Grab bag: this RGIII injury bullshit can't exit the sports news cycle quickly enough

In the coming days, you will read/hear about 100 different columnists/analysts tell you about how insane Mike Shanahan was to leave Robert Griffin III in the game after he tweaked his knee during the first quarter of today's loss to Seattle.  I am not here to discuss whether these people are wrong or right. (They are probably right--Griffin's injury was messing up his throwing mechanics, hobbling his running ability, and beyond that it's important to think of him as a long term investment for the franchise.  On the other hand, Griffin did insist to his coach that he was fine and his backup is Kirk Cousins.  But whatever.)  Instead, I am here to point out what a big bunch of shitheads pretty much everyone in the sports media are for pushing their perspective on this story.  And the reason they are shitheads is that if Washington's defense had held on for eight more minutes and the Redskins had won the game--without their offense doing a damn thing differently than they did as the game unfolded in real life--not one of these zilches would be saying what they're saying about Shanahan's alleged blunder.  Not one.  They would be talking about the grit and guts of RGIII and the brilliance Mike Shanahan showed in sticking with him.  Saying AW THEY SHOULD HAVE TAKEN HIM OUT IT WAS SO OBVIOUS is one of the most flagrant cases of ex post facto logical analysis you'll ever see.  It's fucking pathetic.  I have respect for any anyone who wants to say "This was a huge mistake, but you can see where Shanahan was coming from at the time."  But the next analyst who takes that position will be the first.

In other news, Skip Bayless continues to rule.  Check out this article: it's good because he correctly assesses the relative merits of the 2012 seasons of Griffin, Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson.  But it's great because before doing that, he spends several hundred words blasting Jim Irsay for cutting Peyton Manning and thus (in Skip's view) reducing the odds of Indy winning a Super Bowl anytime in the next four years.  There is one word for this:

Please don't try to convince me Luck sets you up for a much brighter future. In this league, the future must always be now. Four years is an NFL eternity, and Peyton Manning would've given the Colts a better chance to win the Super Bowl this season and each of the next three.

Strong.

Finally, here's something from a wildly popular "sports" columnist:

The "T" on my ThinkPad flipped off last week as I was typing. My natural instinct was to blame my hellion son or my unlucky dog, Rufus, since they cause 99.99 percent of the disasters in my house. But I've only had this laptop for five months — it usually takes two years for my keyboard to start falling apart like it's Arian Foster on your 2013 fantasy team. How could this happen?

My wife (a longtime MacGyver wanna-be) thought she could Super Glue the "T" back on the keyboard, which made me nervous because Super Glue is probably the most misunderstood product on the planet. You use Super Glue to fix a broken chair, or maybe even the face mask of an autographed Mark Sanchez helmet that you just threw against the wall. You shouldn't use it for anything electronic; it just ends up making an already sticky situation stickier. One stuck "T" and one domestic argument later, I found myself back where I started. Thankfully, I had purchased something called "three-year onsite NBD and three-year priority support and three-year ThinkPad Protection" for $269 when I bought my laptop last June, which meant that if anything happened to my laptop, a technician would arrive the following day to fix it. I called Lenovo, banged out a service order and that was that.

The next day, Lenovo e-mailed me some bad news: My part was on back order and wouldn't be available for five to seven business days. (Random note: I love when the phrase "business days" gets involved — sports teams should start using that for injured athletes so it sounds like they're coming back sooner than they are. When Gronk broke his forearm, the Pats should have announced that he'd be out for 25 business days — I would have felt so much better.) I did the math and realized that "five to seven business days" really meant "You're screwed, we're not fixing your laptop until after Christmas." The good news was that Lenovo would be keeping my $269 for "three-year onsite NBD and three-year priority support and three-year ThinkPad Protection" out of good faith. Cool. Thanks, Lenovo.

And that was that--after what you just read, he went on to discuss things his readers might actually give a flying sloppy fuck about.  Nah, just playing, he spent another 500 words continuing to bitch and moan about the most first world of all #firstworldproblems.  Seriously, fuck that guy with a pineapple.

Troll extraordinaire Skip Bayless gets some work done

Time is short this week so I can't do a full writeup of this tonight, but hoo doggy, is this one that Skip's  parents are going to want to stick to their fridge with a magnet.  This is him at the very tip top of his game.

