Where's My Hovercraft?

When I was in college, I subscribed to both the Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald newspapers.  I read both every morning before going to my 8 am class.  Guess I've always been a morning person.  My main reason for getting both papers was the sports sections.  The Morning News had Randy Galloway and David Casstevens as columnists.  The Times Herald had Skip Bayless and Blackie Sherrod.  All were very good writers and seemed to have changed papers a couple of times before the Times Herald finally went under.  I always looked forward to Blackie Sherrod's Sunday column titled Scattershooting.  Each column began with the phrase - "Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to..." and was just a collection of random thoughts and observations.

So, with respect to Mr. Sherrod:

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Blackie Sherrod.

Scattershooting refers to shotguns for those non-western readers.

Remember when Popular Science said that "the internet is the pet rock of the 90's?"


Popular Mechanics predicted that helicopters would become so cheap and easy to fly that they would replace cars by the year 2000.


Alvin Toffler's Future Shock predicted the computer would reduce the average American's work week to 30 hours or less.  With unemployment at 10% and rising, we may be close.  Doesn't take too many zero hour work weeks to offset those 60 hour ones.


Why is it always 75 year old fry cooks who win the lottery?  And why do they always say they will still go to work on Monday?  Shouldn't a psychic win at least once?


Why would anyone making more than $250,000 a year vote for Obama?  A better question, how could anyone that stupid make $250,000 or more a year?  If you want to help the unfortunate, give to the cause you believe in.  Does anyone, anyone with a brain anyway, believe that giving your money to the federal government to help others, actually helps others?  Well, if you count government employees and bureaucrats, I guess it does help others.  Is that what you intended?

Colin Powell, how is endorsing Obama for president just because he "looks like you" not a racist act.  Or have you been lying about your beliefs for the past 20 years?  Especially over a member of your own political party and FELLOW SOLDIER!!  Liar or racist, tough choice.

Remember when kids played basketball, baseball, and football without adult supervision and always kept score?  And learned more from losing than winning.  Mainly that it was much more fun to win!  And don't taunt your opponents or do a dance after a score.  Like Tom Landry told Drew Pearson, "act like you've been there before."

I miss Tom Landry. And Bear Bryant.  I hope Joe Paterno and Mack Brown never retire.  Remember when a reporter asked Paterno if he was interested in an NFL job?  He answered, "and leave college football to people like Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer?  Never."

Air powered hovercrafts have been advertised in the back pages of comics since the 60's, or maybe even longer.  They should work.  Why hasn't someone perfected them yet?  Probably George Bush's fault.


Thanks Blackie.

Change the Past Control the Future

In college, I think it was freshman literature, I read a science fiction collection called Last Defender of Camelot, by Roger Zelazny.  My favorite short story in the book was A Game of Blood and Dust.  In the story, intelligent beings play a game where they are each able to change three events in  history.  Then they let history play out and see if human life on earth continues, blood wins, or if mankind eliminates itself, dust wins.  For example, in one of the scenarios, the blood player makes John Wilkes Boothe successful in his attempt to assassinate President Lincoln (implying that originally Lincoln survived).  Anyway, the theme is that with only a few minor changes the course of events is altered.

Our politicians have learned that lesson.  But since they are unable to actually change past events, they are changing how they are reported or recorded or, most importantly, taught.  For example, what do you think of when President Grant is mentioned?  Of course, the first thing I think of is his victory as general of the Union army in the Civil War.  But I was also taught that he was a drunken butcher that only won because the Union had superior numbers and resources.  I seem to remember being taught that he graduated last in his class at West Point.  As President, his reputation was even worse.  Again, he was a drunken executive that overlooked rampant corruption that almost destroyed the recently saved Union.  Take a look at Ulysses S. Grant: His Life and Character for a more accurate view of the great general and President.  While in office, he would get daily visits from his former Union soldiers, coming by to thank him for leading them through the terrible war.  Sound like a drunken commander who forced his men through a meatgrinder at the unnecessary cost of thousands of lives?  Hardly.  As President, he advocated a peaceful integration of Native Americans into white man's culture.  He worried that the only alternative was "a war of extermination."  Again, not exactly what you would expect from a blood-thirsty warrior.  After leaving office, he was greatly respected by most Americans, ranking only behind Washington and Lincoln in esteem.  

So, why the change in the public's perception?  It's not like he did anything after office to change our view.  Could it possibly be that while in office, he constantly supported the position of the individual states over the federal government?  You know, like the Constitution requires.  The Constitution that he and all other Presidents take an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend."  After President Theodore Roosevelt's term, only 24 years after Grant, the focus was on the powers of the federal government.  And since then, with the exception of President Reagan's two terms, the federal government has been slowly and at times, not so slowly, grabbing more and more power.  So, by the time FDR comes into office and begins to accelerate the power grab, Grant is being portrayed as a drunken fool.  

With me, almost everything has a sports, or more likely, a Dallas Cowboy analogy.  When Drew Pearson played for the Cowboys in the 1970's and early 1980's, he was a perennial All-Pro.  Along with Steve Largent, he was seen as the league's top receiver.  And with his big plays at crucial times, no receiver was more "clutch" than Drew Pearson.  Yet, he has never even made it to the final ballot of Hall of Fame voting.  Why not?  Receivers like Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, who have similiar stats but at least in Stallworth's case, nowhere near the longevity or the clutch plays are in the Hall.  Pearson was the victim of some politics by some voters.  Tackle Rayfield Wright finally overcame the same issues just a couple of years ago.  More than twenty years after he last played a game.  To see the true greatness of a player, look at how they were perceived when they actually played.  Don't let years of revision cloud your perception. 

Grant has suffered from this kind of biased revision.  On the flip side, FDR has enjoyed a complete historical makeover.  Historians and economists have quietly said for years that Roosevelt's policies did nothing to end the Great Depression, and actually may have made it worse and more lengthy.  Yet, we are taught in school that Roosevelt was one of our greatest Presidents and was so beloved by Americans that he was elected to office four times!  He was so beloved that only six years after he died, Americans ratified the 22nd Amendment, guaranteeing that no one would ever hold the office more than eight years.  Just to compare, the Equal Rights Amendment was first proposed in 1923, and today, only 87 years later, it still has not been ratified!  Sounds like Roosevelt was truly loved and respected by all.  Or at least all progressive historians.

I'll continue this tomorrow, I've gone kind of long here!