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notasapleasure · 1 year

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Safe, 8 episodes (2018), part 2/2

Following on from Part 1. Content warning for child death and parental grief.

Episode 4

This is day 4 since Chris and Jenny went missing, and if we thought the Chahals were going through it already, well, just hold tight.

First we have a flashback of Chris leaving to reinforce 1: his closeness to his mother and distance from his father and 2: presumably Neel’s hypocrisy about mobile phone use (cf. the fmaily dinner in episode 1)

Et puis, a rather heavy-handed scene of the school choir singing a song about drowning while Chris’ body turns up at the lake, with the shots interspersed of course.

But then uh, the headmaster notices that the teacher who has been suspended while the police investigate her for csa is on school grounds when she’s not meant to be.

Tim would like for there to not be a fuss.

Tim does not reckon with Neel finally having a chance to be the Man of the Fmaily or whatever this is

Zoe goes to leave, but Neel grabs her hand and pulls her back. Looks like an underage sex scandal is just what they needed to bring them together again!

We don’t really see Neel’s initial response to the news his son is dead, because Zoe is having a freak-out in the doorway now the police are there. Later, everyone sits round the table and looks solemn.

Zoe is adamant: No.

HANDS ;_;

If the csa allegations don’t save their marriage, maybe the death of their eldest child will!

:( (screen brightness UP though eesh)

At home with the grief liason officer :(

When Tilly turns to Zoe, he looks at the liason officer, like he’s checking for permission, and leaves the room. Very. Carefully.

bb :(

also jsyk, this is all pretty much entirely silent, panic attack-adjacent.

Having got that out of his system safely away from any of his loved ones, before whom he can’t possibly show vulnerability, Neel goes outside to try and work out why there are so many police around still.

And because he’s a generous man who knows we deserved some natural light to hit those eyes for a change.

He’s wandering about in a bit of a daze, but Sophie is there to advise:

The police are there looking for Jenny, so kind of connected to Chris.

Episode 5

Trying his best to look after the others! Their neighbour made some food and brought it round.

He manages to persuade Tilly and Zoe to come and try to eat. Then iInadvertantly reminds them all over again by going to set four places instead of three :’)

Truly, a marriage-saver.

I thought it was worth having the progression of expressions there :’) puppy dog eyes.

Before the little memorial service Tilly wanted, the police come to give an update, saying someone (the family who hid the body badly) has admitted to his accidental murder

Ah lads, it’s tough. Something something symbolism of Neel letting himself show emotion and the family drawing together? Also very important eyelashes.

Episode 6

As far as I remember this is the last one that really has much Joplin in it - it’s just tiny snippets of flashbacks in episodes 7 and 8.

It’s NEEL’s turn for a sinister-looking flashback to the night Chris died...

He’s in his car outside the party (it seems), tears in his eyes, looking at his own hands in whock.

Here are the police with more unhelpful news! The guy who admitted to killing your son......literally could not have done it, according to the evidence.

Tilly appears and his demeanour changes immediately to reassure her.

And then the police are like - ‘oh hey, remember how someone framed you to look like a paedo? Well actually the children at the party were fighting over rumours that you are.’

When you already know what’s coming (and if you read my previous liveblog posts of the series, you’ll know I guessed from like...episode 1?), the acting is really good here. There’s a lot of different factors at play making all the characters assume certain things and the way it keeps them quiet actually works well, I will grudgingly admit.

Oh the neighbourhood’s on fire (literally!) stay home and don’t get into trouble Tilly!

Jenny has reappeared (digitally, anyway), and her dad Tom is trying to track her phone down with the help of ‘BO Bob’ (don’t get me started). Unlike actual policeman Herbie’s software in Hard Sun, BO Bob can give you a precise address. Tom: “That’s Neil Chahal’s house!!!” Like somehow Tom really wants to be able to blame Neel for all this.

I understand that plot-wise, they wanted Tilly alone when whoever-has-Jenny’s-phone rummages in the house and Tom goes blundering in afterwards, but do we really think that parents who’ve just lost a child will leave the other one at home alone while they go out to gawp at a burning building?

Anyway, important hairline update:

Meanwhile Tom, having scared Tilly half to death, gives her her phone and tells her to call her parents, while he waits to make sure she’s safe. Whoever broke in (before Tom, that is), smashed the front door and ransacked one room...

You know, taking the Chahals’ scenes alone, and looking at the following screenshot, what Safe makes me think of most is the inverted interpretation of Goldilocks - Tom just keeps barging into the Chahals’ house while they’re trying to have a marital breakdown/mourn their dead son! Will he give them no peace?

Naturally, Neel gets to wondering why Jenny - who was with Chris when he disappeared - has been poking round his place, after a fire and another dead body in the neighbourhood.

Naturally, Tom doesn’t like that.

Looking for reasons to be mad at Neel, Tom notices that the room that Jenny ransacked was Neel’s office...

Tom: “Someone’s after you.”

Zoe: “What if it’s the same person who killed Chris?”

DC Emma: “What if it’s the same person who framed you as a paedophile?”

aaaaaaaand the moment Neel realises he just has to admit to being the world’s biggest plonker. THEE most wally of a man

Well, actually he needs to see Zoe go into a full-on panic attack first because she thinks the same person might hate her family so much they killed her son, framed her as a paedo and is now going after her husband

Idiot. But I thought you all deserved this one without the CC.

Yes, Neel set his OWN WIFE UP AS A PAEDOPHILE. HIS WIFE WHO IS A TEACHER.

“We were going through a rough patch, weren’t we?”

Sure was, mate!

Off he goes for some air, while every else just stands around like a lemon going (⊙o⊙)

Emma would kind of like to pursue the whole...what the fuck was that angle, but Sophie figures they’ll bring him in later for wasting police time. Tom is very indignant that ‘a man like that’ isn’t getting his comeuppance. “He’s a pathological liar!”

I must point out that at this point they are. STILL. in the Chahals’ house. Zoe and Tilly can presumably hear every word.

Later...

Tilly: “I never want to see him again!” Zoe: “He’s your father. He loves you.” Tilly: “How can you stick up for him after what he’s done?” Zoe: “Your father was the kindest, the funniest, the most caring man I ever met...” [me, first time I watched this, screaming at the TV: WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM THEN??] Zoe: “...and that’s why I married him. That’s why we had you. And Chris.” Tilly: “So what happened?” Zoe: "Slowly you grow apart. And one day, you find yourself doing stupid, terrible things...just so you can feel something.” Tilly: “And that’s what Dad did?” Zoe: “Not just him.”

I just.......what can you do with this? These guys are just into some kinky shit if Zoe remembers how much she loves him because he framed her for sleeping with underage students. I don’t even want to know.

HEY NEEL. EPISODE ONE. WHAT WERE YOU SAYING ABOUT PEOPLE ALWAYS ON THEIR PHONES AGAIN?

Actually he’s processing his grief and reminding himself how much he loves his wife. Sorry babe. Carry on?

oh my god though the love in his voice when he says that in the video. sure whatever I’d probably take him back too*

*I would not, that’s some fucked up shit to frame anyone for let alone YOUR WIFE

But losing your son who you admitted thinking of as a bit of a useless stoner, who you seemed to basically be waiting for him to grow out of his boring teenage phase, apparently puts things in perspective

What better moment to imply a man has something to do with your daughter’s disappearance than when he’s reading messages of condolences at his dead son’s shrine?!

Tom is such a nob smh

(what do you mean I don’t get to complain about Tom because I was trying to get a screenshot of the same grieving man’s boxer elastic?)

Tom, right back at him: “And my daughter is alive!!”

LOW blow dude (he wants to use the chance he still has to save her blah blah)

I am a sucker for the way he softens when Zoe calls him.

She’s been worried sick and needs to admit something of her own. In front of Tom, because otherwise how would our main character be able to unravel the intrigue? Hm?

But it’s ok.

He followed her to the party Chris was at...

And this was the source of him looking teary and shattered in the car that night: Zoe WAS shagging one of her students!

Zoe: “How can you ever forgive me?”

*sad clown music plays*

and TOM JUST BUTTS RIGHT IN AGAIN DEMANDING TO KNOW WHICH TEENAGER SOMEONE ELSE’S WIFE WAS SHAGGING WUWEWUEGAEJKFBHF

“This could have ramifications that could affect me child.”

TOM. GOLDILOCKS. LEAVE THE BEARS ALONE.

Anyway, don’t worry, Ioan was specified as a Year 12 in episode 1, so he’s at least sixteen and therefore a consenting adult NO YOU’RE STILL HIS TEACHER ZOE IT’S NOT OK

For a couple of scenes Neel sits there looking a bit helpless while Zoe sobs her heart out next to him, but in the end they’re fiiiiiine. Even Tilly comes over for a family hug.

And they all lived happily every after!

Let that be a lesson to you all!

If your marriage needs spicing up a bit, try shagging a sixth-former while your other half frames you for shagging a GCSE student. With any luck, one of your children will die horribly and his corpse will be lightly mutilated to really help put things in perspective!

I hate this show. Did I mention I hate this show?

I think, to be honest, on the ‘rewatch’ I saw more things it deserved credit for. It’s a mystery that does bear rewatching, because there’s little to reward you for guessing first time round, but there are subtle clues in the acting when you already know what’s going on. Which is a nice exercise for the actors, certainly, but doesn’t make for a satisfying thriller, for my money. The main problem is still Tom. It would work better as a true ensemble piece about how the mystery around Jenny’s disappearance is exacerbated because everyone has something to hide - which is partly what the show wants to do, but it also wants a Taken-style dad who can rampage around crime scenes gathering his own evidence.

Hey ho. Chinos and eyelashes!

---

Rating

Dead? No

Evil? Now. No. I don’t think that’s the word. But........you just read it. Framed his wife for csa. What. What the. What the fuck.

Affects the plot? Well yes. Do you think Zoe’s ever working again after this?

Oh my god, a rating. Uhh. Aurgh. If you don’t WATCH the show, and just enjoy my screencaps, you might go as high as 4/5. But I did watch the show, so 2/5. He looks amazing, but there are two whole episodes he’s basically not in (LIES imdb) and there’s a lot of...everything else...to wade through.

#adventures in joplin sibtain's imdb page #joplin sibtain #netflix safe #safe (series)#harlan cobin's safe

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gstqaobc · 3 years

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FROM THE MONARCHIST LEAGUE OF CANADA

