Recently in Not weather Category
Sarah Palin is no more qualified for VP than Obama is for President. Nor is she less.
I admire Sarah Palin as a person and speaker, and she seems keen, as well as tough. John McCain probably is right when he states that she won't be told to sit down. I admire and respect that trait in anyone, whether or not I agree with their ideals, because I never did respect indecisive pushovers. She clearly isn't a wimp. She also represents a fresh face to the tired Washington scene -- not because that face happens to be quite beautiful, but because behind the pretty face is the brain of a proven reformer yet uncorrupted by the den of sin that lies inside the Beltway.
While I won't yet gush over her the way Pat Buchanan has, he made a good point: She has more governmental executive experience than Obama, or even Biden or McCain for that matter. After all, remember that we are talking about an election for the executive department here. In the end, if elected, she may prove the gamble was worth it. I surely hope so. But in the meantime, indulge some reservations...
As with Obama for President, I cannot justify Palin for VP based only on metrics of experience and credentials that constitute the political equivalent of bench press, 40-times, high jump and other measurables in athletics. Both Palin and Obama have gaping weaknesses as far as credentials or specific expertise of any sort are concerned. McCain and Biden do not, though Biden is much more of a party hack than McCain has proven to be.
Fortunately the main vote here is for President and not VP, and as I've mentioned before, on the Presidential side, the credentials contest is so lopsided as to be laughable. Of course, my sociopolitical beliefs line up much closer to McCain/Palin than Obama/Biden, which is what most of us will base our vote upon anyway. So goes mine.
But I admit Palin was a risky selection -- more so than, say, Kay Hutchison (if McCain was hell-bent on a female VP), Romney, Huckabee or Pawlenty (whom I thought would be the choice). In a way, though, this maneuver fits a pattern with McCain's history as a maverick. Palin most certainly is no Washington insider. If McCain gets elected -- and for the sake of getting more socially conservative, constitutional literalists on the Supreme Court, I deeply hope he does -- then he had better stay fit and healthy for at least one full term, until she either shows on-the-job that she's fine, or he can replace her with more robust Presidential timber.
This looks to be a close election between candidates who are different as can be in so many respects that matter. Neither Presidential candidate is hapless cannon fodder, as with Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis (or, arguably, Bob Dole and John Kerry). We all know that the right and left are going to dig in and vote for who they're going to vote for, period. That admittedly, and unashamedly, includes me (on the right).
Therefore, the deciding factor at large, as in Bush41-Clinton, as in Bush43-Gore, as in Bush43-Kerry, will be the relatively small but all-important bloc of the unsure or unconvinced. McCain's best hope in this election are those swing voters away from the bastions of flaming leftism that characterize the coasts and northern cities. My hope in that regard is that middle and rural America uses its collectively superior reservoir of common sense and sensibility, in order to turn out in force and outvote the coasts and northern cities in this Presidential election.
A couple days ago when I was cutting the front acre with a push mower, as usual, I kept noticing a fat female cicada hovering around me and landing nearby, as unusual. This specimen was peculiar also: fat, with a mottling of reddish tan and black that blended to an overall orange appearance from the distance, and about 30% larger than most of the endemic, green and black "dog day" cicadas (e.g., Tibicen pruinosa, photo) that are so prevalent in these parts. I haven't seen one before, here or in Dallas, though I've read since that they're natives --- the bush cicada (Tibicen dorsata, photo).
Cicadas of all species make great snacks for the Mississippi kites that stay here in the warm season. In fact, Elke once tossed a male dog day cicada out of the garage, only to see a kite swoop in and snatch it mid-air, the insect's obnoxiously loud buzz sounding from every point along the kite's flight path before predator and prey receded somewhere into the distance. Listening to the Doppler effect manifest in a rapidly receding cicada alarm is an interesting and uncommon experience, but well worth the novelty should the opportunity arise.
We've got a mating pair of roadrunners that visit quite often. In addition to their obvious decimation of my property's toad and tarantula populations the last few years, the roadrunners love to grab any cicada they can. It's downright hilarious to watch one of these dinosaur-like creatures dart back and forth a short distance with a buzzing cicada, throttle it a spell, then gulp it down.
