As much as I sometimes feel that constant yearly reminders of public tragedies can be hackneyed, I’ve been thinking about the NIU shooting quite a bit over the weekend. It was a tragedy that hit close to home for Illini, and it seems almost everyone knows someone at NIU, and many know those who were in the room with the shooter (myself included).

I have always felt that NIU President, John Peters’ “Forward, together forward,” remark was an amazingly simple, beautiful, and truthful observation about life after tragedy. One year later: Forward, together forward.

A U.S. District Court judge ordered toy company, MGA Entertainment Inc., to halt the sale of the bizarrely popular, outwardly sexual Bratz dolls. The decision is the result of a four year arbitration between MGA and Mattel in which Mattel claimed that MGA’s production of Bratz violated copyright because the dolls’ creator, Carter Bryant, originally developed the concept for the dolls while employed by Mattel.

The ruling is a big blow for MGA, who was only mere days away from releasing their latest Bratz character, 11 year old Veronica Slutsky, who came complete with a to-scale replica of a birth control compact and an anatomically correct, broken hymen.

Get ‘em while you can.

I repeat, Plaxico Burress is the dumbest motherfucker on the planet. If you hadn’t already heard, Plax managed to shoot himself in the leg early Saturday morning in a Manhattan nightclub with an unlicensed handgun.

Accidentally shooting yourself in the leg is pretty fucking stupid.

Doing it in a crowded, Manhattan nightclub where you are surely the center of a lot of attention is even dumber.

Doing it in a state that imposes a MINIMUM 3.5 year sentence for carrying loaded, unlicensed handguns is the dumbest fucking thing on the face of the planet.

Michael Vick offers Plaxico Burress advice on 2′ X 2′ window treatments

Plaxico, who has already been the subject of disciplinary action by the league and the Giants (a one game suspension seems like small fucking potatoes now, huh Plax?) turned himself over to authorities where he was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, a class C felony. He did not enter a plea.

I can’t totally blame Plax for wanting to protect himself in the wake of highly publicized attacks on athletes, including the murder of former Redskins safety, Sean Taylor. But when you’re worth more than the GNP of most African countries, hire a bodyguard. Hire a team of bodyguards. Rent the club out. Don’t carry a loaded weapon (that you obviously don’t know how to use) into a crowded club where you put others’ lives in jeopardy.

So to recap: Someone whose job it is to run, jump, and catch managed to make it impossible to do two of those things, with a device he carries for his PROTECTION (they call that irony, folks), aaaaaaaand will likely serve jail time as a result.

Fucking idiot. (Unless of course his opponent in fantasy football was starting him. Then the joke is on that guy!)

I wonder if it went down like this?

While I do often use this blog as a soapbox for my political opinions (are they still considered opinions even if they’re one 100% correct?) and sports leanings, I try not to turn The Lowdown into my own whiny, public version of a high school diary.

For example, I hate cats.

A lot.

But you would never know it because I try not to wax rhapsodical about my cat hatred on this blog.

But today, something rather important/bizarre happened to me.

Someone pulled a gun on me…sort of. It wasn’t a real gun, and he didn’t try and shoot me, he just pulled it out and started waving it around and yelling. You can read more about it here, or here, but I can give you the full scoop below.

I’m walking out of Greg Hall shortly before 3:20 and heading north along the quad to retrieve my bike from the rack on the north side of the building. As I’m walking, a white man who looked in his mid twenties (and a lot like a friend of mine, strangely enough) was walking south past Foellinger. He was yelling at himself. Things like “I’ve studied this for eight years! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” At first, I just thought he was pissed about a test or a professor (maybe he was), but then I noticed a large, silver pistol in his right hand (it didn’t have an orange cap or anything to signify it was fake, and glimmered in the light like real metal).

I quickly started to walk away, though no one else in the area (there were not many) seemed too phased by this guy’s rant. He quickly put the gun into a jacket pocket and continued to walk south. I considered not calling the police, as everyone else seemed to not really be concerned about it, but I realized that because of how closely he clutched the gun to his chest, it’s possible that no one else saw.

I dialed up 911, reported what I saw to the operator, and started walking my bike south towards the Undergrad to see if I could give the operator a more detailed description of where he was. From the doors to the Undergrad, I could see that he had continued south of Gregory into the middle of the South Quad between the bell tower and Gregory. He was pacing back and forth, yelling, and eventually flopped on the ground and started kicking the air. He got up, took the gun out, and started walking north, back towards the Undergrad. I started to back away with my bike, and right after he crossed Gregory, the police swarmed in from the north on foot, and in cars along Gregory. The guy seemed unphased by their presence, and refused to go down until the police drew their guns and ordered him down. As he hit the deck, he kept yelling “I! I! I! I! I!”

They put him in cuffs, and I gave this same description to the cops, who later told me that there where medical factors involved in his behavior, and I believe that as of now, he has not been charged with a criminal offense. I must say, I was extremely impressed with how quickly, and with such force the University police responded. From the time I hung up with the 911 operator, until the time he was in cuffs, was probably only about two minutes, possibly less. Six officers, at least one on foot and four in cars arrived in about the time it took him to walk from Gregory, to the middle of the South Quad and back.