As this Ecomm went to publication, we received word of the death, at the great age of 96, of Bill Silver, a significant benefactor of the League from its early days, and for many years a pillar of our Ottawa Branch. We wished to remember him here: his ebullient spirit, fierce loyalty spoken gently, innate modesty and kindness. Indeed Chaucer might have had forethought of Bill in describing one of his characters as a “very parfitt gentle knight.” May his ardent spirit rest in peace, and his memory be a blessing and example to us all. LEAGUE ISSUES NEW FLYER: THE CASE FOR THE CROWN The League thought it timely and useful to issue, offer in its advertising and distribute as widely as possible - both via the website and in printed form - a new flyer which will give you, our members, ammunition to argue logically the case for the Crown in conversation with others, and, we hope, to distribute strategically. One never knows when such an item, left on a waiting room table at the doctor or dentist’s office, affixed to a supermarket or other community bulletin board, put through neighbours’ mail slots - the possibilities are many - will do good work for our cause. We hope you will both enjoy and profit from this item, and that many thousands will be distributed across the country. See item one in the WHAT CAN I DO FOR THE CANADIAN CROWN? section of this Ecomm, below, to read online and request printed copies. And special thanks to our wonderful team of no less than seven translators, all francophones from La Belle Province, who so kindly volunteered to make the French version one that is accurate in expression and eloquent in its prose. WHAT CAN I DO FOR THE CANADIAN CROWN? Some suggestions for member activity during these times. We invite members to send additional ideas by return of email. 1. How about asking the League to send you several print copies of our new flyer: THE CASE FOR THE CROWN, or print them on your home computer: https://www.monarchist.ca/index.php/publications and give them to others who may be unaware or sceptical of the importance of Canada’s constitutional monarchy, or even hostile to it. School teachers could be encouraged to read the League’s educational booklets, also available both online and in print at the same URL, or even to request a class set. 2. When you read an editorial, opinion column or letter to the editor in a newspaper, or a tweet or Facebook post, critical of the Crown, don’t get mad - get even! In other words, use a temperate tone and logical argument to refute the writer’s attack. Keep it brief: focus on the obvious flaws in reasoning, mis-statements of fact or name-calling substituting for logic. Same goes for radio talk shows. In the long run, on all media, whatever the provocation, whatever the momentary satisfaction of ”giving them a piece of my mind” - an old adage remains true: “You catch more flies with honey.” 3. Write your elected representative at the federal level to re-state briefly the reasons you support constitutional monarchy as our system of government, and asking the MP whether not your view is shared. 4. Once pandemic restrictions ease, try to make sure that Royal events - such as the upcoming 95th birthday of our Queen, 10th Wedding Anniversary of William and Catherine or 100th birthday of Prince Philip are celebrated both in your home but also among your wider family, your friends, your colleagues at the office, your place of worship/faith community or service club. The League generally sends you some ideas to mark these celebrations. Remember, as they are incorporated into family life and public life, the Crown becomes further embedded in the heart of the nation, and truly represents The Queen’s wish that it ”reflects all that is best and most admired in the Canadian ideal.” This is especially true when you go out of your way to include in your observance the newest members of our Canadian family, who generally are eager to participate in the traditions of their new homeland, and in turn to share their own traditions with the wider community. 5. Always use a Queen stamp when you write a letter or pay a bill by mail. 6. At events of ceremony, whether a Council meeting, a graduation, a civic celebration - whatever - make sure that the Royal Anthem is sung as well as the National Anthem. To the extent you can, discourage event organizers from having a soloist “perform” them. Far more pride and learning develop from the untrained voices of loyal folk singing together. In that way, the Anthems are sung “with heart and voice” and not merely listened to. A FINAL IDEA: AN ACT OF LOVING SUPPORT & THANKS Apart from the above, we think it would be enormously comforting and supportive for every one of us to write a kind letter to The Queen, expressing your thoughts at a difficult time: her beloved husband ailing, a grand-child chiding other family members via sensational television, the drumbeat of the tabloids and the restrictions on her busy life caused by the pandemic. A selection of letters, especially those from Commonwealth Realms, are indeed seen by The Queen - and their number and tone are summarized to Her Majesty. The address is - Her Majesty The Queen, Buckingham Palace, London SW1A 1AA, UK Theoretically you don’t need postage to write the Sovereign; in practice, it is safer to affix the international airmail stamp available from your local Canada Post outlet. AN INTERESTING OPINION PIECE FROM TODAY’S DAILY TELEGRAPHWe thought you might be interested to see the following strongly-worded opinion piece, reflecting a good deal of the tone of recent British public opinion, rather different from much of the Canadian and US commentary. Meghan’s fake interview has real-world effects The Sussexes’ claims have undermined the monarchy and done lasting damage to the Commonwealth by Tim Stanley, March 15, 2021 Two headlines appeared on the BBC News website on the same day. At the top: “Harry and Meghan rattle monarchy’s gilded cage”. At the bottom: “The kidnapped woman who defied Boko Haram”. Well, that puts the Sussexes' problems in perspective, doesn’t it? Yet across Africa, one reads, the Duchess’s story has revived memories of colonial racism, tarnishing the UK’s reputation, and has even lent weight to the campaign in some countries to drop the Queen as head of state. The only nation that seems to think a lot of nonsense was spoken is Britain. In the wake of an interview that Joe Biden’s administration called courageous, British popular opinion of Harry and Meghan fell to an all-time low, and the American format had a lot to do with it. Oprah Winfrey is not our idea of an interviewer. She flattered, fawned and displayed utter credulity. Imagine if it had been her, not Emily Maitlis, who interviewed Prince Andrew over the Jeffrey Epstein allegations. “You were in a Pizza Express that day? Oh my God, you MUST be innocent! Tell me, in all honesty, though...did you have the dough balls?” This wasn’t an interview, it was a commercial for a brand called Sussex, a pair of eco-friendly aristo-dolls that, if you pull the string, tell their truth – which isn’t the truth, because no one can entirely know that, but truth as they perceive it. “Life is about storytelling,” explained Meghan, “about the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we’re told, what we buy into.” Meghan is a postmodernist. Just as Jean Baudrillard said the Gulf War never happened, but was choreographed by the US media, so the Royal narrative she was forced to live was fake, her public happiness was fake and, following that logic, this interview might involve an element of performance, too. People have challenged her claims, alleging contradictions and improbabilities, but one of the malign effects of wokeness is that you have got to be very careful about pointing this out. Why? Because wokery insists on treating a subjective view as objective truth, or even as superior, because it’s based upon “lived experience”. To contradict that personal perspective is perceived as cruel, elitist and, in Meghan’s case, potentially racist, so it’s best to wait a few weeks to a year before applying a fact check. In the meantime, affect sympathy. People would rather you lied to their face than tell them what they don’t want to hear. The result is profoundly dishonest, for I have never known an event over which there is such a gulf between the official reception, as endorsed by the media and politics, and the reaction of average citizens, who are wisely keeping it to themselves. Into that vacuum of silence steps not the voice of reason but bullies and showmen – like Piers Morgan, who said some brash stuff about Meghan’s honesty and, after an unseemly row on Good Morning Britain, felt obliged to resign from his job. “If you’d like to show your support for me,” he wrote afterwards, “please order a copy of my book.” Dear Lord, was this row fake, too? I can no longer be sure, though I despised Good Morning Britain before and still do: it embodies the cynical confusion of emotion and fact, a show made for clicks, where even the weatherman has an opinion. So what is real in 2021? The Commonwealth, which does a lot of good in a divided world. The monarchy, which has been at its best during the pandemic, doing the boring stuff of cutting ribbons and thanking workers that, one suspects, Meghan never grew into (can you imagine her opening a supermarket in Beccles?). It contains flawed people, but that only adds to its realness, and they can adapt faster than you might think. Prince William got the ball rolling by telling reporters, who he is trained to ignore, that his family is not racist. His wife paid her respects to the murder victim Sarah Everard, demonstrating that she is neither cold nor silenced. I’d wager Kate does her duty, day after day, no complaint, not because she is “trapped”, as Harry uncharitably put it, but because she loves her family and believes in public service. Meghan and Harry have indeed prompted the Royal family to change: not in order to endorse their criticisms, however, but to answer them.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇦🇺🇳🇿

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thesportssoundoff · 6 years

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What a 23 page report tells us about Urban Meyer and sports in general

First and foremost, I'd absolutely recommend that anybody who has an opinion on the investigation without reading the investigation findings which can be found HERE (http://a.espncdn.com/pdf/2018/0823/ohiostatepdf.pdf) read it. Read it once, get any sort of emotional issues out of the way and then read it twice with a clearer head. Stuff like this, serious issues about morality and sports trying to co-mingle, often needs multiple lookovers. This one is a neat and tidy 20-some odd pages so it's not like it'll take too much time out of your day and by report standards, it's written clear enough that anybody can parse through it and get it. Also in the following bit, domestic violence is going to come up and while I'm not much for trigger warnings, I do think a fair and honest "HEADS UP!" is necessary for a subject such as this.

The outrage has simmered down. By normal read and react (or just react) standards, the Urban Meyer situation has basically come and gone. His three game suspension is known, we raged about it and people moved on as they often do. It's hard to stay mad at something for too long when social media is basically a treadmill of rage; by the time you get mad at one thing, something else is already coming up so you're never allowed to fully decompress. You can't "get it out of your system" so to speak. I feel like on issues like this when we're discussing potential/alleged violence against a spouse, it matters to read through the reports and try to find the best image possible. Reading through the report I have zero doubt that Zach Smith is an abuser in some form or fashion. If not physically then emotionally since chances are a guy with a severe drinking problem who seems to also have a severe anger issue and poor impulse control probably has no issue yelling or menacing somebody. The report wasn't about Zach Smith's indiscretions (not entirely at least) and was instead about Urban Meyer. It's what I have to assume (because otherwise why read it) a good faith assessment and report on the findings of what Urban Meyer knew, what he alleged to know and what we ALL now know about the Zach Smith situation and how Urban Meyer and Ohio State handled it. For those who wish to care, here are my own personal thoughts based just upon the findings:

1) For SOME reason, Urban Meyer's loyalty to Zach Smith is cast iron which makes zero sense

The 2009 arrest for a domestic incident is discussed and covered pretty clearly early on. Zach Smith brings home a drunk co-worker to sleep on his couch (because why else do you bring a female co-worker to your home to sleep on your couch after a party?) and his wife is upset. It's alleged that Zach Smith throws her against a wall, an allegation that ultimately leads to an arrest but not a charge from Courtney Smith. From there though and spanning two different universities, it sure seems like there's nothing but bad behavior from Zach Smith. From trips to strip clubs (which aren't illicit except for when you're doing it on the company dime/company time) to truancy in paying back bills to the school to other red flags amid the school. The biggie though is the 2015 investigation into more domestic violence allegations from Courtney Smith. At that point, Urben Meyer is faced with a difficult choice on a one v one issue. Zach Smith has to this point exhibited plenty of fireable behavior and now he's under investigation for domestic violence. For some reason Urban Meyer puts up with it, offering yet another warning. At this point Zach Smith continues to act like a problem (it's not illegal to sleep with a co-worker or to take dick pics but it's probably unbecoming for a dude in the middle of a domestic violence investigation to do it and to do it WHILE at work) until the restraining order is brought down in 2018. THEN and only then does Urban Meyer make the move to fire Zach Smith and the move is made, according to the information presented, because Urban was jumped on the news by the media.

For some reasons by which I simply can't comprehend, Urban Meyer's rope of trust for Zach Smith wasn't just long enough to hang himself but to hang Urban Meyer, Ohio State's Athletic Director Gene Smith, the Ohio State University and practically all of Ohio at once. For reasons I can't figure out, Urban Meyer decided that he would stake his perfectly crafted reputation as the guy who viewed this as more than football and who preached family and values and so on so so forth on a guy who ultimately would betray that trust time and time again is just unfathomable. Remember Urban Meyer had Aaron Hernandez on his football team at Florida and he somehow survived the eventual fallout of that with his reputation intact! He rode Tim Tebow and the Tebow-isms of Florida while having guys like Chris Rainey on his team. He left Florida citing health and family, took a year off for a major media gig and then bailed and went to Ohio State for the largest contract in history at that time. This was the world's most bulletproof built reputation and he somehow found a way to ding it over an assistant. Even the report seems baffled, speculating that it may due to Zach Smith being the grandson of a mentor of Urban Mayer's. Even THAT seems like a stretch and IF that's the reason then Urban Meyer got this point politically by accident because no smart man would be that loyal that far down the chain of command. Zach Smith wasn't his defensive coordinator or a close aide, he wasn't a guy in a high spot on the totem pole. He was the wide receivers coach for the love of God. He wasn't there for 15 years having a long track record of proven results. In fact even in 2015 and 2016, Urban Meyer was concerned about Zach Smith showing up late to work (!) and having a generally poor level of performance!

It's stated that Urban Meyer had never fired a coach before and that may have played into it. I don't know the veracity of that claim but if so I guess it makes a little bit of sense as to the apprehension. Still Urban Meyer has truly nobody to blame but himself for all of this because it's not like Zach Smith's character was sterling and beyond question. Anybody who knows me knows I'm a guy who values second/third/fifth/twelfth chances in life. You've probably seen me argue for dudes like Greg Hardy and company, acknowledging the right to be mad at those people for fucking up while also acknowledging the human right to be able to atone for errors and also the right to make a living (as other sports people have argued, what IS a guy accused of a crime supposed to do for the rest of his life? What is acceptable for him? Can he run a store? Can he cook your food? Clean your subways?). Zach Smith just keep making errors and Urban Meyer continued to put him on his coaching staff and the report offers no real solid reason for any of that.

2) "So I’m To Believe...”

My Con Law professor used to start a sentence with "So I'm to believe" whenever he was hinting that somebody was losing their end of a classroom debate. It's stated a few times in the report that Urban and Shelley Meyer had discussions about Zach and Courtney Smith. It was at least known to the couple that those two had problems, so much so in fact that when the 2009 incident between the Smiths occurred, the Meyers suggested a counselor to the duo. As such, I'm to believe is that Urban Meyer and Shelley Meyer had consistent dialogue about everything except for when Shelley was presented with texts of abuse and photos from Courtney Smith? And I'm to believe that Shlley Meyer contacted police about a domestic violence investigation but didn't tell her husband she was doing that? That at no point during this period of time Shelley and Urban NEVER talked about allegations of domestic violence in 2015? Even if Shelley Meyer thought that Courtney Smith was being less than honest about the Zach Smith situation, I'm to believe she NEVER mentioned that to Urban Meyer? It's a lot to believe, ain't it? Shelley Meyer is deemed as "supportive" of Courtney Smith but not supportive enough to say "Listen there's some shit going on, what are you going to do about it?" to Urban Meyer?

3) A three game suspension is worse than no suspension

Honestly there's no "Better than nothing!" here. There are three options here; 1) no suspension, 2) a lengthy suspension or 3) dismissal as the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. To offer up a three game suspension is a slap in the face of the concept of good faith. If he violated enough ethics to be suspended, it should be a much lengthier punishment than three games. A three game suspension is like saying "We don't necessarily think he did anything wrong but we hope you feel better about it!" He won't miss Penn State, he won't miss Michigan State, he won't miss Michigan hell he misses ONE Big 10 game and it's Rutgers! No disrespect to the fine Rutgers football squad but I think Ohio State should be able to manage without Urban Meyer. Again if you feel like he violated something in your code of conduct, suspend him for more than just a quickie three game set. Six games and you'd have plenty of people believing in you. Fire him if you're TRULY convinced he did something wrong. Three games just feels hollow and vacant, like an attempt to make this go away with a terrible placating tool.

4) It's only a problem when a) someone gets hurt by it or b) someone finds out about it

The response of Urban Meyer at the Big-10 press conference is covered but what truly matters are the responses of the people involved. Gene Smith advises Urban Meyer to be as scant with details as possible, Once the shit hits the fan about a potential media snowstorm on Zach Smith, Urban Meyer instructs his coaches to keep the focus on the team and the players. On one hand, sounds like a coach aiming to keep everybody in line and out of the way of what's to come but Urban himself seems to have no idea how to handle the situation either. In fact, he asks people in the organization for details on 2015 which suggests he actually may not have known about it. Now granted that in and of itself is compounded by Meyer's text from before August 2017 of last year disappearing entirely for whatever reason. Strange as that may be. Shelley Meyer expresses concern for the safety of some people (Zach himself? Her family? Courtney?) when she discusses and I quote here on page 12, Section A; "“I am worried about Zach’s response. He drinks a lot and I am just not sure how stable he will be. Afraid he will do something dangerous. It’s obvious he has anger/rage issues already.”" Everything after the fact paints a bad light on what feels like a cover up, even if the information presented seems to suggest something far less nefarious. It has that “It’s only a problem if” vibe to it.

5) Urban Meyer's memory loss is troubling

Urban Meyer is 54 years old and expected to the head coach at a major college university. At numerous times during the investigation, it's mentioned that Meyer either can't recall exact details or just flat out can't remember things. If we believe his texts, Urban Meyer genuinely had no recollection of the 2015 investigation. He did know about it but couldn't remember it per the investigation. In the same investigation, Urban Meyer claims to suffer from memory loss as well. If this is coincidence or an act, he's the most committed actor in history. If it's real? I think we need to ask if a coach who can't remember poignant events in time relating to his coaching staff is truly the best candidate to coach a football team going forward regardless of the ethical concerns.