Cicadas also are an edible snack for people, and like crickets and termites, a nice source of protein in survival situations. [We'll make an exception for one cricket-consuming Dallas Cowboys fullback!] I'll eat cicadas, but only if necessary. It ain't necessary yet. In the meantime, I'm content to listen to their summer choruses and watch them get devoured by other fauna.
Somehow, my bold little interlocutor somehow escaped the kites, roadrunners and cicada killer wasps, only to pester me incessantly. She flew above and around, then landed on the mower or in the grass near me, again and again. Each time, I picked her up and either threw her in the air, whereupon she would swoop about and descend back down near me, or placed her on one of several little lollipop trees we've planted between the native ones out in the lawn. The cicada would climb the stick-trunk slowly, get near the top, take off, and...head right for me again. I kept wondering, what was this bug's major malfunction? If I were a predator, I would have consumed it a dozen times over by now.
Finally, I figured out why the cicada just wouldn't leave me alone. The attraction wasn't anything about me, fortunately. It was the machine.
The cicada was lookin' for love...from the lawn mower!
It took me awhile to figure this out, but what else is there to occupy the idle mind while cutting high, damp grass in 75 degree dew points? The noise of the mower does bear a fleeting resemblance to a magnified male cicada call. Somehow, miss lonely-heart cicada became convinced that she had located the ultimate male cicada - from the bug's perspective, a huge, strong, uncommonly loud and magnificent dude, clad in red exoskeleton, bursting forth a most powerful and irresistible call, a mighty stud that surely could deliver the goods better than any other. What bush cicada in her right mind would turn down such a romantic opportunity, right?
Alas, the mower ran out of gas, and the cicada wasn't seen again. Poor bug...jilted by a Troy-Bilt.
For background, I wasn't the kind of kid who asked questions like, "Mommy, why is the sky blue." At 7, I knew the answer to that (differential scattering across the visible spectrum). [This probably had to do with the fact that I learned to read not in school, but around age four, out of an old set of World Book encyclopedias.]
Instead my questions tended to hover along the lines of, "How can Ford possibly continue the previous administration's policies, like detente with the Soviets, if he is under such heat with the fallout from pardoning Nixon?" [This probably had to do with our one consistent splurge -- a subscription to the daily Dallas Times Herald.]
Recently, while engaging in the reasonably mindless but necessary chore of mowing grass, a series of previously scattershot questions came to me that I realized still have not been satisfactorily or completely answered, and about which I have wondered since childhood.
* Why is elementary school often referred to as "grade school," when middle (a.k.a. junior high) and high schools also have grades?
* What is the name of the person who decided that "ain't" shouldn't be a word, and what gave him or her the authority to make that decision for me?
* Smoking causes disease in oneself and others, tars lungs and teeth, fills the house with noxious fumes, makes one's breath stink, and costs lots of money. Why do it?
* What, exactly, is the modern function (not purpose, but practical function) of a necktie? If "none," what's the point of using one, really, other than to waste time and effort?
* How can it matter which hands you use to cut the meat and hold the fork, as long as you're keeping your elbows to yourself and the food gets in your mouth without making a mess?
* How can it be anything but hypocritical for those on the left who advocate "tolerance," "diversity," and "tolerance of diversity," to be so bitterly intolerant of those with opinions radically different than their own (e.g., neoconservatives and evangelical Christians)?
* Yellow Cab, Greyhound and Amtrak never "overbook." [Neither does JetBlue these days.] Why should United, Delta or American?
* Two identically sized bottles of shampoo have the same ingredients in the same proportions, and smell the same. Only the labels are different. Why on earth would anyone pay three times as much for one as for the other?
* For more than a few months, my parents could not get away with spending more than what they earned, even if the spending was for what we believed to be necessities. How does the government?