The astonishingly missed point:

I'VE BEEN EXTREMELY OBJECTIVE ABOUT TIM TEBOW.

Classic USE OF ALL CAPS to try to PUT THE AUDIENCE ON THE DEFENSIVE and hope they don't notice your BALDFACED LIE.

It almost felt as if Elway/Fox were sabotaging Tebow, who after games kept turning back into Bruce Banner, the Hulk turned humble human, smiling and saying, heck, he just runs the plays called. Elway perhaps was hoping to lose his way into the No. 1 pick so he could draft fellow Stanford man Andrew Luck. Instead, Tebow's Broncos wound up playing a home playoff game.

Classic Tebow trolling: equating Denver's staff's reluctance to think of a guy who can't throw as a good long term QB option with them hoping Tebow would fail.  I hear they used to hire goons to club him in the knees outside the team training complex a la Tonya Harding!

What did shock me was that, the more Tebow won, the harder a gauntlet of ESPN opponents came at me, sometimes two or three at a time dismissing Tebow's 8-5 run as a nice little fluke. Twice during Tebow's starts I was pressed on air to predict Denver's final record. My cumulative prediction was 7-4, which prompted on-air guffaws. Tebow's regular-season record wound up 7-4. Yet no one would give me an inch of credit for the greatest prediction of my career. I was dismissed as lucky or crazy or both.

Some truly inspiring "I DESERVE MORE CREDIT!" whining, combined with Tebow trolling, combined with throwing your coworkers under a bus.

Our golden rule of barbershop debate -- no punches pulled, none thrown -- 

What?

was sometimes pushed to its limit. Yet in the heat of those on-air battles, I began to see deep inside my opponents. 

More trash talking of coworkers.

I hit subliminal hot buttons that were making Tim Tebow the biggest lightning rod in sports, more loved and hated than even LeBron James was at that point.

And this is why I love Skip--you thought you were reading a column about how no one gives Skip enough credit for being right about Tebow?  WRONG, YOU ARE ALSO NOW READING ABOUT LEBRON.  If you give him enough time he'll rope in Tiger Woods somehow.

(And wasn't it curious that LeBron, then infamous for his fourth-quarter failures, reached out to Tebow on Twitter, befriended him, even visited Tebow and stayed at his house in Denver, perhaps hoping some of Tebow's late-game intangibles would rub off.)

Curious?  No.  Relevant to this article?  No.  A way for skip to generate more angry comments and emails?  YOU BET.

My opponents began to make jokes about Tebow's Christianity, which outraged me on air. I'm a Christian, though (maybe to a fault) not as in-your-face as Tebow. 

I don't think any Christian could possibly be faulted for being less in-your-face about his or her religion than Tebow.  But watch Skip consider climbing up on his cross and trying it anyways.

I prefer actions to words. Yet I defended Tebow by saying, "He's simply doing what Jesus instructed his disciples to do in the New Testament -- be fishers of men."

Listen, all you people who hate how outwardly expressive Tebow is about his religion: have you ever considered reading the Bible?

Take it from the Lone Objective Tebow Defender: Never bet against him.

Skip fucking rules.  

Skip Bayless Needs a Nice Tall Glass of Shut the Fuck Up

The gentlemen over at First and Ten on the WWL recently debated the question of whether Jimmy Clausen will make a good professional quarterback. This is a good debate, since there's enough munition on either side to mount an explosive attack. But Skip Bayless says some stupid ass shit in it, which I will now expose:

I watched all or parts of every Notre Dame game.

Me too. But saying this will make Skip's later comments inexcusable.

I don't like the intangibles, the late-game body language, the leadership, the charisma...

ND-Michigan State. Clausen throws the winning TD pass with 5:18 left.
ND-Purdue. Clausen, with an injured foot, throws the winning TD pass with :24 left.
ND-Washington. Clausen throws a go-ahead TD pass with 1:20 left
ND-USC. Clausen comes within five yards of engineering a 3-touchdown 4th quarter comeback when his receiver slips.
ND-BC. Clausen throws the winning TD pass with 8:12 left.
ND-Navy. Clausen throws a TD pass with :24 left to bring ND within two.

Now, there were some missed chances (Pittsburgh comes to mind), but it's pretty stupid to say you don't like a guy's fourth quarter charisma when he plays his nuts off and the other half of his team collectively sucks bigger than Uranus, which weighs more than fourteen Earths.

