To the 2012 London Olympics.

The Minnesota Twins are 13 games behind in the American League Central Division. The first preseason game for the Minnesota Vikings isn’t until Aug. 10 and first regular-season game isn’t until Sept. 9. The Minnesota Golden Gophers don’t hit the gridiron until Aug. 30.

Into this dead zone for televised sports rolls the London Olympics. Thank goodness! Now there is excitement on multiple channels, from cycling to boxing to track and field to basketball to wrestling to volleyball to rowing to gymnastics to table tennis to sailing to pentathlon to archery to soccer to, well, you get the idea. Too bad the Olympics aren’t held every year that the Twins play poorly.

 

To stunt driving.

Two 20-year-old men this past week were having some fun with their sport-utility vehicle, performing fishtails on a gravel road near Glenville and just generally driving crazy. Then they smashed into a railroad trestle and smacked their heads on the windshield because they weren’t wearing seat belts.

Believe it or not, law enforcement officers, firefighters and ambulance personnel often have other needs and emergencies to tend to besides pulling injured stunt drivers out of smashed-up cars. There are cases to solve, inspections to perform, maintenance to be done, paperwork to be finished, training to be planned, patrols to be made, correspondence to be completed, court appearances to prepare for and plenty of other tasks. But because a couple of young drivers decided they had super-human reflexes, everything gets put on hold. Sure, responding to crashes is part of the job, but let’s save it for the crashes that truly can be termed “accidents,” not the ones where drivers were acting like idiots.

 

To Albert Lea city leaders.

We are glad to see the city is seeking to purchase seven properties that were headed to the auction block for a tax-forfeiture sale. The reason is that these properties, if left on the market, could become a blight problem, bringing down the value of the neighborhoods. As everyone knows, the city levies property taxes. But rather than just collect the taxes and not show any interest in the quality of neighborhoods, our fair city is taking action to address problems when it can. Not every city is wise enough or interested enough to make such a smart move. Eventually, the city will tear down the problem structures and get the parcels back on the market (such as combining parcels) and ultimately back on the tax rolls.