Where to play the game

Moderate weather fans were thrown a bone this week when the NFL announced the 2014 Super Bowl will be played in New Jersey.
On cue came the cries of the purists who believe that weather ought not to play a role in determining the outcome of the game. Since the first game was played back in 1968 the league has always chosen a warm climate – California, Florida, New Orleans, Atlanta - for the game.
The decision to play in New Jersey where the forecast for game day in 2014 is temperature in the low thirties, strong winds, and maybe snow, was in part a reward for the new stadium in New Jersey.
All of this is much ado about nothing. To really even things out for having favored warm weather teams these past 43 years the league should put the game in Green Bay.
Remember the NFL championship game between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys played on the frozen tundra on December 31, 1967, when the pre-game wind-chill was minus 70 degrees? By kickoff time knowledgeable weather men in Green Bay were on the plane to the Fijis. The stout-hearted were in Lambeau Field.
With a little over four minutes to play in the fourth quarter, Bart Starr started the Packers on a drive to the end zone 68 ice covered yards away.
Did the weather influence the game? Green Bay fans say, nah: ‘both teams had to play in the same conditions.’ Dallas fans respond: ‘that’s like saying the swimmer and shark were equal since they were both in the water.’
When Starr dove into the South end zone with 13 seconds on the clock his winning touchdown created one of the most memorable moments in NFL history for the Packers, Starr and the fans.
This is what football is all about. Regular season games are played in warm climates, moderate (for football anyway) places like New Jersey and Pittsburgh, and then where real men get tested: Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The Super Bowl ought to get the same billing.
(From my blog.)

Woody Woodpecker is alive and well

Yesterday while walking from the dining room to my apartment building I heard a woodpecker. I paused and look up in a tree but did not see him. I took a few steps and heard him again and I stopped and looked. I thought he wants me to see him. After a minute or so I spotted him about 30 feet up the side of a tree. He commenced his rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat pecking as I stood there watching and listening. Then he moved about 90 degrees to a new position on tree but hit a soft spot and though his beak was moving in and out, or up and down, there was no noise. He flew away and I walked on to my apartment.
(From my blog.

Matterhorn – A tale of courage and survival

It has been a long time since a novel was so compelling I hated to put in down and yearned to pick it up again as soon as I could. This is "Matterhorn." It has nothing to do with that fabled mountain in the Swiss Alps which attracts professional climbers every summer. It is a story about a hill in Vietnam that a company of Marines took, abandoned, and re-took in 1969.

 

I picked up this novel about the same time I was watching the ten-part HBO series "The Pacific," the heroic struggle of the United States Marines during World War II. I was struck by the similarities in both wars.

 

The author, Karl Marlantes, a graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar, served as a Marine in Vietnam. He was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation medals for valor, two Purple Hearts and ten air medals. He brings to this first novel a wealth of first-hand experience about men in war. One wonders if Matterhorn is more auto-biographical than imaginary. In any event it ranks very high among the tales told of the Vietnam experience which I have read over the years. Marlantes says he worked on this, his first novel, for thirty years.

 

This gritty tale has been widely praised and nit-pickingly criticized. Some thought it over-written; others get hung-up on little things like explaining the military lingo in the narrative despite a glossary of weapons, technical terms, slang and jargon, in the back of the book. I did not find this distracting. To the contrary, it helps the uninformed understand immediately without having to flip back and forth.

 

The one thing I believe comes straight at you is the oft told tale about why men fight as they do in battle. They aren't fighting down on the ground in Vietnam for some noble purpose laid down by politicians back home (stop the spread of Communism) or by senior officers way behind the lines (body counts are a measure of progress); they are fighting for their lives and the man at their side.

 

The perspective of the "snuff" (a young Marine of low rank) is always going to be different from that of the career senior officers, "lifers" – quite often a derogatory term implying one who puts career, military rules and decorum above the welfare of the troops. In between these two groups are the young 2^nd lieutenants who live and die with the snuffs but are charged by their seniors to lead them to fight.

 

The battalion commander drinks too much for anyone in charge of troops and is quick off of the mark to find fault and suspect the worst. Marlantes gives us hope at the regiment and division level. The future is not addressed in the novel, but it is reasonable to expect that very shortly an officer's fitness report will put the battalion commander out to pasture.

 

In Vietnam this hierarchical system worked as it has for two-hundred years. It never is pretty, but the job gets done and young Americans rise to the occasion over and over again.

 

It is not going to happen but every American ought to read this tale and imagine himself in the First Squad, First Platoon. Matterhorn will not be a novel you will quit on half-way through. To do so would be deserting the boys in the sweltering mountains and jungle of Vietnam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Youth Join al-Qaeda

The recent bombing attempt in Times Square has renewed questions about what motivates young people to join violent extremist groups. In a new Special Report, United States Institute of Peace Senior Fellow Col. John M. "Matt" Venhaus examines how the terrorist group al-Qaeda recruits young people, who signs up and why, and ways to prevent al-Qaeda from growing its ranks.
Read the Special Report
Click on the Download Now link beneath the image of the report (on the USIP site) or read the summary on the opening page.
(From my blog.)

Shopping at The Pig

In the days when Jesus trod the earth many men drank wine from goatskins. The richer ones had urns which they sometimes filled with water and we all know what happened at that wedding feast. Later on came bottles and real corks, most of which came from Portugal. Enterprising people took this a step further and introduced plastic corks. Time moves on and wine today is being sold in cardboard boxes equal to four 750 liter bottles. It is claimed the wine will stay fresh for a month after being opened. (I guess this is a natural progression to being able to have dog food delivered to our doors.)

If you pass on the wine in the cardboard box, as I did after picking up some apples and bananas at The Pig in Seaside Shoppes, watch yourself at the register, or better yet check the register receipt. I shopped on Saturday. My bill came to over $12. After putting the food away at home I looked a bit closer at the receipt and thought that was a lot of money for three items (I also bought some cow's milk). The apples cost $8.74. WHOA, wait a minute. I didn't buy that many. I got out the scale I use to weigh kilos of coke (that's an attempted funny, don't call the DEA) and had about 20 ounces of apples. Having learned elementary math at the hands of Miss Seed in the Hugh J. Molloy school, I returned to The Pig. The customer service rep weighed the apples and gave me a refund of $5.66. I asked what he intended to do about the scale and register where I checked out and he said "they are OK. The checkout girl probably leaned on the scale" and he would speak to her about it. And since my cash back was over $5 would I please sign the chit he put before me.