Or maybe this would be better called, “Bad news Thursday.”

Last week, regular reader Rich from Boston sent me this incredibly disturbing link to a story from ABC News, about Sheikh Mohammed’s brother, Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, who tortured a man on videotape. The tape was subsequently smuggled out of the country. From the story:

“The incidents depicted in the video tapes were not part of a pattern of behavior,” the Interior Ministry’s statement declared.

The Minister of the Interior is also one of Sheikh Issa’s brother. (sic)

The government statement said its review found “all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department.”

The victim is accused of “short changing on a grain delivery to his royal ranch on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.”

Two subsequent stories report on the lack of movement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on this incident, despite calls for her to investigate.

This, following an incident earlier this year in which Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer was denied a visa by the United Arab Emirates, forcing her to withdraw from a major tournament being held there.

A search of key words related to the torture story yields nothing from any mainstream outlet other than ABC.

In other news: Tuesday morning, a colleague poked her head into my office. “Oh my God, that was awful about those horses!” she said. “What horses?” I asked. “Those two poor horses in Kentucky that collided.” This, from a woman who, while mildly interested in racing, probably can’t name one Kentucky Derby starter. “Where did you hear about that?” I queried. “It was on the news this morning,” she said.

Here? In New York? Local morning news?

Yep. Not a word about the Derby, but the death collision makes it on to NBC4.

Hat tip to Equidaily for my first alert to this piece on the process of euthanizing an injured horse.
It’s compelling reading, all the more so for me because I happened to be at the Fair Grounds on the day about which the story is written.

And just to show that it’s not only racing that, when it’s not getting no press, is mostly getting bad press: after pretty much ignoring the first round of the NHL playoffs, Mike and Mike in the Morning Tuesday had an extended bit on Rangers’ coach John Tortorella’s inexcusable behavior on the bench during Game 3 at the Cap Centre Verizon Center in Washington, in which Tortorella threw water on a fan and had to be physically restrained while holding a hockey stick in his hands like a weapon. All this taking place on the day that he scratched Sean Avery for that player’s lack of discipline. While the two sports guys didn’t entirely pillory the coach’s actions, the repeated replays of the videotape showing Tortorella with the stick in his hand doesn’t do much, shall we say, for the game’s image.

And yes, folks, that’s it for the Rangers this year. Four of seven games were close, enough to give us hope, even when we knew that the Rangers weren’t a very good team and had no business making it past the first round. My Rangers’ soul is nonetheless a little disappointed, while my bank account breathes a sigh of relief.

And in slightly brighter news, do check out this terrific profile of Dr. Mick Peterson by T.D. Thornton (hat tip to Raceday 360 for this one). Peterson presented at the synthetic surface forum at Saratoga last August and was in my opinion the star of the show, offering thoughtful reflections based on data rather than anecdotes. I’ll be eagerly waiting to hear what he discovers about track surfaces in his work at Churchill.