Summer of 2010: What We'll Remember

So...ok, it's not the end of the summer. Actually, it's just barely half-way over. All the same, I'd like to take a whimsical look back at one of the most newsworthy summers since that of 1918. You know, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated? Remember? Forget it...on to the list!

1. Oil Y'all! I specifically avoided any blogs about the BP oil spill. I just couldn't bring myself to feast on this comedy of errors. At the end of the day, there was nothing to make fun of. The good people at BP did that all on their own. With solutions that ranged from putting a massive dome over the leak, to clogging it with a wad made of golf balls and old oatmeal, to Kevin Costner and his brother inventing some kind of machine (just like the drills in Armageddon!) the list reads like a Mel Brooks movie plot. My thought all along was to just stuff Rush Limbaugh's bloated melon in there. Hey-O! In the end, it was Kevin Costner's MC252 pump that won out. You can't make this stuff up.

2. And he shall be LeBron. And he shall be a good man. For those of you who didn't get the Elton John reference here, I apologize. For those of you who did, you're welcome. LeBron James proved this summer that a good portion of Americans are idiots. 10 million, to be exact. That's the number of people who watched LeBron's one hour special on ESPN to announce his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat. The circus that was LeBron's decision became the biggest mockery of free agency to date. People in Cleveland were so infuriated with this grandstanding about his decision that they burned his jerseys in effigy. What happened to the good old days of just burning flags, draft cards and bras. Things that mean something in this country? Don't get me wrong, I take no issue with LeBron's decision to move from the armpit of the world to a place where women wear bikinis to the grocery store (I've never actually been there). I just wish he could have shown a little more class and forethought. I guess that final tally is ten million and one idiots. Sorry LeBron.

3. Tiger's Back! (sort of). I had reserved this space for a great joke about how Tiger Woods was able to sleep with many, many, many women; get caught; survive an ironic beating with a golf club at the hands of his wife; crash his car; go to rehab (again, sort of); and come back to win a major championship. He did most of those things. However, his golf game, amazingly, suffered some setbacks. Have no fear Tiger. The same Americans who were so willing to watch LeBron's ESPN special are rooting for you. It won't matter how many strippers you bedded or illegitimate children you fathered. Hit a monster drive, sink a 50 footer for eagle, win The Players Championship and all will be forgiven. In the words of the great Don King, "only in America!"

MF