In the midst of watching my way thru the NFL playoffs heading for the Super Bowl, I’ve kicked my usually mild interest up a notch. That’s because, for a change, the teams involved are “real” teams, the way Chevys, Fords and Mopars are “real” cars; they’re from “back in the day!”
Like most folks I have a specific set of criteria for the “reality” of something. For music it’s the Sixties, for cars it’s ’55 thru ’72 (with certain exceptions before and since), for professional football it’s smash-mouth, blue-collar teams from rust-belt towns like Green Bay, Wisconsin or Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. So it’s kind of perfect the Steelers and Packers will meet in Super Bowl XLV, right?
The Green Bay Packers are the second oldest team in the NFL; they’ve been around since 1919 and in what became the NFL since 1921. They’ve won more league championships (12) than any other team and won the first two Super Bowls (1967 & 1968). The Steelers are the oldest team in the AFC and have been in the NFL since 1933. They have won more Super Bowls (6) than any other team.
The Packers and Steelers are to professional football what the Yankees and Cubs are to baseball, true American icons. In that regard they sit on the same shelf as the cars we love so much; Chevrolet, Ford, and Mopar are the Packers and Steelers of their league. In each of these leagues there are lots of other teams but none of the others are any more representative of what their league stands for; what we think of when we think of football or car.
If Chevrolet, Ford, Mopar are the premier teams in their league, the “57 Chevy, the ‘64½ Mustang, the ’68 Roadrunner are examples of their teams’ star players. Like their teams, these “players” are icons. Think of the football icons the Packers have given us; Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke. Or the Steelers like Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, “Mean” Joe Green. Take any of these guys to a car show and I’ll bet you’d draw as big a crowd as if you showed up with a ’69 Yenko Camaro or a ’70 Hemi ‘Cuda!
Anyway, I’m pretty fired-up about a Super Bowl that features the Green Bay Packers against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now if they could get Linda Ronstadt to sing the Star-spangled Banner, the Beach Boys for the half-time show, and play commercials about “seeing the USA in our Chevrolet” or Plymouth ads featuring the Roadrunner and Wylie Coyote, maybe I could take my mind off things I don’t understand (like I-pods, supplemental Medicare insurance, etc.) and really enjoy the game.
Oh, by the way: One of the things I don’t understand is all the fuss about us old people dragging down the economy; depending on our kids’ contributions to Social Security, etc. to fund our lavish retired lifestyles. I mean, aren’t we plowing all that pension money back into the economy? It ain’t 30 and 40-somethings buying all those resto-mod parts, putting gas in 50-year old cars with big-block, dual-quad motors, driving to Nashville just to hang out a few days then turn around and drive back.
Check out the next car show (or remember the last one); those shiny, expensive, extravagantly appointed cruisin’ vessels aren’t owned by kids. As a matter of fact, it seems to me the younger folks at car shows are the ones sportin’ the rat-rods. They’re not spending big bucks fixing up cars, they’re using left-over parts. They’re not even painting their cars!
Yes, I believe all responsible car people should do everything possible to keep the economy afloat. If it means buying the expensive billet wheels instead of repainting the stock steelies and polishing up the dog dish hub caps, do it!
Since Politics and Economics seem to be so closely related, perhaps responsible car people should think about a political party that represents their point of view; maybe a party with a shade tree for a symbol.
Showing posts with label More Opinions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label More Opinions. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Keeping The Gremlins At Bay
Although it seems a bit early this year; it’s the day before Thanksgiving, winter’s here and I’m already suffering from the twin winter-time gremlins of boredom and grouchiness. During the rest of the year I can usually find something to do to take my mind off annoying things that lead to the twins. In winter annoying things gang-up on me and I start driving me and anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck near me crazy. I have started cataloging annoying things in an effort to, hopefully, neutralize the gremlins.
We all know what lackeys are, right? Back in the day we’d call the lackeys of big shot bureaucrats, “horse-holders.” I have noticed lately there is a whole new class of horse-holder out there; although they don’t usually work for bureaucrats. They’re “hat handers,” the guy who hands the star (athlete, driver, whomever) the sponsor’s logo-bearing baseball cap(s). Just another opportunity to go-fer a celebrity!
