A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

POTPOURRI FOR TWO HUNDRED, ALEX: Some odds and ends that I thought were too good to pass up:

• Greece has banned all team sports for two weeks. This story was so great that I had to check the date to make sure it was March 30 and not April 1. In a nutshell, Greece made the decision to calm tempers after a massive brawl at a sporting event. What makes this story so awesome is that (a) apparently the most violent fans in all sports are the rabid Greek women's volleyball fans, so you hockey fans and soccer hooligans can just put it back in your purse, okay?; and (b) the participants brawled with "clubs, knives, and stones." Really? And then I guess the sun rose over the obelisk as "Also Sprach Zarathustra" swelled in the background.
  
• Washington State's KingCo 4a high school sports league, which includes large schools from both inner-city Seattle and the wealthy suburbs, is considering revisions to its softball mercy rule in the wake of a 64-0 rout of Franklin by Woodinville. On the table is a proposal to shorten the current ten-run/five-inning rule to three innings if the away team is winning or three and a half if the home team is winning. I get it, but at the same time my guess is that the team that just lost its first three games 118-0 is playing because they like to play, not because they think they might win. If it were me, I might want more innings to try to learn how to get somebody around the bases.
  
• Jack Donaghy Alec Baldwin is going to send an Iraq vet to college when she gets out of the Army. She'll be an older student, but she'll have the boldness of a much younger coed. The article contains a great backhanded expression of thanks: "Actors have all this money, and it's a good thing to see them do something other than for themselves and show some character and use their money wisely."
  
• And on a belated note, last night's Survivor reminds us that the highlight of every year is not the letters-from-home crying montage or the festering-sore-that-won't-heal-comparison-expo, but the blindfolds-and-caller competition. You can never go wrong with blindfolded people running into obstacles at full-speed, especially if there's a bonus helping of the cute-as-a-button cheerleader tumbling suddenly off her six-foot perch for no good reason and then giggling about it afterward.