A Shoe on the Freeway

The state of Connecticut has decided 50 points is the tipping point for high school football. It will now suspend for one game any coach whose charges defeat their opponent by 50 points or more.

Mercy rules exist in some youth sports. The 10-run rule, for example, is a staple of Little League with variations in other sports, all designed to take some of the sting out of a serious whuppin.

I suppose there are some practical matters, too. When 7-year olds are winning 37-1 and the 1 hasn’t throw a strike since his baptism, call it. Tournaments need to run on some sort of timely schedule, too.

But high school football is quite removed from kids chasing butterflies in right field. Even so, blowouts occur. You’ll always find a few knucklehead coaches who will run up the score, leaving in their starters when the outcome has long been decided. May they swallow their whistles.

Still, coaching or encouraging kids not to score is ridiculous.

If you play or coach long enough, you’ll understand what it’s like to open up a big ol’ can and what it’s like to be on the wrong end of it, too. Yes, there are powerhouse programs, but what goes around comes around — even for the winners.

Let market forces work. Wal-Mart does not suit up a high school team. Coaches who run it up will get theirs someday, even if it’s a reputation of being a jerk. I have seen that a couple times. Yeah, they win, but in the respect category, they never quite seem to find the end zone.

Nobody is on top forever, either. Exhibit A suits it up in red in Lincoln. If your third and fourth teamers are still kicking booty, maybe sports officials who make up the rules should look at the other guy.

Mercy rules might have their place in Little League, but leave them off the high school football field.

Posted by George Ayoub at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anybody else wondering why the world is upside down?

Violent protests over cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed continue in the Middle East where 21st Century mores have run headlong into a 15th Century response. Yesterday Iran — now there’s a peace loving government — joined with Islamic moderates to urge the wild-eyed to go home.

As a sidebar, a portion of blogosphere and a number of writers were white hot, accusing their favorite whipping boy, the mainstream media, of caving into the Islamic radicals because they did not reproduce the cartoons.
I thought it curious that some people here could not believe the response to the cartoons.

Hello? Where have we been? Of course the toons were a stick in the cage. What did we expect? These radicals may chatter on the Internet, but at least some of their leaders live in caves.

Measuring the industrial strength, over the top response from that cultural milieu against our democratic sensibilities and free speech simply states the obvious. Media outlets constantly have to make choices. Most refer to this as editing and not censorship. Of course if you already believe somebody is a piece of spineless vermin, accusing them of caving is a short walk.

Speaking of free speech — or lack thereof — I wonder how the world will see British historian David Irving, who, since the mid-1970s has trafficked in the disgusting universe that denies the Holocaust ever took place. However odious and lacking in fact his thinking, we would say the guy has a right to say it, wouldn’t we? We might even defend his right to say it.

He might need us to. An Austrian court has sentenced Irving to three years in prison for his publicized denial.

Speaking of odious, Fred Phelps, whose crusade against gays and lesbians has been well-documented, has reached a new low, down from evil to a place where words would not do it justice. Phelps and his church followers, mostly family, now regularly picket and protest the funerals of fallen U.S. soldiers. They disrupt ceremonies during a family’s darkest hour.

Phelps claims U.S. deaths in Iraq are God’s vengeance on America because we harbor homosexuals. As I said, odious, but other words surely are better.

Finally, Harry Whittington, shot by Dick Cheney, was released from the hospital Sunday. Before he went home to tend to the buckshot holes in his body, he apologized for causing problems for vice president.

As I said, upside down.

Posted by George Ayoub at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For you music fans, I just want you to know that Nasal Ranger did not sing “Sister Christian.” Nor were Kemosabe and Tonto involved.

It was Night Ranger.

Nasal Ranger is the name of a device Grand Island spent $1,500 on to determine if pockets of our fair burg smell.

Hell, I’d do it for half that. With a schnozzola my size I can locate and determine odors quite well. It’s a gift.

And a curse. But that’s another post.

The Nasal Ranger is the city’s latest effort to stanch the stink that makes parts of G.I. barely breathable. Of course, when you pile poop high and deep, you can’t expect a bed of roses. The compost pile at the Wasterwater Treatment Plant has been shoveled into trucks and sent to the landfill.

The city wants to try a new process that aerates the sludge and then captures the odor in tubes.

Ergo, the Nasal Ranger to see if the experiment is working.

I’m telling you, this is technology where man has already tread … and gagged.

Here’s my question: Can you imagine a group of well-paid people sitting in a room trying to come up with a name for this smellometer?

And if Nasal Ranger was the winner, what were the names that didn’t make the cut: The Earl of Effluvium? The Sultan Of Stench? Nose Daddy? Proboscis Patroller? Beak Police? Whiffer Warrior? Nostril Narc? Olfactory Officer? Snot SWAT? Adenoid Bobby? The Long Sinus Cavity of the Law?

Posted by George Ayoub at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a moment of weakness I looked over the top of my magazine to see Jerry Rice, former heavenly wide receiver in the NFL descending into television hell called “Dancing With the Stars,” an endless hour or so of glitter and gasping.
I was the one gasping.
Don’t get me wrong. I like dancing. I even went to see “Shall We Dance,” a semi-forgetable Richard Gere feature. The dancing was very hot, however.
The reason I needed oxygen was the star turn. Rice wasn’t bad, nor was the female wrestler and the journalist. But the rest of the “stars,” well … at least they looked pretty good.
My very wise wife told me to lighten up.
I tried.
But that was before the ice storm hit.
Apparently Fox will start airing something called “Skating with Celebrities.” That’s right six “skating super stars” — you would have to point them out to me — will be paired with Dave Coulier, the funny guy from “Full House,” Olympian Bruce Jenner, Todd Bridges from “Different Strokes” by way of a series of courtrooms, actress Kristy Swanson, singer Deborah Gibson and TV “personality,” Jillian Barberie. Yeah, I never heard of the last three either.
Well, good luck with that.
Personally I can’t wait for “Open Heart Surgery With the Stars,” where, in the series’ first episode, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are teamed with two famous cardiologists to see who can tie those arteries off first.
Stay tuned right after OHSWTS for “Crossover Appeal Celebrity Engineering,” during which Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Justin Timberlake are teamed with three MIT grads in a race to see who can design and build a new tower Donald Trump will accept and use next season’s “Apprentice.”

Posted by George Ayoub at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)