International Law

Tragedy of Bob Costas? Youthful Looks

I am going to start posting comments on things that interest me—Korean legal topics and perspectives will probably remain the dominant theme here, but the legal world doesn’t produce Earth-shaking news every day.

Over the weekend I caught the latest episode of HBO’s political talk show Real Time with Bill Maher. It’s an entertaining show, despite the pronounced liberal bent of the host, the audience, and two-thirds of the invited guests (if you’re conservative you must be bold to venture into that studio). This weekend’s show was aberrant—they somehow got four conservatives—Jonah Goldberg, Matthew Dowd, Amy Holmes and P. J. O’Rourke—invited to appear on the show, together with the pride of St. Louis (my hometown), NBC sportscaster Bob Costas.

Bob Costas is a handsome and fresh-faced 55 year-old man, pixieish in stature at 5’ 7” (if you’re feeling generous—I suspect he’s shorter than that) and graced with wild intelligence, encyclopedic sports knowledge, and a great voice for broadcasting. He’s widely known and respected as a decent fellow, despite his liberal politics. Everybody likes Bob Costas.

He has done something terrible. Throughout the program, I was unnerved by the fact that Costas’ forehead, eyebrows, and upper lip were immobile. Having just seen an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! featuring graphic footage of plastic surgery, in particular Botox injections into the (you guessed it) forehead, eyebrows, and upper lip of women who refused to age gracefully, I am certain that’s what’s behind Costas’ frozen mien. He also has bleached his teeth and perhaps gotten veneers, although because his upper lip never moved I couldn’t see the top teeth to be sure.

Bob Costas! You’re 55 years old. It’s okay if you no longer look 20. In fact, it would give many of us comfort.

Full post as published by Korea Law Blog on February 11, 2008 (boomark / email).