Wednesday, December 19, 2007

We in the holidaze faze, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

You also might be a redneck

Britney Spears 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn, is pregnant; it may be a sign that you’re too young to be a mother when your mother has to drive you to the OB/GYN because you’re too young to have a driver’s license.

Not going well
Britney Spears has been banned from the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. Things are not going well for a celebrity when they have to disguise themselves as a prostitute in order to sneak into a hotel.

Those things are so handy
A fire broke out in Dick Cheney’s offices across from the White House but nobody was hurt. They put the fire out using Cheney’s very own personal waterboard.

What happened?
Jessica Simpson watched her boy friend, Tony Romo, and his Dallas Cowboys get beaten by the Philadelphia Eagles, 10-6. It was a little embarrassing when Jessica met Tony after the game, Jessica looked shocked and said; “How did your shoulders shrink so fast?”

Well that takes care of that
After being named in the Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball, Roger Clemens had his lawyer issue a full denial. Well that solves that. If we know anything it is that lawyers always tell the truth and no pro athlete has ever lied about taking steroids.

Since you asked:
So the big question in the aftermath of the Mitchell Reports is what does baseball and other sports do about steroids or other performance enhancing drugs? Nobody asked me, but the answer is simple.

A, It is universally agreed that using performance enhancing drugs is cheating. B, Cheating is illegal and ruins the integrity of the sport, so, C, Anyone who gets caught, either by the sworn testimony of a credible witness or by an actual drug test, using any performance enhancing drug is banned from that sport for life. No questions, no appeals, no attorneys, no denials, no second chances. Gone.

So if an athlete still wants to cheat by using a drug that currently cannot be detected, they do so knowing full well that if the testing catches up to them or a supplier or trainer squeals, they are gone for life. That is a gamble most athletes with any brains at all are not going to risk.

Players unions and lawyers would go nuts screaming basic human rights violations, but playing a professional sport is not a right, it is a privilege. All privileges come with responsibilities and probably the most important responsibility is to uphold the integrity of that sport.

It does not say anywhere in the constitution that I have the right to play in the NFL. So if the NFL, along with the MLB and the PGA and the NBA and the NHL, wants to make a statement against using physically dangerous drugs and cheating they all have to agree on this lifetime ban for first time offenders.

The Charles Barkley “I am not a role model” selfish lie aside, anybody who has ever participated in sports knows that they have a responsibility beyond themselves for that sport. When I played football in high school, I was conscious that if I took a cheap shot at another player, it wasn’t just about me, it reflected on my teammates, my coaches and my school. And the more visible and more popular that sport is the greater the responsibility for representing that sport is.

Even participating in individual recreational sports without any outcome comes with a responsibility to properly represent that sport. That is why the outwardly hostile and rude skateboarders, snotty weekend warrior cyclists, territorial surfers and bratty stoner snowboarders are such colossal jerks. They know that their fellow sport participants are being lumped into a negative stereotype based on their annoyingly boorish behavior and they flat out don’t care.


From this point on before anyone becomes a professional athlete, before they can sign a contract and collect one check, they have to sign a release agreeing to the lifetime ban for any and all performance enhancing drugs. They don’t have to sign it, but then they won’t ever be paid to play that sport. And that goes for all the current players as well. No sign, no pay.

Sports writers and sports executives have to grow a spine and support this death-sentence-for-cheaters idea by precluding known violators from ever being awarded any post-career honor especially Hall of Fame status. Sosa, Bonds, Clemens must be kept from even visiting Cooperstown. These selfish jerks cared much more about their own success than they cared about baseball so baseball has to pay them back for the damage they have caused baseball’s credibility.

And that should go for all professional athletes. Even bowlers where the only performance enhancer is beer.


What have we learned from Paris, Britney, Nicole and Lindsay?

That being rich and famous and, in the one case of Lindsay Lohan, talented does not obviate the fact that they are complete and utter mouth-breathing morons.

If I had to sum up our overly-entitled and lowered-standards society in one sentence it would be:

Madonna is being inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

While we're at it why don't we go ahead and give Father of the Year to Homer Simpson?