“We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.”
    -Vince Lombardi

NOTES:
I started this post several days ago but due to scheduling (things I had to do elsewhere) that has kept me away from this, my favorite infernal machine… it shows up today.

…

With college football always just too many months distant and never nearly long enough when it is with us, anytime is a good time to talk about it.

Today’s topic will look at what is generally an unspoken effort by a number of elite schools to create, so to speak, a ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ on the gridiron. (For those unfamiliar with the term, you may Google it with reference to Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’.)

Okay, I can see where this is going so… let us offer you a little background.

The theory says that this universal super team will likely rise from one of the powerhouse conferences with an institution rich in tradition and following. It will set a new high bar for the rest of colligate football but most importantly, offer a measure of justification for the BCS and all the behind the scenes tampering with the game by the major sports networks.

The perfect team playing the perfect schedule, with a perfect won/loss record to bring in the perfect TV audience.

Historically, teams that have come close include USC, Florida and LSU but their imperfection was that they were never able to match that perfect season with a perfectly impossible schedule. This means that somewhere, mixed into any given season’s lineup, there was just one too many small school games and that was just no way to impress the booth apes and desk jockeys at the networks.

So here we are, with another season looming and any of a number of top-ranked football schools trying like hell to sign that perfect team to play that perfect schedule… and thus, hopefully, win out and create the NCAA’s first super team.

Oh, and for those who are (like us) fans of the UGA Bulldogs, you should know that your team is in the thick of this hunt. In fact, it was only last year when Georgia, stacked with Stafford at QB and Moreno at RB, made a run for this title but ultimately, fell way short of the mark. And now with both of those players moved on into the NFL, the Dawgs face the 2009 campaign… a perfect storm of a schedule, if you will, without that name talent they recruited for just that very thing.

Reading over the Bulldogs’ 2009 list of opponents, it looks as though it could be a long, long season…

Sept. 5  at Oklahoma State
Sept. 12  SOUTH CAROLINA
Sept. 19  at Arkansas
Sept. 26  ARIZONA STATE
Oct. 3      LSU
Oct. 10  at Tennessee
Oct. 17  at Vanderbilt
Oct. 24    BYE
Oct. 31  vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
Nov. 7      TENNESSEE TECH
Nov. 14  AUBURN
Nov. 21  KENTUCKY
Nov. 28  at Georgia Tech

Ouch. Aside from a bye the weekend of October 24th and then, questionably, a home game vs. Tennessee Tech on November 7th, there is nothing even resembling a ‘gimme’ game on their collective plate. But again… this WAS the idea; the perfectly impossible line up to match what was, before several premature departures, the perfect assembly of senior class talent.

So, who’s idea was this?

Well, this is not a finger pointing contest but most folks you talk to about it will mention Georgia’s AD, Damon Evans. And yes, this is the same guy who booted UGA legend Vince Dooley a few years ago and nearly created a major in-house insurrection.

And what of the team itself?

DC Willie Martinez is arguably the weakest link in the coaching chain. At times, his defenses have played brilliantly but none of them have displayed the needed consistency at that level. Coach Richt chose to keep him around in spite of many who called for him to be replaced. And considering the challenge of the upcoming schedule, a change here would have probably been a bad idea… right now, anyway.

OC Mike Bobo is the other question mark. While his play calling has steadily improved over the course of his tenure in this position, he can still drop a few bombs. With the level of talent his offense will be facing, chances are at least fair that Coach Richt will have a hand in writing the Dawgs’ playbook and so too, acting as command-oversight in critical situations.

As for the players, there was and is a lot of depth so… the loss of those who left early for the league would probably not be felt so keenly in any other year playing anything even resembling a normal, colligate schedule. But with the current line up of games, combined with the limited experience for key position players, little things may come home way soon in 2009.

Opening games are rarely a good yardstick by which to judge a team but for Georgia and 2009, anything short of jumping the gate at full gallop could leave them worn and demoralized for the meat of their SEC schedule. This is the main drawback that exposes this kind of high-stress structuring as being bad at the amateur level.