Thanks to JEvans for forwarding me this link to a thought provoking essay on the greater unsaid agenda behind environmental extremism, and how it is becoming normalized, mainstream behavior for the Democratic Party -- including it's current deity du jour, B. Hussein Obama. My only change would be that the movement he represents, cloaked in a deceptive veneer of "audacious hope," is far more socialist than fascist.
For all the hand-wringing over climate change on both sides of the fence (most of it driven by underlying dogmatic agendas), I've got the simple solution for whatever shifts may occur: adapt! We are, by innate origin, a tropical species anyway. And if technological assistance and innovation cannot aid us in any adaptation necessary, then so be it. Humanity isn't promised a free ride on this ball of water and dirt.
The possibilities of warm climate shifts don't bother me a tiny fraction as much as the reactionary extremism to the most speculatively grandiose of those possibilities, and the consequences thereof on the social and economic fabric of the greatest and most powerful nation the world ever has known. Sure, I personally believe it's dumb to drive SUVs around unless they're going to be taken off-road and used for their constructed purpose. Sure, I would like for my own vehicle to be more fuel efficient -- or for my 6'-3" frame, my family that includes an even taller 12 year old son, and all my gear, to fit comfortably in smaller cars. Sure, I would love to see far more people put true effort into conserving energy and resources (after all, isn't conserving at the definitional root of conservatism?).
But that's up to the consumer to decide, not the government to decide for us. I got solar hot water and geothermal systems, and set up recycling bins at home, because I freely chose to conserve, not because anyone else (especially in government) told me to, and most certainly not because of any guilt-trip spewed by the green goblins of environmental nannyhood. So if B. Hussein Obama doesn't want me eating a great American corn-fed steak, I'll tell him exactly where to stick his granola bars (that come packaged in petroleum-derived plastic, BTW). Same goes for anyone else amongst the babbling lemmings of leftism that will follow this guy into their delusional dreamscape of socialist rule.
Still, despite BHO's abject lack of substance or of expertise in anything in particular (outside of smooth talking), a perfect storm of events may well put this shyster in the Oval Office. For reasons both justified and not, Republicans in general are unpopular at this time. BHO and his unprecedented campaign wealth have vanquished the Wicked Witch of Arkansas/Chicago/New York and (on the surface) folded her into his web. He's charismatic, cunning, clever, with a shiny smile and a smooth style -- someone who could con most folks out of the lint in their pockets and sell it back to them for a hundred bucks. Gifted by virtue of birthplace with the street sense of my inner-city background, I can see straight through his game like a new windshield. Apparently, however, too many millions of others haven't had to deal with enough used car salesmen, dice throwers and downtown wristwatch hustlers to develop that ability. And they're going to vote for him.
This modern day snake oil salesman is running against a very old man in John McCain who, much as I respect him and his vastly superior Presidential credentials, simply may not be able to keep up oratorically in the media sound-bite game to which the huge majority of voters are so pathetically gullible. The West Coast and Northeast are, by in large, bastions of leftism and, as such, already lost to electoral insanity. But if BHO somehow can convince the bulk of far more sensible Middle America to vote for him, it will be the most impressive con job ever performed on a group of tens of millions.
Not on me. Unless John McCain chooses an absolute moron as his running mate (in which case I would abstain, given the natural lifespan of someone his age and the potential the running mate may become President), I'm voting for the Arizona senator and Vietnam POW. I fear I won't be in the majority.
Say, how big of a "carbon footprint" is B. Hussein Obama's campaign and its fawning media entourage leaving anyway? This hypocrisy alert was brought to you by red-state sensibility. ;-)
It's never too early in the season for another entry in my longstanding website devoted to the futility and weirdness of the Texas Rangers baseball club. The newest item:
The 2008 season already was turning into a thudding clunker by the end of April, with the Rangers firmly cemented at the bottom of the standings. Seeming somewhat indignant at this development with which we fans are quite accustomed, some national sports writers made the following observations in their respective rags in the same week:
A couple of months ago, before all this travel, I was sawing apart assorted ice storm damage, when a falling branch clocked me upside the head and dug out a chunk of my scalp. I didn't cut its base correctly and it fell the wrong way...namely, onto me. I was wearing a hoodie, and didn't realize the tree had done anything more than bounce off my skull until a minute later, when I felt that characteristic warm cascade of liquid dribbling down the back of my neck, and around both sides of my right ear. "Bummer," I thought...I would have to waste the waning daylight tending to a busted-open head instead of finishing the chore at hand.
