Whether the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package and its relief plan for homeowners will achieve its desired results is debatable. The Great Depression didn’t end until America entered World War Two. Congress passed Ronald Reagan’s tax cut in 1981 but had to endure two hard years of economic recession before the Reagan Recovery took effect. The severity and breadth of our present crisis requires a special patience from the American people. Whether the American people are presently capable of such patience is also debatable.
What is not debatable is the skill and speed with which Obama Administration got the stimulus package passed and signed into law. Whether you are for or against the package, Obama deftly and subtly utilized his negotiating and oratorical skills and the political skills of his Cabinet and staff to get Congress to approve the deal. Despite facing Republican opposition in the House and Senate; despite experiencing tangential obstacles like the withdrawal of some his Cabinet nominees for various embarrassing reasons, Obama never lost focus and never lost sight of what had to be done. He held firm against any attempt at pulling the teeth from the stimulus package but at the same time allowed room for compromise in order to insure passage of the bill. Obama did what he could to bring a bipartisan feel to the bill. I can’t see how he could have done anything more without compromising the effectiveness or integrity of the package. After he got House passage of the bill he faced the prospect of a filibuster in the Senate. Amazingly, however, it didn’t happen. He got the three G.O.P. votes needed for cloture and secured Senate passage in record time and, even more amazingly, got the House and Senate to reconcile the two bills even more swiftly than the original Senate bill.
Critics carp that Obama only got three Republican votes in the Senate. What they forget is that Bill Clinton got no Republican votes at all when he needed Congress to pass his tax increase to reduce the budget deficit and get the economy moving again. He may have only gotten three votes but those three votes were all that he needed—a lesser President would not have gotten those three votes. Obama got them. That speaks volumes about his potential for leadership.
Obama didn’t have to resort to fear-mongering or arm-twisting like George W. Bush did. Obama allowed the bleak news to convince Congress. Necessity alone dictated that some sort of plan had to pass if this nation is to regain its economic confidence and reestablish its primacy again. To do nothing was to fail.
For all the conservative cant (and it is cant) about labeling the Obama stimulus package as nothing more than a massive borrow and spend bill what conservatives really don’t want the American people to remember is that America has been engaging in borrow and spend fiscal policies since 1981. The Reagan Recovery of 1983 to 1987 was financed by money which didn’t exist. Presidents Bush the Elder, Clinton, and Bush the Younger all perpetuated this trend. The only differences are in the ideological foci of the spending bills. The last truly fiscal conservative President (who truly believed in balanced budgets and cutting government spending) was Dwight Eisenhower.
For all the G.O.P.’s ideological posturing and their partisan hand-wringing, the truth remains is that they had six years from 2001 to 2007 to practice what they preached about fiscal sanity and less government—and they refused to do so.
Ideological purity is all well and good but to paraphrase the Lakota medicine man Black Elk: you can’t eat ideological purity. You can’t cash ideological purity at the bank. You can’t use ideological purity to pay for groceries or the mortgage or the car loans or your kids’ college education.
All this country can do now is hunker down and pray that the economic stimulus package works somehow.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Abraham Lincoln: a Bicentennial
The number of books, articles, columns, novels, and stories written about Abraham Lincoln could fill a large arena. Considering the fact that two days from now America will celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth the challenge that confronts this writer is what can I write about Lincoln which hasn’t been written before?
Instead I would like to define Abraham Lincoln in a series of vignettes. The first vignette happened on April 7, 1865. Lee’s army was in full retreat and racing towards its rendezvous with destiny at Appomattox Courthouse. Two huge Union Army columns were converging on Lee from the North and South, trapping him. One of the column leaders, General Phil Sheridan sent a telegraph to Ulysses S. Grant saying, “If the thing is pressed. I think Lee will surrender.” Lincoln, who for years had monitored all cable traffic sent by the Union armies, did a rare and extraordinary thing: he telegraphed Sheridan and Grant both saying, “Let the thing be pressed. “
Lincoln’s cable is a terse testament to the iron will which sustained not only him but a divided nation which suffered through four horrific, bloody years of Civil War. Throughout those four years Lincoln had to repeatedly give orders which resulted in tens of thousands of brave men on both sides to go to their deaths. Throughout those four years Lincoln repeatedly struggled and implored the vast majority of his generals to let the thing be pressed so as to bring this war to a quick, decisive, victorious conclusion only to be denied because many of his commanders were too timid, too incompetent or too unwilling to push until the Confederacy gave in. It wasn’t until 1864 when he found Grant, Sheridan, and William Tecumseh Sherman that he found commanders with the same steely resolve to let the thing be pressed. For too long Lincoln had seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. He was determined not to let it happen again. That was why he sent the cable to Sheridan and Grant, imploring action. (Not that they needed it. Both generals were just as eager to end the war as Lincoln was).
Two days later Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse.
The second vignette happened days after Lee’s surrender. Washington, D.C. was alit with torches of celebration over the restoration of the Union. Lincoln, having spoken so often during the war now wanted to speak in a time of peace. Lincoln stood in a window of the White House while a huge crowd gathered below anxious to hear what he had to say. Lincoln spoke to the crowds in his inimitable way and, in the course of his speech, asked the assembled throng a rhetorical question, “What shall we do with the rebels?”
The crowd, wearied by the long war, thirsting for revenge cried out, “Hang them! Hang them! Hang them!”
