Below is an excerpt from an article about Ben Roethlisberger than appeared in today's Flint Journal courtesy of the Associated Press:

Though Roethlisberger has parked his bike for the season, he said the accident hasn't changed his belief that people should make their own decision on whether to wear a helmet on a motorcycle. To that end, Roethlisberger said he doesn't plan on doing public safety announcements for motorcycle or helmet safety.

"I'm not going to be on billboards with words about helmets and stuff like that," he said.

On the one hand, their is some temptation to admire Roethlisberger's dedication to his convictions. The easiest thing in the world is to suffer the consequences of your own judgments and then say, "I was wrong and I've completely changed my mind." Roethlisberger was "nearly killed" while riding a motorcyle without a helmet, but apparently he had thoroughly thought through his position even before the accident and elected to make peace with the risk of grave injury.

On the other hand, people are mistake-prone creatures and often the most mature and proper response to suffering the consequences of your own judgments is to say, "I was wrong and I've completely changed my mind." Because people are often wrong and should completely change their minds. Ben Roethlisberger was wrong, is wrong, and is apparently committed to remaining wrong. Putz.

On the gripping hand... actually, there is no gripping hand position on this issue. Not wearing a helmet on a motorcyle is suicidally, intolerably dumb. Love liberty though I do, from time to time the people do need to be protected from themselves; thus, I am an enthusiastic supporter of both mandatory motorcyle helmet laws and automobile seatbelt laws.

If you hate the Art Modells and Mark Cubans of the sports world, you have to love the Pittsburgh Steelers. Bill Cowher is the longest serving coach in the NFL and only the fifth Steelers head coach in the forty-nine years, only the second head coach since 1969. Loyalty is the Rooney family's watchword, loyalty that has helped them win five Super Bowls (that's one-eighth of all Super Bowls, pretty impressive considering the League has thirty-two teams). I know it's trendy right now, but the fact remains that you have to love (or at least admire) the Pittsburgh Steelers.

That said, I wish Pittsburgh nothing but debacle, fiasco, and disgrace as long as that shiteater Roethlisberger is on their payroll. I sincerely wish he had died in that motorcycle accident. Christian duty be damned, if Ben Roethlisberger was on fire before me I would run to fetch not a fire extinguisher, but a can of gasoline and the ingredients necessary to the making of s'mores. If I did have a fire extiguisher, I'd use it to pound in his flaming skull. I want to desecrate his corpse, I want to vandalize his grave. I want to mock his grieving parents.

Roethlisberger is free to possess and articulate his asinine opinion on motorcycle helmets. Just as I am free to wish him ill. Die, you horror, suffer and die.