Elke was tilling soil in a flower bed, and I casually strolled up to her and said, "Wanna help me patch up this hole in my head? It's a might messy." She used to be a vet assistant many years ago, and she has cut up hundreds of rats to feed to her mom's hawks and eagles. It's good she is not squeamish about blood. I'm certainly not...besides, men tend to have high iron levels and should shed or donate blood sometimes. So all was cool as long as it didn't need stitches. We went inside to the laundry room sink...she chopped off a bunch of surrounding hair, cleaned the torn scalp out really well, dressed it old-west style and sent me back outside to fetch the tools.
A pint or two of blood lost and a knot on the head later, I healed up for a few days then got right back to tree trimming. I probably sawed down 200 limbs and branches, and half a dozen whole trees, and only one of 'em tagged me. A 99.7% is an A+ in my book. The hair has grown back and all I've got to show for it is a bumpy scar underneath a full, thick growth of new hair. Can't complain...many men in my age bracket are getting bare scalp there anyway.
A few nights ago I was corresponding with an old friend from the Metroplex, who was giving me some grief about that, and we got around to discussing the last time anything like this happened. I was about 15, biking on a sidewalk, while roaring downhill at speeds that may have been illegal for a car. Suddenly, thanks to a badly buckled segment of pavement on that sidewalk, the bike wasn't under me anymore and I was airborne at that very velocity...head-on into the trunk of a big ol' hackberry tree.
You might guess who won that collision, but it would be only partially correct. At that age I was known for having a very hard head (the head-butt being a fantastic tactic to gain quick advantage in close-quarters fighting), and it showed. I actually tore off a few square inches of bark, but left some of my scalp and hair in the remaining bark that was still there over the following week or two. To this day, my hairline is a bit higher on the right side of my forehead, as a result of that very incident. The tree is still there on the north side of Oram St., 150 yards east of the corner of Skillman, and for a couple years, had a little scar too. Call it a draw!
After wincing away the blinking points of light and that annoying buzzing sensation between my ears, I asked, "how the hell did I get over here, this far from that tree?", gathered up my unnaturally bent bicycle, and strolled down to the Eckerd's drugstore a block away. Blood poured down my forehead and face as I calmly asked the pharmacist if I could use his wash basin, some soap and some wrapping. The look on this dignified old gentleman's face was priceless, at least what I could see of it through my own ugly mess of dirt, hair and blood. I probably looked like Bruiser Brody after one of his chair-swinging, ice-pick dodging ringside riots with Abdullah the Butcher. Lots of free gauze and iodine for me, though...
My mom was rather aghast at how I appeared when I got home, but saw I would be OK in a few days. My dad, of course, being a former rodeo man and still tough-as-an-old-boot Texan, shrugged off my own injuries as nothing special ("Hell, you ain't dead and you ain't crippled, so what's the big deal?") -- but was absolutely furious because of what I did to that bike. He must have spent a couple hours straightening the rims and handlebars, and fixing the tire, occasional staccato bursts of profanity tightly glued to my name as his wrenches slipped or a spoke broke. His frustration mounted by the minute with both my recklessness that caused this ordeal and with his own lack of coordination using knuckle-busting tools. I didn't dare to even go say "thanks" when he was done, for dread of uncorking the lid on an already seething temper that by then was on the brink of pyroclastic explosion.
It may have been as close as he ever came to backhanding me halfway to Houston, and I couldn't claim I didn't partially deserve it.
Or was it that Pyrex beaker full of new zinc pennies that I melted down on the kitchen stove burner a few weeks before, only to see it break and spill molten zinc all over the stove's innards?
Or the time I climbed up to the top of the kitchen cabinets at age 4 to go catch some spiders I saw up there, found a shoe box filled with hundreds of metal nails of all shapes and sizes, and dumped them all over the floor far below?
