The News Of …

National League MVP Ryan Braun’s 50-game suspension was overturned Thursday by baseball arbitrator Shyam Das – the first time a baseball player successfully challenged a drug-related penalty in a grievance.
The decision was announced Thursday by the Major League Baseball Players Association, one day before the 28-year-old outfielder was due to report to spring training with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Braun’s urine tested positive in October for elevated testosterone, and ESPN revealed the positive test in December.
Braun has insisted that he did not violate baseball’s drug agreement.
“I am very pleased and relieved by today’s decision” – he said in a statement. “It is the first step in restoring my good name and reputation. We were able to get through this because I am innocent and the truth is on our side.”
MLB executive vice president Rob Manfred said management “vehemently disagrees” with Das’ decision.
Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, called the decision “a real gut-kick to clean athletes.”
During the hearing, Braun’s side challenged the chain of custody from the time the urine sample was collected by Comprehensive Drug Testing Inc. to when it was sent, nearly 48 hours later, to a World Anti-Doping Agency-certified laboratory in Montreal – two people familiar with the case said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because what took place in the hearing is supposed to be confidential.

Ryan Braun.

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The night before Marie Colvin was killed, she posted a message to her friends in a closed facebook group. It sent a chill down my spine – “Please post my Baba Amr, Homs story in February 19 issue. I don’t often do this, but it is sickening what is happening here. Cannot understand how the world can stand by and I should be hardened by now. Watched a baby die today. Shrapnel, doctors could do nothing. His little tummy just heaved and heaved until he stopped. Feeling helpless.”
Her words made me to reconsider my plans for the near future. Having just returned from Libya, I intended to go to Homs later, by the end of March at the earliest. Only her passionate account made me realize. I must go now. I sent her a brief message, inquiring about the latest intelligence of how to sneak in. This information she would never want me to share publicly, for the sake of those, who take these roads, but I might share her last words. “Bring warm clothes. It is freezing here. It is so cold.”
This morning I got another message, and it sent another hefty chill down my spine. “Something bad has happened to Marie. Still unconfirmed” – a Spanish journalist based in Beirut wrote. I didn’t want it to be true, but I knew, that this journalist would never share rumors. So I knew it was true, when I got another message from her half an hour later, saying: “Marie is dead, confirmed.”
On the last day of her life Marie would do her utmost to get her story out, to the widest public. Just hours before her death, she would give live interviews for international channels.
It might be the case that Marie Colvin and several other journalists were killed in a targeted strike. The safe house, where the journalists stayed in Homs had an obvious satellite link. Her death, as well as the death of the young French photographer Remi Ochlik, are sending out a clear warning: Covering Syria today is one of the most dangerous endeavors for war reporters. Even Marie pointed this out before her death. But not covering Syria must not be an option while the international community is sorting out its options of how to deal with this obvious massacre against the civilian population.

Marie Colvin.

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“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”
Thousands of Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists will begin or end their day hearing those words today.
Ash Wednesday will be celebrated in churches throughout El Paso. The day begins the 40 days of the Lenten season.
It’s a time which many Christians observe by praying, fasting and giving to the needy.
St. Patrick Cathedral will have distribution of ashes during four Masses, starting at 7 a.m. today.
One of the most solemn days for Christians, Ash Wednesday calls upon people to reflect upon their sin and their mortality – clergy said.
“No matter how great and magnificent I make it in life, what is going to count at the end is my relationship with God” – said Deacon Carlos E. Rubio, vice chancellor for the El Paso Catholic Diocese.
Rubio said the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ reminds Christians that they, too, can have eternal life.
“But to get there, it becomes necessary to understand what Jesus Christ did for us, the suffering he did for our forgiveness” – he said.
The deacon said Catholics are asked to prepare for Easter and the resurrection of Jesus Christ by being compassionate to others, praying and giving to the needy.
“We only are forgiven because God forgives us. And likewise we should show that to our fellow man” – Rubio said.
The Rev. Vernon Schindler of Ascension Lutheran Church said he will mark Lent with a series of midweek services beginning on Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday.

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Fat Tuesday is your last hurrah, folks, so let the carbo loading begin. Fat Tuesday will give way to a more solemn occasion – Ash Wednesday – and then a 40-day period of self-sacrifice known as Lent.
Fat Tuesday, the English translation of the French “Mardi Gras,” signals the official end of Carnival season, billed as a hedonistic frenzy of food, booze, parades, masked celebrations and things that can’t be printed in a family newspaper.
Fat Tuesday is kind of like a hangover helper – and a way to get ready for what lies ahead.
The day is marked by one final food frenzy, much of it revolving around carbohydrates such as pancakes and deep-fried delights such as doughnuts. Why? Some say the tradition dates back to a time when refrigeration was non-existent and all the goodies in the home had to be eaten because they wouldn’t survive Lent. They would probably also be an unnecessary temptation.
The food frenzy also offers a final opportunity to indulge in rich, fatty favorites before Ash Wednesday and Lent.
Pancakes are favored because they make good use of perishables such as eggs. In Britain, contestants in pancake races run a foot race while flipping a pancake in a skillet.
For Catholics and other Christians, Ash Wednesday symbolizes the start of the 40 days Jesus spent praying and fasting in the desert, resisting temptation, before his crucifixion.
The period ends with the most significant day on the Christian calendar – Easter.
On Ash Wednesday, many Christians wear a cross on their foreheads made of ashes, a sign that the bearer is in the process of renewing and rededicating his or her faith, according to American Catholic’s online site.

Fat Tuesday.

