Ernest Hemingway (or somebody else) once said those who have never seen a bullfight have no business criticizing the “sport.” [sic] I agree. The bloodlust and thrill of watching death cannot be exaggerated. I have never seen a bullfight but I know. I know because of my own spine-tingling episodes with killing and torturing. I think it is safe for me now to confess to my deeds that happened 65 years ago, especially since nobody can testify to what I did and most people will assume I am engaged in a lying boast. Here is what I did. I raped and tortured three girls, killing one of them because she pleaded loudly for her life.

Ah, what joy it was. I am afraid that if I revealed details, people would criticize me, insult me and, worst of all, try to put me in jail. Like Hemingway, I say that unless you have done it yourself, you have no business criticizing me. And to this day I have nothing but respect and admiration for matadors. It is with much sadness I have just learned that the sport is in decline. Animal rights advocates have been hot on the trail of bull breeders for five years, and bullfighting once the purveyor of much pleasure will soon be a thing of the past. In 2007 there were 3,700 bullfight festivals in Spain but this has shrunk annually to 2,300. It is a shameful time in Spain’s history. The region of Catalona has actually banned the great national pastime altogether. The economy is crumbling. Bullfighting is still a $3.3 billion industry, and I pray it won’t get lower because 10,000 people from matadors and breeders down to bullring workers and promoters desperately depend on the deaths of bulls so they can go on living. Juan Pedro Domecq, a breeder, says the the economic crisis is huge. Small breeders are being driven out of business and matador colleges are suffering, too. The big property boom in bullfight towns has burst. In somewhat odd language, the survival of the bulls is “killing us” says Mr. Domecq. Bullfight attendance is down 10% in just the last year, and bulls are living longer. To say, as animal rights spokespersons do, that that this survival trend is all for the good makes an anti-macabre joke of the matter.

What can be done to halt this spread of life? Nothing much, I’m afraid. Some people always preach education but where will that get lovers of corridas? Everything one needs to know to make an honest objective assessment is already out there. Sniff the hundreds of gallons of fresh blood and you will know all you need to know. Until I was ten years old, my mother prepared a pound of bloodied flesh for me twice weekly. So lightly did she cook the martyrs that I could hear them groan as I stabbed my knife deep into their flesh. Each stab yielded exquisite pleasure for me. How I miss those days!

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OLÉ1 This will help cure those lowlives who are not passionate about bullfights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=jPE33jwbTy0

For the Ladies. CHRISTINA SANCHEZ! Magnifica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uxf3B22Ono&feature=endscreen&NR=1

I say, LOVE HER OR GET GORED!

[I can plagiarize titles all I want. I don't usually give credit where credit is due but, for the benefit of the nosey, the above is by the master of wit, Noel Coward. Anyway, I changed "about" to "at," and that makes it all mine, Mine, I say, MINE!]

Tiger Woods is coming in for more than his fair share of criticism lately because he didn’t disqualify himself for something he did over the weekend in a golf tournament (whose name I refuse to give you out of spite). Actually, his fair share of criticism is zero, as it was for his multiple acts of adultery. So far as I can see, and I see better than an eagle, only his wife was entitled to go on a rampage against him. The rest of us can think what we want without the stupendous chutzpah of going public.

Here is the right view of the matter: Who gives a flickendoodle whether Woods was naughty? Who gives a flapendoodle over Lance Armstrong’s many indiscretions? What’s it to you that Barry Bond’s needle is not sharp enough to help him elude the OUCH factor? Who was so stupid in 1920 as to be mad that Shoeless Joe Jackson wasn’t smart enough to respond to the little boy’s “Say it ain’t so, Joe”? with a “What’s it to you, you little schmuck kid?”

Be a sports fan if you want but deep emotional involvement in games is a sign that you haven’t grown up. Worse is that you encourage the capitalist swine to take advantage of you and millions of others. Nothing feeds the sports machine more than idolatry. If you think worshipping God is crazy, consider worship of Lebron James. If you got caught up in March Madness basketball then you are a certifiable lunatic and you deserve a laminated plaque that attests to that. If you agonize over whether James and other low-IQ billionaires of that ilk deserve to be billionaires then you contribute to the manna that falls from the sky into their wallets. Dan Moynihan coined the expression “benign neglect” several decades ago and if ever we need to practice it, it is now and forever more.

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Jessica (and the script writer) converts this homosexual song to a hetero but she’s good…and better looking than Noel Coward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCWKzqfZr60

March Madness, overflowing into April, and it is time for you to be even more stupid than you usually are, basketball fans, and that is plenty.

