Stanton's Space

Buckle Up Some More

2012-01-19T21:32:00.008-05:00

To follow up on my January 11th piece about how horrible this year's election coverage is going to be, I need do nothing more than point to the events of the last 48 hours.

The MSM is up in arms about Mitt Romney's offhanded comment on Tuesday, when discussing tax rates, that he earned "not very much" from speaking engagements...yet they are scandalously nonchalant about Barack Obama nixing the Keystone pipeline.

The MSM's problem with Romney is that he earned $374,000 from speaking engagements over the course of a year, which they claim makes him "out of touch" with average Americans. Admittedly, Romney gave them the rope when he said "not very much," but whether he will be a good president is completely irrelevant to whether he is "in touch" or "out of touch" with our feelings. When it comes to money, the only thing that matters is whether his ideas will help or hurt the American economy.

Romney's business career was spent rescuing, whenever possible, companies that were in dire financial straits. It was a career that saved thousands upon thousands of jobs and proved that he understands how the economy works.

Conversely, Barack Obama has spent his entire career in the public sector; knows nothing about the economy; and fosters an environment that is hostile to business. And it goes without saying that an environment hostile to business is an environment that hurts average people by restricting job growth and thereby restricting upward mobility. If you doubt what I say about Obama being hostile to business, just ask hotel magnate Steve Wynn.

Our president's actions in derailing the Keystone pipeline will hurt the average working families he piously, and falsely, claims to care about. On top of that, his actions regarding Keystone help a nation he claims is one of our gravest enemies (China), and on top of that, they poison our relationship with a nation that is our #1 trading partner and one of our closest allies (Canada).

Yet in reporting the news, the MSM acts as if whether a president empathically feels our pain is more important than whether his philosophies help us or hurt us. This shows how shallow the MSM are; let's just hope that their shallowness is recognized by those citizens who are trying to decide who to vote for come November.

Heading into the weekend...

2012-01-13T06:15:00.007-05:00

The holidays have come and gone, and I lived up to the pledge I make to myself every year to not write about politics during that time. But given all the election-year brouhahas that are going on, my political opining will be ramping up.

Not just yet, however, because first I am going to turn my brain off and enjoy the weekend. We will be camping in the woods of North Florida and relishing what the forecast says will be perfect weather: Clear skies, lows in the 30's, highs in the 60's.

Tomorrow I will turn 41. The following day, Martin Luther King, Jr., would be turning 83 if he had not been slain by an assassin's bullet. For years now, I have taken advantage of how close our birthdays are by going on trips over the long weekend. For Erika and I, these trips are how we celebrate my birthday, but I never forget why the long weekend exists...so here are some of my favorite passages from MLK's writings and speeches:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law…This would lead to anarchy…I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Anyone who lives in the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country.

...I am not afraid of the word tension. I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.

The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo…If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life eternal.

I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. The note was a promise that all men – yes, black men as well as white men – would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

…we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

A man can’t sit on your back unless it’s bent.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: (1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, (2) negotiation, (3) self-purification, and (4) direct action.

…right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

…I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom…If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me. I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty.

Buckle Up

2012-01-11T23:27:00.002-05:00

This is what Mitt Romney said: “I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me a good service that I need, I want to say I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.”

This what the MSM is reporting that he said: “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”

To call that “taking it out of context” is to be too kind. To call it a “bald faced lie” might even be too kind.

Get ready for the most dishonest election coverage in modern memory…

Winter Solstice

2011-12-22T06:42:00.001-05:00

Here are some thoughts about the year’s coldest season on this, its first day:

I love how it begins with evergreen boughs on mantles, lighted trees in village squares, carols on the radio, and people knowing that life’s greatest joys come from giving rather than receiving.

I love its chilly mornings when fog clings to the surfaces of ponds.

I love sitting outside on those mornings drinking hot black coffee.

I love watching Sarah try to catch snowflakes on her tongue during our winter vacation.

I love driving across California’s High Sierra between snow drifts so deep they soar above cars and turn roadways into tunnels of white.

I love walking through Appalachian forests that are barren of leaves but laden with snow, and therefore have the appearance of black-and-white photos come to life.

And finally, I love that I can spend a whole day outside in Florida without feeling the need to shower every hour.

So for those who curse the cold: Remember that every season brings beauty, so long as we stop to notice it.

A Carol Born

2011-12-19T19:59:00.000-05:00

When it comes to carols, I have always found “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” to be especially poignant (if you're not familiar with it, you can listen to it here.)

It did not begin as a song, but as a poem written on Christmas morning 1863 by America’s greatest poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. At that moment in time America was torn apart and battling itself in the Civil War – a war that still stands as the one in which more Americans died than in any other.

When dawn broke that morning, Longfellow was despondent. During the war his son Charles had been horrifically wounded when a bullet passed through part of his spine, leading to a long and excruciating recovery. And as if that wasn’t dark enough, his wife Frances had died as a result of burns sustained when her clothes were set on fire by dripping sealing wax, which she was melting with the intention of using it to preserve some of their daughter’s trimmed curls.

But despite that sorrowful backdrop, as Longfellow sat in his Massachusetts home on Christmas and heard the ringing of local church bells, his faith in divine promise started to stir and he was moved to put pen to paper. The resulting poem was transformed into a hymn nine years later, when John Baptiste Calkin composed the music to which it was set.

The poem’s words absolutely speak for themselves. Since some of them are excluded from the carol we normally hear this time of year, here they are in their entirety:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

The Real Saint Nick

2011-12-09T18:18:00.003-05:00

History provides many examples of actual people who have, over time, become so melded into the popular imagination that we tend to forget they were real. Saint Nicholas is one of them.

Born sometime around 280 A.D. in the town of Patara, in what was then part of Greece but is now part of Turkey, Nicholas was the son of wealthy parents who died when he was young. Having been raised as a devoted Christian, he spent his life using his inheritance to help those in need, and in addition to his charity he became known for harboring great concern for children and sailors.

Down through history, one particular story about his generosity has persisted. In those days, women whose families could not pay a dowry were more likely to die as spinsters than to get married. It is said that when Nicholas learned of a poor man who was worried about his daughters’ fate because he lacked money for their dowries, Nicholas surreptitiously tossed gold into the man’s home through an open window, and the gold landed in stockings that were drying by the fire. Much later, this 1,700-year-old story inspired the modern tradition of hanging stockings by the chimney to receive gifts from Santa on Christmas Eve.

Nicholas became Bishop of Myra and was imprisoned during the anti-Christian persecutions carried out by the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Based on the stories of his life, Catholic tradition considers him a patron saint of children, orphans, sailors, travelers, the wrongly imprisoned, and many other categories of people. Churches were constructed in his honor as early as the sixth century A.D. Today, his remains are buried in Bari, Italy.

For generations now, kids and adults alike have used the names Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Nick interchangeably, without giving it a second thought. But there was an actual Saint Nicholas, a decent man who is obscured by commercial renderings of Christmas. We should not allow that fact to be forgotten, regardless of whether or not we are Catholic (and for the record, I am not).

Never Forget

2011-12-07T06:09:00.002-05:00

Pearl Harbor Day is upon us, so let us recall what happened 70 years ago today. The day after the bombing, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed Congress on December 8, 1941, to request a formal declaration of war. His speech was simulcast to the country at large via the radio. In it, he said:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack…

Yesterday the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.

And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island…

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves…

Always will be remembered the character of this onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory…

With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.

Pearl Harbor was attacked because it was where the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet was headquartered. The bombing, which killed more than 2,400 people, began shortly before 8:00 on a Sunday morning.

Five of our eight battleships were sunk, the other three were badly damaged, and multiple other naval vessels were destroyed.

The majority of the American war planes based in Hawaii were destroyed as they sat on the ground.

In addition, most of the American air forces based in the Philippines were destroyed during the nighttime attack on that nation, which FDR also mentioned in his speech.

By crippling our Pacific defenses, the December 7th attack left us extremely vulnerable in the face of an aggressive enemy to our West – an enemy that had signaled its intent to rule the entire Pacific basin by subjugating other nations to its will.

This came at a time when we had not responded to the fact that Nazi Germany to our East had already declared war against us, had already brought most of Europe under its thumb, and had signaled its own intention to rule the world by way of an Aryan resurrection of the old Roman Empire.

Such circumstances would have spelled doom for the vast majority of countries throughout the course of history. With their foundations based on the accidents of ethnicity and geography, most countries would have simply surrendered; or, in a distinction without a difference, entered into “peace” negotiations under which they would have to accept the aggressor’s terms and after which the lives of their citizens would most certainly change for the worst.

But the United States is a nation based on ideals. Our foundation springs from the knowledge that there are things greater than us, things which are greater than the transient circumstances which exist on any given day. We have always found strength in the conviction that our nation exists to support and advance those greater things, to the benefit of people all over the world, and this sets the United States apart from all other nations in all other times.

Taking heed from FDR’s appeal to “righteous might,” reflecting what Abraham Lincoln earlier referred to as the “faith that right makes might,” the American people of 1941 summoned the invincible courage to rebuild and fight at the same time they were under fearsome siege. They did this despite the fact they were still suffering through an unprecedented economic depression that had started more than a decade before.

Let us pray that those qualities – that will to power and that unwavering belief in the sanctity of human freedom – have not been lost as new generations of Americans take the baton from the great ones which came before. For as has been said, those who forget the past will be forced to repeat it.

It would be shameful if history were to record that we failed to transfer freedom’s blessings to our descendants.

College Football: Almost in the Rear View

2011-11-27T21:20:00.005-05:00

With Rivalry Weekend completed and only a handful of games remaining in college football's "pre-bowl season," here are some thoughts and observations:

Honey Badger for Heisman: Count me among those who believe LSU's undersized, lion-hearted CB Tyrann "Honey Badger" Mathieu deserves the trophy. The criteria for choosing college football's best player are obviously subjective, but I firmly believe that you have to put heavy weight on how a player performs in the biggest, most consequential games -- and Mathieu delivered in championship style against Arkansas on Friday.

The Tigers were trailing 14-7, and in danger of seeing their perfect season go up in smoke, when Mathieu seized the momentum and swung it irreversibly in their favor. First he delivered on special teams, fielding a punt at LSU's 8-yard line and returning it 92 yards to tie the game...Four plays later, back on defense, he stripped the ball from RB Dennis Johnson and the Tigers recovered, then used the ensuing possession to score a go-ahead touchdown just before halftime...In the fourth quarter Mathieu stripped the ball from TE Chris Gragg, took possession of it himself, and ran for 19 yards the other way...Plus, his eight tackles were most on the team...Oh, and he did all that despite the fact that for the first time in his career he was playing safety instead of cornerback.

A case can be made that some other players are deserving of the Heisman, but I dare anyone to make a case that there is a player more deserving than Mathieu. And that's before I even get around to saying that Honey Badger is the coolest nickname in America, given this video.

Quarterbacks: Not to take anything away from Andrew Luck, but if I was starting a football team and had to choose one of today's players to be its QB, I would opt for Kellen Moore. They both are good at reading defenses and making plays, but Luck has thrown multiple interceptions in every game I have watched him play the last two years. I can't say the same for Moore, and on top of that, Moore's Boise State squads would be undefeated for two years running if not for a pair of missed field goals that were beyond his control.

Fiery Foes: Nationally, no one thinks of Kansas-Missouri as being anywhere near as intense a rivalry as Auburn-Alabama, Ohio State-Michigan, or Oklahoma-Texas. But after working with a Kansas native for several years, I have come to realize that it is that intense. Speaking as an Auburn graduate, I am here to tell you that the mutual enmity felt by fans of Kansas and Missouri is every bit as heated as the enmity between fans in those other rivalries.

Another cool thing about this border war is the spoil that goes to the victor: the Indian War Drum, which has gone to the winner in all but a few of the last 75 seasons. Think of it as a frontier-inspired version of the more publicized trophies that are associated with Midwestern schools from farther east, such as the Little Brown Jug between Michigan and Minnesota and Old Oaken Bucket between Indiana and Purdue. All I am saying is that the Kansas-Missouri rivalry is the kind of thing that makes college sports great, and it will be a shame if it goes by the wayside simply because of conference realignment.

Woe Wisconsin: Wisconsin is the most unfortunate team in America. Midway through the season it looked like the Badgers had a better than even chance of playing in the BCS National Championship Game, but then they dropped two straight games both on closing-second Hail Marys. Lesser teams would have folded, but the Badgers plowed forward to win their last four by an average of 30+ points and win the Big Ten Leaders Division. They almost certainly would stand a better chance of beating LSU than any team besides Alabama.

However, in the current AP poll Wisconsin is not even ranked in the top ten. And it is ranked behind fellow two-loss squads like Oklahoma (which was beaten at home by 5-7 Texas Tech) and Arkansas (whose losses were both by 24 points). I don't remember the last time a team of this caliber was given such a low poll number all because of two fluke plays.

Stats that make you go hmmm: On Saturday, Florida State gained less than 100 yards for the whole night but still beat Florida 21-7...Going into the weekend, Kansas and Missouri had played each other 119 times and the series was dead even at 55-55-9...Wisconsin RB Montee Ball has scored more touchdowns this season (34) than any player ever has in a season, except for Barry Sanders in 1988...For all the favorable publicity and financial advantages the Texas Longhorns are given, and five-star recruits they sign, they have won just two conference titles in the Mack Brown era. Oklahoma has won seven during the same period. So should Brown go or should he stay?

Lastly, here is the Stanton’s Space Top Twenty:

1. LSU

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma State

4. Virginia Tech

5. Boise State

6. Stanford

7. Wisconsin

8. Oregon

9. Houston

10. Georgia

11. USC

12. Arkansas

13. South Carolina

14. Michigan State

15. Oklahoma

16. Baylor

17. Kansas State

18. TCU

19. Penn State

20. Michigan

Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T23:13:00.010-05:00

Last Thanksgiving I posted this. And today Parker turned five months old. Amazing.

I am definitely thankful this year, in spite of some circumstances that should have caused -- and should still be causing -- a tremendous amount of stress. In short, I am glad my priorities are straight.

I love my wife...

...my daughter...

...and my son...

...and because of them, I love my life. Thanks Fam!

Oh, and thank you Kelly Noel for three of these four pictures.

LeConte, Part Three

2011-11-13T20:42:00.033-05:00

It was after midnight when Mother Nature sent a downpour to declare her authority. Jolted awake by the roar of raindrops on the tin roof, I rolled over in my sleeping bag and was soon met by another sound of authority: Wind. Its howl told me the gusts were packing enough power to blow a man down, and it was obvious there would be no uninterrupted sleep for the rest of the night.

Although it had stopped raining by the time day broke, there was no sun to be seen because a cloud was wrapped around the summit. It was 35 degrees; the air was the color of goose down; and this is what I saw looking out from my sleeping bag:

The thought of remaining in our bags and out of the cold was appealing, but we pushed it aside. Having covered more than five miles climbing to this spot the day before, and knowing we now faced an eight-mile hike out of the wilderness, we forced ourselves to get going.

First we donned our jackets and lowered our backpacks from the bear cables. Then we crammed our sleeping bags into their stuff sacks, and crammed those sacks into our packs. Then we shouldered the packs and headed away from LeConte Shelter on the Boulevard Trail.

Within a matter of minutes we came to High Top, the loftiest of Mount LeConte’s four peaks, and we were standing on the mountain’s true apex at an elevation of 6,593 feet. However, High Top happens to be the least “peak like” of the four because it is neither pointed nor a cantilever...and because its thick growth of conifers prevents you from seeing the kind of vistas you would expect from the tallest mountain this side of the Mississippi.

What High Top does provide in the way of sightseeing is the tall rock pile pictured below, which has been erected over the years by hikers adding stones when they arrive. Some say this has been done in an effort to make LeConte even taller, so that its elevation will surpass that of Clingman’s Dome. Others say it has been done to honor an ancient Cherokee custom which holds that people should add stones to rock piles they pass, in order to placate evil spirits.

Continuing on, we were only a third of a mile from the shelter when we reached the spot where the Boulevard Trail turns left and heads downhill, while a side path goes straight and uphill to another of LeConte’s peaks: Myrtle Point. And for the record, Myrtle Point is what you would expect of a peak -- narrow, rocky, and obviously high, to the point of being dizzying. If you ever spend a night on LeConte, you may want to know that Myrtle Point is known as the best place on the mountain to watch the sunrise.

Although we were still in a cloud, we could not turn down the opportunity to stand atop Myrtle Point after coming this far, so we set off on the side path and hoped the cloud would somehow blow away or burn off in the next few minutes. We found that the side path is not so much a path, but the actual rocky spur that forms the peak:

The cloud cover did not dissipate like we had hoped, but it did grow thinner and we were able to make out a faint but expansive view to the north:

Encouraged that the clouds seemed to be on their way out, we scrambled back down Myrtle Point to resume our course on the Boulevard Trail. Along the way we encountered a pair of ladies who had stayed at LeConte Lodge the previous night. One of them showed us a picture she had taken of a black bear that showed up at the lodge around dinner hour. As it turned out, the bear was featured on the lodge’s blog the very next day.

Back on the Boulevard Trail, we descended steadily down the eastern side of LeConte’s massif until we reached a ledge that juts out over a big drop. Here I am on it:

Standing there and looking back up whence we had come, it was obvious that we were leaving the cloud behind. Wisps of vapor drifted by just above us, raking through the trees, but below us were open skies. The trail continued a short ways to the following rock face, where we took advantage of one of those steel cables that are bolted into the mountainside at many places on LeConte:

After crossing the rock face and looking back, this is the view to which we were treated:

From that point forward we were walking not merely on the Boulevard Trail, but on The Boulevard itself: The 2½-mile ridgeline connecting Mount LeConte to Mount Kephart. It is a true knife-edge ridge, just wide enough for a person to walk on, seldom wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, offering up so many postcard views that shutterbugs won’t stop taking pictures until their camera batteries die. Here are a couple of those views:

This stretch was the most glorious of our whole trip. The skies were blue and the vistas boundless. The temperatures were cold and dry, not frigid and damp. And the walking, while not always level, was also not difficult because the ups and downs were wonderfully modest.

Unfortunately, however, all good things must come to an end. At some point the trail started ascending without leveling off. Suddenly we were trudging not merely upward, but continuously upward, and steeply upward, and having already traveled a long distance while lugging a lot of weight, my muscles screamed in protest.

For the next ¾ mile or so all we did was climb the northwestern flank of Mount Kephart, and my lungs, heart, legs, and back objected strenuously. At one point high on the mountain we passed this apparently unremarkable cascade:

Impressively, it is actually the beginning of Walker Camp Prong, the sizeable stream we had passed at the beginning of our hike the day before. What a difference 10 miles makes:

By the time the Boulevard Trail dead-ended at the Appalachian Trail, 4.7 miles from Myrtle Point, all I cared about was getting back to the car and drinking the Gatorade that was waiting for us…but first we had to hike another 2.7 miles on the Appalachian Trail.

Those 2.7 miles are the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina, and are mostly downhill, but that does not mean they are easy. They make their way across many rocks and roots, which forced us to pay extra attention to where and how we stepped.

This proved to be the most technically demanding stretch of our entire adventure. We seemed to walk slower and slower and get shorter and shorter of breath, but when we started seeing casually dressed people with kids in tow, we knew we were nearing the parking lot at Newfound Gap. Finally it came into view, and I swear the sight of a parking lot has never felt so good. We sat down and guzzled Gatorade, feeling victorious and whipped all at the same time.

I went back over to the trailhead where we had emerged, and snapped a picture of the sign that greets everyone who steps into the woods at that point. Hiking aficionados will appreciate the last line item, which tells that from here it is 1,972 miles to the end of the Appalachian Trail.

Twenty minutes later we were driving to the town of Sylva, North Carolina, where Mill & Main Restaurant was waiting with craft beers and delectable food.

In closing, here is a picture of LeConte's massif, taken from the Appalachian Trail looking back to the north:

LeConte, Part Two

2011-11-03T22:08:00.040-04:00

The elk battle we had witnessed was behind us by 30 minutes, 3,000 vertical feet, and 15½ miles of winding road by the time we reached Newfound Gap. Mike parked the car and I stepped out into a cold drizzle, almost a mile above sea level and directly on the Tennessee-North Carolina state line. If not for the fact we were in the clouds, we would have been treated to a magnificent view of the mountains.

