A bid for the 2012 Olympics

Multi-tasking, I am told by Greg, is not simply adding distractions to concentration. It can result in positives, like drawing connections between seemingly disparate interests. So, I decided not to feel guilty about watching some of the Olympics while working on my cases.

Neither occupation is satisfying standing alone. My cases are fairly routine, as I’ve outlined previously and the Olympics events can be almost as deadly (no pun intended).

Then I had an epiphany that Greg would have been proud of. What the Olympics needs is a shot in the arm (pun intended).

Why not add a "gang" sport to the agenda? Something like "Drive-by shooting." There are lots of shooting events in The Games: skeet, target, airgun. The Winter Games has one of my favorites: the biathlon, cross-country skiing + shooting rifles at targets.

Why not make a sport of shooting from a moving car at a moving target or into an inhabited dwelling?

Think of the societal advantages. In past generations, ghetto delinquents were urged to get into boxing as a catharsis for violent tendencies. When I was a kid in Brooklyn I boxed in the P.A.L. (Police Athletic League). Y.M.C.A.’s had their boxing and wrestling programs.

This sport requires just as much talent and skill as the events now calendared. Well, maybe not as much as synchronized diving. But certainly it demands more eye-trigger finger coordination than that one.

Judging from the number of instances of this sort of behavior in our court system, we would have a head start on other countries competing for medals in this sport.

Just as skateboading is now a money-making "Extreme Sport," drive-by's could be a cash cow instead of a scourge. Nike could make a bundle on the sportswear. Taking the skills off the streets and into the corporate sports entertainment business world is our meat.

Don’t let the fact that this activity began as a crime chill the concept. There is precedent. NASCAR’s roots were in bootlegged liquor hauling over state lines. Pioneers like Junior Johnson went from souped up jalopies outracing Revenuers to stock cars racing around tracks.