I thought Clausen's inabilities were the biggest reason Notre Dame underacheived at 6-6 this year.

What?

I thought Clausen's inabilities were the biggest reason Notre Dame underacheived at 6-6 this year.

What?

I thought Clausen's inabilities were the biggest reason Notre Dame underacheived at 6-6 this year.

What?

If you actually watch the video, you'll realize that Skip didn't actually say that line three times. But I have reprinted it here three times to emphasize the stupid, which is of monumental proportion.

Jimmy Clausen threw for 3722 yards, tossed 28 touchdowns to 4 interceptions, and had the second-highest passer rating in the entire country (!).

Notre Dame's defense gave up 26ppg and almost 400ypg. This unit's pathetic performance was responsible for most of Notre Dame's underacheiving.

His mobility's pretty good, I'll give you that.

He did run for a net yardage of -95 this year... with a long rush of... 11 yards.

There's a bunch of other reasonable commentary about Charlie Weis's offense and adapting to the NFL and arm strength and all that. But I thought I would record the stupid. Because it's fucking stupid.

Presenting: Punchlines That Write Themselves, Vol. 1

So I'm watching "1st and 10," or as I like to call it "Skip Bayless's Fun-Time Happy Half Hour." The panelists start discussing this stupid non-story about Pedro Martinez attending a cockfight in the DR. One of the no-names on the show tepidly compares the situation to Mike Vick and his dogfighting ring. In response, Skip steps up to the plate in Martinez's defense by pointing out that dogs are much different animals than roosters.

"Dogs are considered to have human-like personalities. I mean, some dogs are smarter than their owners!"

How much do you want to bet Skip owns a dog?

(insert laugh track)

I'll be here all year.

One More Thing

Oh yeah, since I didn't post yesterday, here's one more super awesome little anecdote for you. It's about someone who should not be working in the business of analyzing sports. I bet you saw that coming.

Earlier today I flip on ESPN. And lo and behold, what do I stumble into right off the bat? Why, it's Skip Bayless doing his argument show thingy! (First Take? Cold Pizza? The Place Where Sensible Ideas Go To Die?) Skip was trying to claim that LeBron James is hurting the Cavaliers, which is kind of like claiming that alcohol is hurting the world's reproductive rate. First he cited some essentially meaningless statistic like the Cavaliers being 5-2 when James isn't in the lineup the past two years, and then tried to claim that mediocre players like Larry Hughes and Daniel Gibson are actually really awesome. I don't remember the exact quote, but his conclusion was something like:

"LeBron is holding this Cavs team back!"

Fortunately, Skip's guest/opponent for the day was some dude who actually knows his butthole from his elbow. (I'm not sure who, and I'm sorry clarifying that he was smarter than Skip doesn't exactly narrow it down). He quickly pointed out that the Cavaliers averaged 55 losses a season during the four years before James arrived. Since then they've won 35, 42, 50, and 50 games. Skip, confronted by this fact, backed down but offered the following rebuttal. I'm not sure if he could have said anything stupider. (This one is an exact quote.)

"Well, he's holding them back from advancing in the playoffs."

Let's look at the 2007 NBA Playoff bracket. Where is Cleveland? How far did they adv- Oh, OK. There they are. Great.

And hey, don't forget to go two posts down and throw your hat in the ring for Reader Extra Participation Friday. If you don't, it'll hurt my feelings.

www.FireRickMorrissey.Jayspot.claims

It's a well known fact that Rick Morrissey hates Jay Mariotti. Rick thinks it's laughable that Mariotti won't show his face in the Chicago White Sox clubhouse (he literally fears for his life) but constantly slams the Sox from a distance. Mariotti, in the most immature of stunts, posted this, claiming with ridiculous evidence that Rick Morissey is "stalking" him.

I have nothing more to say about this. It looks like Jay is right. It's just funny that actual sports analysis is taking a progressively lower portion of his writing, and when he writes on topics like this, it just vanishes completely.

Nothing but this little nugget, actually.

As I've said for years, the Trib should have hired Michael Wilbon when it had the chance -- or never should have let Lincicome, Verdi and Bayless go. Those gentlemen seemed to develop opinions without reading the Sun-Times first.

Yes, that's right Jay. The Tribune would be in way better shape if it kept Skip Bayless on their staff. He's not pointless, retarded, and an ignoramus or anything.