You want to watch a basketball game on TV. It should be 40 minutes long, but it is not. Here are the facts. [Provided by Wall St. Journal Research]

The game itself – 40 minutes.
Halftime – 22 minutes. Only because you are too dumb to complain. It is supposed to be 20 minutes.
Time-outs – 16 minutes and 11 seconds.
Foul shots (the clock stops) – 12 minutes 58 seconds.
TV time-outs to badger you with commercials, knowing you are too stupid to switch channels for fear you will miss something – 28 minutes six seconds.
“Stoppages” for no good reason. Example, a player crumbles to the floor with a broken leg. He should be rolled off the court and out of sight and not waste our time. We can give him sympathy the next day. That’s how Julie Bender, the HES director of basketball, used to order it back in the 40s and 50s.

Grand total – basketball 40 minutes, garbage 1 hour 36 minutes 24 seconds.

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There was a time when 9 minutes 29 seconds of entertainment was………….
9 minutes, 29 seconds. Here, for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw0Cm3iY-MU

Last night in the great state of Georgia, the NCAA held its championship. The average price for Monday tickets started between $300 and $400 last week and surged above $600 yesterday, according to SeatGeek data. Over the last 24 hours, the average price paid was $783. For most fans in the Georgia Dome it was only a healthy bar tab. Oh, yes, between drinks, a basketball game was played. As often happens, one team won, one team lost.

In Oregon, decades after his death 37 years ago, the legend of Steve Prefontaine lives on. Thousands of people in Portland and Eugene still walk through the streets wearing t-shirts that read “Go, Pre.” Blazers, emblazoned with his name fetch capitalist prices and he will forever be the Golden Boy, the Great White Hope of American distance running. He crashed to his death in an alcohol-induced auto accident when he was only twenty-three. We can, I suppose, argue over whether his death was premature or long overdue.

He was a typically overpraised American athlete, always just coming up short of his presumptive, well-earned destined greatness. He was like a Brooklyn Dodger – Wait ’till next year – and finally there was no next year. Cut down at the height of his adulation. There are memorials for him all over Oregon. One is at the place where his car flipped over and it reads:

For your dedication and loyalty
To your principles and beliefs…
For your love, warmth, and friendship
For your family and friends…
You are missed by so many
And you will never be forgotten…

I have no idea what those principles and beliefs were. College runners of his own era could not beat him, and he exulted over that. In turn, he could not beat international stars, and he and his faithful fan club were always perplexed. He came close to winning a bronze medal (for third place) at the 1972 Olympic Game in the 5 kilometer race (3.1 miles) but a dastardly Englishman dashed by him in the final strides. American sportswriters like to describe this as his being “deprived of a medal.”

There is at least one commercially successful movie about the life and times of Pre but, if you are lucky, you will be deprived of a chance to view it. It is shown on TV now and then but if you have come this far without ever seeing, it, hang tough. You can probably go without seeing it for the rest of your life.

I was reading an article about the great early basketball star, Lou Bender, and I noticed that after his playing days were over, Lou became an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY where his legal activities included prosecuting members of the German American Bund. ["Bund" mean "Federation," I think.] So, after finishing the piece on Lou, I moved on to a Wikipedia article on the Bund. Here are some excerpts. Useful information was also obtained from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/230640/German-American-Bund

The German-American Bund, also called Friends Of The New Germany, was an American pro-Nazi, quasi-military organization that was most active in the years immediately preceding the United States’ entry into World War II. The Bund’s members were mostly American citizens of German ancestry. The organization received covert guidance and financial support from the German government. Military drill and related activities were provided for adults and youths at Bund-maintained camps: Camp Siegfried, Yaphank, N.Y.; Camp Nordland, Andover, N.J.; Deutschhorst Country Club, Sellersville, Pa.; and elsewhere.

Anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi elements in the United States generally supported the Bund. The Bund included self-designated storm troopers, who affected the uniforms of the German Nazi SA. Mass rallies were held at such sites as Madison Square Garden in New York City. In 1939 the Bund’s total membership was about 20,000.

In December 1935 Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess ordered all German citizens to leave the Friends of New Germany (FOTNG), while also recalling all the group’s leaders to Germany. In March 1936, the German American Bund (AV) was established as a follow-up organisation for the FOTNG in Buffalo, New York. It elected a German-born American citizen Fritz Julius Kuhn, a veteran of the Bavarian infantry during World War I and an Alter Kämpfer of the Nazi Party, as the leader (Bundesführer) of the group. At this time, the Bund established a number of training camps, including Camp Nordland in Sussex County, New Jersey, Camp Siegfried in Yaphank, New York, Camp Hindenburg in Grafton, Wisconsin, Deutschhorst Country Club, in Sellersville, PA, Camp Bergwald, in Bloomingdale, NJ, and Camp Highland, in NY. The Bund held rallies with Nazi insignia and procedures such as the Hitler salute, and attacked the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jewish groups, Communism, “Moscow-directed” trade unions and the American boycotts of German goods. The organization claimed to show its loyalty to America by displaying the flag of the United States at Bund meetings, and declared that George Washington was “the first Fascist” who did not believe democracy would work.

