​Just how will Aaron Hernandez’s 4-year-old child daughter ever come to grips with her murderous, suicidal daddy?

Her father came from a good family and wasted his life. He, despite nurturing from coaches, turned into a violent criminal. He has no excuses, he totally screwed up, and has now wrecked more than a few lives, and families.

He turned into a pathetic man and had turned to friends of dubious character. He smoked a lot of pot, and took Angel Dust (PCP). Both are said to have made him wary and a bit crazy. This could help explain why he killed Odin Lloyd. Plus Newsweek reports that Odin knew that Aaron was bisexual, and the football star was loathe for that fact to come out.

Amazingly, if the Newsweek analysis turns out to be true, it means that despite being educated at the University of Florida, Hernandez decided he’d rather risk going to jail if found guilty of killing Lloyd, than risk public awareness of the fact that he liked men sexually. With a mind so screwed up to weigh pros and cons that way, it only goes to show that Hernandez was an idiot. Aaron is rumored to have left a $50,000 watch to his alleged prison boy-toy love, 22-year old fellow convict, Kyle Kennedy, a guy in jail for a knife-point robbery that netted him $189 big ones. Another idiot.

(Even more idiotic is how some ex-Gator teammates are reacting to his suicide. They’re sad and sympathetic.)

Bristol, Connecticut was Aaron’s hometown. Besides being put on the map of public opinion due to its now infamous son, Bristol is the home of ESPN. Anyway, there Hernandez was known as “our Golden Boy.” A man playing with children – that refers to sports – not as an insinuation of improper sexual relationships...

And now, thanks to his hanging, his brain will be researched for concussion symptoms. Let’s hope, even if it turns out that Hernandez had a concussion, or concussions, with all the traumatic symptoms of dizziness, confusion, nausea, and headaches that arise from same - that such findings do not detract from the huge fact that Aaron was a total prick.

Aaron came from a strong family. He didn’t have to become a goof. Dennis Hernandez was a caring dad who coached his son in little league. Aaron abided by father’s structure and reportedly his dad’s ways: “...kept him anchored.” Unfortunately, Dennis died after hernia surgery – and unfortunately Aaron lost his way, as Tiger Woods did, when his father passed...

Aaron tattooed his father’s “advice” onto his arms – yet thereafter rebelled against authority. Somehow, however, mother, Terri, and brother, D.J., unlike Aaron, survived Dennis’s death without going off the deep end. D.J. will be head football coach at Ledyard High School, in Connecticut and admits that his and Aaron’s reaction to their father’s death was “...completely different.”

While D.J. is obviously a role model who deserves sympathy for being highlighted because of Aaron’s  acts, we should not excuse him and give him a mulligan when he resorts to euphemisms in discussing his younger brother:

“...He’s in a situation because he decided to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong people.”

In a situation? What kind of depiction of Aaron’s life is that? Until his suicide Aaron was behind bars for LIFE. That’s not a situation it’s a life sentence. Tell it like it is...

Foolish behavior, such as flunking marijuana drug tests while at university, and thuggish behavior, such as (apparently) sucker punching the Manager of the Swamp restaurant, breaking his left eardrum – over a bill – which teammate Tim Tebow tried to settle – shows just how myopic and ethically vacant are those Florida Gators who reacted with compassion to his suicide.
 
So why did pro football’s, New England, draft this guy, given his reputation? Because the guy could flat out play, number one, and because Bill Belichick, the Patriots coach, trusted and believed in the words and ways of Florida Gators coach, Urban Meyer, number two. So background checks faded to the background.  Hernandez probably helped his case too, wooing the Patriots in a letter stating he was willing to undergo bi-weekly drug tests in his rookie season...

And, as skill would have it, Hernandez, with 45 catches in year one, 2010, set the new Patriots receptions mark for tight ends. Life was looking up.