Speaking of which; how demeaning are those sponsor’s logo-bearing baseball caps anyway? Imagine you just drove to victory in the Indianapolis 500, you’re standing on the podium to receive your justly deserved accolades but, before you can hold your latest trophy, you have to change hats six times. And make sure the logo on each, and on the beverage you’re consuming, is pointing camera-ward. It’s not like you didn’t just drive, on camera, 500 miles in a rolling billboard covered with the same logos.
Years ago I wrote a poem about how to successfully become an anonymous bureaucrat, something for which all bureaucrats strive:
The Bureaucrat
He dreams of having an office
And a telephone all of his own,
With a machine to answer it quickly
So the damn thing will leave him alone.
With all the pressure he’s under,
The stress and anxiety and such,
Each day brings another big crisis;
Just doing his job’s way too much.
Making those routine decisions
Is the most difficult thing that he does;
About a thousand and one stupid issues
To which he can’t say, “Just because. . .”
The answer he’ll give to your question
Will never be right or be wrong;
“I’m sorry,” he’ll say, “you’re mistaken
This isn’t where you belong.”
“Whatever you want we can’t help you
In this department at all;
For that you must go to the office,
Third door on the right, down the hall.”
For him no problem’s too difficult,
No question ever too trivial,
To refer to the office just mentioned;
Third door on the right, down the hall!
I recently re-read the poem and realized how obsolete it had become. When I wrote it I worked in an office where employees shared telephones; they were located in centralized “phone banks.” The phones, not the employees; they were located in cubicles. Nowadays everyone has a phone, and a computer, and any number of other devices to insure both anonymity and non-contactability.
Today, of course, there’s the phone menu. You know, “press 1 for . . . ad nauseum.” A system far more effective than even Beijing’s Forbidden City for eliminating unwanted attention. Talk about insulation; today’s bureaucrat can count on the phone menu, voice mail, e-mail, and security guards with metal detectors to keep the “customers” at bay! The personal computer and the receptionist rendered the secretary obsolete; soon all we’ll need is “virtual” bureaucrats. Who’ll know the difference?
Carroll G. Anderson
We all know what lackeys are, right? Back in the day we’d call the lackeys of big shot bureaucrats, “horse-holders.” I have noticed lately there is a whole new class of horse-holder out there; although they don’t usually work for bureaucrats. They’re “hat handers,” the guy who hands the star (athlete, driver, whomever) the sponsor’s logo-bearing baseball cap(s). Just another opportunity to go-fer a celebrity!
Speaking of which; how demeaning are those sponsor’s logo-bearing baseball caps anyway? Imagine you just drove to victory in the Indianapolis 500, you’re standing on the podium to receive your justly deserved accolades but, before you can hold your latest trophy, you have to change hats six times. And make sure the logo on each, and on the beverage you’re consuming, is pointing camera-ward. It’s not like you didn’t just drive, on camera, 500 miles in a rolling billboard covered with the same logos.
Years ago I wrote a poem about how to successfully become an anonymous bureaucrat, something for which all bureaucrats strive:
The Bureaucrat
He dreams of having an office
And a telephone all of his own,
With a machine to answer it quickly
So the damn thing will leave him alone.
With all the pressure he’s under,
The stress and anxiety and such,
Each day brings another big crisis;
Just doing his job’s way too much.
Making those routine decisions
Is the most difficult thing that he does;
About a thousand and one stupid issues
To which he can’t say, “Just because. . .”
The answer he’ll give to your question
Will never be right or be wrong;
“I’m sorry,” he’ll say, “you’re mistaken
This isn’t where you belong.”
“Whatever you want we can’t help you
In this department at all;
For that you must go to the office,
Third door on the right, down the hall.”
For him no problem’s too difficult,
No question ever too trivial,
To refer to the office just mentioned;
Third door on the right, down the hall!
I recently re-read the poem and realized how obsolete it had become. When I wrote it I worked in an office where employees shared telephones; they were located in centralized “phone banks.” The phones, not the employees; they were located in cubicles. Nowadays everyone has a phone, and a computer, and any number of other devices to insure both anonymity and non-contactability.
