Is anyone out there old enough to remember when pro football players would make a spectacular run, execute a bone-crushing tackle, or catch the impossible pass, then simply return to the huddle or retreat to the sidelines? No crazy dancing, undisciplined gesticulating, or wild celebration. It was their job and they performed it with pride and dedication, and felt no need to incorporate show business into the mix.
This of course was at a time when they were paid pitifully little for the abuse they took, had limited access to rehabilitation, and were absolute captives of their team owners (i.e. no free agency). But now on Sunday afternoon just about every play finds someone on the field morphing from gridiron monster to karaoke queen. You knock someone down and you strut. Catch a pass and do a Jacko Moonwalk. Sack a QB and beat your breast like an unbridled King Kong. And all this restrained by penalties for “celebration.” How far we’ve come from the days of Norm Van Brocklin, Y. A. Tittle, and Jim Brown.
#####
Two days before the recent G-20 gathering in Washington, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said that “we see friction between Anglo Saxon capitalism on one hand and European capitalism on the other.” D’ya think? Mercifully, Sarko’s attempt at the meeting to fold North America into the EU was received with the healthy suspicion it deserved. For the record, I take no umbrage at Europe’s social and political inclinations, so long as it does not insist that I march to their drummer. Were you aware that in France a shop owner is not allowed to advertise a sale any time (s)he pleases, but only during semi-annual periods when the Government permits.
#####
I’m thinking of organizing a pool to predict the future date at which George W. Bush will cease being blamed for every planetary deficiency. I would think that somewhere north of the year 2030 would be a good bet. Clearly the Bush Administration has presided over substantial disasters and been directly responsible for some. But even the most rabid partisans cannot attribute 100% of global failure to our 43rd President. Well apparently, yes they can.
#####
Former Michigan Congressman David Bonoir just appeared on my TV to push for the proposed legislation that would, among other things, abolish the secret ballot for Union organizing campaigns. He maintained that is the only way workers will be able to “attain a living wage.” A quick Google tells me that the average Detroit auto worker today makes $75/hour, never mind the legacy percs and job guarantees. Where do I sign up?
And if abolition of the secret ballot in Union organizing is high on the new Administration’s agenda, perhaps some fears raised by “right-wing crackpots” are not so bizarre after all. How anyone could keep a straight face while advocating the removal of one of the most fundamental tenants of democracy is, well, a bit scary. Democrats in the House just elected their leadership by secret ballot, but Unions shouldn’t be so constrained. Say what?
And yet I choose to believe, unless and until proven wrong, that my new President will keep his promise to “bring us together.” His cabinet choices so far have been spot-on in my view. And my confidence is bolstered by the outrage coming from the far Left. The appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State has caused blown gaskets all over the radical landscape. In my view it takes a big man to appoint as his global spokesperson a woman who referred to him as “hopelessly naïve” in the area of international affairs. And while the Right takes umbrage at the appointment of the highly partisan and self-described “junk yard dog” Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, my view is that his challenge will be not to contain the Right but to hold at bay the mad dogs of the Left.
…the adventure is coming back to life. Next time we meet I will be somewhere else…
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
VIRGINIA 008
I was never much of a football player in my youth, but lacking strength and stature, I tried to balance the deficiencies with what was in the day called “pluck.” I remember one Pop Warner coach demanding that I try to block a punt, and as I still recall the terror (not to mention pain) of having a high-velocity pigskin slammed into my unprotected face. My helmet was just that, a head covering and nothing more. Today there are multiple bars and Plexiglas windows that render the face impenetrable from the outside world. Such defensive shield would have been a great help against the kid who tried to gouge out my eye at the bottom of a scrum where I was attempting to recover a fumble.
Nor was I was ever much of an Elvis fan, perhaps because he nearly got my nose busted one dark night back then. Ronnie was a recent transplant from Tennessee to our suburban Philadelphia neighborhood, and his entire family was very partial to “the King,” who had not yet been crowned but was well on his way.