Or that time at age 6 that I found the prized watch that his late older brother took off a slain Japanese soldier in WWII, and hurled it against the wall in a horrifically successful effort to "crack the metal nut open" and see what was inside?
Or the time at age 9 that he got home from work and I hollered howdy to him -- at 4 a.m., on a school night, from our roof top, through howling wind, while I was trying to get a better view of an approaching thunderstorm?
Or the time my mom was in the hospital when I was 7, and I hid days and days worth of his uneaten cooking between my toy box and the wall?
Or when I threw dozens of water-soaked pieces of toilet paper onto our painted bathroom ceiling at age 5 to see them stick up there and drip all over the room in fun patterns?
Or was it that time at about age 8 that I thoroughly dissected his wind-up alarm clock down to its tiniest gears, and in what I thought was a favor, laid it all out neatly on his nightstand for him to reassemble?
Or the time at about age 10 when I wired together a bunch of old TV and radio parts at random with part of a string of Christmas lights, and plugged them into the wall to see what would happen (blew multiple fuses in the fuse box and filled the house with acrid smoke)?
Or was it...forget it...I've made my point. :-O
Fortunately, he tended to calm down and forgive about as fast as he could boil over. After that crash, I healed up fine but for that prematurely elevated hairline on one side. I think I kept the blood-and-iodine soaked bandages for a few weeks as a souvenir until one of my parents found out and made me throw them away. I wonder why...
Now I'm the father of a 14 year old who already is taller than me (and I'm 6'3"), even clumsier, and more injury prone. At least neither he nor I experiment with molten zinc or wet toilet paper these days. Still -- poor Elke...she has to deal with both of us!
During some recent time in College Station for business and pleasure, I had the honor and opportunity to visit the museum portion of the library of George H. W. Bush (41st President). This easily was the most visually pleasing corner of campus, and one well worth a visit for anyone interested in American history and the lives of presidents in particular. I had a hard time with lighting and composition for photography on this day, but have posted a few photos online which turned out acceptably.
The museum (external link) is airy, open and well designed on the inside, with chronological pods devoted to various stages of Bush's life and accomplishments as a private businessman, war hero and civilian public servant, as well as sections featuring his ancestors, his wife Barbara, her literacy campaign, and a mock-up of the Oval Office. The building and its exhibits stand collectively as a dignified and educational testimonial to the life and times of Bush-41, without any unnecessary gaudiness or overstatement.
Since I briefly met and shook hands with the elder Bush while I was a teen and he still was VP, and since he was the first Presidential candidate for whom I ever voted (1988 elections), the place had some special meaning beyond its own outward merit. The man was and is a class act, a war hero, a respected leader free of ugly scandal, and a role model for the nearly lost art of statesmanship. As such, the visit to his and Barbara's future gravesite (where they already moved the remains of their eldest daughter Robin, who died at age three of leukemia) was somber and just a little spooky.
I almost forgot to take a look. It began as a casual diversion on a whim of curiosity -- an impulsive and unplanned stroll over a creek and down a sidewalk winding through the woods -- but became much more. I stood for several moments at the wrought iron entrance to the plots, looking at the bronze memorial plaque with the empty spaces reserved for the years of the elder Bushes' passing, then quietly surveying the scene all around. It was a warm, sunny, winter's noontime, with not another person anywhere nearby, only some songbirds in the trees and a pair of crested caracaras soaring high above for company. The thought hit me that opportunities for such reflective solitude at this place will be extraordinarily uncommon once these graves contain Robin's (and George W's and Jeb's) parents, and visitors collectively wear off a good deal of shoe rubber on the path leading there.
