Okay…

When everyone quits laughing, I will continue.

Some people claim that the electorate needs to be educated on the issues…

Issues? I knew people who voted for Clinton in ’92 because he had a daughter named Chelsea, just like them! How’s that for “issues”?

No, people do not elect based on issues. Though a lot of people may talk about the issues, it is rarely that which wins elections.

Why? It’s really quite simple. There is no candidate anywhere who is going to feel the same about every issue that you do. So you can pick the issues you feel are most important and vote for a candidate that feels the same way.

But here’s the kicker: lower taxes? Yes, they both say they want to lower taxes. Better education: yes, they both agree it is needed. Revitalize healthcare: Absolutely, say both! Bolster up social security: We’d be crazy not to, they both exclaim!

So what issue were you looking for? I don’t hear anyone proclaiming a mandatory moratorium on eating beef, or raising our taxes by 30%, or ordering the release of all the prisoners in maximum-security prisons.

Far from the issues, people are elected on how we perceive them based on what we imagine a good leader would look like.

And that doesn’t make any sense, does it?

Of course not! But this is Democracy, after all, and does not need to kowtow to anything as minuscule as making sense.

Recently, I saw a Baptist Minister talking at a Republican fundraiser and he said that the last Republican ticket (McCain / Palin) did not excite the evangelicals.

So much so that 30 million evangelical Christians did not even bother to vote on election day 2008, thus allowing Barack Obama to win by 10 million votes.

In this remarkable example, one can see how by not voting, your vote will still count. Albeit in retrospective derision by some political punster, but it will still count for something.

Democracy seems to work even when it is NOT working. And that’s how the evangelical Christian movement brought Obama into the White House in 2008.

I wonder what other modern miracles of non-voting we are likely to see in the future?

Isn’t democracy wonderful?!

In the last decade of the twentieth century, there was a movement to create a day to honor Dr. Martin Luther King. It was to be called “Civil Rights Day” but was to coincide with Dr. King’s birthday, thus calling it Civil Rights Day though everyone would call it Martin Luther King Day in order to avoid any confusion.

Most states simply submitted the bill for the holiday to their state legislatures and it was passed, usually by voice vote acclamation.

In Arizona, however, the process occurred a little differently: it was put on the ballot and offered up to the populace to vote on it.

On election night, the results were coming in and they looked favorable to the backers of the bill. One gentleman from the NAACP was interviewed around 11 p.m. that evening when the votes were 2 to 1 in favor of the holiday and he said the voice of the people had spoken. The reporter tasked him to pronounce his view if something would happen and the bill was defeated.

The gentleman turned to look at the tally board and said, “I think this vote will decide the issue once and for all, and all sides will simply have to live with it.”

A very magnanimous gesture, I assure you. But a gesture was all it seemed to be because around 2 a.m. the numbers grew uncomfortably close and by 3 a.m. the “nays” pulled ahead, getting further ahead with each passing minute.

The gentleman from the NAACP was interviewed again at this point and he was extremely hot under the color. “We will fight back on this, I assure you. We will come back again and again until this measure passes.”

So, Democracy in this man’s mind was that the will of the people should prevail, as long as they were in agreement with him. Otherwise he would do anything he could to get the measure passed.

And that, in a nutshell, is what democracy is all about.

Of course, over the next few weeks, the people of Arizona also learned what Democracy was about when the organizations planning conventions in the state began canceling because of the vote.

The NFL even canceled the Super Bowl scheduled in Arizona that year because of the vote.

Needless to say, Arizona saw the error of their ways and very democratically passed the bill in the next election.

Of course, the NFL offices themselves did not celebrate the Martin Luther King Day because the holiday celebration was so close to the aforementioned Super Bowl that they were far to busy to honor Martin Luther King Day. Well, that is, except to break contracts with others made in good faith, who might also choose to work on M.L.K. Day.

Isn’t Democracy a marvel!?

And, in case anyone was wondering, yes, I did vote for the MLK holiday the first time around.

But before anyone starts thinking I am that idealistic, I would have as quickly voted for a Benjamin Banneker Day, Frederick Douglass Day, Thomas Jefferson Day, Benjamin Franklin Day, or even a Mickey Mouse Day.

(I’m never one to turn down any sort of Federally-mandated holiday.)

