I Don't Get It -- Monster Truck Deaths

It's hard to believe anything more ridiculous happening in the past week than Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich taking his bad haircut onto The View and later comparing himself to Ghandi and Martin Luther King. However, there was one other news item this past week that just had me scratching my head.

Last week, George Eisenhart went onto a Wisconsin television station to tout the safety of Monster Truck events. His appearance was meant to calm fears, as a few days earlier a six-year-old boy was killed by flying debris at a show in Tacoma, Wash.

Eisenhart told the reporter, according to CNN: "This is our 16th year. I wish I had a big piece of wood to knock on right now, but we have not had an incident besides a gal slipping in the aisleway at another location."

It's a shame he didn't have that piece of wood. Because a couple of days later, he was crushed to death by a monster truck during an event in Madison, Wisc. And the driver was a good friend.

Now, I don't want to in any way poke fun at these two very sad deaths. It's a horrible tragedy. And I feel horrible for those families. But, come on. The organizers need to be held accountable. What are the odds? That's like a kid getting fatally injured by a foul ball at a baseball game, then Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig accidentally getting hit by the bat of former Mendoza line-hanging Phillie Steve Jeltz taking BP. Or like the replacement for the New York Giants' leg-shooting Plaxico Burress hurting himself in a gun-related accident. (Oh wait, that actually did happen).

Seriously, how do you let this happen? I understand that the people running the Monster Truck Racing Association are probably not Rhodes scholars. Heck, they probably have a hard time keeping up with the plot line of Ernest Goes to Camp. Wait up, is FEMA's Michael Brown running the show over there?

By the way, don't visit the MTRA's Web site. As of Tuesday, Google had a warning that declared "This site may harm your computer." Giving the way the MTRA has handled things the last couple of weeks, I wouldn't want to get near their Web site, let alone a show. But if you do, I'm sure you'll be fine.

Knock on wood.