The college game used to be about fun and rivalries. Today, it is about network coverage and, of course, the money. In the effort to produce the Kwisatz Haderach of NCAA football, they may well destroy the best part of it.

“Look, down on the field! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…

…

* * *

“I’ve had a wonderful time, but this wasn’t it.”
    -Groucho Marx

It’s just like that sometimes… especially around here. Sink or swim, feast or famine… chicken one day and feathers the next. We can go a span of days, even weeks without a single, measurable speck of water and then, there are days like today.

Oh, excuse me… make that, yesterday, which is today now but will be yesterday, tomorrow, when this finally gets posted.

Why the delay? Well, because Phenix Cable’s (Cable TV of East Alabama) internet service has been sort of up and down since about 2:30 pm (mostly down). That was when a little popcorn thundercloud came over and wept exactly 106 drops of rain on our garden before dissipating into a puff of steam.

We tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to call them but the phone was either off the hook or they only have one (or less) incoming line on Sunday.

Outside, the sun (of course) came back out and with that minor shower now nothing but a thick haze of lung-sucking humidity, we watched and checked and hoped and prayed and called… and called… but, the number to our local internet/telephone/cable TV provider was never, ever anything but busy. Well, until just a little before 6 pm, that is. Then after ringing 87 times, there was the obligatory recording to cheerfully remind us of their regular business hours.

Finally after listening to all of that, the system supposedly passed us on to a ‘tech’.

Uh oh…

Anybody who has been on the web for more than a small number of days knows that the ‘techs’ are the street-nerd muscle of internet services. First, they try and intimidate you using words that can’t be spoken in a single breath or even pronounced by anyone who isn’t fluent in ancient Sumerian. But if that isn’t enough to scare you off, they will direct you, step by step, to dismantle your computer into small pieces before then placing all of it into your microwave oven for 30 minutes on high.

Luckily for us, local service protocols prevented corporeal contact. In other words, no one ever answered.

Then about 6:15 pm or so… as if there was any call for it, here comes a real, full-blown, electrified gully washer. And following script, the cable signal went the same way as the internet some four hours before.

Zzzzt…

No web, and now, no TV either. On a bet, we tried calling but the office number was busy again. Oh well, chances are that on Sundays, all the phones are locked in the same cabinet with the company’s Commodore 64 mainframe. 

Ahem.

Both TV and internet service were, finally, restored about 7:30 pm but then about 90 minutes later, just as the moon was careening into a collision course with the Earth (“Impact” – Miniseries, ABC), both internet and cable fizzled again. The outage was brief but is repeating every few minutes.

Our last encounter with a signal saw James Cromwell sailing through the air in an old Cadillac… and a large container cargo ship crashing back into the sea.

Y2K all over again? Whatever.

It’s just like that sometimes… especially in this area. Sink or swim, feast or famine… chicken one day and a pot of feathers the next.

On Sunday, we swam a little but we feasted mightily on those feathers.

 

 

* * *

“Ah, summer - what power you have to make us suffer and like it” -Russell Baker

A typical Saturday this time of year begins with Better Half and myself making a run on the local yard sale circuit. But on this day, we were called first on a trip to Opelika to deliver Youngest to her place of employment… because her ride had been damaged in an accident a few days before.

The great thing about this arrangement is that the variety of life diversifies and subdivides immensely once you get into the area of Beauregard. It is a community that we don’t generally get to browse at leisure but… also one that we have found from past experience to always be well worth the effort when we did.

Beauregard, Alabama is a loosely defined area situated almost due south of Opelika/Auburn. It is today what Smiths Station once was and arguably, what Salem may someday again be.  Beyond that, the community is clean, conservative and just a great place to go on a Saturday to look for Yard Sales.

On one stop, I noticed an older sign that seemed to show a pig wiping his brow with a rag. The paint was faded but the image still clear. While Better Half was browsing the goodies, I exited the car to ask a guy – who looked for all the world like Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction - about the sign…

Me: Excuse me but… that’s a curious old sign with the pig.”

Uncle Joe: “Why, that’s a Fourth of July pig sweating!”