Mystery Solved!

Skip Bayless, on 1st and 10, explains the New York Yankees losing in the postseason in recent years (quote obv not exact, close).

They've lost 13 of 17 postseason games because [Torre] is so nonchalant and lackadaisical in the postseason! He's like, "I'm Joe Torre and you're not!" That doesn't cut it!

Throw team talent, small sample sizes, everything the players do, and even every decision a manager makes clear out the window. All that matters in a postseason series is the manager's attitude!

In 2006, Tony LaRussa was saying "I'm Tony LaRussa, and we're gonna win!"

Okay Larry you got your Wish

There are four guys involved with professional sports I wouldn't mind seeing as a quadriplegic for the rest of their lives, spending the rest of their miserable days shitting themselves, unable to even twitch a finger. The list includes:

1. Barry Bonds
2. Tom Brady
3. Ray Lewis
4. Skip Bayless

Note there's only one sports journalist (I use the term liberally) on my list. I really, really hate about 90% of sports media, but not enough to wish pain and suffering upon them. Bayless is the obvious exception. larry b left this comment on the last post:

skip bayless really gets too much of a free pass here at firejay. i need to crack down on him a little bit. the problem is ESPN doesnt let him near a keyboard anymore, so in order to do this "cracking down", i'm going to have to watch first and 10. ugh. i'll consider it.

That's right: the website that still lets people like Jerry Crasnik and Jemele Hill write for them took away Bayless' column. That's like being kicked out of the special olympics because "sorry , you're just a little too retarded"

Now that his inconsistant, rampling, half-brained trolling isn't in written form anymore, it's like 100 times more difficult to make fun of him. It requires a DVR, and anybody who has comcast knows how godawful those pieces of shit are. But I'm gonna make the effort from here on out: SKIP BAYLESS YOU ARE A MARKED MAN.

Today's "First and Ten" was ripe with fodder to make fun of. He started out by saying that the Mets lost to the Marlins because The Philles have a "mental stanglehold over the Mets." I don't even need to make a clever remark, because what he says is so obviously, painfully stupid. That's the best part about writing about Bayless. Just quote him, baby. No need for well though out counter points. Just jokes about how he's retarded, and you wished he was dead. Better not go to Texas after trash talking the Coyboys Skip. They have no problem finishing off the mentally challenged.

Anyways, on to Skip's NFL picks for this weekend of marquee games (marquee because they involve teams from New York or Boston)

-Picked the Packers over the Chargers. He's not sure the Chargers “know who or what they are under their new coach norv turner.” Also he's not a big fan of Turner.

-Picked the Patriots over the Bills, but no way will they cover the spread. Because “after getting so high for San Diego, surely NE will have just a little bit of a letdown for this game.”

-Picks the Redskins over the Giants, but this one will also be a squeaker, because “it's so difficult to get high for a Monday Night Game.”

Welp that's it. Expect more Skip Bayless over here at firejay from now on, because it has to be done, dammit.

What Was the Point of This Article?

I literally have no idea why this article was written. I know there's ado and hoopla about dog fighting at Michael Vick's house and I know that he's been in trouble in the past, but then again everyone in the world knows this. Why the fuck do we need this article by this guy I've never heard of chronicling Vick's "tarnished reputation." Look at how useless this is:

Falcons QB Michael Vick who increasingly seems as problematic off the field as he is on it seems to have found trouble once again. This time Vick is dogged by allegations that he was part of a dog-fighting ring operating out of a home he owned in Virginia. (We must say "owned" because once the dog-fighting rumors surfaced, Vick quickly sold the house for less than half of its assessed value. OK, so he's no Donald Trump.)

Already I'm pissed off. This is starting off like one of those Skip Bayless "let me tell you something I find outrageous" articles, pinpointing some exact transgression the author finds outrageous. Except in this case, the outrageous thing is something everyone already knows about and that happened weeks ago. And this dude's going to detail the events as if someone reading through si.com doesn't already know that Vick's in some shit for training dogs. I also want to point out just how lame this parenthetical section is. We're criticizing Vick for lacking real estate savvy now? Seriously? And a Donald Trump joke? What is this 1986?

