...Without the Enthusiasm

Not a whole lot to get to this week, so I figured I’d get started a little early. I don’t think I’ve ever been early for anything. Not sure how this is going to work out.

As if the sports media’s constant blathering about the Yankees and the Red Sox wasn’t bad enough, we will now be treated to two solid weeks of gibberish about the Giants and the Patriots. I can’t wait. Congratulations to the Giants, I hope the Patriots complete the perfect season.

Apparently I was completely wrong about Michigan. People did come out in 26-degree weather to vote “uncommitted.” As a matter of fact, 40% of voters in the Democratic primary voted “uncommitted.” How about that. Almost half of the voters committed to being uncommitted, and all of them completely wasted their time. The irony of making your primary irrelevant by trying to make it relevant should be lost on no one.

As expected, John McCain walked away with the Republican version of the South Carolina primary, while Mitt Romney clubbed second place finisher Ron Paul over the head with the Nevada Republican Caucus, and Senator Clinton pulled out a six-point victory over Senator Obama in the state’s Democratic version of said event. Unfortunately for everyone with money on Duncan Hunter to capture the Republican nomination, he has decided his campaign was accomplishing nothing and decided to drop out. Why he remained in the race this long is beyond me. Ask anyone if they know who Duncan Hunter is and listen to them answer, “Isn’t that the guy with the cake mixes?” There are several other candidates remaining in the race who should probably follow Hunter’s lead. Here I’m thinking particularly of four guys named Thompson, Paul, Kucinich and Edwards. But I guess people need to come to conclusions of that nature on their own.

What all this primary nonsense means at this point is anybody’s guess. It’s obvious we won’t know anything for sure until the night of February 5, after 24 states have made their decision regarding the respective nominees. However, if things continue on the current path (with McCain and Clinton seemingly in the lead), we will at least have learned one thing: the Iowa Caucuses are completely useless and can be scrapped the next time around.

Several weeks ago a tiger escaped from its pen at the San Francisco Zoo and attacked three youths, killing one of them, before police killed the animal. The two surviving victims and their families, and several lawyers itching to take the case blamed the attack on an enclosure wall which was found to be four feet lower than industry standard. However, further investigation has subsequently revealed that the three morons in question were not only intoxicated with both alcohol and marijuana, but also taunted the tiger as well, shouting at it, waving their arms, climbing the railing at the edge of the tiger moat and possibly throwing things at the animal. What’s that saying again? Don’t poke the bear? Or tiger in this case? The lawyer for the family of the mauled teenager has tried to emphasize that whether or not the boys taunted the animal, the zoo has a legal responsibility to protect the public from the animals it houses. And while the lawyer may be legally correct, understand this. The wall of the tiger enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo has ALWAYS been four feet shorter than industry standard. The tiger enclosure has ALWAYS had tigers in it. Yet intoxicated teenagers are not mauled by tigers on a regular basis. What’s different about this case? Sometimes nature has a way of weeding out the idiots.

I just read a great slogan on a t-shirt for sale at Cafepress.com. “Depression is anger without the enthusiasm.” Truer words have never been written.

One week after Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman jokingly suggested lynching Tiger Woods in a back alley, and several days after Tiger released a statement saying that even thought Tilghman was an insensitive b!#@&, he was not offended by the remark and felt that people should just let it go, Golfweek Magazine decided to run with the image of a noose on it’s cover. I know that may be hard to believe, but it’s true. Except for the part about Tilghman being an insensitive… you know what. Tiger didn’t say that. I did. Anyway, one day after Golfweek ran the cover with the noose, it fired its longtime editor and vice president, Dave Seanor, for sending the magazine to press with said cover. Of course this took place after all the sponsors threatened to pull their advertising, but that’s really beside the point. Several things could easily have prevented this whole ugly incident from happening in the first place. First, to reiterate what I said last week, if there were Golf Channel, Kelly Tilghman would have had no venue from which to make asinine statements. I blame cable for that. Second, what the hell is Golfweek Magazine? How many articles can you possibly write about the proper way to follow through on your drive? Seriously, trees have to give their lives for this drivel? And finally, even if we overlook the first two mistakes, anyone with the least bit of understanding of the history of race in this country would have known better than to place such an incendiary image on the cover of a sports magazine. This is, in essence, a question of venue. If Time Magazine places an image of a noose on its cover one can least expect quality reporting and an in-depth discussion of all the issues surrounding the noose and the comments and whatever else. When Golkweek places an image of a noose on its cover all it does is trivialize a potent symbol of violence and hate for the purpose of selling a couple magazines. It would be akin to Motor Trend running a story about Nazi death camps with a picture of a gas chamber on the cover. Sometimes the forum just doesn’t fit the discussion. Dave Seanor should have known that. Obviously he didn’t.

Finally, Matthew Kowald of Pardeeville, Wisconsin, was arrested last Monday and jailed until Wednesday for taping a Green Bay Packers jersey to his 7-year-old son during their victory over the Seattle Seahawks the day before. Kowald was apparently upset when the kid refused to root for his father’s team and decided he could fix that quite easily. The local district attorney admitted there is no law against a parent restraining a child, and she could find no evidence of emotional damage, thereby making it impossible to file felony charges in the case. So Kowald’s punishment was limited to the two days he spent in jail and a $186 fine. I think the moral of this story is that as strange as it may seem, football fans can get a little crazy at times. That’s why they call them fans. It’s short for fanatic. Let’s just be glad he couldn’t find the staple gun.