Castle Shima

In this house of make believe
Divided in two like Adam and Eve
You put out and I receive
Didnt you think you had to choose it?
That I alone would win or lose it?
Of all the places we were hiding, love
What was it we were thinking of?
-- from Secret World by Peter Gabriel

Tower View
I hadnt kept up with the news about the Martha Burke or the Masters until Fury had made a comment the other day about it. Martha is the woman who is trying to get Augusta National Golf Club, a privately owned club, to allow women to become members. Hootie Johnson, the president of the club, refuses to allow this to happen. Both have made pretty public statements about this issue, which eventually, brings up the media's own thoughts in the matter. Seth Davis, a writer for Sports Illustrated, has some comments here.

I have no issue with someone wanting equal rights, especially since I fall in a racial minority class. The issue I have is in which the way Burke is going about today's protest of the club.

Although the protest in itself makes sense, sueing the city council and the local sheriff makes no sense whatsoever, just because these people wont allow a protest in an unsafe area, or in this case, right in front of the club's gates, where cars and such go thru. City rules state that the protest must occur in a location in which the sheriff deems safe for the protestors, which in this matter, is two hundred yards away from the front gates. Burke notes that this isnt where she wishes the protest to occur so she is sueing the council and sheriff for suppressing her freedom of speech and the ability to gather where she is wishes.

Its no wonder we are such a litigious society. Not only is this a frivialous lawsuit which will waste the citizen's tax money, but its also plain stupid. No one has said she cant protest, but rather just not done in an unsafe place. If you wish to gather in an unsafe place, do it yourself. Dont drag others to get themselves killed in which is, quite frankly, a civil matter.

Augusta is a private club, funded by private citizens, not by the public in general. It would have made more sense to impact the club's funding; convince the current members to quit until they see female membership is necessary in order to keep the club in business.

We had discussed this earlier in the week so I dont know if anything has changed since then; I'm really not a fan of golf anyway. The push for equal rights is a good thing; the execution itself could have been better.

Out in The Yard
While I was out, I got to watch the Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix. It was an awesome race in which weather played a major role because a rainstorm had made the track extremely wet and drivers had to use alot of technique, not horsepower.

Many of the world's best drivers were out of the race early because of the weather damage, damage to their own cars, etc. This included the world champion Michael Schumacher, his team mate, Rubens Barrichelo, and Williams' own Juan Pablo Montoya. Ten drivers out of the original twenty two didnt complete the race.

David Webber, a Jaguar driver, had gone into a horrific spin, then brought his car under control and continued to race. Ten minutes later, Webber ended up crashing at nearly the same location which caused him to spin in the first place. This crash left debris on the track, including one of Webber's tires, which caused Renault's Fernando Alonso to crash moments later when he ran into it. Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt.

The big item for this race was that Jordan's driver, Giancarlo Fisichella, had taken the lead from McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen a lap or so prior to Alonso's crash; no one was really sure of the timing.

After the accident occurred, the race was stopped so that no one else could or would get hurt. F1 rules state that when a race is stopped, the person in the lead two laps prior to the stopage wins the race. Since Raikkonen was in the lead at the time, or so the judges thought, he was given the win, not Fisichella.

Apparently, the ruling judges of F1 have reversed their decision and given to the win to Fisichella. This was posted yesterday on the F1 web site.

I guess they got the timing issue resolved although I dont know if I necessarily agree with reversing the decision. It was tough enough for Fisichella to lose because of the rules, but the rules are there for a reason or else what is the point? Granted, the F1 site doesnt say why they reversed the decision so the initial ruling could have been wrong to begin with.

Maybe the rest of the sports world will follow this example.

Hey NY Giants! It really was pass interference despite the bad snap. You should be given the win since you were in the lead prior to the Terrill Owens touchdown.

Background Noise
I was finally able to pick up the dvd of Peter Gabriel's Secret World concert and am playing it for at least the third time. It was originally held in Italy in 1994 with the cd released shortly afterwards. I hadnt picked up the cd until 1998, but it quickly became one of my favorites. When the news came out about the dvd release, I began my impatient wait.

Every time my friends and I went to Best Buy, I would frantically scan the music dvd section in some hopes of finding it. My search on the net found that it wasnt in stock or it would be weeks before the vendor would get it. Argh!

So in yesterday's trip to pick up Red Dragon, my prize was finally gained. And the wait has been worthwhile. I dont get to time to watch real concerts since we dont get that many good bands here in town so this was a treat, even if the even occurred nearly ten years ago.

It drove me mad trying to remember who Gabriel's very attractive female back up singer was. Then I was reminded that the singer was none other than Paula Cole ("Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" and "I Dont Want To Wait" aka theme to Dawson's Creek). Rowr!

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* Reverse psychology's failing miserably
* It's so hard to be left all alone
* Telling you is the only chance for me
* Theres nothing left, but to turn and face you
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