Lately I have noticed a trend around Boston for organizations to turn kids games into adult sporting activities. The first that I heard of something like this was when I was reading Sports Illustrated before the summer Olympics and learned that tag was being lobbied for as an Olympic sport. When I went to the gym on Monday they were advertising a dodgeball tournament with 5 on 5 teams. For a social commentary on dodgeball please refer to South Park: Season 2: Disc 1, 1998. The South Park team goes to play in the big tournament. Lots of limbs are lost and Kenny is killed by a dodgeball. The Terence and Phillip only episode at the beginning of the disc is terrible. Skip it.

On Tuesday I noticed a sign at Bukowski's promoting a competitive four-square league. Four square is the game where you rise through the ranks to become the master in the commanding square and create rules that make it impossible to depose you. It is great training for becoming a dictator and teaches all children that power corrupts such that whoever is in power will change the rules to suit their own need for continued power and to favor them socially, culturally, and economically. This is the basic idea behind concepts like redistricting in Texas when the Republicans are in power so that the Democrats can't gain power by splitting the votes across districts in an unfavorable way. We also learned this useful tidbit through George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Based on this limited understanding of the world and fearing right wing conservatives who want to shove their religion down my liberal secular humanist atheist throat I didn't vote for Bush and will move to Canada, New Zealand or some other safe place if I see signs that say things like "All animals are created equal... but some animals are created more equal than others." or "Four legs good. Two legs better."

Anyways. I do have some fond memories of being a child and playing newcomb, volleyball when you catch the ball, tetherball, and kickball. My favorite game was a game we played in Newton called "Kill the kid with the ball". Basically whoever had the ball had to run away from everyone else until someone caught them and knocked them around until the ball came loose. Once the ball was loose another kid would grab the ball and everyone would chase them. It was the closest I ever got to being a rock star. Maybe I'll create a league soon "Kill the adult with the ball". Or maybe they could just go with "Kill the adult with the oil".