Quote of the Day
It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars,
but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.
Benjamin Elijah Mays
Congratulations, Super Bowl Champion NY Giants!
Super Bowl 46: 21-17
I have 4 siblings (and both parents) whom were born in Massachusetts (I was born in Texas, and the youngest siblings were born in Florida and South Carolina). I expect most of them were rooting for the New England Patriots.
I've mentioned parts of this story in past posts. I became a Minnesota Twins (then Vikings) fan by accident: my first Little League team was the hapless Twins, which won one game all season. My middle brother was playing on the Yankees, the eventual champs. We were losing to the Yankees when this kid on my team for some reason started heckling me, suggesting I had a girlfriend (even though I had 3 little sisters at the time--a fourth later, it not only wasn't true but was the ultimate insult). I playfully grabbed his uniform and told him to knock it off. My coach in turn grabbed me by the collar, threw me out of the dugout and told me to go home. I wasn't happy with what happened and decided since my little brother was playing, I would go up into the stands and root for him. My coach spotted me up there and responded by throwing me off the team.
Bobby Richardson, a former real-life New York Yankee second baseman and Sumter, SC native, was scheduled to make an appearance at the end-of-the-season fried chicken banquet. To any red-blooded American boy, meeting a real-life professional athlete, not to mention the MVP of the 1960 World Series, was the ultimate thrill. I had never been closer to a major league player than the family TV set. My folks tried talking to the coach into letting me go to the banquet, but rooting for one's kid brother was an unforgivable sin.
For some odd reason, after the season, I discovered there was a real major league team called the Twins, and I became obsessed: Harmon Killebrew, one of the greatest home run hitters of all time, was a natural role model. Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, Jim Kaat, etc. While we lived in Kansas during Dad's tour in Southeast Asia, I had managed to pick up on my radio an Iowa station on the Twins network. Eventually I got interested in football and discovered Minnesota had a pro football team. The Vikings: Joe Kapp, Fred Cox, the Purple People Eaters, and Bud Grant.
Technically I never set foot in Minnesota until an international MIS conference in the Twin Cities while I was on the UWM faculty in the late 1980's. But I'll never forget checking into the conference host hotel because literally at the time the Minnesota Viking cheerleaders were making some unrelated appearance in the hotel lobby. And they were AWESOME. I wouldn't have minded if that little 8-year-old punk from my youth had said one of those fetching young women was my girlfriend... That's also as close as I've come to seeing a Viking game in person.
Long story short, I have been a staunch NFC fan ever since. So I was rooting for the New York Giants. The game, of course, is well-covered elsewhere, but Manning's touchdown rally, starting from the Giants' 12 with less than 4 minutes and one timeout with one of the best receptions I've ever seen, Mario Manningham's 38-yard catch down the left sideline, was the stuff of legends. I was laughing hysterically when Bradshaw unintentionally fell into the endzone for a touchdown on a second and goal with about a minute left. (The New England Patriots strategically decided to let Bradshaw score to give QB Tom Brady a full minute to try to answer a Giants score. New York anticipated this and wanted to Bradshaw to pull up short so they could all but run out the clock and convert a fourth-down chipshot field goal for the win.)
And this is why I'll never be an NFL head coach. I wanted Bradshaw to take what the Patriots were giving them because I know the only way the Patriots can win is to answer with a touchdown in the last minute of the game. They've scored only 2 touchdowns all game, the only way they can win, short of a miracle kickoff return, is to improbably pass nearly the length of the football field. It's a lot easier to defend when you know what's coming; you've got your front line charging at the quarterback, maybe throw in a blitz or two. On the other hand, you set up the field goal--and say, the snap is fumbled: you end up trying to explain why you didn't put the points on the board when you had the chance. I do understand Tom Brady is a great quarterback, but he barely converted a fourth-and-16 deep in his own territory. Still, I was glued to my seat wondering if the "Hail Mary" pass into the end zone would connect. Heck of a game, Brownie!
My Choice for Halftime Commercial
Any regular reader of this blog knows that I have been a persistent critic of the crony unionist. managed bankruptcy process for GM and Chrysler by the Obama Administration which rolled over higher-ranking bondholder interests. But there's something quintessentially American about this commercial (second chance, the game isn't over) that instantly reminded me of Reagan's 1984 "morning in America" commercials; the choice of Clint Eastwood's gritty voice just works.
[Notice: I earlier posted a Youtube version uploaded by Chrysler itself, which encouraged its circulation, but the video for some reason was withdrawn due to NFL Property rights. In fact, the relevant link on Chrysler's own home page doesn't work at this time (how embarrassing!) If I become aware of an officially-sanctioned embedded video, I'll use that. In the meanwhile, I have embedded a currently working alternative; if the current replacement video is withdrawn, try running a query like this one on Youtube: search for a video using search terms like 'Chrysler', 'Clint Eastwood', and/or 'Super Bowl [46 or 2012]'.]
Go, Verlin!
Let's help Verlin cremate anti-competitive crony Big Mortuary laws, which do little more than drive up the high cost of dying:
Citizens United and SpeechNow.org:
Eliminating Double Standards on Free Speech
The top Romney gaffe on Daniel Kurtzman's "Dumb Mitt Romney Quotes" webpage is Romney's response last August to a heckler demanding a higher tax burden on corporations (domestic operations are already taxed at the highest rates in the developed world): "Corporations are people, my friend… of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend." Among other things, Romney here is talking about governments double-dipping off the same stream of income; for example, stockholders or owners of a business get taxed twice--first at the business level and then as a residual redistribution.
In fact, corporate personhood is hardly a new concept. The idea a group of individuals pooling their assets and being taxed and regulated by the government, somehow lose their First Amendment or other (property) rights because of their freedom to associate (say, enjoyed by a self-employed businessman) is intrinsically arbitrary and unjust. The same point can be made about the nature of the association (e.g, nonprofit vs. business). Nonprofits or wealthy individuals (e.g., Ross Perot or Michael Bloomberg) are not "more equal"; there are more direct ways to influence legislation (i.e., lobbying). The bottom line is that the public interest is NOT served by hypocritical special-interest, self-appointed or government censors, but by the free market of ideas.
Romney's quest for the 2008 GOP nomination and Blair Hull's quest for the 2004 Illinois US Senate nomination (eventually won by Obama) are just 2 examples where huge influxes of their own cash did not get them the nomination. Most Florida voters indicated that their vote was not influenced by the huge ad campaigns (e.g., by Romney's Super PAC allies). I live in Maryland, largely controlled by Democrats with saturation Democratic campaigns; none of their incessant ads worked on me. The bottom line is that I have more faith in the electorate than in censors.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Guess Who, "No Time"