A couple of months ago, when the furor erupted at Penn State over the Sandusky affair, my wife asked how long he had been coach there. Looking back, I could not remember any other head coach at Penn State for my entire football-watching life.

It turns out, Joe Paterno became a coach at Penn State the year before I was born. By the time I was fifteen he was the head coach of the team. And though I saw many different Notre Dame coaches over the years, Paterno remained at the helm at Penn State.

In many ways, it seemed a stabilizer in life, something one could always depend on: Paterno bringing out his boys onto the playing field.

Now, I hear many reports that his career is marred by the Sandusky affair. Though many people speak out and say he should have done more, I have worked for universities and know how their rules work in cases like this. It is passed up the chain of command to someone whose job it is to handle the incident. And that person usually has a legal background. Joe had a legal background as well and knew who to pass it along to.

I have known people working for universities who have gone to the legal authorities – or even the press – with rather explosive stories. They may be guided by a strong moral fiber but in most cases will find themselves fired and – in some cases arrested – for not following the rules.

Joe did what he knew to be the correct action. Unfortunately, the people he informed did not perform their due diligence in regards to the law. If Joe had taken further actions, he would have been in violation of his contract.

This is in no way implying that his contract was more important that the young people involved but there were systems in place to take care of such sensitive issues. That those higher up the food chain fell down is not a reflection on Paterno.

I do not think his legacy will be marred by the politicking of the people who should have been operating in the University’s best interests, rather than attempting some pre-emptive spin-control.

As someone once said about another legend years ago, “He now belongs to the ages.”

My wife said she thought she would have a better chance if she took up smoking.

I thought this should have been a signal to the tobacco-growers to start promoting their product as a “health treatment” or at least its adoption by the American Cancer Society as a new method of decreasing the cancer death rates.

Nothing of the sort came to pass and the law suits against the tobacco companies grows exponentially every year, at horrendous cost to the taxpayer. (And if you don’t think it affects you, a non-smoker, you ought to recall the government’s affection for bailing out companies in financial trouble.)

Personally, I think cancer is a very bad thing that they still need to do a LOT of research on.

In the 1950′s, my father was a research chemist and worked on a project to find what manufactured substances were carcinogenic.

They would shave the backs of small white mice and coat their skin liberally with the substance being tested.

Nicotene… carcinogenic. Tars… carcinogenic. Teflon… carcinogenic. Petroleum distillates… carcinogenic.

It seemed that so much of what was being produced industrially was actually carcinogenic. A lot could be made of that data by the nature groups or the eco-friendly organic crowd, but Dad was not involved in any of that.

Instead, he tried a simple control group. He shaved the mice, as usual, and applied pure unadulterated water to their skin. And after a couple of days: water… carcinogenic!

He could not believe the results so he tried one more control group: he shaved the backs of a group of mice and put absolutely nothing on them.

And do you know what?

Shaving backs… carcinogenic!!

I have wondered since if the studies being done today are of the same high caliber as those Dad conducted in the ’50′s. I mean, they still find that almost everything we touch is carcinogenic.

So what is the answer?

Simple, do NOT shave your back!

(Told you, I got you covered.)

Either way, I was interested.

Turns out it was neither. It was nothing more than a female CNN reporter interviewing some face about the new SOPA law and why it was so important. He claimed that many websites were selling illegal copies of Hollywood films for dirt cheap. And, of course, not passing the funds back to the moneybags in Hollywood.

After she made nice with the guy for a couple of minutes, she gutted him: So, tell me, Senator, what happened to your promise not to become a lobbyist when you left Congress?

He sputtered a moment and responded: Well, this is a very worthwhile cause, you understand.

And she said: Oh, so you’re volunteering your services?

Another sputter: Well, no, I…

A smile: So, you’re being paid?

He: Well, no, I am being compensated.

She: Just say it, you’re a paid lobbyist.

And that was all I heard of that interview.

I really don’t know what all the fuss is about this SOPA thing. I know Google and Yahoo and Wikipedia and WordPress, my blogsite, were all blacked out over the issue.

I mean I know what the fuss on our end is all about. I just don’t see why the government is making such a big deal over this.

Why don’t they just do what they’ve always done? Sneak around behind the scenes and wreak whatever havoc they want until they get caught.

Laws?! They retort. We don’t need no stinking laws!!

But perhaps that is just the cynic in me who cannot believe in a kinder more caring Federal Bureaucracy.

