It's All In The Game

In March, at a soccer match in Hilla, Iraq, between two local teams, as a player with the ball approached the goal to attempt a tying kick late in the game, an overenthusiastic spectator drew his gun and shot him dead.

The spectator drew a red flag.

You Make A Better Door Than A Window!

An Oregon, Wis., man was arrested in February after his 9-year-old son wrote a school essay about the time his dad shot him in the buttocks with a BB gun because he was blocking his view of the TV set.

Now limp on in to the kitchen and get Daddy a Leinenkugel.

A Rose By Any Other...

In April, the City Council of Vero Beach, Fla., grappling with the question of how much skin can legally be exposed in public, adopted the definitions that at least two other Florida jurisdictions use . "Buttocks," for example, is "the area of the rear of the body which lies between two imaginary lines running parallel to the ground when a person is standing, the first or top such line drawn at the top of the nates (i.e., the prominence of the muscles running from the back of the hip to the back of the leg) and the second or bottom line drawn at the lowest visible (sic) of this cleavage or the lowest point of the curvature of the fleshy protuberance, whichever is lower."

Stop it, you’re getting me hot!

Don't Throw Out The Bacon With The Bath Water

I think it’s time, in the midst of all of this Swine Flu hysteria, to slap ourselves across each cheek (any of the four will do), throw some cold water in our faces and snap out of it.

The news wires are filled with terrified citizens from cities around the world timidly making their way down the sidewalk, wearing surgical masks and rubber gloves.

Schools are closing down because of one case of ‘what may be’ the swine flu virus in a student.

CNN even has a special section on it’s web page called Inside the HHS War Room: The Fight Against H1N1. War room? This so-called pandemic has gotten so out of hand they need a War Room?

As of this writing there are 853 cases worldwide…853. In a world with a population of roughly 6.77 billion. This is a pandemic? Let’s look at the definition a moment:

Pandemic;
an epidemic that is geographically widespread; occurring throughout a region or even throughout the world

Geographically widespread? 853 out of 6.77 billion is geographically widespread? Do the math. Right now this pandemic is found in one out of every 7,936,655 people. You think maybe we’re over reacting just a tad?

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But I don’t think it’s a mathematical ratio. I think 800 pounds of prevention is still just a pound’s cure in the end.

So what’s responsible for this lack of perspective? I think two things are to blame:

1. The media – As much as I hate making the media a devil for all out ills, I think this one is spot on. We live in an age of 24 hour, round the clock news. They need to keep reporting something to stay on the air. So instead of broadcasting real news; that which readily effects us in our daily lives, they look at what we react to; the things that push our collective buttons.

Are we interested in highway bills? No. Don’t report it. Anna Nichole Smith’s baby? Love it. Keep it pumpin’. The talking heads are spewing out hours of what is barely interesting, much less newsworthy; baby Kayla, the Peterson murder, Brad and Angelina, the octuplet mommy, and on and on. Which brings us to number …

2. A fearful, over-protective populace – Let’s face it, the lemming mentality that drives humanity is creating a whirlpool of fear and ignorance that’s sucking us right down the Rabbit Hole. Safe, secure suburban families tune into the 24 hour news monkeys and suddenly they feel personally threatened by the flavor of the moment; tainted spinach, top-heavy SUVs rolling over on the highway, sex deviants and terrorists hiding behind every hydrangea bush…and now Swine Flu.

Let’s face it, we’re becoming far too protective of our children. That’s why, in the old days, they had 15 or 16. You never knew when you’d lose one; disease, farming accidents, civil war, or they just fell down the well. You had to be prepared for the worse. Now, with one or two lieblings in the nest, their importance becomes inflated and over-valued. Like dot-com stocks in the 90’s.

So suck it up people. Do the practical things. Wash your hands after you poop. Don’t rub your eyes after shaking hands with the homeless guy and, most importantly, STAY HOME IF YOU’RE SICK! When all is said and done, none of us are so important in our jobs that we need to crawl from our tainted sickbed to spread whatever horrific malady we have to our innocent co-workers.

Hey Genius, you’re an assistant human resources director for a dog food company. The world ain’t gonna come off it’s hinges if you stay home for two days.

I’m Anthony Wood. I’m angry. And I feel a cold coming on.

'Nuns' Race Through London for Charity
AP
Dressed as nuns, runners race through London to raise money for a national children's charity. The run was sponsored by the musical "Sister Act," which is based on a movie about a singer who witnesses a murder and hides as a nun in a convent.

The event raised funds for children traumatized my Whoopi Goldberg movies.

U of Oregon to Frisbee team: No pants, no season

In the world of intercollegiate Ultimate Frisbee, it's ultimately not cool to go without pants. So said a student board that governs club sports at the University of Oregon when it ended a highly-ranked team's season after five players shed their pants and underwear.

The game then went from Ultimate Frisbee to Second-Rate Squirt Guns.

Alabama man sleeps with gun and shoots himself

A 24-year-old man likely will rethink his habit of sleeping with a gun after police said his 40-caliber pistol discharged and hit him in the shoulder on Wednesday. A police detective said the wound was not life threatening.

Which supports the age-old adage—“DON’T LIVE IN ALABAMA!!!”

Bird loses meal to power line, causing outage

Utility workers suspect an osprey made a mess of its breakfast by dropping a fish on a power line, turning out the lights for folks trying to find their own way to start the day. Salem Electric workers called to an outage on the west side of the state capital Wednesday found a burned 14-inch fish beneath the line.

Blackened Catfish Etoufe’ anyone?

Mannequin threatens to bust Ohio barbecue joint

A man who runs a Cincinnati-area barbecue joint says the busty mannequin he tethered to the front of the building has been good for business, but city officials say he needs a permit to keep her there.

In related news, Paris Hilton’s visit to Ohio has been extended indefinitely.