Bob Margolis, your Y chromosome is showing ...

Amid some exciting baseball games and the beginning of the NBA playoffs, a historic sporting event took place on the other side of the world this weekend when Danica Patrick became the first woman ever to win a Indy Racing League event. The victory came at the Japan 300 in Patrick's 50th career start, the current peak in a career that has generated loads of attention for the struggling circuit thanks to both Patrick's racing ability and, yeah, her striking good looks and her willingness to market (exploit?) the same. But Patrick's career also has created controversy because of her appearances in skimpy swimsuit and provocative ads - combined with her lack of a victory so far. Some commentators, such as Yahoo Sports' Bob Margolis, have gone as far as to compare Patrick to Anna Kournikova, stating that her presence in IRL wasn't worth the attention until she actually took the checkered flag once. So you would think that Patrick's win would turn the tide and finally shut up her critics, right? Not in the case of Margolis, whom within 24 hours took great pains to marginalize her achievement.

Among other things, Margolis called Patrick's victory "a triumph (more) in public relations than auto racing" and noted out that she won in Japan based on a fuel management strategy - an outcome that is far from unusual in IndyCar racing - rather than an exciting wheel-to-wheel finish that "many close observers of the sport feel she will never win". ("Now Patrick can focus on scoring a more “traditional” victory," Margolis oozed.) He also so helpfully pointed out that the Japan 300 starting pack was smaller than usual - only 18 cars - and that only seven of them were in the lead lap at the end. He even uses other women, such as drag racing legend Shirley Muldowney, to water down Patrick's milestone - forgetting the very obvious fact that while Muldowney indeed did plenty to shatter the motorsports gender barrier, she never had to make a left turn going nearly 200 miles per hour, something that a lot of drivers with penises (including, I'm just guessing, Bob Margolis) would have great difficulty accomplishing without sending themselves into a wall.

In the end, Margolis writes that Patrick's victory "leaves itself subject to scrutiny." But the only thing that deserves scrutiny is Margolis' objectivity. It's a far cry to compare Patrick - a former IRL Rookie of the Year whose has steadily gone up in the circuit's standings year after year, including a seventh-place finish in 2007 - to Jackie Robinson for a myriad of reasons, including the fact that Patrick isn't the first or only woman in open-wheel racing. But it's easier to compare Margolis to the (possibly) racist naysayers in the press box who looked down upon Robinson when he broke baseball's color line 61 years ago. He is, to be blunt, a Neanderthal who lets his obvious contempt for Patrick get in the way of his alleged expertise about the sport he is paid to cover.

This story makes me sick ...

This morning, as I awoke to another sunrise in Los Angeles and another story about Jamie Lynn Spears still being pregnant, I also awoke to another reality: that I am the living result of an "experiment". At least, that's what the CIGNA insurance company thinks. The "experiment" line was the rationale that they took to deny a Los Angeles family coverage of the liver transplant that their daughter, 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, needed to save her life. Nataline was a leukemia patient who underwent a bone-marrow transplant from her brother, but a complication led to a lung infection and, eventually, liver failure. But CIGNA denied the Sarkisyans' request for coverage for the procedure, saying that the operation was, yeah, experimental.

As Nataline lay in a medically induced coma at UCLA Medical Center, a large rally in front of CIGNA's L.A. headquarters was staged yesterday to convince the behemoth to reverse their decision - and, miracle of miracle, it works. The family got word at the rally that CIGNA would cover the surgery after all, though even then they couched their words as if they were doing the Sarkisyans a favor - the favor the clan had paid for with premiums, by the way. But only hours after that, Nataline took a turn for the worse and died before she could go under the knife.

In their statement approving the transplant, CIGNA said that their "hearts go out to Nataline and her family as they endure this terrible ordeal". Now that she's dead, CIGNA isn't saying anything so far - probably in anticipation of the inevitable lawsuit - so no word on where their hearts are now. We know where their livers aren't.

Look, there are differences between my situation and Nataline's. I didn't have cancer, for one. But I was on death's door - hell, death was knocking hard and using a chainsaw to cut the door open. At the time I was double-covered by my parents' dual insurance policies, and still the bill was as long as a Russian novel. They fought us over paying for a medical jet that would transport me to Omaha for the transplant, claiming that they could just load my comatose ass onto a commercial flight. And that was almost 20 years ago. Who knew how long the "experiment" would last - or what hoops we would have to go through if I had the transplant today - or, God forbid, need another one someday?

This is not a political blog for the most part. But if you ever needed any proof that the health-care system in this country is irretrievably broken, just look at the corpse of Nataline Sarkisyan. Seventeen years old. Dead because of a corporate decision. Several candidates on both sides tell us that it's our responsibility to be insured in order to fix the problem. But if the insurance company doesn't do its job, then why bother?

UPDATE: Here is the Los Angeles Times' take on the situation.

UPDATE 2: The Sarkisyans have hired a big-time lawyer and may be going after more than a lawsuit. Murder and/or manslaughter charges may be filed. A message is about to be sent, and how.