Rick Horowitz

The Rio Games -- And Those GOP Games

         MILWAUKEE -- I’m fine with Rio.

            Really. A great city, by all accounts, in a rising star of a country that deserves to be better known and better loved. And that’s even before you factor in some of the world’s greatest music, and the beaches, and Carnaval, and --

            So absolutely -- give the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio de Janeiro. To Brazil. To a part of the planet that’s never hosted the Olympics. I’m fine with it, even if it means that our neighbor just down the road, Chicago, takes a gold-medal hit to the ego.

            I’m happy for Rio. But it never would have occurred to me to gloat over Chicago’s loss. As a fellow American, I mean.

            Being a gracious competitor is one thing. Being a Republican apparatchik is something else again.

Steroids: The Breakfast of (Cheating) Champions

            When you’re tired of bein’ a wimp,

            And you’re fed up with watchin’ all your limbs hangin’ limp,

            When you’re sick of the teasin’,

            Now’s the time, now’s the season,

            And they’ll hardly remember they’ve been callin’ you “Shrimp.”

 

            Steroids…will build you up quick,

            Steroids…your neck’ll get thick,

            Steroids…your abs‘ll be brick,

            And you might just become a raving lunatic.

Olympic Lessons: He Watches, He Learns

             From this day forward, I stick my landings.

            There will be no big steps, or even small steps, on my landings.  And certainly no hops.  From now on, where I land is where I stand.

            I will never lose my grip.  Even if it means putting a pound of powder on my hands, and on everything I expect to touch, I will never lose my grip -- except when I have to demonstrate my release skills.  Then I will loosen my grip, but only temporarily, and it will be deliberate, and the judges will know the difference.

All Brett Favre, All the Time

    Click.
    “ -- your place for news.  Another earthquake rattles walls -- and nerves -- in China.  Continued signs of weakness in the domestic housing market.  And the presidential candidates slug it out on energy policy.
    “All this just ahead.  But our lead story this hour:  Brett Favre has lunch.  We’ve got Jim standing by in Green Bay with more.”

Bye-Bye, Brett

Perfect endings are for the movies. Real life tends to be a lot more complicated.

So let’s not fret too much that Brett Favre’s career didn’t have a perfect ending -- another fourth-quarter comeback, another laser-beam touchdown pass squeezed in somehow between two defenders, another Super Bowl appearance. Another Super Bowl victory.

If Brett’s not fretting, why should we?

Barry Bonds

I guess he can't just say that all the attention gave him a big head...