Is the NFL ready for an openly gay football player ? Chris Clemons Says It Would Be ‘Selfish’ For NFL Player To Be Gay VIa HuffPo reports: There has never been an openly gay player in the NFL, and Seattle Seahawks defensive end Chris Clemons thinks it might be best if it stays that way. In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Clemons said he didn’t think it would be a good idea for a player to come out of the closet while playing professional football, although he insisted he wasn’t homophobic. “Who on Gods earth is this person saying he’s coming out of the closet in the NFL?” tweeted Clemons. Speculation about the possibility of a professional football player coming out picked up this week after a report by Mike Freeman of CBS Sports. “Based on interviews over the past several weeks with current and former players, I’m told that a current gay NFL player is strongly considering coming out publicly within the next few months — and after doing so, the player would attempt to continue his career,” wrote Freeman. He added that the player believes it is “now time for someone to take this step” but is worried about the reaction of homophobic fans. Clemons then explained that he wasn’t against playing with a gay teammate, but he thought coming out of the closet would be a “selfish act” by the player in question. He then added: This is the new homophobic argument- gays are selfish for foisting their lifestyle choices on us. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight! Do you think the NFL and sports world are ready for gay players?? Twitter
In an interview with CNN yesterday, former San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders offensive tackle Kwame Harris came out as a homosexual. Harris had been arrested in January for beating an ex-boyfriend and said he underwent significant stress and pressure, keeping his sexuality a secret during his playing days. “You want to escape the despair and turmoil and your mind goes to dark places,” Harris said of keeping his sexuality secret. “I’m happy today, and I’m glad they were just ideas and I didn’t act on any of them. “The cost was great not speak candidly open about myself in complete manner,” Harris said. “If I could have done it differently, I would have hoped I found the strength [to come out].” Harris played for the 49ers from 2003-2007. Ironically, Chris Culliver – a cornerback on that same team this year – got into major trouble two months ago when he denied there were any gay players in his locker room and made disparaging remarks about homosexuals in general. He later apologized and met with a support group for gay, lesbians and bisexuals.
The NFL’s Miami Dolphins have a new logo. One they meant to unveil April 25 but leaked. Dolphins CEO Mike Dee made it official Wednesday, saying that the logo that has made the rounds on Internet in recent days is the real deal: Over the weekend the logo was leaked when one of the team’s players was wearing a T-shirt with the new design in a Twitter pic. Ah, the Digital Age. Also on Wednesday, the NFL’s official website accidently posted the new logo on its “Predict the Draft Pick” page. That page was quickly taken down. Featuring a meaner and sleeker looking dolphin, the logo is still similar to Miami’s traditional look as the marine mammal is cascading across a sunburst. Whether it will help them swim past New England is another story. New logo or not, Ryan Tannehill is still the one wearing it when he lines up under center.
The NFL’s Miami Dolphins have a new logo. One they meant to unveil April 25 but leaked. Dolphins CEO Mike Dee made it official Wednesday, saying that the logo that has made the rounds on Internet in recent days is the real deal: Over the weekend the logo was leaked when one of the team’s players was wearing a T-shirt with the new design in a Twitter pic. Ah, the Digital Age. Also on Wednesday, the NFL’s official website accidently posted the new logo on its “Predict the Draft Pick” page. That page was quickly taken down. Featuring a meaner and sleeker looking dolphin, the logo is still similar to Miami’s traditional look as the marine mammal is cascading across a sunburst. Whether it will help them swim past New England is another story. New logo or not, Ryan Tannehill is still the one wearing it when he lines up under center.