Returning from a Friday night dance at Holy Cross (mass on Sunday and financial juggernaut on all other days), Ronnie had words with a throng of miscreants who slandered Elvis in the process. Upon reaching home, he committed the error of mentioning the scene to his father, who then demanded details of the revenge extracted. Upon learning that no blood had been let, he summarily hustled us, a misbegotten gaggle of 3 weenies plus Ronnie, into his car and we spent the next half hour driving the dark streets of Clifton Heights looking for the offenders. I came closer to my creator that night praying in fervent silence that we would not find the thugs, who in my mind had already gained half a foot and 20 pounds apiece. Alas, my prayers went unanswered, thus beginning a long stretch of ecumenical failure to communicate.
Find them we did, and father ordered us out of the car with explicit instructions as to how we should rearrange the body parts of these damned Yankees, ignoring the fact that all of us save Ronnie were just that. My short life flashed before my eyes as Ronnie went for the purveyor of most explicit slander, who just happened to be the smallest, while one of his chums, larger by half, sidled up to me and inquired “how bout we go a round or two.” Hoping to lighten the atmosphere I answered, teeth chattering, “around where?” But he took my attempt at levity as further provocation, and advanced apace.
“I’ll fight’cha in those woods outta the light,” and I took off on a tear, never stopping until I reached home well over a mile away, then shrinking for a considerable time in the shrubbery lest he see me enter and mark my doorway for a later return and unspeakable retribution. I tried mightily the following Monday to convince my cohorts that I had indeed done battle in those woods, but I was not to be believed, and became thus forever marked as one not to be quickly chosen when gathering resources for a rumble. It was a slight that I have never regretted.
Clifton Heights, PA was a well established Italian enclave, the residents of which were none too happy with the emergence of a post WW-II community of row houses into which moved all manner of undesirables, including Protestants and Jews, though no African Americans, as integration thereabouts in the early 1950s was as foreign in the Philadelphia of Pennsylvania as to its namesake city in Mississippi. I got a taste there of what it must be like to be a minority, as the horn rimmed glasses Mother chose for me coupled with my slight build won me the nickname Jewboy, a moniker not even perfect attendance at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church could shed.
Entertainment was stickball in the street, Saturday cowboy movie matinees (20 cents admission and 5 cents for Good & Plenty), and running behind the truck spewing a fog of DDT that passed through the neighborhood on humid summer evenings. Sport was boxing at the Police Athletic League on Saturday mornings, plus football and baseball, the advantage being that they were played outdoors on hardscrabble sandlots and didn’t require the extensive buildings and paraphernalia so necessary to modern day youth activity.
My off-and-on best friend was Joey, known far and wide as Pig Eye, so tagged by his admiration for swine, the origins of which were never discussed or long forgotten. For months on end, every Tuesday after school, he would offer “Hey Ritchie, my Mom’s makin tomato pie. Come for dinner.” Pie, I thought, with tomatoes, hmmmm. “Naw, I can’t Joey, I gotta get home.” It was long after he stopped offering that I first encountered pizza at the Holy Cross carnival, made as only Philadelphia Italian mamas could. Adults (and we kids when we could get away with it) washed down the tomato pie with Dago Red wine – in those days the word was a label of pride and not a slur.
Philadelphia and its environs never held much attraction for me and I rarely returned after college, but you ate well there with the best hoagies in the world – with mortadella, capicola, provelone, and projute, as the locals called ham, not a SUBstitute. And while Phillie cheese steaks are served around the world, the only one I ever found beyond the 190 to 192 zip codes that measured up was prepared by a an expat. Ed. Note: The only way you can be sure you’re in a genuine Phillie restaurant is if the waitress asks “Whattle yuz have”?
...the adventure has stalled in naive anticipation of meaningful employ, but will soon move westward, or otherward if opportunity knocks...