At the end of all of this, there's some serious ethical issues we need to try and learn from here.

I hope this won’t be the case but I believe we’re all one day going to be in Urban Meyer's shoes. I can't speak for what Courtney Smith has gone through. It's an avenue of life I haven't had to walk and hopefully will never have to walk. Hopefully my sister will never have to walk it either and hopefully no sibling nor mother of anybody who reads this will ever have to walk it. I can only speak for myself when I say that I've known victims of domestic violence and I've known those accused of domestic violence. Domestic violence is a visceral and emotional act; it invokes emotion from those who deal with it and those presented with it. Urban Meyer may truly be a man who values women and abhors those who put their hands on a spouse, namely women who are more often than not the victims. What Urban Meyer may not have been prepared for is the likelihood that somebody close to him would be the accused. It's a lot easier to hate domestic violence until you know the guy who is accused and until you hear them plead with you that they'd never do that. It's harder for you to accept it because YOU want to believe it. Look at your average social media kerfuffle when somebody is accused of something heinous; the majority of the people lambasting them probably turn hat quickly when it's somebody they like accused. We all hate domestic violence until it looks us in the face with somebody we care about. We’ve all probably heard a joke about domestic violence and let it slide unitl it stops being funny when it’s someone you kno wwith bruises. When it's you/us/we, it''s never as black and white, no matter how much it is to everybody else. Even to the very end after firing him, Urban Meyer was telling his staff that Zach Smith needed their help moving forward (on page 11). Urban Meyer was presented on two different occasions with the belief that somebody close to him who he admired was in fault of violating a code of ethics he subscribed (or alleges) to have subscribed to. In those instances, he trusted a man who ultimately in the end betrayed him. Why? I guess it doesn't matter now but it definitely is something to consider. If anything, I suppose Urban Meyer's situation will force us all when/if that time comes to truly question what it is we believe about people and whether or not "*So and so* would NEVER do *such and such*" is really the best way to show faith in a situation as nuanced, painful and complicated as this.

This ethical conundrum of trust and who we trust is magnified with celebrities and athletes and people we THINK we know. Ohio State fans have poured out in support of Urban Meyer with the belief that he didn't know or did the right thing or whatever the case. Our society (and I imagine societies before this) believe we know the people we see on TVs, football fields, basketball courts or on our youtube channels. The star worship is strong and it's getting stronger in part due to the goal of making the world as connected on an individual basis as possible. Nobody wants to believe that somebody could make an error that grave because we "know" them. We "know" them because we see them on TV four months out of the year, follow their tweets and instagrams and believe in something they do to a borderline unhealthy level. We idol worship and just hope like hell we've picked the right idol to bandwagon on. For Ohio State fans, they "know" Urban Meyer's code of ethics because he tells us them and then wins football games. If Urban Meyer did the former and not the latter, would this whole incident just be a convenient excuse for some people to want him gone? We "knew" Bill Cosby because he was funny, right? We don't really know anybody outside of the persona they want us to believe in---and sometimes we all need to remember that before we grab pitchforks or take stances. At the end of the day, I hope this incident convinces people to either wait for a reason to believe one way or another and not allow blind faith and the belief we "know" people to convince ourselves to pick a side long before we need to take one. It's okay to let the facts play out; so long as you're consistent in who you're choosing to let the facts play out on.

And lastly, the biggest problem is one that I think we can all see happening on a day to day basis. That is "When is it okay to talk about somebody's alleged transgressions?" For Urban Meyer and the Ohio State Athletic Department, so much rested on whether or not Zach Smith was charged with a crime. On multiple instances, they admit that a large portion of their reaction was due to Zach Smith not being charged with a crime (that they knew of at least). Even in the end of the report, they state that Ohio State leaving it in the hands of the law was not the best idea in absence of an internal investigation. Ohio State was waiting for the police or a judge to give them some sort of clearance and they waited too long because these things aren't rapid action. They were putting their hands in the legal process to solve their issue for them which is a problem in 2018. It's a smart strategy, I suppose, in that they are the people best equipped to handle that. At the same time, you run the risk of putting somebody else in charge of a problem. "So and so has never been charged of a crime!" doesn't neglect the investigation or the arrest. It's a fine line to walk; being fair to due process while acknowledging an issue at hand. Ohio State relied on the legal system to solve their problems which in turn is the challenge for pro sports today. We acknowledge that leagues/teams aren't equipped to deal with legal matters and yet we want them to. Why? Because most people don't really trust the legal world either. What is due process in 2018 and how do we balance good faith with our emotions?

#football #Urban Meyer #thoughts #meandering rambles #too much words

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auburnfamilynews · 4 years

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How else could they possibly beat the Tahd??

A well-known blog (our colleagues across the way) gave a public rundown of new NCAA rules for college football. They described how the “accidental” exploitation of loopholes by Auburn has been rectified. But some have stood up and said “What you have told us is rubbish. Auburn will surely find a new loophole, because they’re always cheatin’.” One might reply that this latest issue can’t happen again, but the answer is of course that it’s “BARN CHEATIN’ all the way down!” What follows herein is a brief history of BARN CHEATIN’.

1949: Auburn 14, Alabama 13

How BARN CHEATED: Auburn legend Travis Tidwell convinced head coach Earl Brown to let him onto the block team for Alabama’s tying extra point. Tidwell’s high school teammate, Eddie Salem, surely rushed the kick and missed it. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 3. It just goes to show you kicking has been bullshit for a lot longer than Nick Saban’s tenure

1969: Auburn 49, Alabama 26

How BARN CHEATED: It didn’t affect the outcome of the game, but Connie Frederick decided, without telling anyone, to take a punt snap and run 100 yards for the game’s final touchdown. He had noticed that Alabama wasn’t paying attention to him after he received the snap on earlier punts, so he decided he’d just run with what was going to be his final punt. He even made sure he was standing on the goal line when he received the snap, just so he could say it was 100 yards. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 1. It’s TRICK PLAY BULLSHIT, but the game was already decided. Shug didn’t even go for 2 to make it 50. He was booed by Auburn fans for that decision, because they ain’t got class.

1982: Auburn 23, Alabama 22

How BARN CHEATED: Well there’s obviously paying Bo Jackson. Who would turn down a chance to play for the Yankees? There’s also Tim Castille being called for pass interference on Auburn’s eventual game winning drive. Obviously the refs were paid to rob Bear Bryant of a win in his final Iron Bowl. Never mind that Castille hit Chris Woods before the ball got there. Bear never failed to get that call before. Then there’s the fact that Bo may not have scored when he went over the top. There’s no goal line camera, so it’s obvious he didn’t make it. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 4. Tough to prove, but there’s just a preponderance of evidence.

1989: Auburn 30, Alabama 20

How BARN CHEATED: Well for starters there’s moving the game to Auburn when Bear had a signed document that it would be in Birmingham longer than that. Obviously Auburn doesn’t respect tradition. Then there’s the game itself. Auburn used paper shakers that created a blue haze over the field that obviously distracted Alabama’s players, and it may have even given them lung cancer. Then there’s 12 men on the field on Auburn’s first touchdown. THE REFS CAN COUNT THEM WHEN IT HAPPENS TO BAMA WHY NOT BARN?! Then of course there’s when Alexander Wright went out of bounds totally on his own just like Thom Gossam in 1974, but they let him come back in and make the catch!! This ain’t legal either! BARN CHEATIN’ level: 9. The game being in Auburn is bad enough, then you add in what happened during the game. You could say this is the true genesis of BARN CHEATIN’ since most of the later occurrences happen down there.

1993: Auburn 22, Alabama 14

How BARN CHEATED: This one wasn’t even on real TV because guess what? BARN CHEATED! Then they went and injured Jay Barker, probably on purpose, and ruined Alabama’s comeback attempt. How are you supposed to come back and win with a backup quarterback?! Not to mention they scored a touchdown on a 4th and 15. Real football gentlemen don’t attempt such things. That’s field goal range. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 7. They did most of their cheatin’ pre-game, but it’s still cheatin’.

1995: Auburn 31, Alabama 27

How BARN CHEATED: Well for one thing they scheduled this game when Alabama was appealing some bullshit NCAA allegations, and then BARN had the gall to print shirts about it. Then you have the ending. CURTIS BROWN CAUGHT THAT DAMN BALL I GOT THE PICTURES TO PROVE IT! I just don’t have them on the internet. I promise I have them. I swear he caught that ball. The refs stole it. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 6. I can’t prove they paid the refs, but you just know they did.

2002: Auburn 17, Alabama 7

How BARN CHEATED: Y’all I can’t prove they helped convince Fran to take the Texas A&M job and throw this game, but I’ll just ask you where Tommy Tuberville worked before he became a head coach?

Exactly. Besides, who wins with a white running back in 21st century? BARN CHEATIN’ level: 5. Sometimes you gotta see this bullshit in layers. Plus they started a period of Alabama football we’ve all agreed to ignore.

2010: Auburn 28, Alabama 27

How BARN CHEATED: $CAM NEWTON WAS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. HE SULLIED BRYANT-DENNY STADIUM WITH HIS PRESENCE. I CAN’T EVEN TALK ABOUT THIS ANYMORE WITHOUT REFLEXIVELY POISONING THE NEAREST TREE. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 9. AND THE NCAA JUST LET EM GET AWAY WITH IT TOO.

2013: Auburn 34, Alabama 28

How BARN CHEATED: I still don’t think this is what we want football to be. Plays with ILLEGAL BLOCKING and MEN DOWNFIELD and FORWARD PASSES. It was just a matter of time before they unleashed something like this. Besides, you shouldn’t be allowed to return a missed field goal. They’re hard enough to make as it is. AND HE STEPPED OUT OF BOUNDS ANYWAY.

Don’t tell me it’s photoshopped. That’s just the BARN CHEATIN’ your eyes

BARN CHEATIN’ level: 8. It’s like they took the ring right off of poor AJ’s finger.

2015: Alabama 29, Auburn 13

How BARN CHEATED: Oh they still cheat when they lose. Just like when they hosed our poor brethren from the East, BARN hosed down the field to slow down Derrick Henry. Then they even hosed down their basketball court. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 7. You might think it should be lower since Alabama won, but BARN CHEATIN’ ratings are above the result.

2017: Auburn 26, Alabama 14

How BARN CHEATED: This is where earlier BARN CHEATIN’ events come back hurt the Tide again. The stadium was entirely too loud. I’m tellin you they had to be pumping in crowd noise. It was so loud Coach Saban didn’t realize he needed to pull Jalen and put in Tua. Obviously that would have made the difference. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 4. Though it increases to a 10 if they really did throw the UCF game just to give them a reason to claim a national title, which I’m sure they did. BARN is always aubsessed.

2019: Auburn 48, Alabama 45

How BARN CHEATED: How can you kick a field goal with one second on a running clock? Coach Saban was right to get mad. Then there’s using a punter at wide receiver. Just a bunch of high school bullshit. Not to mention they made us throw a butt-interception. They already had a butt-fumble they shouldn’t be allowed to return a pass that bounces off of someone’s behind. It’s unseemly. BARN CHEATIN’ level: 10. Maybe it’s recency bias, but THIS HIGH SCHOOL BULLSHIT KEPT US OUT OF THE PLAYOFF.

IF YOU HAVE NEW CORROBORATED EVIDENCE OF MORE BARN CHEATIN’, PLEASE LET US KNOW BY SENDING TIPS VIA TWITTER TO @ROLLBAMAROLL.

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2020/7/23/21335479/a-brief-history-of-barn-cheatin

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brownnesscrew · 7 years

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Backstage at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California, on May 23, 2015, J. was thrilled that her 19-year-old daughter’s music career was going to make a major leap forward from recording demos and performing at talent shows to the chance of stardom — thanks to the help of an R&B superstar.

“When we got to go backstage with R. Kelly, we stayed there over two hours,” said J. “One-on-one with just me and my daughter and him. We went back to talk about the music. He listened to her CD. He was going to help her with her CD, and I was really impressed with him at first, because I have always been an R. Kelly fan.”

J. said that Robert “R.” Kelly, who turned 50 in January, met her daughter backstage at a concert in Atlanta earlier that month. Soon enough, he’d invited her to fly out to the Indio concert on his dime. J. said she’d heard about past sexual misconduct accusations against Kelly, but wasn’t overly worried. She is a fiercely devoted stage mom — she and her husband of 22 years, Tim, a car dealer, had moved from Memphis to Atlanta to help their eldest child’s career — and was confident she could protect her daughter.

“In the back of our minds, we were thinking [my daughter] could be around him if I was with her,” J. said. “It didn’t really hit home. Even with the Aaliyah situation, now that I think about it, ‘Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number’ ... but you don’t think about that. You grew up with the song, and you like the song.”

Two years later, J. and Tim are in a desperate fight to bring their daughter home. (BuzzFeed News verified their identities and full names in public records, but is withholding the alleged victim's full name and her parents' last name to protect her privacy.)

“It was as if she was brainwashed.”

As part of their efforts, the mother closed her businesses, became a relentless amateur detective, and shared her findings with the FBI and police in two states. But their daughter isn’t a missing person — at least not in the eyes of the law. She still lives with Kelly and says she’s doing fine, despite her parents telling the police that she is “being held against her will” in what they call a “cult.”

Three former members of Kelly’s inner circle — Cheryl Mack, Kitti Jones, and Asante McGee — provided details supporting the parents’ worst fears. They said six women live in properties rented by Kelly in Chicago and the Atlanta suburbs, and he controls every aspect of their lives: dictating what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records.

The last time J. saw her daughter was Dec. 1, 2016.

“It was as if she was brainwashed. [She] looked like a prisoner — it was horrible,” she said. “I hugged her and hugged her. But she just kept saying she’s in love and [Kelly] is the one who cares for her. I don’t know what to do. I hope that if I get her back, I can get her treatment for victims of cults. They can reprogram her. But I wish I could have stopped it from happening.”

