Maybe this time we’ll stay mad at the guy(s) threatening to kill people, instead of redirecting our anger at Uber. Or we’ll just redirected it towards squishy studios and theaters.

After a raft of movie theaters declined to show The Interview, amid threats of violence, Sony has announced that they are pulling the release of the film.

Presumably the film will be released once an investigation determines that no violence is forthcoming.

This has led to a lot of criticism for, essentially, giving in to terrorism. A lot of that criticism is directed at Sony, though I’m not sure how much of it should be. If theaters don’t want to show it, then they’re not going to get the premier that they want. The theaters are themselves the ones who caved. Of course, they themselves would be opening themselves up to enormous lawsuits if they did show the picture and violence did occur. So we can perhaps blame the lawyers, or alternately insurance companies that told the theaters not to do it.

It’s easy to say “Don’t give in to terrorism” when our livelihoods aren’t affected.

But dammit. This is the most irritated I’ve been by a delayed screening since they pushed V for Vendetta away from the pre-ordained November 5th release date. Though I had no particular intention of watching this film upon its release.

And ultimately, it’ll wait I suppose.

As an aside, it’s interesting that this is the movie that is causing issues. It also may put Hollywood in a bit of a pickle. Due to overseas sales, they’re not as eager to cast China as the villain as they used to be. Which is why when they were remaking Red Dawn, they chose North Korea as the invading force instead of the more likely culprit China. Or, for that matter, Russia itself (whom I’ve read actually kind of relish being the bad guys). Then again, maybe they’d invade on the idea that we’re the type of people to cancel a movie premier on the basis of vague threats.

I’ve made a couple mentions of the past of the tendency of some evangelicals to make their Christianity “a spectator sport.” This parody video encapsulates that perfectly:

I actually hadn’t particularly seen it as a southern thing, but the longer and further I’ve been from the south, the more it does appear to be. #NotAllSoutherners of course, but even controlling for degree-of-evangelicalism, it seems to be the case.

LiveWay bookstore is apparently keeping a sense of humor about the video:

I happened to run across an episode of Charles in Charge the other day. It was, as it turns out, an important episode: The bridge between season one and season two, when there was a massive recasting and the Pembrokes were replaced with the Powells. The premise of the episode is that Charles came back from a two week trip and enters the house and everybody is different. It is the source of humor.

A couple of the Pembrokes are there, to provide just a bit of continuity I suppose. Charles is relieved to see them. The funny thing is that I guess they couldn’t get the actress who played Mrs. Pembroke in season one, so they hired a stand-in. Which is cool, but adds a bit of irony in an episode where laughs are had because Charles doesn’t recognize anybody but her.

Two other notable shows that did retools after the first season due to a network change are Saved By The Bell and Mama’s Family.

Fun fact: I was once a part of a live studio audience for Mama’s Family. We were vacationing in California and wanted to do that. We wanted to do Perfect Strangers, but there was an age limit on that. Not Mama’s Family, which is I guess both more family oriented and not as big a draw so that they could discriminate as easily. The episode I saw live was the one where Iola had a boyfriend who turned out to be a cad.

Anyway, back to Charles in Charge. That one is notable in that at least two of the kids from that show did go on to careers of sorts. Nicole Eggert had a stint on Baywatch. Josie Davis became a staple on Lifetime movies. Scott Baio, who was the star, didn’t do much afterwards. Willie Aames, who played Buddy Lembeck, went on to find Jesus and become the superhero Bibleman.

A couple other casting things. Sandra Kerns, who played Mrs Powell was often assumed to be related to Joanna Kerns, who played the mother on Growing Pains, but they are actually unrelated. Ellen Travolta, who played Charles’ aunt, actually is the sister of John Travolta.

I saw Charles in Charge almost entirely in reruns. It was a staple of WGN and TBS when there were only 30 or so cable channels. At the time, TBS ran 5 minutes late (instead of a show airing from 3:30 to 4, it would be 3:35 to 4:05). So I could watch the show in WGN but then get an instant replay of the last five minutes on TBS. It usually ran on both channels at the same time.

When Popehat mentioned a lawyer ad with a flaming hammer, I said that I wanted to see it. I was expecting something incredibly hokey with a dollop of ironic coolness. When he showed the ad, it was instead an explosion of amazing (with a splash of hokey):

On the other side of the spectrum is the ad that precipitated my discovery of the other, which is one of the worst lawyer ads I have ever seen:

That ad would have been greatly improved with the inclusion of a flaming hammer.

This video is easily the most painfully 80’s on my playlist.

So much to hate about the 80’s aesthetic, but I love the song all the same.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham may drop its football program:

“I think it’s going to happen,” said Clark, who led UAB to a 6-6 record in his first season at the school. “Unless something changes before the weekend ends, I think it’s over. I think the odds are very high it ends this week. To shut the doors? That’s sad.”

Clark has been in contact with school and Conference USA officials as recently as Sunday. UAB commissioned a university-wide strategic planning initiative to evaluate things like fiscal feasibility.

