Only Iron Necessary Here Is for Your Will

Somsak Thepsutin, a cabinet minister in charge of tourism in Thailand, told Reuters that the country is working on building a 27-hole golf course linking Thailand, Laos and Cambodia with nine holes in each of the countries.

The proposed site is 400 miles northeast of Bangkok in an area littered with land mines from the Khmer Rouge era in Cambodia and the subsequent Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978.

“Yes, the area is booby-trapped, but it is a piece of cake for three countries to solve,” Thepsutin said.

Easy for you to say.

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Trivia time: What is Chick Hearn’s given name and where did he grow up?

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Scary scene: Woody Paige in the Denver Post on football fans in Cleveland who disagreed with a referee’s ruling and threw beer bottles on the field in a recent game: “What have we become in society? We’re no different from the Romans who turned thumbs down on a gladiator to demand his execution and cheered on the slaughter of slaves by lions.

“The stadium in Cleveland is a modern-day equivalent of the Colosseum in Rome.”

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Accommodating: Jason Giambi had his hair cut and shaved off his beard when he joined the Yankees. Said Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News: “To make this kind of money and to be in this kind of company, Giambi probably would have shaved his legs too.”

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Always in view: Former Olympic speedskater Bonnie Blair, who is married to speedskater Dave Cruikshank, found a unique way to display her five gold medals and a bronze medal: They are embedded in a glass-covered coffee table designed to incorporate the couple’s memorabilia. But it is hardly a shrine.

“It gets dirty,” she said. “The kids sit on it, stuff spills on it. But it’s thick glass, so nothing gets under it.”

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‘Tis a sad day: Reader Doug Hays supplies what the late Jim Murray might have written regarding George O’Leary and the Notre Dame coaching fiasco: “Ay and be’gorra this has to be the worst week in the history of the Irish and the O’Leary clan since Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over the lantern back in 1871 and burnt down most of Chicago.

“Now little boy George gets sacked just because he put a little bit of lace-curtain malarkey on his job application.”

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High fliers: Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times: “Nate Newton’s lawyers, we hear, have cooked up a unique defense. He was merely taking that 175 pounds of marijuana to feed Santa’s reindeer. How else do you think those things get off the ground?”

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Come again? Defensive tackle Steve Martin, who just joined the New York Jets, on the team’s dismal record in recent December games: “History is what happened in the past.”

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Trivia answer: Francis Dayle Hearn; Aurora, Ill.

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And finally: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle, on Barry Bonds agreeing to arbitration with the Giants: “I hope Dusty Baker is happy about this.... It has been reported that Baker considers Bonds a major pain, a guy who demands pampering and special treatment. And it’s true that Baker has had to make allowances for Bonds’ quirks. But Baker’s no fool. He can count to 73.”