Oddball Stuff Here…

Today is World Toilet Day.  It is a day sponsored by the United Nations every year that intends to inspire “action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and help attain Sustainable Development Goal 6, which promises sanitation for all by 2030.”  According to the website dedicated to this event, 4.2 billion people live “without safely managed sanitation”.  That is approximately 55% of the people on the planet – and the UN thinks this will be resolved by 2030.  Good luck with that.

Oh, by the way, the “theme” for this year appears to be:

• No one left behind.

Seriously…

There is an international sports story percolating at the moment.  Rick Maese had a report in the Washington Post recently about some conflict that exists between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the US Anti-Doping Agency.  This story has more than a few threads that have gone beyond “interwoven” and have arrived at the stage of “entangled”.  At issue is a bill introduced into the US Congress that would allow the US to apply fraud and racketeering laws to conspiracies to dope athletes.  For a thorough explanation of the issues, here is a link.

I am of two minds on this matter.

1. The IOC and WADA oppose the legislation saying it goes too far.  The IOC and WADA are not the most trustworthy entities on the planet, and I am loath to align myself with their positions on any matter more nuanced than the rising of the sun in the east.
2. Enacting broad legislation into law in the US opens the door to prosecutorial zeal and over-reach – neither of which is beneficial to society.

The fact is that doping exists; the doping-cheaters are always one step ahead of the doping-authorities and people who believe that situation is going to be changed by legislation are simply dopes.

OJ Simpson is back in the news.  Don’t get excited, he has not yet found the real killers; this is about a totally different matter.  TMZ reports that OJ has filed suit against The Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas over an incident from several years ago.  According to the lawsuit, the hotel escorted OJ off the premises and presented him with a note saying that he was banned from the hotel for life due to drunken and disorderly conduct in the hotel.  Evidently, word of this incident and banishment got out and OJ now claims that he was defamed by the hotel because he was neither drunk nor disorderly in the casino.

Given the interactions of OJ Simpson and the US system of jurisprudence over almost the last 25 years, I personally think it would be extremely difficult to defame his character over a matter of inebriation.  According to a report ion the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the suit seeks at least $30K plus undetermined punitive damages and attorney’s fees.  Maybe – given the amount of time he has spent there – OJ Simpson has come to like being in a court room…  Hopefully, this matter will go away quietly because – truth be told – this really does not matter.

The Super Bowl halftime show next February will feature Shakira and Jenifer Lopez as the headline acts.  Knowing that these next comments will bring scorn and derision upon me, I’ll state them anyway:

• I would not know Shakira from Shaquille O’Neal – – except for the fact that I know why Shaquille O’Neal is famous.
• Until I did a Google check about two minutes ago, I had no idea that Jenifer Lopez was a singer.  I thought she was an actress and a celebrity who was engaged to Alex Rodriguez.

Given those two admissions of ignorance, you can safely deduce that I will not be magnetically drawn to the TV set to watch his extravaganza while the coaches and players are cooling their heels in the locker rooms.  Here is my perception of Super bowl halftime:

• It is a 30-minute break in the reason everyone has tuned into this telecast in the first place and it has nothing to do with that basic reason.
• It is a time for the audience to take a bathroom break – – assuming that all of us are watching in a place where toilets and sanitation facilities are not only readily available but are also properly functional – – and then to grab another beer to recharge one’s kidneys.

Admit it; until 30 seconds ago, you did not think there was a linkage between World Toilet Day and the Super Bowl halftime show…

Finally, in keeping with today’s celebration of World Toilet Day plus my personal perception of the real purpose of halftime during the Super Bowl, it seems appropriate to close with a focused definition from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“Toilet:  A type of chair without which many people would never get any reading done.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………