"An annual Spring Break party near the University of California Santa Barbara turned into a sprawling riot after a university cop was smashed in the face with a backpack full of liquor bottles, authorities.
More than 100 people were arrested and 44 treated at hospitals during the Isla Vista street bash known as Deltopia before cops and sheriff’s deputies cleared the crowds with tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.
“It was an emergency situation where we had to call in mutual aid,” Santa Barbara Sheriff’s spokeswoman Kelly Hoover said. “They have had civil disturbances before in Isla Vista, but it has been many years since something like this.” [Source]
It might have been many years since they had something like that in Santa Barbara, but they just had something like that in Arizona, and East Lansing, and Cincinnati, and Lexington....are you starting to see a trend? If you don't I can't blame you. This is not the type of thing that our media focuses on. Just harmless college kids blowing off a little steam. Not like those "knockout games" those
Finally, congrats to Captain America for pulling in over 90 million dollars this weekend.
Nothing like wrapping a super hero in red white and blue to get Americans to go buy some pop corn and watch a movie with a few of their closest friends.
Ethan Sacks, writing for the New York Daily News, says that the movie cuts it right down the middle.
"One of the keys to Captain America's successful political acrobatic act is that the writers — since the days of Joe Simon and Stan Lee — have for the most part dodged any direct partisan political messages. Quick, where does good old Steve Rogers stand on immigration reform or universal health care?
"I can't answer you what lever he'd pull at the ballot box," says "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" co-screenwriter Stephen McFeeley.
Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige says that even though Captain America runs around draped in a flag, he's far from the company's most controversial character.
"I've always argued that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.'s character in the 'Iron Man' movies) should be a much more polarizing figure than Steve Rogers," Feige recently told the News, "Tony is a billionaire, a one-percenter who used to build weapons, sell them to the military and then they were used all over the world. You don't get more polarizing than that.
"What was great was and ('Iron Man' director Jon) Favreau got this all the time, people would go, 'You totally get the conservative viewpoint, it's wonderful.' And Democrats or liberals would say 'It's such a liberal testament it's wonderful.' It works for everybody."
Still, it was a lot easier to write the character when creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby debuted him in March 1941, punching out Hitler on the cover of his first issue. After all 12-year-old boys didn't want to have a helping of vegetables with their dessert.
"I did my best to avoid actual politics," says Stan Lee, who wrote the character in the '60s. "He just saw things in their raw form-- either good or bad, and he felt it his duty to battle the bad."
It's harder to do that nowadays in an era of more sophisticated movie-going audiences.
“That is part of the difficult aspect of the character for sure,” said Anthony Russo, who directed the movie with brother Joe, of the political tightrope they walked.
“It’s one thing to dress up in the flag during World War II and rally the troops, it’s another thing in present-day America to do it.”' [Source]
Oh yes, "present -day America", where everything comes down to your politics; even how you watch a damn movie.
