Jean Van de Velde (anybody remember him?) wants to play in the Women's British Open next year. He is best remembered for failing to win the 1999 British Open when he shot a triple bogey seven on the 72nd hole when even a six would have won for him, and then losing in a play-off. I guess he figures winning the women's open would be easier. This is a reaction to the announcemenmt by the Royal and Ancient powers that be that they plan to let sixteen year old phenom Michelle Wie attempt to qualify for next year's Open Championship, a tournament which is, as its name implies, open to all players (they just have to be good enough). It has never claimed to be for men only, nor has it really had to, as the best hundred plus golfers in the world have always been men. The women's open, on the other hand, has always been for women only.

Is Van de Velde trying to make some sort of statement here? Undoubtedly. But what exactly? I guess he doesn't think it's "fair" that a woman can play in a "men's" event (remember that it really isn't) but a man can't play in a women's event. Well let's follow that line of reasoning for a bit. Suppose that some court rules that women's tournaments have to open themselves up to men. What would happen next? Would the next tier of men's players move in and capture all the open spots, eventually earn exempt status, be joined by more men until eventually there were no women able to qualify for the "women's" tournaments? Possibly. And what would we have then? Something very much resembling the buy.com tour, or whatever it's called this year. Nobody is really all that interested in watching the second tier of men's golfers play, agreed? So all they would have succeeded in doing is ruining the women's tour and replacing it with the second level men's tour. Meanwhile, there are still a lot of women golfers that could start up another tour that these patheteic loser whiners could try to ruin again and on and on until they figured out that nobody wants them and they could just all go away or, maybe, try to get good enough to play with the men.

Or maybe that would never happen. Maybe most of the guys have enough self-esteem that they wouldn't be interested in playing women's events. Maybe it's just Van de Velde that needs to get straightened out. How about letting him play and finish 14th or maybe 25th or something? Wouldn't that be cool? Or maybe he could be leading after 71 holes and choke all over again! Food for thought.

My friend List Boy has extrapolated my top ten favorite bands list into a whole blog of his own. Check it out if you like at http://toptenner.blogstream.com
Anyway, I decided to post another one (of mine) here. So here are the top five (ten's too tough for this one) songs that I like but have a tough time admitting that I do.

(I like to do them in reverse order, like Letterman.)

Number 5: Magic Man by Heart Not that shocking maybe, Heart was sort of rockin' though not really in my opinion but I've always liked this one. Good guitar, good vocal and reminds me of my senior year in H.S., a time when the times they were a changin' (for me, anyway).

Number 4: Harmony by Elton John E.J. went way over the line into happy sappy crappy pop sometime later in the seventies (or maybe I was the one changing, hmmm...) but this was and is a favorite of mine. Nice melancholy sound, simple tune with just enough of an arrangement to do it up right.

Number 3: Close to You by the Carpenters I guess you can tell why I don't like to admit to it (the Carpenters for crissake!) and this could easily be number one on my list because it is number one in difficulty to cop to but what can I say? Karen's voice is just too much. She could sing a grocery list (or could if she was still alive anyway) or the news or something and you'd have to listen, at least for a while. Why are the best ones always doomed to die young?

Number 2 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Elton John again. Same as number 4. This was my favorite song before I turned on to real rock music. And this brings us to ...

Number 1 Old Fashioned Love Song by Three Dog Night My favorite from the time I was ten until... sometime later. I still play it late at night sometimes when I'm cleaning up downstairs, it's one of those songs I'll just never get tired of. Very under-appreciated band those guys. I still like all their other ones too.

It's interesting to hear Saddam Hussein's lawyers crying about his client's "rights". I know that's what lawyers do and a good fair above-board trial is what is needed here (the world watching and all) but Amnesty International is involved? On Husseins behalf? Right there is irony defined. Go team!

I was listening to news on the radio and reading something else so I missed the start but they were talking about some debate or legal proceeding or something somewhere as to the teaching of the theory of intelligent design. You've probably heard of it; it's really just creationism masquerading as science, isn't it? The idea seems to be that life/the Universe is so complex that some great intelligence must have created it. Wouldn't it then follow that that intelligence is so great and so complex that something must have created it? And that that new creator was so super complex that something must have created it? Why is it that some people cannot accept the Universe as infinite and eternal but they can accept a creator of the Universe as infinite and eternal? Selective disbelief? Selective belief? How about believing what you want and disbelieving anything that gets in the way of that belief? And calling it "faith" and acting like it's laudable. Comments?

Joe Theismann has a way with words. I'm not quite sure what that way is. He likes to use lots of them. He might be getting paid by the word, I don't know. I think he feels like he sounds more intelligent if he fluffs his sentences up with lots of words. The results are often hilarious, well funny anyway. Here are three of his gems:

(Speaking on the subject of what team A needed to do to stop team B's offense) "They have to not let him (Team B's QB) have the opportunity to be able to get set up in the pocket."

(Talking about Notre Dame's football program) "... one of the storied collegiate programs in the history of college football".

(On the subject of using instant replay on the field) "...we have it in the NFL to address the erroneous errors that occur."

Go Joe!