Player Who Allegedly Trashed Hotel Room Drafted In First Round

You can listen to the draft pundits talk about character issues all you want, but at the end of the day, all that matters is how well you play. Which is probably why WR DeAndre Hopkins was drafted 27th overall with the Texans' first pick, despite allegations that he and another player trashed their Indy hotel room during the combine back in February. They didn't go full Diamond Dave on the joint, but the hotel reported garbage strewn about the room, uneaten food left on the beds, toothpaste smeared on the mirror, and - here's the kicker - "urine and feces scattered about."
And what kind of "student-athlete" could be accused of not being able to get his own shit in the bowl? Well, Hopkins was a major in Community Recreation, Sport and Camp Management at Clemson. The other player, WR Mark Harrison (signed undrafted by the Bears), was a major in Labor Studies at Rutgers.
Read the initial report at Deadspin.

Fox News Turned Boston Marathon Videos Into An Action Movie Trailer

Of course, you can't be surprised, this is what the news media does: sensationalize a tragedy into ratings. But editing horrific footage of a terrorist attack and adding, of all tracks, "I Am The Doctor" from the Doctor Who soundtrack? Can't wait until the Beeb sends a nice ceast-and-desist.
Watch the video at Deadspin.
Image courtesy Crooks & Liars.

Patton Oswalt's Facebook Post

Boston. Fucking horrible.
I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."
But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.
But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

Patton Oswalt on Facebook.

Us At Our Best

Roupen Bastajian, a 35-year-old Rhode Island State Trooper from Smithfield, had just finished the race when they put the heat blanket wrap on him and he heard the first blast. "I started running toward the blast." (Providence Journal)

The Boston Barstool Sports blog reports doctors and nurses who ran in the marathon ran back to volunteer to help the wounded after the bombing.

NBCSN reports marathoners ran to Massachusetts General Hospital to donate blood.

The Massachusetts Red Cross says so much blood was donated, no more will be needed.

Joe Andruzzi, a former player for the New England Patriots, was photographed carrying people out of the blast area. Andruzzi's brother was a FDNY firefighter on 9/11 and managed to escape the towers' collapse.

Local Bostonians opened up their homes to any marathoners displaced by today's events.

Carlos Arredondo, an anti-war protestor supporting a marathoner who was running for Arredondo's son who died in Iraq, was captured several times in photographs and on video. A Red Cross volunteer, Arredondo is seen in the above photograph pinching a femoral artery, and in the Steve Silva video helping clear debris off victims from the first explosion site less than a minute after the blast.

Opinion: BASTARDS!

There comes these days. Days that no matter what faith you have in the human race, you just go "Ugh." Maybe you cry, maybe you're angry, maybe it doesn't sink in at first. But no matter how much you try and keep a positive view of humanity, there's going to be times you really don't know anymore. This is one of those days.
Right now, no one knows who or why someone chose to bomb one of America's longest-running sporting events. We can speculate on such things, but at the end of the day, the answer is simple: someone just couldn't be a goddamn fucking human being.
To think of what that scene was; thousands cheering for the valiant efforts of athletes, most of whom are not world stars. Not only men and women, but the wheelchair athletes who came through first. Then as the hours went, people who had no professional aims came across; people running for charity, people running for a cause, or even someone who just wanted to accomplish the feat. And someone looked at that, and couldn't comprehend the beauty of it. Or they did, and wanted to remove it. Someone saw other people enjoying life, and they wanted to take it away.
And for what end? Because some radical told them their god would reward them for it? Because someone had a political belief they wanted to get across? Because they think no one listens to them, and people would pay attention to them now? In the end, it doesn't matter. They thought robbing people of their humanity would make them feel better. These people found a way to their happiness, and some son of a bitch couldn't stand it. It had to be about him.
And are we any better? If this was for some cause, doesn't that speak to a problem with how we handle our humanity? Everyday, we place everything toward one goal. Whatever we say, whatever we do, how we treat others, how we respond to news; it's all to follow our one goal. Already, the gun debate is up on twitter, as if it's somehow related to this. Fingers are being pointed at Tea Partiers and Muslims alike, and the "truthers" already have their conspiracy theories lined up. Everything we do has to match this act we put on, instead of being real fucking human beings. We have the ability to comprehend and appreciate like no other creature on Earth, and we waste it. Why? Because whatever we believe or follow must mean more than our own fucking humanity? Why can't we step back and appreciate what we have around us? Why can't we look at things like why people choose to run a marathon, with little chance of being rich or famous from it, and appreciate that these people found their humanity without having to affect everyone elses?
And you get days like these, when you can't decide what makes us worse: the thought that human beings have no soul, or the thought that we do but can never appreciate it.
Top Image from Boston Globe Photographer David Ryan.

U.S. Senator is Asking Fox To Not Broadcast NRA-Sponsored Race

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has written to Rupert Murdock asking that his Fox network not broadcast this Saturday night's NRA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Murphy argued the race will give national attention "to an organization that has been the face of one side of this heated debate."
Fox has not advertised the NRA sponsorship in their promos (Fox has race sponsors provide "paid consideration" for their names to be mentioned on-air), it's been promoted as "NASCAR Racing from Texas" and will probably be mentioned as such on air. Race sponsorships are made by the tracks themselves, but the NRA flap has NASCAR saying they may have more say in the future (a NASCAR-related company owns 12 of the 23 tracks on the circuit, and Texas is not one of those).
Read more at the AP and Sporting News.
Image courtesy TalkingPoints.

Fox Is Doing The Slapsuit Thing Again

Sci-fi blog io9 has learned Fox has been sending "cease-and-desist" orders to people making items based on the cancelled-a-decade-ago series Firefly. Not really surprising, considering the network used to slapsuit websites that referenced The Simpsons. Also not surprising for those who watch NASCAR on Fox, since everyone remembers when Darrell Waltrip slapsuited "Mr. Boogity."
For those who don't, Randy Nicholson was a race memorabilia shop owner who held the trademark on the name "Mr. Boogity" in Canada years before Waltrip. But Waltrip sued Nicholson, using the threat of his deep pockets against Nicholson's rightful claim. Ultimately, the cost of $150k to fight was too much, and he would up having to spend $6k trying to comply with Waltrip's branding of his inane catchphrase.

Which he apparently has a right to, because no one has ever used "boogity"....oh....