The bill of my baseball cap kept the raindrops far enough from my eyes that I felt no need to squint as I looked for the red van, which was supposed to shuttle us to the trailhead where our journey was to start. Sure enough, I saw it waiting about 60 feet away, over by the trailhead where our journey was to end.

The driver introduced herself as Samantha. Before long, my hiking partners and I had piled our stuff into the van and were listening to her talk about bear encounters as she drove us down the north slopes of the Smokies. Mike’s car remained locked in Newfound Gap’s parking lot, stocked with Gatorade and beer and waiting for our eventual return.

It was not raining where Samantha dropped us off, but knowing the forecast and knowing we were likely to hike back into the clouds, we opted to sheath our backpacks in rain covers. After finding somebody kind enough to take the following picture, we stepped onto the Alum Cave Trail and our adventure began in earnest.

Streams are the trail’s constant companion for its first 1½ miles. Almost immediately we crossed Walker Camp Prong on a wooden bridge and a minute later crossed Alum Cave Creek on another one. The trail travels alongside Alum Cave Creek for about a mile, heading upstream on an easy incline to the point where the creek veers off to the east. As you can see, Mike went right down to its banks to search for the perfect photo spot:

Most people fail to notice Alum Cave Creek’s departure because right as that happens the trail starts to follow one of its tributaries, a stream known as Styx Branch. It crosses Styx Branch four times, and after the third crossing it passes through this interesting geological formation known as Arch Rock:

The arch is actually a hole in the dark slate/sandstone sediment of the Anakeesta Formation. The Anakeesta is sloping in this spot, and as the trail passes under the arch it goes uphill on steps carved into the rock. Here I am climbing them:

On the other side of Arch Rock, the character of the trail changes abruptly. Rather than ascending gently, it does so steeply and continuously while making its way toward the top of Mount LeConte. It often travels along the sides of precipices, in some cases with steel cables bolted into the mountainside for you to hold onto.

We saw lots of red squirrels scampering about and several times heard their insistent chatter. As you would expect in October, the weather was cool and the forest was bathed in color:

Up to about 4,500 feet there are more deciduous trees than evergreens, but above that the evergreens get larger and more numerous:

Roughly two miles into the hike, the trail swings rightward around the mountain flank and straight ahead is an outcropping called Inspiration Point. The views from there proved that the word “breathtaking” is not always an exaggeration:

Back on the trail, it was about a third of a mile to the landmark which gives it its name. Alum Cave Bluffs is not a cave, but rather a cliff face that towers 80 feet above the trail and hangs outward. The area beneath it is dry and makes a perfect spot for taking a break and enjoying the view. It is where most people turn around and head back to their cars:

We did take a break there to eat some Cliff Bars and swig some water, but then we pressed on. The bluffs are at 4,950 feet elevation, while LeConte Shelter -- where we planned to camp that night -- is at 6,440 feet. We still had 2.7 miles left to trail’s end, followed by an additional third of a mile on another trail to reach the shelter.

Above the bluffs, the forest becomes one whose trees are almost all evergreens. Early in our hike we had seen lots of hardwoods, especially yellow birch, but at these higher altitudes the forest is a cathedral of Christmas trees. Red spruce are everywhere and Fraser firs are up here as well. It was wonderful having the aroma of Christmas fill my nostrils for the last couple miles of that day’s hike:

And those last couple miles revealed exactly why LeConte inspires awe. It is not so much its height, but its steepness at that height which impresses. In some places the trail is hewn directly into the side of vertical rock walls. In many places I used my right hand to grip one of those steel cables I mentioned earlier, while my left foot stepped inches from harrowing drops of God knows how many hundreds of feet.

The vistas from the upper reaches of the Alum Cave Trail are said to be among the best in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and I suspect that is true, but I can not vouch for them because we were hemmed in by view-robbing clouds when we got there. And on top of that it was cold, and on top of that it started raining, so we were happy when the wooden structures of LeConte Lodge suddenly appeared in the mist:

I mentioned the lodge in my last post, but to recap, it is a collection of huts with a central dining room and is accessible only by foot. We made a bee line to the dining room and took advantage of its sack lunch deal: bagel, cream cheese, beef sausage, Musselman’s apple sauce, trail mix, packet of powdered Gatorade, and unlimited coffee and hot chocolate for $9. After the calories we had burned (and after being served by a worker we affectionately dubbed “Mountain Chick”) it felt like we were in a five-star restaurant.

Not long before our trip, Mark’s sister from Minnesota had casually mentioned LeConte Lodge and how she would like to hike to it sometime -- without knowing he even knew what it was, much less had plans to climb the mountain. Naturally, he held back on the specifics of our trip and had us take pictures of him outside the dining room to impress her:

As good as it felt to sit in the warm dining room and rest our aching muscles, it was late in the afternoon and we still had to make it to the shelter and get situated, so we re-shouldered our packs and headed back outside.

Fortunately it was only a quarter-mile from the lodge to the shelter, and because we were now on LeConte’s summit ridge, the walk was level for a change. Along the way we passed a side path to Cliff Top. Of LeConte’s four peaks, it is the one most renowned for sunsets, but we knew there would be no sunset for us because of the thick cloud cover.

The next picture is of the shelter. That’s Tom on the right and Mark on the left, if you can make him out:

This one shows our packs hanging from bear cables outside the shelter:

And this one shows a snail "attacking" Tom’s Glad-bag-wrapped pack before it got hoisted onto the cables:

We are dinner at the shelter -- some of us cooking on our backcountry stoves and some of us opting for self-heating MRE’s -- but there was something about the lodge being so close that drew us back there. What they call an office is heated by a wood stove, open 24 hours, and much more like a community room than an office. There are tables and chairs and plenty of games sitting on the shelves waiting to be played. And though I don't know if it is there for ambience or actual use, there is an old loom that definitely looks cool:

We hiked back over there and hung out playing cards for a while. One table over from us, a large group of people were engaged in a serious religious discussion while, interestingly enough, drinking liquor from flasks and chugging wine from self-ported bottles.

As the sky grew dark outside, the room grew dim inside because there is no electricity at the lodge. Kerosene lamps served as centerpieces for the tables, and whichever ones people decided to light served as the room’s only illumination. Eventually we called it a night, zipped up our fleeces, pulled on our gloves, turned on our flashlights, and made our way back to the shelter in the dark. It was time to get some rest for the hike that awaited us in the morning.

LeConte, Part One

2011-10-30T16:35:00.018-04:00

Many people refer to the Great Smoky Mountains as “the Roof of Eastern America,” and with good reason: Inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles the border of North Carolina and Tennessee, are sixteen peaks higher than 6,000 feet in altitude. By contrast, only one peak in all the other Appalachian states exceeds 6,000 feet. The highest in all of New England would not even crack the top ten in the South.

Among these giants, Tennessee’s Mount LeConte ranks as number three in the Smokies when measured by altitude; that is, by how far a mountain’s highest point sits above sea level. However, when measured by how tall a mountain stands -- i.e., how far its highest point sits above its base -- LeConte ranks as number one in all of America east of the Mississippi River. Its imposing, four-peaked massif dominates most views of the Smokies’ crest despite being only seven miles from Clingman’s Dome, the mountain with the highest altitude in the range.

For those reasons, and because you can not get to it by car, LeConte is widely thought of as the crown jewel of the Smokies. And it was for those very same reasons, or at least partly because of them, that my friend Mike and I decided to make LeConte the destination for this year’s version of our almost-annual hiking trip.

Unlike our fall trips in 2008 and 2009, more people came along for this one. Finney, who also accompanied us on our spring trip in 2008, was on hand. So too were Tom and Mark, neither of whom had backpacked before. My next two posts will detail the hike itself and include lots of pictures, but before writing those posts I am going to toss out a few more facts about the mountain:

In the 1920’s, when the federal government was considering establishing a national park in the Smokies, a local group brought government personnel to LeConte because they knew its sheer slopes and expansive views would “make the sale.”

Ecologically speaking, walking from LeConte’s base to its summit is the same as walking 1,000 miles from south to north. Its lower elevations have the same plants and animals you would expect to see in central Tennessee, while its higher, much colder elevations are inhabited by plants and animals of the Canadian forest zone.

Five different trails lead to its summit, and once there you have two options for remaining overnight: LeConte Shelter (a three-sided, tin-roofed structure with wooden ledges for sleeping) or LeConte Lodge.

Don’t let the word “lodge” make you think of Aspen. LeConte Lodge is a collection of huts with no electricity or running water. What it does have are comfortable beds, tasty meals in the dining room, old-fashioned kerosene lamps, and the nicest privies you’ll ever find. Supplies are brought up by llamas three times a week.

The lodge is about 300 feet below LeConte’s highest point and has never experienced 80 degrees -- the highest temperature ever recorded there was 78.

Like I said, my next two posts will feature lots of pictures of the hike, and therefore of Mount LeConte itself. But in the meantime I want to share two views from other points on our trip. This one was taken in the Tuskegee Creek Valley, along State Road 28 in Graham County, North Carolina:

The next one is video taken from my cell phone, of what is probably my all-time most unexpected wildlife encounter. Just after driving into Great Smoky Mountains National Park on our way to the trailhead, we rounded a bend in the Oconaluftee Valley and saw two bull elk locking antlers in a rutting duel. Elk are extremely rare in the East and I had never even thought about the possibility of seeing them in this spot.

We jumped out to watch and by the time I remembered my phone had video capability, the fight was almost over. I wish it had a better zoom, I wish it was in better focus, and I wish it was easier to make out the colliding of antlers (which was clearly audible in person) but hey, I got the most important part: The conclusion! And if you want to hear antlers, listen very closely to the first couple seconds. Here you go:

The next post will come in a few days to a week. Until then, enjoy your fall (or spring) wherever on the planet you are!

Ruminations

2011-10-22T07:51:00.004-04:00

“One generation passes, and another generation comes, but the earth abides forever. The sun also rises.” (The Book of Ecclesiastes)

Part of me has always found a kind of solace in that Biblical passage. When I feel an early morning chill nipping at my cheekbones, or see moving nighttime clouds appearing shiny white against the black sky because of the light they reflect from a full moon, I cherish the moments and smile with the knowledge that they are timeless and eternal.

I know those little joys will always come round again, no matter what troubles I have to deal with in life. I know they existed for humanity’s enjoyment before I arrived on Earth, and I know they will continue to exist after I depart, and that knowledge gives me peace. It assures me that I am part of something much bigger than me, and that realization is comforting even though I can not pinpoint what that “something” is, even though my human brain is incapable of understanding the complexity of the divine.

However, being human, I also find that there is something troubling about the inexorability of time which is imbedded in that verse.

It seems like it was only yesterday that I was sitting with Sarah in the nursery at University Community Hospital, less than an hour after she emerged from Erika’s womb, telling her about all the fun things we would do as a family now that she had joined us. And already she is seven.

I can not believe that Parker is already turning four months old today. As I listen to him coo, and watch him observe ordinary household items with the kind of amazement only a newborn can possess, I am saddened by the realization that at our age we will probably never again have a baby to watch go through these stages. I am struck by the thought that “this is the last time.”

This month I climbed the tallest mountain (not the same as “highest”) in Eastern America -- an accomplishment I will blog about soon, and one that showed me I can still do the kind of things I was capable of when I was in my twenties. That hike was something I am still smiling about eight days after coming down from the mountain. Yet I know I am forty, and I know that means I have lived more than half my life expectancy, and I find myself thinking I better start living according to Satchel Paige’s advice: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”

These mental meanderings and circular and will probably never resolve, so there is no reason for me to have written them this morning other than they were going through my brain. The good news is, positivity always defeats negativity and I refuse to be negative. And the comforting thoughts I remarked about outweigh, by far, the ones that seemed plaintive.

Life is precious. Let’s all resolve to enjoy it.

I hear Parker making noise, so I am off to get him up…

College Football Seven Weeks In

2011-10-16T23:05:00.007-04:00

As you may know from my previous post, Erika had a health scare the week before last. That put my usual mental state out of sorts, but then again, on the positive side, it improved my mental state by forcing me to remember my priorities.

Then, last week I disappeared into the mountains for my almost-annual hiking trip, which put my usual mental state even more out of sorts. When it comes to politics and world affairs, I have practically no idea what has happened over the last two weeks so I simply can not comment on those things.

Nonetheless, I do know what has been happening in college football. What little bit of time (and my brain) have been available recently to focus on anything other than Erika's health (or on my trip) have been spent keeping an eye on the game I love. So here are some of my thoughts:

For years I have thought that Texas is the most underachieving program in America and Mack Brown the most overrated coach in America. Now I no longer think those things -- I know them.

I can not believe how few people are talking about Penn State, and I can not believe they aren't ranked. They are 6-1 and their only loss was to #2 Alabama...and they played Alabama much closer than anyone else has played them...and they are a traditional power led by the winningest coach in the history of the sport...yet they are not ranked in either the AP or coaches' poll. That, my friends, makes no sense.

I am also surprised by how little attention Oregon is receiving. Last year they came within three points of winning the national title. This year they have won five in a row and their only loss was to #1 LSU -- in the opener, no less -- but nobody is talking about them.

Of course I have to talk about my Auburn Tigers, and I will begin by mentioning the story which broke last Wednesday but -- surprise! surprise! -- is not getting much media attention. The NCAA completed its investigation of all those pay-for-play allegations that got hurled around during the 2010 championship run, and it announced that it found no evidence of wrongdoing. Last year and into the early days of this year, the media spent months slandering Cam Newton, dragging the name of my alma mater through the mud, and all but predicting that Auburn would be stripped of its national title and Newton would be stripped of his Heisman Trophy. Auburn fans took the high road through all of this, overcoming the human impulse to lash back at the accusers.

And now that Auburn has been vindicated and the media proved wrong, the media has ignored the story of the NCAA findings, or at best, buried it in the back pages of their newspapers or closing seconds of their "news" shows. So now I am succumbing to human impulse and unloading what I have been holding back for far too long. To Bama sycophant Paul Finebaum; to standardless "journalists" Pete Thamel, Danny Sheridan, Thayer Evans, and Joe Schad; to radio blowhard Steve Duemig; to HBO; to all you miserable SOB's who referred to the 2010 Heisman winner as "Scam Newton"; to all you brainlessly unoriginal bloggers and blog commenters who wrote it as "$cam Newton"; to all you Bama fans who responded to Auburn's historic Iron Bowl triumph by saying "congratulations on the victory to be vacated at a later date"; and to all of the other haters I forgot to mention: Screw you.

Damn that felt good.

But back to this season. Before Auburn began playing its death march of an October schedule, I wrote that their defense was so weak it would be almost impossible for them to win any of the four games in their immediate future. Well, their defense has improved by leaps and bounds since then, and they have won two of the first three games in that four-game stretch I was talking about. Beating Florida last night was good as gold to me because it will shut up all the obnoxious, arrogant Gator fans I have to live with on a daily basis. I am very impressed with the way this year's team is coming together and consistently improving after replacing 16 starters from last year's national championship squad.

And here's a cool statistic about this year's Tigers: Through seven games, they still have not lost a fumble.

Lastly, here is the Stanton’s Space Top Twenty:

1. LSU

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma

4. Clemson

5. Wisconsin

6. Boise State

7. Oregon

8. Oklahoma State

9. Stanford

10. Arkansas

11. Kansas State

12. Penn State

13. Nebraska

14. West Virginia

15. Virginia Tech

16. Michigan State

17. Georgia Tech

18. Auburn

19. South Carolina

20. Texas A&M

Much Ado About Something

2011-10-11T22:22:00.007-04:00

The past week has been a doozy.

Erika came down with what started as a mystery illness, landing her in the hospital from Wednesday morning until Sunday afternoon. I stayed with her each night and most of each day, and it felt like a real life House episode as they -- well, mostly Dr. Yun Tae Chang -- tried to figure out what was ailing her.

I am not here to share the details of her medical condition, but the symptoms and the possible diagnoses that got bandied about were very frightening. A definite diagnosis was finally established on Friday and the treatment is working. Fortunately, a full recovery is expected, though she must stay attuned to her body because there is a chance she was experiencing two conditions simultaneously. If that was the case, there is a chance of the secondary diagnosis recurring, which would land her in the hospital all over again.

The ordeal made us realize how blessed we are when it comes to family, not only our own immediate household but the rest of our family as well. With me staying with Erika, her sister helped our by watching Sarah while my mom helped out by watching Parker. To top it all off, we had car trouble while all this was happening and my father helped out there. When I had to run home to grab things, and when I had to run into the office for a few hours on Friday afternoon, Erika's mother was at her bedside so she would not have to be alone.

We are thankful to have our home back together again, and we can not say enough good things about the care Erika received at St. Joseph's Hospital North.

Love you, LOML!

Much Ado About Nothing

2011-10-04T20:14:00.017-04:00

What was so extreme about Hank Williams, Jr.'s comments that ESPN felt compelled to pull his song from last night's Monday Night Football broadcast? Nothing. What is extreme is the chilling effect that this kind of politically correct censorship has on American discourse.

Every media report I have read states that Williams made comments "comparing Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler." The first big problem is, that's not true. The second, even bigger problem is that no one in the media is correcting the record.

What happened is that Williams thought it was stupid (his word) for John Boehner and John Kasich to go golfing with Barack Obama and Joe Biden. When asked why, he said: "Come on! It'd be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu."

That analogy is perfectly valid, even if it troubles the sensibilities of those who need a fainting couch anytime someone speaks their mind. Obama and Biden are partisan leaders of the Left while Boehner and Kasich are partisan leaders of the Right -- and each pair has spoken out loudly and strongly against actions taken by the other -- so, yes, they are on opposing ends of the political spectrum just like Semites (Netanyahu) and anti-Semites (Hitler) are on opposing ends.

But most importantly, Williams did not compare Obama to Hitler. He simply noted the chasm between Left and Right by using the chasm between Hitler and Netanyahu as an analogy. Was the analogy a bit over the top? Perhaps, but that is the norm -- not the exception -- when it comes to political analogies, and being over the top does not make it inaccurate.

It is disgraceful that the MSM is claiming Williams likened Obama to Hitler when he did nothing of the sort. When George W. Bush was in the Oval Office, one liberal after another routinely likened him to Hitler. The name "Bushitler" was even given to him, and became so common that it now has its own entry on urbandictionary.com and is referenced in at least 52 posts on democraticunderground.com. Yet I do not remember any member of the MSM ever even criticizing those analogies, much less taking an active stand against them like ESPN did against Williams.

To be fair, the alleged Hitler comparison is not the only comment Williams made to draw the ire of ESPN and the rest of the MSM. It is no secret that he is not a fan of liberal Democrat policies, and when elaborating on his point during the offending interview he said this: "They're the enemy, Obama and Biden." Hypersensitive liberals can be forgiven for thinking that meant Williams believes the POTUS and veep are in league with Der Fuhrer, but the MSM knows better and should be ashamed of their collective selves.

What Williams meant is that Obama and Biden are the political enemies of Boehner and Kasich. That is a simple fact. If some people think his use of the term "enemy" is inappropriate, they should be made aware that it was Barack Obama, President of the United States -- not Hank Williams, Jr., singer -- who first used the word "enemies" to describe political opponents. Obama did that in an interview almost twelve months ago, and during the same interview he said this about people who are in favor of border security: "Those aren't the kinds of folks who represent our core American values." That is far more slanderous and offensive than anything Williams said, and it was coming from a man who (unlike Williams) has power over people's lives and futures.

During his "hope and change" campaign in 2008, Obama said in a speech to supporters that they should talk to friends and neighbors "whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face." But the MSM could not be bothered -- and still can not be bothered -- to point out how strikingly those words contrast with Obama's media-crafted reputation as a moderate and a uniter.

I have not seen Williams's tax returns, but I doubt he is hurting for money. Having his performance pulled from Monday Night Football for a week will not impoverish him -- nor will having it pulled forever, if that is what happens. But that does not matter, nor does it make what happened to him right. In fact, what happened "to him" will hurt others far more than it will hurt him, and that is what is wrong with this whole spectacle.

