Yahoo Travel has revealed some of the most disturbing places on the planet.  How about The Chapel of Bones in Portugal?  The walls of this chapel are covered in artistically composed designs of bones from more than 5,000 human exhumed skeletons.  On one wall, a child’s dried corpse hangs from a chain.  Yikes.  And there’s the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.  It features a collection of anatomical oddities.  And there’s a surgical amphitheater where amputations, tumor removals and hernia repairs were performed without anesthesia.  Please.  And how about the Chernobyl Amusement Park in Pripyat, Ukraine?  The amusement park was built for the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers and their families and was scheduled to open May 1, 1986.  Unfortunately, five days earlier the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred.  No one ever returned.  That’s not too creepy, is it?  I guess it’s all in good clean fun.  Happy Halloween….

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I love hearing Jim Harbaugh exhorting his team in the locker room, “Who’s got it better than us?”  And they yell back.. “Nooo-bodyyyy!”  The new 49ers head coach is driven, intense, competitive… and he’s as tough as nails.  But the genesis of this celebration goes back to his childhood.  I heard Jim tell the story in Andrea Kremer’s excellent piece on HBO’s Real Sports last summer.  It was his dad, the patriarch of the football family and long time college coach Jack Harbaugh who used to ask his young boys, John and Jim…”Who’s got it better than us?”  They would holler from the back seat… “Nooo-bodyyy!”  When Jack Harbaugh, now 72, speaks of how proud he is of his sons, there are tears in his eyes.  And I know he’s now watching these locker room exchanges, which were born in their tiny house a generation ago.   When he hears “Who’s got it better than us?”…  I can only imagine the pride that fills his heart.

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I realize that there’s good and bad in every part of society… that there are ups and downs in every moment of our lives.  There will be those who agree with us, and those who don’t.  But do you ever run across someone who seems to be negative about EVERYTHING?  A person that seems to HATE every single thing that’s out there?  You complain about the movie, the food, your taxes, the quarterback…. You can’t stand your co-workers, your boss, your job…. You can’t wait to rip somebody or something you see on Facebook or any other forum.  That’s fine.  There’s no law against being negative.  Matter of fact, I think you should have your own Social Network.  How about Whiner Face?  You and people like you could moan about stuff 24/7.  And you can bring each other down… and spread gloom in one convenient place.  But I can’t help but think..  when you get to the end of your life, you will have wasted a lot of energy, and you will have crippled your soul.  And the joy train would have come and gone for good.

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After The Bee’s Vic Contreras pointed out that, for the 49ers, this season feels a little like 1981..  how can you not get excited?  30 years ago, the Niners had come off a 6-10 season… after missing the playoffs for the eighth consecutive time.  This year, the 49ers are coming off a 6-10 season… after missing the playoffs for, uh… the eighth consecutive time.  We all know what happened in 1981.  The Bill Walsh-led Cinderella team went all the way to the Super Bowl… and won it.  I know, it’s way too early to think about anything beyond the next game.  But no one expected Jim Harbaugh’s guys to be 5-1 at this point.  Most of the “experts” picked the Rams to win the West.  And no, we don’t have Joe Montana.  But 1981 was long before Jerry Rice.  Their running back that year was Lenvil Elliott… and the tight end was Charle Young.  They were underdogs to the very end.  That’s the way we like it.  So whatever happens….at least 49er football is fun again.  I know we didn’t say that very much last year.

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The whole game was sort of bizarre… a series of botched moves, misplays and lack of clutch hitting.  At least on the part of the St. Louis Cardinals.  But what everybody’s talking about is Tony La Russa’s failure to bring in closer Jason Motte in a critical moment.  Was this actually because of a miscommunication between the dugout and the bullpen?   The wrong guy comes out to pitch?  I suppose that’s possible, but doesn’t that sound kinda fishy?  Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post thinks there’s something missing from the story, and he explains here.  Maybe the manager is covering for somebody… maybe Motte wasn’t ready.   Perhaps we’ll never know.  But that’s a big loss for the Cards, and they’re up against it now.  The only thing weirder… would have been a call to the bullpen, and out trots…  Charlie Sheen.