Maybe it’s time I drop the cynical view and join this time of change…

Nah!

Some have put the very bright spotlight on the amazing fashion sense of this otherwise maniacal monster. It seems the man was quite an out-of-the-box fashion guru as well as a military despot. Much of his fashion sense seemed to be wide of the mark, others think. Apparently, they can only see a despot wearing the traditional military guard of, say, Idi Amin.

But, since there has already been much written about his keen outfits, I will not go there.

Many others have made a detailed analysis of his history… his rise to power, his methods of maintaining his dominance… you know, the usual boring resume of the classic dictator. Yawn!

What I want to touch on here is another timeline others seem to have overlooked: the man’s changing name.

When I first heard of the man he was Omar Kadhafi. And since then he has gone under several different aliases: Gaddafi, Kadafi, Kaddafi, Khaddafi, and now Ghaddafi (unless it has changed again even after his demise – I really wouldn’t put it past the fellow, you know).

And he varied his first name from Omar to Maomar, perhaps even Mallomar, I’m not certain, but he was a shifty fish after all was said and done.

The question I have is why did he keep changing his name? It’s not as if we didn’t know who he really was. Did he think by assuming an alias that we would somehow think the regime had changed in Libya?

Or perhaps it was just another of his artistic whims, like changing the colors on his uniform.

But I doubt we’ll ever know for sure now unless his unpublished autobiography – and I’m sure there must be one somewhere… the man was on top of those sorts of things.

Barring that, I suppose its just another mystery for the ages.

The coach would say that the owners had spoken with him and they decided the Super Bowl win was most important. As one of the bigwigs put it: Getting in the record books was the most important thing.

What in the world was that #&$%#&@ thinking?!?

Most fans could not tell you off the top of their head who won Super Bowl XVII or even Super Bowl XXXIII. But any fan could tell you who went completely undefeated ALL season to win the Super Bowl: the Miami Dolphins.

Zip! No one else. Bingo!

Now, what silly record book was this guy thinking about??

So, which was most important? One look at Peyton Manning’s face as he stood on the sideline and watched his team lose the lead in the fourteenth game of the season told it all.

What should have happened at that point was that the coach should have woken up and put Manning back in.

I believe they would have gone 14-0, then 15-0, 16-0, and would have been riding so high that I think they could have coasted through the playoffs to win the Super Bowl. Seeing them go undefeated after the Giants had snuffed out New England’s dream of that honor a couple of years before, would have been monumental.

And that would truly have been one for the record books.

As it was, they finished the season 14-2 and got creamed in the big game.

The owners and the coaches forgot the importance of momentum, inertia, passion.

And without passion, how can one player ever hope to elevate the game to something more?

In this season, when we have no Peyton Manning to watch, I wonder if that season ever comes to his mind. Hopefully not. The really great ones rarely look back with regrets. They remain focused on the future.

Leaving such minuscule conundrums to the fans who can only enjoy the glory through a more passive role. And dream of the Greatest Season that never happened but was once so close, so very much a possibility. But stolen by a group of suits that seem a little distant from what the game is really all about.

And I understand that too well because I am a Redskins fan.

Like most fans around the country, I was hopeful at the start of the season but very quickly realized it was another year to say “maybe next year”.

Unlike most seasons in the recent past, there were not a lot of undefeated teams past mid-season. It was such a strange season that even a team with a losing record actually won their division. (Remember, this was last year this happened. This year only won team got in with an 8-8 record… Tim Tebow’s team, and ’nuff said about that!)

I live in the D.C. Metropolitan area and so am a Redskins fan. Yeah, one of those.

Since Daniel Snyder purchased the team, the playoff berths here have been pretty meager. He was raised in the area and is a long-time fan of the Redskins himself. His desire to bring the team back to the glory days has been a little wide of the mark.

First off, he thinks you can buy a winning team. Several times now, he has shelled out the big bucks to bring in all the high ticket players to get on that fast track to a Super Bowl.

Ring-envy is not a pretty sight.

Needless to say, it has not worked out well. Having been involved in team sports when I was younger, I know first hand that it is not really about the caliber or quality of the players that makes a winning team. It is not just having a great coach, either, as Snyder is learning as well (I hope).

It is a team sport and there is some very undefinable “something” that brings a group of people together and allows them to function as one.