Arguably, the zenith of the Bund’s history occurred on President’s Day, February 20, 1939 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Some 20,000 people attended and heard Kuhn criticize President Roosevelt by repeatedly referring to him as “Frank D. Rosenfeld”, calling his New Deal the “Jew Deal”,[SG: This may be the origin of this vile epithet], and stating his belief in a menacing Bolshevik-Jewish American leadership. Most shocking to American sensibilities was the outbreak of violence between protesters and Bund storm troopers. In the last week of December 1942, led by journalist Dorothy Thompson, fifty leading German-Americans including Babe Ruth signed a “Christmas Declaration by men and women of German ancestry” condemning Nazism, which appeared in ten major American daily newspapers. In 1939, a New York tax investigation determined Kuhn had embezzled money from the Bund. In an attempt to cripple the Bund, the New York district attorney prosecuted Kuhn.. [This is when, where and how our man, Lou Bender entered the story.] After the United States’ entry into World War II, the Bund disintegrated.

……………………..
Lou’s life was cut short in 1999 when he died of cancer at age 99 but he was survived by his wife of 75 years and by his eleven grandchidren and four great-grandchildren. I wish I knew what became of his basketballs and basketball jersey and shorts. I’d buy any of them for 200 bucks.

Suppose a burglar arrives home one day after a hard night’s burglarizing to discover that the loot in his thievery box has been stolen. He can brood over his loss but if he has no way to account for his money he will not call the police.

Singapore police are helping European authorities in their investigation of an international criminal syndicate alleged to have fixed soccer matches around the world. Some 680 matches across 15 nations involving 425 people are being scrutinized. Who was hurt by the fixing? In general, betting and gambling are illegal and those who lose money betting can only brood over their losses. They will not complain to the police because, all along, they have been trying to hide their assets from tax collectors. Presumably, they want to protect their losses, too, because they don’t want to call attention to their nefarious lifestyle. Gambling money is filthy lucre unless it is obtained under the auspices of a government that takes its cut, thereby legitimizing, after a certain fashion, a dubious activity.

Betting and gambling are time-honored ways of exchanging ill-begotten gains and losses. So far as I can tell, the government is the only loser if it hasn’t been allowed into the game, if it hasn’t been given a chance to take filthy lucre. Yet, for some hard-to-penetrate reason, casual observers of the sporting scene are angered when they discover gambling and fixing have been going on even in a sport in which they have not got a financial stake. Soccer fans are furious about the fact that matches have been fixed and bicycle enthusiasts are blind with fury to learn that Lance Armstrong cheated. As the level of play is ordinarily unaffected by gambling, (or the entire business would have collapsed centuries ago), even the aesthetics of games are unaffected. We are saddened and shocked to learn that our favorite basketball team has been “dumping” points, but we learn about this only weeks or months after the fact. Why, then, the impassioned outcry against cheating? Suppose team X is a 7 points favorite but the cheaters make sure to win by no more than 6 points. Whose ox got gored? The players make money and the bettors are about evenly divided between those who bet on the right side and those who bet on the wrong side. Who, then, is entitled to cry “Foul! I’ve been cheated.”? No one, so far as I can tell, because no one should have been betting on the game in the first place.

If you are scandalized by the fact that Lance Armstrong found a way to make his bike wheels turn rapidly and then refused to confess to that wickedness, think about this one.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP)

Organized crime gangs have fixed or tried to fix hundreds of soccer matches around the world in recent years, including World Cup and European Championship qualifiers and two Champions League games, Europol announced Monday.

The European Union’s police agency said an 18-month review found 380 suspicious matches in Europe and another 300 questionable games outside the continent, mainly in Africa, Asia and South and Central America. It also found evidence that a Singapore-based crime syndicate was involved in some of the match-fixing.

Europol refused to name any suspected matches, players, officials or match-fixers, saying that would compromise ongoing national investigations, so it remained unclear how much of the information divulged Monday was new or had already been revealed in trials across the continent.

Even so, the picture painted by Europol was the latest body blow for the credibility of sports in general, following cyclist Lance Armstrong’s admission that he used performance-enhancing drugs in all seven of his Tour de France wins.