In 2012 he signed a 5-yr, 40 million dollar extension after proving he could excel with his great running and catching attributes. He had everything to live for, heck his daughter was born in November 2012...yet so did Odin Lloyd have everything to live for – who Hernandez murdered in 2013.

Lest anyone think Aaron got a raw deal in his trial, recall that Alexander Bradley claims his right eye was shot out because of Aaron Hernandez, and recall too, that Aaron shot at a vehicle in Boston because of a tiff over a spilled drink - AKA “The Spilled Drink Case” - earlier in a bar.

Clearly Hernandez is the most wretched wanker in this piece. But honorable mention must go to a sports agent, Brian Murphy. He used to represent Hernandez. Take his tweet.  “Absolutely no chance he took his own life. Chico was not a saint, but my family and I loved him and he would never take his own life.”

Chico (that was his nickname) was not a saint? Isn’t that underplaying Aaron’s atrocious acts by about a million points? Why is an agent like Murphy so lacking in passing reasoned, thoughtful, sane judgment? In the sports agent world, if one has a paying client - no matter if that client is a naff to put it mildly, or a devil to put it accurately - does this mean decency and astuteness when opining on depraved criminals, by said agent(s) go by the wayside? Money corrupts, huh?

As for the 4-year-old daughter? She’ll probably take cues from family elders. Some don’t believe the suicide explanation.  And perhaps, delusional until the end, they can take some solace in Massachusetts legal finery: With his suicide, some legal experts propound that, under Mass. Law – Aaron dies an “innocent man” because his appeal(s) had not been heard...

​Has the world turned finally? Has facial cosmetic surgery met its Waterloo? With Melanie Griffith’s undoing of her facial enhancements, perhaps people of all stripes and sexes will realize that facial “improvements” by medical hands – for beauty and beautiful purposes – is a detriment.

We, the uneducated, the gawping, gaping bystanders, have seen the pictures of starlets and have wondered: why did Meg Ryan, Mary Tyler Moore, Nicole Kidman decide to wreck their looks...in the quest for a fleeting chance that perhaps they’d look a week or two younger than their actual ages?

Courtney Cox.  Donatella Versace. Joan Van Ark – look completely different after their “work.” But if they, and we, are looking for changes and betterments to our beings, isn’t it more prudent to look inwards – at our personalities and thoughts – to alter these, than to mess around with skin deep, surface-only moderations and alterations such as puffed up lips, or nose reduction-lob-off jobs?
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Perhaps these mishaps of Melanie Griffith’s visage voyage of artificial change will hit us witnesses where it’s real: we age, let us age naturally, without regret or fret and with a confidence and outlook that makes us proud to be how old we are. Sure, wrinkles and crow’s feet abound – but do these linear changes change the personas we’ve become and forged through ages of experience and learning for the worst?

Why risk wisdom gained for a face of liverwurst? Why do a Pete Burns plastic surgery horror show? Or a comedian Carrot top one? (Carrot Top says he just looks like he does because of makeup.) Why search for artificiality when reality will do genuinely fine? What’s the deal with trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, thinking you’ve fooled them with a metaphorical bald pate comb over?

And let’s not even broach the subject of face tattoos, or piercings, ok?

All of us somewhat self aware know intrinsically that, basically, with time cynicism and jaundice coupled with biases arise – and that rejuvenation is called for. But such a renovation and improvement deals with matters of soul and of sense, not to do with removing beauty marks or pock marks.

Ok, let us, put pock marks and facial acne into another category. (And reconstructive surgery after an accident or birth defect into a separate category as well.) Many of us, as teenagers, were afflicted with facial acne and the desire to remove what society casts as an aspersion upon that person, seems warranted.

But to alter a perfectly, by reasonable standards – and while no one can define what reasonable means – we all know, deep down, what it entails – face to a more “perfect” face – is a disgrace. And, unfortunately the butcher works of years now with celebrities before and after pictures gives us onlookers and wonderers a first-hand, ok albeit from glossy magazines – view of the concept of COMEUPPANCE. Madonna, is almost recognizable here after having (possibly) cheek implants and skin tightening.