Discussions have also taken place between athletic director Brian Mackin and the school on a separation agreement, sources told ESPN.

This is looking far less speculative than the situation at Hawaii that I wrote about previously. This looks like it’s actually going to happen.

I tend to be skeptical of predictions that the football teams in the lesser five conferences of the FBS are going to hang up their spurs. There are, however, exceptions. Hawaii was one, and UAB is another. Not even due to their historically dreadful attendance issues, or the fact that they have twelve wins in the last four seasons or haven’t been to a bowl in a decade. That all may matter a little bit, or it may not. UAB is vulnerable for a specific reason that other, similarly troubled programs aren’t: The decision isn’t the university’s.

San Jose State made the decision not to terminate its football program, and didn’t. Tulane and Rice did the same thing. Eastern Michigan has considered it and has not, as of yet, made that decision. No FBS program has folded in almost two decades. But UAB’s program will be shut down not by UAB, but essentially by The University of Alabama:

Part of the problem, according to UAB football supporters and former players, is that the university doesn’t have its own board of trustees and is controlled by the University of Alabama System board, which oversees campuses in Birmingham, Huntsville and Tuscaloosa.

Thirteen of the 15 trustees received undergraduate or law degrees from the University of Alabama, including Paul W. Bryant Jr., the son of legendary Crimson Tide football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Only three board members have academic ties to UAB. One of them, Barbara Humphrey, is the wife of former Crimson Tide star running back Bobby Humphrey.

There is actually a long history of friction ranging from indifference to animosity between the Tuscaloosa-dominated Board of Trustees and the Birmingham university. In 2011, the university was looking at building their own stadium instead of playing in the dilapidated Legion Field, and it was shot down by the Board. Fair enough, though, because committing the program to a $70-million project demands prudence. But in 2006, they had planned to hire a well-regarded coach named Jimbo Fisher, whose name may sound familiar because last year he won the national championship as Florida State’s head coach. Despite the fact that they’d already made a handshake deal, they’d already lined up the money to pay him, the Board didn’t let them do it. In 2004, UAB had a blockbuster season defeating Baylor, TCU, and Mississippi State on their way to a bowl game and right after the potentially program-building season ended… the Board made noises about reviewing whether UAB needed a football program. And here we are in 2014, UAB has had an amazing year and doubled their attendance, and this may be the last year they play football.

Notably, while the presidency at the University of Alabama at Huntsville was vacant, the Trustees dropped the school’s championship hockey program. It was shortly thereafter revived when money was independently raised to save it.

Will the same happen here? Some reports are suggesting that the football program would continue to 2016, which is how far out their present commitments run (coach’s contract, scheduled games), though most suggest that it would be ending immediately. If you’re sunsetting your program, it’s almost better to do it immediately because you’re never going to be able to recruit athletes for a program that’s going away. On the other hand, if the university can just postpone it to 2016, that would give them time to do whatever they could to make it not happen.

I have no special loyalty to the UAB program. Because of their unique situation, I am not the least bit worried that they will set off a chain reaction that will prove my long-running predictions wrong. They are a not-large commuter school that has struggled on the field, off the field, and in the stands.

At the same time, the manner in which this is occurring is strange. Alabama is over-extended in football, but it should not be UAB that is most vulnerable. UAB fans have complained for years and years that Tuscaloosa “has it in” for them, and this is providing a degree of justification for that view. It’s hard to figure out why, though, making me think it is probably more likely that Bama fans – like many fans of the big programs – can’t understand what the point of having a program at UAB’s level is (especially when you’re sharing a state with Bama).

And, of course, many would argue that they are right. One of the big reasons I do not predict a large-scale collapse of the lower FBS programs is that regardless of the merits of discontinuing a program, I think there are institutional reasons that schools will only very rarely see it that way. In that sense, one could argue that taking the decision out of their hands and putting it into the hands of a more neutral body is optimal. That, along with having seen some embarrassingly empty stands, is the best argument I can see for this.

Anyhow, so if the trigger is pulled, what happens? This is simpler than the Hawaii situation, because it would involve fewer conferences. UAB would need to be replaced in Conference USA, and C*USA would most likely choose either James Madison University (currently of the FCS Colonial Athletic Association and Atlantic 10 Conferences) or Georgia State (currently of the Sun Belt). If the Sun Belt loses a team, it is probably not replaced.

When is somebody going to come up with the three-camera smartphone? Most come with a camera in front, and a camera in back. But I think two cameras are needed in back. There are far, far too many vertical videos on the Internet. Here’s one of a dog so excited to see its extant owner that it passed out:

Had a dream that we hired a yard man who turned out to be Phil Collins. Ever since I have had I Can’t Dance sick in my head. The dream also involved a stash of cash and some bad guys who wanted to take it from me. I shot a couple of them dead. I do not know where Phil Collins was at this time.