In just the last two years, Vick has made a run at Pacman Jones' off-field headline making supremacy by: being accused of giving a woman genital herpes and using the evocative alias "Ron Mexico" to receive his herpes medication in secret; flipping a double dirty bird to the home Atlanta fans after a Falcons loss; allegedly trying to pass through airport security while carrying a water bottle containing what the Miami police described as "a small amount of dark particulate and a pungent aroma closely associated with marijuana"; missing a chance to speak on Capitol Hill regarding after-school programs; and most recently, being suspected of having involvement in a dog-fighting ring at a home he owns in Virginia.

Is there anyone on earth who isn't already aware of all these missteps by Vick? Is there anyone on earth who when they hear Vick's name doesn't immediate think one of the following two things:

--Underachieving Quarterback

--V.D. Superhero

If you left out "underachieving quarterback," you wouldn't lose many people, either.
We get it. We got it before you started writing the article. Vick has problems. Vick is a colossal fuckup. Why don't you write a "Bill Clinton likes oral sex" article while you're at it? Or a "Rae Caruth is not a good role model" one?

And it doesn't stop. It's reached the point now where the daily Falcons practice notes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are a mix of items about offensive adjustments, rookies adapting the NFL and former teammates allegedly saying that Vick is totally into dog fighting.

like, fer sure?

Vick is the highest-paid player in the NFL and perhaps the most exciting, too. But for everyone who hoped Vick would be the first guy in franchise history to lead the Falcons to back-to-back winning seasons, he's simply looked like a guy who might not be able to throw the ball accurately enough to win more NFL games than he loses.

snooze. Welcome to last week. What's next? "Sometimes Vick looks like he's ready to take the next step, sometimes he doesn't"?

Then there's those of us who saw in Vick a player we thought we could throw our complete emotional support behind. For many of us, Vick was our favorite NFL player, the guy we suspected had the ability to change the way the quarterback position would be played going forward.

oh CHRIST! He done did it! And now the article starts to go off on a strange, strange 500 word tangent

It's probably not the best idea to idolize someone you'll never really get to know. I got lucky growing up. Even though I was living in Atlanta, somehow Phoenix Suns point guard Kevin Johnson caught my eye, and I spent the next few years trying to indulge in all things KJ. I purchased KJ jerseys and t-shirts via mail order, even managed to get a No. 7 practice jersey for my high school basketball team. KJ was never the most outspoken or flashy player in the NBA, but he was a solid, terrific point guard. (When he dunked all over Hakeem Olajuwon, I nearly jumped through my roof.)

I know it's dangerous to read too much into these kind of things, but stuff like "I got lucky," and "Kevin Johnson caught my eye" at BEST just sounds really fucking stupid. This guy is seriously about to talk about how because Kevin Johnson was never particularly good but was quote/unquote classy, he was, like, the best dude EVER. I think the "lunchpail" alert level is at about orange right now. I wonder how this guy feels about Eckstein.

The guy goes on and on about KJ in an article that is ostensibly about Vick...my gut instinct is to clip it since it's just fawning, but I think I'm going to let it stand for itself:

KJ never won a title, was never an MVP, but most importantly, he never let me down. He certainly had no idea there was a kid in Atlanta studying his every move, but he comported himself as though he knew there was someone who would be crushed if he was implicated in a dog-fighting ring or was caught carrying a bottle capable of concealing a dark particulate.

Charles Barkley came out and directly warned the world that he was not a role model, but he was and he is, whether he likes it or not. The same goes for Vick. Barkley's point was that kids should look up to people they actually have access to for guidance and advice, like teachers or parents. While there are a lot of kids who don't have that luxury, I was raised in a two-parent home with parents who were always there for me. But I still looked up to KJ.

The thing is -- and this is a lesson we only learn through experience -- the let down is a part of the deal that we have to accept. When we invest our hopes in somebody we've never met, we're opening ourselves to the good as well as the bad. We just hope there ends up being more good than bad.

whew. That's a mouthful! Of Kevin Johnson!

When the Falcons drafted Vick, I didn't have much choice but to buy in completely. As soon as Vick slipped on that Falcons cap and shook hands with Paul Tagliabue, he became the most athletically gifted player the Falcons have ever had. OK, so he still hasn't become the quarterback we'd hoped he become, but he's provided some mind-bending moments that Falcons fans will never forget. Unfortunately, a lot of those moments have occurred off the field.