It was then Lincoln’s young son, Tad, who had been sitting at his feet inside the White House while his father spoke, cried out to his father, “No, Pa! We must hang onto them!” Lincoln, who weeks before had told the nation, “With malice towards none and charity for all” looked down at his young son, smiled, and said for the crowd to hear, “that’s exactly right, son, we must hang onto them.”
That magnanimity of spirit came from a moral code which had been forged and sharpened by a lifetime of hard work, sacrifice, heartbreak, disappointment, and struggle. It was that moral code that allowed Lincoln to overcome disunion, public vituperation, military defeat, and potential political ruination in the course of restoring the sacred oneness of America and to allow this country to once more proceed on its unfinished quest to form a more perfect union. Eighty years later Winston Churchill defined the moral code as being “In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: good will.”
That is why we honor Abraham Lincoln today.
Instead I would like to define Abraham Lincoln in a series of vignettes. The first vignette happened on April 7, 1865. Lee’s army was in full retreat and racing towards its rendezvous with destiny at Appomattox Courthouse. Two huge Union Army columns were converging on Lee from the North and South, trapping him. One of the column leaders, General Phil Sheridan sent a telegraph to Ulysses S. Grant saying, “If the thing is pressed. I think Lee will surrender.” Lincoln, who for years had monitored all cable traffic sent by the Union armies, did a rare and extraordinary thing: he telegraphed Sheridan and Grant both saying, “Let the thing be pressed. “
Lincoln’s cable is a terse testament to the iron will which sustained not only him but a divided nation which suffered through four horrific, bloody years of Civil War. Throughout those four years Lincoln had to repeatedly give orders which resulted in tens of thousands of brave men on both sides to go to their deaths. Throughout those four years Lincoln repeatedly struggled and implored the vast majority of his generals to let the thing be pressed so as to bring this war to a quick, decisive, victorious conclusion only to be denied because many of his commanders were too timid, too incompetent or too unwilling to push until the Confederacy gave in. It wasn’t until 1864 when he found Grant, Sheridan, and William Tecumseh Sherman that he found commanders with the same steely resolve to let the thing be pressed. For too long Lincoln had seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. He was determined not to let it happen again. That was why he sent the cable to Sheridan and Grant, imploring action. (Not that they needed it. Both generals were just as eager to end the war as Lincoln was).
Two days later Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse.
The second vignette happened days after Lee’s surrender. Washington, D.C. was alit with torches of celebration over the restoration of the Union. Lincoln, having spoken so often during the war now wanted to speak in a time of peace. Lincoln stood in a window of the White House while a huge crowd gathered below anxious to hear what he had to say. Lincoln spoke to the crowds in his inimitable way and, in the course of his speech, asked the assembled throng a rhetorical question, “What shall we do with the rebels?”
The crowd, wearied by the long war, thirsting for revenge cried out, “Hang them! Hang them! Hang them!”
It was then Lincoln’s young son, Tad, who had been sitting at his feet inside the White House while his father spoke, cried out to his father, “No, Pa! We must hang onto them!” Lincoln, who weeks before had told the nation, “With malice towards none and charity for all” looked down at his young son, smiled, and said for the crowd to hear, “that’s exactly right, son, we must hang onto them.”
That magnanimity of spirit came from a moral code which had been forged and sharpened by a lifetime of hard work, sacrifice, heartbreak, disappointment, and struggle. It was that moral code that allowed Lincoln to overcome disunion, public vituperation, military defeat, and potential political ruination in the course of restoring the sacred oneness of America and to allow this country to once more proceed on its unfinished quest to form a more perfect union. Eighty years later Winston Churchill defined the moral code as being “In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: good will.”
That is why we honor Abraham Lincoln today.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Super Sunday: A Long Time Coming for the Cardinals
I love it when two small market teams play one another for the world championship in any of the four major sports but particularly for football or baseball. Even though the networks always bemoan small market match-ups they usually provide first rate competition in terms of pure athletic performance.
Even though there seems to be less hype for this Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals than there was for last year’s match-up between the unbeaten New England Patriots and the New York Giants, Super Bowl XLIII should be a well-fought game between two enduring NFL franchises.
The Steelers have had their fair share of Super Bowl triumphs (indeed their last Super Bowl appearance and victory was in 2006) but for the Arizona Cardinals this marks their first ever Super Bowl appearance.
It’s been a long, strange trip for the Cardinals. The last time they ever appeared in an NFL championship game was in 1948 (where they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles ironically enough the same team they beat two weeks ago to get to the Super Bowl). The last time the Cardinals ever won an NFL championship was in 1947 against the very same Philadelphia Eagles—and that was when they were the Chicago Cardinals.
The Cardinals franchise (like the Green Bay Packers) pre-dates the NFL itself. Until 1960 (when they moved to St. Louis) they shared the Windy City with their East Side rivals the Chicago Bears, playing in Comiskey Park while the Bears played in Wrigley Field. They won their first NFL championship in 1925 under slightly dubious circumstances. They were awarded the NFL title because another team the Pottsville Maroons (that’s right football fans Pottsville, Pennsylvania had an NFL franchise) violated league rules by playing an unauthorized exhibition game and were stripped of the NFL title. The Cardinals were granted the title instead.
Until 1947 the Cardinals were eclipsed by the Bears, usually playing at a mediocre level. During World War Two the Cardinals had to endure a temporary merger with the Pittsburgh Steelers ironically enough just to survive for one season (they were called the Chicago-Pittsburgh Carpets and they were treated like carpets—losing all their games in 1944).
