The National Football League is taking decisive action in response to complaints about horrendously bad officiating by the replacement referees, who were brought in due to the lockout of referees by the league.
The move is the culmination of events precipitated by perhaps the worst missed call in NFL history. In this week’s Monday Night Football contest between the Seattle Seahawks and visiting Green Bay Packers, a Green Bay Packer defender intercepted a pass in the end zone as the game clock expired but the referee called it a Seattle touchdown. Various instant replays clearly showed that the Packer player had possession of the ball, but the referee still upheld the egregious call.
Players, coaches, and fans have weighed in, demanding the offending official be executed for treason. Sports pundits are calling it the most outrageously bad call since drummer Pete Best made the decision to leave the Beatles in 1962 to join the band Tony Jack and the Lollipops because they had “more potential.”
I am a staunch advocate of women’s rights to equal treatment and nearly equal pay. I’ve even watched Oprah and Ellen on occasion. (But please don’t tell my golfing buddies. They would never understand.) There is no denying that women have been victims of social injustices and hardships men have rarely had to endure. I’m talking, of course, about cellulite primarily.
The tables, however, have recently turned. I’m delighted to report that women have made amazing strides in the past 40 years – in the battle against cellulite. And even more than that. In fact, in the past ten years alone, for reasons unfathomable to me, two different women have received promotions I totally deserved simply because they were more qualified than I. Discrimination against men is real – and it’s everywhere.
I was recently astounded to read that the USA has more prisoners per capita than any other country in the world, easily surpassing #2 Russia. Did you know that the USA makes up just 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners? All I can say is WAY TO GO, AMERICA!
We now have over 2 million Americans living in prison (several million more if you include New Jersey). The cause of the explosion in our inmate population over the past thirty years is primarily thanks to the incredible success of our War on Drugs, and only secondarily because of the many cast members of Jersey Shore who have served time.
A thoughtful examination of America’s War on Drugs leads to only one obvious conclusion: By any standard (other than reducing the level of our nation’s rampant drug abuse problem), this war has been an overwhelming success. The only thing left to do is hang a Mission Accomplished banner atop the fence along the U.S. – Mexican border.
Thanks to our impressive victory in the war on drugs, we have corralled thousands of our nation’s most dangerous habitually stoned South Park viewers and thrown them into the Graybar Hotel. Law-abiding Americans can now sleep safely, knowing they no longer have to fear that a deranged pothead might break into their home during a late night Harold and Kumar movie marathon in search of Doritos or other snack foods with dangerously unhealthy levels of high-fructose corn syrup.
The United States shares a border with its neighbor to the north, Canada, that’s 5,525 miles long – or if you happen to be Canadian, that’s 8,891 kilometers – not that anybody really uses kilometers, mind you. Did you know that our border with Canada is the longest unprotected border in the world? I’ll bet there are a lot of things you don’t know about our friendly neighbor to the north.
As someone who has been married to a Canadian for 25 years, I am an expert on appreciating the subtle cultural differences between our two nations. I continue to be surprised by how little most Americans know about the great nation of Canada. When asked, What’s the capital of Canada?, 55% of Americans guessed Toronto. Another 25% chose Montreal. And 15% responded, Could you repeat the question? The correct answer, of course, is Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
Many Americans think of Canadians as beer-swilling, hockey-playing, toque-headed, parka-wearing moose-hunters, whose favorite food is a beaver tail pastry, covered in maple syrup. In reality, only a small minority of Canadians are moose hunters. Most prefer to hunt caribou. The true picture of Canada is much more nuanced and includes Royal Canadian Mounties officiating curling matches on floating pack ice.
The sad truth is that most Americans know next to nothing about our next-door neighbors to the north. Time to set the record straight. Here are seven widespread myths (only two of which I’ve been spreading) about Canada and Canadians.
Every now and then I dip into the View from the Bleachers Reader Mail Bag to check out reader comments. I like to hear what my loyal following has to say about my recent posts. It may surprise you to know that my humor blog is (hardly ever) read by people all over the world – from Melbourne to Moscow to Mogadishu, and everywhere in between.
Whenever I wonder whether anybody is paying any attention to my posts, I need look no further than the blog’s comments section to discover that spammers from around the world are regularly checking out my web site. How flattering, I must say. And they always have something positive to say.
As a professional humorist and three-time Golden Globe nominee, I have found that coming up with original, entertaining topics to write about each week is a formidable challenge. But when I stop to read the highly personal reader feedback of spammers from places like Istanbul, I am reminded that this labor of love is well worth it. One week I had over 800 comments from an eclectic collection of web sites, most of which, I sheepishly admit, I had never heard of. At the risk of sounding immodest, the feedback from these spammers has been almost universally effusive. Many times, the comments are surprisingly coherent, if you can just decipher the mangled syntax.
If you’re reading this post, I have bad news for you. It means you did not get cosmically picked up by God in last weekend’s grand Rapture event. But don’t despair. There still is plenty of time to become a true believer. In case you missed the Rapture because you were glued to the Real Housewives of New Jersey marathon on E! TV all last weekend, you missed the news that last Saturday, May 21, 2011 was the official date of the Rapture, according to Biblical scholar and Christian Radio broadcaster, Harold Camping.
The Main Event – known by many as the Raptapalooza – took place this past Saturday at precisely 9pm Eastern Time (check your local listings for the time in your area). According to Christian Scripture, the Rapture – also known as Judgment Day – is the Must-See End-Times event, during which all true believers who are still alive as the end of the world approaches are taken from the earth by God and raised up into Heaven. Those who failed this faith-based litmus test are required, according to Scripture, to endure several more months or years (depending on which expert you believe) of foreboding times known as the Tribulation. During the Tribulation, one seriously pissed-off God Almighty inflicts upon the slackers who missed the Rapture Bus a smorgasbord of pain and suffering, including pestilence, earthquakes, floods, famine, and spiraling gasoline prices. By all accounts, it’s a bleak existence – sort of like what I imagine life would be like without Starbucks or having only a dial-up Internet connection. A Hell on earth.
According to the latest news reports, there was actually only one good Christian deserving enough to be lifted up to the Heavens in the Rapture this past weekend. The lucky winner turned out to be a 33-year-old unemployed carpenter named Jesse Caruthers of Wichita, KS. Jesse leaves behind an estimated 6,892,485,201 unworthy people still trapped on the planet earth to await a series of cataclysmic disasters, starting with the season finale of Dancing with the Stars. Jesse told his neighbor, Ed Whitley, shortly before his ascension into Heaven how excited he was that his wife, Doris, and their three sons were going to meet Jesus. Apparently, Doris and the boys were not quite the devout, deserving Christians they had led Jesse to believe, as they stayed back with the other 6.9 billion sinners.
The National Football League is taking decisive action in response to complaints about horrendously bad officiating by the replacement referees, who were brought in due to the lockout of referees by the league.