Astoundingly, there are derivatives of facial cosmetic surgery. Let’s say, for the moment, and moment is a key descriptive here, given the trend in polite circles to adhere and revere something called gender fluidity, that you’re a guy. But you are not happy with your face – because you look, say, a tad too manly.

No problem! March yourself down to the nearest locale that performs something called FACIAL FEMINIZATION.

I can’t nearly describe all that such entails, but a bloke, specialist Dr. Philip Young, can – and does:
“...brow bone reduction, tracheal shave, brow lift, orbital bone reduction, lip lift, rhinoplasty, vy lip advancement, cheek implants, hairline lowering, chin reduction, permanent lip implants, eyelift, eyelid crease formation.”

But beware, not so much of the transgender transformation cock-of-the-walk, but of the fact that, either Dr. Young or who ever put together his website, can’t write English adequately.

Get this – “Perhaps one of the most important things that make us unique and special for you in your transition from male to female is Dr. Young’s Understand on Facial Beauty.”

See the word “Understand?” not only is the use of it wrongly capitalized, it’s the wrong phraseology. It should be “understanding.”

Anyway,

Back to facial disfigurement(s). Don’t take my words here for alarmist, doomsday pronunciations of all that can go wrong with facial beauty surgical enhancements. Go to Google. Type: Facial Cosmetic Surgery gone wrong.

As of April 14th 2017, about 2,240,000 results will appear. This is not a trend, folks, it’s an avalanche of bad news of botched up jobs in the quest for quintessential deity-like  looks, turning out to, um, uh – Melanie Griffith.

But Griffith has seen the light (having heard unkind comments of her facial changes.) Could this actress start a trend where people, who have had awful results from facial cosmetic enhancements, try to undo the damages that have been done?

If so, this could be the greatest role she’ll ever play...

Of course, let’s not get carried away with this reversal of facial cosmetic surgery: word is, some women from Texas are paying mega thousands to look like Ivanka Trump...

​Big boss of the Calgary Flames, Ken King, should get out more. If he wants the city and province of Alberta to pony up funds for a new hockey arena, he should know that with both hurting economically, since oil and gas crashed, the priority of spending public dollars to help rich team owners like billionaire N Murray Edwards or Alvin G. Libin make more money in a new spiffy rink – is a lower desire than is the Flame’s wish to face Anaheim the in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs this spring. (The Flames haven’t beaten the Ducks in Anaheim’s arena since January 19th, 2004 – some 26+ of their contested games ago...)

The current hockey venue, the Saddledome, has the iconic horizontal swayback roof, and is a postcard-tourist landmark, and yet did the dirty digging into the corners – being the first North American rink to feature international hockey dimension standards by design. It is also perfectly positioned within the Calgary Stampede grounds.  NHL President and general busybody, pissant Gary Bettman, perfectly and pedantically disdains the arena, calling it “old, antiquated, inefficient...” which is yet another reason for the Calgary populace, if they should need one, to stick to the Saddledome and tell Bettman to stick it where the sun don’t shine.
 
True, the Saddledome has been functioning since the beginning of time – 1983 – but it did undergo renos in 1994-1995. If the place needs an update, by all means update...but, of course, the big questions is: where would the Flames play if major renos are needed?
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But this is where things get complicated – the City of Calgary owns the joint. The city is a public entity with a Mayor and 14 City Councillors. In other words, the buck stops with the politicians. And if they don’t want to fix up the Saddledome – they’ll certainly make the operator of it, the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation, of which Ken King heads, have an easier argument to make - in moving the team elsewhere. Of course the Plan A the Flames ownership consortium proposed, besides being hundreds of millions lower in costs than it would be actually, was to build its new team arena in the West Village of Calgary.

