LIKE COCKWORK

Here’s a little news out of Tennessee (so you know it’s going to be good). Law enforcement agents recently raided an illegal cockfight operation, arresting 144 people in what one official on the scene said was likely the nation’s largest such gathering.

According to reports, it was a real law enforcement to-do. Several SWAT teams, police helicopters, and dozens of state troopers converged in the raid to contain participants at the sprawling Del Rio Cockfight Pit. They seized nearly $40,000 in cash and killed more than 300 roosters in mopping up. That's a waste of cock on par with Rock Hudson.

“Reputedly, this was the largest cockfight in the United States,” said District Attorney Al Schmutzer Jr. He clearly forgot the day Al Franken and Bill O’Reilly squabbled at a C-SPAN Book TV event a couple years ago. A bigger cockfight there has never been.

Anyhow, each of the 144 taken into custody was charged with being a spectator to cockfighting, a misdemeanor in Tennessee. If convicted, they face up to 11 months and 29 days in jail and a $2,500 fine. 11 months and 29 days? A FULL YEAR must have been deemed a little excessive. A year in prison just for being a spectator seems almost as cruel and unusual as watching birds peck one another to death for sport. Imagine having to explain to your new "bunkie" that you're serving time for watching cocks go at it. These people won't last a day behind bars.

John Goodwin of the Humane Society of the United States said this raid served notice to others conducting such illegal operations. “I wouldn't want to be a cockfighter in East Tennessee right now,” he said. I’d personally rather be a cockfighter in East Tennessee than North Hollywood. I won't even stand within a urinal’s width of one of those monsters.

David Webb, a gamecock owner from Rhea County, said he lost more than 20 chickens during the raid. “I've been around this stuff all my life. Everything I've ever known is a chicken fight,” he said. Now that's living.

We need to make sure this man and the woman who had www.goldenpalace.com tattooed to her forehead never get drunk together or we may end up with another Jessica Simpson on our hands.