Williams said something that was not wrong, and was logical, but went against the politically correct narrative that is favored by the MSM. The MSM exercises enormous control of information in our country, and because they did not like what he said, they publicly punished him in the modern version of colonial era stockades. And rather than provoke the MSM's wrath by defending Williams, everyone has gone silent at best, or, at worst, jumped on the bandwagon by criticizing him as well. This is true even of his own son. Lay this spectacle on top of the long history of campus speech codes imposed by the Left, and Obama & Co.'s history of setting up web sites for people to snitch on their neighbors who criticize Obama, and the national narrative makes it clear that anyone who does not toe the liberal line is in danger of being targeted.

This message is not lost on people, and therefore people respond by censoring themselves or by qualifying every comment they make with redundant and timid phrases, like "but not every..." or "but not always..." In the end they do not feel free to speak their minds and thus do not do so, no matter how true and important their thoughts may be. They succumb to fear of stigma, and they -- and the country -- suffer as a result.

This is particularly insidious when you consider the one-way nature of the phenomenon. People on the Left never censor themselves and never feel the slightest obligation to qualify their statements, yet they pounce like wolves on anyone else who doesn't. They would love to outlaw free speech, but because that would be difficult they choose to silence it through demonization.

In my living memory, there was a time when no matter how strongly two Americans disagreed, there was a good chance of their conversation ending with each of them agreeing that "I disagree with what you are saying, but will defend to my death your right to say it." Unfortunately, that is no longer the case, and the fault for that spirit disappearing lies squarely at the feet of liberals like Obama.

Ahhh...Autumn!

2011-10-02T19:54:00.005-04:00

Up North the leaves are changing color all over the place...In the heart of Dixie, trees atop the crest of the Smokies are coated in rime ice...Out West, a road in Rocky Mountain National Park has already undergone a temporary closing due to snow.

Here in Florida, fall's arrival is much less dramatic but every bit as noticeable. There has been a chill in the air each of the last two mornings and evenings. Meanwhile, the afternoons have brought warmth without heat and it has been mild enough to sit outside under bright sunny skies without sweating.

Yesterday I went outside with my morning coffee before the sun was up. I sat on the back porch, soaking up the chill, relishing the feel of not being rushed, and watched the sky gradually change from black to orange to blue with the rising of the sun. Sarah joined me just as the black was starting to fade, and for a six-year-old she seemed to enjoy the spectacle very much.

Today I rode my bike under a high-arching, sapphire sky that had not a single cloud, and the sense of autumnal verve was palpable. The leaves sounded crisp as they rustled in the breeze. Families with fishing poles cast their lines far out into our neighborhood ponds. The birds seemed to have an extra gear in their wings as they flapped about.

Each of Earth's seasons has its own special qualities, and I appreciate them without exception. But every year I become more and more convinced that fall is the most majestic season of all.

College Football Four Weeks In

2011-09-26T21:32:00.004-04:00

We are four weeks into this college football season. And so far my expressed opinions have been met with facts that have proven to be, shall we say, humbling.

The day before the season started, I wrote this about my Auburn Tigers: “…I do believe they are way, way better than the so-called experts are saying, and I look forward to watching them prove those so-called experts wrong.” Well, the Tigers are 3-1 and have beaten a ranked team, which may not sound bad, but up to now their play has done more to prove the experts right than to prove them wrong. Their defense has looked so meek and flaccid that it is almost impossible to see them winning any of the games in the murderer’s row that is their immediate future -- when they face South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, and LSU over the next four weekends, with only one of those games at home.

Also, I opined that “Central Florida is the most underrated team in America. By far. And they absolutely should be ranked.” And after I wrote that, Central Florida went out and lost two games in the next nine days.

On the positive side, I correctly predicted South Florida winning at Notre Dame and Oklahoma winning at Florida State. But those positives were overshadowed by a very dark cloud: the untimely death of Lee Roy Selmon.

So maybe I should hold off on opining about college football for the time being. But unfortunately, I can’t help myself. We are four weeks into the season, and I have always said that this is the week when we have seen enough action to start making educated assessments...so without further ado, here is the Stanton’s Space Top Twenty:

1. LSU

2. Alabama

3. Oklahoma

4. Boise State

5. Wisconsin

6. Oklahoma State

7. Oregon

8. Stanford

9. Virginia Tech

10. Clemson

11. South Carolina

12. Florida

13. Nebraska

14. Texas A&M

15. Baylor

16. South Florida

17. Florida State

18. TCU

19. Georgia Tech

20. Arkansas

Note: I wanted to comment on Texas A&M leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, which became official today, but I decided to wait and write about that in its own post. For now I will simply say that no matter what you think about conference realignment in general, Texas A&M made the right decision for them, and the SEC made the right decision when it opted to welcome them into the fold.

Autumn Equinox

2011-09-23T05:31:00.001-04:00

Some thoughts about autumn on this, its first day:

I love stepping outside on that first morning that fall’s nip is in the air.

I love how changing leaves turn Appalachian mountainsides into fiery palettes of orange, red, and gold.

I love driving winding roads through those mountains, catching glimpse after glimpse of falling leaves as they twirl their way to the ground.

I love cold nights marked by the scent of campfire and the sound of wind in the trees.

I love watching my daughter skip through the pumpkin patch looking for the perfect one to bring home.

I love walking behind her as she trick-or-treats on Halloween night.

I love pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving Day, and how it sets the ideal tone to start the Christmas season.

I love watching flocks of birds land in Florida at the end of their migration, while others keep flying to points further south.

And last but not least, I love football, especially college games where the fans are loud and the bands are blaring…and most of all, where Auburn is winning and the fight song you keep hearing begins with the line: “War Eagle, fly down the field, ever to conquer, never to yield!”

et ceteras

2011-09-15T05:50:00.019-04:00

Shhhhh

That is the advice MSM members have given each other about covering Tuesday night's special elections in New York and Nevada, and apparently they have heeded it. Although a few pundits acknowledged that the elections were held and were won by Republicans, very few news shows or newspapers have bothered to inform their customers. So in case you are one of the scores of millions who don't know about the results, here they are: In New York's 9th Congressional District, career businessman Bob Turner defeated career politician David Weprin; and in Nevada's 2nd, Mark Amodei trounced Kate Marshall.

NY-9

Both of the above results should cause the White House in particular, and Democrats in general, to be worried about their chances in 2012, but the one in New York is especially ominous for them. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in that district by more than three to one, and prior to Tuesday it had been more than 90 years since a Republican won a congressional election there. Yet not only did Turner win, he did so by a comfortable, eight-point margin while running as an unapologetic conservative.

Turner was openly pro-Israel, pro-military, pro-life, pro-traditional-marriage, and pro-business; just as he was openly anti-government, anti-spending, anti-tax, anti-amnesty, and anti-Obamacare. He openly called for the elimination of both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture, and for a reduction in the size and scope of the Department of Education. He advocated a 35 percent reduction in aggregate federal spending, which would be unprecedented to a head-spinning degree. Yet he won handily, and in a blue district to boot. Even though he is a Catholic and his opponent a Jew, and even though Jews usually vote almost 90 percent Democrat, he got nearly half the Jewish vote across all lines of the Judaic spectrum -- Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, or secular and religious, however you want to slice it.

There is no way for Obama & Co. to spin this as a positive.

Global Warming

It is no secret that I am a skeptic when it comes to global warming. I absolutely do not believe that there is such a thing as man-made global warming, and for that matter, I also do not believe that global warming of any kind is happening right now. If it were, they would have kept calling it global warming instead of slyly changing the phrase to "climate change" a while back. By "they," I mean liberals, environmental extremists, journalists, so-called "moderate Republicans"...they are all pretty much the same.

But I digress. What I wanted to do was point out a few things from this week that do not jibe with the notion of global warming. One of them is the fact that even though it is still summer, the National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for the mountains of southern Colorado. Another non-jibing item is that abnormally low temperatures are gripping a large swath of the country. Yet another one is Nobel-winning physicist Ivar Giaever resigning from his post with the American Physical Society, in order protest that organization's unscientific and politically driven position on global warming theory.

Lee Roy Selmon

My September 4th and September 6th posts were about Lee Roy Selmon, the Hall of Fame football player who passed away after suffering a stroke. After publishing those posts, I heard some stories about him on sports radio that I feel I should share.

University of South Florida Athletic Director Doug Woolard, talking about his many business interactions with Selmon over the years, mentioned that they talked extensively about their families each time. Woolard said this was true for every meeting, no matter what the meeting was scheduled for, and he noted that Selmon was always the first one to ask, "How's your family?"

Dan Sileo, host of the morning drive time show on 620 AM, said Selmon was so sincere that he made everyone he came in contact with, even in a room full of people, feel as if he or she was the most important person in the room. He remarked that Ronald Reagan was the only other person he has met who had that gift. Sileo also said that every time he conversed with Selmon, he was so impressed with his character that he left the conversation feeling compelled "to be a better man."

And finally, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Shelton Quarles said that Selmon told him, "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."

Selmon's viewing was one week ago today, and a large, public memorial service was held for him the next day in Tampa. One day later, another funeral was held for him in his home state of Oklahoma. I will say it again: What a tragic loss his passing was.

College Football

Central Florida is the most underrated team in America. By far. And they absolutely should be ranked.....The most valuable player last week was not Denard Robinson. It was the collective unit known as Denard Robinson's receivers. Their spectacular catches during Michigan's fourth quarter comeback against Notre Dame obscured the fact that Robinson's throws were God-awful wounded ducks that he should be embarrassed of.....Auburn continues to master the art of winning nail-biters in the last minute. I shouldn't complain, since they have not lost a game since 2009, and since they defeated a ranked opponent last week despite losing 16 starters from last year's national championship squad -- but I really wish they would win just one game by a comfortable margin so I wouldn't have to experience ulcers and palpitations every Saturday.....And lastly, a prediction: Oklahoma will defeat Florida State in Tallahassee on Saturday night. If Auburn can't win the national title this year, I want Oklahoma to win it and dedicate it to Lee Roy, their greatest alumnus.

Reflections on 9/11

2011-09-11T08:58:00.001-04:00

There it stood. Fifty-two months earlier, when America first saw the steel cross standing amidst the ruins of the World Trade Center, I had assumed that rescue workers fashioned it from beams found in the wreckage. I had assumed that was how it came to be a fitting tribute to those who perished on September 11, 2001, and I still thought that when I looked upon the cross in person on a cold January afternoon in 2006. It was not until shortly afterward that I learned the truth: This portion of crossbeam had fallen, as-is, from the upper reaches of the collapsing North Tower and landed upright in the debris.

As I stood at Ground Zero, it was eerily silent despite the fact that America’s largest city was bustling all around me. A gaping hole occupied the spot where the Twin Towers once stood. I looked at the cross and thought I could walk to it and touch it in less than five seconds, were it not for the chain link fence encircling the grounds.

Instead I turned and walked south, to the corner of the property where Liberty Street intersects with Church Street. Looking back to the north, I shifted my gaze from the hole to the street and recalled the images of people leaping hundreds of feet to their bloody deaths on the very pavement which was now before my eyes. How hellishly hot must the temperatures have been, for human beings to choose crushing their bodies to death before knowing the towers were doomed to fall?

I thought of rescue workers proffering aid to others at the very instant more than 100 stories of steel and concrete came crashing down to extinguish their lives.

* * *

Like most Americans, my thoughts about New York over the years had not been wholly positive. The city held poignant symbols of freedom, and hence of the American dream, which was very good. It housed many of the engines of capitalism and birthed some of the best jazz ever played, and those things were also good. Yet it swaggered with arrogance, oozed with moral ambivalence, and was the home of socialites who lived off inherited wealth while attacking the very institutions that made it possible for others to achieve success – and those aspects of the Big Apple were not good.

New York may have been the ultimate ethnic melting pot, but it was shuttered and monochromatic when it came to intellectual matters. How could a city with eight million citizens not have a single conservative? I loved the Statue of Liberty but could never bring myself to root for the Yankees.

Nonetheless, standing at Ground Zero I thought of how all roads seem to meet in this place. Visiting the city in person, walking its sidewalks among its inhabitants, brings a welcome realization that it actually likes the fact it is in the United States. Yes, there was the raw irritation of seeing Che Guevara's mug plastered with praise on a giant window in Times Square – but then I heard the patrons of a subterranean sports bar praise our troops.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was still up two weeks after Christmas, and the walkway to it from Fifth Avenue was lined with tall figures of angels blowing trumpets. Here, Christmas had not been neutered by any transformation to something called Happy Holiday.

One block from Rockefeller Center are the twin spires of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, from whose pulpit the late Cardinal John O’Connor delivered many of the strongest sermons in American history. Though a prominent and uncompromising foe of abortion, he was revered in this city that is considered a hotbed of abortion-on-demand secularism. Standing across the street from Saint Patrick’s, it was hard not to notice the street sign showing that this block of Fifth Avenue is officially designated as Cardinal O’Connor Way.

In the East Village we slurped beers at McSorley’s, an old Irish pub where Abraham Lincoln once quaffed ale after delivering a speech. Small and cramped, it does not appear to have been enlarged or significantly upgraded since Lincoln’s time. When our party of four made it inside, a rough-looking worker with an Irish brogue showed us to a small, thin, wooden table and asked if we wanted “light or dark.” Two of us ordered the former, two the latter, and it must have been two-for-one because he returned carrying eight mugs of beer with no tray. He slammed them onto the table in one theatrical move, and we drank them without ever knowing their brand.

* * *

And finally, at Ground Zero, we were a very short walk from my favorite New York City nexus. Head one block east and you come to Broadway. Turn south for two more blocks and you come to Wall Street’s western terminus, directly across from Trinity Chapel.

We strode onto Trinity’s grounds and wandered through its aged cemetery until we found what we were searching: The grave of Alexander Hamilton, marked by a modest obelisk. At its base someone had laid a bouquet. Amazingly, right beside Hamilton’s grave is that of Robert Fulton, father of the steam engine.

Leaving Trinity, you cross Broadway and start down surprisingly nondescript Wall Street. Just one block onto it, with Trinity’s steeple looming behind you, you come to the site where George Washington took the oath of office as America’s first president.

And across the street from that site sits the New York Stock Exchange. We’ve all seen the images of frantic traders on the exchange floor, and we know the atmosphere inside must be noisy and stressful and chaotic. But viewed from outside, the exchange building is a picture of serenity that is dwarfed by much of its surroundings. American flags fly beneath its facade of Corinthian columns, giving it the appearance of a county courthouse from somewhere in the heartland.

So here, in less than two city blocks, you can walk in the footsteps of at least two Founding Fathers; visit one of their burial sites; visit the grave of one of history’s most prominent inventors; stand at the spot where our republic’s executive branch came into existence, and see the building where more wealth has been created than at any other spot on the planet.

Here, you can feel the heart of freedom beating strong.

Update: I first published this piece in 2008. I did not realize until later that McSorley's serves only its own beer (hence us being offered simply "light or dark") and that it has a two-drink minimum (hence us being served twice what we ordered). In my mind, those facts make McSorley's even cooler than I already thought.

Gone Too Soon

2011-09-06T22:50:00.008-04:00

It’s interesting, the things we remember vividly years after they take place.

The day was December 3, 1978, and I was seven years old. That was the day my father took me to my first professional football game. I remember sitting in the stands at Tampa Stadium with him and some of his co-workers from Ernst & Ernst, the old accounting firm that has since morphed into Ernst & Young. We left shortly before the final gun and as we were walking along the sidewalk outside the stadium, with me holding my brand new Tampa Bay Buccaneers pennant, a motorist slowed down and asked what the score was. I still remember my dad’s response: “17-7 Green Bay.”

My lone clear memory of the action on the field does not involve either team scoring. It involves an injury. I don’t recall if it was a running play or passing play, but the Bucs were on defense and as players from both teams stood up after a tackle, one of them remained on the ground in obvious pain. The stadium as a whole fell silent, but people around us were talking in low voices and I could tell they were distressed about whoever that was on the turf. I asked my father which player was hurt, and I remember his reply like it happened yesterday. He leaned over and said: “That’s Lee Roy Selmon. He’s our best player.”

Selmon was helped onto the trainer’s cart. As it was driven behind the east end zone to take him off the field, he was sitting upright with his helmet off and I remember precisely how he looked: Calm. How fitting that was.

The following season, the Bucs’ defense would prove to be the top-ranked unit in the entire NFL and Selmon would be named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Although the Bucs had no offense to speak of, their Selmon-led defense was so formidable that it carried the team to three playoff appearances in the four seasons between 1979 and 1982 -- and to within 10 points of earning a trip to Super Bowl XIV.

Because he played in a 3-4 defense with the Bucs, Selmon was double-teamed on almost every single down and quite often triple-teamed, yet he still dominated. Former Chicago Bears offensive lineman Ted Albrecht, referring to a game in which he had to face Selmon, once said this to sportswriter Paul Zimmerman: “At halftime I told the coach my deepest secrets. I said I never wanted to be buried at sea, I never wanted to get hit in the mouth with a hockey puck, and I didn’t want to go out and play that second half against Lee Roy Selmon.”

And I have not even mentioned his legendary college career with the Oklahoma Sooners, during which he was a two-time All-American, won both the Lombardi Award and the Outland Trophy, and led the Sooners to back-to-back national championships. Oklahoma has one of the longest and most prestigious histories in all of college football, and according to former coach Barry Switzer, Selmon is the greatest player to ever don the Sooners’ uniform.

He was inducted into both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame. He was the first player ever drafted by the Buccaneers, and so far he is the only one ever to play for them who has been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a Buccaneer.

But going back to what I alluded to earlier, when I said he looked calm while being carted off the field 33 years ago, the main thing about Selmon is not all the accomplishments, but the man himself. He was the personification of class and integrity, and for all his on-field ferocity, he was the kindest and humblest person you could ever meet, the ultimate “gentle giant.”

He became known because he was a football player of the highest caliber, but remained known because of his genuine good nature. In all the coverage since he passed away on Sunday, hardly anything has been said about his career because all the talk and ink have been spent declaring what a good person he was. This is remarkable because it is the first time I have ever witnessed such a thing in news coverage, and I have been a news junkie ever since 1980, back when Iran was holding Americans hostage and the U.S. hockey team stunned the Soviets and Reagan kicked Carter to the curb.

Lee Roy Selmon was raised on a farm in eastern Oklahoma, the youngest of nine children. His parents instilled in him a work ethic that never wavered until his dying day, as evidenced by Coach Switzer saying that he “never had a bad practice,” and by the fact he never stopped working even though he could have quit years ago.

Maybe it was Selmon’s farm rearing that made him so adroit when it came to down home food. It was no secret that he could whip up a fine barbecue, and when I was a kid grocery stores around Tampa and St. Pete sold Selmon Brothers Barbecue Sauce, made from a family recipe. In recent years he lent his name to a chain of restaurants and it just so happens that Erika once worked for its president. This gave her the opportunity to meet Selmon on several occasions, and she has always described him as “so nice.”

All through the years, Lee Roy Selmon remained an integral part of the Tampa Bay community. All the way from that first time I saw him from the stands, up to his untimely death, I continued to see him around town with impressive regularity. And even more impressively, he was always doing regular things in regular places. You might expect to see famous rich people only at fancy five-star restaurants, but I saw him eating dinner with his family at Carrabba’s.

Once, I was at a University of South Florida basketball game where the stands were mostly empty. At halftime, when they called out random seat numbers and asked the people sitting in those seats to come down and participate in a halftime contest, it turned out that Selmon was sitting in one of the seats that got called. I don’t remember what the prize was, but I do remember that the contestants had to make a long-distance shot to win it. Everyone else missed, but Selmon’s shot swished through, nothing but net. As he meandered through the arena afterward, people came up to talk to him and he obliged every one with a smile and a handshake.

And speaking of the University of South Florida, he worked for that institution for 18 years, including four as its athletic director. Before he got involved it had no football program, but now it has one that defeated Notre Dame in South Bend three days ago. Sadly, he was supposed to be in attendance at that game, but suffered a stroke the day before and passed away the day after.

People of my generation and older generations know Lee Roy Selmon as a force on the gridiron. People of younger generations know him as a man whose restaurants serve up a delicious pulled pork sandwich. They also know him as a man who quietly and dutifully pulled a little-known university’s athletic department up by its bootstraps and turned it into something to be reckoned with. Everybody knows him as a man of character who believed in doing things the right way. May he never be forgotten.