Me: A July 4th pig? Like the ones we slap on the grill for dinner?”

Uncle Joe: “Exactly that, friend.”

Okay, as a lifelong Southerner, I know that pigs and in some areas, goats are traditional Independence Day fare. But still, the image of the pig and a sweat rag still didn’t fit…

Me: I have cooked a lot of pig meat but never gave a lot of thought to a pig sweating it before hitting the embers.”

Uncle Joe: That’s because we don’t do it anymore. We don’t sweat pigs before cooking them.”

Me: “’Sweat pigs’?”

Uncle Joe: “Oh heck yes. Back before you were buying your meat from a butcher or a store, we would pick a pig for the fourth. He would get all kinds of treats and good food until July the First. Then we would wash him real clean and put him in the ‘Sweat Pen’.”

Me: “A sweat pen…”

Uncle Joe: “Yeah. A sweat pen is a small, pen with nothing but green grass. No mud, no water… aside from what we gave him from the well. In the heat of the summer sun, pigs will sweat real bad like when they don’t have a lot of mud and dirt on them. And all that water we gave him to drink would clean his system.”

Me: “So that’s where the old saying came from? Sweating like a Fourth of July Pig?”

Uncle Joe (I never asked his real name) took me around the back of their house and there in a pen about 12 foot by 12 foot, was a pig sunning hisself on green grass. It was explained that this pig would be dinner in about a week or so but before then, he needed to be cleaned and ‘sweetened’.

What a way to go.

About this time, Better Half came calling and it was time to move along. The thought of the pig and his royalized demise reminded of stories of human sacrifices and how before their show, they were treated so well.

Sometimes, it just pays to be nobody. If you are a pig or a person, being nobody at all and dirty as the day is long… can be a good thing.

But… just try and explain that to your wife!

 

 

* * *

“The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.” -Mark Twain

As this post is written, there is a special edition of ABC’s 20/20 dedicated to Michael Jackson, not but a few hours after his passing.

Each of the big domestic media websites have large, front and center headlines. On Google’s news aggregate page, news links to Jackson’s death number well over 5,000. Just below, on this same day, Farrah Fawcett succumbed to cancer but links to her story come in at far less than half that number.

Don’t misunderstand… Mr. Jackson did achieve a degree of fame, if not before the very end, an equal sum of infamy too. But before his body had even begun to chill, Bahbah Wahwah was on TV warbling and wailing like she had been born in the bed next to him. Special cameras were sneaking images of a helicopter transporting his body to the coroner’s office and will probably next materialize in the scrub room to document his autopsy as well.

As for Jackson’s claim to be the King of Pop? Maybe but also, an accused child molester and certainly, not someone that anyone with a lick of sense would want to model a life after.

Yes, this is your Main Scream Media at work… and before it’s all over and done with, we’ll have it and Michael up to the fine hairs in our earballs.

 
* * *

“Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes.” -Abraham Lincoln

The time is during Prohibition, the location… a patch of rurality just outside of town. A car is parked along a wooded stretch next to the river as a boat appears from the far side. Several wooden cases are loaded on to the watercraft.

After the brief business transaction, one drives away with a wad of cash and the other floats off with a load of illegal liquor. Call it ‘Thunder Lightning on the Hooch’.

From what we know of history, this kind of thing happened all the time and in pretty much every corner of the country.

It was only a few years ago that digging up the bones of my family tree revealed that my biological grandparents were moon shiners from the hills and mountains of North Alabama. They weren’t bad people, mind you… they just chose to fill particular niche that was, at the time, prohibited by law.

Considering the current course of government, chances are pretty good that many will someday hear similar stories in much the same way, only to find out that their grandparents illegally grew (gasp!) tobacco!

The perfect recipe for most any sort of domestic black market? That’s an easy one: An over-reaching federal government acting on the direct behalf of an overzealous special interest group. The result is equally predictable; a public that is insulted by the heavy hand of bureaucracy and then just as indifferent to the rubber stamp edict.

It eventually happened that prohibition on alcohol was ended and so too much of that black market for untaxed, home made juice.

