Cambodian Football Fans Riot, Burn Thai Embassy

ost-Super Bowl rioting continued in Cambodia, reaching its pinnacle with the torching of the Thai Embassy Wednesday. Several stores and businesses, predominately Thai-owned, were also vandalized and set afire by distraught Raiders fans.

Political pundits, whatever those are, speculate that the Cambodian people live in stressful times and frequently find their only release in American football, particularly the Oakland Raiders. For a people already hit on hard times, especially with escalating ill will between themselves and neighbors Thailand, the loss of the favored Raiders was the last straw.

Sports pundits, if any such people exist, could not be found because once we said it no one in the office could stop laughing long enough to find some.

Expert sports follower Ray "Sport" William, a sports follower for 34 years and frequenter of the bar across the street from the commune offices, could sympathize with the disgusted Cambodian citizens.

"It's a damn shame, a'course," said Sport. "What you have is a real awkward situation 'cause shoddy reporting and populist politics are preying upon a people who are struggling to join a world market.

"With elections coming up in July, the Hu Sen government is whipping up nationalist frenzy to keep attention off domestic problems, including a border treaty with Vietnam that's still not signed yet. What's the best way to get a population furiously patriotic? Give them an enemy, and in this case, Thailand makes a convenient target. Now anything and everything that comes out of Thailand can be misconstrued by journalists who jump on the bandwagon, like alleged comments by some Thai actress that the Angkor Wat national monument really belonged to Thailand."

Sport could not see any immediate relief for the frenzied football fans.

"There's no hope on the horizon, I'd say. At least not until the elections have come and gone and the government is either comfortably in place and can turn the focus away from Thailand, or Sam Rainsy campaigners succeed in turning the eye back on domestic issues and unseat the Hu Sen government."

Or, as Professor of Asiatic Politics at Columbia University Dom Jutney said, "There's always next year. You can't keep Oakland down. This year Tampa Bay wanted it more. Next year it's all Raiders, baby."

The Thai Embassy in America, while not currently in flames, could not be reached for comment. Which is a polite way of saying they hung up on us repeatedly, which was really pretty thoughtless considering we were calling long distance and they charge us for the first minute whether we speak for a minute or ten seconds. A second call to determine if they would pay the charges for the first call was not received any better, which leaves us with two unpaid long distance calls.

The Cambodian Embassy was more receptive, leading us to believe they can't be all bad.

"The riots are terrible. It is sad that a collection of outraged individuals are representing Cambodia to the world in their violence, especially in this time of potential war and political difficulties in other areas of the world. It weighs heavy on this country's heart. If only Jerry Rice had succeeded on those two-point conversions."

Iraq blah blah blah Suicide blah blah blah Dead

Big Whup: Whale Swims Across the English Channel

Heather Graham’s Career Found Dead in Apartment

Polish Roof Falls in Following “Drinks Are on the House” Debacle

I have important matters to discuss. How important? I don't even have time to talk about my favorite conspiracy (World's Biggest). No, this concerns matters of the laws of nature themselves.

I'm talking, of course, about evolution in Kansas. That's not an insistence that evolution did happen in Kansas—my last drive through Kansas, I doubted evolution had occurred there at all. But it's not up to me to decide such matters, sir, and I think everyone who's not a science teacher should stay out of it. Yet in Kansas, evolution and creationism is once again a political battle between the hardcore fundamentalist Christians and normal people.

Why involve myself, you ask? It's not hard to figure out. Everything we teach in the science classroom is fact—am I right? Of course I am. Years ago we started teaching evolution. It was in all the papers, you might have read about it. The teaching of evolution gave the theory validity. And I'm scared shitless about teaching Creationism in science class. What happens if we validate "intelligent design"?

This is crap we don't need. God is dead—haven't you read the papers? If you want to go to your church and chat up the ceiling, that's perfectly fine. It's in the Constitution, I understand, though I think I may be paraphrasing. But you make God a part of my science class and that makes him real again. The last thing I need is God to come back, all pissed off about our erasing his existence by not teaching Him in science class. And how do you think He'll feel about the rest of the world and the state it's in? He probably won't even care about the evolution business, too busy freaking out about subjecting the third world to poverty and the stockpile of nuclear armaments. He got pissed about eating a single apple off his tree, how do you think he'll feel about destroying the world?

I've traveled to Topeka to take part in this state argument. It's not like everything's going to topple if the unintelligent "intelligent design" forces win Kansas—halfway there already, you ask me. But if they get encouraged by their victory, the Creationists will probably take their fight somewhere more important, like Fly Creek, Alabama, or the Bayou. If they conquer enough school boards—or worse, the hearts and minds of the America itself—science will be forever changed. God will return, wished into existence by the demon we call science, evolution will go the way of the dodo, and science will be subject to extremists, instead of hard-thinking, boring scientists. What will they go after next—gravity? That's all I need, all my papers going flying around and my entire staff falling off the surface of the earth. Which will probably be flat again, by the time all this is over.