Lee Roy Selmon (1954-2011)

2011-09-04T20:05:00.006-04:00

A model of excellence and humility has passed. Words will come in time, because right now they won't cut it. But this is an undoubtedly sad day for sports fans in Tampa Bay and Oklahoma, and more than that, it is a sad day for people of good will no matter where they hail from. Rest in peace, Lee Roy.

et ceteras

2011-08-31T21:13:00.015-04:00

It's Back!

Tomorrow night marks the return of college football, and I can not wait for kickoff. There aren't many intriguing games tomorrow night, but who cares? Just because they don't seem exciting now doesn't mean that won't change once they are underway...and there are some eye-popping match-ups set for Saturday, with Oregon and LSU locking horns and Boise State traveling all the way to Atlanta to face Georgia on a (ahem ahem) "neutral" field.

As an Auburn grad, I get the pleasure of watching my team mount its first defense of an official national championship since I was born. With as many players as were lost to graduation, especially on the offensive line, I do not expect the Tigers to repeat as champs -- but I do believe they are way, way better than the so-called experts are saying, and I look forward to watching them prove those so-called experts wrong.

And my last pre-kickoff comment on college football has me wading into waters I usually avoid until I have seen teams play: The waters of prediction. I am going on record saying that South Florida will upset Notre Dame in South Bend on Saturday afternoon.

The Exalted One

I hate to beat a dead horse by talking about how low an opinion I have of President Obama. However, he keeps doing things that drive my opinion of him even lower and I can not resist the urge to vent.

One year ago, with the economy floundering and millions upon millions of fit-to-work Americans unable to find jobs, Obama left for a fancy vacation on Martha's Vineyard and said he would unveil his economic recovery plan upon his return. This month, with the economy still floundering and millions upon millions of fit-to-work Americans still unable to find jobs, he left for another fancy vacation on Martha's Vineyard and again announced that he would unveil his economic recovery plan upon his return. I do not begrudge anyone, even Barack Obama, the joys of a well-earned vacation -- but for him to not see how ridiculous this appears to the average person shows he is out of touch with America.

The MSM is not making a big deal out of this, and perhaps they are right not to, but I have vivid memories of my ending college days when they were stridently claiming that George H.W. Bush did not deserve to be re-elected because he was "out of touch with America." Their reason for deeming him out of touch was that he went fishing in Maine, but apparently they do not find Obama spending a week lounging and golfing at a famous playground for the super wealthy to be grounds for the "out of touch" label. The double standard drives me madder than a 19th century hatter.

Fantasies in Freefall

I am not the first person to notice that liberals cling to their beliefs with a blind-to-facts fervor that can only be described as religious -- even as they claim to be immune to such fervor and to care only about science. This phenomenon is noticeable in all parts of the liberals' creed, but especially so when they talk about "the environment." Michael Crichton gave perhaps the best analysis of it in a 2003 speech that is captured here.

Anyway, alternative energy sources are one topic about which liberals are perpetual suckers. Tell them there is a source of energy that will outperform petroleum for a fraction of the cost and transform the world in the process, and they automatically believe you no matter how wrong you are.

Wind power is a perfect example of this, since every liberal on Earth seems to believe that erecting windmills can lead us to energy nirvana. Unfortunately, the facts fly directly in the face of this left wing fantasy. For a compelling dissection of facts about wind power, you may go here or here.

C'est la vie!

Blog Update

2011-08-27T18:11:00.006-04:00

As you may know, I also have a travel blog, The Continuous Tourist, which I started 7½ months after starting this one. Back in 2009 I wrote that my reason for starting The Continuous Tourist was that traveling “is something I truly love, and when I write about it I am writing out of love rather than duty…”

Both blogs have featured posts about hiking, because the fact of the matter is that there are few things I enjoy more than experiencing God’s creation by walking through it and seeing it on its own terms. And that love of hiking has prompted me to start yet another blog, one whose name strikes even me as somewhat oxymoronic: The Tampa Bay Hiker.

Basically, its purpose is to inform people about the many locations in the Tampa Bay area where nature rules and people can walk through wild landscapes undisturbed. These places exist but are mostly unknown to the public. Because I have spent most of my life focusing on hiking in places far away, it was not until recently, and only after I made an effort to educate myself, that I realized how many wild areas there are around here…so I figured a blog about them would fill a void.

The link to The Tampa Bay Hiker is here in case you have any interest in its subject matter. Right now it only has one post, explaining what the blog is about. I will publish the first trail review before the Labor Day weekend arrives, so there will be useful information there for anyone wanting to get outside that weekend. However, like I said in the current post, most of my reviews will be published during the cooler months when hiking in the Tampa Bay area is far more pleasurable than it is right now.

If you visit the new blog, please let me know what you think. I would love to hear feedback!

RIP, Dixie

2011-08-17T18:51:00.011-04:00

Today has been a sad "growing up" experience in the Stanton household.

Several months ago, a trio of Pekin ducks started hanging out in our neighborhood and Sarah immediately took a liking to them. She named them Dixie, Quackie, and Moe (pronounced mo-ee), and in the great tradition of American kids, started feeding them bread. We allow her to perform these feedings once a week, and even tough that doesn't seem like much, the ducks act like they are her pets. Sarah will step outside and see them walking near the opposite side of the pond, and when she calls their names they waddle over at top speed like puppies running to their mum.

But this morning, when Sarah took the dog out to go potty like she does every morning, she found Dixie's decapitated body lying in the grass outside our lanai. I had barely turned on the water for my shower when Erika came in to tell me about the discovery, and seconds later Sarah came in crying. Erika advised me to make it a quick shower because Sarah needed comforting.

We have no idea exactly what happened. At first I thought Dixie may have succumbed to a fox or some other predator, but then I figured that doesn't make sense, because why would a predator go through the effort of taking prey and then not eat it? Erika, observing that on a few occasions over the last week we had seen the ducks as a duo rather than as their usual trio, theorized that Dixie may have been sick and succumbed to the illness -- after which a vulture or some other animal took a bite but didn't like the taste.

Anyway, all that is neither here nor there. I went out back with Sarah and put my arm around her shoulders as she showed me what she had found. Dixie lay on her back, her white plumage splattered with blood. Sarah pointed out that her beak was resting on the grass to the right of her body. Her voice trembling, Sarah said: "At first I thought it was a crumpled up Target bag, but then I saw its feet."

I told her I was sorry to hear about Dixie's passing, and that I felt bad she was the one who discovered it. I stressed that she should focus on the fact that Dixie lived a happy life because they met, and that she should focus on the fact Dixie always enjoyed it when she gave her bread.

Sarah wanted to bury her. We said we could not, because whatever took off her head would dig up the rest of her body and destroy it (although the real reason was I couldn't be late for work).

Sarah may have suspected the real reason, because she suggested we put the body on the front porch for the day so we could bury it when I came home in the evening. This left us having to explain that when an animal dies its body starts to rot and stink, and it gets covered by hordes of bugs trying to eat it, and this all happens in short order so we couldn't just leave poor Dixie sitting on our porch.

She understood, but insisted she still wanted to bury the duck after work, and so she asked if we could just "put her in a box on the porch." Erika and I explained that a box wouldn't hold back the processes of nature, especially on a humid summer day in Florida. Erika told her that Dixie's soul is what's important, not her body, and that her soul is in Heaven.

And so I grabbed a garbage bag, slipped on some vinyl gloves, and went out to retrieve the corpse. It was raining even though there were very few clouds. Sarah stood on the lanai and watched glumly through the screen. I obliged her when she asked me to hold Dixie's body up so she could see it one last time.

When I picked up Dixie's beak, I learned that there was still a good bit of flesh from her head attached to it. The flesh was covered with ants. That was a sight I did not let Sarah see.

I walked to the dumpster at the end of the street, and that is where I tossed Dixie's remains. When I went back inside, Erika was consoling Sarah on the couch.

I headlined this post "RIP, Dixie." But it is not a duck that I feel like I said goodbye to today. I feel like I said goodbye to part of my six-year-old daughter's childhood innocence. Dixie brought amusement to all of us, but she brought unbridled joy to Sarah.

Sarah will still feed Quackie and Moe, but I will never again hear her call out "Dixie! Quackie! Moe!" as she runs into the yard holding bread. I will miss that because she always sounded so happy. In memory, below is a picture of her feeding all three ducks. I believe Dixie is the one all the way on the right, but Sarah could tell you for sure -- just as she could tell you how she knew that Dixie was the only one of the trio who was a girl.

V-J Day

2011-08-15T18:29:00.006-04:00

66 years ago today, the bloodiest war in human history came to an end when Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The announcement of Japan's surrender set off celebraions around the globe, including the one in Times Square during which this iconic picture was taken.

After six years, during which more than 60 million people from 27 different countries were killed, World War II was finally over. In the United States, August 15th came to be known as V-J Day, for Victory in Japan Day, since our European enemies had surrendered three months earlier.

Despite the fact that America was brought into the war when it was bombed by Japan, and despite the fact that atomic weapons were used to hasten the war's end, and despite enormous cultural differences, the two countries became strong and lasting friends whose alliance is now one of the most dependable on earth.

That is a direct result of the respectful and helping way America dealt with Japan after the war ended. One of the reasons we are unique in world history is that as conflicts conclude, we always seek to befriend our antagonists and to better their lot as well as our own. That fact needs to be burned into the hearts and minds of those who believe America is always the aggessor.

In my younger days, V-J Day was noted on calendars. Today it is not. This is not how it should be.

The Greatest Generation is rapidly passing to the other side of eternity's veil. Before its members are gone, may the rest of us thank them for the freedom they transmitted to us. And may we resolve that their sacrifice shall never be forgotten, and that it shall not have been made in vain.

Follow up

2011-08-11T21:17:00.004-04:00

My last post dealt with how ridiculous it is for liberals to blame tea partiers for the downgrading of the federal government’s credit rating, when the liberals’ own spending policies are what really caused the downgrade and the tea partiers are the only ones who tried to reverse those policies.

Almost as soon as I published that post, a few thoughts came to mind that I wanted to add. Now, well, here they are.

It has to be said that 1) the only way to reduce long-term government deficits is to reform government entitlement programs, and 2) the only people who have ever attempted such reform are Republicans. This includes not only today’s so-called Tea Party Republicans, like Paul Ryan, but older-generation stalwarts like Alan Simpson, who fought the good fight years before it became fashionable.

There is no doubt about #1 above. Entitlements overall account for 72 percent of all federal spending, with the Big Three (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) accounting for 42 percent. By contrast, overall defense spending is only 19 percent. Yet every time the topic of reducing expenditures comes up, liberals/Democrats reflexively suggest defense cuts while stridently refusing to even consider entitlement cuts. Meanwhile, conservatives/Republicans suggest cutting both, but somehow they are the ones who get called “intransigent.”

Far from trying to get a handle on entitlements when he came to office, Barack Obama sought to create a brand new one -- a.k.a. Obamacare -- that would be the largest in American history. An overwhelming majority of his fellow Democrat politicians sided with him, and got their way even though most voters were against Obamacare. And the percentages cited above are even more ominous when you consider that Obamacare has not even gone into effect as of today.

Social Security is the biggest entitlement right now and is nothing more than a second-rate Ponzi scheme. Any private citizen who sold such a thing would be thrown in jail. It consists not of taxing workers and setting their money aside to grow, so that larger amounts can be returned to them at retirement, but instead of taxing today’s workers and instantly giving the money to today’s retirees. Eventually every civilization involved in such an arrangement will reach a point where the worker-to-retiree ratio is not enough to sustain it, but in America, where members of the gigantic Baby Boom Generation are reaching retirement age and much smaller generations are going to be expected to take care of them, the situation is a potential cataclysm.

Although I do not remember any Democrat ever attempting to get Social Security under control, plenty of Republicans have -- even George W. Bush, whose high-spending ways made many question the GOP’s commitment to limited government. After his 2004 re-election, Bush courageously spent his political capital trying to give people the option to choose how their Social Security contributions are invested and also giving them ownership of the funds. Unfortunately, his efforts failed because Democrats opposed them in toto and were joined by enough timid Republicans that the principled ones got outvoted.

When it comes to who is responsible for the government’s decrepit spending habits, the Republican Party is not innocent. However, it is far less guilty than the Democrat Party, and can hang its hat on the fact that every person who has tried to overcome those habits and slay the spending dragon has been a Republican. If only the timid ones would overcome their fear and govern as they were voted to govern, we could look at the future with confidence instead of trepidation.

Note: Statistics in this post were taken from infoplease.com and "The Daily Beast."

The Debt Dance

2011-08-09T20:46:00.006-04:00

Am I the only one who wants to chuckle about the reaction to S&P downgrading the federal government's credit rating?

To be sure, there is nothing funny about the government creating a financial quagmire and saddling future generations with the consequences. But there is something amusing about its (and the media's) "shoot the messenger" response now that the chickens have come home to roost.

Anybody with an ounce of knowledge and sense has known for some time that the government deserved to have its credit rating downgraded. For years, under many different administrations, it has been borrowing way too much in order to spend way too much, and wary observers have been warning that a day of reckoning was inevitable. But under Barack Obama the situation escalated like a nuclear reaction, because under him the government has operated at larger deficits than under all previous administrations combined. Even George W. Bush looks like a tightwad compared to the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

As the debt ceiling talks played out in previous weeks, the only time Democrats or the MSM mentioned the possibility of a credit rating downgrade was when they said one would happen if Republicans in general -- and "Tea Party Republicans" in particular -- refused to raise the debt ceiling. Specifically, they claimed that if the ceiling was not raised by August 2nd, the government would go into default on its debt payments, Grandma would not get her Social Security check, and as a result the government's credit rating might go down.

They echoed this meme loudly and incessantly, even though they knew the government had more than enough cash on hand to keep making debt payments and entitlement payments for several months after Obama's arbitrary August 2nd deadline. And, crucially, they kept echoing the meme in spite of the fact that S&P issued a statement declaring that a downgrade could be triggered not only by a default, but could happen anyway "unless substantial and credible agreement is achieved on a budget that includes long-term deficit reduction."

The only people at the table who made any proposals for "long-term deficit reduction" were "Tea Party Republicans," and the plan that eventually passed ignored all of their suggestions while still raising the ceiling...so in hindsight, it is obvious that the tea partiers were the only ones doing anything that could have prevented the downgrade. However, Democrats and the MSM are actually saying the tea partiers caused it! They are even calling it "The Tea Party Downgrade." This is laughable, but unfortunately, it is also deadly serious because the whole purpose of the propaganda is to get liberals elected in majority numbers. That would ensure that liberals' ruinous policies continue -- a prospect that would place America's future prospects in imminent danger.

Once again, the "takeaways" from this whole spectacle are to ignore the noise from The Left; to comprehend that The Left and the media are one and the same; and to follow what your common sense tells you to be true. And most importantly, to make sure your non-partisan friends don't listen to left-wing sloganeering without hearing the facts.

The Double Standard

2011-08-04T22:08:00.013-04:00

About halfway through my last post, I opined about the media's coverage of the sex scandal surrounding Congressman David Wu. The gist can be summed up by the following question: If a Democrat is embroiled in a sex scandal but nobody knows it because the national media hides it and obfuscates it...is he really involved in a scandal at all?

Although my venting generated no contrary comments online, a very well-meaning and very liberal friend of mine did make a verbal comment suggesting that the coverage has been appropriate because Wu has not been convicted. That is what prompted me to write this follow up.

Wu may be innocent. I hope he is. And neither I nor anyone else of good faith wants to see an innocent man get tarred by false accusations. But I was not talking about Wu, nor was I talking about whether he is innocent or guilty, when I wrote my post. I was talking about the grotesquely different standards to which Republicans and Democrats are held by the MSM.

I have said before that writing about the double standard is so easy it almost feels like cheating, but that doesn't change the fact that it must be commented on. And it turns out that the Wu situation provides a perfect example of just how devilish the double standard is.

To recap, he is 56 and has been accused of raping the 18-year-old daughter of one of his donors. However, the MSM has barely acknowledged the story -- and in those instances where it has, it has completely avoided the word "rape" and chosen to instead say that Wu is accused of "an unwanted sexual encounter." In my post I wrote this: "You know that if such accusations were made against a Republican, they would be the lead story for weeks and the word 'rape' would be trumpeted all over the place. But when the accused is a Democrat, the story gets buried on the bottom of page 8; the word 'rape' gets placed in the Witness Protection Program; and female-defending feminists are suddenly nowhere to be found."

I don't see how anyone could disagree. The MSM dragged Clarence Thomas through the mud with malice, even though the accusations against him were far less serious and far less credible than those against Wu. Many in the MSM continue to drag him through the mud all these years later.

When a Republican is accused of sexual impropriety, the press hoots and howls and his career screeches immediately to a halt, often before the evidence is even weighed. Examples that come immediately to mind include Larry Craig, Chris Lee, and Bob Livingston.

On the other hand, there are innumerable examples of Democrats who have been accused of sexual impropriety -- but, far from seeing their careers end, they continue to work and even attain the status of legend. See Barney Frank, Gerry Studds, and any fill-in-the-blank Kennedy.

Even among those who rarely pay attention to politics, most people know Craig was accused of tapping a man's foot in an airport restroom. But few are aware that Frank's live-in lover was a male prostitute who ran a prostitution ring out of Frank's home.

As it happens, the same week I cranked out my post, 1) Gabrielle Giffords, whose wounds prompted President Obama to call for a new era of civility, resumed her official duties; 2) Vice President Biden likened Tea Party Republicans to terrorists; and 3) the MSM failed to notice the vast gulf between the veep's slander and the president's claim to want civility.

Of course, number three should not surprise us because the MSM routinely fails to notice the president's own slander and lack of civility -- like when he refers to Republicans as "our enemies," accuses doctors of performing unnecessary surgeries on toddlers purely for financial gain, and says police "acted stupidly" in the Skip Gates case despite admitting that he did not know all the facts of the case.

This double standard has existed for decades and is unlikely to end. But unfortunately, it still influences many voters and gives them a view of the political world that does not match that world's reality. That is why the double standard must be opposed, and to opposite it we have to point it out again and again without letting up.

et ceteras

2011-07-29T20:21:00.013-04:00

Fair warning: This et ceteras is all about politics, one way or another.

The "Boehner plan" passed the House vote earlier this evening. Does it go far enough? Hell no. Is it better than nothing, since it stands up to Obama on taxes and contains authentic, albeit minuscule, spending cuts? Yes. Was it smart to pass it? We won't know until the chips fall somewhere down the line.

You know all that talk the MSM has engaged in, saying the federal government's credit rating might get downgraded if the debt ceiling did not get raised by next week? It was all a bunch of hooey. Moody's, for one, is on record saying there is no downgrade on the table in the near term. What will eventually cause a downgrade, however, is the government continuing to plunge into an abyss of debt while spending at levels so high they are obviously unsustainable...therefore, raising the debt ceiling in the manner Obama & Co. prefer would actually hasten the arrival of the downgrade. It would be nice for the MSM to point this out, but of course they never will.

Speaking of the MSM, it is disgraceful how they are handling the case of Congressman David Wu, a 56-year-old Democrat in his seventh term. There have recently been accusations leveled at him by the 18-year-old daughter of one of his donors, which prompted him to say he would resign after the debt ceiling situation gets resolved. And what are those accusations? I have seen/heard them mentioned on online news outlets, in print news outlets, and on the radio, and in every single mention he was said to have been accused of an "unwanted sexual encounter." One outlet noted that in addition to "unwanted," the "encounter" was "aggressive." The way I see it -- and I dare anyone to see it differently -- that means Wu has been accused of rape. Why won't the MSM just say it? You know that if such accusations were made against a Republican, they would be the lead story for weeks and the word "rape" would be trumpeted all over the place. But when the accused is a Democrat, the story gets buried on the bottom of page 8; the word "rape" gets placed in the Witness Protection Program; and female-defending feminists are suddenly nowhere to be found.

Still sticking with the MSM, here's a story they have been sure to avoid reporting altogether: Pew Research shows a tectonic movement of white voters under the age of 30. In 2008 members of that group identified themselves more as Democrats than as Republicans, by a margin of seven points. This year they identify more as Republicans, by a margin of eleven points. That is an 18-point swing in only three years. I do not recall seeing the likes of that in my lifetime, so don't let anyone tell you that Obama is unbeatable in 2012.

