Sometimes you'll go along with anything, just to end the suspense.

       Thomas Hicks, Olympic Marathon winner, being helped across the finish line, having been heavily dosed on a near fatal combination of strychnine and alcohol.

 

Hicks was not even the first to cross the finish line.  Frederick Lorz of New York had stopped running after nine miles when his manager gave him a lift in his car for ten miles, after which the vehicle broke down.  Lorz then returned to the Olympic stadium to fetch his clothes where he was greeted as the winner.  He went along with it until the truth came out, after which he was banned from the games for life.  Reinstated the following year, he ran the Boston Marathon and won.

 

A Cuban postman Felix Carvajal also participated, but having lost his money in a crap game in New Orleans, he lacked the funds for proper equipment and ran the race in his leather street shoes, stopping to chat along the way and at one point, feeling peckish, for something to eat.  The green apples he plucked in a roadside orchard gave him stomach cramps, and he was forced to drop out of the race. 

 

Strychnine as a performance-enhancement drug has since been banned from the Olympic games and is now better known as an effective rat poison and ingredient in various recreational street drugs, although Hicks retained his gold medal as the winner.  Out of the 31 contestants, he was one of several who nearly died, and he retired the next day.

 

Now, I understand that sometimes you want to make the best of a bad situation, don't you.  You're an Olympic official, it's the last day of the games, (although the sideshow exhibitions and carnival atmosphere will last until November), you see that poor half-dead fool being dragged along and you think, for pity's sake give it to him.  Anything to get it over with, right?

And I'm sure most of you this weekend were thinking this very thought when you read about the escalating sword rattling and increased threats of the US President against Iran.  You've read the headlines, "Bush Ready to Bomb Iran," and you've heard the inside sources quoted saying "Inevitable," "They've got it all mapped out," and "Don't be surprised," so I'm sure you've said to yourself, "Fine.  Just let Bush do it and get this whole end-of-the-world thing over with.  Bring it on.  Only, for godssake make it happen before my next mortgage payment is due."

 

May I caution you, however, Gentle Reader: having worked long ago for a certain bank where I was entrusted with the important task of typing up the "Instructions for Continuing Operations and Collections in the Event of Nuclear Holocaust," let me assure you that corporate lenders of all kinds (that means credit card and mortgage companies and the bank that issues that debit card of yours) know exactly how they will charge your account and collect their fees off your incinerated ass.  You aren't getting off the hook for anything, Armageddon or not.  ["Armageddon OUT of Here!" you say?  In your dreams.]

No, far more serious than Bush's Next War (which is inevitable, I agree) is the coming backlash against the gays.  You heard me.  This is not about Haggard, Foley, Craig or any of your standard issue Republican hypocrite.  This is about Larry and Howard. 

That's right.  I'm talking about the tell-all "Book"  by former MSNBC "news journalist" Rita Cosby.  OK! Magazine has already dropped Larry Birkhead like Fifth Period French because Rita says the blond media darling "Dad" of Anna Nicole's baby Danielyn is in fact the homosexual lover of Howard Stern (the lawyer not the radio guy) and the two of them have been in cahoots all along to get Anna Nicole's money and baby!  They planned the whole thing!  It's all been a horrible charade! 

 

As my wise friend Justin says, Americans can be so dangerously naive about these things, and then they lash out, which is when it gets ugly.  We've seen it over and over again.  Chubby unpopular girl uses sexual favors to get attention, and the next thing you know the country's impeaching a president.  High school bully goes on a dry drunk, and the next thing you know the Middle East is blowing up.  Corporations bilk their employees and investors and -- okay, nothing at all happens, but you get the idea.

So the next time you see a really bad idea coming down the road, pumped full of drugs and looking like that skinny neighbor of yours who used to be cute before he went on a month long crystal run, maybe you'll just shrug and say, go for the gold, Larry and Howard.  Go for the gold, Rita.  Go for the gold, George.  Just Do It.  Get it over with.  Take us all down with you.

But don't think that it ends there.