The West Village borders the banks of the Bow River – the same river that flooded out the East Village and lots of downtown Calgary in 2013. So Plan A is drowning in faulty dollar estimations and could be drowning in nearby natural eruptions.
 
Then the City of Calgary would continue to own the Saddledome featuring two lesser luminaries: the Calgary Hitmen, a Junior hockey team, and the Calgary Roughnecks, a Pro lacrosse league group – and while both may be stellar to their base – a junior hockey and a pro lacrosse enterprise – are, collectively, an oyster and singularly, no pearl, (though the Roughnecks have made the post-season yearly since 2002!)   

First, however, one must make the argument that the Saddledome needs a new coat of paint, etc. Has this been conclusively determined? Bettman doesn’t offer specifics as to why he thinks the building stinks, but does proffer platitudes. He says a new arena is “vitally important.”  But to who? Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi claims 99% of Calgarians don’t want him to spend a dime of their monies on a new building. So, is it important to Bettman’s ego, or to the sensibilities of the other NHL franchises ownership principals?
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As for Mr. King – let’s call his bluff: where would he move the team to? Hamilton – Toronto would never go for it. Regina or Saskatoon – too few people and too many miles to attend games.  Possibly Quebec City? Or would the Montreal Canadiens prevent such a move like they helped defer the QC city bid for a franchise in that hockey hot bed of Las Vegas, instead? Or would he try his luck in another part of the American Sun Belt? There aren’t a lot of great options.

He could be talking through his hat. Fortunately for Ken, he has the option, and does willingly exercise it here, of talking disingenuously when he masks the money pitch with this faux-self deprecating statement.

"If people smarter than us in more powerful positions than ours don't feel that we're a critical piece of the social, economic and cultural part of our city, then who are we to argue with that?"

One must suppose Ken thinks the Calgary Flames are a critical piece of the town. They’re certainly important, and loved, but to say any team, of any sport, is critical to any city, is nonsense. If Ken thinks the Flames are so hot, let him find private investors willing to spend dough on a new rink.

Yet, nowadays, a new arena is used for entertainment as well as sport. And music insiders say that Edmonton, with its new Rogers Place, has garnered top flight acts while Calgary has been shut out. So a new complex would help Cowtown compete in that milieu. But does a new structure boost a city’s economy?

Quick answer? Depends on the sport. NFL stadiums host so few games annually – let’s be generous and say 11 in total including pre-season and playoff(s) that the returns from the contests alone do not merit public investment. So says Stanford Economics professor, Richard Noll.

But an NHL team will have 41 regular season games, not including pre-season or playoffs, and according to Wayne Karl, a pundit an matters of Real Estate, residential property values nearby a new rink rise – bringing in more tax dollars to affected governments – so long as tax increases to bring about a birth of a new stadium are not part of the deal. He cites the aforementioned Rogers Place...

Ultimately, however, Calgarians might be willing to pay some dollars to keep the team. After all, if Winnipeg has an NHL outfit, Calgary HAS TO HAVE one. 

​Carleton University, many years back, had a reputation as being a druggie school. It’s located in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, where the Canadian federal government makes life messy, if not miserable, for Canadians. Carleton U, however, wants to make everything peaches and cream for its student body. To this end, it has banned its weight scale from the campus gym – for fear of triggering.

It should be stated that Carleton, as an educational institution, is not completely bonkers. Back in 2013, it finished somewhere between 401st and 500th in something called the ACADEMIC RANKING of WORLD UNIVERSITIES. It has some mediocre merit...

Obviously with this act, one can only conclude the institution has a dim opinion of its students, considering them infantile, immature, and overly sensitive – young adults to go off the deep end, should they weigh themselves, and get the wrong answer. This is a big demerit to both the university and its progeny.

So ascertaining fat facts by foot stepping on to a scale is not good because of “triggering.”

But hey, get this! Even reading an/this article on triggering comes with a message that reading the article may cause triggering! How triggery-screwy is that?

