take legal actions against Al-Jasmi and filed a lawsuit.
Close contacts to the singer stated that Al-Jasmi was forced to produce a number of singles financed by him due to the fact that the company kept delaying the release of his album.
Al-Jasmi had stated that he had to release new songs to sing at concerts he had scheduled for, as he could not keep singing old songs from the album that was released in 2009. To protect his fame and the expectations of his fans, Al-Jasmi had been forced to act in this way.
India hiring outlook falls steeply - Manpower
India hiring outlook falls steeply - Manpower
Manpower Chief Executive Jeff Joerres describes the global jobs climate as tenuous, comparing it to a ball atop a hill: given a slight nudge, it could roll either forward or back.
"A collection of little things on the margin can move the ball," Joerres said.
The global staffing services company said the fourth-quarter hiring outlook is lower in 21 of 39 countries and territories, including the United States. Prospects are stronger in 13 economies and unchanged in five others versus the third-quarter.
When compared with the fourth quarter of last year, the job outlook is stronger in most countries and territories, the United States among them. The U.S. index, however, declined sequentially for the first time in nine quarters, suggesting the unemployment rate is likely to go higher.
The U.S. net employment outlook -- which measures the difference between employers who say they expect to add jobs and those planning to cut them -- was down one point from three months ago. Of the 13 U.S. industry sectors Manpower tracks, only one -- education and health services -- showed stronger hiring plans.
"Companies remain on the sidelines when it comes to hiring," Joerres said. "Until there's more visibility (about) demand improvement, we're going to see companies completely resistant to adding workers for the fear that they'll have to reduce that same cost."
U.S. President Barack Obama 's plan to stimulate jobs growth can help sentiment but will probably not boost hiring in the near term, Joerres said. Lower payroll costs will not induce a company to hire but could help those employers that were going to add workers anyway: instead of taking on nine workers, a manager might offer jobs to 10.
Obama has proposed a $447 billion jobs plan, involving tax cuts and public works spending, that he hopes will help rescue a faltering U.S. economy.
"Much of what was proposed makes sense," Joerres said. "Other things are to try to look like we're doing things and probably don't have a lot of efficacy."
Manpower's U.S. survey dates back to 1962 and is based on interviews with 18,000 employers. It is considered a leading indicator of labor market trends.
The survey results follow a disappointing U.S. jobs report that showed zero new jobs were created in August and the unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 percent.
INDIA, CHINA FEEL U.S. SLOWDOWN
Manpower's global survey, which polled more than 65,000 employers, found evidence slow U.S. growth was affecting job creation elsewhere. India's hiring outlook fell steeply from the third quarter, partly because its information technology industry relies on U.S. sales.
Employers in China are also expecting less robust hiring in the next three months.
"Even the emerging economies, with their growing middle classes, still can't avoid the effect of the U.S. slowdown," Joerres said. "China has a great middle class demographic but they still rely a lot on export goods to the U.S."
Rising labour costs have also made Chinese companies, especially small businesses, more reluctant to add workers, the survey found. Europe's austerity programs are also hurting demand for goods produced in emerging markets, Manpower said.
The weakest hiring outlooks are in Mediterranean countries hit by an ongoing debt crisis, including Greece, Italy and Spain. These countries' problems are affecting confidence in northern Europe, including the Netherlands. Central European economies such as Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic showed mostly lower readings.
In Asia-Pacific, spending on reconstruction after a destructive March earthquake lifted Japanese employers' optimism to its highest reading in three years. Sentiment in Hong Kong , Taiwan and Singapore was little changed and dipped in Australia.
In the Americas, employers in Canada and Mexico are less optimistic than three months ago, but the outlook brightened in Colombia and Brazil.
Tehran rocks, but only under ground
Tehran rocks, but only under ground
But along with the mandatory Marshall amplifier and out-sized drum kit, his group, Angband, also boasts a couple of goatskin percussion instruments that have been a familiar part of Persian music for centuries.