The Cardinals experienced an all-to-brief revival when they won the 1947 NFL title with the Dream backfield of Paul Christman, Charley Trippi, Elmer Angsman, and Pat Harder. Sadly for the Cardinals though they reverted to their mediocre status and never made it to an NFL Championship game until now.
Despite all these slings and arrows the Cardinals always had some great football players who rose above the mess left by their teammates. NFL legends like Ernie Nevers, Ollie Matson, Larry Wilson, and Dan Dierdorf played for the Cardinals. Top-flight players like Jim Hart, Jackie Smith, Charley Johnson, and Jim Bakken earned their wings for the Cardinals too.
But even moving to St. Louis wasn’t good enough so the Cardinals moved to Phoenix and swiftly became the dumping ground and the cheapest franchise in the NFL.
The fact that the Cardinals have made it to the Super Bowl seems impossible to believe but there they are and it feels wonderful to see such an incongruity in professional football.
Emotionally I want the Cardinals just to end their role as the NFL franchise with the longest championship drought (after the Cardinals are the hapless Detroit Lions who haven’t won since 1957). Pittsburgh has already won their Super Bowl three years ago. I also want the Cardinals to win for the uniquely historical fact that Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner will attempt to become the first NFL quarterback to lead two different teams to Super Bowl victories. Warner won Super Bowl XXXIV for the Rams. Now he will try to win for the Cardinals. The only other NFL quarterback I know who led two different teams to Super Bowl appearances was Craig Morton who led the Cowboys to a Super Bowl V appearance and the Denver Broncos to a Super Bowl XII appearance losing both in the process.
If the Cardinals win on Sunday then it will be a well deserved return to glory for Kurt Warner whose NFL career has been a roller-coaster ride from obscurity to glory back to obscurity before returning to glory again. Warner is living proof of the Roman poet Virgil’s phrase, “adversity has a way of eliciting talents which otherwise would have lain dormant.”
It’s going to be a fun game.
Even though there seems to be less hype for this Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals than there was for last year’s match-up between the unbeaten New England Patriots and the New York Giants, Super Bowl XLIII should be a well-fought game between two enduring NFL franchises.
The Steelers have had their fair share of Super Bowl triumphs (indeed their last Super Bowl appearance and victory was in 2006) but for the Arizona Cardinals this marks their first ever Super Bowl appearance.
It’s been a long, strange trip for the Cardinals. The last time they ever appeared in an NFL championship game was in 1948 (where they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles ironically enough the same team they beat two weeks ago to get to the Super Bowl). The last time the Cardinals ever won an NFL championship was in 1947 against the very same Philadelphia Eagles—and that was when they were the Chicago Cardinals.
The Cardinals franchise (like the Green Bay Packers) pre-dates the NFL itself. Until 1960 (when they moved to St. Louis) they shared the Windy City with their East Side rivals the Chicago Bears, playing in Comiskey Park while the Bears played in Wrigley Field. They won their first NFL championship in 1925 under slightly dubious circumstances. They were awarded the NFL title because another team the Pottsville Maroons (that’s right football fans Pottsville, Pennsylvania had an NFL franchise) violated league rules by playing an unauthorized exhibition game and were stripped of the NFL title. The Cardinals were granted the title instead.
Until 1947 the Cardinals were eclipsed by the Bears, usually playing at a mediocre level. During World War Two the Cardinals had to endure a temporary merger with the Pittsburgh Steelers ironically enough just to survive for one season (they were called the Chicago-Pittsburgh Carpets and they were treated like carpets—losing all their games in 1944).
The Cardinals experienced an all-to-brief revival when they won the 1947 NFL title with the Dream backfield of Paul Christman, Charley Trippi, Elmer Angsman, and Pat Harder. Sadly for the Cardinals though they reverted to their mediocre status and never made it to an NFL Championship game until now.
Despite all these slings and arrows the Cardinals always had some great football players who rose above the mess left by their teammates. NFL legends like Ernie Nevers, Ollie Matson, Larry Wilson, and Dan Dierdorf played for the Cardinals. Top-flight players like Jim Hart, Jackie Smith, Charley Johnson, and Jim Bakken earned their wings for the Cardinals too.
But even moving to St. Louis wasn’t good enough so the Cardinals moved to Phoenix and swiftly became the dumping ground and the cheapest franchise in the NFL.
The fact that the Cardinals have made it to the Super Bowl seems impossible to believe but there they are and it feels wonderful to see such an incongruity in professional football.
Emotionally I want the Cardinals just to end their role as the NFL franchise with the longest championship drought (after the Cardinals are the hapless Detroit Lions who haven’t won since 1957). Pittsburgh has already won their Super Bowl three years ago. I also want the Cardinals to win for the uniquely historical fact that Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner will attempt to become the first NFL quarterback to lead two different teams to Super Bowl victories. Warner won Super Bowl XXXIV for the Rams. Now he will try to win for the Cardinals. The only other NFL quarterback I know who led two different teams to Super Bowl appearances was Craig Morton who led the Cowboys to a Super Bowl V appearance and the Denver Broncos to a Super Bowl XII appearance losing both in the process.
If the Cardinals win on Sunday then it will be a well deserved return to glory for Kurt Warner whose NFL career has been a roller-coaster ride from obscurity to glory back to obscurity before returning to glory again. Warner is living proof of the Roman poet Virgil’s phrase, “adversity has a way of eliciting talents which otherwise would have lain dormant.”
