Soccer's Version of Glenn Beck

Oye.  This is really a message board rant, but I'm worked up.  Bear with me.

I'm a big soccer fan.  And, as it happens, a BigSoccer fan.

BigSoccer is a gigantic soccer-devoted message board.  It draws fans of the beautiful game from all walks of life and all corners of the globe.  I've been there so long that I've achieved moderator status in a couple sections of it.  It's the first website I check every time I hit the net. 

And as anyone who's ever even been on the Internet can tell you, no matter what topic is being discussed, there's a lunatic fringe who believes something completely outrageous and completely nuts.  The go-to topic for these ShortBus regulars is promotion and relegation for American soccer.

And their insane leader is a schmuck named Ted Westervelt.

Shoot First -- Now Ask Questions

OK.  I'm not a lawyer.  I'm not a cop.  A gun owner, a parent, a district attorney, or a neighborhood watch guy.  I'm just a fictional bus driver. (Unless you're currently on the ShortBus, in which case, I'm just kidding.  Same time tomorrow.)

So while I'm certainly not an expert on law enforcement, I do watch the news.  And the worry du jour for the last couple years has been:  The right number of teams for the College Football Playoff.  Well, and also police shootings.

The Internet and the news and social media and the talk shows -- they've all been flooded with stories of the big bad policeman shooting down the unarmed in cold blood... or incompetence, or just stupidity.  And it's a problem.  I won't deny that.  It needs to be addressed.  But I do think that sometimes people get swept up in a frenzy and forget to see the forest for the trees.  Dateline:  Cleveland.

Crewsing for a Bruising

Well, it's been two days, and I still want to hang myself from a shower rod.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge sports fan.  What my favorite sport or what my favorite team is depends on what time of year you ask me.

But I can say without hesitation that for the last decade-plus, my biggest sports obsession has been my hometown Columbus Crew SC.

Internment is awesome

I usually like to inject some humor into these posts, but this one has me just straight pissed.  So short and sweet:

Sad Mets Fan

OK, the Royals won.  Great.  Good for them.

I'm a Mets fan, but I actually mean that sincerely.  If they hadn't just made me hate them with the white hot intensity of 1,000 kidney stones, I'd really love them.  They just play the right way.  I don't know if I've ever watched a team that the word "relentless" was a better fit for.  Props to them.

But I do need to vent off a little of my feelings about my Mets. 

Sharia Law Arrives. Apparently. I guess.

OK, so here I was today.  Enjoying my birthday, driving the ShortBus around town to the various nuthouses, drunk tanks and churches, picking up my usual customers and going through generous quantities of Windex on the windows that they lick during their ride.  (OK, that's a fabrication.  I actually don't enjoy birthdays.)

And I'm wrapping up my day, and I check my Facebook feed.  And I see something that just riles me up.  It's a link shared by a friend of mine (who I won't name, as I don't want to embarrass him) to a right-wing propaganda page (who I won't name out of principle).  It's a photo of about a dozen people (women, presumably) dressed in the full head-to-toe burkas that are the trademark of the way Islam treats women.  It's a photo designed to spark immediate outrage in the minds of most Americans who, rightly so, believe that women should be treated equally under the law. 

The caption on this photo reads:  "Sharia Law has no place on American soil.  Please like and share if like millions of Americans you have had enough!!"

Caitlyn, Schmaitlyn

OK... so via someone's facebook feed last week, I was made aware of this:

(Edit:  Apparently, the source for the picture is gone.  It's a picture of Kaitlyn Jenner with a caption asking people to "like" if they agree that the media should be talking about things that matter and not this national freak show.)

Hmm.

I have two seemingly completely different takes on this one.