The Host author Stephenie Meyer is a sci-fi grrrl. Now that the Twilight creator is transitioning from vampires and werewolves to aliens, I asked her what it was like to work in the male-dominated science-fiction genre. “I grew up reading science fiction!” she told me. “There are many women out there reading science fiction and enjoying it — it’s our genre too!” I also asked why her Twilight novels seemed to promote abstinence when the key characters in The Host, Melanie and Jared, have plenty of sex before marriage. Turns out, Twilight was never about abstinence! “In Twilight , there was a character who was born in the early 1900s and had a different value set. And I really enjoyed taking this anachronistic character, shoving him into modern life and having him stay who he is and making everyone else bend.” Meyer’s unique look at relationships has earned her many fans, including Diane Kruger who plays the main villain in The Host : “I love Twilight , I have to say. I was totally Team Edward !” the actress told me. But beyond Meyer’s pretty boys, Kruger feels the author looks out for women most of all. “That’s what I like about Stephenie Meyer. I think it’s rare to have not just a female centered movie but to have two female protagonists in a film,” a reference to Melanie and the alien “Soul”, Wanda , who shares her body. “That’s really rare,” Kruger adds. Max Irons and Jake Abel are Meyer’s pretty boys this time around, and Irons points out that his co-star is the one who has to depict “interspecies love” since Abel falls in love with an alien. Abel defends their relationship though, saying his character falls in love with alien Wanda because “there’s a sense of softness to her and he’s in a group of people that have been really hardened by a struggle to survive.” Check out my full interviews below: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Offering a more straight-faced brand of idiocy than its cheerfully dumb 2009 predecessor, G.I. Joe: Retaliation might well have been titled G.I. Joe: Regurgitation , advertising big guns, visual effects and that other line of Hasbro toys with the same joyless, chew-everything-up-and-spit-it-out efficiency. Largely devoid of personality, apart from a few nifty action flourishes courtesy of helmer Jon M. Chu , Paramount’s late-March blockbuster, pushed back from a 2012 release (ostensibly to allow for a 3D conversion), may have trouble matching G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra ’s $302 million worldwide gross. But with no shortage of merchandising and other cross-promotional opportunities, it should still score significant attention from targeted male viewers. Appreciably rougher and grittier in feel than the Stephen Sommers-directed The Rise of Cobra , Retaliation makes any number of ham-fisted bids for topical relevance, and naturally almost every one of them represents an affront to good taste. Among other things, the film is a sort of accidental comedy about nuclear warfare, as much of the silly plot concerns a global summit where the hope of mass disarmament soon gives way to the threat of mass annihilation. Elsewhere, the script (by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick) finds our trusty Joes raiding a North Korean compound shortly before they head to Islamabad, where they wind up framed for the assassination of Pakistan’s president. All this geopolitical mayhem is being orchestrated by the U.S. commander-in-chief (Jonathan Pryce) — or rather, the dastardly doppelganger who’s impersonating him with the aid of super-sophisticated “nanomite” technology (because latex is just a little too Mission: Impossible ). The president’s stand-in is a high-ranking member of Cobra, a secret network of megalomaniacs bent on wiping out the G.I. Joes once and for all, and in the early going, they come perilously close. Tatum Channing’s Screen Time Is Brief Probably aware that no one in the audience could possibly care about any sense of continuity with The Rise of Cobra and its eminently forgettable characters, the filmmakers have opted to retain just a few key players this time around. In what feels like an odd miscalculation given the actor’s recent popularity, Channing Tatum’s Duke is around for only about 10 minutes to pass the baton to a fresh G.I. Joe unit led by the physically imposing Roadblock ( Dwayne Johnson ) and rounded out by Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), both of whom evince far less charisma than the military-grade weapons provided them by Gen. Joe Colton ( Bruce Willis , phoning it in). Actor To Watch: Byung-hyun Lee Providing a bit more interest is the Joes’ ninja faction, chiefly Snake Eyes (Ray Park), whose inexpressive mask stands in marked contrast to the piercing gaze of his longtime nemesis, white-clad swordfighter Storm Shadow ( Korean star Byung-hyun Lee ). Along with newcomer Jinx (Elodie Yung), these returning characters figure prominently into the picture’s finest moment, a fight scene in the Himalayas that employs wirework and stereoscopy to highly vertiginous effect. The visual grace of this sequence is no surprise coming from Chu, who demonstrated a real flair for staging in the two Step Up pics he directed. But as in those movies, sustaining a narrative or transcending a patchy script seem beyond his abilities. One of the least savory aspects of the franchise is the unseemly pleasure it takes in the wholesale destruction of foreign cities, which goes hand-in-hand with its jingoistic portrait of American military might. Audiences who thrilled to the sight of Paris under biochemical attack in Cobra will be pleased to watch London endure an even more horrific fate here, although the sequence is tossed off in quick, almost ho-hum fashion, with no time to dwell on anything so exquisitely crass as the spectacle of the Eiffel Tower collapsing. Meatheaded and derivative as it is, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is hardly the nadir, as hollow corporate products go; certainly it’s nowhere near as aggressively off-putting as the Transformers movies, the other action-figure adaptations in the Hasbro universe. The dialogue has improved markedly since the earlier outing, and the lensing and editing, while hardly models of coherence, just about manage to avoid excessive jumpiness. Andrew Menzies’ production design, with sets standing in for everything from a Tokyo skyscraper to a Nepalese monastery, proves resourceful within the confines of a largely New Orleans-shot production. With the exceptions of the often mesmerizing Lee and the ever-reliable Johnson, the performances are merely serviceable. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
These rappers…SMFH Consider this an example of life imitating art gone terribly wrong. A video by a rapper called BillBoard Biggs, that used Kanye West & Jay-Z’s “The Joy” instrumental, depicted an armed robbery and a speedy getaway in a Mercedes-Benz. A few of the players in the video were part of a real life group of men that have been convicted of armed robbery in Federal Court. Read more at Hip Hop Wired
Who lost the most on the The Biggest Loser, in order to become this season’s winner? This NBC reality competition aired its finale last night, with Danni Allen going up against Jeff Nichols and Jackson Carter. Which finalist came out on top… of the scale, with the most pounds shed? Danni Allen! This advertising account coordinator and Illinois native lost an incredible 121 pounds overall, going from 258 pounds to 121 pounds. That’s 46.9 percent of her body weight gone! Gushing over her appearance even before the final weigh-in (“At the end of the day, look at me,” she beamed), Allen hugged trainer Jillian Michaels as confetti poured down after the results were announced. Elsewhere, Carter – the first openly gay contestant in Biggest Loser history – finished third, while Gina McDonald earned $100,000 by losing a bigger percentage than any of the other eliminated contestants this season. Our congratulations all around to these impressive, persistent players!