It’s going to be a fun game.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Inauguration Day, 2009
The day he was inaugurated as President in 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended Episcopal services before he was sworn into office. FDR biographer Ted Morgan writes that “He remained in prayer long after the clergy had retired, making his compact with the Almighty.” The compact FDR made that day would last twelve years and would bring America out of economic depression and international isolation into the dawn of a new era of world power and responsibility.
Threescore and sixteen years later, the need for President Barack Obama to make a compact with Almighty is imperative. The crises afflicting our nation are not solely economic or financial, they are environmental, educational, cultural, international, internal, and—given the deliberately amoral abuses of power inflicted upon the American people during the past eight years—moral as well. To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Othello, this is the day that either makes us or fordoes us quite.
America has touched bottom. We are shaken to our foundations and we are grasping at the remaining strands of hope that flicker elusively in our collective vision.
Pundits from the Right and Left can argue indefinitely about whether President Obama’s policies will work or not but something must be done. Inaction is unthinkable. To do nothing is not only an admission of failure but also a dereliction of duty as elected representatives of the American people. Those who support or oppose Obama need to keep this in mind.
How long will it take to turn the country around? Recent polls suggest that Americans will give Obama two years but we need to be reminded that America was still in Depression long after FDR’s New Deal reforms and programs had been instituted and that it took our entry into World War Two to turn the economy around. Sometimes recovery takes awhile.
That is why not only President Obama needs to make a compact with God we need to make one too.
Amen.
Threescore and sixteen years later, the need for President Barack Obama to make a compact with Almighty is imperative. The crises afflicting our nation are not solely economic or financial, they are environmental, educational, cultural, international, internal, and—given the deliberately amoral abuses of power inflicted upon the American people during the past eight years—moral as well. To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Othello, this is the day that either makes us or fordoes us quite.
America has touched bottom. We are shaken to our foundations and we are grasping at the remaining strands of hope that flicker elusively in our collective vision.
Pundits from the Right and Left can argue indefinitely about whether President Obama’s policies will work or not but something must be done. Inaction is unthinkable. To do nothing is not only an admission of failure but also a dereliction of duty as elected representatives of the American people. Those who support or oppose Obama need to keep this in mind.
How long will it take to turn the country around? Recent polls suggest that Americans will give Obama two years but we need to be reminded that America was still in Depression long after FDR’s New Deal reforms and programs had been instituted and that it took our entry into World War Two to turn the economy around. Sometimes recovery takes awhile.
That is why not only President Obama needs to make a compact with God we need to make one too.
Amen.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Saying Goodbye to Slingin' Sammy Baugh
The death of Washington Redskin legend and NFL Hall-of-Fame quarterback Sammy Baugh earlier this month represents an end to a chapter in the early history of the NFL. Sammy Baugh played sixteen seasons with the Washington Redskins from 1937 to 1952. In the first nine seasons of his career, he led the Redskins to two NFL championships and five Eastern Conference titles. When he retired in 1952 he was the greatest passer in NFL history. In between Baugh redefined the role of the quarterback and made the forward pass a vital, essential part of the game itself.
Before Baugh came along the forward pass was a desperation measure to be solely when the offense faced a third and long situation and even then when the ball was thrown it wasn’t thrown with any particular grace or style. Baugh changed that. He brought beauty, power, grace, and style to the quarterback position and made the pass a viable option on first and second downs.
Before Baugh, NFL offenses used the single wing or double wing formations which were earlier forms of today’s shotgun formations that heavily emphasized running. When Baugh joined the NFL he changed that. Standing in the tailback position (in the single wing and double wing the quarterback was a mere blocking back) Baugh would take snap and look to pass to his ends or wing backs. Invariably Baugh would find the open man and sling a bullet to the receiver, usually for huge yardage. (In the 1937 NFL championship game against the Chicago Bears, Baugh connected for TD passes for fifty-five and seventy-seven yards). Whereas NFL teams used only three defensive backs now they had to use four or more defensive backs against Baugh thus revolutionizing NFL defenses just as Baugh was revamping NFL offenses.
Baugh was an incredibly accurate thrower. In 1945 he completed 70.3% of his passes; a record never to be broken. (Baugh threw 182 passes and completed 128 of them—modest by today’s standards but today’s NFL quarterbacks throw 180 passes by week four of the regular season).
Not only was Baugh accurate he was also supremely confident in himself. During Baugh’s rookie season Redskins coach Ray Flaherty was outlining a pass pattern on a chalkboard and he told Baugh, “When the receiver reaches here, you hit him in the eye with the ball.” Baugh shot back deadpan, “which eye?”
(Baugh wasn’t joking about hitting a player in the eye. Late in his career when he was a living legend, Baugh was given a cheap-shot hit by an opposing rookie defensive lineman. Baugh admonished the rookie to take it easy whereupon the impertinent rookie gave Baugh another cheap-shot on the very next play. Baugh told his linemen to let the rookie through on the next play—which they did—whereupon Baugh threw a line-drive pass that hit the rookie right between the eyes and knocked him out—remember football fans they didn’t wear face masks in those days).
