I've been on the giving and receiving end of affairs.

All I've learned is that it's a shitty way to behave.

Sure, there might be some special circumstance that seems ameliorating, and in a minute percentage of affairs such a circumstance might make the affair somewhat acceptable.

Virtually always, though, it's a shitty thing to do. The cheating spouse is being shitty to someone to whom they've sworn loyalty, and the lover is aiding and abetting that shittiness, reveling in it.

If a person finds him/herself wanting to have an affair, they need to end or fix the marriage. If it can't be fixed, then face yourself, show some dignity and honor and leave.

But a cheating spouse is just that: a cheater, someone deficient in character, someone selfish.

And at the end of the day, the cheating spouse's lover is cut from the same cloth.

Stop being a part of something deceitful, dishonorable, and selfish. Sack up, buddy, and find someone else to play with.

I think I listened to Murmur and nothing else for about six months straight back in college, and still have a healthy collection of early early bootlegs. Finding REM back in the early 80s was like discovering a new country.

I worshiped this band. When I saw them on the Fables tour at a bowling alley in Dallas, Bill Berry was hitting golf balls in the fun-center entryway as we came in for the show. Hardly anyone knew who he was. That night, when Feeling Gravity's Pull opened the show, you knew you were in one of the coolest places on earth at that particular moment. All the albums up through Document were true gems.

Like many others, I fell away, too, over the years. Personally, I loved Up, and wish they'd kicked on from there. But they seemed to retreat from that new frontier, falling back on an a more cautious idea of what REM should be, and I wish they hadn't. There were some stunning songs on that album, as there have been on every release.

But I'll get Accelerate, and simply tell the guys thanks for having class and being that band that was, to a lot of my generation, the soundtrack to some of the best days of our lives.

The penalty thing isn't so bad once you've accepted it. Normal time, injury time, extra time, penalties. When seen as an inevitable final piece, the whole time you're thinking, "Please god, don't let it go to the penalty crapshoot!"

Not perfect, but...

On another note, hard to feel sorry for Terry, one of England's least transcendent stars. Or Chelsea, benefactors of Roman Abramovich's unlimited spending (a team that historically was nothing until he arrived). Or Drogba, a massively talented but petulant and diving whiner.

And I'd be saying the same things about Utd., because what's really a shame is the lock that Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have on the Champions League spots in England. Love Ronaldo, Rooney, but can't stand the money and prestige advantage they've consolidated that relegates any team not owned by egomaniacal billionaire an also-ran, year-in, year-out. Champions League money, the desire for stars to play in the Champions League spotlight...It's not good for the breadth of the game.

It's always hard when a kid has an innate advantage that's really overpowering. Happens in all-boy leagues all the time.

Parents bitch, from both sides, because it can render the competition sort of ridiculous, and make the teammates virtual spectators. And you hate playing a team that has one of those players. It's frustrating when kids can be on such different levels just because of varying rates of physical maturation, etc.

But I don't really know what you do. It doesn't seem fair to ban the kid, male or female. And this doesn't seem to be about gender.

Maybe there's a compromise, if she stays in that league...Capping her minutes, or point totals? Seems contrived, I know. And certainly it'd be cool if she could play up with other kids more her size. Sometimes being blessed with a huge natural advantage can be a curse, until you move up where there's usually less disparity.

But you see these high-school phenom football players that are like men among boys, and they don't get banned. But the kids are older.

I see the Democratic circular firing squad has indeed been assembled once again. Thanks, Hil. Love ya.