pac-10

SEATTLE – Could the Dawgs and Cougs be joining the likes of the Longhorns and Aggies?

That’s the buzz tonight on the eve of the annual Pac-10 conference in San Francisco.

Published reports indicate the Pac-10 may soon offer six schools an invite to the conference: Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Colorado. The conference would span three time zones, and include seven of the top television markets.

Expansion has been a hot-button issue in college athletics, as institutions look to maximize financial possibilities during the economic downturn. The popular opinion is any expansion would also include the creation of a Pac-10, or in this scenario, a Pac-16 television network and millions of additional revenue.

That money could be vital to the UW’s hopes to renovate Husky Stadium.

Colorado Athletic Director Mike Bohn told the Boulder Daily Camera that he had been “led to believe” the Pac-10 was “on the verge” of issuing invitations to the six schools

The six teams from the Big 12 would be in an eight-team division with Arizona and Arizona State. The other eight-team division would consist of USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State.

The thought is the Big 16 (or whatever they decide for the name) would start its own television network that could command premium subscriber dollars from cable providers on par with the Big Ten Network and pay out upwards of $20 million to each of the 16 schools in TV revenue.

Such a merger between the six Big 12 schools and the Pac-10 would build a conference with seven of the country’s top 20 TV markets (Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Houston, Phoenix, Seattle and Sacramento). And such a league would likely command attention from every cable system in the country and command a premium rate from every cable system west of the Mississippi.

Those projected TV revenues would double the current payouts of roughly $9 million to Big 12 and Pac-10 members. If the Big 16 reached its projections, the league would also surpass the SEC’s projected payout of $17 million per school reached in a 15-year TV deal with ABC/ESPN and CBS signed in 2008.

* Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott has said all along that everything was on the table — that he would explore all options for increasing revenue and then present them to his CEOs for approval or rejection.

Facebook blasphemous caricatures page removed

A Facebook page that was considered offensive to Muslims and led to a Pakistani ban on the site has been removed, possibly by its creator. But Facebook had not taken any action on the page, which had attracted more than 100,000 users and encouraged users to post images of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), purportedly in support of freedom of speech.
Muslims regard any depiction of the Prophet (PBUH) as blasphemous. Najibullah Malik, the secretary at Pakistan’s information technology ministry, said earlier Friday that the government had no option but to shut down Facebook on Wednesday after a court order to do so.
Pakistan said it would consider restoring Facebook and other sites with related content only if they took down pages considered offensive to Islam. There was no immediate word on whether the government was lifting the ban.
Meanwhile, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, whose satirical cartoon calling for an Everybody Draw Mohammed Day inspired the Facebook page, said in a post on her website that she meant her work only to be a commentary on the South Park controversy.
I made a cartoon about the television show South Park being censored, she wrote. I never started a Facebook page. I apologize to people of Muslim faith and ask that this ‘day’ be called off.

Ashutosh Gowariker’s magnum-opus Buddha to have an all international crew

Even before his next film Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey releases, Ashutosh Gowariker has already moved on to his big budget project Buddha. Produced by Dr.Bhupendra Kumar Modi and directed by Gowariker, Buddha tells the journey of Gautam Buddha right from when he was known as Prince Siddhartha to his moment of enlightenment when he became Buddha. While the hunt for the actor who will play the lead role is still on, it’s quite interesting to note that the film will primarily have an all-international crew except production designer Nitin Chandrakant Desai who has worked with Gowariker on most of his films.

Some of the international crew members are:.

David S. Ward (USA) – Screen writer (best known for his Oscar winning screenplay in The Sting and Sleepless in Seattle)

Michel Shane (USA) – Executive Producer (who is known for having worked on films like I Robot and Catch Me If You Can)

Karl Walter Lindenlaub (USA) – Director of Photography (German born Lindenlaub has done been the DOP on films such as Independence Day, The Jackal, The Princess Diaries, Maid in Manhattan, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Ninja Assassin)

April Ferry (USA) – Costume Designer (Academy Award, BAFTA and Emmy award winner who has worked on Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Maverick, Free Willy, Frailty, National Security)

Glenn Boswell (AUS) – 2nd Unit director / Stunt coordinator (has worked on films like X-Men Wolverine, I, Robot, all three Matrix films, Dark City, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Thin Red Line)