And yet Baugh was more than a passer. In those days when players played both offense and defense, Baugh was a decent defensive back who once intercepted four passes in one game. Baugh was also one of the greatest punters in the NFL, averaging forty-five yards a punt—which is still exceptional in today’s game. Indeed Baugh was a master of the quick kick—a play never seen in today’s game. Many a time Baugh would fade back to pass only to fool the opposing defense by quick-kicking the ball thus trapping the opposing team deep in their own territory. In the 1942 NFL championship game against the Chicago Bears, Baugh launched an eighty-five yard quick kick that caught the Bears flat-footed. The Redskins would win that game 14-6.
Sammy Baugh’s impact on the game went beyond the football field. Baugh’s presence on the Washington Redskins made the nation’s capitol into the pro football capitol of America. In 1937 Redskins owner George Preston Marshall moved the team from Boston to Washington and desperately needed a big star who could draw big crowds to watch his team. Sammy Baugh was that star and when he won the NFL championship in his rookie season (only one of two NFL quarterbacks ever to do that if I’m not mistaken—the other was Bob Waterfield in 1945 with the Cleveland Rams) Baugh made the Washington Redskins a viable NFL franchise which it remains today. Baugh also was the first in a long line of great Redskin quarterbacks who would lead the ‘Skins to victory: Eddie LeBaron, Sonny Jurgensen, Billy Kilmer, Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, and Mark Rypien. It was Baugh who laid the foundations of the iron covenant that exists today between the Redskins and their loyal fans.
Sammy Baugh should be revered by football fans because he was a vital link in the evolutionary chain of the quarterback position in the football. Before Sammy Baugh came along the greatest football quarterback was Bennie Friedman. Baugh took the antecedents that Friedman established in the realm of forward passing and elevated them to an unprecedented level. When Baugh retired in 1952 his standards would be taken up (and surpassed) by NFL legends Otto Graham, John Unitas, Joe Namath, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, and Peyton Manning. Simply put, the achievements his successors made would not have been possible without Sammy Baugh paving the way.
All NFL quarterbacks today owe Sammy Baugh a debt of thanks.
As do NFL fans as well.
Thanks for the memories Sammy Baugh. Rest in Peace.
Happy New Year.
Before Baugh came along the forward pass was a desperation measure to be solely when the offense faced a third and long situation and even then when the ball was thrown it wasn’t thrown with any particular grace or style. Baugh changed that. He brought beauty, power, grace, and style to the quarterback position and made the pass a viable option on first and second downs.
Before Baugh, NFL offenses used the single wing or double wing formations which were earlier forms of today’s shotgun formations that heavily emphasized running. When Baugh joined the NFL he changed that. Standing in the tailback position (in the single wing and double wing the quarterback was a mere blocking back) Baugh would take snap and look to pass to his ends or wing backs. Invariably Baugh would find the open man and sling a bullet to the receiver, usually for huge yardage. (In the 1937 NFL championship game against the Chicago Bears, Baugh connected for TD passes for fifty-five and seventy-seven yards). Whereas NFL teams used only three defensive backs now they had to use four or more defensive backs against Baugh thus revolutionizing NFL defenses just as Baugh was revamping NFL offenses.
Baugh was an incredibly accurate thrower. In 1945 he completed 70.3% of his passes; a record never to be broken. (Baugh threw 182 passes and completed 128 of them—modest by today’s standards but today’s NFL quarterbacks throw 180 passes by week four of the regular season).
Not only was Baugh accurate he was also supremely confident in himself. During Baugh’s rookie season Redskins coach Ray Flaherty was outlining a pass pattern on a chalkboard and he told Baugh, “When the receiver reaches here, you hit him in the eye with the ball.” Baugh shot back deadpan, “which eye?”
(Baugh wasn’t joking about hitting a player in the eye. Late in his career when he was a living legend, Baugh was given a cheap-shot hit by an opposing rookie defensive lineman. Baugh admonished the rookie to take it easy whereupon the impertinent rookie gave Baugh another cheap-shot on the very next play. Baugh told his linemen to let the rookie through on the next play—which they did—whereupon Baugh threw a line-drive pass that hit the rookie right between the eyes and knocked him out—remember football fans they didn’t wear face masks in those days).
And yet Baugh was more than a passer. In those days when players played both offense and defense, Baugh was a decent defensive back who once intercepted four passes in one game. Baugh was also one of the greatest punters in the NFL, averaging forty-five yards a punt—which is still exceptional in today’s game. Indeed Baugh was a master of the quick kick—a play never seen in today’s game. Many a time Baugh would fade back to pass only to fool the opposing defense by quick-kicking the ball thus trapping the opposing team deep in their own territory. In the 1942 NFL championship game against the Chicago Bears, Baugh launched an eighty-five yard quick kick that caught the Bears flat-footed. The Redskins would win that game 14-6.
Sammy Baugh’s impact on the game went beyond the football field. Baugh’s presence on the Washington Redskins made the nation’s capitol into the pro football capitol of America. In 1937 Redskins owner George Preston Marshall moved the team from Boston to Washington and desperately needed a big star who could draw big crowds to watch his team. Sammy Baugh was that star and when he won the NFL championship in his rookie season (only one of two NFL quarterbacks ever to do that if I’m not mistaken—the other was Bob Waterfield in 1945 with the Cleveland Rams) Baugh made the Washington Redskins a viable NFL franchise which it remains today. Baugh also was the first in a long line of great Redskin quarterbacks who would lead the ‘Skins to victory: Eddie LeBaron, Sonny Jurgensen, Billy Kilmer, Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, and Mark Rypien. It was Baugh who laid the foundations of the iron covenant that exists today between the Redskins and their loyal fans.
