The 24-Hour News Cycle Finally Fails Us

But what did he eat? For the love of God, man, WHAT DID HE EAT???

Food for Thought as you Head to the Voting Booth

 

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

 —JOHN ADAMS, statesman, diplomat, Aldrin to George Washington’s Armstrong

“It is a greater thing to be a good citizen than to be a good Republican or a good Democrat.”

—GIFFORD PINCHOT, guy you’ve probably never heard of

“Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

—GEORGE ORWELL, English novelist and journalist

“Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.”

—JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, American novelist

“There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.”  

—BENJAMIN DISRAELI, nineteenth-century British Prime Minister

“I find myself  . . . hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.”

—ALEXANDER POPE, eighteenth-century English poet

“I hate all politics. I don't like either political party. One should not belong to them—one should be an individual, standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.”  

—RAY BRADBURY, American novelist

“The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.”

—THEODORE ROOSEVELT, twenty-sixth President of the United States of America

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

—GEORGE WASHINGTON, dollar bill guy

“I was no party man myself, and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them.”

—GEORGE WASHINGTON, welcoming you to the Hall of Presidents

“All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.”

—JOHN ARBUTHNOT, Scottish physicist, mathematician, and satirist

We would add: “. . . but not nearly fast enough.” 



 

Bowling in the Dark's Endorsement for President of the United States:

 

Montgomery Brewster, pitcher, Hackensack Bulls

 
 

A platform we can get behind:

 “I wanna thank you for coming out today . . . to see to it that neither my opponents nor me win the election. I wanna ask the question:

Q. Who’s buying the booze?  
A: [Montgomery Brewster.]

Q: Who’s buying the food? 
A: [Montgomery Brewster.]

Q: And who’s trying to buy your vote? 
A: [Technically everybody, but also Montgomery Brewster.]

Q: And who you’re gonna vote for? 
A: None of the above! 

Q: Say it again! 
A: None of the above! 

Q: Let me hear it one more time! 
A: None of the above! 

Yeah, sure, we’ve all heard that one before.

Nike Takes a Courageous Stance Against Certain Kinds of Cheating

Tiger Woods, professional golfer

Tiger Woods, immediately after bombarded
by gamma radiation.

Moral misstep: slept with a woman who was not his wife, and then—having decided that that was pretty awesome—went on to sleep with five, nine, eleven, or 121 others, depending on which disgusting internet source you choose to believe.

Marketability: while his popularity may not be what it once was,¹ he’s still a well-known and much-discussed athlete in what is inexplicably one of the world’s most popular sports. While he’s not playing up to his usual standards of late, he has the potential to continue to golf at a very high level for the next five to twenty-five years, making him a huge boon for any company with the right amount of moral fiber to stick with him through a few thousand minor marital indiscretions.

Nike’s stance: Everything’s swell. The Tiger Woods Center at Nike’s headquarters remains, as you may have guessed, named after Tiger Woods.

Kobe Bryant, shooting guard, Los Angeles Lakers (NBA)

Kobe Bryant, having briefly forgotten that the name
that matters to him is the one on the back of the jersey.

Moral misstep: accused of rape by nineteen-year-old Katelyn Faber; while the charges were dropped after Faber refused to testify, Bryant later publicly stated that while he “truly believe[s] this encounter . . . was consensual,” he “now understand[s] how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.” So viewed in the best possible light, he had sex with a woman who was not his wife. Given the competition in this category, one single adulterous affair seems positively quaint, but it’s still not a particularly decent thing to do.

Marketability: remains active as the most popular player on the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the NBA’s most popular teams, with potential to make Nike oodles of money for at least another four to six years.

Nike’s stance: no problems here.

Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback, Pittsburgh Steelers (NFL)

Moral misstep: accused of sexual assault in 2008; no charges filed. Accused of sexual assault in 2010; no charges filed. After the second accusation, he served four games of a six-game suspension and lost his Fathead endorsement. A spokesman for the company stated at the time, “We named our company Fathead, not Fat Asshole.”²

Marketability: Two-time super Bowl champion, marquee quarterback on one of the absurdly popular and marketable NFL’s most popular and marketable teams. While his career may not last more than another five to six years or two to three allegations, even mediocre players and backups  sell jerseys.

Nike’s stance: Are we under oath, here? No? Then what he may have done would have been bad, and we’re definitely going to cut him loose any day now. Honest.

Lance Armstrong: cyclist, seven-time Tour de France winner

Have you ever spent a lifetime sitting on a bicycle
seat? Trust us, you’d look this grouchy too.