J. and Tim said they have only heard from their daughter twice since they last saw her. They got a one-sentence text from her on Christmas Day: “I hate Christmas has to be this way this year.”

And J. received another text on May 14: “Happy Mother’s Day from me and Rob.”

Kelly has sold nearly 60 million albums during his 25-year career, and though his relevance is fading somewhat from the heyday of “I Believe I Can Fly” and “Trapped in the Closet,” he remains a major star in high demand for concerts, endorsements, television and radio appearances, and glossy magazine profiles. When he’s not performing, Kelly splits his time between his suburban Atlanta home and Trump Tower in Chicago. Extensive interviews with Mack, Jones, and McGee and a review of legal documents by BuzzFeed News paint a picture of what Kelly’s life offstage is like today.

The women in Kelly’s entourage initially think “This is R. Kelly, I’m going to live a lavish lifestyle,” said Mack, who worked as Kelly’s personal assistant for a year and a half starting in 2013 and has remained in touch with some members of his inner circle. “No. You have to ask for food. You have to ask to go use the bathroom. … [Kelly] is a master at mind control. ... He is a puppet master.”

“He is a puppet master."

Jones and McGee both said they lived with Kelly and had sexual relationships with the star at different times over the past five years before leaving. Their documentation of this time is limited, however, as they said Kelly controlled their phone and social media use while they were under his roof, and they were not allowed to take photos with Kelly or of the rooms where they were living.

According to Mack, Jones, and McGee, the women living in Kelly’s Duluth, Georgia, “guest house” or his Chicago recording studio last summer included:

A 31-year-old “den mother” who “trained” newcomers on how Kelly liked to be pleasured sexually. She had been best friends since high school with the girl in the videotape for which Kelly was tried in 2008. She recently parted ways with Kelly, these sources say.

A 25-year-old woman who also has been part of Kelly’s scene for seven years.

A recent arrival, a 19-year-old model who has been photographed in public with Kelly and named on music gossip websites — a rarity among the women in his circle.

An Atlanta songwriter who began her relationship with Kelly around 2009, when she was 19. (She is now 26.)

And an 18-year-old singer from Polk County, Florida. Mack said the Florida singer is Kelly’s “favorite — his number-one girl.”

Mack, Jones, and McGee claim that women who live with Kelly, who he calls his “babies,” are required to call him “Daddy” and must ask his permission to leave the Chicago recording studio or their assigned rooms in the “guest house” Kelly rents near his own rented mansion in suburban Atlanta. A black SUV with a burly driver behind the wheel is almost always parked outside both locations. Kelly confiscates the women’s cell phones, they said, so they cannot contact their friends and family; he gives them new phones that they are only allowed to use to contact him or others with his permission. Kelly films his sexual activities, McGee and Jones said, and shows the videos to men in his circle.

Mack, the star’s former personal assistant, said Kelly almost always tells the women to dress in jogging suits because “he doesn’t want their figures to be exposed; he doesn’t want them to look appealing.” She said when other men are in the same room, Kelly “would make the girls turn around and face the wall in their jogging suits because he doesn’t want them to be looked at by anyone else.”

If the women break any of Kelly’s “rules,” Mack and Jones said, he punishes them physically and verbally. For example, Jones claimed that Kelly held her against a tree and slapped her outside of a Subway sandwich shop in spring 2013 because she had been too friendly with the male cashier there. McGee said she never saw Kelly hit anybody, but also said he was running a “cult” and manipulated her emotionally and sexually.

“R. Kelly is the sweetest person you will ever want to meet,” McGee said. “But Robert is the devil.”

Of course, the law says that consenting adults may take part in any relationship they want, no matter how nontraditional. Welfare checks by police in both Illinois and Georgia in the past year didn’t lead to any charges; in January, the aspiring singer from Georgia told Cook County police she was “fine and did not want to be bothered.”

And all of the women in Kelly’s inner circle are of legal age — the age of consent is 17 in Illinois and 16 in Georgia — despite Kelly’s history of allegations against him regarding his sexual conduct with women. He was last tried in 2008 in Illinois, where he was acquitted on 14 charges of making child pornography. The case, which took a record six and a half years to go to trial in Chicago, focused only on a single videotape that prosecutors alleged showed him having sex with a 14-year-old girl. (While he was a reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, this reporter received the tape anonymously and turned it over to the police; called by Kelly's attorneys to testify, he took the Fifth Amendment rather than revealing sources.)

The trial, however, excluded claims made by girls or their parents that alleged Kelly regularly abused his position of fame and influence to pursue illegal sexual relationships with underage girls — which has also been the subject of a dozen or more civil lawsuits against Kelly that were settled out of court with cash payments from Kelly. The girls signed nondisclosure agreements when they accepted the payments. Also excluded was evidence of Kelly’s marriage in 1994 to his then-15-year-old protégé, Aaliyah, for whom he wrote the album Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number.

Chicago attorney Susan E. Loggans declined to say how many settlements she has negotiated with Kelly before lawsuits were ever filed, but she said they were “numerous,” and recently included one for a 17-year-old aspiring singer from Chicago’s West Side who is said to have been part of Kelly’s inner circle. Loggans gave no other details, citing attorney-client privilege and the terms of the settlement.

Kelly also has been sued by other attorneys representing women over the age of consent in their respective states. In 2002, an Illinois lawsuit was filed by Montina Woods, a dancer who toured with Kelly’s friend Ronald Isley, in which Woods claimed she was unknowingly recorded by Kelly during sex. (Kelly eventually settled the suit, paying Woods an undisclosed sum.) And on April 21, a Mississippi lawsuit was filed by Hinds County sheriff’s deputy Kenny Bryant over an alleged affair between Kelly and Bryant’s wife.

The music industry has a history of stars using their fame to gain the trust of young women — and their parents — who expect professional relationships but end up in sexual ones. But numerous sources, including women who left his inner circle, made on-the-record allegations suggesting ongoing mental and physical abuse of several women in Kelly’s entourage far beyond that of the groupie culture. For two decades, Kelly has been accused of a similar pattern of mistreating women — some have called it “predation” — but because of his acquittal on the child-porn charges and the nondisclosure agreements in his numerous civil cases, the charges have remained in the realm of gossip instead of derailing his career. Major record companies, television shows, and other stars continue to work with Kelly. Lady Gaga recorded the duet “Do What U Want” with Kelly in 2013, Lil Wayne, Ty Dolla Sign, and Juicy J made cameos on Kelly’s 2015 album The Buffet, and he performed on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon last December. He recently starred in a digital campaign for Alexander Wang.

“I got trapped,” said former insider Jones. “I had people telling me I was an idiot. But it took me a long time to realize they were right, and I’m talking now because I hope I can help some of these other girls.”

After her backstage visit with Kelly in Indio, California, the aspiring singer from Georgia began secretly talking with Kelly on her cell phone, her mother said.

“As far as I know, we weren’t talking to [Kelly] anymore,” J. said. “Or at least I wasn’t talking to him anymore.”

In June 2015, J. and Tim said, their daughter lied to them about taking a weekend trip to visit a Georgia university. Instead, Mack arranged for her to fly to Oklahoma City, where Kelly was performing.

After the show, she had sex with Kelly for the first time, she later told her parents and at least two friends, including a record producer who goes by the stage name TONE.

As the Georgia singer and Kelly became closer, TONE recalled her saying she was frustrated with Kelly. She thought every time she tried to bring up her music career Kelly changed the topic to sex — and she wanted proof. So TONE and the woman decided to secretly record a phone conversation between her and Kelly.

BuzzFeed News was later given a copy of the recording. On the tape, it’s not just what Kelly said that shows his pattern of behavior with the women close to him. It's how he said it, which is immediately clear from listening to the audio.

“I miss my baby,” Kelly told the woman, before asking her what she was wearing. After she replied, he told her: “I want you to get in the habit of telling me what color panties you got on every day,” he instructed repeatedly, revealing in his own words the early stages of their power dynamic and the demands her parents say have become criminal.

When she tried to turn the conversation to a song she was working on, however, Kelly seemed less engaged.

“Hello?” she asked him at one point, to make sure he was still listening.

After a few minutes, Kelly changed the subject. “I’m more interested in developing you. Songs are not an issue. We can always do a hit song.”

In June 2016, the daughter enrolled for summer classes at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville and began living in the dorms. Her roommate at the school, who is being identified by the initials T.S. to avoid retaliation, told BuzzFeed News that, at first, she did not believe her new friend really knew R. Kelly. But, T.S. said, the Georgia woman would often call the superstar and put him on speakerphone during their explicit sexual conversations.

The Georgia woman also began visiting Kelly at his homes in nearby Duluth and sometimes traveled with him to Chicago, according to T.S. She recalled the woman telling her that Kelly took away her cell phone and replaced it with a new one, with instructions that she should only use it to communicate with him and needed to obtain his permission to use it to communicate with others.

“I’m more interested in developing you. Songs are not an issue. We can always do a hit song.”

T.S. also recalled the woman telling her that one time, Kelly sent a cab to pick up the women at his guest house and bring them to a club where he would meet them. The Georgia woman told her roommate that she laughed when the cab driver told a joke, and one of the other women in the cab texted Kelly to report this violation of his “rules.” When the Georgia woman arrived at the club, T.S. said, Kelly “bent her over and he whupped her behind because she laughed at the cab driver, who happened to be a man.”

By the middle of the 2016 fall semester, the Georgia woman’s appearance started to change: She began losing weight, and she cropped her long hair short, permed what was left, and dyed it blonde, said her parents and the former roommate. T.S. recalled her friend telling her that’s how Kelly liked her hair to look.

The Georgia woman eventually began skipping all of her classes, and she did not show up to take her finals in mid-December. Her parents confirmed the school considers her a student who is “no longer in good standing.”

She had already broken off all contact with her mother and father before she started skipping school. “My calls were all forwarded to voicemail,” J. said.

In the middle of the fall semester, during their quest to bring their daughter home, J. said she called the new cell phone Kelly had given her daughter, who broke one of Kelly’s “rules” by texting her parents from the phone to say she was fine.

J. said Kelly himself got on the phone after the daughter picked up and denied anything was wrong.

Two of R. Kelly's rental properties near Atlanta.

The parents filed a missing persons report with the Gwinnett College campus police. A spokeswoman for the school confirmed the report and the case number, but said that when an investigator called the parents and learned that they knew their daughter was with Kelly in his suburban Atlanta homes no action could be taken. Their daughter was not technically missing, and at 21, she is of legal age to do what she wants, campus police said.

The last time her parents saw her was in December 2016. “What we really wanted to do was an intervention,” J. said, but her daughter would not listen.

On Dec. 27, 2016, J. and Tim requested that the Johns Creek Police Department, which is responsible for the section of Duluth where Kelly rents the two houses, perform a well-being check on their daughter at the guest house. The police report obtained by BuzzFeed News said J. believes her daughter is part of the R. Kelly “cult” and that he is “abusive and is controlling her daughter.”

When police arrived, the report noted, the “door [was] open, house clear, no one there.” No further action was taken.

“What we really wanted to do was an intervention.”

A month later, the Cook County Sheriff’s police performed a well-being check in Chicago. The Georgia singer told officers she was “fine and did not want to be bothered with her parents because her father was threatening people,” according to the police report. (Tim denied this.) She told officers she instead keeps in touch with her grandmother, who she calls Nana.

When reached by BuzzFeed News, Nana said that she had spoken to her granddaughter by phone only two or three times since December, most recently on July 11. She said her granddaughter emphasized that she’s an adult in a consensual relationship with Kelly, and was mad at her parents for intervening. In text messages reviewed by BuzzFeed News, the granddaughter said she thought her parents were trying to ruin Kelly’s career.

Despite her granddaughter’s insistence, “I’m gravely concerned about her,” Nana said, echoing J.’s belief that she is being held against her will. If she could talk to Kelly today, Nana said, “I would tell R. Kelly to send my granddaughter home. He knows it’s not right and he would not want anybody doing this to his daughter.”

Multiple attempts by BuzzFeed News to reach the Georgia woman on her Kelly-issued cell phone were unsuccessful.

J. and Tim said they even reached out to the FBI about their daughter and spent hours being interviewed by an agent. Special Agent Stephen Emmett, an FBI spokesperson in Georgia, said the bureau’s policy is to neither confirm nor deny investigations into specific people or matters. But the parents are hopeful that perhaps federal law enforcement can help where local police have not.

“It’s not about my daughter, per se. It’s about all the girls,” Tim said. “It’s about my daughter, and I understand that. But the abuse that my daughter is actually enduring, nobody should go through.”

Kelly leaving the Cook County Criminal Court Building on June 13, 2008, after a jury found him not guilty on all counts in his child pornography trial.

Two other parents are fighting to get their daughter back. The parents of an aspiring professional singer from Florida said their daughter met Kelly when she was 17 years old, and she moved into one of his rental properties once she was over the age of legal consent. (BuzzFeed News verified their identities and full names, but is withholding the alleged victim's full name and her parents' last name to protect her privacy. Her mother asked to be called by her middle name, Theresa, for the same reason.)

Theresa said she initially let her daughter spend time with Kelly because it was “supposed to be a music relationship.” She now regrets that decision.

“My thing was I trusted. I have never been in the music industry before, ever,” Theresa said. “He is a lyrical genius — he is R. Kelly! And the fact is he went to court, he was never found guilty — he was acquitted — and we were led to believe there was no truth in it. Now I got all of these people asking about why my daughter is there, telling me, ‘All of that, the charges against Kelly, was true.’ Well, how come you didn’t tell me that before?”

The Florida singer first met Kelly when her parents took her to see him perform at Funk Fest in Orlando on April 18, 2015.

“The fact is he went to court, he was never found guilty — he was acquitted — and we were led to believe there was no truth in it."

“During the show, they were pulling people out of the audience,” Theresa said. “A guy said, ‘Oh yeah, her.’ He pulled her up onstage.”