Then came the more over-arching realization, vivid as if I were watching it unfold in person or on TV. "A former American President whom I admire is going to be buried right here someday," I thought, with a jolt of empathetic grief foreshadowing the eventuality. Maybe it's because it has been just a few short years since I closed the casket lid over my own dad and then watched his burial, but I could imagine vividly -- in the form of a virtual video playing in my head -- the sad, but eventual and inevitable, occasions. Our current President and his siblings, clad in dark suits and dresses, accompanied by spouses, kids and grandkids, in the darkest throes of grief, will walk over the creek too, down that same winding path and over this very spot. They will lay a beloved parent to rest, and in the case of their father, amidst a military funeral honors detail, Taps wailing from that solitary bugle, the flag folded and presented, perhaps with millions of worldwide admirers watching on TV if broadcasting is permitted. Even if not, photos will appear later, followed by many thousands of visitors in person in ensuing days and years. "All of that grief and mourning will be focused right here where I stand alone," I realized.
That was a rather potent and unanticipated reaction for a little side trek that started out as almost an afterthought.
I am not a depressed or morose person by nature, not in the least. Still, that scene haunted me off and on for much of the way home. It probably will again when that time does come, watching that broadcast or seeing those photos from what is now a very familiar and unambiguously evocative place. Let's hope that scene waits many, many years to take place.
Fortunately, the library and museum stand nearby as a much grander and more prominent presence, serving as documentation and commemoration of the former President and his life. So in that sense, the unobtrusive, almost unmarked path through the woods and to the graves is a metaphor for how a celebration of one's time on Earth should not be overshadowed by the grief marking the end of that life.
Admnittedly I was premature in declaring football season "over." For me, it was, because my team wasn't in the Super Bowl, and my pro football interests typically are focused in laser fashion on one team and one team only, your five-time Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. My attitude about today's game was, "Ho hum. The Giants will keep it interesting for awhile but the Pats will prevail in the end thanks to their relentless offensive pressure and superior firepower." Wrong. It was the Giants' defensive firepower that kept it close, and in the end, set the stage for the offense finally to wake up and do something useful.
I didn't like either team in the Super Bowl, so I didn't root for either, but instead sat back and enjoyed what was a thrilling game. That was an amazing fourth quarter! The play of the game will go down as an all-time classic, one that even I (who can't stand the Giants) must admit was one of the most amazing in Super Bowl history. This was where Eli Manning somehow got out of a three-way blitz sandwich, scrambled left after nearly tripping, and heaved the desperation pass that David Tyree leaped to catch off his helmet, while draped by two Patriots. Luck and skill. That's how games like this are won.
I didn't wake up until the end of the first half (coming off a night shift), and was rather surprised to see the score 7-3 at that juncture. I'll begrudgingly hand it to the Giants for bringing the heat nonstop, and smacking Mr. Not-so-perfect all over the field. Indeed, that stick on the last drive, where an unblocked middle blitzer absolutely laid waste to Brady, was a great defensive play call -- perfect execution to place a perfect scowl on Mr. Perfect. I don't fell sorry for him, though. Gisele surely will do a fine job of soothing his aches and pains in the next few weeks.
I'm happy to see the Pats lose, but wish some team besides the Giants would have been the ones to do it (say, the Cowboys!). At least there's reason for optimism for my team going into next season, for once. The talent is there, no doubt, and should be reinforced by the addition of two first round picks, assuming Jerry doesn't do something phenomenally stupid, like trade those picks up for Darren McFadden. [Why? Marion the Barbarian is a ferocious beast. Instead, draft a talented change-up runner like Felix Jones with one of the existing picks instead, and use the other on badly needed DB depth...say, Aqib Talib.] The staff vacancies resulting from the Tuna's Dolphin raid have been filled by smart, experienced coaches, including Dave Campo, who is right where he belongs as secondary coach.
I would take a win or two less in the regular season if it means the team peaks at the end, instead of in the middle. Two teams I do not like -- Pittsburgh and the Giants -- recently have showed how it can be done.
It's Christmas Eve night, and folks are in their own homes or those of family or friends, celebrating the birth of our Lord, and all the good and great things that means.
Let us remember that not everybody is home. Hundreds of thousands of people are working tonight, and will be on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, as they do regardless of whether it is a weekend, late night or any particular holiday. It is for all my fellow shift workers that I extend a special wish tonight.
