Remember These Men, Too

Remember these men this weekend if you have a chance.

Abraham Clark

William Ellery

Thomas McKean

George Read

James Wilson

Who are they?

They are 5 of the men who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for us.

They were men of substance, with families and careers and property who risked everything to overthrow a government they found oppressive. Not peasants with nothing to lose; not slaves with their backs to the wall. They were men living what their peers would call "comfortable" lives, who literally put their necks on the line for one simple ideal:

Freedom.

They aren't as famous as Hancock and Adams and Jefferson or Franklin. But they deserve a moment's thought and a thank you.

And if you haven't read it in a while, take a minute to read the document they co-signed:

The Declaration of Independence
of the United States of America

(Information and photograph courtesy of www.UShistory.org)

Britney Spears

Just how fitting is it that trailer-park white-trash morals-corrupting Britney Spears is posing naked for a magazine called Bazaar?

After all, isn't bizarre one of the words that comes to mind with this woman?

The World Cup

My eldest daughter, whose soccer teams I coached, is enamored with the World Cup. Thus our house is divided between the Americans-are-too-dense-to-understand soccer camp (her) and the soccer is one-dumb-ass-sport camp (me).

But I like and respect my children and I try to give weight to their beliefs, so I've given this some thought, and have watched several games from start to finish.

And so I've amended my opinion.

Soccer, as played on the world scene, is one dumb ass sport.

And I think I know why most Americans have no patience for it.

It's a game of cowards and whiners and it can end with a gimmick. And we don't care for those things as a matter of course.

Cowards? You bet. In the World Cup most games go like this: one team scores (eventually) and then the game devolves into one big game of keep away and stalling tactics.

In our major sports, we require the victor to lay it on the line, to give the other team a fair chance. Football requires you to move the ball forward, 10 yards every four plays, or you lose the ball. Basketball has a time clock, and no going backcourt. Tennis? You have to serve it in the box. Golf? You can look at it from all angles, but eventually you have to putt the ball.

Baseball and softball? You have to put the ball over the plate. There's no running away with the ball. Bases loaded, full count? You can't hide. You have to pitch the ball, and either the batter hits it or not.

Soccer's tactics of back passing, falling to the ground, keepers holding the ball, etc. etc. seem to us to be a concerted effort to avoid confrontation.

Whiners? You bet. Every contact, or near-contact, sends players into fits of melodrama, rolling on the ground in mock agony in an effort to draw a foul. We Americans recognize that this conduct belongs only inside a wrestling ring, not on the field of a major sport. We like our players heroic and courageous, not weepy and craven.

Finally, the gimmick of using a shootout instead of playing until somebody scores is tacky-- like ending a spelling bee with a 100 yard dash. My daughter tells me that the shootout is necessary because the 90 minute game and the 30 minute overtime are too draining, given the limit on substitutions at 3 per team; it would be too dangerous to keep playing.

So why not allow more subs in overtime? Why end the game with schtick instead of using the basic game which so many seem to hold near and dear?

Why hasn't soccer caught on here? Maybe because we like our games to be sporting, our athletes to be brave and honorable and our sports as free as possible of gimmicks.

Random Thoughts

Been a while. Just tired of screaming at my TV:

....That the Senate is wasting a single second on the Flag Burning Amendment is so outrageous that I hope all 100 are tossed out. Well maybe not all 100, but anyone who is behind this idiocy.

Flag burning is bad. We all know that. The shock of a flag being burned is over, don't you think? The first, I don't know, 2 or 3 hundred times I saw one in flames I was upset. Now? As a method of protest it seems....tired.

Perhaps the Senate can take on a topic more relevant to me and pass a Constitutional Amendment banning interleague play or World Cup players taking a dive.

....When I started this blog one of my first posts was on the need for a national water pipeline. Seeing the fires in the Southwest and the floods in the East, I find myself murmuring "I told you so" repeatedly, which is starting to annoy my wife.

....I do honestly think the New York Times is a treasonous body. The latest revelation of secret anti-terror programs is just another log on the fire. If the Times discovered that Bush knew where Osama was hiding and that a raid was planned, I know in my heart of hearts that they would print it.

In law school we were taught that the First Amendment doesn't protect the yelling of "fire!!" in a movie theatre, nor the publishing of troop ship movements. How quaint. Of course, I only went to St. John's. Perhaps if I'd gone to Harvard or Yale I would be able to understand better the nuances of the intersection of national security, domestic politics and corporate media profits.

....My summer is shaping up nicely, and all I can say is "Let's Go Mets!"

And from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility."

Abilene, KS, May 2, 1903