It's clear that I don't follow sports news, nor watch the increasingly bizarre commercials that accompany sporting events. I finally became aware of the Miller Lite Catfight controversy when I read about it in -- I'm not kidding -- a three-week-old issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. For those who have been on a figurative Himalayan mountaintop, like me: A current Miller Lite ad campaign features two women slugging it out while each chants her favorite half of the "Tastes Great!" "Less Filling" mantra; NCAA president Myles Brand found the spot to be tasteless and banned it from being shown during the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

I'm not going to rant specifically about the ad here. For one thing, I haven't seen it. I'm sure that on some level it's crude and offensive, and on another it's funny. The one thing I can't understand is how it elicits any suspension of disbelief. I mean, what kind of thrips-brain gets into a fight over light beer, fergodsake, except in cases of self-defense when someone's trying to force you to actually drink it? If I, or any other beer drinker I know who has any taste buds at all, were to get into a slapping, shoving, clothes-ripping, rolling-around-in-mud fight related to any brand of light beer, the exchange would probably go something like this:

"Pure hype!" [slap!]
"Tastes lousy!" [shove!]
"Pure hype!" [shove!]
"Tastes lousy!" [rip!]
"Pure hype!" [kick!]
"Tastes lousy!" [slam!]

Please excuse me; I'm off to wash my mouth out with Bell's Oberon. (Disclaimer: The author of this blog is not affiliated with, and receives no consideration from, the Kalamazoo Brewing Company, nor from any other purveyor of alcoholic beverages.)