Nor was I was ever much of an Elvis fan, perhaps because he nearly got my nose busted one dark night back then. Ronnie was a recent transplant from Tennessee to our suburban Philadelphia neighborhood, and his entire family was very partial to “the King,” who had not yet been crowned but was well on his way.
Returning from a Friday night dance at Holy Cross (mass on Sunday and financial juggernaut on all other days), Ronnie had words with a throng of miscreants who slandered Elvis in the process. Upon reaching home, he committed the error of mentioning the scene to his father, who then demanded details of the revenge extracted. Upon learning that no blood had been let, he summarily hustled us, a misbegotten gaggle of 3 weenies plus Ronnie, into his car and we spent the next half hour driving the dark streets of Clifton Heights looking for the offenders. I came closer to my creator that night praying in fervent silence that we would not find the thugs, who in my mind had already gained half a foot and 20 pounds apiece. Alas, my prayers went unanswered, thus beginning a long stretch of ecumenical failure to communicate.
Find them we did, and father ordered us out of the car with explicit instructions as to how we should rearrange the body parts of these damned Yankees, ignoring the fact that all of us save Ronnie were just that. My short life flashed before my eyes as Ronnie went for the purveyor of most explicit slander, who just happened to be the smallest, while one of his chums, larger by half, sidled up to me and inquired “how bout we go a round or two.” Hoping to lighten the atmosphere I answered, teeth chattering, “around where?” But he took my attempt at levity as further provocation, and advanced apace.
“I’ll fight’cha in those woods outta the light,” and I took off on a tear, never stopping until I reached home well over a mile away, then shrinking for a considerable time in the shrubbery lest he see me enter and mark my doorway for a later return and unspeakable retribution. I tried mightily the following Monday to convince my cohorts that I had indeed done battle in those woods, but I was not to be believed, and became thus forever marked as one not to be quickly chosen when gathering resources for a rumble. It was a slight that I have never regretted.
Clifton Heights, PA was a well established Italian enclave, the residents of which were none too happy with the emergence of a post WW-II community of row houses into which moved all manner of undesirables, including Protestants and Jews, though no African Americans, as integration thereabouts in the early 1950s was as foreign in the Philadelphia of Pennsylvania as to its namesake city in Mississippi. I got a taste there of what it must be like to be a minority, as the horn rimmed glasses Mother chose for me coupled with my slight build won me the nickname Jewboy, a moniker not even perfect attendance at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church could shed.
Entertainment was stickball in the street, Saturday cowboy movie matinees (20 cents admission and 5 cents for Good & Plenty), and running behind the truck spewing a fog of DDT that passed through the neighborhood on humid summer evenings. Sport was boxing at the Police Athletic League on Saturday mornings, plus football and baseball, the advantage being that they were played outdoors on hardscrabble sandlots and didn’t require the extensive buildings and paraphernalia so necessary to modern day youth activity.
My off-and-on best friend was Joey, known far and wide as Pig Eye, so tagged by his admiration for swine, the origins of which were never discussed or long forgotten. For months on end, every Tuesday after school, he would offer “Hey Ritchie, my Mom’s makin tomato pie. Come for dinner.” Pie, I thought, with tomatoes, hmmmm. “Naw, I can’t Joey, I gotta get home.” It was long after he stopped offering that I first encountered pizza at the Holy Cross carnival, made as only Philadelphia Italian mamas could. Adults (and we kids when we could get away with it) washed down the tomato pie with Dago Red wine – in those days the word was a label of pride and not a slur.
Philadelphia and its environs never held much attraction for me and I rarely returned after college, but you ate well there with the best hoagies in the world – with mortadella, capicola, provelone, and projute, as the locals called ham, not a SUBstitute. And while Phillie cheese steaks are served around the world, the only one I ever found beyond the 190 to 192 zip codes that measured up was prepared by a an expat. Ed. Note: The only way you can be sure you’re in a genuine Phillie restaurant is if the waitress asks “Whattle yuz have”?
