Your lunch hour time waster

From a really bad 1980's TV show.

Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi hijacks Gov. Rick Scott's press conference

UPDATE: Click here to see the Daily Show segment that aired Thurs., Feb. 2, 2012.

UPDATED 1x below.

Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi interrupted a press conference [Wednesday] by Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) to ask him to prove to the state taxpayers that he’s not on drugs by peeing in a cup.

“You benefit from hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars every year, so would you be willing to pee into this cup to prove to Florida taxpayers that you’re not on drugs, that you’re not using that money for drugs?” Mandvi asked.

Scott replied that he’s “done it plenty of times.”

Mandvi then tried to pass a cup forward: “Would you pass this forward to the governor? We can all turn around, it’s fine.”

-via Talking Points Memo

-video via St. Petersburg Times

UPDATE: Late this afternoon, Aasif Tweeted about his interaction with Gov. Scott and linked to my blog post.

Click to enlarge.

In case you missed it...

Washingtonian Magazine profiles the brilliant former editor of Tropic Magazine, (1985-1990), Gene Weingarten in its December issue

It's must reading for anyone who has fond memories of the Miami Herald's Sunday magazine.

Among the story's highlights is an account of how a full-color photograph of Dave Barry flipping the bird ended up on the magazine's cover in September 1989. It's safe to say it was the first and last time an image like that would see the light of day in the pages of the Herald.

In September 1989, Weingarten and company published a cover story about the new Orlando Magic basketball team in which they mocked the city of Orlando and referred to its team’s general manager as a weenie. The article was written by Dave Barry, whom Weingarten had hired in 1984, thereby launching the career of perhaps the most famous humor columnist of the late 20th century. The article’s stated purpose was to “whip up a mindless hatred on the part of our readership in hopes of creating a classic sports rivalry.” Below a photograph of Magic cheerleaders, rather than printing their actual names, Weingarten made up monikers like Flunky, Poobles, and Spaz.

Click to enlarge.

What may be most memorable about the issue is the cover photo. Pictured is Barry spinning a basketball on his middle finger. The cover line extends “heartfelt best wishes” to Orlando on the arrival of its new team.

Weingarten somehow convinced the then executive editor of the Herald that flipping the bird “isn’t really offensive to people.” Turns out it really is offensive to people, and the paper got letters, lots of letters, including one from a mother who asked what she should tell her son when he asked why his hero, the great Dave Barry, was making an obscene gesture on the cover of a magazine. The executive editor later said running the photo was the only decision she ever regretted.

Stuff we like

Incredible time-lapse video of traffic in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Vietnam by Rob Whitworth.

Website

Traffic in Frenetic HCMC, Vietnam from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.

Sarasota Herald Tribune finds the state's dirtiest cop right here in South Florida

Click here to enlarge. 

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Sunday printed the first story of a nine part series that's going to be Topic "A" for discussion at at least one South Florida newspaper on Monday. Guaranteed.

Titled "Unfit for Duty," the Herald-Tribune series will examine over the remaining 8 days, "how Florida police officers ... stay on the job despite multiple complaints, crimes."

(Last October, in a similar series, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigated "Milwaukee police officers who have been found guilty of various infractions. [A] front-page package kicked off a huge, three-part look at police discipline.")

In part one, of the Herald-Tribune series, reporters Anthony Cormier and Matthew Doig, take an in-depth look at the record of Opa Locka police Sgt. German Roque, who is, unarguably Florida's dirtiest cop.

German Bosque's personnel file looks more like a rap sheet than a résumé.

In two decades, the Opa-Locka Police Department opened 40 internal affairs cases on Bosque. Sixteen of them were for battery or excessive force.

[Read Bosque's 64-page IA file by clicking here.]

Fired five times and arrested three, he was charged with stealing a car, trying to board an airplane with a loaded gun and driving with a suspended license.

Internal Affairs investigations found that Bosque split a man's lip with a head butt. He opened another man's head with a leg sweep and takedown. He spit in the face of a drunken, stumbling arrestee. One time, he smacked a juvenile so hard the boy's face was red and swollen the next day.

Bosque has been caught defying direct orders, lying to supervisors and falsifying police reports. Off duty, he was accused by women of domestic violence and stalking. During inspections, the agency found a counterfeit $20 bill, cocaine and crack pipes in his patrol car.

Still, Bosque has kept his badge.
[...]
In a computer analysis of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's discipline cases, the Herald-Tribune found Bosque's certificate had been jeopardized due to misconduct more than any other working officer.

During an August interview in Opa-Locka, Bosque lit up with excitement when he heard that he led the state in discipline cases.

"I can't believe that," he said. "I'm not trying to smile. I just ... damn!"

A high-level staff member with the FDLE's Bureau of Officer Standards had a different reaction. He first said it wasn't possible for an officer to get in trouble that many times and still be certified.

Then he pulled Bosque's records.

His response: "Holy shit."

The Herald-Tribune story is already eliciting reaction from South Florida journalists.

After reading it, one veteran newspaper reporter wrote, "That cop's record is off the wall. I've seen a few bad jackets, but nothing like that."

One Miami Herald reporter wrote on Facebook, "If even half of what was in this officer's file is true, there is no way he should be an officer. In any part of the country. Keeping him on the force leads to stories like these that contribute to citizens mistrust of police."

If you're a Miami Herald reader, by now you're probably asking yourself, "Why didn't the Herald do this story?"

While staff cuts have left the Herald with a greatly reduced staff, the paper is still doing great work.

Bosque's file however, is available on the Internet for anyone to see.

But, it's no surprise that the Herald-Tribune is out front on this story.

Last March, Yahoo! News reported the Sarasota Herald-Tribune was the "hottest place to land a journalism job."  Matthew Doig, one of the writers of the Bosque story, had posted a much-talked about listing for an investigative reporter.

If you're the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble… well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you're our kind of sicko.

A month later, the 95,000 circulation Herald-Tribune gained more attention by winning its first Pulitzer Prize ever.

Then, last September, the St. Petersburg Times hired away Chris Davis, an editor and reporter at Sarasota Herald-Tribune who headed up the team that won the Pulitzer.

Meanwhile, I can't wait to see which Florida newspaper will fire the next shot in the Great Florida Newspaper Investigative Reporting Wars.

This is going to be interesting.

_______________________

As a part of their series, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has posted a searchable FDLE database that lists officers, complaints and disciplinary actions.

The Random Pixels Losers Corner welcomes...

Demetrius Christophe Vidale

...Demetrius Christophe Vidale

Consider for a moment, the plight of young Vidale.

At 19, the 5-foot, 7-inch tall, potty-mouthed Broward County punk is trying mightily to establish his gangsta creds.

But it's a little hard to convince your peeps that you're a hard-core thug when you're caught on video riding around on public transportation, spewing bad rap lyrics, all while wearing a red jogging suit topped off with a matching Santa hat.

It's enough to push anyone over the edge.

Perhaps that explains why, when he was "kicked off a county bus for rapping/yelling with a healthy dose of profanity on November 18 ... Vidale threw a rock at the windshield of the bus, shattering it." Anger management, it appears, is not a good fit with a gangsta lifestyle.

This afternoon Vidale is sitting in the Broward County jail.

Last night, the aspiring thug's reputation took another hit when he was turned in to authorities in by his mama!

Welcome to the Random Pixels Losers Corner, Demetrius!