After the show, a member of Kelly’s entourage gave the star’s phone number to the then-17-year-old high school senior, Theresa said.

“We called, but he wasn’t answering, so we left it alone,” she said. “Then I guess he must have got back later on or texted her later on.”

As with the Georgia woman, the relationship between Kelly and the Florida woman developed over phone calls and text messages that were kept secret from her family, the parents said.

“And then one day we were looking for her because she should’ve been coming home from school,” Theresa said. “Then finally we get a text message saying that she’s OK, that she had met up with R. Kelly in his hotel. And I’m like, ‘You met up with R. Kelly at his hotel?’”

Theresa and her husband, Angelo, said they rushed to the hotel and called the police, who advised them to deal with hotel security. Their daughter finally came down to see them, they said, but Kelly refused to talk with them.

After the incident at the hotel, the Florida teen “was only [supposed to be] talking to him when one of us was around,” Theresa said.

“We needed to make sure it was about music, because he was going to mentor her,” she said. “And then from there he wanted her to travel with him so she could see how the music game really was. ... We thought it could be an opportunity, and that she was going to be with a guardian — a female guardian that would keep an eye on her.”

But that may have been wishful thinking. Soon enough, the Florida singer was living with Kelly. Angelo said he initially received short text messages from his daughter every few weeks saying she was fine and the parents should not worry or try to contact her. Those have stopped.

McGee, one of the women who left Kelly, said the Florida woman is “head over heels” for Kelly. And McGee said Kelly is “obsessed” with the Florida woman, noting that he “would go into the kitchen and cook for her.”

But McGee’s feelings about the Florida woman were nuanced. “I have a 17-year-old daughter myself,” she said. “When I saw [the Florida singer] with him, it took me back. This could be my daughter. I just knew that it was not right and I just couldn’t understand what a man almost 50 is doing having sex with someone the same age as his daughter. That’s when I realized it was more of a mind-control thing.”

McGee also said she witnessed Kelly punish the aspiring Florida singer for breaking his “rules.”

“I just couldn’t understand what a man almost 50 is doing having sex with someone the same age as his daughter.”

“He left [the Florida woman] on the [tour] bus for, like, three days and she was not allowed to come out,” McGee said. “He said she didn’t do her homework — that’s why she was punished — which was very confusing, because she had just graduated [high school] over the summer.”

Multiple attempts by BuzzFeed News to reach the Florida woman on her Kelly-issued cell phone were unsuccessful.

Theresa said she is frustrated that lawyers and police have said they cannot help, and she fears that even if the relationship ends, she may not get her daughter back. On Dec. 24, 1996, Kelly was sued for $10 million by Tiffany “Tia” Hawkins, an aspiring singer and then–high school student in Chicago, who claimed she met the star when he lectured her choir class. According to the lawsuit, Hawkins began having sex with Kelly in 1991, when she was 15 and he was 24. The relationship ended in December 1994, when she was 18, the court documents state; distraught, she slit her wrists in an attempt to kill herself.

“I desperately want my daughter back but I’m not [sure] what will [be] the repercussions if she doesn’t come willingly,” Theresa said. “These girls think this man loves them. Matters of the heart are a touchy subject.”

The parents said they’ve tried numerous other tactics to bring their daughter home.

In August 2015, the daughter texted Angelo that she was in Chicago with Kelly, the parents said. On Aug. 26, 2015, they sent their older daughter to Kelly’s recording studio to check on her sister, according to her parents. Kelly and men in his entourage allegedly got involved in an altercation with the older sister when she tried to take her younger sister away, said the parents, who claimed the star and the other men pushed, shoved, and hit the older sister.

A police report obtained by BuzzFeed News indicated that one person allegedly struck the Florida singer’s sister in her face, but she did not seek medical attention. The case is classified as a simple battery and nobody has been arrested, according to the report, which said the investigation was initially suspended until a detective could contact the victim. A supplementary report was filed more than a year later, on Jan. 18, 2017.

“I have not talked to my daughter in more than a year,” Theresa said, adding she has left countless texts and voicemail messages that have not yet received a response. “We’ve had deaths in the family, birthdays, and I haven’t heard from her and she hasn’t been here for any of it. I didn’t even hear from her on Mother’s Day. All I want to do is bring her home.”

On Friday, July 14, after Kelly and the Florida woman had been asked for comment on this story, Angelo said he got a surprise phone call from his daughter, who invited him to come to see Kelly perform in Indiana on Saturday. Wary of Kelly’s motivations, Angelo said he declined the invitation. He also is angry over the other surprise news from his daughter: She said Kelly had recently paid for her to have breast enhancement surgery.

“I am beyond furious,” Angelo said. “I said to her, ‘How could you do this? What the hell were you thinking? What if you died on the operating table?’ I don’t even know what we can do anymore. I just know we got to get her home."

R. Kelly performing at Bass Concert Hall on March 3 in Austin.

Kelly has long maintained his innocence on allegations of underage sex, and in recent interviews he has either persistently dodged questions about his past behavior or stormed offwhen he was unable to do that.

Multiple attempts to reach Kelly were unsuccessful. Kelly’s RCA Records publicist Theola Borden, who was promoted to senior vice president of publicity for the label in 2014, did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment.

“I suppose that is the price of fame. Like all of us, Mr. Kelly deserves a personal life.”

Linda Mensch, a civil lawyer in Chicago who represents the superstar, responded via email to the accusations outlined in this story. Mensch was asked about the on-the-record allegations that Kelly physically and mentally abuses women and that Kelly allegedly met one of the women in his inner circle when she was 17.

“We can only wonder why folks would persist in defaming a great artist who loves his fans, works 24/7, and takes care of all of the people in his life,” Mensch wrote. “He works hard to become the best person and artist he can be. It is interesting that stories and tales debunked many years ago turn up when his goal is to stop the violence; put down the guns; and embrace peace and love. I suppose that is the price of fame. Like all of us, Mr. Kelly deserves a personal life. Please respect that.” ●

#violence against women #r kelly #buzzfeed

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sueannda06-blog · 4 years

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d2kvirus · 4 years

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Dickheads of the Month: March 2020

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of March 2020 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

It turns out that proven liar Boris Johnson hiding in a mansion for two weeks rather than say or do anything when large parts of the country were flooded was merely an appetiser for his approach to COVID-19, which mainly consisted of briefly mostaking himself for Lord Farquaad when telling the nation that some people will die and it's a sacrifice he is willing to make, and then going on to state that the approach he will be taking is one of herd immunity...and approach that requires 60% of the population to contract the virus, which means that if COVID-19 had a fatality rate of just 1% that’s around 400,000 people he’s casually allowing to die - and given the fatality rate is estimated at the time of writing as being between 2-3% all of a sudden having eugenicists tucked away in his backroom staff gets a lot more sinister

So with COVID-19 panic nicely stoked, what did the panic buyers rush out to buy as they feared the possibility of having to self-isolate for two weeks? Their own bodyweight in toilet role and antibacterial - not antiviral - hand sanitiser, as opposed to things you need if you’re locked away from the world for two weeks such as food or water

Isn’t it funny how every single journalist and pundit who was creaming about how the Labour budget pledges in their 2019 manifesto ranged from being “unworkable” to “COMMUNIZZM” were all out in force to praise Rishi Sunak for his brave and forward-thinking Budget...that simply copy & pasted the budget pledges from Labour’s 2019 manifesto

...similarly, convicted felon Darren Grimes was quick to tweet photos of empty shelves in the UK as an example of what would happen if Corbyn got elected. Photos that were taken this month, in a country where Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson won the election, so as arguments against “soShulIzm” go that’s a really bad one

The problem with putting a brainless drone like Matt Hancock in a position of responsibility is that, when everyone is grossly overstating how many of us are going to die in agony of Chinese Death Flu, the only thing he knows how to do is try and save face for his party - which is the only logical explanation for him outright lying about the Tory government working with supermarkets to make sure they’re fully stocked at a time when the shelves are being cleared out of toilet roll and hand sanitiser by stupendously misinformed paranoiacs

...that being said, even Matt Hancock is aware that listing the Early Warning and Response System as a red line is profoundly idiotic, and has been proven to be profoundly idiotic by COVID-19 - however, because Dominic Cummings has stated that it’s a red line, we should opt out of it because of reasons

It was no surprise that Dan Hodges responded to the allegations of Priti Patel bullying Home Office staff by penning an article that did nothing but sneer, damning Labour supporters for saying they wanted diversity but then criticising a woman of Indian descent whose parents fled to the UK from Uganda...which apparently means she can’t be criticised for gross incompetence, having a remarkable streak of vindictiveness, and we definitely should not mention she should not be a minister due to the whole being guilty of treason thing

Minister of Propaganda Laura Kuenssberg continued her LARPing of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil when stating that the reason the Tories were pulling back from their insane idea of infecting 60% of the population to increase immunity was because the science had changed since they proposed the idea, rather than reporting the reality - which is her fucking job - that the science has remained consistent, it’s just the Tories were surprised when the public didn’t respond well to the idea of deliberately contracting COVID-19 so that the Tories could continue fumbling their way through it

The list of totalitarian moves from the Tory government got that little bit longer when they blocked The British Museum’s move to make Mary Beard a trustee because of her expressing pro-Remain views, which definitely isn’t cause for revealing proven liar Boris Johnson is expecting a child he acknowledges the existence of concern

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has been put in a quandary with Spring Break right around the corner even though the COVID-19 pandemic is right on top of him, so he looked for advice of how to deal with the situation - which appears to have been him watching that well-known documentary Jaws to see how the mayor of Amity Island responded to a series of shark attacks right before the 4th of July by pretending that everything was fine

Congratulations to Richard Branson for being the first billionaire in the UK to try and paint themselves as the poor, innocent victim of the COVID-19 pandemic by demanding the government give him £7.5bn to cover the losses incurred by having to pay his staff for flights which won’t take place - even though he’s more than capable of covering their pay for the duration out of his £4.2bn fortune

...as opposed to Tim Martin who merely said that pubs should remain open, because if a single Wetherspoons closes he loses money, and by the way Britait should go ahead no matter what - and when pubs were forced to close, first staff were informed via passive aggressive press release that they wouldn’t be paid a penny for the duration of their enforced closures, before Martin decided the best thing to do in the situation is post a video where he tells his disgruntled employees they may as well get a job at Tesco if money is so important

A round of applause for Matt Gaetz for proving how COVID-19 isn’t a big deal by wearing a gas mask on the floor of the House of Representatives to show how people are blowing it out of all proportion...and within a few days looking like a monumental bellend when somebody within his own district died from it

So are we allowed to talk about how, when Dominic Raab was asked about flying Brits back from Lima, his response had him believe that Lima is in the Philippines? I have to ask, considering people are still hounding Diane Abbott about the one time she flubbed her sums in 2017 yet somehow don;t have a single thing to say about the Foreign Secretary not even knowing which continent Lima is in

Nobody told Jeremy Warner about the Telegraph having a readership primarily made up of people above retirement age, which is the only logical reason for him to make his comment about how COVID-19 “might even prove mildly beneficial in the long term by disproportionately culling elderly dependants” - and, yes, that is a direct quote from Warner

It’s almost tragic that Douglas Carswell used Covid-19 as an opportunity to tweet the ludicrous assertion that Universal Basic Income shouldn't be introduced because the Romans subsidising grain in 123 BC is what caused the Roman Republic to collapse...even though the Roman Republic lasted until 44 BC, a mere 79 years later. For some strange reason, Carswell spent the remainder of the day blocking everyone who pointed this out...

One thing that would help Lisa Nandy is that, if she's going to say how terrible it was there were various competing factions within the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, it would really help if she didn’t think she could omit the small detail of her being so prominent in one of these factions that she was front and centre of an attempted coup to overthrow Corbyn almost as soon as he was elected party leader

It took Dominic Raab less than twenty seconds of his first press conference as interim leader to show just how seriously he’s taking instructions about how to avoid infection when he started licking his fingers after touching the pages of his briefing notes, something which had been established as something you should not do for several weeks before this

Nothing sums up the BBC more than how, when looking for an expert to talk about COVID-19 on Newsnight, they brought on waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage - somehow missing the facts that he has no connections with the NHS and is neither an MP or MEP, so they may as well have brought in Larry the cat as an “expert” for the segment

As advice for aspiring boxers goes, the advice Billy Joe Saunders gave about imagining your wife or girlfriend giving you lip as motivation for attempting an uppercut to the chin throws up a lot of questions - with one of them being answered very quickly, namely the question about when his boxing license would be revoked

Of course sentient testicle Toby Young was going to venture forth his batshit opinions about Covid-19, but he went all-out writing a piece saying that we should simply let the elderly and the disabled die as they’re a strain on our economy and, if they follow his instructions, the lockdown will be over by Easter Sunday and we can send the kiddywinkles back to school

In a single tweet Alison Pearson managed to race bait by saying that the term “Made in China” shall forever be a badge of shame...while making herself look like a clueless clod as Twitter helpfully informed everyone that said tweet was sent via her Chinese-made iPhone

...sort of like Isabel Oakeshott howling with indignant rage about how terrible it is that some private school are sending the bills for next year’s education to their pupils’ parents as if that is the worst thing to happen during the Covid-19 crisis

...although Isabel Oakeshott being Isabel Oakeshott it didn’t take long to top that by predictably turning Prince Charles testing positive for Covid-19 by twisting that into an excuse to attack Meghan Markle for her and Prince Harry not dropping everything to rush back to the UK

At some point Vanessa Hudgens should have considered that, if she's going to post a live video of her discussing COVID-19, it might have been a good idea to write down a basic structure first so she didn’t run the risk of sounding as callous as she did clueless - which naturally led to Paul Joseph Watson to tweet out the usual finger-pointing about how millennials are treating the outbreak with a laissez-faire attitude, as if noted Boomers such as Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson have been the image of proactiveness

It’s worrying that Derbyshire Police were so quick to act as if they were Judge Dredd, using police drones to harass people who were taking walks even though the lockdown guidelines clearly allow exercise as a reason to leave your home

It seems that Red Bull Leipzig have experienced one of the worst symptoms of COVID-19, namely seeing somebody of Far Eastern origin and completely losing their shit, which would explain why they booted a group of Japanese fans out of their ground on the assumption that, as they look a bit Chinese, that obviously meant they were going to infect the entire ground

According to Fiona Bruce she was surprised by the levels of toxicity surrounding Question Time, conveniently forgetting the time she egged on a hostile crowd by doing a fully routine of jokes about Diana Abbott ahead of an episode in which Abbott appeared

Leeds goalkeeper Kiko Casilla appears to have gone to the Wayne Hennessey School of Not Knowing An Obviously Bad Thing Is Bad, since his defence of when brought up on charges of calling a Charlton player a “fucking n-word” (and, no, it wasn’t “n-word” that he said) was that he wasn't aware that calling somebody that was in any way offensive

Of course we could rely on Kirstie Allsopp to somehow make the Covid-19 crisis all about her, and naturally she responded to the lockdown by taking her entire family to their second property in Devon...including one family member who had tested positive for Covid-19

And finally, as per usual, we have Donald Trump waving around his medical degree from Trump University where he claims that he’s the most qualified doctor in the entire United States and nobody should worry about COVID-19 as he has plenty of a vaccine that doesn’t exist, and besides the virus only exists in countries that are part of the Schengen agreement so everything’s fine, and don’t forget it's actually called “Chinese flu” and must be addressed as such at all times so the blame is placed firmly on China for everything he gets wrong

#dickheads of the month

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fmservers · 5 years

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A new ABC documentary and podcast about Theranos features never-before aired depositions

The rise and fall of Theranos, the blood-testing company whose technology never worked despite its promises otherwise, has already been covered extensively. Most notably, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who broke open the story of Theranos’s secrets and lies, John Carreyrou, went on to author a best-selling book about the saga in Bad Blood.

