Doping...The European Union...Silvio Berlusconi

Today, dear readers, I would like to ask...and answer...three completely unconnected questions that come to mind as the news streams toward us day after week after year. (1). When does doping cease to be "doping"? When it is so widespread that it has become the norm. Because if taking "performance enhancers" is common practice in cycling, baseball and athletics - and as of today in all Australian sports - as well as sporadic cases in American and European football, it seems impossible that there is no doping in tennis, skiing, golf, ice hockey and every other sport where winning depends at least in part on physical superiority. Indeed, in the case of Australia, organized crime is suggested to be intermingled with the doping, making it sound somewhat like horse racing where horses are supposedly doped and pay off for pre-informed bettors. And can all amateur sports - Olympic competitors already having been caught doping - be far behind? I have no solution, except perhaps to split all sports into two leagues...one for affirmed dopers and the other for 'clean' athletes. The problem here is that I have the sinking feeling in my stomach that comes from believing that the doped - faster, stronger, higher - athletes would still be the favorites of the fans. (2). When do European Union non-solutions for bailout problems become solutions? When the meetings - today in Berlin - but usually in Brussels, become the flavor of the month, each with its own set of ideas, press releases, photo ops with bailout candidates and soon-to-be bailout candidates, and non-solutions that Britain rightly refuses to participate in. Non-solutions that go nowhere because their creators don't want them to, or because they are ridiculed by the financial industry, or are refused as unworkable by the candidate countries themselves, or are not affordable for the states paying the bailout bills. So we have the moveable feast of non-solution after non-solution that give hope for a few hours, then fade into the EU wastebasket of history. But, these non-solutions are holding off the wolf at the door for the time being. In this EU Newspeak game, in reality, non- solutions have become "solutions." (3). And finally, when does a politician become an ex-politician? When his name is Silvio Berlusconi - whose personal and political antics have become so outlandish that even his tolerant Italian co-citizens have asked him to retire for good. Berlusconi's manipulation of Italian law to keep him from being pursued for allegations of tax fraud while he was prime minister, questionable legal tactics, including allegations of witness payoffs, when he was accused of having sex with a minor party girl. All that was classic Berlusconi. But, this past week, Silvio's younger brother may have put the nail in Berlusconi's political coffin - the nail that has eluded his enemies for years. A famous young Black Italian-nationality soccer player who has just transferred from the English Premier League to the Berlusconi-owned Milan football club was called - on a live microphone to an inner group of Milan supporters "the little black boy who has joined the family." There is already a firestorm sweeping Europe about overt fan racism. Young brother Berlusconi may well have jettisoned his older brother...but if anyone can survive such a stupidity, it is Silvio...so perhaps it is too early to call him an ex-politician. Italian voters will have the last word because Silvio Berlusconi is again running for the Italian parliament. ~~~~ Now, dear readers, if you have a favorite question, just post it as a comment. I'll be happy to hear from you.