This letter
is in response to an Independent Weekly piece that was offensive only in
it's boringness. I just now emailed it to the editor, but I think
it's safe to say that The Independent won't print it, because they never
print anything I send them. They will, however, print anything that
strongly reflects their own viewpoint, from the anti-Bush ravings of a
convicted child killer/child rapist (Wherever I go, it got to be better
than Central Prison OCTOBER 13, 2004), to this issue's well-intentioned
but uninspired piece wherein a Durham lawyer uses a full tabloid-size page
to say nothing (How my wife's outburst and daughter's slap shot inspired
me to write a book (and save the world) MAY 31, 2006).
The lawyer's
story reads more like a Christmas newsletter to family and friends than
something that would be of interest to a newspaper audience, but the author
points out that it is only a small excerpt from his self-published book,
"How Hockey Saved the World* : (*and defeated George W. Bush, but not necessarily
in that order)" (Paperback). Stupid lawyers, writing things and then
self-publishing them like anybody cares.
Anyway, for
The People, here is my self-published response to that guy's offensively
uninsightful article. Making a case that one family's love of hockey
could save the world is a tall order, but our lawyer friend doesn't even
show up for court. I, on the other hand will paint for you the readers
a picture, a picture that will reveal my evidence to be a fallacious house
of cards, but this house of cards will cast a shadow of a doubt onto the
sundial of truth, and from this sundial, you will clearly see that the
time has come for peace through hockey.
| Exciting as a Zero-Zero Tie |
|
If "Man Bites Dog" is news and "Dog Bites Man" is not news, Alex Charns'
First Person piece about liking ice hockey and not liking war is "Dog Bites
Milkbone, Licks Self". To sum up the piece, he and his family like ice
hockey. They don't like war. One time they brought a mildly anti-war
sign to the Carolina Hurricanes' Military Appreciation Day game, but no
one noticed or cared.
If this guy's stories are going to be that uneventful, someone needs to issue him a poetic license. How about this: his daughter, who plays pee wee hockey, gets into a scuffle on the ice when one of the boys hits her with a dirty cross-check. She gets the better of the boy, but comes out of the affray with a black eye. Between the black eye and the two front teeth that she is missing because she is at the age for missing teeth, she looks every inch the hockey player. A few days later, the family takes their innocuous anti-war sign to the Hurricanes game. When the Jumbotron camera lands on the girl, she rolls up the sleeve of her 'Canes jersey and, with black eye, missing teeth, and unstrapped pee wee helmet on her head, breaks into the Rosie the Riveter pose while holding up the family's "Bring Our Troops Home" sign. The largely pro-military crowd is completely won over by the tough little hockey girl and responds with a roar of approval. This prompts the girl to found and become poster child for a bipartisan movement called Practical Pugilists for Peace, which makes the idea of peace accessible and acceptable even to highly-agressive meatheads. Her message is that it's okay to drop your gloves and stick up for yourself after a dirty cross-check, but when your goons have you playing shorthanded so much that you drop to the bottom of the standings, it's time to pick up the gloves and start playing hockey again. |
Other letters not printed by The Independent Weekly:
Scandal
at The Independent Weekly 10/4/5
Old
Khaki Shorts, An MLK Day Tribute 1/20/3
Ties
are for Suckers 7/19/2