”This is a sad day for European football (soccer),” Europol Director Rob Wainwright told reporters. He said criminals were cashing in on soccer corruption ”on a scale and in a way that threatens the very fabric of the game.”

Europol said 425 match officials, club officials, players and criminals from at least 15 countries were involved in fixing European soccer games dating back to 2008.

Ralf Mutschke, director of security at FIFA, the world soccer body, said the report highlighted the need for soccer authorities and police to tackle corruption together.

”The support of law enforcement bodies, legal investigations, and ultimately tougher sanctions are required, as currently there is low risk and high gain potential for the fixers,” he said.

Mutschke said while FIFA can ban players, referees and club officials, it is powerless to sanction people not directly involved in the sport.

”For people outside of football, currently the custodial sentences imposed are too weak and offer little to deter someone from getting involved in match-fixing,” he said.

Europol is not a police force but provides expertise and helps coordinate national police across the 27-nation European Union. It said 13 European countries were involved in this match-fixing investigation, pouring through 13,000 emails, paper trails, phone records and computer records.

Its probe uncovered (euro) 8 million ($10.9 million) in betting profits and (euro) 2 million ($2.7 million) in bribes to players and officials and has already led to several prosecutions.

”This is the tip of the iceberg,” said German investigator Friedhelm Althans, who also said two World Cup qualification matches in Africa and one in Central America were among those under suspicion.

***************************
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-ZSVvQ_0FM

Not until the intrepid David Runciman, a frequent contributor to the prestigious London Review of Brooks, who calls ‘em as he sees ‘em, exposed Lance Armstrong last year and explained the full extent of his ignominy did we appreciate how awful a human being Armstrong is. Until 1996, Mr. Armstrong was merely a very fine professional bicyclist, perhaps in the top 10% of those in his profession. However, to quote Runciman, “Armstrong got a lucky roll of the genetic dice when he contracted the testicular cancer in 1996 that nearly killed him…. Cancer changed his body shape, making him much thinner and leaner.” It was cancer, even more than the drugs he used, that turned Armstrong into the superstar of superstars. Armstrong was outed once and for all.

Hell hath no fury like a scorned American public. It is true that few persons in the American public are bicycling fans. It is true that fewer than 2% of them can name a professional bicyclist other than Armstrong and Greg LeMond. It is true that under 1% of those who line the highways to see pro bikers whiz by would pay even 50 cents to watch if they were charged. It is true that Frenchmen who watch the Tour de France and many lesser competitions would not pay 5 Swiss francs to watch. [Also about 50 cents.] Still, what does it matter? Cheaters and liars must be brought to task.

Ignore the fact that in the U.S. there are few baseball or football fans. The average American cannot name three baseball teams that have minor league status. Nor does he know what leagues those teams he has heard of are in. He does not know because he does not care. Nor does he know why he has joined a chorus of nabobs who are nay-sayers to lying and cheating. He hates Lance Armstrong but does not know who Armstrong may have harmed by cheating. [I use "harm" in the technical legal/philosophic sense to mean much more than "offend." You cannot harm a person who has no stake in a matter under investigation.]
It was Spiro Agnew who rightly called out journalists for being nabobs of negativism. He could well have included John Q. Public.

Suppose a minor league baseball player performs seeming miracles before being called up to the majors. He confesses that he has been using performance enhancing drugs. Suppose he is lying. Why does he make this confession? Police know that is not uncommon for people to confess to murder and other crimes they did not do. The psychology of this is complex and we need not explore it. In the recent case of Armstrong, if Lance is indicted for his foul deeds, the prosecutor knows that the confession would be only part of the case he must build. People do retract their confessions.

It is not inconceivable that the baseball player who confesses to using drugs is a liar. He lies because all his teammates are using drugs and he is slightly embarrassed by his extraordinary God-given talents. Many a professional athlete (Michael Jordan is a good example) denies he is gifted. Black athletes in particular are offended by the idea that it is anything but hard work that makes them the successes they are.

Much more to the point is why the public, 98% of whom are not dedicated fans, care at all about who uses drugs and who doesn’t, and why are they so outraged by liars? If we discover that Cindy Crawford, who makes a very fine living promoting some wonder cosmetic as a facial cream, is a liar and never uses the stuff, would we be maddened to the point where we wish she would die? We know she is paid handsomely for those daily TV ads about her loveliness but is that why we excuse her lies? If we discover that the minor league baseball player does not use PEDs, do we want him dead? Does it matter in which direction an athlete lies if we have no stake in the matter? Should we turn with blind fury on Lance Armstrong now that we know he got so fit and strong because he had to battle against a lethal form of cancer? Should we say, “Mr. Armstrong, why weren’t you a good sport? Why didn’t you just die?”

