Tugging On Superman's Cape

You know, I haven't been following the Olympics very closely.

Partly that's because I've never been much of a sports fanatic. I'll watch it, and be entertained (and even excited, on occasion); but you get me around guys who are real sports fanatics, and I start imagining I'm an anthropologist watching strange tribal rituals....

Partly it's because we don't have a TV around here. That makes it hard really to get into it. Yeah, we can download video clips after the fact, but that takes work.

But none of this takes away from my admiration of the athletes who decide to train themselves silly, and then go to match themselves against the best talent the world has to offer. And I admit it, I'm a patriot of the flag-waving jingoistic type, and I love to see those guys in the Red, White, and Blue take the gold. (And no, I'm not referring to Russia, who are White, Blue, and Red; Or France, for that matter, who are Blue, White and Red, or Serbia....)

And when someone as hard-working, and as good-natured, as Michael Phelps comes along, and good-naturedly sweeps every event he enters, he has my enthusiastic admiration.

So I hope that if and when Phelps sees this news report from The Onion (entitled "Michael Phelps Returns To His Tank At Sea World"), he takes it in the good-humored spirit in which it was obviously intended. Personally, I found the thing funny--especially given the knowledge (gleaned from all those puff-pieces about him) that he has to consume 12,000 calories a day to maintain his weight on that training regimen of his....