...Now That Football's Done

It was some Romantic poem; something, something, in the Sun; something, something, what's to do now that football's done? I think it was written by Sir Walter Raleigh. By circumventing 99.9% of the build up to the actual game, I found it vaguely enjoyable.

I began to regret that I had seen absolutely nothing of the NFL this season. I found Prince to be a bore. The special effects of rain were pretty darn good, however. If I were a performer, I do not think I would encourage the support team to do rain effects. It would be like encouraging my Foley editor to experiment with flatulence noises. It would come back sooner or later and bit you somewhere unpleasant

The closest I came to pre-game hoopla was reading Joe Namath rate the Quarterbacks, then subjecting his interview to a Bible Code analysis.

Amazingly, the result was " INDIAN CITY BY TWELVE "!

Since 'Indianapolis' is literally Greek for "Indian + City", this looked like a hit.

I went to dinner at my brother's. He is a fine cook. We had a very good pot roast which had marinated for 4 hours in a beer and red wine marinade. Heady stuff. They live in a condo high-rise on the 25th floor. I have a fear of heights, so I shy away from the windows. It was a cold day-about -15 degrees wind chill-and the snow showers zipped through the sky like my fingers at a sushi buffet. We spoke of all things. My brother spoke of our society's nasty habit of defining a process by its failures.

For example, the mistakes and problems of doctors lead to malpractice to high insurance premiums, resulting in a shortage of Obstetricians: the practice of medicine is delimited by its failures, not its successes.

I think a similar process works through the entire national subconscious. It is our failure in Vietnam that haunts us, and thereby is present to mind more than the good things we've done.

World War II is the exception that proves the rule, for it is now so long ago, that the present generations cannot claim it as their own. It was a victory of a golden past

And we cannot define our objectives.

What was our objective in Iraq? Weapons of Mass Destruction.

They did not exist. What was our objective then?

Getting the really, really bad guy in prison.

O.K. Got him. What then?

Export freedom and democracy.

O.K. What then?

Try to keep from getting killed..

There were no objectives in any rational sense of the word; they were just steps in a series of blunders.

Look now at Health Care. What are our 5 main objectives in a Health Care Program?

We don't know.

Maybe, just maybe we will say all kids should have health care, and maybe, just maybe, we shall actually accomplish something by 2012. Maybe.Do you think the present bunch of leaders and would-be leaders can bring Health Care off?Do you think the leaders and would-be leaders can do anything about Social Security?

The future is in the young. I do not think anybody over 30 has escaped being degraded into a useless, resentful ideologue in search of something to believe in.

Now the bad news...