The best football team in history (the undefeated Miami Dolphins) were not populated with the big-name players of football history. What they had, instead, was a great team. It is not something you can purchase or detect at the combine. It is only something you can hope for.

One thing Mister Snyder could do that would help is to stop buying big name players (like Albert Haynesworth) and start valuing the lesser lights on the squad. Allow they to step up to the task. If the roster were peopled by players of that stripe, you would have a winning team.

Paying a few special players the really big bucks draws energy away from the TEAM.

And we suffered through two years of Coach Zorn (it’s not that he was so awful, it’s just that Snyder was filling the position until he could get his choice… and so never did much to support the two-year period of Zorn’s position) to bring in the really great coach: Shanahan.

Funny, I thought he meant Mike Shanahan, but it turned out to be Kyle who’s in charge. Oh, sure, they set it up to look like it’s Mike who’s in charge but it obviously ain’t so!

When McNabb was benched earlier in the season, Mike came out and gave his reasons… then back-pedaled and gave different reasons… then Kyle came out and gave different reasons and his Dad agreed.

At the end of the season, the Shanahananigans got even more obtuse. Mike was spinning his wheels for reasons until Kyle just came out and said that he did not like McNabb and was not going to use him!!

At least, Mike didn’t have to come up with three competing answers this time but it became dreadfully obvious who is actually running the team.

Kyle worked with Grossman at Houston and wants to put him in a prominent place in Washington. So, they worked Grossman out for the final few games of the season and I was thoroughly underwhelmed.

If Grossman had been using that as a display of his worth to the team, it was not a very good showing. He’s streaky like Jeff George… and a few years ago we had a dynamite offense under Brad Johnson but Snyder wanted his dream QB: Jeff George. The Redskins tanked and Brad Johnson went to Tampa Bay and took them to a win in the Super Bowl.

And if Kyle is thinking this display puts him on the “fast track” to a head-coaching position, I think he’s done a really good job…

That is, if any team is looking for a spoiled brat to run their team. If so, he’s a perfect fit.

Hm, maybe if Jeff Fisher ever leaves Tennessee they can call Kyle and replace one spoiled brat with another.

Fisher did the same thing with Vince Young that Kyle did with McNabb: I don’t like him and I’m not going to play with him! Yeah, that sounds real professional, huh? Why are they paying these guys so much money? To skate to the championships?

I just hope he leaves soon so Washington can find a real coach.

And they talk about players being prima donnas…

That was the end of last year’s article and I can’t say it is much different this year except we have no McNabb to kick around anymore or blame for the offensive troubles. And Kyle’s choice of savior, Grossman, was as streaky as ever. You don’t get a final mark of 5-11 on the season with a decent QB.

But there IS light at the end of the tunnel. There are now younger players populating the squad and it would seem that Shanahan might actually be given the chance to grow a team. That is Mike Shanahan, not his son. Perhaps he and Grossman can go somewhere else next year. Hopefully, the same place the now unemployed Jeff Fisher winds up.

It was a far different 2001 than that visualized by Stanley Kubrick in his famous film”2001: a Space Odyssey” but far more realistic.

I keep waiting for the “healing” to begin, to put us beyond that which we are being constantly reminded of, constantly commemorating. I would like to move through an early September without the constant reminders of horrors all to human to ever possibly forget.

So, in our effort to bring some meaning to the senselessness of the thousands that died that day we have taken a war to the Middle East and killed so many thousands more to repay someone who we have finally wreaked our vengeance on…

Does the story have any sort of a happy ending? And should it?

Or are we supposed to carry the pain with us always and ensure that others come to know the depths of our suffering by doing unto them?

Seeing how we have been so readily able to move beyond the tribulations of a nation torn apart by the “Civil War” – (NOT!) – I fully expect this commemoration to carry forward for another century, at least, while we still tear the scabs open and reawaken the wounds. And as the blood flows freely again, we can somehow feel some solace for our loss.

So many of the Civil War commemoration protesters today cat-call the Rebel-biased lamenters with that famous phrase: “You lost. Get over it!”

As humans, we do not seem to be able to “get over” such large scale tragedies.

So, while others lament at the foolish sentiment wasted by the Rebel-lovers during the current Civil War Sesquicentennial, let us all take a moment to remember the cause of our righteous indignation against an innocent people half a world away.

Have a thoughtful 9/11.