Today, of course, there’s the phone menu. You know, “press 1 for . . . ad nauseum.” A system far more effective than even Beijing’s Forbidden City for eliminating unwanted attention. Talk about insulation; today’s bureaucrat can count on the phone menu, voice mail, e-mail, and security guards with metal detectors to keep the “customers” at bay! The personal computer and the receptionist rendered the secretary obsolete; soon all we’ll need is “virtual” bureaucrats. Who’ll know the difference?
Carroll G. Anderson
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Things People Write
Because I’m blogcasting my opinions I guess I fall into a “glass house” category but sometimes the opinions of others really trigger my o.g. (opinion generator). Two things in particular that bother me are opinions that are based on patently false information and “personal” opinions that are apparently nothing more than knee-jerk restatements of popular propaganda. For instance:
I Have Déjá Vu From Arguments Against The War In Iraq
Paul Gordon's whiny polemic against the war in Iraq ("Let's put a final end to this needless war we're waging," Oct. 9) is the same one used against the Vietnam War by the same people: the Democrat Party.
I remind Mr. Gordon that we won the Vietnam War. A peace treaty was signed on Jan. 27, 1973.
Over the next two years, Russia and China resupplied North Vietnam and the Democrat-led Congress refused to give previously promised aid to South Vietnam, resulting in the murder of tens of thousands of those loyal to the United States when they violated the treaty and invaded in 1975.
As one who is proud to have served in Vietnam, I ask him to use his predilection for 20:20 hindsight to surmise what might happen if we pull out now.
Ed Morgan, Clarksburg, Frederick County
http://www.gazette.net/stories/10232008/fredlet151930_32475.shtml
I’m not sure what to say; for the last thirty-five years I’ve known, and I’m pretty sure that everybody else knew, that we lost that war. I know, for instance, the following know we lost:
· The 58,209 Americans Killed in Action and other dead,
· The 303,635 Americans Wounded in Action (including 153,303 who required hospitalization and 150,332 who didn't) and
· The 1,948 Americans Missing in Action.
· The 125,000 Vietnamese who came to the U.S. after fleeing their own country during the spring of 1975.
· The millions around the world who saw the refugees being airlifted off the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon as the city fell to the North Vietnamese in April, 1075.
I Have Déjá Vu From Arguments Against The War In Iraq
Paul Gordon's whiny polemic against the war in Iraq ("Let's put a final end to this needless war we're waging," Oct. 9) is the same one used against the Vietnam War by the same people: the Democrat Party.
I remind Mr. Gordon that we won the Vietnam War. A peace treaty was signed on Jan. 27, 1973.
Over the next two years, Russia and China resupplied North Vietnam and the Democrat-led Congress refused to give previously promised aid to South Vietnam, resulting in the murder of tens of thousands of those loyal to the United States when they violated the treaty and invaded in 1975.
As one who is proud to have served in Vietnam, I ask him to use his predilection for 20:20 hindsight to surmise what might happen if we pull out now.
Ed Morgan, Clarksburg, Frederick County
http://www.gazette.net/stories/10232008/fredlet151930_32475.shtml
I’m not sure what to say; for the last thirty-five years I’ve known, and I’m pretty sure that everybody else knew, that we lost that war. I know, for instance, the following know we lost:
· The 58,209 Americans Killed in Action and other dead,
· The 303,635 Americans Wounded in Action (including 153,303 who required hospitalization and 150,332 who didn't) and
· The 1,948 Americans Missing in Action.
· The 125,000 Vietnamese who came to the U.S. after fleeing their own country during the spring of 1975.
· The millions around the world who saw the refugees being airlifted off the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon as the city fell to the North Vietnamese in April, 1075.
Signing a treaty does not mean you won, either; usually representatives of both sides sign. Certainly the terms of the Paris Peace Accords do not identify the United States as the winner of anything but an opportunity to go home. The American Indians, for example, signed more than 120 peace treaties between 1778 and 1868. I don’t think they considered themselves the winners in any of the conflicts those documents “ended.”
By Carroll G. Anderson
11/6/08
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