Family Guy

NASCAR is where free speech crashes and burns

It’s Cinco de Mayo, and if you so much as think about using this day to indulge in Chili’s Margarita of the Month, I will have you undergoing sensitivity training faster than you can say “extra salt on the rim.” You see, applying a firm image to a person, thing, or group is wrong (even if it means massive profits for our Mexican neighbors by way of 335,000 gallons of tequila consumed on a single May 5). Or at least NASCAR thinks so, as the corporation plays politically correct whack-a-mole with drivers who say things they don’t like. The latest victim of almost-cancel culture is Denny Hamlin. Last Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway ended with Kyle Larson “battling for the win approaching the start-finish line,” reports the Charlotte Observer.

Becoming a father

They say immersion journalism is dead, but I just might have proven them wrong. The night before I wrote this column, I took on a most unfamiliar role, one my wife has been playing for the past two months: waking up in the night to take care of our baby son. We recently started bottle-feeding him, which allowed me to overcome my, er, biological inabilities in this department. This won’t be so bad, I thought around 5 a.m., as I sat in the dark while he cooed and sucked down formula. Cut to an hour later as I lay in bed, my mind churning through the latest NFL trades. While my wife can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, I have a giant spinning turbine of an overactive imagination.

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