Still, with Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes still facing criminal charges that she knowingly defrauded investors, along with Theranos’s president and COO and Holmes’s longtime lover, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the company and the pair’s trajectory remain a point of fascination for many.

A new documentary produced by ABC’s “Nightline” that will air tonight — along with a six-part podcast series whose first episode is being released today (the others will be published every Wednesday through February’s end) — will undoubtedly stoke even more questions about how investors and customers like Walgreens bought their act in the first place.

So we gathered after speaking yesterday with Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News’s chief business, technology, and economics correspondent, who led a three-year investigation into Theranos and Holmes, a Stanford drop-out who would go on to win acclaim as the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world before everything, very slowly, crashed down around her. Some outtakes from our chat with Jarvis follow, edited lightly for length.

TC: You’ve been covering this story for years. Given all that you’ve seen in the depositions that “Nightline” plans to air as part of this documentary, and everything you’ve learned in your reporting, who was the worse actor in all of this, Holmes or Balwani? John Carreyrou certainly painted him as a kind of Svengali figure.

RJ: What we have here is never-before-aired deposition footage, where you see Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani being forced to answer to all of these allegations. Most of what we’ve seen publicly to this point have been official statements, or statements made in very nurturing environments, or interviews don’t don’t explicitly look at the technology itself.

When we got access to this — and it’s truly access to hundreds of hours of footage — we couldn’t believe our eyes, watching Elizabeth Holme’s deposition. It was just remarkable, hearing her having to answer to questions in a way that she’d never had to previously.

As for [the way Holmes and Balwani operated], Tyler Schultz [a former employee who later became a whistleblower] has said that he was flagging things that were wrong with Elizabeth, and after he would flag a concern, she would react with a non-response. It was Sunny who became known as the enforcer, telling Tyler to watch himself and not to continue to raise these issues.

TC: Are open about their romantic relationship in the footage being aired?

RJ: Yes. We’ve never heard of them speak of it before, and viewers will see them talking about this relationship.

TC: What was something in the many depositions you pored over that really took your breath away?

RJ: One of the things that we heard over and over again, talking with various parties, including customers of Theranos, is that Elizabeth Holmes had told them that these Theranos-manufactured devices had been deployed in hospital rooms, emergency rooms and medevac helicopters among other places, and she’s asked if this is accurate, and in every single case, the answer is no.

Naturally, too, this whole thing was predicated on being able to run tests on a few drops of blood, and for the first time, you see Elizabeth having to answer questions about what the devices were really capable of. A lot of what comes up is how much of this was aspiration versus reality, and the great divide between those two things.

TC: The government filed its criminal fraud case against former Holmes and Balwani last June. Does the documentary cover the status of that case?

RJ: At this point, both of them have pleaded not guilty to the DOJ’s charges. She’d settled with the SEC without admitting wrongdoing; Balwani is still fighting the SEC’s charges. But they’ll have to face the DOJ in court. When will that happen [is a question mark]. The government shutdown has slowed the ability to get millions of documents to the DOJ and to prosecutors.

TC: How much do the podcast and the documentary have in common?

RJ: The podcast encompasses a greater breadth of our work. For example, among the numerous interviews in the podcast that you’ll hear is with Rochelle Gibbons, the wife of a former chief scientist at Theranos [Ian Gibbons] who’d committed suicide, an act she blames on Theranos. You’ll hear how the deal with Walgreens came together from behind-the-scenes accounts. Walgreens ultimately sued Theranos and settled with Theranos for an undisclosed sum, but people look at story and ask how this could have made it into Walgreens in the first place; we looked in depth at how it happened, talking with the people who were there and who share what they were shown by people from Theranos. We also talk with her honors physics teacher in high school and her family friendsl

TC: Do you think Holmes has a personality disorder?

RJ: I don’t have the medical training to answer that question. I”m not a psychologist. But people around her have used the word “sociopath.”

Her family friends give a real sense of what she was like as a kid. They paint a picture of someone who was incredibly precocious, who wanted to be successful and who believe her family’s history had a lot to do with this. There’s a kind of “Paradise Lost” backstory tying back to the Fleischmann yeast fortune, which had dwindled as it passed through the hands of generations, before it made it to her father, Christian Holmes. It’s something that people who were around the family say was a talking point among them.

TC: Were you ever concerned about your safety, reporting on Theranos? Holmes has repeatedly been portrayed as a bully.

RJ: I didn’t feel that way. We did pay Theranos a number of visits over the years and we did get kicked out. But we talked with other people who worked at Theranos at the time the story [of its failings] starting getting out into the mainstream, and for example, one employee who was crashing on the couch of a friend for a few days, at an address that she hadn’t even given to her mother, was sent a legal notice there, which made her believe she was being followed.

TC: How else did the company try to intimidate employees?

RJ: The fear was always that your job was on the line if you raised concerns. If you said, “This isn’t working,” you’d get in trouble and be asked: “Do you like working here?” A lot of people wound up quitting.

TC: Knowing what you do, do you have sympathy for the investors who’d gotten involved in Theranos? There’s only so much due diligence one can do but were there warning signs they should have heeded?

RJ: It’s true that early-stage venture investments, there isn’t a ton of due diligence you can do. For the story, we talk with one attorney who is suing on behalf of 200 investors, and he talks about his long, storied career, in which he has also gone up against Bernie Madoff. And in both of these cases, he points to affinity fraud. If an investment is good enough for you, who are a person in my social circle who I respect, it’s good enough for me. Betsy DeVos’s family was involved. Rupert Murdoch. Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots. The Walton family. But it wasn’t just big names. We hear from a retired executive assistant who got a tip to put money into this, that it was the next Apple, and she lost $150,00 of her retirement savings — the biggest investment of her entire life.

[Renowned VC] Tim Draper wrote Holmes her first check for $1 million around the time she dropped out of Stanford. His daughter Jessie was a friend of hers. But the board you hear about came together in 2011 after she landed the support of [the dean of Stanford’s engineering school] Channing Robertson, who helped her put her board together. He was a very well-liked professor who was taken with her. Because he came on board right as she was leaving Stanford, he really gave credibility to her. Meanwhile, other Stanford professors were wondering: how does a young student with less than two years of college experience know enough about medical devices and the medical industry to develop a product like this?

Via Connie Loizos https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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usatrendingsports · 6 years

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Teaching carousel: 2018 faculty basketball teaching modifications and rumors

March is just not even every week outdated, and but the school basketball teaching carousel already has some velocity underneath it. There are 17 jobs that want filling as of Monday, and 19 faculties complete are listed under.

Remember to bookmark/favourite this web page, as it can get up to date usually with the newest hirings, firings or resignations in faculty basketball. The faculties are listed so as of which jobs have been crammed and prominence of this system/convention affiliation.

Out: Bob Walsh. After 4 seasons, Walsh determined to stroll away from one of many hardest jobs in faculty basketball. Walsh texted CBS Sports activities on March 5: “I’ve determined to not pursue a contract extension at Maine. Trying ahead to pursuing new challenges.” Walsh is wired in another way than lots of different coaches. He may decide to remain on as an assistant in D-I, or he may coach at a decrease degree, or he may get out of the enterprise altogether.

In: Richard Barron. What’s occurring at Maine is a rarity on a few fronts. Primary: Barron is the previous ladies’s coach at Maine. He takes over the boys’s program after a medical go away of absence brought about him to step away from the ladies’s group beforehand. Quantity two: It is uncommon to see a program have its head coach step down — after which announce that coach’s alternative, who was not on the employees, inside a matter of hours. Maine is on a slim-pickings tight funds and is without doubt one of the hardest jobs in faculty basketball.

Out: Rick Pitino. The Cardinals are a bubble group who’ve been coached all season by David Padgett, tagged with an interim title. He is the one member of Pitino’s teaching employees who was saved on after the FBI scandal broke and Pitino was fired in early October. (Pitino is within the strategy of suing the college.) The Cardinals nonetheless await NCAA assessment concerning criminality uncovered within the FBI probe, that means this system could possibly be topic to a different spherical of sanctions. When that occurs nobody is aware of, and so it is powerful to gauge what number of high-profile candidates for this job would think about passing on it with a lot uncertainty. When freed from any NCAA restrictions, Louisville is definitely thought of a top-10 gig within the sport. Affordable names Louisville ought to think about embrace Xavier coach Chris Mack, Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall, Windfall’s Ed Cooley, Cincinnati’s Mick Cronin, Virginia Tech’s Buzz Williams and former Indiana coach Tom Crean.

Out: Andy Kennedy. Ole Miss and Kennedy formally parted methods on Feb. 18. He went 245-156 in 12 seasons, making the NCAA Match twice. The Ole Miss job is taken into account bottom-three within the SEC, so athletic director Ross Bjork might want to nail the rent with a view to improve this system in an upgraded SEC. Center Tennessee’s Kermit Davis can be a pure match for this system.

Out: Larry Eustachy. Resigned on Feb. 26, following being positioned on administrative go away for an investigation into how he handled his gamers. Eustachy left with $750,000 for this season and $250,000 over almost the following 12 months. Candidates embrace South Dakota’s Craig Smith and Drake’s Niko Medved, amongst others. The job, which is in a fascinating spot within the Mountain West, will in all probability pay round $600,000 within the first 12 months of coach’s contract.

Out: Jeff Lebo. Resigned on Nov. 29. This can be a bottom-tier AAC job. The Pirates went 10-19 this season. Take a scan at each program in a Main 7 convention, and the one one that may compete with ECU proper now by way of determined want of a whole overhaul in identification and personnel is Washington State.

Out: Mark Worth. Houston Fancher took over after Mark Worth and Charlotte severed ties in December. The 49ers, as soon as a program anticipating to make the NCAA Match almost yearly, went 2-16 in C-USA and appear to be beginning an extended strategy of rebuild from the athletic director on down. Charlotte basketball was at one level an unquestionable top-50 program, however we’re nearly twenty years faraway from that.

Out: Paul Lusk. The business had murmurs about Lusk’s job standing within the ultimate weeks of the season. The Bears had been the preseason favourite within the Missouri Valley however went 7-11 in league play and completed 18-15 total. Lusk spent seven seasons with this system and averaged 15 wins per 12 months. Many who do work or have labored in The Valley think about it a top-two job within the convention now that Wichita State has left.

Out: Tim Floyd. On Nov. 27, Floyd abruptly retired after a 1-5 begin. Floyd coached this system for seven full seasons. He by no means acquired to the NCAA Match at UTEP. The Miners went 11-19 within the common season. The Miners play in C-USA, and this job, though as soon as a spot the place NCAA Tournaments had been attainable, is without doubt one of the hardest spots within the league. A really perfect rent can be a grinder with high-level X-and-O smarts mixed with the ambition to recruit on the JUCO degree.

Out: Dan McHale. Japanese Kentucky terminated McHale on Feb. 26 after simply three seasons. EKU athletic director Stephen Lochumueller made the decision, which took some within the business unexpectedly. McHale went 38-55 however by no means made the OVC event underneath his watch.

Out: Marty Wilson. The varsity introduced on Feb. 14 that this season can be Wilson’s final. The Waves went 6-26 this season, together with almost upsetting Saint Mary’s within the WCC quarterfinals on March Three. The varsity final earned an NCAA Match bid in 2002 underneath Paul Westphal.

Out: Mike Maker. A nasty four-year run led to Maker’s finish with the Purple Foxes. This system totaled solely 28 wins in his tenure. When the following rent is made, it is going to be the sixth coach in 16 seasons on the college. Marist is taken into account a bottom-third job within the MAAC.

Out: Tim O’Shea. The Bulldogs transitioned to D-I in 2008-09. O’Shea spent a decade with this system, however the group was a depressing Three-28 this season. The job is taken into account one within the Northeast Convention. One potential candidate who Bryant may take a look at: Jim Ferry. The Penn State assistant coached LIU Brooklyn to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in 2011 and 2012 — within the NEC.

