I was, well, I guess it's called "country" when I was growing up too. At least, I lived in a rural area. And as a kid I engaged in high risk behaviors, sometimes with the permission of my parents, same as probably every other kid.

That such behaviors happened in the "country" didn't make them any less risky or any more excusable. I've even had my mother say to me as an adult, "I never should have let you do X. Don't you let my grandchildren do the same." See, a "country" woman who learned from her mistakes and urged her child not to repeat them.

In the "country" I also learned to read. And one of the things I can read, for example, is the air bag warning sticker that can be found in all cars these days, including, no doubt, the one she was driving with her child in her lap. You know, the one that explains how an air bag can cause injury or death to a child in the front seat. On my car, the sticker even has a icon of a child in an adult's lap behind the wheel with a red circle-slash through it -- Britney wouldn't even have to task her tiny brain reading actual words.

Being "country" doesn't mean you get to put your child at risk of death, Britney. It doesn't mean you're somehow obligated to be stupid, or free of the obligation to maintain the health and safety of your child.

Is King obligated to be in tune with the rest of the world?

Heavens, he talked about the precious World Cup, and even admitted liking it. What the hell do you want? We're in the thick of the NBA finals, a sport I care nothing about at all, but at least I understand that in a publication with a significant U.S. audience, that event bears more words of coverage than a month-long event in its first weekend.

Personally, the more people get in a snit about soccer, the more I dislike it and ignore it. The more someone pitches a hissy about the freaking World Cup, the more irrelevant to my life I find it to be. And I LIKE soccer.

Geez, get over it already. If Americans aren't as into soccer as the rest of the world, oh well. Why do you care? Watch the freaking games and enjoy them, and read the literally billions of worshipful column inches about the World Cup that can be found all over the internet.

Good grief.

"No instant gratification . . . I think that's why so many Americans have a problem with soccer."

So once again the fact that soccer isn't that popular in America is attributed to an alleged character defect. Couldn't possibly be a simple disinterest in the sport.

I rather like soccer. It's the holier-than-thou soccer fans that I find I don't care for.

Enjoy the game. But stop with the holier-than-thou crap already. Soccer is no more or less virtuous than any other athletic competition. Stop pretending like it is.

Patricia hasn't been active for a week or so, and I, too, had come to miss her particular brand of breathless sanctimony. Though I do wonder how she manages to read The Fix through the spittle flecks on her computer screen.

Patricia Schwarz. The day's not complete until we've had a Schwarz Off.

Schwarz On!

He's my new favorite musicical artist of the day!

Karen Hughes never heard Dubya utter a profanity? Call the Army Fucking Corps of Engineers -- that bitch needs her goddamn hearing aid reamed out. I mean, fucking A.

...is what I have felt about sports in general ever since the conduct and results of contract negotiations became the biggest sports news. Contracts between players and teams, between teams and host cities, between sponsors and teams and sponsors and athletes.

Barry Bonds is a blip on the radar screen in terms of what's wrong with sports these days. He's a symptom, not the disease. Sports is about nothing but the buck, and how you get it is irrelevant, despite all the hand-wringing and bloviating about sportsmanship or the "good of the game" and all the other stuff that stops mattering the moment a kid signs up for Little League or Pop Warner.

Bud Selig contemplating doing anything for "the good of the game" is simply laughable. Bud Selig does things for the good of the bottom line for 30 investment groups, period. Everything else is just performance art. And hypocrisy.

If it's not fun, don't watch. I watch and enjoy the games, the performances, because they're often entertaining. I don't root for anyone anymore. Not teams, not individual athletes. I'd be better served rooting for an entry on the NASDAQ.

And if Barry Bonds juiced (yeah, I'd say he probably did), well it's naive to think that most everyone else isn't too. The home runs still look kinda cool. The big plays are fun to watch, despite the fact that people making them were playing for the arch rival a year or two ago more often than not.

It's no more important to me that some major league athlete uses drugs than that some rock star does. They're the same thing. Entertainers paid big bucks to amuse. They're going to do whatever they can to get the bucks, and we reward them daily by forking them over.

Barry Bonds, meh, who the fuck cares?

I agree with all your planned changes, Oh Mighty One, but quite honestly I would support you on the basis of no more "the house" and no more Berman alone.

I would also like for you to not only rip football away from Fox Sports, but also have Fox Sports taken out back and shot. You can do that, you know, with your new powers.

But I'm still surprised to hear that anyone, even other Hollywood celebrities like Will and Jada, will go within a mile of that lunatic Tom Cruise.