Frank should have died. This season has proved that the supporting characters can support the show, and that they're no longer just supporting characters. I liked Lip nearly failing out of college. It showed that the writers regretted making him such an unrealistic genius, capable of acing AP exams without ever going to class. Looking back on it, I bet they wished they toned down his genius.

I admit that sometimes I don't agree with Mugger, but he is always a must read for me. He knocked it out of the park here.

I'm not convinced that the phenomenon of addiction isn't a brain malformation, as other neurological disorders like schizophrenia, BPD, and clinical depression. Drugs are often used to allay the pain of diseases like this, but I'm not sure drug addiction always comes from somewhere else, as a symptom, that it is the beginning and end. But, as you said, cultural stigma and the abstract nature of the brain make things like this extremely difficult to assess.

But Russ, what else are these kids going to do with all their health-care savings? Pay bills?

Although I see where you are coming from Nicky, I strongly disagree with the labeling of addiction as a "disease". Physical addiction is basically having the effects of withdrawal. Not a disease that can be caught or a malfunction of the body. It can be deadly and very hard to overcome on one's own, but is quite clearly a physical reaction to the lack of a chemical normally introduced into the body. If you work out every day, you may feel like crap the day you don't work out due to a lack of endorphins. In this sense it fits more as a symptom than a disease. As for psychological addiction, this seems to be more related to self-medicating. Many addicts, as you mention in this article, are suffering from actual maladies like depression, anxiety, bi-polar, etc;. They take drugs and become reliant on those drugs because their disease is so disturbing to them any relief is better than none. Because of attitudes towards mental health in our society, many choose to find the "easy solution". In many parts of our society, there is less stigma towards casual drug use than being treated for mental health. Furthermore, the effort required to properly diagnose and treat through both medicine and CBT, is much greater and time consuming than buying a baggie or bottle of drugs/alcohol. In other words, this "addiction" is more like treating a cold with pain killers than a disease in itself. It makes you feel better but does nothing for the underlying cause. aka The wrong treatment for the unidentified ailment. Just my thoughts for what they are worth. I also think understanding addiction as a symptom instead of as a disease will be the beginning for better treatment of the initial problems that cause this symptom. I've seen few people "recover" from addiction without understanding what led them down the road in the first place.

Interesting comments from Dr. Andrews on the rise of UCL injuries. http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/04/10/dr-james-andrews-explains-why-tommy-john-surgery-is-on-the-rise/

Injuries happen, what we're seeing with position players isn't too uncommon. Shane Victorino on the DL? No shock. Reyes hurt? Like you said, predictable. Jurickson Profar? Unfortunate, but players get hurt. He'll be back soon. The Yanks lost Teixeira, but did they really have him in the first place? They would've been rolling out Solarte, Roberts, and Jeter even if they didn't have any injuries. That was just a shortsighted move by Cashman. What concerns me is the rash of UCL related injuries. Teams need to find a way to avoid those as much as possible. Tommy John Surgery has come a long way, but any way you shake it, you lose your pitcher for a full season.

I think the real problem here is that most U.S. citizens don't understand privacy anymore. Many of the people who complain about NSA data collection program are either oblivious or unbothered by the fact that Apple, Google, the phone companies, etc. have the same info. People post crap all over Facebook and are yet surprised that strangers can and will access that information and use it against said poster. Eich forgot that anytime you write something down (a check in this case) others can and will read it and use it. Whether we are talking about Eich, the Koch brothers, George Soros, or your average citizen, once you write or say something followed by "Send" you become fair game.

You are a brave man. I can't imagine watching college baseball, especially when it's cold.

Bowden sucks, and even though he made a couple good points, his article sucked too. It was poorly written and read like a fan playing GM. The only reason ESPN keeps him around is because he gets page views, and the only reason he gets page views is so people can comment about how stupid he is. What an idiot.

As an early 1980s Lit instructor at University of Florida, my sister noticed “Tab Girls.” sorority queens who accessorized with cans of the archetypal diet soda. When I was a child, when Tab first came out, I recalled sampling a Tabulator at my cool aunt’s house, expecting Coke and swallowing Chemistry Set. Huh. At the time, I had same reaction to my parents’ J&B scotch. It tasted vile, yet cool. Like Tang. Or cigarettes. Or John Cage music. Tastes aren’t acquired so much as punched-up in the re-write of our minds.Tastes get written-off too. Believe it. Regardless of the upshot, the decision process is quite beside our lying taste buds.

Yes, drinking diet soda is all kinds of wrong. So is eating raw elbow macaroni by the fistful, right out of the box. And wolfing Elio’s Unthawed Pizza Portions. Is it any wonder some dream of chewing and digesting glass and metal? I do. And I must say your diet soda screed evoked the dark heart of compulsive consumption. Who hasn’t loitered on the kitchen threshold of Mom’s Snacktime No-Cal Methadone Clinic? Who doesn’t know the dentistry? Been there and yes, it’s a lifetime live-in slow-mo train wreck. To your health.