Today, Thursday, in a live broadcast on Spanish television, insanity in Spain, not the World Cup fever that has broken out as Spain prepares to meet Holland in the finals, but the annual insanity known as the running of the bulls. In Pamplona, Spain, at the second of the eight scheduled running of the bulls at Spain's San Fermin fiesta, famous for its bull runs and its around-the-clock drinking, that attracts tens of thousands of men from Spain and from other parts of the world, the. score -- the bulls have 2 & 5 -- 2 gored humans and 5 other humans reported injured and hospitalized. The humans score? Not looking good.

The Associated Press reports --"Thousands took part in the dash to keep ahead of six fighting bulls and six bell-tinkling steers tasked with keeping the beasts together along the 930-yard (850-meter) course from a holding pen to the northern town's bullring. The run lasted just under four minutes and produced panic when some bulls separated from the pack. One stopped just before entering the bullring and paced in circles threateningly while staring at the runners... The first runner (was gored) in the chest -- a second man was gored in the left leg ... Five more people were hospitalized in Pamplona for less serious injuries, mostly broken bones and bruises sustained in falls as they ran, though (television) images clearly showed other people being trampled. "

Somber young men running in front of dangerous bulls is not what I call smart. Young men who may have taken part in an around the clock drinking fest, running to stay ahead of dangerous bulls, I call that insanity. Maybe the old gods haven't gone too far away, because many of the old pagan practices haven't? The bulls are on their way to the arena to "fight" and to die in the bullring, and their meat is to be served up in Pamplona's restaurants. Maybe the old gods are sitting back and snickering, after whispering in the ear of one or more of the bulls, the command, "Get 'em!?" Each year dozens of people are injured in these runs.