The NFL's Deflated Balls

 

 

 

 

 

Today is the Super Bowl. Ho hum. Does anybody outside of New England and Georgia really care? Do we really think Lady Gaga will pass up the opportunity to make a political statement on the nation's biggest stage? I now where my money is. Viewership is down and if you look at the stands there seem to be a lot of empty seats. So why the decline? Politics. The NFL has lost control of their game and may never get it back. Why? No balls.

Colin Kaepernick decides he is going to take a knee during the anthem. Soon dozens of others are following suit. Instead of saying 'show respect during the anthem or you are benched,' They turn a blind eye and end up giving it tacit approval. Five Dallas police officers are gunned down and the Cowboys were forbidden to honor these fallen men by putting their names on the backs of their helmets by the NFL. Every October teams wear pink for breast cancer. Laudable, I guess but how about purple for pancreatic cancer or brown for colon cancer?  Their audience is simply tired of it.

I wonder if football's best days are behind them. This season I watched nary a game start to finish.

Don't get me started on concussion protocols or ignoring decades of fan loyalty by moving teams to bigger markets that can afford newer stadiums or all the damned commercials. Even the Romans eventually grew bored of the gladiators. Nice run, NFL. If you had any balls you'd fix this.

Pitchers and catchers report any day now. Go Cubs.

Immigrants

Immigrants

I've heard it said that admitting the immigrants/refugees from the chaos in the Middle East is analogous to taking in the Jews escaping Nazi Germany.  This is specious. No serious person can deny the horror both faced. The Jews were being rounded up by oppressors in an organized, systematic effort to exterminate them. The muslims in the Syria and elsewhere are being killed by other muslims. Not because of any prejudice but simply because they are in the way.  The true analog is the Christians being persecuted by the radical Islamists. My heart goes out to all of these victims. Should we let them in? Sure. As long as they promise not to kill us. 

What has happened to us? Has all civil discourse been lost? Can't we have an honest exchange of ideas without spitting on each other or using 'fuck' in every sentence? I think people are so pissed off they can't even think straight. If you want to gauge how the right feels about this, imagine how the left would have felt if, on January 21, 2009, a half million men showed up in Washington in black face...

Life in Pieces

 For anyone who is a student of life and the spectrum of emotions, I suggest the CBS show "Life in Pieces." It is a marvelously crafted set of four short stories (pieces in the musical sense) that describe the triumphs and tragedies of life in the modern age. It never ceases to amaze me how much of life's hubris they can pack into less than thirty minutes (commercial time excluded.) If you haven't given out a shot, try it. You will be generously rewarded.

The Spirit of Christmas

The Spirit of Christmas

This was a terrific Christmas. I was surrounded by my family and friends. Made out well in the gift department. Drank some wine, a little bourbon. I made a big fuss as I always do trying to achieve perfection for my family. That's the way I remembered Christmas growing up. Mom and Dad always made a fuss. Spent more than they could afford for their three boys. 

But every time the gifts were opened and the excitement had settled, my dad would invariably get maudlin. I never understood why. Then one Christmas, when he figured I was old enough to understand he tell me his Christmas story. It was the winter of 1944-45. They would later refer to it as the Battle of the Bulge. He was an infantryman in the 26th Infantry.  It was a desperate battle to relieve Bastogne.

He and two other fellows were placed in a pillbox on a snow-covered hill. Their sergeant told them to hold this position at all costs. Don't let anybody get past here. Cold and scared, it wasn't long before three Germans, cloaked in snow-capes, appeared out of the fog and ran up the hill. The three Americans opened up and quickly killed the enemy soldiers.  The three infantryman ran down the hill and rifled through the bodies looking for personal items as souvenirs. They took wallets, identity tags, Lugers. They were young kids. They returned to their pillbox. 

Dad looked at me, tears in his eyes and said, "And some German mother never knew what happened to her son." He never had a happy Christmas. I never spend a Christmas without thinking of that mother.

Book? What book?

The Weak and The Strong

I have completed a new book, The Weak and the Strong. It is part of my "Bombing" series. It follows the life of Nathan Bedford Forrest Sullivan, 'Sully', as he grows up in Virginia and goes to war. He goes from bombardier to French Resistance operative, saboteur and finally assassin. It is a bit long but fast-paced.  Extremely well-researched. My previous books, Bombing and The Business of Killing, have been independently published on Amazon Kindle and have been very well received.  I have been researching agents and publishing houses. This is a daunting task.  If anybody would like to be a beta reader, let me know. I will email it to you. 

The Pain of Marriage

This past weekend, 7-9-11 to be exact, my daughter, Lindsey Regh Harden joined in matrimony Robert Fabel. It is cliched to say you are not losing a daughter but gaining a son. While this may be true the experience can still be rough on a father. The wedding itself was perfect and my daughter was stunning, only out done by her mother, but deep down inside I feel a loss. My children are drifting further and further from us. This, ulitmately, is good for the species, gene pools grow deeped and more diverse as new combinations are born. Even so, there is still a part of it that hurts. But it is a good kind of pain.