If using drugs is of very little interest to us, why are we crazed about Armstrong’s lies? Were we crazed when Bill Clinton said he never had sex “with that woman”? Since most of us who are not cousins of Ken Starr did not give a damn about Ms. Lewinsky’s stained dress, we did not give a damn about Clinton’s unwillingness to pay for the martinizing. He lied and we expected nothing less. Lies can exacerbate a wrong but cannot convert innocent remarks to being bad. At least, not usually. If I say that I voted for Smith to be dog-catcher but I didn’t, do you want to end our friendship? How mad is your madness?

Lance Armstrong has given millions of dollars to cancer-fighting causes. What kind of awful person does that? It is a clear-cut case of self-promotion and literally dozens of writers have called him out for that. Lance’s face does not show he is contrite. So his protests to the contrary count for nothing. Where is his genuine repentance? [Never mind that we don't know what he should repent.] He is cold and calculating, and there are no worse sins than that. He will turn his cancer battles to his advantage (which, of course, you would never do) and that is proof enough of how super-saturated with evil he is. Yes, in time, Lance will die. Good riddance. Let his good deeds be buried with him. Remember only how horrible he was. Remember how the wheels of his bicycle turned. Much too quickly.

Remember that a person as bad as Armstrong comes along once in a lifetime.

As Mr. Shelley might put it, that is all you need to know.

First came The Ten. (1947) Then came the Second Ten. (1948) The evil “fellow-travelers (about 100) were exposed in 1950. Maddened by their own power, The Champions of Decency added 200 more names after 1950 until finally we cried out, ENOUGH! We could not believe all these people were enemies of the State, bent on bringing America to its knees.

Now, I would like to present my own list of vicious evil-doers. They are GHOST RIDERS IN THE MOUNTAINS All these men are MULTIPLE winners of the Tour de France and at least a dozen other annual major bike races.

Fausto Coppi – The Crown Prince of Dope.
Jacques Anquetil – The Emperor of all Juice, The master of the Syringe.
Lou Bobet – Golden Arm, Louie.
Raymond Poulidor – The Long suffering bridesmaid. 500 times runner-up in ONLY a dozen tries at the Tour de France. A mathematical wonder.
Eddie Merckx – The Heir Apparent to Emperor Jacques. Destroyed Fausto’s dream of being remembered as #2.
Bernard Hinault – Brash outsider who impressed with his big stack of needles.
Laurent Fignon – In-the-arm Larry. Gutsy. No tush for him.
GREG LEMOND - The freak who has gotten away with the claim, “Not me. Never touch the stuff.” Has cashed this in to the tune of about $150 million. And if you believe Greg, I’ve got a great bridge I can let you have for 50 bucks.
Miguel Indurain – Sniff, sniff, sniff. How high the moon; how high the high.
Jan Ullrich – The crybaby.

2002 – The winner was the Tour sponsor who shortened the stages because he (they) thought it would reduce dependency on illegal substances. We have a fancy name for these people – SCHMUCKS.

Lance Armstrong – Began a long streak of disqualifications from 1999 through to the time his arms couldn’t take the plunge any more. Lance fails the Resurrection of Nobility test in 2013 administered by Oprah Winfrey and other imbeciles who say, “Say it ain’t so, Lance, because we want to love you.” Even Chryl Crow doesn’t love him.
Alberto Contador – Finally. Exhausted after years of chasing Lance to the line.

There are twenty professional teams each of whom has about five riders. Average salary is about $250,000 per year. Work that out per revolution of a wheel and you can see these guys are the hardest working, lowest paid dopes in the sporting world. They pump themselves with “performance enhancing drugs” or kiss the sport goodbye. By lying about their use, they cheat roadside fans who pay nothing to watch them whiz by. The average fan is a crook, a liar, a cheat, a whiner, and, worst of all, A MORON. The fans in America have gotten up a petition that says,

LANCE, WE HATE YOU

If there is anything worse on this planet than a European biking zealot, it is am imbecilic part time critic of Lance Armstrong.

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You don’t deserve my goodness, Reader, because I recognize you for what you are – a critic of Lance Armstrong – which is code for Total Prick, Moron and Smug Bastard who thinks lying is the worst thing in the world. Still, here is a undeserved Goodie for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyDNnQbbkSQ

Hey, not to worry. Although each of you is hopeless in every imaginable way, THINK OF ME! I LISTENED TO VAUGHN Sing this song approximately 5000 times over a ten year period beginning in 1949 and sang along at least 1000 times. Nowadays, I sing it only once per week.