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Sometimes if it says “extremely graphic video”… I’ll admit that I have to take a look.  So I’m not complaining that there are gruesome scenes showing the capture and death of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.…  I’m the one who clicked on it, but I didn’t enjoy it.  Times have certainly changed.  Scenes that were unattainable a few years ago are now everywhere on internet sites and blogs from around the world.  I can imagine that there are plenty of newsrooms conflicted over whether to air some of this stuff.  The inevitable technology has brought us a close up view of some exhilarating things… and some awful things.  I’m fine with a prime time network show refusing to air lurid video.  But I believe that anyone over the age of 5 will see it, if he or she wants to.  Gadhafi was a criminal… we get it.  And we seem to have more tolerance for a violent demise, as long as he’s “a bad guy.”  But the uncontrolled frenzy, the mob mentality of those who surrounded him in his last moments… gave me the chills.

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I just want good things to happen to this guy.  No, I didn’t expect him to return to the 49ers this season.  He’s been vilified, spit on, virtually tarred and feathered… and blamed for everything including the Lindbergh kidnapping.  To say his first six seasons were a little rocky is the understatement of the year.  But look what’s happened.  Sports Illustrated’s Jim Trotter says Alex is “reborn.”  With Jim Harbaugh on board… and with essentially the same roster as last year… the Niners are 5-1.  I thought if Alex Smith was just decent this year, it would be a confidence boost for him.  He’s been better than that.  And this humble kid (who’s the same age as Tim Lincecum), still gives credit to his teammates.  And his guys love him back.  The other day, Frank Gore said “Number 11’s coming!  You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”  If Alex keeps this up, he’ll be more than the Comeback Player of the Year… he’ll be Comeback Player of The Decade.  No, Alex Smith is not Joe Montana.  The good news is…. he doesn’t have to be.  In this week’s SI, Peter King suggests that Alex Smith vs. Aaron Rodgers in the NFC title game is not impossible.  Yes, this is the same Peter King who picked the Rams to win the West.

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One of my favorite shows is Real Sports on HBO, which seems to pop up once a month.  Investigative pieces, player profiles, behind the scenes stories.. they’re always top notch, and well worth finding.  But this month’s commentary by Bryant Gumbel on the status of the NBA lockout is what’s drawing a lot of heat.  He made reference to NBA Commissioner David Stern as “a modern day plantation overseer.”  Yikes.  Are you kidding?  A slavery reference?  You obviously knew that would light a fire.  Well, if you just wanted to get Real Sports some attention… you certainly got your wish.  I don’t suppose this discussion will die down anytime soon.  Shaun Powell of ESPNNewYork.com writes, “You can disagree with his tactics and his strategy and his idea of what makes for a financially stable NBA.  But you can’t, under any circumstances, compare the most progressive commissioner in sports to a slave owner.”

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I know, you’ve heard about the overblown Harbaugh-Schwartz incident a hundred times this week.  But I realized that the Handshake and ensuing melee, which took all of about 12 seconds… is a microcosm of what the 49ers have done to most of their opponents this season.  They get under your skin, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Getting beat by a bunch of no-names is so humiliating that afterward you chase them across the field and yell, “You ruined my day!”  They not only refuse to apologize.. they’re laughing all the way to the locker room. 

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IndyCar racing star Dan Wheldon is gone, following one of the worst crashes in the history of the sport… at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.  He was a husband, a father… a champion and friend to many.  Along with millions, I love the sport of auto racing.  Of course, there’s risk and danger.  And some will say that any race track is an accident waiting to happen.  But there have been serious doubts about the safety of the steeply banked Las Vegas layout for years.. that it’s too fast, too dangerous.  When someone as experienced as Dario Franchitti says, “IndyCars shouldn’t be racing here”..  someone should listen. 

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