Briefly

NASCAR morality

Sports reporter Mike Finney finds a Nextel Cup crew chief auditioning for a role as Pentagon spokesperson:

Todd Berrier, crew chief for the No. 29 Chevy of Kevin Harvick, has been suspended for the next four races and fined $25,000 for using an unapproved fuel filler and unapproved fuel cell vent in qualifying for last Sunday's race. …

"If I had to do it again, I'd still play it to try to get away with it, because I know how I got caught," Berrier said. "I could tell you several ways I'd have gotten away with it. But at the end of the day, wrong is wrong, I guess."

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Forever

Advil has tapped actress Kristine Sutherland to pitch its pain relievers in their new TV commercials. I don't begrudge her the work, but it's an odd choice.

Sutherland is best known for playing Joyce Summers, Buffy's mother on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." In that role, she's most remembered for dying from a brain tumor after a year of crippling headaches. The episode of the show that dealt with Joyce's death is one of the most remarkable and unsettling hours of television I've ever seen. It's unforgettable.

So I'm watching these ads for Advil and part of me is thinking "death from headaches" and I'm just not sure that's really the association you're looking for when you're advertising a headache medicine. It's a bit like seeing Ali MacGraw in an ad for cancer treatment.

Seeing Sutherland stuck doing commercials also reminds me of Goldie Hawn's "three stages of women in Hollywood": the ingenue; the district attorney and the mother.

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Article II, Section 1

Apparently the standards for the Miss USA pageant are much stricter than the standards for the office of president of the United States:

With less than three weeks until the nationally televised Miss USA pageant, officials are reviewing whether to eliminate Delaware's representative after learning she pleaded guilty to driving under the influence last year.

Sheena Benton, 23, of Milford, was crowned Miss Delaware USA in November … On Feb. 29, [2004] Benton was pulled over on U.S. 113 in Frederica. She was arrested and charged with driving under the influence … She remains on probation with a revoked driver's license until this June, [according to court documents].

My advice for Miss Benton: When they ask you about this, give them a smirk that's kind of half sarcastic/dismissive and half fawning plea for reassurance, then say, "I was young and irresponsible when I was young and irresponsible" and refuse to comment any further.

That's been known to work.