Russell Crowe goes conservative and I learn not to trust the Nielsen Co.

- Can't say as I would have ever pegged beer guzzling, bar hopping, phone-throwing-at-hotel-bellboys actor Russell Crowe as a prude, but he is apparently just that. Crowe, a part owner in the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby club, has made the decision to eliminate the team’s great cheerleading squad because of concerns about the cheerleaders detracting from the game and making some fans uncomfortable. Specifically, Crowe cited female fans and fathers who bring their young sons to games as those who might be offended by the sight of the cheerleaders in their costumes, which include tasseled miniskirts and fishnet stockings. Call me crazy, but I’m guessing both the fathers and their teenage sons would enjoy that sight. Plus, having slutty, skanky cheerleaders seems to have worked out very well for both the NBA and NFL, so what’s the big deal? So Junior goes to the game and sees some glorified stripper out in her miniskirt that’s about three inches long and her fishnets, what exactly is the problem? Crowe seems to embrace just about every kind of vice and frat boy-esque tendency out there - beer, bars, fighting, irresponsibility - so why must the fans of the Rabbitohs suffer because he’s suddenly developed some sort of social conscience? C’mon, Russell, replacing the cheerleaders with a percussion group is a terrible decision and you know it. Bring back the stripers, er, spirit squad!

- Hope that was worth it, USC. The University of Southern California is quickly learning how Ohio State must have felt in the aftermath of the tornado that was the Maurice Clarett experience. Clarett, you may remember, was a bowling ball of a running back who led OSU to a national title in his only season at the school before his ill-fated challenge to buck the NFL’s age limit rule ended in disaster. Clarett committed multiple NCAA rules violations and landed OSU in quite a bit of trouble, but he himself landed in more trouble when he was charged with armed robbery and then was found driving around Columbus with all sorts of weapons, drunk and in the immediate vicinity of a witness in his trial. Now Bush, a year removed from USC, is bringing shame on the name of his old school thanks to his indiscretions while there, and now, for indiscretions after leaving. First, he is under investigation for taking money, a car and a free house for his family from a potential agent while at USC. Then there’s the most recent allegation, that he may have committed another NCAA violation, this one a recruiting boo-boo. Top-ranked recruit Joe McKnight said during a press conference announcing his college choice (USC) that he had a conference call with Bush in order to ease concerns about USC facing potential NCAA sanctions because of Bush’s own misdeeds. Both McKnight’s high school coach and USC coach Pete Carroll are spinning this, but I doubt that McKnight simply misspoke, as they are selling. The chances that a high school kid could spin such a well-worded retraction of something that never happened at all is difficult to believe, and honestly, there’s no way that this story of the conference call with Bush is totally untrue. Regardless of how this turns out, Bush is causing a lot of headaches for USC, so I hope those two national titles they won thanks in large part because of his play were worth it all.

- Proof positive that if you make crappy enough music continually, it will catch up with you: Gwen Stefani, who might be better suited sticking to fashion designing and being a rock star wife, is going to abandon the solo route, at least for now, and go back to make an album with her band, No Doubt. I’m as stunned as anyone that her recent album, The Sweet Escape, which has a lead single featuring Stefani yodeling and dancing with a giant key of some sort, hasn’t done well. I mean, who wants lyrical depth, interesting themes and actual musicianship out of the songs they listen to? Oh, that’s right, pretty much everyone except teenage girls and chimps. Not that No Doubt was the rocking-est, greatest band on the music scene (actually, they were pretty mediocre even at their best), but any No Doubt song or album is preferable to the garbage Stefani churned out as a solo act. And yes, I still hold a bitter grudge against Bono and U2 for ever having No Doubt as an opening act on one of their tours. See, even mega rock stars like Bono screw up sometimes, but thankfully, U2 makes great music to cover for their screw-ups.

- In recent months, we’ve heard about a two-year-old boy found wandering on a freeway because of his mother’s negligence and a grandmother sending a one-month-old infant through the X-ray machine at the security checkpoint of the LAX airport, but there’s a new leader in the worst parent or guardian race, in this piece of crap is so far out in the lead that he may not be caught. William Lorenzo Page, 23, of Braddock, Pa. was arrested on charges of criminal homicide, kidnapping and simple assault after, and yes, this is very disturbing, he knocked his two-year-old daughter, Nyia Miangel, unconscious and left her outside to freeze and die in single-digit temperatures. Why would he do something so vile and reprehensible? Because the young girl was being uncooperative about going to bed. Worse yet, the girl was found at a playground 10 minutes from the family’s home, meaning ‘ol William dragged her there and left her. Dude, that’s just horrible, because there’s never a reason to treat any human being like that, let alone an infant. If you don’t want to put up with and care for kids, don’t have them. But kids are funny like that; they can sometimes be uncooperative and unhappy. You’ve got some recourse; you can scold them, punish them, spank them, take a walk to calm down, call a friend or relative to watch them for a while so you can let off steam…….there are a lot of ways to cope, but knocking them unconscious and leaving them out in the freezing cold to die is not an option. Best of luck trying to garner any sympathy from a jury when your case goes to trial, Willy.

- The good parenting techniques keep rolling in. Vanessa Johnson, 44, of New Orleans, found a great way to come to her son’s aide when he lost a fight with another boy. She gave her son Clarence, 17, a gun and told him to go get revenge on the guy who’d beaten him up. And yes, this story ended in predictable fashion: the other guy ended up dead, Clarence is facing second-degree murder charges and Vanessa was booked as a principal to second-degree murder. So referencing the previous paragraph, I guess I should add that giving your kid a gun and telling them to go shoot someone who beat them up is also not an acceptable way to parent. Sorry I left that out before……….

- Used to be the Nielsen Co. was the source for TV news. They were respected and trusted almost universally, but I’m going to start seriously questioning anything these people say from here on out. In analyzing the commercials from the Super Bowl (yes, a gigantic waste of time to begin with), Nielsen claims that the most popular products advertised for were beer, automotive products and beverages, in that order. What I find hard to believe is that crank enhancement drugs weren't tops on that list. Every football game I watch (and I watch hundreds every year) feature an ad, usually more than one, for Viagra, Levitra or some other pill to make dudes’ cranks work better. The ads feature thinly veiled references and metaphors about sex and they’re almost always creepy and weird. But you’re telling me that there were more ads for beer, car products and beverages than for those pills? Quite frankly, that’s gonna shoot a major hole in the credibility of the Nielsen Co. But again, if you spend any time analyzing the individual commercials of the Super Bowl broadcast or issues relating to them, you are a loser, period.