I think every time I have mentioned Canada on this blog it has been in the context of hockey, or of the 2010 Winter Olympics that were hosted there. For some reason it just occurred to me (literally, right now) that I should give our northerly neighbors props on their prime minister. Stephen Harper has cut taxes and created a pro-business environment that has allowed Canada to weather the recession better than any other major country on earth. And he played piano and sang "With a Little Help from My Friends" with Yo Yo Ma. And this week he honored military heroes by laying a wreath at Canada's Korean Veterans National Wall of Remembrance. Harper is a much better leader than Obama, and I wish that Canuck was a Yank.

And finally, an observation: In Obama's entire time as president, the only time I can remember him taking a specific policy position and being adamant about it is when he has said he wants to raise taxes. He left it up to the legislature to write "his" health care law and to negotiate the debt ceiling. He kept Bush's war policies in place, but never said anything about it. However, when the subject is taxes, Obama's eyes alight with fire; and he argues passionately in favor of raising them; and he deploys class warfare propaganda that would make Cold War Soviets proud. I rarely say this about people, but in the case of Barack Obama, I truly despise the man. There is not one thing about him that is worthy of respect.

Hopefully my next post will be more uplifting, like the one I wrote last Sunday.

Off To See The Wizard

2011-07-24T13:06:00.019-04:00

It is somehow reassuring that today's children are just as familiar with The Wizard of Oz as prior generations were, even though it has been 72 years since the movie was released. I file it under the category of "The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same." And I file yesterday afternoon, when Sarah and I went to watch it on the big screen, under the category of "Great Daddy-Daughter Memories."

Downtown Tampa is home to one of America's best examples of a movie theater from Hollywood's golden age, back when they all had one auditorium and were often extravagant in their decor. Designed by John Eberson and opened in 1926, the Tampa Theater is bedecked with red upholstery and Greco-Roman statues, and its auditorium evokes a Mediterranean courtyard at dusk: The screen is surrounded by castle walls, while the ceiling is painted dark blue like the twilight sky, fitted with tiny lights reminiscent of stars.

I took advantage of my cell phone camera while we were there. Here is a view of the floor level, taken beneath the balcony after the movie was over and almost everyone had left:

Here is one taken from our seats in the balcony, when the organist was providing pre-show entertainment:

And here is another one taken from our seats, looking into the corner to give a sense of how high the walls go. To add to the perspective, keep in mind that we were sitting in the lower third of the balcony:

As part of its Summer Classics Series, the theater broke out Oz for matinee screenings this weekend. Sarah was fascinated with the opulence and I appreciated being able to watch a cinema classic while sitting inside a classic cinema. Even if you have seen a movie before, there is something different about seeing it on the big screen.

The event was touted as a singalong, and as you can tell from the following picture, the lyrics appeared on screen. I certainly didn't sing, nor did the bare majority of people in the audience, but quite a few did.

There were other examples of audience participation that, um, you just wouldn't get at home. Every time the Wicked Witch appeared (or Miss Gultch, her Kansas incarnation) large numbers of people hissed at her. And they applauded when she melted and whenever Toto made an escape.

Yes, some people came in costume, and not all of them were kids. One trio of folks who -- well, I will just say they probably got the senior's discount -- dressed up like the Lollipop Guild.

Yesterday was far from Sarah's first time watching The Wizard of Oz, but it was the first time she realized it was all a dream. She has already asked to go again next summer.

I can't believe that with all the pictures I took, I failed to take any of us. I (or Erika) will make up for that next time, but for now I leave you with the photo that turned out to be yesterday's coolest by far. I was taking one of the Scarecrow on screen and apparently my shutter snapped just as the next frame, of Dorothy, was coming round -- because you can see both their images on the screen, with hers fainter:

Note: "Movie palace" (or "picture palace" in the U.K.) was the name given to the style of theaters designed by Eberson and other cinema architects of his time. For a list of 150 of his creations, most of which are now closed and not all of which were in the U.S., go here.

More et ceteras

2011-07-18T19:34:00.013-04:00

Last week I vented about Obama's deficit spending. Although I don't think what I wrote requires any elaboration, I am still going to offer some by pointing out the piddling nature of the $2 billion he says he is willing to consider cutting from federal spending next year. $2 billion may sound like a lot -- until you realize it is precisely what the government borrows every 10 hours. In other words, The Exalted One is willing to consider (not commit to, mind you, but consider) cutting less than fifteen hundredths of one percent of the amount the government borrows. And keep in mind, the reason it borrows is to pay for ventures it can not fund from the greater than $4 trillion it collects in taxes and fees. Yet Obama expects us to believe he is serious about getting deficit spending under control. We are not fools, Mr. President.

I don't know what is more surprising: That Catholic University of America has co-ed dorms, or that someone is suing the school because it plans to phase them out and go back to single-sex dorms. What I do know is that the lawsuit, which was filed by a professor from another school, is a perfect example of an academic gone absurd...Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to live in a co-ed dorm when I was 19 -- but going to court to force other people to subsidize anyone's living arrangement is w-r-o-n-g.

Every now and then you see a story about a consumer boycott backfiring, with the target of the boycott seeing its economic fortune rise rather than fall. And if you are like me, those stories always make you smile. So here is a new one for your reading pleasure.

Earlier tonight I turned on Spike TV and watched "1,000 Ways to Die" for the first time. This may not say much for my maturity, but I became instantly hooked. As I type this, our TV remains tuned to Spike, whence four more episodes of that show have since aired. I don't plan on turning it off until I go to bed. Yes, I might need help.

And lastly, I feel compelled to mention that I just loaded Homer's Odyssey onto my Kindle and am eager to read it. I remember reading select passages from it when I was in eighth grade (that was in Ms. Ravas's English class, just in case anyone stumbles onto this blog who happens to have been wandering the halls of dearly departed Riviera Middle School back in the mid-1980's)...Anyway, I remember being captivated by the adventure of it all, by the notion of a war-weary man having to travel across miles of danger-ridden wilderness to make it back home. Yes, there were all those trappings of Greek mythology, but to me it was an adventure yarn pure and simple, and the mythology only served to heighten the adventure...Over the past weekend I read Sarah bedtime stories from a Disney book, and one of those stories was "Hercules" -- which got us to talking about Greek gods and legends, which sparked my memories of those Odyssey excerpts, and it was mere minutes before I decided to revisit the tome and read the whole thing. I already know how it appealed to my 13-year-old heart; now I am interested to see how it will appeal to my 40-year-old heart.

Note: The inimitable Mark Steyn is the source from which I learned that $2 billion is what the government borrows every 10 hours. Based on that, I myself did the math to come up with the "less than fifteen hundredths of one percent" figure.

et ceteras

2011-07-13T21:48:00.012-04:00

Deplorable

In this et ceteras I will get the unpleasant topic -- politics -- out of the way first. My thoughts today center around President Obama's handling of the so-called "talks" about raising the federal debt ceiling. Specifically, they center around how deplorable and disgusting (and frankly, how third-world-dictatorish) his handling has been.

To recap, under Obama's watch the federal government has operated at larger deficits than it did under all previous administrations combined. Then Obama appointed a commission to come up with ways to help get deficit spending under control. Then he ignored every single option that commission recommended. And he submitted a budget for this year which was so horrible that the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected it unanimously. And yet, he has the audacity to accuse Republicans of not being responsible.

To get him elected, Obama was portrayed as something new and unprecedented. But in truth, he is an automaton leftist who has spent his life peddling rubbish from Marx's 163-year-old Communist Manifesto. Fortunately, for everyone but blind ideologues, Obama's jig is now up because it is obvious to see through his untruths. His central problem is that he considers his runaway, unconstitutional spending to be good, so any attempt he makes to seem serious about reining it in comes off as laughably insincere. In other words, it comes off as what it is: A bald-faced lie.

Parenthood

As you may know, our fourth child (the second to make it to term) recently came into the "outside world." With me being 40 and Erika being 39, Parker is probably the last child we will ever have, and I am being sure to relish every aspect of these days. I am savoring that "newborn smell" when I hold him close to my face, and appreciating what it feels like to cradle such a small human being in my arms.

I am thinking about how much Parker looks like Sarah did at the ripe old age of 21 days, and I am proudly impressed with how well Sarah has adapted to her new role as big sister. Yes, she brags about her brother and shows him off to others...but more than that, she voluntarily helps out and she acts more mature than she did just a few weeks ago. She no longer complains about things that would have made her unhinged before. But then again, she looks so much older, and is so much taller, and she uses grown-up phrases when she speaks. Oh God, how the sands of time rush so swiftly through our fingers...

Epiphany

I have kept in touch with a few of my friends from my glory days at Auburn University. In 2005, Erika and I attended the wedding of one of those friends, whose name I will not share because I don't know if she wants it shared. Anyway, her husband has a heart condition which has been dragging him through the "valley of the shadows" over the last year. He has been hospitalized for more than two consecutive months. Late last week, they received the dark news that unless he received a heart transplant, his time on Earth was measured in days, not even weeks. And as you may have guessed, hearts are not easily or quickly come by to begin with...especially ones that are a match.

Over the weekend, two hearts came available but he missed out on both. Then, yesterday evening, with the clock ticking, they received word that an apparently compatible heart was available. He was prepped for surgery while the surgical team traveled by helicopter to inspect the heart and determine whether it was fit. It was, and the surgery took place in the wee hours this morning. There is a long road still ahead and he is not out of the woods yet, given how long and complicated it can be to recover from transplant surgery, but right now everything is looking good.

The faithful of you out there will appreciate this aspect of the story, and I trust that my old Auburn buddy doesn't mind that I'm sharing it about her husband. He made a promise to God that on the day he learned of getting a new heart, he would read whichever psalm coincides with the number of days he had been hospitalized. The day he learned of the heart was his 69th consecutive day in the hospital, so he read Psalm 69. I had never read it before (and honestly, I probably never would have) but when I heard that story I cracked open The Book and read it and man, did it ever make the hair stand up on my arms.

It is important to remember that there is tragedy in the midst of this triumph. Somewhere, some family lost a loved one who can never be replaced...and that family, in addition to their loved one, was generous enough -- moral enough -- to give up a part of the deceased to ensure that another may live. Tonight I pray for the peace of that family and for the soul of that loved one, about whom the only things I know are that he was my age and he died in an ATV accident. If you are his relative and happen to be reading this, God bless you.

But what did I mean when I used the word "epiphany" to describe this segment of this post? Well, up until today I have not been an organ donor. After today, that will no longer be the case.

Mankind's Greatest Hour

2011-07-02T08:52:00.007-04:00

This weekend, as we fire up our grills and crack open our beers, let us remember why we even have a July 4th holiday: to commemorate the greatest act of shared, selfless courage the world has ever seen.

Everybody should know that Thomas Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence. Most people know the names of a handful of the 56 men who signed it, such as John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, and of course Jefferson himself. But few people seem to realize that when those men signed their names, they were committing what was considered an act of treason against the British crown, punishable by death. Those men were property owners who were successful in their lives and businesses. Their lives were comfortable and they stood to lose everything by signing the Declaration -- yet they chose to sign it anyway, because they knew that casting off the crown and forming a new government based on individual liberty was the right thing to do, not only for their own descendents but for all of humanity. And here is what happened to some of those men after they signed the Declaration:

Five of them became prisoners of war.

Nearly one-sixth of them died before the war ended.

British forces burned, and/or looted, the homes and properties of nearly one-third of them.

When the British did that to the property of William Floyd, he and his family fled and spent the next seven years living as refugees without income. His wife died two years before the war ended.

After being forced into the wilderness by British forces, John Hart struggled to make his way home. When he finally got there, he found that his wife was dead and his 13 children were missing. He died without ever seeing them again.

Richard Stockton was dragged from his bed and sent to prison while his property was ravaged. From the day of his release from prison until the day he died, he had to rely on charity from others to feed his family.

Francis Lewis’s wife was imprisoned and beaten. Meanwhile, his wealth was plundered. His last years were spent as a widower living in poverty.

Thomas Nelson Jr.’s home was captured and occupied by British General Cornwallis, who used it as what we would now call an operations center. Therefore, Nelson ordered his troops to destroy his own home with cannon fire during the Battle of Yorktown. To assist in funding the war, he used his own credit to borrow 2 million dollars, which today would equal more than 25 billion dollars. Repaying that debt bankrupted him, and when he died he was buried in an unmarked grave.

It is a safe bet that fewer than one percent of our citizens have ever heard of these people, much less know anything about the devastating sacrifices they made so that future generations could have the freedom necessary to build the kind of upwardly-mobile, always-progressing society we now take for granted.

The Founding Fathers bequeathed us a wonderful gift called America, and we owe it to our children to make sure we don’t allow that gift to be destroyed. We should never hear the words “Fourth of July” without feeling a skip in our heart and a tear in our eye.

Much thanks to Jeff Jacoby, Paul Harvey, and all the others who have written and spoken about the fates of the signers, to keep their story alive.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sowell

2011-06-30T09:10:00.005-04:00

Thomas Sowell turns 81 years old today. Over the years I have read the writings of many great thinkers, and none of them can match Sowell's analytical skills or his ability to communicate important ideas in plain English. When I first discovered him in the early 1990's, his columns and books invigorated my mind like a jolt of lightning, and they have continued doing that ever since.

If you are not familiar with his biography, you may want to read this tribute that I wrote when he turned 79. But to really appreciate a scribe, it is best to read his own words in full context...so with recent history in mind, here are my five favorite Thomas Sowell columns from the past three months, in order from oldest to newest:

To follow his columns, and read other things about him, you can visit his web site here.

Newborn Stage Again

2011-06-25T10:38:00.013-04:00

Erika and I are thrilled that Parker has exited the womb. After more than 6½ years, we again have a newborn in our home.

We encountered some unexpected curveballs in the last 24 hours before Erika's C-section was scheduled to occur, but maybe that shouldn't come as a surprise since we have gone through a great deal of difficulty and heartache in our efforts to have a second child.

Fortunately there was no heartache this time. I have written before about our fertility travails, but I will not rehash them today nor will I write about this week's curveballs. We are only focused on the good, on the miracle of life, so I am here simply to post pictures of us with Parker. All of these were taken in the hospital.

Now that we are home, I guess we should get around to taking one of all of us together!

Summer Solstice

2011-06-21T00:00:00.006-04:00

Because I do not like hot weather, summer is my least favorite season. But there are still things I enjoy about it, and surprisingly, some of them are specific to this sweat-soaked state in which I live. So here are some thoughts on summer’s first day:

I love opening the season with our annual Beach Weekend.

I love Independence Day.

I love that there is one time of year when I am able to prefer chilled white wine over room temperature red wine.

I love when evening breezes carry the sweet scent of orange blossoms across Florida.

I love watching swallow-tailed kites, one of my favorite birds of prey, as they soar in the air and seem to stay up there forever without flapping their wings.

I love watching fireflies illuminate the woods at dusk.

I love San Diego.

I love the dramatic pulse of Florida’s afternoon storms, when black clouds darken the sky and spew lighting and thunder and unleash torrents of blinding rain – only to blow away and be replaced by sunny skies in less than an hour.

And I especially love that on the second day of this summer, we will get to meet our son.

Flag Day

2011-06-14T00:01:00.005-04:00

For Flag Day, I figured it would be a neat idea to "illustrate" the lyrics to God Bless America using pictures I have taken throughout this great country -- so here goes:

God bless America...

Land that I love...

Stand beside her and guide her...

Through the night...

With the light from above...

From the mountains...

To the prairies...

To the oceans white with foam...

God bless America...

My home sweet home...

Note: The final picture was taken by Kelly Noel.

et ceteras

2011-06-09T21:00:00.009-04:00

Sarah is 6½ and Erika and I have taken several trips without her. This week she is in the mountains with her grandmother, aunt, and cousin, and it is her first trip without us. The first night she was gone, I almost walked into her room to check on her when I went upstairs to get something. It was muscle memory, force of habit, whatever you want to call it -- and it made me feel sullen when I remembered she wasn’t there. I always miss her when we are apart, but it’s strange how much larger her absence seems to loom when she is the one away from home.

Do you need another reason to ignore what you read in the MSM? Last week, the punditry was going on and on about how Mitt Romney can not possibly beat Barack Obama in 2012. But yesterday, a poll showed Romney ahead of Obama. And then today, a headline said “Obama holds big 2012 lead over Republicans.” This schizo-style inconsistency reminds me of a quote I read many years ago, which noted that “when you hear two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident, it makes you wonder about history.”

Here is an excellent editorial by Mark Steyn, which uses the Weiner affair to illustrate just how big government has gotten.

And here is one by Jonah Goldberg, about politicians’ destructively irresponsible impulse to pass the buck.

When it comes to a much more inspiring topic -- hockey -- I must admit that I love the edgy tone of violence that has taken over the Stanley Cup Final. I love that after being the perpetrator in Game One’s biting incident, the Canucks’ Alex Burrows rang up three points in Game Two, including the winning goal in overtime. But even more than that, I love that the Bruins responded by taking the fight right to the Canucks in Games Three and Four and bloodying their noses while outscoring them 12-1. I love the finger-wagging at Burrows, and the way Tim Thomas leveled Henrik Sedin on Monday and then chopped Burrows’s leg on Wednesday. This has become a man’s series and I have to question the manliness of anybody who does not enjoy watching it.

Sticking with hockey, one of the things I wrote on June 1^st -- that “as the series unfolds and I see how Vancouver and Boston play each other, there is a better than average chance I will find myself choosing a side” -- has come to pass. I am cheering for the Boston Bruins. Not because they are based in the U.S. or because they are from the same conference as the Lightning, but because I can not stand Vancouver’s attitude. There is nothing particularly wrong with the fact that the Canucks dwell in the gray area of the rulebook and sometimes play dirty, but there is something very wrong with the fact that they pretend otherwise and try to portray themselves as the virtuous maiden being unfairly attacked by the dragon.

And lastly: Am I the only one who thinks Tim Thomas resembles Yukon Cornelius?

D-Day

2011-06-06T00:01:00.002-04:00

67 years ago this morning, human beings from the naval forces of eight Allied nations laid their lives on the line in ways most of us can hardly fathom. Two-thirds of them were from the U.S., U.K., and Canada.

Traveling in ships and amphibious vessels, they set sail from England in the pre-dawn hours of June 6, 1944, bound for the Normandy beaches of Nazi-controlled France. It was the first time since the 1600’s that any invading military had crossed the perilous waters of the English Channel, and as day broke tens of thousands of troops disembarked from their landing craft and plunged immediately into Hell on Earth.

Slogging first through waves and then through sand, they were sitting ducks for the Nazi gunners positioned on shore. Bullets rained down on them amidst a cacophony of explosive reverberations. The men at the fronts of the landing crafts were the first ones to step on the beach, and they stepped onto it knowing they were likely to get shot. Each of them was acutely aware he might be entering the final seconds of his life.

Approximately 10,000 Allied men were killed or wounded that day. However, in bearing that brunt of brutality, those who were first on the scene helped clear the way for 100,000 of their fellow soldiers to reach shore and advance against the enemy, freeing occupied towns as they went. By the end of the month more than 800,000 men had done so, and the war’s momentum had swung in the Allies’ favor. Within a year the Nazis surrendered unconditionally.

In military parlance, the phrase “D-Day” refers to the first day of any operation, but in the public’s mind, it will always refer to the events on the beaches of Normandy. And now, the men who braved the bullets on those beaches are dying away at a rapid rate. Let us always appreciate their valor, and always understand that we would not be free without them.

About the Finals

2011-06-01T00:06:00.008-04:00

Tonight the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins will face off in Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the battle will be on to win the most sacred trophy in sports. When it comes to writing about this match-up, there are so many ways to approach it that it’s hard to know where to start.

As a Lightning fan, I ended last Friday boiling with anti-Bruins rage. But my cooler head has since prevailed, like cream rising to the top, and now I am looking at the SCF intelligently instead of emotionally. For what they are worth, here are some of my thoughts.

Canada vs. U.S.

Conventional wisdom says Canadians will cheer for the Canucks and Americans for the Bruins, and there is probably some truth to that. However, in reading comments left on some Canadian blogs I have encountered a surprising (to me) amount of anti-Vancouver sentiment. From what I can gather as an outsider, it appears that some Canadians, especially from the interior provinces, look at Vancouver as a city populated by latte-sipping sissies living in a climate that is too mild to really be considered part of the Great White North. Some people even use the phrase “ABC,” meaning “anybody but the Canucks,” when asked who they want to see win the Cup.

