TC the Terrible

Normally I am an ESPN dot com pimp.  But today’s best entry into the world of bash T.O. sports commentary comes from USA Today’s Ian O’Conner.  The ‘Eagles-did-the-right-thing’ bandwagon is getting pretty full and it’s well deserved.  My only question is when are we going to see T.O. on Sports Center telling all how we don’t understand his complicated situation.

My prediction is that the appeal of his suspension will fall flat.  The Eagles will fail to reach the playoffs, and he’ll trash talk them claiming he could have carried them there.  Then some team desperate for points, like the Saints or Vikings, will pick Owens up and we’ll see the third version of this tale.  And that one will end like the first two versions did.

The French situation seems to be settling down and spreading at the same time.  One the one the level of violence is beginning to level off, but on the other hand other cities are starting to join in on the fun.  It’s hard to tell if things are getting better or not for them.  The Euro is starting to fall off and that could be trouble for the Old World if France can’t get things back to normal soon.

Declaring a state of emergency and installing curfews would normally be steps in the right direction.  They may work this time to quell some of the surface violence but they won’t address the core problems.  The first problem is that this is not an organized effort on the part of the rioters.  There are leaders in every cluster of rioters, but there is no real structure and no defined leaders.  This means that the French police are going to have to round up every single person that is out there throwing rocks and starting fires to make them go away.

The new policies do not address the problem of how the French treat the people on the bottom of the social food chain.  Nearly a decade ago socialiogists started talking about the immigration problem facing France.  They warned that the bottom of the food chain was being filled with Muslims filling menial labor jobs, and that those new workers were not being integrated into the larger society.  

I’m beginning to think that this may really be the start of the fall of France in the traditional sense.