Moral Misstep: despite his repeated and strenuous statements to the contrary, Lance Armstrong may well turn out to have been something of a cheater in the otherwise squeaky-clean world of competitive cycling. He joins the very brief list of cyclists who have tested positive, admitted to doping, or been sanctioned for doping that includes—and is absolutely, almost definitely, probably limited to—barely-known racers such as Marco Pantani, Jan Ullrich, Roland Meier, Alex Zuille, Laurent Dufaux, Abraham Olano, Richard Virenque, Bjarne Riis, Christophe Moreau, Roberto Heras, Richard Virenque, Francisco Mancebo, Igor González, Óscar Sevilla, Raimondas Rumsas, Levi Leipheimer, Alexandre Vinokourov, Iban Mayo, Ivan Basso, Michael Rasmussen, Floyd Landis, Alberto Contador, Alejandro Valverde, Mikel Astarloza, Bernhard Kohl, Christian Vande Velde, Fränk Schleck, Tadej Valjavec, and Tyler Hamilton.³

Marketability: one of the best-known figures in the world when it comes to providing emotional, physical, and financial support to survivors of cancer, a disease that has to some degree, directly or indirectly, affected pretty much every person on Earth. Ever. On the other hand, he’s retired, and he participated in a sport that nobody in Nike’s U.S. demographic gave a shit about before Lance Armstrong came along.

Nike’s stance: Screw you, Lance Armstrong.

In the past, Nike has cut ties with sports figures such as Marion Jones (for her alleged and later admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs), the late Joe Paterno (who, of course, technically didn’t do anything but also, of course, didn’t do anything), and Michael Vick (who was coincidentally reinstated with Nike once he’d become popular again).

We’re not going to say that Nike should have maintained its ties with Lance Armstrong, regardless of whether the doping charges against him were (or are) ever proved or definitively disproved—that’s completely up to them. And we’re not saying that Armstrong’s admirable work with his foundation gives him a pass if he is, in fact, a big fat blood doper—although this raises the interesting question of whether it’s better to be a great guy in your sport but a turd in your personal life, or the reverse.
 
We’re simply a little disappointed that the message we’re all getting from Nike here seems to be “if you’re gonna get caught cheating, it’d better be on your wife.”⁴



NOTES
1. Except perhaps in the limited circles in which he was always apparently popular—after all, ladies, he’s single now. Rawr.
2. No, of course we made that up.
3. The part about these guys being “barely known” is just us being sarcastic. While we recognize only a handful of their names, all of them have finished in the top ten of the Tour de France at least once in the last fifteen years.
4. We realize that Ben Roethlisberger doesn’t fit the “cheater” theme here, as he was not married when he was accused of sexual assault. Twice. He does, however, still have a valid place in this piece, thanks to its overarching theme of “pro athletes who are definitely or at least probably dicks.”

Augusta National Softens its Stance on Excluding Women

Billy Payne, dodging questions.

Georgia’s Augusta National Golf Club, site of the prestigious annual Masters Tournament, appears to be reconsidering its longstanding and controversial policy of refusing to admit female members. With the tournament entering Round Two this morning, the club released the following statement to the press:

The Augusta National Golf Club, in keeping with this nation’s noblest traditions of extending equal treatment to many different kinds of people that we find acceptable, hereby announces that as of Friday, April 6, 2012, we will open our membership to any woman who can prove empirically that she psychologically, physiologically, and genetically male.

We sincerely hope that our progress toward equality among all the right kinds of people doesn’t go unnoticed among our sponsors—many of whom employ women, so we’re told—or our television viewers. Because many of those folks who watch our sponsors’ ads this weekend will be women, and you know how women love to shop! Boy howdy!

All kidding aside, folks, we here at Augusta National are proud of our accomplishments in racial and gender equity. Why, for decades we ensured that black men, while certainly not good enough to play here, would nevertheless find gainful employment carrying white men’s clubs.

And hell, it’s been more than thirty years now since we admitted our first black member, way back in 1990. What a time that was, with our humble little Augusta National Golf Club leading the charge for civil rights, not even four decades after the Montgomery Bus Boycott!

In conclusion, the Augusta National Golf Club looks forward to welcoming its first female member, assuming, once again, that she is actually a man.

And also preferably not, you know, a Jew.

 —Augusta National Golf Club
April 6, 2012

 

Food for Thought for Our Optimist Friends

     

 

Just because you can pretend things aren’t as bad as they seem doesn’t mean they’re not actually much, much worse.