As IF Times

link Mickelson says McIlroy-Woods spat overblown – Yahoo! News.

Well I guess there has to be some kind of buzz created in advance of the Ryder Cup.  For anyone not involved in the golf world as a player or as a fan, what passes as ‘controversy’ in the golf world is amusing at best.  For non fans, very little that happens in golf can be seen as ‘exciting’.  It always amuses me to hear superlatives used to describe performances by golfers especially by the recent cast of golf commentators.  We hear adjectives such as ‘heroic’, or daring.  Come on! It’s golf! It’s 3 dimensional shuffleboard!  How can you be daring in golf?  What’s the worst that can happen if you miss a shot? Nobody crashes into your body as would happen to a receiver in pro football.

I’ll admit golf is a game requiring adroit physical talent and keen mental skills, but to characterize the exploits as heroic is a bit of a stretch.  It is amusing therefore to read about what passes as chest thumping by star golfers in advance of the upcoming Ryder Cup matches.  Somebody wants to take on Tiger. Oooh. Somebody may have disrespected Tiger. Oooh.  Not exactly Tyson vs Spinks at the weigh-in. 

With the recent ‘calling out’ of Tiger by rising star Rory McIlroy, the golf commentators will be buzzing like mosquitoes over what was ‘actually meant’, like teenage girls gabbing about their peers.  What is he supposed to say?

“Gee maybe there’s a chance I can breathe the same air as Tiger and bask in his genius.  I’m sure I have no chance to win, but just to be on the same course as him would be a lifetime honor”  ??

No, he says what any professional would say given a chance to compete against the best in the world, ” Bring it”.  The golfing world had better find more genuine drama to try to entice viewers.  This ‘he called him a name” stuff is lame.  Thus far, this edition of the Ryder Cup seems to be lack any real buzz so they’re grasping at anything.  Maybe they can talk about Ricky Fowler’s ugly hats.

link  UN to appoint space ambassador to greet alien visitors – Telegraph.

This only sounds preposterous at first.  The more you think about it, the more ridiculously laughable this becomes.  Let’s put aside for a moment the possibility of extra terrestrial aliens arriving one day to contact earth.  I think we can all accept that.  Actually it’s almost preposterous to think that aliens haven’t already visited at one time or another over the centuries for a long weekend or just a curiosity stop.  But assuming that they haven’t and the first upcoming visit is novel, do we really want someone from the U.N. as our contact person?

Does it make sense to allow some U.N. goofball to intone,  “Welcome to earth, how was your trip?”  He would be as representative of earthlings as Ru Paul would be of women.  What if they came in a huge gas guzzler? Would they be allowed to land?  What if they just needed to fill up with some fluids and decided to empty say, Lake Erie?  What if all they needed was some food, so they take some Wildebeest, some hogs and oh maybe some truckloads of Asians, since there seems to be plenty of those. 

Let’s not kid ourselves, no one is going to give a rat’s ass if aliens appear unless, a) they bring some cool souvenirs, like transmogrifiers or time travel boxes, or b) they threaten humankind, in which case, everyone’s on their own.  When the aliens offer the cliche line, ” Take me to your leader”,  it will be met with bemused stares, especially if they land in Los Angeles, in which case, they’ll be introduced to some gang guy named Chico.  Actually, landing anywhere on the coasts of the U.S. would not create a stir at all since any strangeness of appearance would blend right in with the locals.

If they land in Texas, they’ll probably get shot at since they’re funny looking foreigners.  If they happen to land in China, God help them because someone is going to try to eat them.  Meanwhile, how will this U.N. ambassador train for his role?  Will he start learning to speak in clicks and pops?  Will he learn to play music and lights as per the movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind?  Where would he learn alien etiquette? Are their women good looking?  I offer an idea as to how we can impress them with our advanced civilizations.  Give them our visionary politicians as a going away gift.  Al Gore pops to mind. At least we’ll find out if they have a sense of humor.