Tue Mar 15/05
Barry in the sky with diamonds

There are days when I get really angry at the drivel certain Canadians get paid to write — angry at the drivel, angry at its creator, angry that it isn't me on the page instead. I call those days "the days Steve Simmons is in the Sun." Today, in what may be his most ridiculous hour, he asks us if it isn't odd that we're all upset about steroids in sports even while we have no problem listening to music that was produced by people who may or may not have been on drugs:

No one sits back and says the Beatles would never have had 20 No. 1 hit singles if John Lennon hadn't been a drug user. No one wonders whether their record for sales are (sic) tainted. No one opines that another band — one that didn't use drugs — would have been more popular or more successful if the Beatles' artistic talents hadn't been expanded upon.

He's serious, just to clarify — he's not trying to be funny. Just as Mark McGwire cheated Roger Maris out of his home run record, he's saying, so John Lennon cheated, uh, Ray Davies out of, um, a number one single. Or something like that.

It's a thoroughly laughable attempt at journalism, but I'm holding off declaring this the worst analogy ever pending a final decision on Terence Corcoran's howler from Saturday: "Pol Pot marched Cambodians out into the country. The McGuinty government hopes to lock them up in the city."

UPDATE: Oh hell, I'll just dump all my Sun Media bitching in one post:

Here's the London Free Press's Rory Leishman coming unhinged at the conclusion of a perfectly coherent article about how sex education seems to be ignoring diseases that condoms do not prevent:

WARNING! Sexual promiscuity is bad for your physical and mental health. You CANNOT rely on condoms for protection against the most common, incurable and/or deadly transmitted infections. There is only one certain formula for safe sex: namely, fidelity within marriage and chastity outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

Thy genital warts shall shrivel and die, my sons; thy crabs shall become butterflies! Oh glorious glory, the power of marriage shall cleanse thee!