Summer Olympics 2008: Let’s get quizzical!

Women’s gymnastics is mostly freakish to watch and in the steroid era it is certainly different to ponder the lack of estrogen, period (you’ll excuse the expression). Females are double XX just like me but in a rare condition called Turners Syndrome an X is missing which can cause underdevelopment of secondary sex characteristics, which is good for sports but not much else. The Chinese have been accused of falsifying birth records and may have 12-year-olds vaulting and tumbling through the competition. I really don’t care but it is a bit fixating, like watching a circus show, but the sadness behind the eyes is there at the slightest deviation from perfect. That is not sport but rather cruelty to human animals.

BUSH LEAGUE - You know George Bush bopping around venues in Beijing slouched in his seat and spouting off about the Chinese autocracy and culture is risky business because our cowboy is likely to say anything (which gets lost in translation even for those of us who speak the same language). Bob Costas, a Syracuse dropout, had Bush for an exclusive interview for 20 minutes and even asked him about the request for a pardon from Marion Jones. And through it all, as Bush heads toward the final meters of an eight-lap race, he remains spry and confident if not down right cocky. There’s something likable about the guy, which is as elusive as any point he is trying to make.

DOUG WHITE - Last Sunday the JD Shuckers 5K race began and moments later it was forked lightning with runners playing the part of turkeys but everyone kept going except the dean of all Delaware road runners Doug White.

“I went about 100 yards and stopped,” said White. “I’m nursing an injury and when I saw the lightning I thought, ‘I don’t need any of this. ” White began the race celebrating his 66th birthday and was already making plans for number 67. Doug won the inaugural Lewes Seashore Marathon in 1978 going under 2:40 and has more than 30 Boston Marathons to his credit.

JOGGING STROLLER - I don’t run and I don’t jog. Power walking is beyond me and my “pimp” has also abandoned me. I walk like a an NFL scout squad linebacker who scraped into the off tackle hole on full contact day, one too many thousand times. The iPod beats the drum of my death march. Last Saturday I was hurting myself on purpose circling the three mile bike loop at Cape Henlopen State Park when a young, fit couple passed me going the opposite way and sometime later they passed me again and I tried to look normal but my normal has been re-centered to off center.

Sunday morning I saw the same couple in the JD Shuckers race so I introduced myself as Boris Karloff from the 1932 film “The Mummy.” Andrienne McCray is a 33-year-old landscape architect from D.C. who graduated from Penn State. She competes in triathlons, recently doing the Olympic distance in New York state of 1.5-mile swim, 24-mile bike and 6.2-mile run. Lorenzo Bryant, 46, is a project manager for the Maryland Transit Association and a graduate of Howard University, he told me, expecting that possibly I had never heard of the place. Lorenzo comes from the bodybuilding world and is now proud to have dropped from 230 to 205. A true journalist is always wandering and wondering. Let’s get quizzical!

CARRIE NATION - The Cape extended hockey family has become Carrie Lingo Nation during these Olympic games and yes I saw her during opening ceremonies and so did you if you ever backed it down from Friday happy hour. Carrie Nation - the historic person - was a member of the temperance movement at the turn of the century - no alcohol - and had been known to order a drink before attacking the bar with a hatchet. The 6-foot, 175-pound woman described herself as a “bulldog running alongat the feet of Jesus barking at what he doesn’t like.” Sounds like a modern-day Promise Keeper. There is no way the “Hoochie Mama of Hatchets” resembles our Olympian Carrie Lingo except for the tenacity and fearlessness. USA came back to tie Argentina last Sunday, 2-2, after trailing 2-0 early in the game. The goal is to make it “out of the pool” and into the quarterfinals, where it is lose-and-you-don’t-have-to-go-home-but-you-can’t-play-here time.

SNIPPETS - Do real guys own a fantasy football team and if so where is the room for other real-guy fantasies? A league I know lost an owner who was caught by homeland security downloading illicit pornography then the guy got mad because other owners he thought were his friends raided his roster and divided up his players, many of whom were having great seasons, because there is no internet access for cyber stalkers in the house of detention. This is in fact a true story. The Phillies are on the West Coast for three games in L.A. and four in San Diego. They lead the NL East by two games but it is a long way home and if they keep Jeff Jenkins, Eric Bruntlett and Carlos Ruiz in the lineup at the same time they will not get there. “Vote for Pedro” Feliz is coming off the disabled list and should reclaim third base. Put Jason Werth in right and leave him there. Eagles fans should check the real schedule for the first quarter of the season beginning with Saint Louis, Dallas, Pittsburgh and the Redskins. How do you think “we” will do? Don’t use any date from preseason games as a predictor for regular-season success. Here’s what I know. You need at least one beast to catch the football, the receiver who can put up a 200-yard game. I guess that is Kevin Curtis, the poor man’s Wes Welker. Practices for fall sports begin Friday, Aug.15. Check out double-header summer soccer playoff at Rehoboth on Wednesday night beginning at 5:30 p.m. Bring your own chair but field test it in advance.

A mandatory meeting for all Cape football hopefuls will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13, in the Little Theatre.

Katey Algier, 21, a Woodbridge girl who attends Salisbury University was the Watermelon Queen last Saturday at Dam Mill representing the Mar-Del Watermelon Association. Forget melons; how about those glasses? Go on now, git!