Canada vs. U.S., continued

In any event, the idea of national rivalries among NHL franchises seems overblown because every NHL roster is multinational. Vancouver’s highest profile players are the Sedin twins, who are from Sweden, while Boston’s highest profile player is Zdeno Chara from the Czech Republic...And Vancouver has eight fewer Canadians on its roster than Boston has…And when you look at the most effective performer on each of these teams during this post-season, you will find that both of them (Ryan Kesler for Vancouver and Tim Thomas for Boston) are Michigan natives…Need I say more?

East vs. West

There is a school of thought that Western Conference hockey is wide open and freewheeling while Eastern Conference hockey is defensive and hard-hitting. That same school of thought holds that Western Conference teams lack the toughness that is needed to win against the more physical teams from the East. People who subscribe to this school of thought tend to overlook the fact that the last ten championships were divided evenly between the conferences, and that three of the last four were won by teams from the West. They also tend to overlook the fact that Vancouver gave up fewer goals this season than any other team in the NHL. I can not wait to see how it plays out in the finals.

The Netminders

Tim Thomas was a journeyman who spent most of a decade bouncing around foreign leagues and the minors. But since reaching his mid-thirties he has become Boston’s starter, won the Vezina Trophy, and established himself as one of the NHL’s elite goalies.

Roberto Luongo backstopped Team Canada to Olympic gold in a pressure-packed situation, winning what was arguably the most important international game for his country in nearly 40 years. And that was after his stint with the Florida Panthers, during which he proved he can carry a team on his back. But despite that resume, people talk about him as if he is a basket case who can’t handle pressure.

For Thomas, a Stanley Cup championship would be a testimony to perseverance and to the reality that people can bloom late. For Luongo, it would silence his critics and vindicate his unfairly maligned career. No matter which team wins, the story of the man in net is sure to inspire.

“Original Six” vs. “Newcomer”

I have heard some people depict this as a kind of old vs. new final, with the Bruins playing the part of the old, storied organization and the Canucks the part of the yappy young gun. That storyline rubs me wrong.

Yes, the Bruins are one of the “original six” franchises, but the very concept of the original six is misleading because the franchises in question were not the NHL’s first six. They were simply the ones that happened to be playing in 1966, one year before the league’s famous 1967 expansion. Many others had opened and folded in the decades leading up to then.

Meanwhile, the Canucks are far from a new franchise since they have been playing hockey in Vancouver for 40 seasons now. Every time a Beacon Hill snob begins to rattle on about Boston’s hockey greatness, any Vancouver fan within earshot should point out that the last time the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, the personal computer had not been invented and Aerosmith’s first album had not been released.

If Boston Wins…

…I will be satisfied. The Bruins have been knocking on Stanley’s door for a few years now, so it would seem appropriate for them to break through this season. And it would not be a bad thing for me to be able to say that the only team capable of beating the Lightning in these playoffs was the team that won it all. And after 35 years of singing national anthems in Boston, I suppose Rene Rancourt deserves to see the Bruins win the Cup before he dies.

If Vancouver Wins…

…I will be satisfied. The Canucks are fun to watch, and their defense is just as stout as their offense is creative. Plus, I am sympathetic to fan bases that get dissed by fans of the original six. And even though I am an American, I have to admit that after an 18-year drought it would be nice to see a Canadian franchise win the Cup and take it “home” for its fans to see.

Of course, if the Lightning was playing in the SCF there is no way I could say “I will be satisfied” about the prospect of anyone else winning. And as the series unfolds and I see how Vancouver and Boston play each other, there is a better than average chance I will find myself choosing a side.

I hope you watch and enjoy it as much as I plan to. And although the Lightning are sitting home at this point, I have to close by saying this again: Go Bolts!

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T06:08:00.007-04:00

Memorial Day exists not to honor our armed forces personnel in general, but to specifically honor those who have died while carrying out their duty to defend America.

From the first person who perished on Lexington’s village green in 1775 up to the most recent fatality in Afghanistan this very month, the list of the fallen is long and venerable. To observe past Memorial Days I have published letters that were written by soldiers during wartime. Here they are again.

*****

This first one was from Sullivan Ballou, a major in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, to his wife. He was killed in the Battle of First Bull Run one week after writing it:

July 14, 1861

Camp Clark, Washington

My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days – perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing – perfectly willing – to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield. The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And it is hard for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us.

I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me – perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly I would wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness.

But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be near you, in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights…always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

Sullivan Ballou

*****

This next letter was written by Arnold Rahe, a sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, with instructions that it be delivered to his parents if he did not survive. He was killed in action shortly thereafter:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Strange thing about this letter; if I am alive a month from now you will not receive it, for its coming to you will mean that after my twenty-sixth birthday God has decided I’ve been on earth long enough and He wants me to come up and take the examination for permanent service with Him. It’s hard to write a letter like this; there are a million and one things I want to say; there are so many I ought to say if this is the last letter I ever write to you. I’m telling you that I love you two so very much; not one better than the other but absolutely equally. Some things a man can never thank his parents enough for; they come to be taken for granted through the years; care when you are a child, and countless favors as he grows up. I am recalling now all your prayers, your watchfulness -- all the sacrifices that were made for me when sacrifice was a real thing and not just a word to be used in speeches.

For any and all grief I caused you in this 26 years, I’m most heartily sorry. I know that I can never make up for those little hurts and real wounds, but maybe if God permits me to be with Him above, I can help out there. It’s a funny thing about this mission, but I don’t think I’ll come back alive. Call it an Irishman’s hunch or a pre-sentiment or whatever you will. I believe it is Our Lord and His Blessed Mother giving me a tip to be prepared. In the event that I am killed you can have the consolation of knowing that it was in the “line of duty” to my country. I am saddened because I shall not be with you in your life’s later years, but until we meet I want you to know that I die as I tried to live, the way you taught me. Life has turned out different from the way we planned it, and at 26 I die with many things to live for, but the loss of the few remaining years unlived together is as nothing compared to the eternity to which we go.

As I prepare for this last mission, I am a bit homesick. I have been at other times when I thought of you, when I lost a friend, when I wondered when and how this war would end. But, the whole world is homesick! I have never written like this before, even though I have been through the “valley of the shadows” many times, but this night, Mother and Dad, you are so very close to me and I long so to talk to you. I think of you and of home. America has asked much of our generation, but I am glad to give her all I have because she has given me so much.

Goodnight, dear Mother and Dad. God love you.

Your loving son,

(Bud) Arnold Rahe

*****

God bless them all, and may they never be forgotten.

So close and yet so far

2011-05-28T08:08:00.009-04:00

My father once said that finishing in second place feels worse than finishing in last place. He was absolutely right.

When the hockey season started, nobody thought of the Tampa Bay Lightning as a Stanley Cup contender. When they qualified for the playoffs, they were only the fifth seed and most people expected them to lose in the first round. I am sometimes accused of being overly competitive, but considering that the Lightning had not made the post-season in a few years, when these playoffs began even I said that I would consider the season satisfying if they simply won a playoff series instead of getting ousted in the first round.

So what this band of diligent overachievers wound up doing -- winning the first round with an inspiring comeback, defeating the top seed in the second round, pushing one of the NHL's storied franchises to a seventh game in the conference final, and finishing a goal shy of appearing in the Stanley Cup Final -- should be looked at as a rousing success.

Instead, I felt a wave of frustration when Game Seven ended. When you get so close to a prize that you can see it and sense it within grasp, you need to seize it because you just do not know if you will have the chance again. So after the Lightning gelled in the post-season and proved themselves to be true contenders, watching them come up short by such a narrow margin left me with an initial feeling that was negative but that I can not even begin to describe.

I felt anger toward Boston fans, who spent the whole series acting superior to everyone else and acting like the Bruins are entitled to the Cup just because they are an "Original Six" franchise. I could not help but remind them that the Bruins have not won a championship in two generations, and that their best player since the early Seventies had to be traded to Colorado in his final season in order to win the Cup.

And those were just my feelings as a fan. Imagine how it felt for the players, who have been striving for all of their living memory to earn the right to have their names engraved on the Cup. Imagine how it felt for goaltender Dwayne Roloson, who is 41 years old and played spectacular last night. He stopped 37 of Boston's 38 shots, only to see his own team take 14 fewer shots and fail to score, which left me remembering that a goalie should never be forced to pitch a shutout just to earn a tie.

Fortunately for my mental state, the "morning after" brings perspective. The Lightning far exceeded expectations and they provided their fans with multiple memories of playoff success, so I am happy. My hope is that the bitter taste of disappointment stays in their mouths and they use it to push themselves all the way to the pinnacle next year.

I have many thoughts about the upcoming Stanley Cup Final between Vancouver and Boston, but will save those for another post. I will close out this one by saying that everybody who loves sports and appreciates hard work should read this article about Martin St. Louis.

Go Bolts!

Lightning Notes

2011-05-22T23:10:00.008-04:00

I am not superstitious, but there is something about the NHL playoffs that toys with a man's head.

I wanted to wait until the first round was over to write anything about the Tampa Bay Lightning's performance. That's exactly what I did, and it seemed to work out as they beat Pittsburgh in seven games.

Then in the second round, I wrote about it as it was unfolding and the Lightning did even better -- not merely beating the Washington Capitals but sweeping them.

Now we are four games into the third round, which is the Eastern Conference Final, and I had not written a word until a minute ago. The series has been one of dramatic ups and downs with Tampa Bay and Boston tied at two games apiece -- which is obviously not bad for the Lightning, especially after their impressive comeback yesterday, but they simply have not played as good as they did against Washington.

I found myself wondering if I should mention them in the middle of this series, to get some of that round two mojo going again...or if I should wait until it is over, just in case the secret is to alternate the rounds in which I say something mid-series with the rounds in which I say something post-series.

Obviously, I decided to go ahead and throw caution to the wind. I figured, since I am supposedly not superstitious anyway and am definitely not going to be on the ice, why worry? So here a few general notes on my team.

For starters, I can't allow the retirement of Fredrik "Freddy" Modin to pass without being noticed. The strong, fast Swede with a blistering shot played for Toronto before he played for Tampa Bay, and for other teams afterward, but those of us from the Bay area will always think of him as one of ours. During his six years here he tallied 155 goals and 152 assists, including the winning goal in Game Seven of the 2004 Eastern Conference Final. He played a huge role in the Lightning's Stanley Cup championship that year. Back problems forced him to hang up his skates a few days ago at the age of 37.

Since the Bolts are playing the Bruins this round, I have gotten to thinking about how cool it would be if they won the Cup and once again had Phil Esposito's name etched onto it as the team founder. If that were to happen, it would mean that Esposito's name is on the Cup as a Bolt just as many times as it is on it as a Bruin. That, combined with eliminating the Bruins from the race, would be good to throw back at those Boston fans who fall into the "obnoxious" category.

I have no analysis for how the Eastern Conference Final has gone so far. None of the games have had any resemblance to the others, and even the periods seem to be very different from one to the next. There has been amazingly good play and also amazingly sloppy play. After looking like Conn Smythe material through the first two rounds, Lightning G Dwayne Roloson has been pulled from the net twice. But on the other hand, Bruins G Tim Thomas hasn't exactly been stellar either, since the Bolts have scored five goals in three of the four games. The only thing I'm sure of is that this is the most helter skelter playoff series I have seen in many years, and if it keeps going like this it will be the most helter skelter one I have ever seen.

And in case you didn't hear about it, a bunch of fans did something cool today when the Lightning's plane left Tampa International Airport bound for Boston: They gathered and stood in the shape of a lightning bolt that the players could see while taking off. For a picture of it, go here.

And lastly: Go Bolts!

The Vladinator

2011-05-18T23:30:00.018-04:00

George Will once said that "sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence." I think it is important to make sure that examples of true excellence do not get forgotten with the passage of time.

Vladimir Konstantinov was the best pure defenseman I have ever seen play the game of hockey. Locking down opponents with his defensive skills and striking fear in their hearts with his bone-rattling checks, he neutralized their arsenal by effectively taking half the ice away from them. He played with a competitive fire that manifested itself in a mean streak, and he looked menacing with his granite face and flat nose.

When he was on the ice many players avoided his vicinity or played tentatively, so that his mere presence worked against them. As he once said: "For my game, I don't need to score the goal. I need someone to start thinking about me and forgetting about scoring goals."

Konstantinov was a living, breathing repudiation of the stereotype that European hockey players are long on skating talent but short on toughness. He thrived on the NHL's rugged style rather than struggle because of it, and his lack of shyness when things got physical was evident from early on. During the World Junior Championships, when Konstantinov was playing for the Soviet Union, a fight broke out between his team and the Canadian team, and as Neil Smith (an NHL scout who was there) recalls, "he was the only one of the Russians who fought back."

When he first reached adulthood, players were not able to leave the USSR to play in the NHL, but before long that changed. Konstantinov signed with the Detroit Red Wings and joined them for the 1991-92 season, playing in 79 regular season and 11 playoff games that year. With him and fellow Russian Slava Fetisov anchoring the blue line, the Red Wings became a perennial Stanley Cup contender in the middle of the 1990's.

Detroit reached the finals in 1995 but lost to New Jersey. In 1997 they finally won the Cup for the first time in 43 years, sweeping the Philadelphia Flyers to do so. Six days later, tragedy struck when Konstantinov, Fetisov, and team masseur Sergei Mnatsakanov attended a party. They did the responsible thing by hiring a limousine service to drive them home, but the driver fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of the vehicle on Woodward Avenue. It crashed into a tree and Konstantinov was taken to the hospital in a coma. His brain swelled and at one point he was not expected to survive.

When he came to, he was not the same man. Extensive brain injuries left him with diminished cognitive and decision-making skills. They also impaired his ability to communicate, move, and balance.

And he became, at least to an extent, disconnected from emotions. I remember reading an article a while back in which the reporter said that Konstantinov would look at pictures of himself holding the Stanley Cup and be fully cognizant of what the Cup was and the fact he had won it...yet would have no feelings about it.

It has been 14 years since the car crash and his life continues to be one of big struggles to achieve small victories. At one point it was thought he would never walk again, but now he is able to keep up a "modest pace" on a treadmill. His attention span is short, but he is good at math. He requires round-the-clock care and is attended by nurses who cook his meals in addition to monitor him. Fortunately, his wife Irina is supportive.

At the time of the accident Konstantinov was 30 years old and in the prime of his career. He was one year removed from having finished the 1995-96 season at +60 -- a remarkable feat when you consider that in the past quarter-century, the only other player to finish a season with such a high plus/minus is Wayne Gretzky.

And while Konstantinov's defensive prowess was so formidable that many people assumed he contributed little on offense, the facts show otherwise. He totaled 193 points in 528 NHL games.

Today, few people talk about this man who epitomized stellar defensive play, and those who do mention him usually focus on the car crash instead of the playing career. That is a shame. In his prime, Konstantinov was a feared man who inspired such nicknames as "The Vladinator" and "Vlad the Impaler." He was the kind of player you loved to have playing for you and hated to be playing against. While his battles to overcome disability are inspiring, we should never forget the athletic excellence without which he would never have been in the public eye.

When a young person who wants to play great defense asks whose play he should learn from, it would be wise to tell him to watch old videos of Vladimir Konstantinov.

Kicking the Fans Around

2011-05-13T17:23:00.013-04:00

Based on my recent posts, hockey is clearly what’s on my mind.

I could keep that hockey-posting trend going by writing about what I perceive to be an unprecedented amount of dives being taken to draw penalties…which cheapens a game whose rules actually allow you to be sent to the penalty box for diving.

And I could write about how the refs are not calling any of those diving penalties…which endangers the reputation of a game that is defined by heart and hustle.

Or I could write about the conference finals, now that the match-ups are set and the games are starting tomorrow.

But instead I feel compelled to write about the drama surrounding the Phoenix Coyotes; the heartless rumors about them returning to Winnipeg; and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s bizarre, lovesick-puppy obsession with hockey in Phoenix.

As a hockey fan from the Sun Belt, I have mixed emotions. I know what it is like to love the game and to talk about it with knowledge and passion, only to have close-minded Northerners dismiss you simply because they are bigots when it comes to place of birth. This should make me sympathetic to Phoenix fans, who are often told they don’t deserve to have a hockey team playing in their town. Yet I do not find myself feeling that sympathy.

Although part of me wants to wonder why that is, the answer is clear and comes in two parts: 1) Phoenix’s franchise was not born there, but instead it fled there from a city that did not deserve to be abandoned; and 2) in an odd twist, my love-the-underdog mindset, which I consider to be as All-American as apple pie, persuades me to root for small Canadian markets even in some instances where they are going up against a U.S. market.

I remember when the Winnipeg Jets packed up and headed south for the desert. I remember watching them play their final game in Winnipeg, a playoff game against Detroit that they were doomed to lose. The building was packed to the rafters with raucous fans who were hoping against hope that their team would not leave. Looking at those fans from the plains of Manitoba, you just knew that they lived and breathed hockey and would support their team to the end. But faced with financial obstacles -- like lower revenue from being in a smallish city, and having to convince players to be compensated in Canadian dollars when they could simply play in the U.S. and be paid in U.S. dollars -- the Jets abandoned their fans, departed the country where hockey was born, and moved to what they thought would be greener pastures.

Voila! The Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes, and Gary Bettman and his cronies toasted what they thought was sure to be a grand new day in the NHL’s geographic expansion. Bettman & Co. were right in many aspects of the big picture, because hockey is more popular today than ever before and is played in many more places than ever before. But they were wrong in some aspects, of which the Winnipeg-Phoenix situation provides a perfect example.

Human perception and judgment are highly fallible and pretty much everything in life is temporary, including economic conditions. Fast forward to the present and you will see that the Canadian dollar is stronger than the U.S. dollar, and you will see that despite moving specifically to make money, the team continues to lose dozens of millions of dollars annually after 15 years in Phoenix. Meanwhile, Winnipeg -- the largest city in the vast center of the country which produces the most NHL players -- is left without an NHL team for its children to grow up watching.

This is so obviously wrong that commenting on it is not even necessary. I feel for the hockey fans in Phoenix who constantly hear that the Coyotes may be leaving, and I feel for the workers and business owners who benefit from the influx of people attending games at jobing.com arena. However, I feel even more for the hockey fans in Winnipeg. Not only did they have their hearts ripped out when the Jets left town, now they must suffer through the ordeal of having their hearts played with on a daily basis, as league officials and prospective team owners use them as pawns to extract money from distant taxpayers.

On top of that, I can not stomach the gross hypocrisy and illogic of Bettman & Co. Not only did the NHL rah-rah that move to Phoenix when it happened, but when the team filed for bankruptcy a few years ago, the NHL purchased it in order to prevent it from being sold to someone who intended to move it to Hamilton, Ontario. That would be fine if the league showed such an interest in every city’s franchise, but it does not.

When asked recently about the Coyotes situation, Bettman said the NHL stands behind fans in every city. Unfortunately, his nose was growing. He and the league showed no concern for Jets fans when their team left Winnipeg. Nor did they show any concern for Nordiques fans when their team left Quebec City, or for Whalers fans when their team left Hartford. Even today, the powers that be are not showing any obvious concern for the fans in Atlanta whose team is being talked about as one that might skip town. The stench of hypocrisy and dishonesty makes me want to see the Coyotes return to Winnipeg just to give Bettman & Co. their comeuppance.

But now that Glendale politicians have voted to set aside another $25 million to give to the NHL next year, to cover any operating losses the Coyotes may sustain, it looks like any chances of a move from Phoenix to Winnipeg are on hold for at least a year. Many people have switched to speculating that during that year’s reprieve, the Atlanta Thrashers will relocate to Winnipeg instead. Whatever happens, it is going to be interesting.

Update, 5/31/11: Earlier today it was announced that True North Sports & Entertainment has purchased the Atlanta Thrashers and will move them to Winnipeg. I have to say congratulations to the fans in Winnipeg because they never should have lost the Jets, and because returning NHL hockey to their city is righting a wrong.

But at the same time I have to sympathize with the fans in Atlanta. There are some good ones there, and it is horribly unfortunate that their team was saddled with an ownership group which made it obvious from the beginning that they did now want to own the team and were not going to even try to produce a winner. After 11 years of the crap, the fact that 13,000+ people per night spent their time and money attending every Thrashers games does not seem all that bad.

