The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

Here's an interesting take on baseball's steroid scandal. Let's just say I agree more than I disagree:

Just once, I would like to hear an active athlete/entertainer surrounded by a steroid scandal rise up and be honest and unafraid the way retired Charles Barkley can be when he said that, if it meant the difference between being poor and rich, he would have popped illegal pills ''like Tic-Tacs'' and spent all his time sticking needles in his ample posterior.

Can you picture it? The scandalous swirl that envelops Marion Jones and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (but, inexplicably, not Shawne Merriman) being countered by one brave and defiant athlete standing in front of the cameras and saying the following to America:

``Yes, I used HGH. Used it all the time, illegally, under the supervision of trainers I pay well to keep me at optimum efficiency. My body is a business and a source of great profit in the entertainment industry, and I've hired the best mechanics to keep this machine running right. I'm sorry that is something you tolerate from the governor of California and Rambo but not me.

``What I do for a living hurts physically, and the hormone helps me heal. Craig Biggio destroys his stomach lining by taking 12 Advil a day. I did this, which is actually safer. I'm not sorry for that. I'm sorry you don't understand the world where I work. I'm sorry I'm surrounded by ignorant judgments and name-calling and sports McCarthyism. But I'm not sorry for being competitive and looking for advantages in medicine the same way I did in film work, scouting reports and training techniques.