...the adventure has stalled in naive anticipation of meaningful employ, but will soon move westward, or otherward if opportunity knocks...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
VIRGINIA 007
Today I have a new President-elect. For those paying attention it should come as no surprise that the winner was not my first choice, although the runner-up did little to enflame my passions. It is probable that I will disagree with many Obama Administration programs going forward. Yet Bill Clinton emerged, after a shaky start, as a responsible leader of domestic policy, and one can always hope.
But Barack Obama is my president, and I will afford him the dignity and the civility due his office, and accept the judgment of the American people who have elected him, something those on the left have been unable to bring themselves to do these past 8 years.
While there is a strong likelihood of what I will do, there is metaphysical certitude of some things that I will not:
Ascribe to the new President’s every move a diabolical motive.
Revile him, and all who support him, in the most vicious and evil terms.
Trash and demean his wife and children.
Relentlessly ridicule his deficiencies.
Pass around on the Internet crude jokes, stupid cartoons, vile
accusations, demeaning caricatures, or outrageous rumors.
Join any radical fringe of condemnation.
Lie in wait and pounce on his every error (and he will commit a few)
and loudly proclaim his idiocy, ineptitude, or treasonous intentions.
Attend movies or watch TV programs that revile and humiliate him.
I will, in other words, try my best to dissent without abandoning civility, to object without condemning, to support alternatives without trashing the original idea. I will try my best to act with respect, and not as the left has conducted business since the year 2000. I will try to be better than they are.
Most important, I will applaud his successes, even those that spring from programs I do not embrace. I hope his policies fashion a better America and contribute to an improved planet. And if that means I must admit the superiority of some liberal policies to my own conservative values, I will pay that price willingly. Sadly, in this “enlightened era,” convictions and prejudices often supersede our desire for a better world, as in the radical left actively promoting failure in Iraq (General Betrayus!) to further embarrass Bush. That is not progress, but idealistic jingoism.
Like many life pursuits, be it a new job, a personal relationship, even a tangible purchase, the outcome, and in this case the wisdom of the electorate, will not be known for some time. The American people twice elected George W. Bush and in the end did not like what they had wrought. Now the slate is clean and a new scorecard stands ready.
God speed, Mr. President-elect.
But Barack Obama is my president, and I will afford him the dignity and the civility due his office, and accept the judgment of the American people who have elected him, something those on the left have been unable to bring themselves to do these past 8 years.
While there is a strong likelihood of what I will do, there is metaphysical certitude of some things that I will not:
Ascribe to the new President’s every move a diabolical motive.
Revile him, and all who support him, in the most vicious and evil terms.
Trash and demean his wife and children.
Relentlessly ridicule his deficiencies.
Pass around on the Internet crude jokes, stupid cartoons, vile
accusations, demeaning caricatures, or outrageous rumors.
Join any radical fringe of condemnation.
Lie in wait and pounce on his every error (and he will commit a few)
and loudly proclaim his idiocy, ineptitude, or treasonous intentions.
Attend movies or watch TV programs that revile and humiliate him.
I will, in other words, try my best to dissent without abandoning civility, to object without condemning, to support alternatives without trashing the original idea. I will try my best to act with respect, and not as the left has conducted business since the year 2000. I will try to be better than they are.
Most important, I will applaud his successes, even those that spring from programs I do not embrace. I hope his policies fashion a better America and contribute to an improved planet. And if that means I must admit the superiority of some liberal policies to my own conservative values, I will pay that price willingly. Sadly, in this “enlightened era,” convictions and prejudices often supersede our desire for a better world, as in the radical left actively promoting failure in Iraq (General Betrayus!) to further embarrass Bush. That is not progress, but idealistic jingoism.
Like many life pursuits, be it a new job, a personal relationship, even a tangible purchase, the outcome, and in this case the wisdom of the electorate, will not be known for some time. The American people twice elected George W. Bush and in the end did not like what they had wrought. Now the slate is clean and a new scorecard stands ready.
God speed, Mr. President-elect.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
