I promise to get to the Olympics and that slogan which is still bothering some people, Own the Podium, which in the opinion of some makes us look like a bunch of HOT DOGS who aren't really serious about sport and excellence...we're just a Hot Talking, Trash Talking, American Wannabe Nation...But first a few words about another Sacred Cow that is being taken to slaughter by contemporary standards.
The Hot dog is the latest threat to civilization. Maybe not as much of a threat as a cigarette or an SUV or a Toyota with a stuck accelerator. But the hot dog is a threat and needs to be redesigned we are told by U.S. Pediatricians so they aren’t potentially lethal to small children.
“We have laws and regulations that require warning labels on toys that pose choking hazards,” said Dr. Gary Smith of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the lead author of the policy published in the current issue of Pediatrics.
“There are no such regulations on high risk foods, and children are much more likely to put food in their mouths than a toy.”
The highest risk food is the hot dog, Smith said. Its size and shape means it can wedge itself tightly into a child’s throat, entirely blocking air passages.
“If you were to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, you couldn't do much better than a hot dog,” he said. And unlike other risk foods such as grapes and popcorn, however, hot dogs are man-made and manufacturers can easily change their shape, he said.
Other risky foods for small children include grapes, popcorn, hard candy, carrots, pears, apples and celery.
In Canada, about 44 children age 14 and under die every year from choking and another 380 are hospitalized, according to SafeKids Canada. Almost half of those cases are from choking on food.
There is an intelligent response I can offer here. But at the moment all my gut is regurgitating is that the only way to guarantee that kids will never choke on foods is to just keep them on Baby Foods or to stop feeding them. Please, please don't ban Hot Dogs and Popcorn. If you do that you are banning childhood. That may not be intelligent. It may not meet the very high standards set by the American Pediatric Association and I know there are people who say if the life of even one child can be saved, if all we have to do is ban the hot dog, we should do it. There is a sucker born every day for that argument. Did the dude on the radio say sucker? Why if I were to design the perfect plug for a child's airway, you couldn't do much better than a Lollipop, said the President of the Adler Nation - Let's examine the self evident Division.
And we will get to the humiliation in Vancouver last night on Hockey Ice, but first, is Toyota humiliating itself right now because of what is being called a Smoking Gun Memo written by a Toyota executive who appears to be gloating over having saved big, big bucks by cutting a deal with the U.S. government regulators 3 years ago, which at the time helped Toyota avoid investigations into possible safety defects related to acceleration.
In this memo, the company’s safety division boasted that it had struck a “winning” deal with American road safety regulators that saved the company $100 million and avoided a costly and embarrassing vehicle recall.
The revelations, which appear in a ten-page internal Toyota document, deepen suspicions that the world’s biggest car maker may have deliberately played down the extent of safety problems with its cars.
Company President Akio Toyoda will be cross examined by American Congressman on Wednesday. And it promises to be brutal. The grandson of the man who founded the company will say that Toyota puts safety ahead of profits. The American Politicians will likely put the petal to the metal in driving their agenda right up the executive's tail pipe.
And was that a Gold medal winning Goalie between the pipes for Canada or was that Marty Brodeur?
Bruce Arthur from the National Post writes, Martin Brodeur was one of the reasons Canada lost it. His defence wasn't stellar, true, but Brodeur took unnecessary risks, made some baffling decisions, and paid for it, dearly. Brodeur, when his career is done, may be considered the greatest goaltender of all time. Sunday night, he wasn't. Brodeur's reaction "We're still alive...We're throwing 45 shots at these goalies, and they're making stops -- forward, backward, sideways. Eventually, if we keep doing these right things offensively, we'll be more successful."
So in short, what did we get last night? We got one team with a very hot goalie...That would be Team USA with Ryan Miller. And one team with a cold goalie. That would be us? Does any of this have anything to do with Own the Podium and Home Ice advantage and blah blah blah. On any given night at a high performance level, which is what these two teams are, a hot or cold goalie can make all the difference. Had Marty Brodeur faced a U.S. team that played like Team Canada we could have lost ten to three instead of 5 - 3. Excuses? Am I making excuses for the team I root for?
Perhaps. But I refuse to throw in the towel and surrender Gold because of what happened last night. We will play Germany tomorrow and we will win. We will then play Russia and win. And after we get all that behind us, many Canadians who are beating up on Canada right now will be back on the bandwagon. Look the Wall Street Journal among others was forecasting that Canada would win upwards of 40 medals in these games.
We are one quarter of the way there but unfortunately we are already halfway through the games. On the other hand, we did much, much better in the second half of the last Olympics and we are expected to do better in the second half of these. On the other hand if Team Canada loses to Germany tomorrow, Own the Podium becomes Burn the Podium and to those in total denial, "What podium? I don't see a podium. Was there ever a podium?" If Team Canada loses to Germany tomorrow, the spinners will be saying Own the Podium was always a goal not a commitment, weasel words to be sure. Just another way of saying Own the Podium was just a feel good slogan and if you insist on spilling into the streets and breaking windows over this, back off. Don't make us go for the Pepper Spray. On the other hand, Don't Make us Go for the Pepper Spray, might have been a better call to arms. It invokes the greatest short term motivator of all time. FEAR.
