Sports Fans

Ace,

No bones to pick. No gripes to voice. This is just a quick salute to my favorite mag picking up a good columnist [sportspeak].

I always liked Zurcher's interviews during his days with UK football. He was cogent and articulate, and I always wondered what he would do after college.

I like collegiate sports. My father and I have had UK football season tickets since Jerry Claiborne's first year at UK. Can I talk statistics with the avid fan? No. The philosophy of sport? Sure. I love that I do not have to be a master statistician to enjoy Zurcher's writing.

As much as I love ACE and try to read it cover to cover each week, I have found in the last couple months that Zurcher's Column is the only feature I read EVERY week.

Keep it going Jeff.

Michael Crow

Off Target

Jeff Zurcher's article about hunting was way off target [sportspeak, Nov 30]. He attempts to prove that hunting is a sport, and therefore usually a worthwhile and acceptable activity. However, Zurcher omits some significant differences between hunting and more mainstream sports.First, most sports involve opposing teams that are fairly well-matched in terms of ability and equipment. Animals, however, can not defend themselves against the hunter's arsenal of weapons. Additionally, in other sports, people willingly participate; the animals have no choice in whether to join in the hunt.

Finally, in most sports, the players share the same goals: to score a touchdown, to make a basket, or to cross the finish line first. But inhunting the goals of the participants are quite different. The hunter aims to kill, while the animals try to escape.

Zurcher's defense of hunting is faulty even if we do consider this activity a sport. Having sport status does not sanctify an event or make it morally acceptable. Consider the Roman sport of arena fighting, in which human participants, some willing and some unwilling, fought to the deathfor the amusement of bloodthirsty spectators. This event matches all of Zurcher's criteria for defining sports, yet most of us would condemn gladiator fights as barbaric.

With so many sports available to play or watch, people should participate in events that do not harm animals. Let hunting share the fate of other brutal sports by fading into history.

Tara Rodriguez

via email

Gift Horses

Last Thursday a fortune cookie implored: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." I looked to Ace for elucidation.

Initially I thought the fortune mistakenly included "gift;" maybe I should have looked in the nonsensical "The Horse's Mouth" [editorial, Dec 7]. To begin, I couldn't understand the analogy between Uncle Don and Al Bore. Uncle Don is a "well-respected landowner, farmer, and veteran." Not much like Al Bore.

Moreover, regarding network bungling, any "progressive" who felt assured of victory when Florida was initially forecast for Bore is a fool. On the contrary, "progressives" might have felt more inclined to vote for Bore if he had a chance. In my mind, the whole issue is moot. People who would so casually "throw a vote" based on the actions of others don't deserve to have their vote counted.

Just be glad that somehow a nefarious political/judicial conspiracy might just get Bush into office. Who cares if he lost the popular vote? Who cares if he doesn't deserve the Florida electors? Remember, American voters elected Cliton 8 years ago. Then, proving ignorance is no fluke, the same sagacious group re-elected him 4 years ago. Trust Americans to select the best person in 2000? Utter folly.

Was the same ignorance in action on November 7? Look at the wise folk in New York. Yup, they fell for Bore. They also elected Cliton's wife into Congress. Obviously she needs to be back in her husband's bed, straightening out their perverted sex life and marriage, not in Congress.

Bottom line? Who cares if this election was fair and "sqwar?" Just pray we can all saddle our fiberglass horses tomorrow without having to swallow the next neo-liberal prevarication. Feed me a straightforward conservative lie any day.

No, the fortune cookie wasn't meant for me. It was an epiphany for all of Lexington, for all of America. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth-don't try to figure out who really won the election-just be grateful that a flawed law triumphs over ignorance.

Steve Kral

via email

I really enjoyed your Horse's Mouth of December 7. It reminds us all that we live in a republic, not a democracy. One-person, one-vote is ridiculous. And anyone who thinks that corruption and incompetence was restricted to Florida is living in a fool's paradise. As the networks were quick to state, "as goes Florida, so goes the Nation." They were more right than they knew.

More to the point, as a fellow eastern Kentuckian, I too grew up thinking porkbarrel Boss Hogg shenanigans were somehow exclusive to us "hillbillies." I learned otherwise when Kennedy's daddy bought the presidency for him but you're probably too young to remember that.

Ben Sanders

Doughnut Challenge

Thanks for the informative doughnut article [cover, Dec 7]. Overall, I found it very interesting, although I didn't need Ace to tell me Spalding's makes the best doughunts in Lexington; I knew that the first time I tasted one. Yes, that extra crispiness is what makes them special. And if Joan Reisz, or anybody else, thinks doughnuts should not be crispy, why is one of the most popular doughnuts called KRISPY Kreme?

I am a little disappointed that KK was not given its rightful place on the ballot, as I'm sure it would have been a close second if it had been allowed to compete. What's really appalling is the reason for the omission: "no amount of torture could induce the interns into driving to Florence." Do we need any further proof that the younger generation is taking this country to hell in a hand-basket? What would Uncle Don and the others down at "The Office" think about young punks so impertinent as to dictate terms to their employers? And aside from the total lack of respect shown, where's their sense of adventure? Sure, Florence may not seem like the most exciting destination in the world. But when I was a college kid (or even today), if my employer (or a friend, or a total stranger) suggested a 2-hour road trip to anywhere to pick up a couple dozen doughnuts, I'd be in the car as soon as I could get the cooler loaded. The sheer lunacy of the idea is what makes it attractive. With sufficient encouragement (or almost none), I've gone farther for less. Are we raising a generation of weenies who would scorn such a quest in favor of sitting on their butts, shopping online, and playing video games while waiting for the Fed Ex truck? (www.doughnuts.com doesn't seem to lead anywhere useful).

Having climbed on that soapbox, I'm almost feeling hypocritical about dispatching this missive via email, instead of boldly venturing forth to deliver it in person to the Ace offices, hoping for a glimpse of that blond chick named Rhonda that I keep reading about. So I'll make this offer: if anyone protests the results of your doughnut taste test, and demands a recount, I'll bring the Krispy Kremes. I make this offer purely out of a sense of fairness, feeling confident that Spalding's will still be the victor. But you'll have to send somebody else to collect the chad (doughnut holes); I think Dunkin Donuts is the only outlet that sells them.

Matt Simpson

No one's demanded a recount yet... but we'd be happy to take delivery of any Krispy Kremes... anything to further the pursuit of well-balanced, investigative journalism.