You can't just join Augusta National Golf Club. You must be asked. But you can't ask to be asked. Or you'll never be asked.There is no waiting list. There is no application process. You either get a letter in the mail or you don't.If you do, you can join for that year. If you don't, you're out, even if you were a member last year. No one knows how you get chosen. No one knows how you get dropped.And no one explains.This we know: Since Augusta opened 70 years ago, no woman has been asked to join. But Lou Holtz has.
Listen, nobody admires Joe Dumars more than I do, but he still works for someone. That someone is Bill Davidson. Bill Davidson owns the Pistons. And Bill Davidson was never -- repeat, never -- going to give Jerry Stackhouse $100 million or anything close to it.So trading Stackhouse was a done deal a long time ago, really as soon as Davidson's wallet was zipped, long before Wednesday, when Stack was actually dealt to the Washington Wizards. It wasn't Dumars' being creative or risky. It was Dumars following orders.
Amessage to Osama bin Laden on the one-year anniversary of his terror:You failed.If you are dead, you failed, because you are not in some blessed place, sitting under the Yum Yum tree. You are in a corner of hell reserved for murderers.And if you live on, you failed, too. Because you are hidden in some cave in a forsaken corner of the world, forced to recognize the truth: What you sought to weaken, you fortified. What you sought to terrorize, you emboldened.
Last week, nearly 23 million Americans were glued to their TV sets for that most critical of news announcements: Who would win the karaoke contest?I am talking about "American Idol," a TV show that began as a half-hour of nastiness and somehow, by the end of the summer, was dubbed important enough to go two hours, lead the national newscasts and have its winner jetted overnight, first class, from the "Tonight Show" in L.A. to the "Today" show in New York.Wow. Who knew singing "It's Raining Men" could get you all that?
So now 12-year-old baseball players are thumping their chests and goose-stepping around the base paths with the same sneering, I'm-the-man attitude that already taints so many professional athletes.Great. We have cloned the monster, and it's pre-pubescent.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
