Bring Out the Lawyers… Pansies

Yet another sports controversy, this time in California high school football; a high school football team is under fire for running the dreaded A-11 offense. Players wearing jerseys with numbers typical of running backs and wide receivers are eligible to receive a forward pass, and Piedmont High School became one of the few in the nation to begin putting most of their players in those threads. All players on the field with the exception of the quarterback would be eligible to run downfield in hopes of catching history, just as in sand lot rules. Now, the California High School Association wants this nonsense stopped, as they have petitioned that it be barred from competitive competition. DI asks the question, where has all of the competitive spirit gone?
What does this teach our youth? In the case of Jericho the Great, his fastball was just too dangerous to allow others to face him (yet he had total control of his pitches, and up to that point never hurt an opposing player), so they banned him from the taking the mound. Now, California high school defenses are having a tough time defending this offensive monster scheme, so its time to ban it. It may be just a slice of America, little league baseball and high school football, but the defense of a tough competitor is becoming more and more the same. The best defense in America is just to find a way to stop the competition, no matter what has to be done. Legal systems aside, this is one of the biggest problems America faces today, the lack of competitive nature.
This is what we are teaching our children, that when your back is against the wall, its time to bring in the legal system. Stop the offense, and you have won the game. Problem is America; this is not typical in society, so when our youth get to that certain working age and land that dream job of working in a steel factory, the pressure is on them to produce.
They work it out for a few months, but begin to fall behind to the Paleolithic man next to them that works like a mule, never takes breaks, and swallows his spit to curb his hunger until the final whistle blows calling it a day. The boss comes around more frequently now, checking on the limited production that our youth is giving the company. Meanwhile, mule man over in the corner is now not only producing more, but balancing accounting sheets after school because he has no home life. Our youth have the answer; they will confront the boss and ask that an injunction be placed on mule man limiting his daily production so that no one looks bad. They have been taught this from an early age, that when the going gets tough, its time to bring in the legal system. The issues are that in real life, things are not that easy. The old adage of “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” is not what we are teaching the youngsters of today. Unfortunately real life brings different results, and mule man is now bringing home a little extra money because he can do his job as well as our now unemployed youth. I know that this must sound like I have just lost my mind, but trust me; it’s been lost for sometime now.
This is our fault, as America has lost her teaching ability. We teach our youth to find the easy way out, to take the road most traveled. We have done this to ourselves, as we have not instilled what is needed in the ones that will soon be our nation; pride, intestinal fortitude, strength, longevity, persistence, and fear. Working through problems, working to figure out how to defend that pesky offense, or how to figure out that tough tax problem for the company that pays our bills, that is what needs to be taught. The art of never giving up, never giving in, no matter what the odds, is exactly what our youth needs. Whether its cancer or a baseball game, learn to win with guts and determination, just as many before us have. Because without those characteristics in man, without the teachers that forced those qualities down the throats of so many, we would have never been able to enjoy a speech from Martin Luther King Jr., or had the privilege of watching Jim Thorpe and Jessie Owens run, or been able to enjoy movies such as Rudy and Rocky. Robert Frost said it best when he penned “I took the one (road) less traveled by”. What he meant, if only in my mind, was that tough times demand tough people, and that we should never give up when we are faced with obstacles. We should gut it out and find a way to win, whether it’s underneath the Friday night lights, or if its in a board room in San Francisco, or if its in a hospital in New Orleans. Never give up, never give in; it’s in all of us.

The B-52’s

You all must be growing tired of the same old thing, I know. It is hard to watch, or hear, or read the same thing over and over and over without wanting to slit your own wrists just to make the pain go away. Though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same, as Robert Frost so eloquently put it. DI heard your cries, and took action. Our Hall of Fame inductee, although possessing many human characteristics, is not of this world. It was born from the imagination; it was born of steel and bolts, and became the greatest in its class, far outliving the competition, and still remains active to this day.
With absolutely no introduction required, I present to you the B-52, and I am not talking about the “Love Shack” one. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, nicknamed BUFF for being big, ugly, fat, with the last F being silent, sort of (feller for all you southern folks). The Strato rolled off of the production line ready for action in 1955, giving the American Air Force a deep offensive jet powered threat unheard of at the time.
General Nathan Twining, Air Force Chief of Staff from 1953 to 1957, said it best as “the long rifle was the great weapon of its day……Today this B-52 is the long rifle of the air age.” General, if you could hear us today in 2009, it would be the exact same thing, as the B-52 is still alive and flying high. The United States Military, over the course of the past century, has made costly purchases that never panned out, but got there monies worth and more with the old faithful Strato.
The B-52, among other things, is a veteran of several foreign conflicts, to include Vietnam and the Gulf War. In February of 1991 in support of the Gulf War, Barksdale AFB in Northwest Louisiana launched a pack of B-52’s which flew a nonstop combat mission, at the time the longest in history, striking targets inside Iraq. 14,000 miles and 35 hours later, the B-52’s touched down safely back at Barksdale. The B-52 holds the current record of the longest combat mission of 16,000 miles, a mission from Guam to Iraq and back to deliver critical blows to Baghdad power stations in support of Operation Desert Strike.
The Stratofortress has also outlived several of its replacements like the XB-70 and the B-1 Lancer. Mission after mission, the Strato’s performance far exceeded the rest of the pack, proving that age is not necessarily a bad thing. It is one of only five aircraft to have to have 50 consecutive years of service, with a projected future until at least 2040, which would give it an astounding 85 years terrorizing the skies of America’s enemies.
Far outclassed and outran by its want to be successors, the B-52’s mission readiness rates have hovered around the 80% mark, showing the B-1 Lancer (53%) and B-2 Spirit (26%) who the true giant of the sky is.
Most Buff’s in the current fleet are twice as old as the pilots who fly them, with the possibility of one day the men and women who call the beast home for hours at a time could affectionately refer to them as Grandma and Grandpa. A true hero and deserving HOF member, welcome aboard aircraft commander of the skies.
And last but not least, the B-52’s popularity across the nation resulted in a the naming of a viciously strong strain of marijuana, a multi layered cocktail shooter including Baileys Irish Cream, as well as the hit rock band B-52’s, being named for the shape of a beehive hairdo resembling the nose cone of the air king.
DI Pride, until next time; do you own research, and form your own opinions.