Jarrod Linton(AUS) – Previz Supervisor (has worked on films like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Da Vinci Code, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Troy, The Spirit, X-Men Wolverine)

David Russell (AUS) – Story Board artist (a renowned storyboard artist and illustrator having contributed to over 80 films including Hollywood blockbusters such as Star Wars, X-Men Wolverine, Batman, Terminator II, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Tombstone, Romeo & Juliet, Moulin Rouge)

Dileep Singh Rathore (IND/USA) – Co-producer / Line Producer (With over 20 years experience in producing and handling domestic and international productions, Dileep’s credits include Peter Weir’s upcoming release The Way Back, Disney’s Hexe Lilli, Warner Bros.’ Das Wilde Leben, Blood Diamond, and films such as City of Joy, Flames in Paradise, Maya, Return to Rajapur among others.)

Speaking on making a film with such a top-notch international crew, producer Dr.Modi says, “Buddha, is a truly global film and we needed a team that would have a global sensibility and transcend language barriers.”

Ashutosh Gowariker says, “The first important decision that Dr. Modi took was to make Buddha in English. And that got me immediately interested because I have always felt that when it comes to religion, you must cater to an international audience, especially so in the case of Buddha. The past two months of pre-production have been exciting.
It has been exhilarating to be working with the DOP Karl Walter Lindenlaub, Oscar nominated Costume Designer and Stunt Co-ordinator Glenn Boswell. The movies that these people have worked on are ones that I have admired and seen over and over again. So, I feel privileged to be working with them on Buddha.

This is the first time that I have done pre-visualisation for a film. It has been an amazing learning curve to be working with Jarrod Linton who is the pre-viz supervisor on the film.
Dr. Modi and his co-producer Dileep Singh Rathore are leaving no stone unturned to give me technicians of my choice that will help create 500 B.C. accurately on screen.”

As for the lead actor, Gowariker says, “The search for the actor to play Buddha continues. I am going through the hundreds of auditions that have come in and I must say, we are getting closer to our Buddha.”

US cartoonist issues apology to Muslims

SEATTLE: The American cartoonist whose work inspired the controversial “Everybody Draw Mohammed Page” on Facebook has condemned the effort and issued an apology to Muslims.

Molly Norris, of Seattle, drew a cartoon in April to protest the decision by the US television channel Comedy Central to cancel an episode of the popular show South Park.

In her cartoon, Norris satirically proposed May 20 as an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”.

An “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” page quickly turned up on Facebook but Norris, writing on her website at mollynorris.com, said she had nothing to do with it.

“I did not ”declare” May 20 to be “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” she said, adding that her idea was satire but “was taken seriously, hijacked and made viral”.

“I never started a Facebook page; I never set up any place for people to send drawings to and I never received any drawings,” she said.

“The vitriol this ”day” has brought out, of people who only want to draw obscene images, is offensive to Muslims who did nothing to endanger our right to expression in the first place,” she said.

“I apologise to people of Muslim faith and ask that this ”day” be called off,” she said.

The “Draw Mohammed” page has led to Facebook being blocked in Pakistan and sparked angry protests and condemnation from the foreign ministry, which denounced the “publication of blasphemous caricatures of our holy prophet.”

The Facebook page on Tuesday had drawn over 89,000 fans – and a slew of crude photo-shopped pictures and caricatures.

The purported creator of the Facebook page said meanwhile that he started it to stand up for “freedom of expression.”

Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous and Muslims across the globe staged angry protests over the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed in European newspapers four years ago.

norman hand

norman hand’

Former Walterboro star and NFL player Norman Hand died Friday morning in Colleton County at the age of 37. A cause of death has not been released by the county coroner.

Hand was the first football player to reach the NFL from Walterboro.
His heart was big too. Pro sports are often very homophobic. I once saw a TV talk show host ask Norman if he thought players’ sexual “preference” could cause problems. Norman said, “No, I think it’s the people who worry about their teammates’ private lives who cause the problems. They need to mind their own business about things that don’t hurt them.” He already had nine-tenths of my heart, and I gave him the tenth tenth at that moment.