Vick is not a character guy. We get it. We done GOT it months before this article was a gleam in Kevin Johnson's eye (since, of course, I'm assuming this guy, pasty-white though he may be, is Kevin Johnson's son)

New NFL commissioner Roger Goodell seems to be like a new principal intent on establishing himself as a stern disciplinarian before his students take advantage of him. As if in response before the iron hand of the NFL comes down on him, Vick has spent the off-season promising us that he's going to take a hard look at his life (at the urging of Falcons owner Arthur Blank) and that things will be different from here on. "Just don't plan on talking about me anymore unless it's about football," Vick said last week.

A principal? It's been a while since I've been in high school, but shouldn't the analogy be "new teacher"? I don't remember too many kids in my class trying to "put one by the old principal." Here's the problem I have with this article: there are a lot of noteworthy things to discuss about Vick. For instance, something that's not been said is how this discipline policy relates to league stars. It's a general behavior policy, and Pacman has felt the brunt of it despite no actual convictions. Vick brought an illegal concealing device to an airport, presumably filled with marijuana, he allowed fighting dogs to be trained on his property, he flipped off HIS HOME CROWD, and he hilariously but very publicly tried to conceal the fact that his cock breaks out in sores every now and then.

Granted, none of this is "making it rain," but there's very little speculation on whether Vick will be suspended or should be suspended and how that relates to him being one of the biggest stars in the game. That would make this article useful. That's something worth discussing. The fact that Vick has been in trouble is a completely worthless subject for an editorial. Of course the Rick Reilly's and Skip Bayless's of the world are going to lap it up. "Character is important!" "Why can't more people be like LDT?" "These crumbums make too much money to be acting like criminals" (apologies to the onion).

So why was this article written? To grandstand? To impose the author's morals on an uninterested audience? As an excuse to compose a sweet elegy to the classy, grindy, fundamentally-sound playing career of KJ and other so-called "good-guys"? Only the author knows, although I would suggest to the editors of SI.com (who clearly read this site) that this might be a question worth asking before publishing this smear pap.

And at the risk of going off on a tangent, can we just stop with the moral grandstanding and excessive praise of those who haven't yet got in trouble? I remember Kobe was always supposed to be a decent guy...up until the whole rape accusation. Now he's, at the very least, a guy who cheats on his wife. I noticed Schilling, in typical Schilling douchebag fashion, made sure to bring up this point in a rip on Bonds, accusing him not only at cheating at "the game" but also cheating on his wife.

Let's ignore the obvious joke about Schilling cheating at bleeding, and move on to think about the likely fact that most of Schilling's teammates have cheated on their wives and significant others. They're pro baseball players after all. Essentially Schilling called out a good pct. of his teammates in trying to make sure everyone knows he's a Christian. If there were a letter of the alphabet for rolling one's eyes, this is where I'd type it.

Likewise, Skip Bayless probably beats his kid or some shit, and I know Jay Mariotti is on some sort of hard drug to be coming up with some of the far-fetched poop he slings... ladies and gentlemen there IS no moral highground. Tangent over. Let's let the gentleman finish up on ripping Vick:

I just wonder if it's too late. Vick could give all his money to the poor, win five straight Super Bowls and stumble across a cure for cancer by haphazardly mixing flavors of Gatorade, but he'll always be known as Ron Mexico. I suppose it's important to remember that Vick hasn't actually been found guilty in any of these incidents. As a Falcons fan, I hope none of this stuff shakes out, yet as a realist, if you subscribe to the "where there's smoke there's fire" theory, Vick's created a veritable raging inferno around him.

We've seen him escape from plenty of improbable situations before. But if he keeps this up, he's eventually going to find an impasse from which even his fleet feet can't carry him far, far away.

I suppose he subscribes to the Terrell Owens theory on Jeff Garcia too. This would have been a great point to bring up the fact that Pacman Jones, suspended for an entire season, has never been found guilty as of this article's press. Instead we get this, which I really hope someone can explain, because frankly I am lost:

Game Of The Week

While Gold Miner has now become one of the great games in the history of the Internets, Reel Gold seems to be a pretty intriguing variant.

on a final note, I sincerely doubt that if Vick won five straight Super Bowls and gave all his money to the poor and found a cure for cancer, he would be primarily known for having herpes. I know that isn't the point the author's trying to make, but can we please fucking quit the stupid hyperbole style of writing for at least a month or so? Christ.