Out: Larry Hunter resigned after 13 seasons with this system. Hunter gained 193 video games, good for second in program historical past. The SoCon program based mostly out of Cullowhee, North Carolina, will lose 5 seniors and doubtlessly extra gamers to switch as a result of change in management.

Out: Dennis Cutts. It was not a pleasant begin to 2018 for Cutts, who was fired Cutts on Jan. 1. The Highlanders went Four-12 in league play underneath interim Justin Bell. This system has been in Division I since 2001-02 and has by no means gotten to the NCAA Match.

“There’s a must elevate our males’s basketball program to a extra constant degree, to extra successfully compete with mid-major Division I applications,” the college’s athletic director stated in January. “We want a training philosophy that may speed up our program’s total success within the Huge West Convention, that emphasizes a tradition for champions.”

Out: Dave Simmons. He lasted 12 seasons at one of many hardest jobs within the Southland Convention. Simmons’ peak got here in 2010-11, when the Cowboys went 21-12 and misplaced within the league title recreation. The varsity final made the Huge Dance in 2002.

Out: Kyle Perry. The college dismissed Perry and faculty athletic director Julio Freire on March 1. Perry was introduced on simply final October. The Spartans rated because the worst defensive group in faculty basketball. In a top-heavy Atlantic Solar, whomever is introduced on to guide this program should hope coaches like Florida Gulf Coast’s Joe Dooley and Lipscomb’s Casey Alexander get employed away from the league.

Out: Jayson Gee. Went 7-26 and was there for 5 seasons. The Lancers began Three-Three in Huge South play earlier than dropping 12 straight. Gee’s group didn’t win a non-conference recreation vs. a Division I opponent this season. In 5 seasons, he by no means gained greater than 11 video games on the college, which has been in Division I since 2004-05.

Out: Keith Walker. The Hornets ranked 350th out of 351 groups at KenPom this season. Walker lasted 4 seasons as a head coach within the MEAC. This system final made the NCAA Match in 2005.

To be decided: Lamont Smith. The day after USD’s common season finale at San Francisco, Smith was arrested on the airport and charged with three counts of home abuse that had been in reference to an alleged incident in Smith’s lodge room the evening earlier than. Smith, who was employed at San Diego in 2015, has been placed on administrative go away and his standing going ahead stays unsure. Smith has not put out a press release; he and his lawyer haven’t responded CBS Sports activities’ contact for remark. The Toreros’ 18-13 season ended within the first spherical of the WCC event.

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junker-town · 7 years

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Jim McElwain was fired, and now Florida’s got a coaching search. Get caught up quickly

The head coach went from safe to fired over the course of three weeks.

Florida is making a coaching change from Jim McElwain, the school made official last Sunday. After two and a half seasons and an 22-12 record, the Gators are moving on form the head coach who once had a lot of promise and delivered on some of it, sort of.

McElwain went from safe to fired over the course of about three weeks, and the Gators now get a head start on finding his replacement.

1. After just two and a half seasons, he’s gone? What happened?

Florida’s first two seasons under McElwain featured two SEC East Championships, but the offensive progress was virtually nonexistent. It was little surprise that the Gators got blown out by Alabama twice in a row in Atlanta. His third season got off to a 3-3 start before his team got blown out by the Georgia Bulldogs 42-7 last week.

2. OK, but that’s not terrible.

It’s not, but McElwain and Florida never really jelled. What gave Florida the final incentive to move on from McElwain were his comments about death threats on Monday of last week:

I think it’s a pretty good kind of lesson for the way things are. There’s a lot of hate in this world and a lot of anger. And yet, it’s freedom to show it. The hard part is, obviously, when the threat’s against your own players, death threats to your families, you know, the ill will that’s brought upon out there. And yet, you know, I think it’s really one of those deals that really is a pretty good testament to what’s going on out there nationally. A lot of angry people. In this business, we’re the ones that you take the shots at. And that’s the way it is.

Florida’s response implied some skepticism regarding his claims. In a statement hours after McElwain’s press conference, the Gators said the coach “offered no additional details” about the alleged threats.

Before Florida’s game Saturday against Georgia, it was reported Florida was negotiating a buyout with McElwain, which Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin denied.

During the Gators’ blowout loss to Georgia, ESPN reported Florida was looking to cut ties with him amid the death threat claims:

After failing to find any evidence to substantiate claims made by McElwain this week that family and players received death threats, Florida administrators have worked to see if McElwain's allegations were enough to relieve the university from paying McElwain's full buyout of $12.9 million if he were to be fired.

Sources told ESPN that they believe the university has enough cause to fire McElwain without having to pay his buyout. Sources also said that if McElwain were to be relieved of his duties, defensive coordinator Randy Shannon would be asked to be the team's interim coach.

By Sunday, Florida officially announced it was “mutually parting ways” with McElwain.

3. It looks like Florida won’t have to pay him his full $12.7 million buyout, either.

Expect former Florida coach Jim McElwain to receive substantially less than his $12.9 million buyout – perhaps only $4 million – because McElwain kept his death threats from university officials and also his agent’s reluctance to fight Florida for the full buyout, sources told me.

Florida officials believe it could fire McElwain with cause, nullifying the buyout completely. UF believes it shouldn’t have to pay McElwain "anything" because he withheld claims about death threats from university officials.

After McElwain mentioned his death threats to the media, the university asked McElwain for more details, but he didn’t provide any additional information. So, UF believes, either: (1) McElwain made the university potentially liable by not disclosing death threats made to himself, his family, other coaches or players or (2) he lied about the death threats.

4. So Florida got to save some money on a coach firing, because the coach said something dumb?

Yep.

5. Who’s in line to replace him?

There are a few obvious candidates.

One is Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen, who’s in his ninth year in Starkville, where he’s brought consistent success to a program with little history of it. Stricklin was hired by Florida from MSU one year ago, so the two have a previously successful work relationship. Mullen also was Florida’s offensive coordinator from 2005-08 with Urban Meyer.

UCF head coach Scott Frost has led the Knights to a 7-0 start this season, and his team has a definite shot at a New Year’s Six bowl bid. It helps that the Knights are currently first in the nation in scoring offense, too. Frost was Oregon’s wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator from 2009-15.

And Oregon head coach Willie Taggart is in his first season in Eugene after turning around WKU and USF. While it seems a little unlikely he’d make the jump after just one season, there are obvious reasons why he should be considered:

And how about offensive improvement, which McElwain struggled to do in Gainesville, despite being hired to fix that?

At USF, that was Taggart’s specialty:

He’s in the business of scoring points, and for USF, business has been good. The Bulls have been around the top 10 in scoring offense all year, averaging better than 40 points per game. The advanced stat S&P+ also sees a top-10 unit, so it’s not just a matter of the Bulls playing non-power defenses in the American Athletic Conference.

USF’s offensive improvement under Taggart has been fairly remarkable. The Bulls were 106th in scoring offense the year before Taggart arrived, then 122nd and 119th in his first two years. They jumped to 41st in 2015, and now they’re elite.

6. Just those three?

Here are 18 more names, plenty of whom shouldn’t be in the public discussion, but will be. And it you want to get really silly, you can bet on Jon Gruden and Tim Tebow getting it.

7. So, what’s next for McElwain?

He might not get a head coaching job for 2018, but there’s definitely a chance he could land on on an offensive staff. In fact, McElwain’s former boss at Alabama, Nick Saban, said he reached out to his former offensive coordinator this week, according to AL.com:

Saban said he'd reached out to McElwain this week but left a message since he couldn't reach him. They share an agent in Jimmy Sexton, so Saban sent a message to McElwain through him.

"As the week winds down here," Saban said, "I'd certainly like to have an opportunity to let him know that we're here to support him in every way that we can."

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junker-town · 7 years

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THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, the Big Ten’s ref conspiracy against 1 of its 2 biggest programs continues

Your weekly tour of the most infuriated in college football internet.

Michigan gave up a 42 spot and got clobbered at Penn State on Saturday. The Wolverines fell into a tie with Rutgers for fourth place in the Big Ten East as we near the end of October. But it’s fine, because UM can claim undisputed possession of fourth place if it manages to beat the Scarlet Knights next week.

Jim Harbaugh will run his streak of not winning the East to three years out of three since arriving in Ann Arbor. Let’s check in with some Michigan fans.

The forums at mgoblog are on fire.

Someone takes the time to track how frequently message board posters type curse words. The data is fascinating. Excerpts:

The State Of Our Open Threads: After Penn State

First and foremost, the most surprising thing about last night's data - we didn't break any season highs. The 560 fucks we gave does not top the MSU game's 621, but it is good enough for 2nd highest this year. The shits we gave experienced their third second straight week of decline from a high of 233 in the MSU gam to onlt 138 shits in this game.

Not too many fucks or shits. So everyone was cool, right? Wrong. It’s firing season.

The only thing that really took a jump in the upward direction was the talk of firing people, most notably Pep Hamilton, Tim Drevno, the younger Harbaugh and yes, there were a few truly inane people that questioned whether or not Jim himself should have the job. Of course, as there is no plan B and the univesity has made it clear that this talk is a non-starter, we can discount those particular thoughts, we can't discount their disappointment. We were all definitely disappointed - to the tune of "fire" being 1.61 standard deviations above the season average.

And in general, word-tracking indicates people were furious.

R-squared for "fuck" with respect to all tracked language was 0.93, which is typical of past seasons and shows the slow realignment of our feelings about the season with "fuck". Interestingly, overall swearing efficiency was only up slight from the Indiana game at 2.07, representing 1,262 tracked instances over 2,613 total posts.

After seven games, the largest portion of our frustration is summarized in these:

"fuck" - 34.78% of all tracked words

"shit - 12.52% of all tracked words

"offense" - 15.87% of all tracked words

"Harbaugh" - 9.94% of all tracked words

"damn" - 6.14% of all tracked words

That's nearly 80% of all tracked words right there, which amounts to something like "fuck shit offense damn Harbaugh" or something. I am pretty sure someone somewhere said that last night. Pretty sure.

One thread was devoted to being a “repository for your thoughts and hot takes on the offensive performance in our game versus Penn State.” It’s an ever-flowing open wound of misery directed at Harbaugh and coordinators Drevno and Hamilton:

Burn it to the ground in the off-season. 4th and 11 play action says it all.

That really did happen. Here’s how it went:

I'm glad I wasn't the only one ready to fling something on that play call. Who the fuck do you think you're fooling??

Yeah I commented the same in the game thread. What. The. Shit.

That was an lol moment for sure. What a fucking joke.

Fuck everyone. That is all

Worst offensive staff ever.

That’s a play call you might make by accidentally hitting the wrong button in Madden, but not one you’d expect to be made in an actual football game at this level.

Another thread wonders whether Harbaugh’s powers simply don’t work at night:

Night Game W/L

L Utah 17-24

W Minnesota 29-26

W Rutgers 78-0

L Iowa 13-14

L FSU 32-33

L MSU 10-14

L PSU 13-42

Overall record: 2-5

Most of those games were away from Ann Arbor, most of those losses were by single scores, and most of those games were against teams that would finish ranked.

There’s an excellent chance that Penn State or Ohio State will make the Playoff while the Wolverines play in the Outback Bowl, or some such.

A key element of a post-big loss response cycle: the unearthing of a ref conspiracy.

Michigan is consistently getting more penalties than their opponents

[a bunch of penalty totals listed here]

I don't even remember the last time Michigan's DL drew a holding penalty. Obviously UM needs to play with more discipline, but there is a fairly consistent pattern emerging. Very hard for me not to believe there isn't a bias against Harbaugh and Michigan.

The last time Michigan’s defensive line drew a holding penalty was two weeks ago against Michigan State. But I want to encourage this kind of thinking, so I’ll note Brady Hoke’s Michigan teams all finished in the Big Ten’s top three at avoiding penalties, while 2017’s is second-worst.

A similar thought at Michigan’s Scout board: Did the ref conspiracy come down from Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany himself, in a bid to infuriate one of the largest fanbases in the country and one of the two most important schools in his league?

Refs Discriminate Against Harbaugh

Penn st had one penalty tonight. Herbie called out the refs on the obvious intentional grounding. Rashan Gary was tackled from behind multiple times. Almost no holding penalties have been called against opposing o-lines the last couple of years when Michigan has many big time NFL d-lineman. The MSU game and OSU last year were very biased against Michigan.

The best refs we've had this year were in the Florida game - non conference. Why is Michigan getting the short end of the stick? Are refs out to show up Harbaugh? Did Delaney give a directive? What are your thoughts?

There are a lot more threads about unfair officiating. Michigan fans alleging a ref conspiracy: not a new thing.

In general, though, there is only sadness.

Since 2004

Since our last Big Ten Title in 2004 ( yes thats right, 13 years ago) Michigan has 62 losses, an average of 4.77 per season.

The first reply:

Omg you're so insightful.

Fuck off

Another team that lost this week: Arkansas.

The Hogs are 2-5 after losing 52-20 at home to Auburn.

This was how Bret Bielema dressed:

Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports

ENHANCE.

At Hogville.com, someone posits the question: “What kind of tool bag Coach wears a windbreaker with his initials on it?”

(Bill Belichick has done this, too, but he’s not 2-5 at Arkansas.)

Arkansas was later roasted (fairly) by the head coach of Arkansas State, which is better this year than Arkansas.

Blake Anderson got jokes http://pic.twitter.com/Bzz405qE3I

— Jay Bir (@TheJayBir) October 23, 2017

Tennessee got shellacked by Alabama, and fans have some typically reasonable head coach suggestions.

I’m not even talking about Jon Gruden, in this case.

Let’s throw it to VolNation.com. Here is a thread that purports to be about realistic coach candidates to replace Butch Jones, who is nominally not fired yet but will probably soon be fired. Yes, it includes Mike Gundy, who turned down the job in 2013.

Realistic -potential new head coaches

Sean Payton

Assuming that New Orleans misses the playoffs again this year, he could be available.

