Raging About 'Roids

So the Mithcell report came out and basically discredited everything that's happened in baseball (and every other professional sport) in the last ten years, as being 'performance enahnced.' Now, as I read about the daily news updates about who is being accused of doing what, I'm saddened as well as disgusted. Here's what I think about all this:

1. Our society needs to take a look in the mirror and accept some blame for what's happened. It's very easy. This whole steroids in sports problem is actually our fault, not the athlete's fault. As much as we hate to admit it, we created Barry Bonds and we created Roger Clemens. As long as we continue to watch games on TV, pay for tickets, buy the Jerseys, then we are bascially endorsing these athlete's actions. If we refused to follow the sports in their current state, then the sports would have to change. If we as fans collectively refused to show up at a MLB game until they got their act together, then believe me they'd change in a hurry. Instead, we have this hypocritical bull crap, where we say we don't believe in drug use, but then we still pay to watch its' results. Screw that. If we're going to watch the sports, then at least we should admit and acknowledge that we are okay with the drug use.

2. There should be no role for government in this baseball steroid issue, or any other sports steroid issue, unless it is to raise money for anti drug use campaigns. The Federal government should not care whether or not Roger Clemens has been tainted. Leave that to the police to figure out if he broke any laws. We don't need valuable tax money being spent trying to figure out how many of Barry Bonds' home runs are 'real' or not, not when soldiers are dying overseas everyday and the polar ice caps are melting. So the next time the feds get involved and start mucking their noses in sports, please let's remind them that, ahem, shouldn't they have better things to do?

3. What about the kids? This is the most powerful, if not the only reason, to continue attempting to police sports and prevent performance enhancement from occurring, because impressionable kids who aspire to become great athletes will have no choice but to do as their role models do. Still, I think it's hogwash. We all know most of Hollywood is boozed and drugged up out of control. Britney Spears is on the cover of US magazine every two weeks. I don't hear anything about how she needs to set a better example for all the young girls out there. So why should Tank Johnson? I empathize with the kids, you're growing up in a whole world of deceit. In my era, it was Ben Johnson on drugs, today it's everyone. It's a harsh world kids, you gotta learn to live in it.

So this is what I think should happen, in a perfect world. We will all stop watching these tainted sports, get off our asses and go exercise at the gym, at the park, at the YMCA, for the fun of it and not waste money on stupid jerseys! Then, the sports will be forced to clean up their act or else we fans won't come back!

Here's what should happen, in our less than perfect world. We should at least acknowledge that we are accomplices in this steroid culture as long as we watch and follow these sports. Admitting our crime to ourselves will be a good first step. The sports can then stop with this nonsense of pretending to police itself when it really can't (and when it really couldn't care less) and we'll live in a lot less hypocrisy.

Here's what will happen. Fans will turn a blind eye to the hypcrosiy of the problem. We'll continue to support Bonds' HR chase until he gets caught officially, and then we'll bash him mercilessly and call for further, sterner testing measures. Then the government can waste millions of dollars which should be spent on better things in an attempt to prevent grown men from hitting baseballs a little bit further. The fans will feel good about taking such a righteous stand. The sports will roll in the dough forever and also pat themselves on the back for their "rigorous" testing methods, and the media will have lots to write about. And we'll live happily ever after.

That's what I think.

Two great books I recently read:

Two Lives by Vikram Seth

Dave, you know about this author; he wrote Equal Music. (By the way, I still periodically listen to the Equal Music CD-set you gave me) This book is a memoir of the author's aunt and uncle, whose lives spanned the "interesting" part of the twentieth century. The uncle, Shanti, was a Hindu dental student who went to study in Berlin in the 1930's. The aunt, Henny, was a German Jew whose family provided lodging for him. Seth created vivid protraits of these appealing and imperfect people from their youth to old age.

Liars and Saints by Maile Meloy

This novel follows the lives of members of an extended French-Canadian Catholic family from world war II to present time. The chapters alternates between the viewpoints of various members, who present their unique perspective on events, colored by their own personalities and secrets. This creates a wonderful tension in the story as the secrets reverberate down the years and produce unexpected results.

Sad day for Asian sports stars in America (yes, there is such a thing). Article here.

On the bright side, there are some up and comer Asian stars, like Kelvin Kim! You show them, man!

Yeah, it's one of mine periodic comebacks from the dead. Though I will promise to try to be more consistent this time around.

Have you guys seen www.alllooksame.com ? They show you 18 Asian faces and let you guess if their Japanese, Korean or Chinese. Can you tell your Asian brethren apart? Take the test and post the score.

Check out this article.

What on earth passes for news these days in America?!?!

Please forgive the poor grammar. I am too angry.

I just finished reading this book called "Brown Harvest" by Jay Russell. Words cannot describe how disgusted I feel at this moment. This book is based on a very cute premise. What would happen if Encyclopedia Brown (EB) returned to Idaville - here called Ideaville - a few years later as an older, jaded, young adult. What would become of the once great detective who sat in his garage solving crimes for 25 cents?

What Russell attempts to do is tell a story about the loss of innocence of America. EB returns to town bitter and jaded, there for the funeral of his former partner and childhood sweetheart (sort of) Sally - in this story named Sandy. As the story ensues, we hear all the lewd details of Sandy's fall from grace, tales of prostitution and fellatio involving Bugs Meany, EB's father (the former chief of police) and a slew of outrageous, meaningless characters based on other child detectives (The Hardy Boys) and other fictional characters (Curious George and the man in the yellow hat).

What starts off as a cute premise, degenerates into something between pure smut and outrageous, idiot violence over the last half of the book. Sandy's character is presumed dead at least 3 times, so much so that it fails to shock by the last time it happens. The vicious gunplay that dominatees the final portion of the book and serves to resolve all the loose ends reads like utter drivel and nonsense.

In short, I cannot believe I read this book. My recommendation: Garbage bin!

On the bright side, I now have a frontrunner for worst book read in the 21st century!

Ahh, it has been a while since I last posted on this page. The fantasy NBA season is out in full force and I find myself bumbling along through a month of ER shifts. I had one shift on Saturday morning starting at 8am. Prior to this, I had only slept about 5 hours because I got home late from basketball the night before. Upon returning from my ER shift that Saturday, I took a 2 hour nap. Then had dinner. Returned home and proceeded to sleep for 14 hours with only 1 hour for lunch before my next shift started. Then, last night, after my shift, slept another 12 hours with only an hour for lunch before finally getting up and getting organized today. All told, I slept about 26 hours in the last 40 hours or something. Pathological.

Sometimes I am struck by the depressing feeling that there must be more to life than this. There must be more than just slogging through work, sleeping or walking around in a sleep deprived state when I'm not at work. There must be, right?