As for the future? One thing is for sure; it is all quite cyclical by its very nature.

Again, look at tobacco. First it was legal, then taxed, now regulated… and soon maybe illegal. Well, until a black market is born for cigars and cigarettes and tomorrow’s grandparents become the nation’s newest class of nonviolent criminal.

Further Reading -

Tobacco control and thought control
- Chicago Tribune

 
* * *

“A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.” -Thomas Jefferson

The ‘peanut gallery’ has always gotten a blackeye. In truth, out here in the nether regions of Taxonia, we ARE that gallery. We are the ones who look on, sometimes wishing we had voted differently but almost always wondering whether it would have made any difference if we had.

This is how it begins…

“That was a settlement I was opposed to, and I made some remarks at that meeting that obviously, to some people, were offensive. It was one of those     occasions when I made those remarks where I spoke more from emotion than I did from intelligence. And the people of this city didn’t elect me to do that.

The wording that I used when I made my remarks were words that immediately after saying them, I had the feeling that ‘boy, I wish I hadn’t just said that.’ I wish I had used different wording. I said that the proceedings that had taken place leading up to the settlement ‘reeked of corruption.” It was an emotional statement, as I said. It was one of those things I wish that I had not said.

From “Mayor apologizes, receives monthly expense allowance”
- Citizen of East Alabama – 17 June 2009

Yup, Hizzoner, the mayor of Phenix City apologized. And so what if he did? If there was an apology due, then why not offer it? It is, after all, only our human pride that so often holds us prisoner from saying things that really NEED to be said.

But there is more to all of this… and that apology. From the same story…

In other business, the city council approved a mayoral expense allowance of $1295.51, bringing his total compensation to $27,546.52 per year – the same as the chairman of the Russell County Commission. According to Act 2009-737, the vote was required to be unanimous and beginning next term, the mayor will make $35,000 per year.

Now, you will be almost surely asking yourself about this ‘apology’ that was then immediately followed by a pay raise. Go ahead… we are busy doing the same thing… take your time.

When the original story busted about the Mayor calling some recent city council business reeking of corruption, we had NO idea whether any of it was factual. For that matter… we still don’t. But what sounded so good was that there was at least ONE person in this local government body that wasn’t about giving the other one a handy back scratch… or a bone.

And for a pay raise to boot? Wow.

A-knick-knack-paddy-whack, give-the-dog-a-bone…

 

 

* * *

“If people behaved like governments, you’d call the cops.” -Kelvin Throop

The heartbreak that is obtuse, offensive bureaucracy is everywhere.

Just short of 233 years since the Founding Fathers signed off on a Declaration of Independence from what was then a leeching, suffocating regime, we have come full circle back to it, aping the former example…

Residents of Toledo, Ohio, are complaining that they received $25 tickets for parking their vehicles in their own driveways.

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (FINK’-by-ner) says he stands by the citations handed out last week by the Division of Streets, Bridges and Harbor. He says the tickets were issued under a city law against parking on unpaved surfaces, including gravel driveways.

From “Ohioans ticketed for parking in own driveways”
- AP via WTVM.com – 16 June 2009

We’ve talked about nuisance laws and ordinances here before, citing Phenix City’s city council for their own brand of petty tyranny. But still and all, it’s hard to imagine what it would be like to live under such an authoritarian system that would write parking tickets for private vehicles parked on the owner’s own private property.

Here’s another excerpt from the same basic story, but from a different source…

The president of the Toledo Police Patrolman’s Association said he may go to court to prevent employees from the city’s streets department from writing parking tickets.

“This falls under police duty and police are the only ones who can take law enforcement action,” said Dan Wagner, the union president.
…

“When I would go out to someone’s house, I wouldn’t even issue a ticket,” he said. “I would say ‘if you want to park in this area like on grass, you have to have it paved.”

