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bad sports, good sports

Bad sports, good sports: Nationals shut down Stephen Strasburg for the season

Stephen Strasburg is a young pitcher for the Washington Nationals, a team that, as of this writing, has the best record in all of Major League Baseball at 86-54. Strasburg, in his first full season in the bigs, is the team’s best pitcher, sporting a record of 15-6 with a 3.16 ERA. He has struck out 197 batters in only 159 1/3 innings. With his team a virtual lock for the playoffs, you would think he would be preparing to lead the Nats into the postseason for the first time since the former Montreal Expos moved to our nation’s capital in 2008. Instead, team officials have shut Strasburg down for the rest of the season. [Read more →]

Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingeducation

Top ten signs you’ve chosen the wrong college

10. They boast “fewer faculty felons than last year”

9. You were admitted because you were able to sketch a picture of a turtle you saw on a book of matches

8. The only books in their library contain nothing but names, addresses, and phone numbers

7. It makes Bob Jones University look like Harvard

6. The college application was an insert in a McDonald’s menu

5. The school’s Latin motto is “Non Impediti Ratione Cogitationis” (“Unencumbered by the Thought Process”)

4. The photo on the cover of the college catalogue: Johnny Knoxville

3. When you ask if the college is well endowed, the school president pulls down his zipper

2. Their biggest fraternity is Singa Phi Nothing

1. There’s only one ‘L’ in ‘COLEGE’
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

art & entertainmentreligion & philosophy

Developments in the moral guidance of mainstream comedy

With the rise of comedians like Louis C.K. and Bill Hicks, the complexity level of comedy has increased. Comedy is no longer three idiots poking each another in the eye or lighting their flatulence on fire . It’s no longer even just an irreverent and humorous dismantling. As religious explanations fall further and further behind the evolutions of society, comedians have stepped in to fill the gap. Comedians are the new preachers, comedy clubs are their churches, and the audience members that understand it are the frustrated moral progressives. [Read more →]

diatribespolitics & government

Two fears of a pseudo-Republican

Watching the two national conventions, I’ve tried as a thought experiment to imagine what it’s like to be a Republican. Not a snarling right-wing Limbaugh type, but a moderate, libertarian conservative who believes in small government and dignity for all – the kind of Republican that once defined the GOP. Like some of my Republican friends, many of whom voted for Obama in 2008. And in so doing, I find myself confronted by two doomsday fears. [Read more →]

virtual children by Scott Warnock

Worry not, your child’s foul behavior probably won’t transfer

You don’t know nothin’ about raising kids, and then one day there’s a child in your house. Then another. For some, this familial accretion goes on for some time. What do you do? You stitch and paste some values together from somewhere – parents you’ve known, cartoons, strangers you meet on the bus — and off you go, bringing up humans. [Read more →]

language & grammarThe Emperor decrees

The Emperor decrees that there shall be “Separation of Poetry and State”

I have been declared Emperor of the World. Let us not waste time explaining why or how; let’s all simply accept the fact that we are better off, as a result; hence, my next decree:

Emperor’s Decree No. 123, Stanza 5 : There shall ever be, from this point forward, “Separation of Poetry and State.” Thus far, since having established his dominion over the world, the Emperor has tolerated the quaint machinations of federal, state and local governments, because it has amused him to do so. Yesternight, however, while driving upon a highway, he glanced up and saw an electronic sign that read: DRIVE SOBER OR GET PULLED OVER. Oh, nonononono. Uh uh. It is bad enough the politicians have been masquerading, lately, as actual human beings equipped with compassion and ethics and stuff. It is bad enough when law enforcement officers make disingenuous attempts to seem as if they don’t believe they are innately superior to anyone who drives a vehicle without flashy things on top of it…but, to align themselves with the noble mappers of the human heart? — to even allude to a kinship, however remote, with the wordsmiths who shine the light of Truth into the dark places of the Universe…and, then, to rhyme words like “sober” and “over” as if such an act doesn’t spit upon the dead faces of said Shiners of Light…? Such vapid hypocrisy will not be allowed in the Empire.

The Punishment: Violators will be bound to a chair. They will be forced to endure a bored-looking procession of black-clad fifteen-year-olds. Each angsty and/or recently jilted youth will recite poems (written on jagged-edged notebook paper and illustrated with ballpoint sketches of sinister eyeballs with marvelous lashes), until the mind of the violator cracks. (The Imperial Master of Torture conjectures that this will take an average of eight minutes per violator.)

Now, go forth and obey.

The Emperor will grace the world with a new decree each Tuesday morning.

bad sports, good sports

Bad sports, good sports: NCAA fails to punish UNC for academic fraud

Somebody needs to explain the NCAA to me. Seriously, I am obviously not equipped to comprehend its rules, policies, and methods of determining punishment. Everyone knows what happened at Penn State, or at least people think they know. The Nittany Lions were hit with stunningly severe sanctions for the Jerry Sandusky situation, despite the fact that no NCAA rules were broken. On Friday, it was announced that the NCAA had concluded its investigation of accusations of academic fraud at the University of North Carolina and had found no evidence of wrongdoing. If you have read anything about this situation, you are as astonished by this as I am. [Read more →]

Bob Sullivan's top ten everythingrecipes & food

Top ten things overheard at today’s Labor Day barbecue

10. “Hope you like tofu burgers!”

9. “That’s not mayonnaise; you’re standing under a tree.”

8. “Is my hot dog supposed to have an engagement ring on it?”

7. “Which is the burger and which is the charcoal?”

6. “Call 911! Call 911!”

5. “Everything on the grill still has a tail on it!”

4. “Wish somebody had told me this BBQ was BYO!”

3. “Who chugged all the lighter fluid?”

2. “I think Grandma lost her dentures in the potato salad again.”

1. “Is coleslaw supposed to move?”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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