These poor people.

Georgia Southern fell to 0-6 by losing to previously winless UMass.

We’ll divide this visit to GSUFans.com into two parts: one before the Eagles fired head coach Tyson Summers on Sunday, and one after.

Before the firing:

Some fans were trying to numb the pain:

Drinking Game.....

Well...

Now that our team has been completely destroyed, let’s have some laughs and turn this into a drinking game....

I’m thinking a drink each time TS plays with his headset volume would be a good start...

(may as well carry through to rules regarding the post game interviews and whatever else our special, special HC does.)

Hell, Maybe we really could get ripped and make a rule for double drinks per targeting call.

Other ideas?

After the firing:

Joy joy hallelujah. Let's pretend the last yr and a half was a mass hallucination!!!

And this food for thought:

I want Hugh Freeze.

Texas lost to Oklahoma State on a dying duck of an overtime interception.

And this was the in-the-moment response in the comments section of the GameThread at SB Nation’s Barking Carnival:

USC lost a blowout at Notre Dame, thus ending the roughly yearlong perception that USC is good.

The Trojans will check this box for us this week:

Dear any major Boosters

Chip Kelly is available. Now is your window to make this happen. Don't let utla make the better move.

Good idea! But there is one hitch.

You actually trust USC boosters? They would try to hire Jeff Fisher

The most devastating thing about that is that it’s true.

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junker-town · 7 years

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Butch Davis is back in Miami and has maybe the country’s most experienced roster

Now can he give FIU a winning identity?

Florida International University sits approximately three miles from Miami Columbus High School, four from Miami Southwest, nine from Coral Gables High, and 13 from Miami High.

It is 14 from Booker T. Washington, Jackson, and Westminster Christian, 17 from Miami Northwestern, and 19 from Miami Central.

Et cetera. Carol City High: 21 miles away. South Dade: 24. Norland: 24. St. Thomas Aquinas: 34. Piper: 37. Dillard: 38.

You would need a hefty scroll to write down all of the high-caliber football players produced by high schools within 40 miles of FIU’s campus.

And FIU has won 17 games in the last five seasons. In its 13-year FBS existence, the Panthers have finished better than 5-7 twice.

If you remember three things about FIU football, they're probably these:

This spectacular brawl.

T.Y. Hilton.

Firing Mario Cristobal, the engineer of FIU's two winning seasons, after a single-year step backwards.

Six years ago, Cristobal took over a program that predecessor Don Strock left in a mess. He inherited NCAA sanctions not of his doing (as Al Golden similarly would with the crosstown Hurricanes). But he worked through the lean years and saw the program finally begin to gain stability, a local footprint, a bit of national credibility.

Then came the off-year AD Pete Garcia would not abide.

A “total collapse,” he called it.

The 3-9 record included five losses by one score.

That’s ... less than vaunted. FIU is smack in the middle of some of the most prime real estate in the country — even if you aren’t going to fight it out with FSU and Florida and Miami, the leftovers are pretty impressive, too — and has yet to establish itself in the slightest.

Rumor had it that, upon dismissing Cristobal, Garcia would end up bringing in his friend Davis as the replacement. The idea made sense, at least as far as good decisions to compensate for terrible decisions go. Davis remains a South Florida legend for what he did at the University of Miami about two decades ago.

At The U, he took over a sanctions-riddled program in 1995 and, after a few shaky years of surfing scholarship limitations, sculpted a devastating squad. His 2000 Canes finished 11-1 and No. 2 in the polls and featured linebacker Dan Morgan (of Coral Gables), receiver Santana Moss (Miami), and offensive lineman Joaquin Gonzalez (Miami). He sealed the State of Miami borders.

Though Davis' glory days appeared to be behind him — after a stint in the pros, he had gone just 28-23 in four years at North Carolina, then got fired amid NCAA allegations — if he was still capable of something spectacular, it would probably be in South Florida.

So that's the move Garcia made. Four years later. First, he brought in another friend, veteran Ron Turner.

When Garcia made the decision to dump Cristobal, he cited FIU's 8-14 record over its previous 22 games. That's missing plenty of context — losing a bunch of stars from 2011, losing a bunch of close games in 2012 — but it's a win percentage of 0.364 all the same.

In the four years since Cristobal's ouster, FIU's win percentage is 0.292.

But whatever. Davis is finally here. And he's wasted no time circling the wagons. From the time of his mid-November hire to National Signing Day, he roped in 13 commitments, seven of whom went to school within 30 miles of FIU and two more from 80 miles up the road in West Palm Beach.

Davis is quickly doing Davis things, and he’s going to be part of a fascinating plot in the coming years. With Lane Kiffin getting hired by FAU and Charlie Strong at USF, Florida mid-majors have gone all in on hiring ace recruiters. Which will end up with the upper hand? And how will this affect other programs that rely on supplementing their rosters with three-star Floridians? Will there be as many left to nab with Strong, Davis, Kiffin, and UCF’s successful recruiters on patrol?

Of course, there’s another question: can Davis still coach? It’s been more than six years since he was run out of Chapel Hill, and it’s been more than 16 since his last nine-win season. (Well, he won nine games with the Cleveland Browns in 2002, but you know what I mean.) Corralling South Florida talent is step one. Doing something with it is step two.

Davis inherits one of FBS’ most experienced rosters in 2017, but that might only mean so much of a makeover is due.

2016 in review

2016 FIU statistical profile.

I feel it would be unfair to Turner to not mention that he did come reasonably close to getting this program off the ground. After a 1-11 debut in 2013, he improved the Panthers to 4-8 and 109th in S&P+ in 2014, then held steady at 5-7 and 110th despite horrible injuries luck in 2015.

The offense appeared ready to improve at least a bit last fall, and if the defense could account for turnover up front and at cornerback, it wasn't out of the question that the Panthers could threaten for a bowl bid.

The offense was awful early, scoring 14 or fewer points in each of the first four games. The defense, meanwhile, allowed 34-plus in three of four. Following a 53-14 loss to a UCF team FIU had beaten a year earlier, Turner was gone.

Ron Cooper (long-ago head man at EMU and Louisville) took over as interim, and FIU began to show some of the potential I thought it might have. But the defense never came around. And it was far too late anyway.

First 4 games (0-4) — Avg. percentile performance: 16% | Avg. score: Opp 37, FIU 14 | Yards per play: Opp 6.2, FIU 4.6 (-1.6)

Last 8 games (4-4) — Avg. percentile performance: 31% | Avg. score: Opp 34, FIU 29 | Yards per play: Opp 6.4, FIU 5.8 (-0.6)

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

FIU's offense was decent at not moving backward in 2016. That's something. But as was the case for most of Turner's tenure, it also didn't really move forward. This was the Panthers' best offense since 2012 (Cristobal's last year), but it still ranked only 96th in Off. S&P+, and it didn't show much potential until Cooper was gone.

Still, FIU did improve offensively, and it did so with both youth and injury getting in the way. Starting quarterback Alex McGough missed the last three games of the year, the two most dangerous receiving weapons (according to yards per target) missed a combined six games, and the offensive line was missing its only two-year starter (guard Jordan Budwig) up front.

In 2017, McGough and sophomore backups Maurice Alexander and Christian Alexander all return, as do the top three running backs (including Alex Gardner, who averaged 5.1 yards per carry and nearly topped 1,000 yards), seven of the top eight receiving targets (plus a 2015 contributor in slot receiver Julian Williams), and, including Budwig, four linemen with starting experience.

Photo by Rob Foldy/Getty Images

Alex Gardner

That's a decent amount for new coordinator Rich Skrosky to work with.

Davis looked to a pair of veterans to serve as his coordinators. Skrosky and defensive coordinator Brent Guy bring more than 60 years' worth of experience, and while that isn't all good experience, it's something.

Skrosky's last two gigs left different impressions. From 2011-13, he served as Pete Lembo's OC at Ball State and led what I'll call a high-caliber dink-and-dunk offense. The Cardinals ranked 34th, 19th, and 34th in Off. S&P+ in his three years, and quarterback Keith Wenning completed 64 percent of his passes for 78 touchdowns.

From Ball State, Skrosky went to Elon, where he served as head coach for an outmanned football program. The Phoenix moved to the powerful Colonial Athletic Association but had no chance; Skrosky went 7-27 in three years.

Because Elon was relatively hopeless, we won't bother to attempt to glean anything from his time there. We'll just say that Skrosky's last FBS offense was efficiency-based. And since it’s hard to glean too much from the other offensive assistant hires — running backs coach Tim Harris, Jr. (a holdover), and receivers coach Kevin Beard are well-regarded locals and potentially fantastic recruiters, but that’s about all we know — we’ll stick with that.

Gardner and a pair of sophomores could be key. Forty percent of Gardner's carries gained at least five yards last year, and while more frequent targets like Thomas Owens and Stantley Thomas were all-or-nothing last year, backups Austin Maloney and Darrius Scott caught 42 of 64 passes for 476 yards. There is a lot of experience, but we'll see who steps up.

Photo by Mike Comer/Getty Images

Alex McGough

Defense

When Turner debuted at FIU, the Panthers' defense offered promise. In 2014, they improved from 107th to 52nd in Def. S&P+, one of the best mid-majors, under coordinator Josh Conklin. But despite extreme experience in 2015, the Panthers, without Conklin, plummeted to 102nd. In 2016, they fell further.

FIU's 2016 defense was decent at preventing big plays ... and that's about it. And the Panthers weren't even good enough at that to claim a bend-don't-break identity. It was just a bad defense.

First-year impact is something Guy knows about. In 2011, his first year as Tulsa coordinator, he moved the pieces around well enough for the Golden Hurricane to improve from 99th to 30th in Def. S&P+. From there, they fell to 51st, 51st, and 119th, and he spent 2015 as Memphis' safeties coach.

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Fermin Silva

For now, let's focus on the 2012 unit. Guy's TU defense that year was super-aggressive up front and had the pieces to make it work. The top three defensive ends had 24.5 tackles for loss, the top two tackles had eight, and the top three linebackers had 20. The secondary was active, too.

Guy appears to like havoc, but will he have the pieces to wreak it in 2017? We'll optimistically say maybe.

Here's a list of assets:

Senior linebackers Treyvon Williams and Anthony Wint combined for 13 TFLs and 3.5 sacks last year. They are especially solid in run support, though they haven't really proven much in pass defense. They'll be without their three biggest tackles (Imarjaye Albury, Marques Cheeks, Leonard Washington), though.

If Williams and Wint are able to make some stops against the run, junior end Fermin Silva (5 sacks) could be dangerous on passing downs.

A harried quarterback who is rushing throws might play into the hands of cornerbacks Emmanuel Lubin and Isaiah Brown, who combined four interceptions and 12 breakups last year. And a foursome of safeties (Niko Gonzalez, Shermarke Spencer, Xavier Hines, Tyree Johnson) certainly has experience, at least.

The reinforcements could be interesting. Davis brought in two three-star defensive backs, three three-star linebackers, and three three-star defensive linemen. If a couple can make a quick impact, the Panthers might have depth.

That would put the onus back on Guy, then. This is fifth stint as a DC after stops at Boise State (1998-2000), Arizona State (2001-04), Louisville (2009), and Tulsa. He was also Utah State's head coach from 2005-08. He has a lot of experience, but it's been a while since he was in charge of a truly interesting defense. He's got all the experience you want, but that needs to translate.

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Treyvon Williams

Special Teams

When you're struggling on defense, and your offense isn't good enough to make up the difference, special teams can keep you afloat to some degree. It can also just weigh you down even more. FIU was decent enough from a returns perspective -- Thomas Owens averaged 12.5 yards per punt return, and Alex Gardner averaged 22.4 yards per kick return -- but punts and kickoffs were ... suboptimal.

Stone Wilson didn't kick many returnable punts, but he also only averaged 37.6 yards per kick. Meanwhile, under 20 percent of Austin Taylor's kickoffs were touchbacks.

Special teams was a field position disaster for the Panthers. Whoever replaces Taylor on kicks and field goals probably needs a bigger leg.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 2-Sep at Central Florida 78 -11.3 26% 9-Sep Alcorn State NR 31.5 97% 16-Sep at Indiana 39 -20.4 12% 23-Sep at Rice 120 0.3 51% 30-Sep Charlotte 127 12.0 76% 7-Oct at Middle Tennessee 89 -7.1 34% 14-Oct Tulane 94 0.2 50% 28-Oct at Marshall 101 -4.6 40% 4-Nov UTSA 91 -0.7 48% 11-Nov Old Dominion 93 -0.2 49% 18-Nov at Florida Atlantic 99 -4.9 39% 25-Nov Western Kentucky 51 -12.1 24%

Projected S&P+ Rk 104 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 88 / 108 Projected wins 5.5 Five-Year S&P+ Rk -14.3 (120) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 92 / 100 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* -9 / -5.5 2016 TO Luck/Game -1.5 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 85% (85%, 85%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 3.1 (0.9)

The last act of Howard Schnellenberger’s career was getting FAU off the ground. Granted, he didn’t keep it afloat long, and granted, it hasn’t done much since he left either. But the 65-year-old Davis now has a chance to attempt a similar feat. FIU has been unable to make a sustainable mark in college football despite all the talent in the world in its backyard. Is Davis the man to move this program forward?

Davis’ FIU engine will be powered by recruiting. He has experienced hands at the wheel for offense and defense, but his hires weren’t stunning from a tactical standpoint. Davis is going to try to win by having a more athletic team on the field. And his odds of pulling that off are pretty decent.

That makes 2017 interesting. FIU ranks first in returning production, which correlates to about a touchdown of improvement from seasoning alone. Plus, the Panthers were definitively better over the last two months of 2016. These would be beneficial for pretty much any coach to inherit. But Davis’ first years in his given stops haven’t been particularly amazing. Will he be able to take advantage of the experience?

If so, there are certainly wins to be found.

And if not, is he prepared for another long-term rebuild?

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