And lastly, here is former Hit Coffee reader and commenter Larry, talking about a proposed gun law in Washington State:

Clancy had a patient that required consultation with the Poison Control Center. I asked her exactly what Poison Control was (A federal agency? A part of the CDC? State agencies?). She said she didn’t know, but that no matter where you were, you always called a single number. She remembered the number because of a song she was taught in medical school.

One of the things we do to pacify and entertain Lain is music videos. She loves the Animaniacs. In particular, she likes this song:

When I was in the fourth grade, we had a presentation that had a song that included all fifty states, in alphabetical order. Unlike Wakko’s song, it didn’t include capitals. To this day, I can recite all fifty states in under thirty seconds. It’s entirely due to that song. This is the song I memorized (though I didn’t memorize the intro):

I managed to get it down to 19 seconds

When putting Lain to sleep, I often use They Might Be Giants songs that I have the lyrics memorized to. Maybe I should throw this one into the mix.

Though Hit Coffee Weekend has been retired, I can’t resist bringing it back for something that it’s best that y’all watch on the weekend and not from work. Two of these three videos are rather… sensual… (the last just goofy) though there’s nothing explicit in it. But even so, here are three music videos I’m going to have to drop from our rotation at home for Lain’s benefit:

The first you may be familiar with. It won a lot of awards and is the music video of a classic:

The next is the tale of a woman who done a man wrong, from the woman’s point of view:

Fair’s fair, and the last one is the tale of a man trying to get the attention of all of the women around him. The main reason I love this video is what starts happening after 2:50 or so:

Husain Abdullah is a safety for the Kansas City Chiefs who recently scored a touchdown. It was what happened after that garnered a lot of publicity:

Early in the fourth quarter, Abdullah dropped deep in a zone coverage, read Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s eyes and broke hard, intercepting his pass.

Abdullah then dashed 39 yards to the end zone, slid on his knees and bowed in prayer.

His celebration drew a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, but the NFL said Tuesday that Abdullah should not have been penalized.

This provided the opportunity for various heralds of multiculturalism and religious freedom to blow their horns. Such as:

This is manifestly unfair. Abdullah, like Tebow, is known for his devotion to his faith. Abdullah missed the entire 2012 NFL season so that he could undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca, and he fasts during Ramadan, which means he cannot eat food or drink water during daylight hours for a month, despite his grueling NFL training schedule. And yet Tebow’s prayer during games earned him respect, but Abdullah’s earned him punishment.

The NFL has admitted that the referee was wrong to penalize Abdullah. NFL spokesman Michael Signora wrote in an email to USA Today that, although there is a rule against players engaging in celebration while on the ground, “the officiating mechanic in this situation is not to flag a player who goes to the ground as part of religious expression, and as a result, there should have been no penalty on the play.”

And yet there was. Abdullah’s team was given a penalty.

It didn’t matter towards the game. The NFL realized that their ref screwed up. There really isn’t much of a story here, except – at worst – a ref not recognizing a Muslim prayer (or the difference between a Muslim prayer and a banned celebration). From a player that rarely scores touchdowns. This was not anti-Islamic bigotry. at worst, it was split-second ignorance. Which the NFL recognized. We can say “But what if the game had been on the line?” Well, then a blown ref call would have cost a team a game. It wouldn’t be the first time. But it didn’t, and it wasn’t, and all that can really be said is that we all learned something.

This all overlooks the possibility of the flag being for the slide rather than a prayer. A slide, not being a prayer, would be an infraction. But the NFL said they screwed up, and we should pretty much take them at their word.

The conversation actually gets derailed a bit by Tim Tebow. The thing is that even though Tebow is known for his devotion and prayer, he does not generally do so in the manner that Abdullah was penalized, comments that Tebow does this “all the time” notwithstanding. In fact, I can’t find a single incident of him doing so. He prays before games and after games. The most cited case shows him after the 2012 AFC Wild-Card game between the Broncos and the Steelers. If you see a picture of him praying in an endzone, that’s probably it. Except that was after the game [video here]. And if you think you found another picture of him doing so, the fact that his helmet is off is a pretty good indicator that he didn’t just score a touchdown.

However, the Tebow distraction aside, there are numerous documented cases of penalty-free prayer. I find other attempts to draw a distinction (one knee down versus two) unconvincing. So the point stands. If it wasn’t for the slide, it was a bad call. Like the NFL says.

There are some broader issues at work here. Like whether there should be any religious exemption at all. Some argue that the penalties against excessive celebration are themselves excessive. Some argue that it’s racist or racialist, and if you single out white players doing it you’re just doing so to cover the racism. Personally, I think they do go too far. I don’t mind saying “no spiking the ball” or “no throwing the ball” or “no taunting” (celebrations directed, explicitly or implicitly, at the opposition). But kneeling in any context? While I think people that make it to the endzone should act like they aren’t surprised to be there, some exuberance is pretty understandable. The rules are also pretty vague, which is also something that should be corrected.

The original narrative, though, that the NFL thinks that Muslims should be penalized for doing what Tim Tebow is celebrated for, just doesn’t fit. In the end, it was a bad call by someone who thought one thing was happening when another thing was happening.