Sammy Baugh should be revered by football fans because he was a vital link in the evolutionary chain of the quarterback position in the football. Before Sammy Baugh came along the greatest football quarterback was Bennie Friedman. Baugh took the antecedents that Friedman established in the realm of forward passing and elevated them to an unprecedented level. When Baugh retired in 1952 his standards would be taken up (and surpassed) by NFL legends Otto Graham, John Unitas, Joe Namath, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, and Peyton Manning. Simply put, the achievements his successors made would not have been possible without Sammy Baugh paving the way.
All NFL quarterbacks today owe Sammy Baugh a debt of thanks.
As do NFL fans as well.
Thanks for the memories Sammy Baugh. Rest in Peace.
Happy New Year.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Because of the War, There Went The Shoe
I must admit that I had a very good laugh last Sunday when the all news shows aired the footage of Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi hurling his shoes as well as verbal abuse at President Bush. In terms of iconic political moments it ranks up there with the photograph of an egg impacting on the face Wendell Wilkie the G.O.P. nominee in the 1940 Presidential Election.
What al-Zeidi did stands as a very courageous act in that he did what the American press never had the courage to do since 2003: stand up and expose the base bloody hypocrisy of the Second Persian Gulf War and strike back at the perpetrator of that base bloody hypocrisy.
When President Bush stood there and tried to give his self-serving speech about the Second Persian Gulf War (essentially doing what Pontius Pilate, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon tried to do in the past: justify the unjustifiable) Al-Zeidi let the President—and the rest of the world—know that he (along with millions other people throughout the world) weren’t having any of it. For all of President Bush’s cant of “victory”, “democracy” and “freedom of speech” no other President did more to stifle dissent and civil liberties in his own country. When one also considers the thought that over four thousand Americans will not be allowed to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones because of the fact that they were killed in action in Iraq and the fact that thousands more Iraqis (innocent and insurgent) were killed also, it makes any decent individual want to throw their shoes in protest as well. What al-Zeidi did ranks up there with the image of the Chinese freedom standing in front of the tank when the Chinese Army crushed the 1989 Tian-a-men Square uprising.
From the aesthetic viewpoint I do have one criticism for al-Zeidi: he should not have yelled at President Bush before throwing his shoes at him. All he did was to give Bush a chance to duck. Instead he should have thrown his shoes first and then do his yelling. He would have had better odds of hitting his target.
Anyway, considering how depressing a year this has been, I have to give thanks Muntadhar Al-Zeidi for giving the world a reason to laugh and cheer this year.
Merry Christmas!
What al-Zeidi did stands as a very courageous act in that he did what the American press never had the courage to do since 2003: stand up and expose the base bloody hypocrisy of the Second Persian Gulf War and strike back at the perpetrator of that base bloody hypocrisy.
When President Bush stood there and tried to give his self-serving speech about the Second Persian Gulf War (essentially doing what Pontius Pilate, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon tried to do in the past: justify the unjustifiable) Al-Zeidi let the President—and the rest of the world—know that he (along with millions other people throughout the world) weren’t having any of it. For all of President Bush’s cant of “victory”, “democracy” and “freedom of speech” no other President did more to stifle dissent and civil liberties in his own country. When one also considers the thought that over four thousand Americans will not be allowed to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones because of the fact that they were killed in action in Iraq and the fact that thousands more Iraqis (innocent and insurgent) were killed also, it makes any decent individual want to throw their shoes in protest as well. What al-Zeidi did ranks up there with the image of the Chinese freedom standing in front of the tank when the Chinese Army crushed the 1989 Tian-a-men Square uprising.
From the aesthetic viewpoint I do have one criticism for al-Zeidi: he should not have yelled at President Bush before throwing his shoes at him. All he did was to give Bush a chance to duck. Instead he should have thrown his shoes first and then do his yelling. He would have had better odds of hitting his target.
Anyway, considering how depressing a year this has been, I have to give thanks Muntadhar Al-Zeidi for giving the world a reason to laugh and cheer this year.
Merry Christmas!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Jim Morrison: 65
Today marks the 65th birthday of the late Jim Morrison of the Doors. Somehow the notion of Morrison living to retirement age (and becoming eligible for Social Security and Medicare) seems alien considering the deliberate path of excess he chose for himself which culminated with his passing in a Parisian bathtub in 1971.
Why do I mark the birthday of a man who had a relatively brief musical career? (Four years).
It’s my way of saying ‘thank you’ to him.
It seems almost clichéd to say it but I became a Doors fans after I saw the opening sequence of the movie Apocalypse Now where director Francis Ford Coppola used the Doors song The End as musical background to a napalm attack. To paraphrase actor Martin Sheen, listening to Morrison sing those tortured lyrics really put the hook in me. Then came the book that did more to mythologize Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive.
I was too young to see the Doors in concert. I was a month shy of my eighth birthday when Morrison died (although it seems mysteriously intriguing that my personal life began unraveling right after his death). It was during the tail end of that emotional unraveling that I discovered the Doors and, through the Doors, an appreciation of Morrison’s life and artistic self.
To some it may seem fatuous but Jim Morrison saved my life.
How is that possible? How could someone who drank, drugged, had indiscriminate sex (pre-AIDS), and devoted himself to disarranging his senses save my life?
