MAILBAG - July 15, 2006

Cruise Night will be a roaring good time

Everybody in Glendale should pack the streets and come out for Cruise Night tonight. Glendale is a great city.

Sha Na Na will bring the house down. I remember like it was yesterday taking my girlfriend in high school to watch “Grease.” There is nothing better to do on a Saturday night than to walk down Brand Bouelvard, see old friends and make some new ones. Between Sha Na Na and the other cats playing on stands this weekend, plus with the cars, this will be the biggest party Glendale has ever seen.

Bring your dancing shoes, because old time rock ‘n’ roll will never die, it just gets better. I want to thank everybody from the bottom of my heart for bringing all these old cats together for one special night.

PAUL D. CARNEY

Glendale

Act was no reason to ban an entire sport

For weeks I’ve patiently dismissed letters from anti-soccer readers voicing their dislike for a sport they obviously know little about. I have considered these personal opinions not worthy of retort. But Judy Thomsen’s letter on Thursday (“Player’s head-butt was despicable act,” Mailbag) asserting that violence is “the accepted behavior in soccer” is strictly incorrect and her proclamation that she would not allow her students to play intramural soccer because of Zinedine Zidane’s head-butt in the World Cup is too disturbing to ignore.

Did Thomsen ban flag football after Clemson and South Carolina had a brawl that included dozens of players from each team? Did she cut out baseball after professional players were caught using performanceenhancing drugs? Using her thinking, they obviously can’t play basketball at Clark Magnet High since Kermit Washington’s sucker punch, Latrell Sprewell’s attempt to strangle his coach, or at least because Ron Artest went into the stands to confront a fan.

Sports cannot be judged by their worst moments. Sports, much like literature, music and art, can offer wonderful, life-enriching moments. But, since humans are involved, they can occasionally offer the opposite. Zidane’s actions are headlines because they are not the “accepted behavior” in soccer, regardless of Thomsen’s unpleasant experiences as an athletic director. It is one act that ruined much of what was a beautiful sporting event that a billion fans shared. Should we keep children from reading in school because there is an offensive book in print?

Zidane’s act was despicable and has no place in sport. But those who have suffered from real terrorism could help Thomsen differentiate between a moment of violence, where no one was physically injured, from real terrorism. Why not use the intramural soccer tournament to teach sportsmanship? That is what educators should do.

GLEN APPELS

La Crescenta

Act was violent,

but not terrorism

Upon reading Judy Thomsen’s letter on Thursday (“Players head-butt was a despicable act,” Mailbag), I am obliged to respond and clarify the confused blending of sports violence, terrorism and the popular idolatry of Zinedine Zidane’s actions and to remind everyone: do your research before you comment in the editorial section of the newspaper.

First, violence walks hand-in-hand with sports. As far back as the ancient contests held in the Coliseum, where man was pitted against man in mortal struggle, sporting events have instilled a sense of intense pride, nationalism and a necessity to win. It occasionally resulted in vicious action. Today, as then, the physical and mental stress of the game puts players in a situation in which the potential to lash out is very real.

Aside from the necessity to win, which has resulted in cheating and sabotage (as shown by Tonya Harding), injury plays a massive roll in weakening players, making them increasingly irritable; chemical reactions in the sympathetic, autonomic nervous system pumps adrenaline into players, causing them to react in a “fight or flight” response, making them act irrationally and with the highest force possible as a natural reaction for survival. Mixing all the factors together can easily result in a spurt of violence or anger (not to be mixed with terrorism) which one can see in numerous sporting events such as football, basketball, rugby, cricket, tennis, golf, hockey, ice skating and let’s not forget soccer.

Secondly, Zidane’s actions were not an act of terrorism. Unlike your definition: “selfish and violent, with the sole purpose of causing harm to anyone with whom the terrorist disagrees,” the true definition, seen in any dictionary, is as follows: the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. To the majority of the world, Zidane’s actions did not seem to attempt to sway business and politics in his direction in order to attain political or religious power; rather, he acted because he was extremely fatigued, had his career title on the line and was fairly infuriated. A true terrorist would be more along the lines of Joseph Stalin. Although he is contemporarily called an autocrat, let’s not forget his Five-Year Plan, Stalinist Purges, the reinstallation of the Red Terror and a man-made famine; Stalin killed and jailed thousands while instilling an air of crippling fear in order to retain absolute political power. That is an act of terrorism; an enraged head-butt is not.

Thomsen goes on to say: “We’re to believe that Zidane is justified to violently react because of what [Marco] Meterazzi appeared to have said.” This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

No one immediately pardoned Ron Artest for brawling with fans, no one immediately pardoned Terrell Owens for his behavioral problems with the Eagles, nor will we immediately pardon Zidane for his humiliating, career-ending move. As for not having a soccer tournament next year due to Zidane’s action, shouldn’t a high school athletic director have the ability and authority to control the student body? Just because Zidane acted foolishly does not mean your students, given proper leadership, should do the same. As an athletic director, it would be one’s duty to keep players organized, lawful and fair. By not having an athletic tournament, it is indirectly understood that one cannot uphold the standards.

IAN SANDER

Glendale

gnp.mailbag.15-BPhotoInfoQD1SV19M20060715i114c6kfCredit: DAN WATSON News-Press and Leader Caption: (LA)Last year’s Cruise Night featured 400 classic cars.