(Almost) Halfway There

2011-05-09T23:09:00.010-04:00

How awesome are the NHL playoffs?

So awesome that I, who am often accused of being obsessed with politics, have not bothered to blog about the killing of Osama bin Laden. In fact, when the White House announced the killing late last Wednesday, my first reaction was to feel annoyed that attention was being taken away from the Tampa Bay Lightning's series sweep of the top-seeded Washington Capitals.

After my most recent post, I figured I would wait until the second round was over before writing anything else about the playoffs. But tonight I am feeling the itch to opine, even though the San Jose-Detroit series is still not decided...so here I go with some relatively random, stream-of-consciousness thoughts:

I have to start by praising my Lightning (or as I put it before, giving them their due because the MSM will not). As noted above, they did not merely defeat the Eastern Conference's top seed, they swept them. But even more impressive is the fact that they got significantly better as the series progressed, and did that despite being without two very important players who were injured in Game One (LW Simon Gagne and D Pavel Kubina).

Although I have never liked the Caps, I never hated them until now. Watching the series that just ended, I realized how dirty they are from top to bottom; and while Alexander Ovechkin has never been known as the most virtuous player on the planet, it was not until I watched him four times in seven nights that I realized what a thuggish cheap shot artist he is. As repulsive as it is that he routinely high-sticks opposing players in their faces and throats without being sent to the penalty box, it is even more repulsive that no one in the media bothers to point that out.

But of course, Ovechkin has been sent home early, Cup-less yet again, to watch other players pursue hockey's Holy Grail. So I will move on to relevant topics, like the Eastern Conference Finals where the Lightning will be facing the Boston Bruins.

Although Boston is favored to win, it is striking how similar these two teams are when you look at their results. They finished the regular season with identical records and both had to go seven games to win their first round playoff series, after which they both swept their second round series. Their goaltenders are ranked one-two in playoff production, with numbers so close they are a statistical tie -- Tampa Bay's Dwayne Rolsoson has a .941 save percentage versus .937 for Boston's Tim Thomas, while Roloson's goals-against average is 2.01 versus Thomas's 2.03. And as it turns out, Thomas and Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis were college teammates for the exact same years at the University of Vermont (1993 through 1997). Who will win this series, nobody knows; but I will go out on a limb and say that whoever does win it, will win the Stanley Cup if they face Vancouver and probably win it if they face San Jose.

On a semi side note, I have to mention I am loving the fact that Roloson is playing Conn Smythe-caliber hockey without bothering to think about the fact he is 41 years old.

Getting away from the Lightning, I must give props to the Nashville Predators and their fans. Earlier tonight the Preds got eliminated by Vancouver -- but they made it obvious they are the kind of team that is built for post-season victories, and their fans made it clear that Nashville is a legitimate hockey market. Look out for the Preds over the next few years, because they are only a couple of tweaks away from having an excellent chance to become the third Southeast U.S. franchise to win Lord Stanley's Cup.

And about that San Jose-Detroit series, what's a fan to do? Well, since I am 40, I suppose I should root for Detroit because they have a lot of very productive older guys on their roster. I love that Nicklas Lidstrom, nine months my senior, continues to play a key role for the Red Wings. And since I am a Lightning fan, I suppose I should root for Detroit because the presence of so many older guys should make them less conditioned and easier to beat by the time the Stanley Cup Finals roll around (please God let us make it!) than any of the other teams in the Western Conference.

The Stanley Cup represents the hardest championship to win in all of the world's professional sports. Whenever San Jose and Detroit finish their second round series we will finally be halfway through the playoffs that will determine this year's Cup winner. May the best team win, but Go Bolts! no matter what.

The Greatest Spectator Sport on Earth

2011-04-28T01:24:00.016-04:00

Having started this month with a post about basketball, I feel honor bound to end it with one about hockey.

I have written before about what separates hockey from the other team sports that are played professionally. Three days after that post, following the Penguins’ 2009 Stanley Cup victory, I closed my very next post by writing that “I hope the Lightning rise again and knock them off.” Well, last night the Lightning did that indeed, edging the Penguins 1-0 in Game Seven of their first round playoff series.

There were many great things about the series, including clutch performances by Martin St. Louis and nifty pass-and-shoot scoring plays by Dominic Moore and Sean Bergenheim, which resulted in carbon copy goals the last two games. But the greatest thing was the performance of 41-year-old goalie Dwayne Roloson last night, as he made one remarkable save after another to steal the game from a Pittsburgh squad that outshot his own by 36 to 23. Though I am not saying the Lightning have a realistic chance to win the Cup this year, I am going to point out that no team has ever won the Cup without having their goalie save their ass in a couple of playoff games along the way.

Of course, the game of hockey -- popular in many parts of the globe and invented more than a century ago -- is much, much bigger than my home town team which is playing its nineteenth season. Hockey is played at a high level in so many countries that every NHL roster reads like a United Nations roll call, chock full not only of Canadians and Americans but also of Russians, Swedes, Finns, Czechs, and more. You know the players on an NHL roster are the best the world is able to offer, as opposed to an NFL roster on which almost 100 percent of the players are Americans because, well, football is played almost nowhere else.

Along the same lines, I love that hockey ignites feelings of national pride. When Sweden and Finland met in the gold medal match of the 2006 Winter Olympics, it was such a big deal that those neighboring countries practically closed for business so their citizens would all be able to watch the contest.

When the Czech Republic beat Russia for the 1998 gold, throngs of people gathered in Prague to celebrate the victory and many of them held signs proclaiming “Hasek is God” -- in deference to Dominic Hasek, the goaltender who dominated the Olympics to deliver the gold to his homeland.

Talk to everyday Canadians and you will quickly realize that the Stanley Cup means more to them -- much more -- than the Liberty Bell means to everyday Americans. Hockey Night in Canada remains a television institution there years after Monday Night Football became humdrum here, and Don Cherry at age 77 is just as puckish and entertaining as he has always been.

Meanwhile, American hockey fans are not foolish enough to suggest that the U.S.A. has produced the same depth of talent over the decades as Canada -- but at the same time, we don’t hesitate to mention that despite getting a “late start” when it comes to hockey, our country’s top line or two is every bit as good as Canada’s top line or two. We look back with pride at the U.S.A.’s victory in the 1996 World Cup, and we feel the bitter sting of the U.S.A.’s losses in the gold medal games of the 2002 and 2010 Winter Olympics.

I love that there is something palpably, if inexplicably, holy about the game. Is there another sport that could inspire a column like this one from 2002, in which John Buccigross waxes poetic about that year’s Western Conference Final by comparing it, song by song, to the feeling one gets while listening to U2’s Joshua Tree? I don’t think so.

One round in, this year’s playoffs are off to a spectacular start. Not only did my Lightning win a Game Seven last night, so did the Boston Bruins -- in overtime, against the Montreal Canadiens, continuing one of the NHL’s oldest and most revered rivalries. And the night before that, there were two other Game Sevens.

The first round featured phenomenal and surprisingly frequent comebacks in games, with San Jose coming back from being down 5-0 to beat LA, and Philadelphia coming back from being down 3-0 to beat Buffalo.

It also featured inspiring comebacks in series, with the Lightning needing to erase a three-games-to-one deficit to eliminate Pittsburgh...and with defending champion Chicago falling behind Vancouver three-games-to-zero, then rallying to win the next three in convincing fashion before falling in overtime in Game Seven.

And there have been underlying spectacles like the constant wondering about whether the Phoenix Coyotes will relocate back to Winnipeg during the off-season.

Hockey is the sports world’s cutting edge of diligence, excitement, and drama. Anybody who denies that doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Addendum: Even though I acknowledged that hockey is bigger than just my team, I have to mention some impressive things about the Lightning's performance in the first round, largely because the MSM will not give them the attention they deserve: 1) they held Pittsburgh scoreless on 34 of 35 power plays for the series, including the last 1:33 of Game Seven when they were down two men because Pittsburgh pulled their goalie; 2) they became only the 24th team to ever come back from a three-games-to-one deficit and win a series; 3) they are now 3-0 in Game Sevens; 4) Roloson has a .949 save percentage so far this post-season, which is tops among everyone; and 5) Pittsburgh had not lost three straight games at all in almost 16 months, yet the Lightning beat them in three straight playoff games. Go Bolts!

Update, 5/1/11: Once again, I have to make sure the Lightning get their due. Since I published this post, they have made a statement in the second round by taking a 2-0 series lead over the top-seeded Washington Capitals...but what is truly amazing is the fact that their penalty kill has not only remained spectacular, but actually gained strength. The Lightning have held the Caps scoreless in all eleven power plays they have faced thus far, making them a mind-blowing 45 of 46 -- or 97.8 percent -- through nine playoff games.

Under the Big Top

2011-04-21T00:33:00.013-04:00

To break her lifelong habit of walking on her toes (which can lead to muscle and tendon problems) Sarah is wearing serial casts for six weeks and is five weeks into the program.

The good folks at Shriner’s Hospital of Tampa replace the casts every two weeks, and when we were there one week ago, Sarah took note of the poster advertising the Shriner’s Circus -- which happened to be kicking off a four-day local run that very day. So I am sure you can figure out where we wound up on Sunday.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but Sarah loved it and has not stopped talking about it…which has turned it into one of my favorite daddy-daughter memories.

There was something very old-timey about the experience. Rather than being staged inside a basketball arena, the Shriner’s Circus really did take place “under the Big Top” -- in a tent with spectators seated on portable bleachers. It was warm inside because it was warm outside. We purchased cotton candy before it started and a snow cone at intermission. We ate peanuts and tossed the shells onto the grass beneath the bleachers. It was how I picture circuses being back in the Great Depression and other “old days” in our national memory.

There was nothing new about the type of entertainment provided, but Sarah was mesmerized far beyond what I would have expected, and I guess that proves that some things never change about the mind of childhood.

Her favorite performer was “Coco the Circus Freak,” who juggled fat plastic baseball bats and got members of the audience involved in his hat-juggling routine. After the intermission, he performed that tried-and-true stunt where he tries to ride a bike but it keeps falling apart: first the seat comes off, and when he puts it back on the handle bars come off, and when he puts them back on the pedals come off, and when he puts them back on and starts to ride, the wheels come off. Then, he rode what was billed as the world’s smallest bike. Sarah could not stop laughing the whole time he was in the ring.

The circus also featured a hula hoopster who was quite amazing.

And it featured a 14-year-old, slinky-spined acrobat who contorted on tall furniture while the speakers played a bawdy version of Roxanne. He was described as being from the fifth generation of a circus-performing family from South America.

Then there was the usual assortment of illusionists. And the usual assortment of Eastern European Gypsy types, including one young lady from Romania who did gymnastics on a Russian bar that was being held by two older men.

And yes, there were some animals, including elephants, but not many.

Outside the Big Top was a carnival where Sarah rode a pony; rode a ride; fed some animals; played some games; and won an inflatable pink dolphin. As has been the case ever since she got casts, they did not hold her back from going about her business.

Circuses have some incongruities about them. The ringleader kept saying they are the world’s oldest form of family entertainment and are always rated G, and that is probably true as far as it goes…yet I could not shed my suspicion that most circus performers are Bohemians who live X-rated lives after the lights go down.

But that is an admittedly odd part of their charm, and fortunately, it is not something we need to concern ourselves with. Childhood illusions are important, and circuses uphold those illusions in ways that are hard to grasp as adults.

If you attend the Shriner’s Circus, you will have the satisfaction of knowing the money you spend is helping fund the wonderful Shriner’s Hospitals, which provide children with state of the art medical care at no charge. If one of these circuses visits your area, take your kid and give it a try.

Red Letter Dates

2011-04-18T07:01:00.003-04:00

The hours from tonight through tomorrow morning mark the 236th anniversary of Paul Revere’s “midnight ride” and the battles that ensued. It is one of the most significant anniversaries in American history -- perhaps the most significant, because it can be argued that if not for the events that took place on April 18th and 19th, 1775, the United States might never have come to be.

Tensions between American colonists and their British rulers were running high in those days, and while this was true in all of the colonies that would become our first 13 states, it was especially true in Massachusetts. Britain had effectively shut Boston off from the world by blockading its port and quartering large numbers of soldiers within the city.

It was believed that Britain would invade the colony en masse, so residents in surrounding towns had been stockpiling munitions to defend themselves. The British targeted Lexington because revolutionaries John Hancock and Samuel Adams were thought to be there. They targeted Concord, the next town west of Lexington, because it was rumored to have a huge stash of munitions (which they wanted to confiscate) and because it had hosted the Provincial Congress.

When British forces were detected sneaking from Boston under cover of darkness on April 18th, Paul Revere and William Dawes mounted their horses and galloped into the countryside to warn their fellow citizens. Revere departed from Charlestown, across the Charles River from Boston proper, while Dawes left directly from the city. Revere’s route was the shortest to Lexington and Concord, and thus he was the first to warn their occupants of what was coming.

The next morning, Lexington’s village green was the site of the first skirmish between the British forces known as redcoats and the citizen militia known as minutemen. The latter took the worst of it, with eight dead and ten wounded compared to just a single wounded redcoat.

The British then marched on to their primary goal of Concord. After arriving and crossing the North Bridge, nearly half of them went about securing the bridge while the rest searched for weapons. When wooden cannon mounts were found, they were set afire and before long the flames engulfed a church.

Positioned on Punkatasset Hill some 300 yards from the bridge, Concord’s minutemen had been joined by minutemen from neighboring towns, giving them a numerical advantage the redcoats did not anticipate. When they saw the rising smoke, they believed their homes were being destroyed and responded by advancing. Seeing them approach in such numbers, the redcoats retreated back across the bridge. A shot soon rang out, though no one knows who fired it, and within minutes a full-blown battle had transpired in which half the British officers were wounded.

Disoriented, the redcoats fled back toward Boston. Along the way, they fell under fire from minutemen who had arrived from elsewhere and were hiding behind fences and walls. By the time they returned to the city, they had sustained more than 200 casualties.

It was an indisputable defeat for the world’s most powerful military, delivered by ordinary people seeking simply to defend themselves against royal oppression. The example set by those people ignited the fuse of the American Revolution in such a way that it would not be extinguished. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Why I Love Hockey

2011-04-16T12:35:00.004-04:00

During a playoff game Wednesday night, Tampa Bay Lightning winger Martin St. Louis took a stick to the face that resulted in three broken teeth. He finished the game and after it was over paid a late night visit to the dentist -- on the road -- for a double root canal. He made it back to the hotel at 4:00 in the morning.

Without missing a beat, the 35-year-old was back on the ice when the next game started less than 48 hours after he absorbed the blow. Showing no ill effects from the incident, and still incensed that no penalty was called, he delivered two points to help lead the Lightning to a 5-1 victory that wrested home ice advantage away from the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Playing through pain. Talking with actions instead of words. Wearing wounds like badges of honor. That is what hockey players do, and that is a huge part of why I love the game.

Images from the womb

2011-04-12T23:24:00.013-04:00

On Thanksgiving I wrote that Erika was very pleasantly and very unexpectedly pregnant. Since 4½ months have passed since then, our baby now looks a lot different than he did in the ultrasound photo I published at the time…so here are some from today’s 4-D ultrasound, beginning with one in which he opened his eyes, which is something you rarely see on ultrasound. At first you might not discern that the eye is open, but if you pay attention to its inside corner, you will notice the iris and see that he is glancing up.

Before I go on, allow me to call him by name: Parker Wasson Stanton. It just doesn’t feel right to keep using semi-generic terms like “baby” and “him” to describe a person, born or unborn, when you know the person’s name. (And in case you are wondering, Wasson is Erika’s maiden name.)

Anyway, Parker moved quite a bit during the ultrasound but kept his hands in front of his face most of the time. This meant that we got very few unobstructed pictures of his face; and many of the pictures we got were distorted by him being in motion when they were captured -- for example, they were blurry or had blank spots where you would expect to see body parts.

Below is a picture that manages to show good detail and also show a good example of the distortion I am talking about. You get a good view of Parker’s nose, mouth, and cheek structure…yet it looks like half his scalp is missing, and there is some kind of blob appearing in front of his forehead. As you can see, he is grasping his head; and I think it’s interesting that his arm looks to be so much more bone than skin.

If you look at this next picture, you will see what look like bumpy ridges on his forehead. I would have assumed they are veins, or that they are developing material that will eventually become solid skull, but according to the sonographer those bumpy ridges are actually hair. On the other hand, that flowing substance on the side of his head, which does look like long hair to me, is not hair but is instead placenta.

And finally, I leave you with the picture that proves Parker is a boy. The funny story that comes with it involves Sarah. Erika showed her the pictures today after school, and when they came to this one, Sarah said, in her little six-year-old’s voice: “Oh, it’s his parts!”

The due date is June 30^th but the C-section is tentatively scheduled for June 23^rd. We can’t wait for the moment to arrive!

Thoughts on the Averted Shutdown

2011-04-11T21:42:00.007-04:00

Anyone who read my last post may have inferred that I was hoping for a government shutdown. They would have inferred correctly.

Right now I have mixed emotions about the eleventh hour compromise that was struck between John Boehner and Harry Reid…but I am leaning towards believing that it was, on balance, a positive.

A recent caller to Bill Bennett’s radio show pointed out that the reason Democrats win so many legislative battles is “they’re willing to die on the hill.” It was because of that willingness that Democrats passed Obamacare: They knew it was enormously unpopular and they knew passing it might cost them their jobs, but they passed it anyway because they believed the cause it represented was worth sacrificing their careers for. Conversely, Republican officeholders have a discouraging tendency to compromise their principles for fear of negative publicity, even though years of compromise have led to no reduction in negative publicity. As a result, the leftist agenda is almost always being advanced, with the only question being “by how much right now?”

I agree with the caller and have felt that way for years. And therefore, when the Boehner-Reid negotiations went to stalemate, I began itching for a fight and hoping the Republicans would make like Spaghetti Western heroes by drawing a line in the sand and defending it with “over my dead body” determination. Given the public’s mood when it comes to the size, scope, and spending habits of the federal government, I am convinced Republicans would be rewarded at the polls for taking such a stand.

On the other hand, it is true that Republicans control only one-third of the federal government, and therefore do not have anywhere near the numbers they need to get everything they want right now. When you think about it from that perspective, and when you realize Democrats wanted to increase spending and that Obama proposed increasing it by $40 billion, you realize how significant it is that Boehner was able to get the Dems to decrease spending by more than $38 billion.

I can not think of a single time in history that the Democrat Party ever agreed to a reduction in federal spending. But now it has, even while being in control of two-thirds of the federal government. This is a paradigm shift with potentially colossal implications.

And consider this: When Boehner originally sought to cut spending, he proposed doing so to the tune of $32 billion. Only later, after feedback from several first-year congressmen, was the proposed amount of cuts upped to $61 billion. Although the cuts Boehner ultimately achieved were less than the latter amount, it should be noted that they were $6+ billion more than he originally sought…which is a remarkable feat for a politician to accomplish.

And, consider this: A few days before the deal was completed, Reid publicly stated that $33 billion in cuts had been agreed to. This means that between when Reid said that and when he and Boehner inked the deal, Boehner was able to secure an additional $5+ billion in cuts. That is yet another rather remarkable feat for a politician.

Truth be told, if we’re talking simply about the dollars involved, the national debt will hardly be affected by either amount -- $38 billion or $61 billion. Ultimately, much larger cuts are necessary and everyone knows it. But by setting a precedent of the federal government actually lowering its spending (can anybody name the last time that happened?) Boehner & Co. have created an environment in which larger cuts suddenly feel very likely, after having felt impossible only a year ago.

As many Boehner supporters have noted, avoiding a government shutdown (i.e., avoiding the distracting media bonanza and Democrat finger-pointing that would have resulted from it) allows the Republicans to focus on other issues that could go much farther toward bringing the national debt under control. Primary among these are Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget proposals, which seek structural changes to address runaway entitlement spending -- which is, after all, the main culprit driving our debt crisis.

So, having written all this down to think all this out, I have decided that Boehner & Co. did well in the negotiations over 2011 spending; and that they deserve our support, not our criticism. However, those negotiations were only the first play in the first quarter of a football game that will last four full quarters and likely go to overtime. From here on out Boehner & Co. must continue to ratchet up their intensity, and must become less giving come negotiation time. If they do that, and if we hold them to it while having their back, America will win.

