[Yeti Trouble] Marion Jones Cannot Accept That She is Not a Superhero

[M. Sweeney Lawless]

No one ever said being an Amazonian-American or a Kryptonian-Americans would be easy. Sure, they might enjoy playing organized sports. They might even like representing their adopted nation in the International Olympic Games. But they don't. It's yet another of their superhero sacrifices. Every four years they are obliged to watch puny humans compare inferior performances, yet you never hear a superhero brag or complain.

Superheroes do not participate in professional sports and IOC events, and it's time we ask that everyone play by superhero rules.

If you are an athlete, please take the time to stop and reconsider your choice of careers if any of the following has happened to you:

(1) you were bitten by a radioactive spider

(2) you were exposed to radiation of either the (a) gamma
or (b) cosmic variety

(3) you are now partly metallic because you were (a) subjected to cruel medical experimentation

or (b) you have had body parts replaced by machinery as a
result of industrial sabotage

(4) you have taken any mysterious herbal stuff, even if you blame a coach for giving it to you and suggesting that you dissolve under your tongue, even if you thought it might be the legal kind of performance-enhancing substance





On the day Marion Jones took steroids, she joined the company of supervillians just as sure as if she had wired herself to a device capable of generating enormous power that would be transferred to her and make her invincible. You cannot make yourself invincible. It's one of the oldest rules of Earth. The word "hubris" was practically invented for these situations, and no one likes to say it out loud. No one.

Everyone knows that real superheroes are the product of accidents. They don't seek power. They don't aim to control the world. They don't savor the adulation of the public. Their lives are filled with danger and loneliness and their only consolation is to further the good of humanity -- a humanity to which they can never completely belong.

Please, Marion: consider training with the circus and using your talents to become a sidekick.



There is no shame in tights and a shorter cape.

--
Posted By M. Sweeney Lawless to Yeti Trouble at 10/05/2007 05:09:00 PM

[M. Sweeney Lawless]

There is no shame in tights and a shorter cape.