In no particular order, Merry Christmas to you...
...operational meteorologists
...firefighters
...law enforcement officers of all kinds
...air traffic controllers
...emergency room doctors
...and nurses and aides and clerks at hospitals
...convenience store clerks and cleaners
...emergency call center workers and dispatchers
...cleaning crews in every 24-hour operation
...transporters, whether by rail, air or truck
...utility crews and everyone keeping our power on
...national security
...private security
...the merchant marine
...captains, pilots and drivers transporting cargo or people
...support crews for bus, train and airline operations
...those who deliver 'round the clock
...miners
...pastors
...paramedics
...workers in manufacturing plants open on nights and holidays
...waiters, cooks and porters
...hotel clerks, cleaners and maintenance crews
...electronic systems operators and maintainers
...off-hours news and sports reporters and support staff
...radio and TV broadcasters not on day shifts
...stockers
...farm and ranch workers
...park rangers
...sports, concert and festival event staff
...and anybody else you can imagine in any facility that's operating on holidays, nights and/or weekends.
Because you're watching over something very important in this great land; keeping the water, electricity, gas and information flowing; keeping mission-critical systems working; or helping and protecting us from threats of all kinds, whether natural or man-made. There are some I left off the list, for sure, but not on purpose.
And in a very deliberate high priority, may Christmas blessings wash over our troops at home and abroad -- defenders of freedom worldwide, flag-bearers for liberty, who either put their lives on the line at all hours of every day, or may be called upon to do so at any time. These national heroes have fought, and sometimes died, in order that we all still are free to say, Merry Christmas.
A few ramblings from college football over the past several days...most important first:
5 MEMBERS OF ONE FAMILY KILLED BY BAD DRIVER
Last Monday, former Alabama RB Siran Stacy was driving his minivan with his family inside, when a yahoo driving on the wrong side of the road ran a red light and t-boned Siran's vehicle. The crash (Montgomery Advertiser story) killed his wife Ellen and four of his five kids, leaving only his little 3 year old daughter Shelly and himself as survivors. The driver of the pickup died too.
This is absolutely horrible...the saddest news I've heard about in the sports world in a long, long time.
From another Land of Crimson, I join all Oklahoma fans in wishing the best for Siran, his surviving daughter, their extended family, and all 'Bama fans in this time of crushing grief.
I got t-boned similarly in Norman several years back with my family in the car (ex and two kids), and somehow we all survived almost unhurt. It helped to have some luck, quick brakes and a 5-star crash rated vehicle with air bags. The driver was high on meth and pot and ran a stop sign unabated at 50 mph. I can't imagine where life would be right now had I lost any one of them, much less so much of a large family, as Siran did. Pray for him and his surviving daughter.
Buckle those seat belts too. We did, and that also helped to save us from serious injury. Siran's kids were buckled up, which at least seems to have helped save one of them, but he and his wife weren't.
I've also got faith all the big 'Bama boosters will rise to Siran's aid and take good care of him and his little girl too. Let it be not just the fat cats helping out, either. The Stacys will need everybody's support in the coming years, no matter what school you cheer for. In that light, here is the info on the benefit fund, set up by Wachovia Bank (which employs Siran): Siran Stacy Fund, P.O. Box 892, Geneva, AL 36340 (more information on the fund from the Alabama Athletic Department).
I also hope and pray this doesn't happen to some other family as a result of a reckless storm chaser's inattentive driving out in a town or the countryside of the Great Plains. It is something I've been concerned about for a number of years now, and we've been fortunate for it not to happen so far. I wish the storm observing community doesn't have to answer for something like this someday.
OU JEKYLL OR HYDE?
Which Oklahoma team will show up against Missouri in the Big-12 title game in San Antonio Saturday night? Mizzou has an offense that can't be stopped - just slowed and avoided. OU's defense did slow it down just enough in their previous meeting to win the game, thanks in part to a timely forced fumble and recovery for a defensive TD, but gave up too many big plays for my liking. MU's offense also can be avoided by long, methodical OU drives that keep the Tigers off the field.
