Sour Grapes for Tuesday, August 7th

Whaja say Homer?

The devil made me do it
It seems a shame that a certain Representative missed the point of the joke about the ‘roaches’ misprint in a local paper and the play on words I used about it in my last column. I’m sorry he misunderstood it. I’ll try to write more clearly in future.

As for my ‘Lucerific loyalty’ to the current administration I think Stanley, or his ghostwriter, has been hanging around the comic book section a bit too much. I must admit it made me laugh out loud when I read it and still gives me a giggle when I think about it. I still think HR 15-139 is barking up the wrong tree but I’m not growing horns over it.

It does, however, look like I owe Stanley Torres an apology. If he says he didn’t ever drive that vehicle our tax dollars funded for him for 3 months last year we should believe him. I guess he let someone else drive that car and get the benefit of the $2,413.00 taxpayer dollars spent. I commend him for sending the vehicle back. I’m not too sure who used the $1,592.00 tax dollars he spent on fuel as reported in his unaudited, but voluntarily submitted expense disclosure of April 23rd, 2007 but I’m sure none of it went into his own tank. That four thousand bucks is certainly less than most other lawmakers spend on transportation, that’s for sure.

I admire Stanley for his independent stand on a lot of issues and his willingness to tilt against the windmill on issues he believes are important to the people of the CNMI. I must also admit that his PR image is that of a complainer….something I would never, ahemmmm, stoop to. We’re birds of a feather, Stanley…let’s talk about it over a cold one at Hamiltons.
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SEAFIX
It is, or should be, a remarkable occasion when a person or a group does something nice for the whole community. I mean the term remarkable, not in the ‘rarity’ usage, but meaning we should remark upon the occurrence. That’s what I’m doing right now and I ask you to please make note of it to your friends and neighbors too.

Seafix, a marine repair company and general machine shop among other offerings has, at their own cost, repaired, welded, painted, refurbished and reassembled the large playground facility down in Susupe at Kilili Beach. It was in unsafe condition and was about to be condemned and torn down by DPW when Seafix and their crew decided to step in and fix the equipment for free.

They deserve our thanks and they deserve more than that. The next time you need something welded, or a part fabricated or something fixed on your boat or some piece machined or designed for your car or house, please call the folks at Seafix and do business with them. Tell them you appreciate what they did for the kids on Saipan and you are using their service as a way of showing that thanks.

I’m not in any way connected to the Seafix company or it’s affiliates. I have used their services a couple of times to repair my small boat, and they did an excellent job at a reasonable price each time. But I will go out of my way to use their services again just to say ‘thanks for the playground’, and I hope you do the same.
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Better Batter
American baseball slugger Barry Bonds is about to break the record for home runs set by Hank Aaron about thirty years ago. Aaron had finally bested the record held by Yankees star Babe Ruth had set 40 years before that so we can see that it is a feat not easily bettered.

The hoopla that surrounds the current record breaking attempt centers around performance enhancement. Specifically, Bonds has been accused of using steroids as an aid to improve his body’s ability to perform the rigorous movements necessary to smack a home run in the Major Leagues. Purists say his record shouldn’t count, or at best it should be “asterisked” to indicate the number of homers may have been spuriously obtained.

That brings up an interesting question. Just what is ‘performance enhancement’ and where should we draw the line? Should we draw a line at all? Why? Consider the fact that athletes routinely strive to better themselves. They lift weights, run with heavy shoes, exercise relentlessly, train and do all sorts of other things to make themselves better than they are naturally. In other words they enhance their natural performance.

Should Tiger Woods prodigious accomplishments on the golf course be asterisked to indicate that he was the first to use weight training to enhance his performance? Others followed but others followed the use of steroids as an enhancement too. Should I, out of shape and inept with bat and ball, be able to compete on an even playing field with top level athletes because they are not allowed by some rule to better themselves at all?

Should we ‘dumb down’ adult athletic achievement to the lowest common denominator for the sake of some arbitrary purist theory of what is acceptable enhancement? Why was the line drawn in the sand at that particular point? Why was any line drawn at all? Maybe we should let those adults who are best at their sport pay whatever price THEY are willing to pay to become even better. Who are we to decide for them? Can they still eat Wheaties?
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Quote of the week: Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it. -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)

Bruce A. Bateman writes Sour Grapes when the moon is full and the mood strikes. Stay tuned for each exciting episode.
“Yes, he is opinionated.”
Email: bbateman@pticom.com
Blog: http://saipanuvian.blogspot.com/