Recently while watching CNN, I read a quick sentence about March Madness on the news ticker. The sentence read, “March Madness kicks off this Thursday, stay tuned to CNN for the latest.”

I’ll admit I was confused; I really had no idea what they were talking about. I thought about it for a while, contemplating every possible explanation for what March Madness could be.

Thoughts of mad cow disease, the rift between Martha and Donald and the bubonic plague crossed my mind, but for some reason it didn’t add up.

Suddenly genius struck and said, “Flip to Fox News; they always know what’s going on, or at least that’s what some say.” Listening to my inner demon I did it, just in time too. Racing across the bottom of the screen was a blurb about March Madness reading, “Get your own March Madness bracket at foxnews.com.”

Finally an answer to what March Madness is. Obviously, March Madness was about home repair, why else would you need a bracket unless you were hanging something up?

Quickly, I ran to my room to get my very own bracket from Fox News. Much to my dismay, I learned that March Madness had nothing to do with either home repair or mad cow disease, Martha or the plague — it was about basketball.

Learning the truth only confused me even more; I don’t get it. I get the whole March part, but what does madness have to do with basketball? Are the players escapees from a mental institute? Are the coaches lacing the Gatorade with Prozac, Thorazine or other anti-psychotic drugs?

It just proves that often the name of an event does not make sense. Think about it. The Super Bowl? What is so super about it? A bunch of men run around, throwing the carcass of a dead pig, tackling each other. And the bowl — don’t even get me started on that.

Then there is the World Series. Only American teams play in it, so why is it called a World Series? Are we just trying to look like we don’t discriminate, as though we invite all to play when really we are selfish, greedy Americans, unwilling to share baseball with say, Trinidad and Tobago?

This is a serious problem that is adversely affecting our nation.

I call on Congress and you, the reader, to take a stand for truth. Forget the hearings about steroids, this is more important! Write your congressman; we are the future of this nation! Turn off ESPN, get off your duff and take a stand! Speak up!

If we continually allow sports to be immune to the basic laws of the land, like honesty, what will we become?

A joke.