From “Police union president may go to court to halt writing of tickets by other city employees”
- ToledoBlade.com – 16 June 2009

The argument here appears to sidestep the most basic issues of the original nuisance law itself, while chasing down the path of exactly ‘who’ it is that has the jurisdiction of issuing the tickets. So, forget that it’s your property growing grass that you may have yourself planted and nurtured. The government says you can’t park your car on it unless you pay to cover it with enough concrete to keep them at bay.

How did we get here and… just how in the hell do we get back out again?

 
* * *

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” -Leon Trotsky

Why, you might wonder, would any government go as far as to rig an election in all but the clear light of day, only to then deny the rigging?

Okay, I see that look on your face and it is understandable but… even when caught red handed, most criminals will still deny their crime. Any jailer will tell you that a prison is the one place where everyone is innocent. At least, that’s the story you’ll get. And so I guess it’s not surprising that it is also the one coming from the government of Iran after what was probably one of the most blatant cases of election fraud perpetrated on an entire nation in modern history.

 Most of you will be familiar with this story by now. The (relatively) moderate reformer, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the electrification of the electorate, the hard line and entrenched government playing like there was going to be a genuine vote and finally, the naked theft of the same. And there, standing without a stitch of clothing or a single ounce of decency, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad smugly proclaimed his faux victory while thousands and thousands of Iranians in the streets called him a liar in front of a world audience.

Some are calling it ‘Tehran Spring’… the brief flirtation of a people with a small measure of democratic idealism, only to have it all crushed in the end.

We’ve seen it all before. The powerful do not care to share their power… or to lose it.

But beyond this, the Iranian government basically flipped their middle finger at not only their own people, but also the whole world as it looked on. And assuming for one moment that they are smart enough to understand just how obvious the ruse was to those watching from the outside, they must also know that they have probably now set into motion a series of events that can only lead to one end.

Indeed, how can we or the Israelis or anyone else trust any treaty, accord or agreement with a government so desperately and overtly dishonest? Taking into account our experiences with North Korea already, just what is the point of trying to engage any foreign government if in the end, you won’t be able to trust a single word they say?

It’s almost if they have purposely created a situation that can only be resolved by force… and that may well be exactly what they want. For here and now, with hopes of dialogue and resolution all but dead and buried, any attempt to end Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons will almost surely turn those protesting against their government, into anti-west, anti-Israeli fanatics ready to die for Allah and Ayatollah.

So, why not lie? Why not take a poke at the sleeping dog and yank on the tiger’s tail? The machine of history will be sent down the track like a runaway train. The return of the Mahdi, the final jihad… no Muslim would dare defy such a call.

Of course, it may not all be quite so dramatic. In the end, it could be that the clerics and Ahmadinejad are just stupid.

Either way… the end game is the same game.

. . .

Further Reading -

“The Power Behind Ahmadinejad’s Disputed Win: Ayatullah Khamenei”
- Time Magazine

(Photo credit: www.tehranlive.org)

 

 

* * *

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.” -Lewis Carroll

His name was Mr. Edwards and he was a man on a mission.

Theodore ‘Ted’ Edwards was an English teacher back in the days when language was important. He made it absolutely clear that how well we, his students, spoke and wrote was a direct reflection of his skill and dedication. And since he had no intention of allowing us to ever, ever embarrass him over the course of our entire lifetimes, we WOULD pass this class or he would make sure we were there again the following year.

Out of his 1:15 pm class of 23 high school freshmen, I managed to escape at number 21… and never was a day more welcomed than the one when I learned that I had eeked out an exit visa from his personal dungeon. But it was a near thing because on the day of our final exam, my task was to use the word ‘chewable’ in a brief essay, applying it in a novel or unique way but still while keeping it within the bounds of mortal comprehension.

Oh hell, I thought I was done for. The only thing that came to mind was the nasty, chewable vitamin that my Mom would slide under the edge of my breakfast plate every morning. But then for some reason, my mind wandered to another word that had been used to torture us several weeks before.

‘Charrette’ had been applied like a waterboard treatment to the class. Char-ett? Shar-ett? Chair-ett? Not a single one of us could even pronounce it… much less offer a definition.