That’s pretty damn good. And it makes me feel better to know that the University’s contingency plan worked if there ever was such an incident (or if that gun turned out to be real). For as much shit as I give them for giving parking tickets and ruining Friday nights (I can personally attest), I saw a Uni cop run head long into a situation that he knew to be dangerous without giving it a second thought.

There has been a lot of talk about whether or not those with mental illness, or those taking medication should be allowed to purchase firearms in the wake of NIU and V. Tech. I have my own opinions about guns and gun control, and thank god, the gun he was waving was not real. But, after observing what a true mental breakdown can mean, I can’t imagine how badly things could have ended if that gun could have shot bullets instead of plastic pellets. As a nation, we reserve the rights to remove key liberties and rights if an individual has proven himself incapable or undeserving of using them responsibility (felons not being able to vote, hunters who violate game laws having their guns confiscated as examples). Maybe it’s time we start applying that same logic to those who lack, or may easily find themselves lacking, the ability to control their behavior, and whether or not those people should be allowed to own and operate firearms.

Please leave your opinions on the matter below.

Seriously. Fuck cats.

Remember in Bring It On when the white cheerleaders, the Bulls (or whatever the fuck), steal the routines of the black cheerleaders, the Clovers (the writers, in all their Hollywood genius, chose to name all black school district after the symbol of an ethnic group known to be virulently anti-black).

Well, remember when in retribution for stealing their routines, the Clovers bake cupcakes full of rat poison and give them to the Toros ( I checked Wikipedia between here and three sentences ago) and the Toros nearly die? If that seems too far fetched even for a Hollywood movie that operates around the central concept that Gabrielle Union could have been in high school in 2000, guess again.

Allegedly, cheerleaders from Chapin high in El Paso, TX, baked cupcakes laced with rat poison and laxative for rival, Andres High schools’ dance team. The cupcakes in question were confiscated before they could be consumed, and while pranks amongst cheerleading squads in Texas are not unheard of, parents of Andres High students are pissed (understandably) and want the Chapin cheer squad to face criminal charges.

This all comes on the heels of another cheerleader scandal in which Patriots cheerleader, Caitlin Davis, was fired for being a party to drawing swastikas on a passed out compatriot after what surely must have been a night full of Akon and Captain Morgan Parrot Bay. For a longer list of previous cheerleader scandals (and some great pictures), consult our brothers-in-arms at Deadspin.com.

Sugar and spice and everything nice (and penises)

Just like the level of competition rises when players graduate from high school to college, so do the charges from lil’ old attempted murder to full on, Division 1 murder. The alcohol fueled double murder of two LSU fans by a Crimson Tide supporter last week may have been sparked by Bama’s 27-21 overtime victory over the Tigers (though family of the victims claim that there were deeper causes).

I suppose this answers the debate over who would win in a fight, two tigers or an elephant armed with a shotgun?

Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican senator in history, was found guilty on all seven counts of federal corruption charges, proving once again that just because you’re old and have been in politics forever, it doesn’t make you good at.

Ted “Why coming from an oil producing state isn’t necessarily a good thing” Stevens

Jesse “I’m going to sing Dixie until I make a black woman cry” Helms

Strom “I’ll fuck them but I won’t let them vote” Thurmond

The scary thing is, even with the corruption trial, Stevens’ democratic opponent only leads by 1.5% in the polls.

Troy Davis

I feel terrible for Annaliese Davis.

Davis is the mother of Troy Davis, who was convicted of murdering a police officer in Savannah, GA in 1991. Since his conviction however, 7 of the 9 witnesses who testified against him have recanted their testimony, and no physical evidence was ever presented at trial tying Davis to the murder. The 39 year old Davis has maintained his innocence throughout his time on death row.

Davis has been granted three different stays of execution, including one not two hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection. His most recent stay, granted by the 11th Circuit Court, gives Davis and his lawyers 25 days to file a habeas corpus brief with a lower court. His appeal to the Supreme Court was already rejected. Whether Davis may ever get a new trial is still up in the air.

He is killing time to killing time.

“This is mental cruelty to all of us,” said Davis’ mother.

I cannot even imagine.

Megastar rapper T.I. is scheduled to start serving his one year prison term on federal gun charges shortly. The rapper, whose last three consecutive albums all reached the number one spot, was busted in October of 2007 by federal agents during a sting operation when the rapper was caught attempting to buy machine guns and silencers in Hotlanta.

This is only the most recent in a series of rap superstars running into the wrong side of Johnny Law. DMX has had multiple scrapes, including one where he impersonated a federal officer after crashing a car while in possession of cocaine. Rapper (and apparent Cubs fan) Shyne is still in prison on a ten year bit for reckless endangerment and assault following a nightclub shooting in December of 1999. Lil’ Kim did a bit as well. And of course, who can forget the exploits of Tupac and Biggie Smalls, both of whom were not fortunate enough to escape with only jail time.

Call me a wanksta, or a honky–but someone should tell these guys that after they’re rich and world famous–they can either drop the act, or hire a body guard. When you have such a good thing going, lay off the nose candy. You don’t want to wind up like this:

George Clinton’s Mug Shot

Or like this:

We gotta have some changes.