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Elizabeth Smart has gotten married. A family spokesman says – the Utah woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint at age 14 and held captive for nine months married Matthew Gilmour on Saturday in Oahu.
The 24-year-old Smart is a senior at Brigham Young University. She met Gilmour (of Aberdeen, Scotland), while serving a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission in France.
Smart family spokesman Chris Thomas says in a statement the couple wed at the Laie Hawaii LDS Temple in front of a small group of family members.
The wedding party then celebrated at a private reception and luau.
Onetime itinerant street preacher Brian David Mitchell was convicted in 2010 of Smart’s 2002 kidnapping and sexual assault. He’s serving a life prison sentence.

Elizabeth Smart.

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A tight police cordon couldn’t keep Whitney Houston’s fans away from her funeral Saturday, and as they watched the service on their laptops, smartphones, and TV, they shared their emotions all online.
Fans talked of the impact Houston had on their lives, whether her music gave them the confidence to pursue a singing career or just brightened their childhood memories.
Seeing the posts of thousands of others on sites like Facebook and Twitter made some fans feel like they were part of a big community sharing the same grief and thoughts.
“It was very inspirational to see how she touched millions of lives” – said Vincent Coleman, 26, who watched the service using his iPhone.
“It was just refreshing to see how she just had such a dynamic impact on the world.”
Another fan, Garrett Griffen, wrote on CNN’s Facebook page that he was thankful the funeral service was topping the news Saturday.
“In this small moment in time a bigger audience is coming together to not only remember a great human being who had faults and worked through them, but we are also witness to the power of love and how it is greater than all suffering” – he wrote.
Many fans said they enjoyed the jubilant singing by the two gospel choirs, the New Hope Baptist Church Mass Choir and the New Jersey Mass Choir, which opened the service.
They enjoyed hearing Bishop T.D. Jakes speak of victory over death, with many fans simply tweeting his words: “Death has not won.”
“TD Jakes was born to preach” – wrote Twitter user Banky Wellington.

Whitney Houston funeral.

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Pat Buchanan has been dismissed by MSNBC, the left-leaning news network, four months after the channel suspended him.
In an angry post on his blog, conservative commentator Buchanan took his critics to task, writing: “After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous.”
Buchanan says the calls for his firing began with the publication in October of his book “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” about America’s decline, which critics have called racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic.
Upon his suspension, Buchanan quotes MSNBC President Phil Griffin as telling the press regarding his new book: “I don’t think the ideas that (Buchanan) put forth are appropriate for the national dialogue, much less on MSNBC.”
Buchanan (a former White House aide to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and a former Republican presidential candidate) had been with MSNBC as a political analyst since 2002.
On his website, Buchanan called his ouster “an undeniable victory for the blacklisters.”
Among the groups he cites as his accusers – Color of Change, Media Matters, the Anti-Defamation League and the Human Rights Campaign.
In the closing of his post, he strikes a conspiratorial note, writing: “I know these blacklisters. They operate behind closed doors, with phone calls, mailed threats and off-the-record meetings. They work in the dark because, as Al Smith said, nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.”

Pat Buchanan.

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There’s some temporary bad news for the Colbert Nation faithful.
New episodes of “The Colbert Report” (Stephen Colbert’s Comedy Central show) were mysteriously suspended Wednesday and Thursday.
Comedy Central was mostly mum Thursday about the last-minute change, saying only – “Due to unforeseen circumstances, the show will air repeat episodes on Wednesday, Feb. 15, and Thursday, Feb. 16.”
The enigmatic statement had fans speculating about the show’s long-term fate. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that a Colbert family emergency prompted the schedule change.
Production could resume as early as next week, according to the newspaper, but so far no official return date has been announced.

Stephen Colbert.

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“Doctor” Jon Basso thought “Nurse” Bridgett was kidding when she informed the Heart Attack Grill owner that a customer was suffering some medical difficulties in the dining room.
The situation was, in fact, as serious as a heart attack. FOX5 News Las Vegas reports that this past weekend, a man in his 40s began experiencing chest pains while consuming one of the restaurant’s signature 6.000 calorie “Triple Bypass” burgers. Basso, who is not a medical professional, called 911, and EMTs and paramedics arrived on the scene quickly.
The customer – or “patient” as they are referred to at the restaurant, which moved from Chandler, Arizona to Las Vegas last October – is reportedly alive and recuperating. Sadly, that’s not the case for the restaurant’s 575-pound spokesman, who died last March at the age of 29.
Heart Attack Grill is no stranger to controversy, actively courting fans and nayayers alike with slogans like “Taste worth dying for!” and “Cash only, because you might die before the check clears.”
Menu items like lard-fried “Flatliner Fries,” highly caloric “Butterfat Shakes” and unfiltered cigarettes abound, scantily clad female servers dressed as nurses take orders as “prescriptions,” and a house policy allows diners weighing over 350 pounds to eat for free.
Still, Basso calls the incident “horrible,” and had harsh words for those attempting to make light of it. He told FOX5 News: “The tourists were taking photos of him as if it were some type of stunt. Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that.”

Heart Attack Grill.

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As the final night of judging drew to a close, Texas dogs had their own day at the 136th Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York.
Suede, a Cavalier King Charles spaniels from North Texas, claimed one of the few prizes given out – an award of merit, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. Her father, Presley, and Jackson, another King Charles, are coming back to the Lone Star State empty-pawed.
“I think Suede was a little overwhelmed with her win, all the people and the excitement” – Frankie Hall (the 59-year-old Argyle woman who owns the three dogs) tells the Star-Telegram. “Now it’s time for (Presley and Jackson) to retire and let Suede move on up.
“It’s very sad to retire them, but they’ll be home and they’ll just be our pets now.”

Dog Show.

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