It was because Jim Morrison gave me the courage to write.
The blog you’re reading now is because of Jim Morrison. The song lyrics, prose, poetry, and social commentary I’ve been doing since the age of seventeen are because of Jim Morrison (well not solely because of him. John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and T.S. Eliot and various other writers had something to do with it as well) but Morrison ranks up there as a personal inspiration to put pen to paper; to make my fingers hit the keyboard; to put my work before the public and let it stand naked in the spotlight for better or for worse.
Before I discovered the Doors I was lost in a Roman wilderness of pain, having no sense of sanity or self.
Morrison gave me the courage to find my voice. To paraphrase one of his poems, he spoke to my heart and gave me the great gift of words, power, and trance.
His body of work allowed me to see my pain (and the causes of it) for what it was. He cleansed my doors of perception, allowing me to escape; to go on journeys through a primitive darkness before returning and telling others what I saw during the journey.
He gave me the courage to travel and discover new worlds and draw inspiration from those worlds.
If I didn’t have my writings then I wouldn’t be alive today. I would have died or gone insane or did both a long time ago.
My writing gave me a reason to live; a reason for hope (albeit a forlorn one). But like Morrison sang in Orange County Suite, “I’m still here and you’re still there and….”
Since that time I have always been on the lookout for Morrisoniana: I have most of the videos, books, and records. Even more interesting is that despite Morrison’s brief career and the lack of respectable critical acclaim that the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan received, Morrison endures as a cultural icon. His shade pops up in the most interesting places. Movies like Eddie and the Cruisers, Death Becomes Her, Wayne’s World Part Two have made allusions to him or had actors portraying him. (I think the Death Becomes Her portrayal was the best one). I even remember a short-lived TV series involving UFO investigators had an episode where a pre-famous Jim Morrison was featured as a doomed character. Miami Vice had an episode where the entire show featured the music of the Doors. And of course there is Oliver Stone’s revisionist and puerile cinematic bio The Doors. (I remember being disappointed with the film. I felt that Stone missed the point of Morrison’s life although there are a couple of scenes when the movie really capture’s Jim’s life. One is a shot of actor Val Kilmer (who portrayed Morrison) staggering silently, drunkenly through the streets of Los Angeles after a montage of scenes capturing Morrison’s dissipation; the other is the one where Kilmer as Morrison harangues his friends on the L.A. streets about whether they were really alive or not. Sadly the rest of the film failed in its mission. Like biographer Stephen Davis writes in his bio of Morrison, “He’s still causing trouble.”
I have spent nearly three decades trying to find his footprints. The first day I arrived in Paris, the first thing I did after checking into my hotel was go to Pere la Chaise cemetery and commune with his spirit. It was the 15th anniversary of his death and I, along with young kids from around world, kept vigil, passing a wine bottle around, and sharing our love for Jim. (The experience inspired me to write a song called The Graveyard Shift to pay homage to those who visit his grave). When I was in L.A. precisely seventeen years ago to film my Jeopardy! episode, I spent the day after the filming wandering the streets of Venice Beach where Morrison lived in starvation and poverty, gobbling LSD, and writing many of his great hits. When I returned to Paris in 2005, what did I do? I spent an entire afternoon walking the streets surrounding his apartment in the Rue Beautrellis in the Marais district of Paris, drinking at his favorite brasserie, and resting at the Place des Vosge. The last thing I did before going home was to visit his grave again and act as an amateur docent telling the young visitors about the time when the grave had graffiti and didn’t have security guards like it does now.
For me, my favorite Doors songs are as follows:
1) The End
2) Crystal Ship
3) End of the Night
4) Soul Kitchen (The Absolutely Live! Version)
5) Strange Days
6) Moonlight Drive
7) Unknown Soldier (the live version at the 1968 Hollywood Bowl concert. If Morrison were still alive today and performing methinks he would be dusting off this chestnut and performing it with great effect with the Iraqi war going on).
8) Celebration of the Lizard (to this day I can still recite all 133 lines of his epic poem. My favorite recitation came in 1989 when I was staggering drunk on Italian white wine through the streets of Glasgow, Scotland. Amazingly the streets were relatively deserted so I amused myself by reciting the poem at the top of my lungs. Even more amazing is that I didn’t blow a single line!)
9) Peace Frog
10) Queen of the Highway
11) Indian Summer
12) The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat). I like both versions, the L.A. Woman album version and the 1968 live version which he performed on Dutch TV featured on the live album Alive She Cried.
13) Someday Soon (from the Doors box set)
14) Orange County Suite
Among his poems (there are some who dismiss his poetry as pretentious and others who feel that his best poetry was in his song lyrics) I’ve always loved Lament and An American Prayer and his Graveyard poem.
Jim Morrison was my road not taken but he also guided me to the road I’m taking now. I have no regrets on that score. He kept me alive and he kept me rocking.
Thanks, Jim. Happy birthday and Rest in Peace, Mr. Mojo Risin.
Why do I mark the birthday of a man who had a relatively brief musical career? (Four years).
It’s my way of saying ‘thank you’ to him.
It seems almost clichéd to say it but I became a Doors fans after I saw the opening sequence of the movie Apocalypse Now where director Francis Ford Coppola used the Doors song The End as musical background to a napalm attack. To paraphrase actor Martin Sheen, listening to Morrison sing those tortured lyrics really put the hook in me. Then came the book that did more to mythologize Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive.