Note: The figures used in this post are public data and widely available, but were obtained from the writings of Andrew Stiles.

et ceteras

2011-04-07T22:32:00.008-04:00

Well, so much for my hopes that the NCAA Tournament would end with a championship game for the ages. The finale was one of the worst basketball games I have seen at any level. It was so bad, and Butler’s shooting was so atrocious -- they routinely missed open lay-ups and finished 12 of 64 from the floor -- that I don’t even know what to say.

Are Donald Trump’s recent political pronouncements serious, or is he just being a publicity hound? I think it’s a little of both, and when it comes to whether he wants to run for president, I doubt that even he knows for sure. But I do believe he means what he says about economic policies, the state of the world, etc. -- and it was satisfying to hear him talk on O’Reilly last week. Given today’s need for a blunt, no-nonsense leader, America could do a lot worse than a President Trump.

Speaking of blunt, no-nonsense leadership, wouldn’t it be nice if today’s commander-in-chief was more like British General Charles Napier? This is what Napier once said to locals in India, regarding their tradition of killing widows by burning them on their husbands’ funeral pyres: “You say it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.” Now that is the kind of attitude that crushes evil and advances human rights. Thank you, Mark Steyn, for reprinting the quote.

The MSM is in a tizzy over the prospect of a government shutdown if the GOP-led House and Democrat-led Senate don’t agree on a spending resolution. I say bring it on. Obama & Co. will try to falsely blame a shutdown on the GOP, and yes, there is a chance the lie will work like it did when Bill Clinton was president…but I believe people are too well-informed to fall for it this time around.

Will gas prices careen well over $4 per gallon and even go above $5 per gallon, like some experts are predicting? I don’t know, and my skepticism of anything said by people called “experts” makes me tend to doubt that $5 is in our immediate future. But I did hear a figure this week that should be taken as a warning sign: The cost of oil at this time of year in 2008 (the year gas did eventually reach $4) was higher than it is right now; however, the price of gas at that time was 50 cents lower than right now. Combine that with all the turmoil in the Middle East, and our government’s unwillingness to do anything which might increase supply or lower production costs, and we might want to buckle our belts for a wild price ride.

Do you want an example of how diverse this country is when it comes to the climate from one region to another? In my part of Florida, we have been experiencing afternoon temperatures in the 80’s for weeks. This morning, a co-worker in town from New York said it is the first time he has seen a temperature above 50 since October, the last time he came here. I love that about America!

And finally, how about finishing this post with another great quote? This one comes from Thomas Sowell, who always hits the nail on the head: “When someone gives you a check and the bank informs you that there are insufficient funds, who do you get mad at? In your own life, you get mad at the guy who gave you a check that bounced, not at the bank. But, in politics, you get mad at whoever tells you that there is no money.” Nobody could have said it better.

Hoops Time

2011-04-01T00:46:00.006-04:00

Having used part of my last post to speak ill about today’s brand of basketball, while at the same speaking well about the play in this year’s NCAA tournament, I feel driven to write about some of the great moments in college hoops.

Simply put, when it comes to basketball, team play was better in the years before the mid-1990’s and remains better in college than in the pros. I was born in 1971 and my father took me to several University of South Florida games in the 1970’s; but it was from 1980 forward that I followed the game closely, and it just so happens that it was during those years that many classic championship games were played. I do not think I am blinded by my age when I say that the 1980’s were the golden age of college basketball.

This year’s tournament has given me hope that the game can regain its prior luster. While hoping for that to occur, here is a look back at what I consider the five greatest college basketball games in my lifetime, in no particular order.

1983 NCAA Championship Game

North Carolina State 54, Houston 52

Every sports fan who was alive and watching remembers this one. NC State didn’t have a good enough season to even be invited to the tournament, but managed to secure an automatic bid by wining their conference tourney. On the other hand, Houston was a fearsome and dominant team with three future NBA stars. They scared the bejesus out of opponents and dunked so often that they caused “number of dunks” to be kept as a statistic for the first time. Nobody in their right mind thought NC State had a chance against them.

Fortunately for NC State, they believed in themselves when nobody else did. It was before the shot clock era, and Coach Jim Valvano drew up a slow, ball-control game plan that was designed to keep Houston’s players from getting into the fast tempo at which they thrived. Valvano’s players executed the plan to perfection, and the Wolfpack had possession of the ball in the closing minute with the score tied at 52.

In the waning seconds, Houston’s defenders kept Wolfpack guard Dereck Whittenburg from getting a good look at the basket or moving anywhere near it, and in desperation he heaved up a shot from 30 feet away. As the ball came down short of the hoop, Lorenzo Charles leaped up, grabbed it from the air, and dunked it home a fraction of a second before the final horn sounded.

Pandemonium ensued. To this day, 28 years later, the video of Valvano running around the court looking for someone to hug gets played over and over again every single season. At the time, it was the biggest upset in college basketball history…well, except maybe for this one:

December 24, 1982

Chaminade 77, Virginia 72

The Virginia Cavaliers were the #1 team in the AP poll, and the Chaminade Silverswords weren’t even members of the NCAA. Located in Hawaii, Chaminade had only 900 students and competed in the NAIA, and its entire athletic program was only seven years old. Virginia’s center was Ralph Sampson, national player of the year for two years running, and he stood eight inches taller than Chaminade center Tony Randolph.

But on Christmas Eve, Randolph held Sampson to 12 points while scoring 19 himself, and unheard-of Chaminade stunned the sports world by toppling mighty Virginia. When the score appeared on the AP wire, Sports Center anchor Tom Mees initially refused to report it, believing it was a mistake. And rather than follow the usual procedure of simply taking stories from the wire and publishing them for the next morning, newspapers flooded the phone lines of the AP’s New York office to make sure the score was correct before proceeding. Eventually, everyone realized it was true.

1985 NCAA Championship Game

Villanova 66, Georgetown 64

This game was just as big an upset as NC State over Houston, and it was just as close, but for some reason it doesn’t get talked about as much. Georgetown was the defending national champion and was appearing in the title game for the third time in four years, while Villanova was seeded only eighth in its region and appeared hopelessly outmanned against the Hoyas.

Everyone knew the Wildcats needed to play a perfect, once-in-a-lifetime game to give themselves a chance, and that is precisely what they did. In basketball, it is very good for a player to make 50 percent of his shots and very rare to make 60 percent -- but on this one night, the Wildcats shot an astonishing 79 percent as a team, missing only six shots the entire game. And they did that in spite of the fact they were playing against one of the best defensive teams in the history of college basketball.

1987 NCAA Championship Game

Indiana 74, Syracuse 73

But of course, not every game is David vs. Goliath and most championship games are actually Goliath vs. Goliath. That was the case in 1987, when juggernauts Indiana and Syracuse met in New Orleans to determine the national title. Indiana led by one point at halftime, but Syracuse took the lead by scoring first in the second half and then remained on top all the way…until the game’s final basket.

The Orangemen were ahead 73-70 with 38 seconds remaining when Indiana got the ball and raced downcourt and pulled within 73-72 on a bucket by Keith Smart. When Syracuse brought the ball back inbounds, Indiana intentionally fouled Derek Coleman to send him to the free throw line for a one-on-one. He missed the front end and the Hoosiers got the rebound. Back at the other end of the court, Smart got the ball in the corner, moved slightly toward the baseline, and shot a jumper that swished through the net with four seconds remaining. When Syracuse brought the ball back in play to try for one last shot, Smart intercepted the inbounds pass to clinch Indiana’s third national title under legendary Coach Bob Knight.

Many great players were on the court that night, including some destined for the NBA. And both head coaches are considered to be among the best of the last 40 years. But mention the 1987 title game, and the only thing anybody says is “Keith Smart.”

March 28, 1992

Duke 104, Kentucky 103

This was the ultimate Goliath vs. Goliath match-up. Duke was the defending national champion and roughly a decade into its run as a year-in-year-out national power. Kentucky, one of history’s most storied college basketball programs, had returned to national prominence after a brief downturn. It was the Elite Eight, and the prize was a trip to the Final Four.

The game went back and forth from beginning to end, with both teams playing diligent defense and executing well on offense. Fittingly, it was tied at the end of regulation and went to overtime. Kentucky scored with two seconds remaining in OT to go ahead 103-102. Grant Hill then threw the ensuing inbounds pass almost the length of the court to Christian Laettner, who caught it near the top of the key, turned, and shot a jumper that went in as time expired to give Duke the victory.

Sports Illustrated declared it the greatest college basketball game ever played, and it is hard to disagree. The game was so good on a team-vs.-team basis that people often forget it included what has to be the most impressive clutch performance by an individual: Laettner hit every single shot he took, finishing 10-of-10 from the floor and 10-of-10 from the free throw line.

This list could cause some controversy if anyone looks at it, because I excluded some classics that have taken place in my lifetime. Like the Bird-vs.-Magic showdown in 1979, and Chris Webber’s infamous time-out in 1993. Not to mention NC State’s victory over Maryland in the 1974 ACC Championship Game, back when that was the only way to get a ticket to the NCAA tourney. If you disagree with me, let me hear it!

et ceteras

2011-03-30T00:33:00.007-04:00

Thanks to Rich Lowry for bringing up what I consider to be the statistic of the week: In the late 1960’s, federal defense spending and federal non-defense spending were equal percentages of our GDP, but today the latter is four times the amount of the former. That shows why entitlements, arts subsidies, etc., must be cut or eliminated if our government is ever going to get its finances straight.

Gas prices have increased a whopping 67 percent since Barack Obama became president. Have you noticed that no one in the MSM has attributed any of the blame to him, even though he has done things that obviously place upward pressure on prices? Things like imposing a prolonged ban on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico last year, even though that drilling had been contributing to our supply for decades?

Do you remember how when gas prices were on the rise during George W. Bush’s presidency, everybody in the MSM was quick to blame him for the problem even though he took steps to alleviate it? Things like announce an end to the sweeping executive ban on offshore drilling -- an announcement that was followed by a greater than 50 percent drop in gas prices before he left office?

I have been rough on environmentalists in my last two posts, and today I learned something (thanks to Nat Brown) that makes me want to be rough on them some more. Namely, I learned that in those places where plastic grocery bags have been banned because of trumped-up environmental concerns, the use of plastic bags in general has then skyrocketed to the point that the impact of the bans is a net increase in plastic bag consumption. Don’t forget what they say about good intentions and the road to Hell…

For years I have been aggravated by the decline in quality of play when it comes to basketball. But I must say that this year’s NCAA tournament has made me happy with some old-style teamwork on display; a bevy of down-to-the-wire games; and now a Final Four featuring no top seeds and two presumably huge underdogs. It’s not yet on par with Lorenzo Charles’s buzzer-beating dunk to lift NC State over Houston in ’83, or Villanova shooting 79 percent to stun Georgetown in ’85, but this year has all the ingredients to produce a classic like those -- and for the first time in a long time I am eagerly looking forward to watching the Final Four.

And to close this post, what about some pictures? Last month I wrote about some nature preserves where I had been hiking. Since then I have paid three more visits, once to go trail running in Brooker Creek Headwaters Preserve and twice to go mountain biking (such as it is Florida) in Conner Preserve. Below, the first photo shows one of the trails I ran on, while the second shows some wildflowers I encountered while biking.

I will see you back here as soon as I have something worth saying. Until then, keep plugging away at whatever it is you do!

A brief follow-up

2011-03-28T23:36:00.005-04:00

In my most recent post, I wrote that the natural migration of barred owls into the preferred habitat of spotted owls is what has caused the latter’s numbers to decline, and I took environmentalists -- supposed nature lovers that they are -- to task for “refusing to accept Mother Nature’s own design.” Well, today I am going to ramp up my rhetoric by pointing out that these environmentalists are not only recoiling at Mother Nature’s design, but are actively rejecting one of the most hallowed scriptures of their liberal faith: Evolution.

Consider the following, taken from a column by Lou Dolinar, formerly of Newsday and now contributing to National Review. Of the relationship between spotted and barred owls, he writes: “…some biologists say that the two species are closely related, since they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Some suspect they diverged from a common ancestor during the last Ice Age, when populations were split into East Coast and West Coast versions…Rather than the extinction of a species, it may be that all we’re seeing is a post-glacial restoration of the natural order of things.”

You just know that many of the people who weep for the spotted owl are owners of those car magnets that have the name “Darwin” spelled prominently across the image of the Christian fish. Will they continue to gnash their teeth over the owl’s declining numbers, even if it is their own sacred deity, Evolution, that is authoring the decline? My guess is they will, and that they will be too dense to see the irony.

et ceteras

2011-03-22T23:23:00.013-04:00

Libya

For the record, I believe it is good (or at least better than the alternative) that the U.S. is now acting against Moammar Qaddafi by intervening to protect the citizens of Benghazi. However, I also believe that the way our president announced our intervention was so incoherent and meek that it bordered on irresponsibility.

Barack Obama, unlike his predecessor, sent our armed forces into action without input from Congress…and without explaining why he felt it was necessary to send those forces into action.

Further, Obama’s deed of ordering the military into action, especially in this instance, is wildly inconsistent with his many denunciations of past military actions.

And, damnably, Obama spent much of his announcement saying we will leave soon; telling Qaddafi loyalists what we won’t do to oppose them; and neglecting to say whether we have any desire, much less intention, to remove Qaddafi from power. In short, Obama gave our supposed enemies less reason to fear us instead of more…and every military expert knows that is not a recipe for success.

If he is to help our forces succeed, Obama must stop blowing an uncertain trumpet and start acting like a leader.

Japan

I can not help but add my voice to the chorus that is expressing admiration for Japan and its people in the wake of their recent tragedy.

On the one hand, it speaks volumes about Japan’s architectural engineering that the nation did not sustain much greater damage and loss of life. The earthquake that struck it was more that 52 million percent stronger than the one which struck Haiti last year, yet it appears to have resulted in only one death for every twenty in the Haitian quake.

On the other hand, the tone the Japanese people exhibited -- one of compete civility and helpfulness toward one another -- is a model for the rest of the world to follow. In many parts of the planet, including some pockets of America, looting and lawlessness would have been commonplace after such a disaster…but in Japan, culturally ingrained nicety prevailed and society benefited as a result.

Environmentalists

I have long felt that environmentalists are an addled bunch of malcontents who do not think logically, and who have a psychological defect that makes them incapable of accepting happy facts. For example, they are convinced that Earth is being overrun by people, even though Earth’s entire population will fit inside of Texas with every single person having their own 1,000 square feet of space.

For another example of environmentalist illogic, consider what is happening in the Northwest when it comes to spotted owls. You may remember that about 20 years ago, lumber-related jobs were lost all across that part of America when environmentalists claimed that the spotted owl population was shrinking because of timber being harvested from “old growth forests.” Well, it turns out that the real culprit in the declining number of spotted owls was not habitat loss, but competition from the barred owl -- a more aggressive species that has migrated from Eastern America into the Northwest; taken up residence in the spotted owl’s preferred habitat; and competed with it for food and nesting sites.

This migration and competition is completely natural, but rather than accept Mother Nature’s own design, environmentalists (via the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) are planning to engage in the mass murder of animals whose only offense is doing what Mother Nature dictates they do. Specifically, the environmentalists propose to go into the woods with rifles and use loudspeakers to play owl sounds -- and then use those rifles to kill any barred owls who come to investigate.

These are the same people, mind you, who fill the ranks of the animal rights movement and tend to be vehement in their opposition to hunting, even when the hunter’s purpose is to feed his family. I know it is probably impossible to figure them out, but I can’t stop myself from trying.

And…

…to close on a lighter note, go here and read one of my sister-in-law’s latest posts. It is sure to bring a chuckle!

Spring Equinox

2011-03-20T00:18:00.003-04:00

Some thoughts about spring on its first day:

I love how it is often warm and rarely humid.

I love that bright, shimmering shade of green that new leaves give to old trees.

I love how wildflowers turn ordinary roadsides into vivid profusions of color and life.

I love going swimming with my daughter again.

I love sitting outside in the afternoon and drinking a margarita beneath a cloudless blue sky.

I love spring training baseball.

And finally, I am riveted by the most intense pursuit in all of sports: the NHL playoffs.

She's Gonna Be a Good One

2011-03-15T08:26:00.007-04:00

14 weeks and 2 days. That is how long from now it will be when Parker Wasson Stanton leaves Erika's womb and comes out into the wide world. We can be sure of the date because his birth will be by C-section.

Sarah is excited about his impending arrival. Yesterday she rubbed Erika's stomach and spoke to her little brother by name, saying "we'll see you on June 23rd." Last week she made him a baby rattle by filling a plastic Easter egg with sequins, sealing it shut with decorative tape, and using that same tape to attach the egg to a popsicle stick.

In an extra serving of cuteness, when I asked her what she put inside the rattle, she said "they're called sequences."

We are confident Sarah will be an excellent and very attentive big sister, and we can't wait for the day to arrive.

Walker Scores A People's Win in Wisconsin

2011-03-10T20:02:00.027-05:00

Thoughts on the Great Badger State Brouhaha of 2011:

Wisconsin's average teacher salary is higher than its median household income. And that does not even take into account the teachers' lavish benefits packages; or that they receive such pay and benefits while not working a full year; or that they are practically impossible to fire, no matter how bad they perform. Given all that along with the fact that Wisconsin's voters elected Scott Walker and a Republican legislature specifically to get the state's fiscal house in order, the protesting conglomerate of teachers/unions/liberals/Democrats should have known from the beginning that they could not prevail this year.

Wisconsin's new law prevents its teachers from collectively bargaining on pensions and benefits, but contrary to what the MSM would have you believe, it does not prevent them from collectively bargaining on salary. Meanwhile, federal workers can not collectively bargain at all; fewer than half the states allow their state workers to do so; and American liberalism's biggest icon, FDR, was of the opinion that no government workers should be allowed to collectively bargain -- period. When you think about that, it is both hilarious and horrible that some people have characterized Wisconsin's law as an attack on civil rights.

Something else that goes in the "both hilarious and horrible" basket is that Wisconsin's Democrat senators, who abandoned their offices and fled the state in an effort to prevent the law from even being voted on, have depicted Republicans of being the ones attacking democracy.

And finally, I am dumbfounded that so many of Wisconsin's teachers seem not to realize (or care) that their protests make them look like petulant preteens throwing a temper tantrum. They sought to preserve their slice of the taxpayers' largess by screaming, scowling, and falsely calling in sick. After Wednesday's vote, they attempted to break the windows of Republican senators' cars as those duly elected senators were driving home. Conspicuously, what they did not do was claim to have produced a crop of above-average students.

Considering the above, it has to be said that the Wisconsin teachers and union reps who descended on the state capital are nothing more than the personification of P.J. O'Rourke's observation that "at the core of liberalism is the spoiled brat -- miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."

At the risk of sounding childish myself, and even semi-blasphemous, I have to admit that every time I read that quote I am tempted to scream "A-f'ing-men!"

Farewell to A Patriot

2011-02-28T21:14:00.010-05:00

Today, America lost its last surviving veteran of World War I when Frank Buckles passed away on his West Virginia farm. He was 110 years old.

World War I lasted from 1914 to 1918, and was known as The Great War up until World War II broke out in the late 1930's. The U.S. became involved in 1917 and America's soldiers were called "doughboys."

Buckles served as an Army ambulance driver on the Western Front. In the post-war years he traveled the globe as a purser, and was there in person to watch Jesse Owens win gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. When the U.S. and several other nations were attacked in December 1941, Buckles was captured in the Philippines by Japanese forces; he was held as a civilian POW for more than three years, until being freed in a joint raid by American and Filipino forces. He and his wife purchased their farm in 1953 and lived there for the remainder of their lives. Now his body will be laid to its final rest in Arlington National Cemetery, perhaps wearing his old doughboy tunic that has been hanging in his closet for generations.

Buckles's passing means that across the entire planet, there are just two people still alive who served in World War I: A 109-year-old Australian man and 110-year-old British woman. The sacrifices of their generation have largely been ignored by historians and educators, in contrast to the sacrifices made by the later generation that fought World War II. Fortunately, it is never too late to rectify the slight.

Au revoir, Corporal Buckles.