Get Back in the Game

Today is the one year anniversary of the founding of the 9/12 Project. I won't get into the details of the Project, just say that if you are conservative and concerned about what is happening to our country, check out the 9/12 Project.  The start of this project was a call in to Glenn Beck's radio program.  A caller said he was so disgusted by what was going on with the government and media that he had just quit listening and paying attention to what was going on.  Beck's advice was to "square your shoulders and get back in the game."

Like I said before, almost everything will remind me of a Dallas Cowboy story.  In case you don't know, the Cowboys won 3 of 4 Super Bowls in the mid-1990's.  The only one they didn't win was won by the 49'ers.  The 49'ers beat the Cowboys in the NFC championship game (the real Super Bowl that year).  In the first quarter of the game, Troy Aikman threw to Michael Irvin on an early drive.  The ball bounced off Irvin's hands and was intercepted and run back for a touchdown by a 49'er.  Next drive, same story.  Cowboys are now down 14-0 and the game has just started.  To make a long story short, or at least not quite as long, three Cowboy turnovers turned into three 49'er touchdowns in the first 20 minutes of the game.  And the Cowboys were down 17 points at half time.  Cowboys' coach Barry Switzer gave the team essentially the same advice Beck gave his caller, "square your shoulders and get back into the game."  It was probably Aikman's best game as a Cowboy quarterback.   He fell short 38-28, but anyone watching knew who was really the best team.  The Cowboys took that loss and used it as the basis for their dominating season and Super Bowl victory the next season.

If Americans respond the way Aikman and the Cowboys did that day, we might lose the healthcare game, but win the larger game and get our country back.

Unfortunately, I am also reminded of another Cowboy story.  In the early 1980's, NFL players went on strike and the owners used strike busters in some of the season.  Kevin Sweeney was the Cowboy quarterback.  He was an effective college quarterback, but at only 5'9" he just wasn't built for the NFL once the big boys came back to work.  The season following the strike, the Cowboys invited Sweeney to training camp, even though he had no shot at making the team.  In the first preseason game, the Cowboys trailed the Houston Oilers by more than 40 points and the Texas Stadium crowd was chanting  "Sweeney, Sweeney, Sweeney!"  After an Oiler punt pinned the Cowboys offense inside their own 5 yard line, with under three minutes left in the game, Coach Tom Landry relented to the crowd's wishes and put Kevin Sweeney in at quarterback.  The crowd went crazy.  Sweeney goes into the huddle looks up at the scoreboard, the clock and the endzone, more than 95 yards away.  He looks around the huddle at the other third teamers now in the game, shakes his head and says,"Boys, I'm not sure I can win this one."  Two sacks and an incompletion later, the Cowboys punt and Sweeney's NFL career is over.

I hope America is more comparable to Aikman's Cowboys than Sweeney's team now.  I guess we will soon learn.

Everyone's a Winner!!

Read this book! Did you watch the Winter Olympics?  Yeah, me neither.  Well except for a short three and a half hour Saturday morning curling match (game? contest?)that is.  I still don't quite understand, but I just couldn't stop watching.  The fact that it was about 15 degrees below zero here in Gunnison probably increased my fascination with televised curling.  That probably also explains the Canadian obsession with the sport.

I saw from the final medal count that the U.S. dominated the X-game-ified version of the winter Olympics.  And that Russia had their lowest medal total ever.  Predictably, Russia was very upset.  I saw on the news yesterday that any Russian coach that doesn't resign will be fired.  Losing is not acceptable in Russia.  Beats the old Soviet Union response.  Coaches and athletes disappeared after disappointing performances back then.  Kind of a hyper-competitive response for a communist or socialist society, huh?  

If our current President holds true to form, he will soon be apologizing for our winter Olympians' rude behavior during the Olympics.  No, I haven't heard any stories about our hockey team trashing their hotel this time.  I mean their greedy grab of all those medals.  President Obama has tried his entire first year in office to right just this type of wrong.  Now, on a world stage, here's all these boorish Americans acting so, so, well, American.  You know, working hard and training for years, and finally performing better than anyone else in the world.  And horror of horrors, being rewarded for it!  It's just not fair, Americans collecting all those medals.  No wonder Chavez hates us.  How many medals did Venezuela get?

America's Declaration of Independence states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."  Created equal.  Not that we live equal.  Not that we have equal talents.  Not that we work equally. Not that we finish equal.  Not that we get equal rewards.  Everyone doesn't get a gold medal.  Everyone doesn't even get a medal.  But that we are created equal.  We have the same starting line.

Hopefully President Obama will be able to avoid this type embarrassment in the summer Olympics by proposing some rule changes to redistribute the wealth, I mean medals.  The 100 meter dash will have a staggered start.  Bolt will run 140 meters, the U.S. basketball team will have a 12 ft. goal and 4 players, some shot puts will weigh 5 lbs., others 10 lbs, and others 15 lbs., and of course Michael Phelps will have to wear a lead-lined Speedo.  Gold medals for everyone!  One big stage for the medal ceremony.  How long will it take for all those national anthems to be played?  What do you think the television ratings will be like for those Olympics?  Wrong!  They will be the same as all the other network ratings.  Remember, everyone wins!

Actually if President Obama held true to form, he would just forcibly tax penalize top performers by confiscating their medals and giving them to those who didn't do as well.  Now that's the Russian new American way.