To prevent this paradigm shift, I'll no doubt make this argument to the Kansas School Board itself. But if I go as myself they'll surely recognize millionaire playboy/publisher/conspiracy-buster Red Bagel. Fortunately I've had a lot of disguise experience lately, so I'll be making my arguments as other personas. I plan on playing Edgar C. Bummington, an esteemed Professor of Evolution from England (my accent is top-notch), arguing the case for evolution and against Creationism. I also plan to play concerned parents Bill-Joe and Marjorie Cutler (both roles, though I'm not sure how I'll pull that off just yet), and, time permitting, the precocious show-stealer Joe "Stinky" Bagel, arguing it from a kid's perspective. Sure-fire ways to convince Kansans to respect science and keep evolution? Maybe not, but I'm giving it everything I've got. I've come to like gravity too much to give it up.

º Last Column: Slow Change Artist
º more columns

Pitchers and catchers have reported, and I say it's about damn time. Every job I've ever taken the winter off from has canned my ass, so what makes these prima donnas so special? I refuse to root for any player who doesn't spend his winter driving a bus down in the Mexican winter league or wielding a shammy at my local car wash. As you might imagine, I don't root much.

And as if these manicured Mollies didn't have it easy enough, now they get to spend the next several weeks thinking about maybe starting to get ready to play a kids' game while working on their tans and playing grab-ass with half the male population of the Dominican Republic. Find me another profession, anywhere, where workers get to spend a good solid month goofing off and farting around down in Florida before they even have to start "working," if you can call shooting steroids into your teeth and hitting line drives at Steve Trachsel all day "work."

And who the hell decided to call this "Spring" training? I don't know where you live, but around here winter's just getting started. The last few months were just winter's way of saying "Howdy Doo?" I expect at least three more solid months of raining ice and frozen spinal fluid before the sun comes out again.

Regardless, baseball is carrying on as if it were hospitable outside, so we have little choice but to play along and take a jaundiced gander at what the upcoming season holds in store.

The Cubs show up at spring training this year amidst high hopes and nervous anticipation. After spending a record number of greenbacks this offseason in hopes of buying a title, fans know the Cubs are going to blow it somehow, but everyone is excited to see how they do it this time. Can the Cubs pull off another miracle collapse, or will they let their fans down by bringing a World Championship to Chicago? It hasn't happened since 1908, but the thought still wakes up many a Cubs fan in the middle of the night in a cold, terror-stank sweat.

What about the Yankees? The Yanks were embarrassed yet again in 2006 by failing to bring home their yearly trophy, which went instead to... whoever won last year. Don't pretend you remember who it was. Instead of their usual winter routine of shanghaiing all the competition's best talent over the offseason, the boys from New York took a different tack this year, instead casting off assholes like a hot air balloon sinking toward shark-infested pudding. First to go was historic malcontent Gary Sheffield, who was thrown to the Tigers like a Christian sightseeing in Rome. Next came Randy Johnson, the world's tallest asshole according to Guinness, who was sent back to the desert trailer park from whence he came in exchange for two jock straps and a copy of "Girls Gone Wild: Greenland." Somewhere in the mix Jared Wright was also shoved drunk onto a bus headed for Baltimore, a fine thanks for all the hard work he did in raising the Yanks' ERA to league average over the last few years.

The Giants handed former Oakland ace Barry Zito a blank check this winter and told him to fill in whatever he thought was fair, then shit blood for three weeks straight after seeing the figure Zito and secret agent Scott Boras had inked in. Ten bucks says they don't repeat that same mistake next offseason, when the contracts are up for several of their stadium's Haitian pretzel venders. Regardless, the Giants will be a better team for having Zito and his yoga dipshit shtick on board, but unfortunately the relevant question there is "Better than what?" and the answer is the Royals. Sorry, gays and other assorted San Fran residents.

The Royals also got a lot better this offseason, throwing money blindly at the free-agent class until some of it stuck to a guy nobody had ever heard of before. Too bad the relevant question with them is also "Better than what?" and the answer is the Topeka Devil Dogs on acid.

The Red Sox spent a massive pile of cash on Japanese import Becky Matsuzaka, though through a clever accounting loophole managed not to give the player any of it. American batters likely aren't ready for Matsuzaka's patented kamikaze pitch, which involves the pitcher charging home plate and diving through the strike zone with the ball in his back pocket. Matsuzaka, however, is unlikely to be ready for teammate Manny Ramirez, who so far has played all his spring training innings wearing a wedding dress that once belonged to Mariel Hemmingway. The Red Sox are poised to out-weird the competition this year, just like they did in their championship 2004 season.

Everybody else? They got worse. Sucks to be a fan, I know.

º Last Column: Stan Abernathie's Picks to Suck
º more columns