In a country where western music is banned, Dean is part of Iran's booming underground scene -- making rock, Iranian style.
"We are trying not to get far from our roots, by using Persian percussion," Dean said, pointing out the daf -- a traditional hand-held drum which looks like a super-sized tambourine with metal chains on one side of the skin that add a scratchy, shimmering sound.
But as Iranian as Angband wants to be, it has had to look further afield to get its music released, signing with a German label, Pure Steel Records.
To be produced within Iran, music must be approved by the Ministry of Culture and Guidance, which checks lyrics and music to ensure they conform to the moral standards deemed acceptable in the Islamic Republic.
Classical Persian music and some forms of pop have prospered under the system, but genres like rock and hip-hop have remained almost exclusively underground.
Many Iranian bands do not bother asking for the mandatory government permits to release their music and seek contracts with foreign companies or put their music on websites blocked by the state but still accessible to anyone with a modicum of technical nous.
The 37-year-old founder of Angband plays down the disadvantages of being a rocker in Iran.
"In addition to becoming internationally known, better CD quality is another reason why we want to have our albums on foreign labels," he said, playing with his long wavy hair.
HARD ROCK, SOFT WAR
Many Iranian clerics regard western music as haram, forbidden by Islam.
"Haram music has never been halal (religiously permissible) and it will never be," influential cleric Ahmad Khatami said in July, according to the ISNA news agency.
For the conservatives, western music, movies and television are seen as part of a deliberate "soft war" waged by the West to corrupt Iran's youth.
But access to the Internet and illegal satellite television mean western culture is popular among young Iranians, in a country where 70 percent of the population is under 30 and has no real memory of the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the U.S.-backed Shah and ushered in an Islamic government.
"Underground music is a mirror of our society's situation... We express in our music the parts of reality that we are not allowed to say," said Ali, a 28-year-old Tehrani who composes rap music.
"This honesty and sense of freedom are why young people are becoming more hungry for banned underground music."
In a home studio in central Tehran, its walls and ceiling covered with insulators to avoid the music being heard outside the apartment, a four-piece rock band "Wednesday Call" is rehearsing.
"Initially we thought that we would be able to obtain permits to release our albums but after (political) conditions changed, it is not even something that crosses our mind anymore," said the band's guitarist, 32-year-old Arin.
In the 1990s, particularly under the two terms of the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, authorities began relaxing restrictions imposed after the revolution. That trend was reversed by hard line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who came to power in 2005.
Musicians' struggle against censorship was the subject of a 2009 movie "No One Knows About Persian Cats," which won the Special Jury prize at Cannes but, like the music it depicted, was banned by the Iranian government.
In the film, a young woman singer Negar (Negar Shaghaghi) and her musician boyfriend, Ashkan (Ashkan Koshanejad), buy false passports and visas and emigrate to London to pursue their ambitions.
In real life, too, many Iranian musicians have left the country in order to continue practicing their art.
Singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjoo, dubbed "Iran's Bob Dylan" by the New York Times due to his protest songs, was sentenced to five years' jail in absentia for insulting religious sanctities. Namjoo lives in California but his music is still heard in Iran.
"I love Namjoo's work and I dream that one day he can have a concert in Iran," said Nahal, a 24-year-old private sector employee who downloads all his works.
With 24-hour MTV-style Persian music channels beamed into Iranian homes by satellite, mostly from Los Angeles, home to a huge Iranian émigré community, the state has hit back, not only by cracking down on illegal satellite dishes, but also, according to some media reports, by offering an alternative.
Reformist daily Sharq, quoting a local website, reported that a new music channel, to be called "Iranian" would be launched in the next few month, broadcasting exclusively Iranian music.
"I have heard that the channel will be run by private sector and it will broadcast authorised music of musicians inside the country," said rapper Ali.
"So it will not help Iran's underground music to show itself."
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