Back to the main story...

So a weight scale is to be shunned because negative emotional responses may result?

So what! So...what?

Many of us should think long and hard about our faults and frailties, and attendant negative emotional responses and reactions – and whether they are stirred up by a scale, or by unfiltered observation(s) of family or friends, or by our own harsh self-appraisals – we should take them for what’s they’re worth. We, as individuals, should not have the “right” to go through life without being offended – and we, as individuals, are NOT the centre of the universe from which we decide what is acceptable for everyone else.

Bruce Marshall is Carleton’s manager of health and wellness. Seems like a decent fellow. He volunteered to be on the Healthy Workplace Committee. But he backs this move. Unbelievably, he and others at Carleton don’t think weight should be fixated upon. Yet in The Charlatan, Carleton’s Independent Weekly, he does offer advice for those that want weigh-ins, saying “If you must weigh yourself, pick a consistent day and time...”

They favor a more “holistic” approach – whatever holistic means...But stepping on a scale is not being fixated upon anything – it is a search to see if weight is being gained, lost, or maintained.

Whatever happened to the idea that information was power? Or to the thought that we live in a knowledge-based world? Carleton must figure its students are complete idiots, wherein if scales are banned, they’ll not know they are portly, rotund, obese, or gargantuan – when they look into a mirror. Should mirrors be banned for fear of upsetting one’s feelings? Should airlines widen seats for fear of reminding folks they are too wide in the rump? Like that’ll ever happen...

The scrapping of the scale does have backers. One person tweeted that “We live in a weight-obsessed culture that’s very toxic.” But that can’t be true as obesity rates are through the roof in this world, in countries rich and poor. If we were truly weight obsessed we’d be anorexic at worst or skinny at least, like models. But when most of us flop on the couch it shudders while we sigh.

And, basically, the removal of scales is overkill – an act that precludes kids at the gym from having any free will – to step on, or not step on, a scale in the first place. If any of us feel the scale is a trigger to WHATEVER, don’t get on it – perhaps shun your eyes away from it, perhaps cross your arms and hex it.

Look, it is rare, save for perhaps extreme gyms where elite weightlifters or bodybuilders go through the motions, for gyms to have people lining up to hit the scales like they line up for coffee. Most of us don’t want confirmation of what we intrinsically know – our waists are wider and our arms and legs are a bit more jiggly. We’re not stupid, no matter what Carleton University thinks – we know when we are fattening up. We know the jeans bought just last year are way too snug. We know we don’t look like that Adonis or Aphrodite that graced pictures from our high school yearbooks. Should we ban clothes from yesteryear and photos from our past as well?

In a way, Carleton is correct: weight loss or gain is not the best barometer of health or fitness. But weighing oneself IS a barometer that shouldn’t be removed – from an exercise facility of all places – because students are too fey and delicate to cope with contradiction or confirmation. Keep the scales and instead emphasize that how a person feels about his or her self, or what they can do physically, is more important than an arbitrary glance at poundage.  

Marshall fesses up. The taking away of scales was not based on complaints. In other words, Carleton University has committed an unforced error. It comes from their recreation and athletic department(s) from having too much time on their hands coupled with such bureaucracies intrinsic wishes to promulgate and regulate.

But Marshall does have his finger to the wind. If the flack gets too heavy they’ll rescind the decision to cover their asses, pronto. So it’s not a deep conviction being demonstrated here by the University, it’s a trolling of current trends to see what’s acceptable and what should be silenced, banned, neutered, nixed. Sadly, let us remember universities nowadays, from what the demonstrations against contrary speakers appearing at schools in Canada and the States tells us, are moving away from education and are heading towards indoctrination and the closing of minds to unpopular views, and in Carleton’s case, towards unpopular views and viewpoints of one’s body.

Carleton University was better when it was known for its druggies.
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This just in. Kooky Carleton University has shifted its weight: it’s bringing back scales into change rooms!