Rob Kardashian has a reason to get drunk today that has nothing at all to do with the Irish: This reality star is now 26 years old! Often overshadowed on his family’s E! series by sisters Kourtney, Khloe and Kim Kardashian , Rob made news toward the end of 2012 when he went on a Twitter rant against ex-girlfriend Rita Ora . He has more recently vowed to lose weight and, as you can see above, has an arm full of really ugly tattoos. Send in your birthday wishes today to Rob and to the following famous folks, all of whom are also turning a year older: Tamar Braxton – 36 Mia Hamm – 41 Rob Lowe – 59 Gary Sinise – 58
Two Steubenville (Oh.) High School football players accused of raping an allegedly drunk 16-year-old girl were found guilty by an Ohio judge on Sunday. Judge Thomas Lipps announced his decision after reviewing evidence against Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, who were tried as juveniles. The victim was not in the courtroom when the ruling was read. Steubenville High School Students Joke About Rape (Leaked) Mays and Richmond were tried before Lipps, a visiting judge, without a jury. Mays was also found guilty of disseminating a nude photo of a minor. “Human compassion is not taught by a teacher, a coach or a parent. It is a God-given gift instilled in all of us,” the victim’s mother said after court. “You displayed not only a lack of compassion, but a lack of any moral code.” The woman said her daughter will persevere and move on, adding that she has pity for Mays and Richmond, who will both face tough sentences. Mays was sentenced to a minimum of two years in a juvenile correctional facility. Richmond was sentenced to a minimum of one year. Both could stay there until age 21. The Department of Youth services will rule whether the two boys will be detained longer, Lipps said, adding it will depend on their behavior and rehabilitation. Mays and Richmond will be credited for time served before the trial. The ruling brings an end to a trial that has gained national attention for its lurid text messages, cell phone pictures and videos, and social media posts. A scandalous YouTube video in which Steubenvlle students joked about the rape of the girl (above) also gained national attention last summer. According to prosecutors, each of them penetrated the victim’s vagina with his fingers, an act that constitutes rape under Ohio law if it is not consensual. Attorneys for the two boys had said they were not guilty. At the heart of the case was the question of whether the victim was too drunk to understand what was happening to her and to consent to the acts. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said more charges in the case could be forthcoming. He intends to call a grand jury to hear more evidence. “We cannot bring finality to this case without convening a grand jury,” he said, noting that there were 16 people who had refused to talk to investigators. He said the accuser was also re-victimized through social media. During closing statements on Saturday, attorneys for the two boys argued the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their clients raped the girl. They also said that an avalanche of cell pictures and videos and social media posts, as well as national media coverage ahead of the trial, tainted testimony. The judge evidently disagreed. The girl testified Saturday that she remembered drinking at a big party that night and then holding Mays’ hand as she left with him, Richmond and others. The next thing she remembers, she told the court, is waking up naked on a couch in an unfamiliar house, unable to find her clothes or belongings. The girl told the court she had a flashback memory of throwing up in a street somewhere sometime after she left the first party. The victim was the 28th and final witness in a trial that has shone an unwelcome spotlight on Steubenville H.S. and its “Big Red” football program. Critics have accused community leaders and players themselves of trying to paper over rampant misconduct by members of the highly regarded team. The case has attracted the attention of bloggers and even the hacking group Anonymous, but the lead prosecutor dismissed all of the hype, saying: “This case is about a 16-year-old girl who was taken advantage of, toyed with and humiliated. And it’s time people who did this to her are held responsible.”
