Columns

If you are old enough to remember watching Green Acres, you likely will recall how Oliver Wendell Douglas had to climb a pole outside his bedroom wall – which slid open, conveniently – to place a call through Sam Drucker in Hooterville that would be relayed to his neighbors or beyond.

One of those droll little Facebook cartoons appeared in my news feed the other day. I don’t know where these originate or recall who passed this one along, but the punch line went something like: “I wish there was a filter for ‘ignore political comments,’ so I don’t lose all my friends between now and the election.”

The popular cable news and commentary program The O’Reilly Factor begins the same way every time it is aired. As the host looks into the camera, he points at the viewer and says, “Caution! You are about to enter the ‘no spin zone’!”

Whether you are a fan of O’Reilly or not, you have to at least be sympathetic to his stated goal, which is to get to the real facts by cutting through all the political rhetoric, canned responses and misinformation that nearly all campaign speeches and most news programs have become.

One of the travesties of what has become of the modern Olympic Games that was not caused by programmers at NBC is the inclusion of BMX bicycle racing as a full-fledged medal sport.

You know BMX, that’s when oversized children and underaged adults catapult themselves over hill and dale while riding bicycles too small for your 11-year-old.

At the risk of sounding my age, why is this an Olympic sport? How does it rank with running, jumping, swimming, diving and moving balls around with hands, feet, heads and sticks? Which god on Mount Olympus thought of this?