I was encouraged with the way OU powered the ball right down OSU's gut today. Do that to Mizzou, and they won't get the ball as often. For keeping the defense fresh, that's a good thing. OU needs to beat the crap out of the Mizzou defense at the line -- use the OU offensive line's superior size and strength to just pummel them, opening up running lanes while also set ting up play-action opportunities for the Sam Bradford (a play-action ace who is astounding in his poise and accuracy as a freshman). No stupid mental penalties (personal fouls, offsides, false starts and such) or turnovers, which combined with the early injury of Bradford against Tech to cause that debacle.
OU's secondary play and pass rush each have been shaky all season since Big-12 play began, both at home and on the road. The difference has been the offense, which has been almost unstoppable at home and sluggish on the road. Needless to say, OU needs to treat this like a home game!
Even with OU missing explosive DeMarco Murray, both teams are talented enough, with a big variety of offensive weapons to spread the field, to hang a ton of points on each other. It could be a wild and high scoring game, but something tells me it instead will be sloppy on both sides with the margin of victory being decided through scoring as a direct or indirect result of turnovers.
It sure would help if pass rush specialist Auston English can play at or near full speed, after being out a couple weeks with a hairline, impact fracture in the fibula (non weight bearing calf bone). Harassing Chase Daniel into bad decisions will be crucial in winning the turnover game, and therefore, winning the game outright.
THE PINK SKIRT DEFENSE
It was no surprise that Nebraska canned Bill Callahan. Like OU with John Blake, they suffered absolutely embarrasing losses not only to rivals like Colorado, but to what used to be far weaker football teams like KU and OkieSU.
A large part of Callahan's problem was that the Blackshirt Defense turned into the Pink Skirt Defense while he was there. Seeing teams like KU and OkieSU thrash them every which way made me convinced that it is going to take several years of hard, solid recruiting to get some skilled, impact players back on what used to be a tough, physical unit that seldom yielded many yards via ground or air.
Under Callahan's watch, there were way too few Adam Carrikers and Bo Ruuds, and too many "Billy Ray Boneheads" and "Wally Who'sthiskys" back there whiffing tackles and waving the white flag while the Big 12's growing collection of high-powered, multiple set offenses ran and threw right past them.
Even though I (as a Sooner fan) used to detest Nebraska, I respected the heck out of them. Now Nebraska is neither hated nor respected. They're even worse: irrelevant! And Saint Thomas Osborne knows this. Hence, Callahan goes bye-bye.
Best to the Bugeaters in their search for a new coach. I want this rivalry back!
PLAYOFFS PLEASE!
When, O when will the average late-sixties, white-haired, stick-in-the-mud Division I university president begin to support a playoff system as is done in the other football divisions and in basketball? I asked this back in the 1980s. I wondered more in the 1990s. Same for this decade. So have millions of others before me and through today. The best we can do is this half-baked BCS? It's not as bad for college football as the total dominance of human polls and bowls we used to have, but much like arsenic is not as bad as cyanide. A BCS "Plus One" game would be diluted mercury -- still toxic to the game, just slightly less so. Why take baby steps every 15 years in the right direction? Start playoffs -- next year!
The BCS was a lame attempt to placate the fans and TV people; but this helter-skelter season, along with the recent split title of LSU and USC, and two recent blowout title games that exposed overrated opponents (UF over OhioSU and USC over OU), just serves to build an already airtight case against the bowls and the BCS. For a variety of reasons hashed out ad nauseum, in many forums, for decades, there's no good reason (not even economic!) to continue with the bowls as they are now. Enough of the stodgy old fools. This isn't 1959.
Let's have an 8 or 12 team tourney over three or four weeks. Hey, cigar-chomping fuddy-duddies in your presidential office Barcaloungers under all those framed portraits of the past old-fart presidents: Wake up and take a look at March Madness in hoops, and see the future with top-tier football -- a sport of even greater cash flow! You love your TV and bowl money, just keep your stinkin' revenue sharing, make the bowls into playoff games and watch the dough and attention roll in as never before.