Back in those days, we didn’t have computers or the internet to quickly look up obscure words. We’d all race to the school library before going home in hopes of finding the treasure in the resident Funk & Wagnall but more times than not, the word was not listed to be found.

Honestly folks, the only thing that hasn’t changed between then and now is the feeling that some words, like charrette, are used mainly to confuse and annoy. For all that really matters, there are almost always other normal, everyday words that do the job just as well and with less toxic side effects.

But regardless of good sense and just simply being understood, they still do appear, especially in the nomenclature of corporate/bureaucratic babble.

Here’s the example that set this whole thing into motion…

Several months ago the city council and Downtown Redevelopment Authority (DRA) agreed to create a Façade Review Committee to help set guidelines for any new or existing projects in the downtown area of Phenix City.

Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Central Activity Center, the city is going to hold a public meeting and workshop to introduce preliminary ideas and to receive feedback from citizens on possible guidelines the committee will follow.
…

The list of items to be discussed at the meeting includes the following:

- what the façade guidelines will mean
- sharing of goals and objectives of the project
- preliminary findings and ideas from the Design Charette
- identification of issues and opportunities/local challenges for design review

From “Public meeting Wednesday on downtown façade guidelines”
- Citizen of East Alabama – 8 June 2009

There it was… like a ghost from the past come to haunt me to the grave: “…preliminary findings and ideas from the Design Charette”.

Was that, Design Chart? No.

For the average Joe (or Joette) trying to make heads or tails of the bureaucratic gobbledygook, here’s one definition of the word, charrette…

The word charrette may refer to any collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem. While the structure of a charrette varies, depending on the design problem and the individuals in the group, charrettes often take place in multiple sessions in which the group divides into sub-groups. Each sub-group then presents its work to the full group as material for future dialogue. Such charrettes serve as a way of quickly generating a design solution while integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people. Compare this term with workshop. –Wikipedia

Yuk!

The last sentence says a lot more than all those that come before: “Compare this term with workshop.”

So, why not use the word, ‘Workshop’? Why a word that is slathered on your tongue like rancid mayonnaise before then being allowed to dry to a chewable paste?

That, if you hadn’t noticed, was the other word… ‘chewable’. And that, if you haven’t already come to the same conclusion, is exactly what charrette is; chewable. Like those bad tasting vitamins or a thick, clotting condiment, the word requires chewing because it is wholly unswallowable as-is and even then, not much good for anything else.

By the way, speaking it out loud is even worse so… don’t try it at home. If you must, make sure you have a cranky old English teacher nearby in case it gets stuck in your throat. The infamous ‘Ted’ Edwards manuever was to slip up behind you and whack you across the back of the head until you spit out whatever word you were choking on.

Okay, that’s enough of that. But before I go and rinse my mouth with a whole bottle of Listerine, what about that Downtown Extreme Makeover and Eyeliner Authority?

Who knows? At least they’re not putting lipstick on buildings or, in any case, voting a pay raise for themselves… yet.

 

 

* * *

“If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t either.” -Dick Cavett

(We could only hope…)

You know that much sought after 15 minutes of fame? It’s not always such a good thing. In fact, sometimes the last thing you want to see is your name… or in this case, your city’s name in print. More often than not, that fame begets the kind of infamy that breeds either contempt or laughter.

Case in point would be this article from TV station KTRV in Idaho…

PHENIX CITY, Ala. (AP) - Some crooks didn’t have much luck with a cash machine. Authorities in Alabama report the bandits used a stolen backhoe to yank an ATM from its concrete base. The bad guys loaded the cash machine onto a trailer and drove away. But along the way, the cash machine fell off.

That’s right. Idaho.

Oh, and that sound you hear is millions of people rolling on the floor, laughing their butts off…

‘How many Alabamians does it take to steal and ATM? None! Because they can’t! (Har har and har.)

The same story is appearing at the AJC (Atlanta), a TV station in Montgomery and now that it has been picked up by the AP, Lord only knows how many other websites and publications.

Of course, if they had made it work… it would be a different story. But they didn’t. (Yall need to go straight away down to the police and turn yourselves in before you embarrass us any more!)

 
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