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Snowboarders will be snowboarders
Let's hear it for Lindsey Jacobellis and the true spirit of sport.
In case you missed it Friday (I did, I was at work) the U.S. star was way ahead in the new snowboard cross event at the Olympics when she did what any self-respecting snowboarder would do:
She showed off.
Grabbing her board in mid air, she found herself sprawled on the course and had to crawl across the line to get second place.
Horrors! Tragedy!
Even worse, commentators lamented, she lost thousands of dollars in endorsements.
Personally, I think snowboard cross is the greatest thing to hit the Olympics since ski jumping or sprint skating.
Nothing is more exciting for the spectators than the possibility of disaster -- just ask an honest Nascar fan.
Olympic officials probably knew that when they put snowboarding in the games, but they probably won't admit it.
It reminds me of the old proverb about the guy who took in a snake, fed and sheltered him, and then was shocked when he was bitten.
"But I told you I was a snake when you took me in," the snake responded.
Establishment network officials shouldn't be surprised when snowboarders act like snowboarders.
In fact, I heard later that Jacobellis nearly missed her race because she and fellow American snowboarder and gold medal winner Hanah Teter found some fresh powder.
No, if I owned a big company in need of a sports figure's endorsement, Jacobellis would be at the top of my list.
Another group from the McCook Evangelical Free Church has returned safely from a mission trip to Mazatlan, Mexico. I haven't talked to any of them yet, but I'm sure they came home aware, just as I was, of how fortunate we are to live in America.
A similar missionary group from another McCook church had a quite different experience, which I heard a little about before leaving on my own trip in late January.
The Rev. Dr. Jeff Thurman of Memorial United Methodist Church in McCook said his group headed for Haiti at just the wrong time -- right before the national elections.
After a chance encounter with an American businessman in Miami, who had just been released from a kidnapping in Haiti, the McCook group decided it would be unsafe for them to proceed.
They were unable to have their baggage unloaded from the airliner, however, so went ahead and flew into Port au Prince with their luggage -- which contained important water purification equipment for a Haitian school.
After several hours in the airport -- their local contact failed to arrive -- they "persuaded" someone to deliver their cargo to the school, where is was installed as planned.
They immediately re-turned to America, tired, wiser and short quite a bit of extra money because of the immediate airline turn-around.
I knew Haiti was an unstable place, and I never felt unsafe in Mazatlan.
It was probably a case of ignorance being bliss, however. We were, after all, working in a large compound that was built by a drug dealer. And, during daily trips to the site, we often saw pickup truck loads of policemen, armed with assault rifles, headed one way or the other in a hurry.
We once saw a large double tanker truck stopped off the side of the highway by several police cars, with pistolas drawn as well as those assault rifles.
We didn't know what was happening, and we didn't ask.