I was too young to see the Doors in concert. I was a month shy of my eighth birthday when Morrison died (although it seems mysteriously intriguing that my personal life began unraveling right after his death). It was during the tail end of that emotional unraveling that I discovered the Doors and, through the Doors, an appreciation of Morrison’s life and artistic self.
To some it may seem fatuous but Jim Morrison saved my life.
How is that possible? How could someone who drank, drugged, had indiscriminate sex (pre-AIDS), and devoted himself to disarranging his senses save my life?
It was because Jim Morrison gave me the courage to write.
The blog you’re reading now is because of Jim Morrison. The song lyrics, prose, poetry, and social commentary I’ve been doing since the age of seventeen are because of Jim Morrison (well not solely because of him. John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and T.S. Eliot and various other writers had something to do with it as well) but Morrison ranks up there as a personal inspiration to put pen to paper; to make my fingers hit the keyboard; to put my work before the public and let it stand naked in the spotlight for better or for worse.
Before I discovered the Doors I was lost in a Roman wilderness of pain, having no sense of sanity or self.
Morrison gave me the courage to find my voice. To paraphrase one of his poems, he spoke to my heart and gave me the great gift of words, power, and trance.
His body of work allowed me to see my pain (and the causes of it) for what it was. He cleansed my doors of perception, allowing me to escape; to go on journeys through a primitive darkness before returning and telling others what I saw during the journey.
He gave me the courage to travel and discover new worlds and draw inspiration from those worlds.
If I didn’t have my writings then I wouldn’t be alive today. I would have died or gone insane or did both a long time ago.
My writing gave me a reason to live; a reason for hope (albeit a forlorn one). But like Morrison sang in Orange County Suite, “I’m still here and you’re still there and….”
Since that time I have always been on the lookout for Morrisoniana: I have most of the videos, books, and records. Even more interesting is that despite Morrison’s brief career and the lack of respectable critical acclaim that the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan received, Morrison endures as a cultural icon. His shade pops up in the most interesting places. Movies like Eddie and the Cruisers, Death Becomes Her, Wayne’s World Part Two have made allusions to him or had actors portraying him. (I think the Death Becomes Her portrayal was the best one). I even remember a short-lived TV series involving UFO investigators had an episode where a pre-famous Jim Morrison was featured as a doomed character. Miami Vice had an episode where the entire show featured the music of the Doors. And of course there is Oliver Stone’s revisionist and puerile cinematic bio The Doors. (I remember being disappointed with the film. I felt that Stone missed the point of Morrison’s life although there are a couple of scenes when the movie really capture’s Jim’s life. One is a shot of actor Val Kilmer (who portrayed Morrison) staggering silently, drunkenly through the streets of Los Angeles after a montage of scenes capturing Morrison’s dissipation; the other is the one where Kilmer as Morrison harangues his friends on the L.A. streets about whether they were really alive or not. Sadly the rest of the film failed in its mission. Like biographer Stephen Davis writes in his bio of Morrison, “He’s still causing trouble.”
I have spent nearly three decades trying to find his footprints. The first day I arrived in Paris, the first thing I did after checking into my hotel was go to Pere la Chaise cemetery and commune with his spirit. It was the 15th anniversary of his death and I, along with young kids from around world, kept vigil, passing a wine bottle around, and sharing our love for Jim. (The experience inspired me to write a song called The Graveyard Shift to pay homage to those who visit his grave). When I was in L.A. precisely seventeen years ago to film my Jeopardy! episode, I spent the day after the filming wandering the streets of Venice Beach where Morrison lived in starvation and poverty, gobbling LSD, and writing many of his great hits. When I returned to Paris in 2005, what did I do? I spent an entire afternoon walking the streets surrounding his apartment in the Rue Beautrellis in the Marais district of Paris, drinking at his favorite brasserie, and resting at the Place des Vosge. The last thing I did before going home was to visit his grave again and act as an amateur docent telling the young visitors about the time when the grave had graffiti and didn’t have security guards like it does now.
For me, my favorite Doors songs are as follows:
1) The End
2) Crystal Ship
3) End of the Night
4) Soul Kitchen (The Absolutely Live! Version)
5) Strange Days
6) Moonlight Drive
7) Unknown Soldier (the live version at the 1968 Hollywood Bowl concert. If Morrison were still alive today and performing methinks he would be dusting off this chestnut and performing it with great effect with the Iraqi war going on).
8) Celebration of the Lizard (to this day I can still recite all 133 lines of his epic poem. My favorite recitation came in 1989 when I was staggering drunk on Italian white wine through the streets of Glasgow, Scotland. Amazingly the streets were relatively deserted so I amused myself by reciting the poem at the top of my lungs. Even more amazing is that I didn’t blow a single line!)
9) Peace Frog
10) Queen of the Highway
11) Indian Summer
12) The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat). I like both versions, the L.A. Woman album version and the 1968 live version which he performed on Dutch TV featured on the live album Alive She Cried.
13) Someday Soon (from the Doors box set)
14) Orange County Suite
Among his poems (there are some who dismiss his poetry as pretentious and others who feel that his best poetry was in his song lyrics) I’ve always loved Lament and An American Prayer and his Graveyard poem.
Jim Morrison was my road not taken but he also guided me to the road I’m taking now. I have no regrets on that score. He kept me alive and he kept me rocking.
Thanks, Jim. Happy birthday and Rest in Peace, Mr. Mojo Risin.
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