Sports, for all its many cultural drains on our society, rewards an inflexible bottom line. It is painful for sports fans to see their teams lose, but it does teach you something about accepting reality as it is, not as you hope it would be.

Posted by Assistant Village Idiot at September 18, 2006 06:35 PM

AVI, I wonder how liberals can enjoy art films--whether there is a war or not.

Posted by Woody at September 18, 2006 06:41 PM

My beloved Volunteers lost to the Florida Gators (I'm a Gator Hater) by 1 point. Florida won honestly in a hard fought game.

I watched a little bit of the Army game trlying to catch a gllimpse of my nephew in the crowd. He is a new cadet. I wish I could take some credit but I can't. It all belongs to his mother. He hopes to placekick for Army eventually. Of course, we're all very proud of him.

Posted by DADvocate at September 18, 2006 07:55 PM

Tennessee only dropped two spots to No 15. I thought that they were going to win. I'm surprised at the problems Tennessee has had over the past season and into this one, such as barely beating Air Force. However, they did clean the clock of California.

One of my favorite football trips is to Tennessee. It's a great football atmosphere and I enjoy seeing the tailgating on boats on the Tennessee River. One of the best games that I ever saw was against Alabama there, in which Tennessee won in the last moments.

Posted by Woody at September 18, 2006 10:08 PM

I spent much time in Birmingham and loved rooting for Auburn to really piss them off. It would be really cool to see the mascot fly in the stadium...And I bet there are many, many Military members (both Enlisted and commissioned) that love and want to keep the games going so they can enjoy them and pass this Love of American Sports to their kids. Very Nice GM.

Posted by Michael at September 18, 2006 10:09 PM

Woody, it's a damned shame you can't just enjoy football without making an ass of yourself with stupid comments about liberals and "art films".

You are utterly inane if you think there is any political content to your posturings as a sports fan. Totally ridiculous.

The real joke is that you can't post on your blog about sports with half the focus, knowledge and passion that Randy Paul did while blogging the World Cup. He showed class, you're showing your...nevermind.

Posted by reg at September 19, 2006 01:35 AM

Football is a great game. My personal hope is that the US team acquits itself better the next time it comes up against the side of a small African nation , and makes it into the second round in 2010.

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at September 19, 2006 02:52 AM

DADvocate, I mean no disrespect, but - Go Gators! We'll be in the Swamp (Gainesville) Saturday for the game against Kentucky. Maybe I'll have a pork sammich while I'm there.

Posted by Oyster at September 19, 2006 05:41 AM

You won't see this kind of patriotism at Harvard or Stanford.

If you had written pageantry instead of patriotism then I would have agreed with you. But call it what you want... I'm more of an NFL fan anyway.

Posted by e. nonee moose at September 19, 2006 05:49 AM

JJ: "My personal hope is that the US team acquits itself better the next time it comes up against the side of a small African nation , and makes it into the second round in 2010."

Wow, for once JJ and I agree. Fortunately, all sports is about striving on the field to do your absolute best and the ending is, optimaly, proof of that effort. Doesn't matter where the team is from (except perhaps from a parhochial point of view), but it does matter that excelling is the point of the game.

Posted by GM at September 19, 2006 06:08 AM

reg, note that there is a difference between a straight-forward sports article vs. simply using sports to illustrate another point. Someone else may write with passion (I don't know) about art films and soccer--but, the masses in this country care about neither. Please note that you wrote four sentences in your comment and that all four attacked me personally. What was that you were saying earlier about ad hominem attacks?

Moose, it's a good point about pagentry vs. patriotism. Sometimes they blur. However, in this case, there was plenty of pagentry beyond what I mentioned--bands, cheerleaders, team walking into stadium and later running onto the field, special clips and music from the scoreboard screen to excite the fans, etc., etc. Those events that I specifically mentioned (other than the eagle flight) were a special part of the patriotic message before the game. Also, most liberal universities turn up their collective noses at patriotic symbols and consider "flag-wavers" as rubes. Stanford and Harvard would accept flag burners more readily than flag wavers.

Posted by Woody at September 19, 2006 07:19 AM

You speak of "fly-overs" at football games you attend. I work with a group of people who mostly think that the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake. But we were rewarded with our own "personal fly over" by a group of Marines - a bunch of helicopter pilots who served in Falluja and on the Syrian border - for our efforts over a couple of years to remember them with a steady stream of "care packages" from home while they served. Better, we got a personal visit from one - a co-worker's cousin - thanking the group. Their letter of thanks and an Americian flag their unit flew are hung and framed in a prominent common space in honor of those who didn't return. Not bad for liberal scum on the Left Coast. And yes, life goes on...and some among us go to "art films" and salsa dancing and jazz concerts and other things less worthy and perhaps more "ecelectic" than football by your lights. Life goes on - some among us read Camus or a couple of Shakespeares like those jerks at Stanford and Harvard - and, of course, "the left" just sucks and is miserable and doesn't care about those who serve the country in the World Accordiing to Woody. Yes, indeed.

But please don't invoke Pat Tillman's name unless you have a point that makes some kind of sense in the context of his sacrifice and don't imagine that you own real concern for the fate of our troops because you're a GOPer sports fan and don't use "life goes on but we sports fans still are real Americans who are gung ho about the war" as some glib evasion of what "the masses" - to use your inelegant term, apparently borrowed from Stalin or Mao or some such - are,in fact, asking serious questions about - to which straight answers appear not to be forthcoming. The sacrifices being made in this war are profoundly unequal and the doubts about both it's rationales and it's conduct don't just remain, but are mounting.

Have a good time at the next game - but don't use your love of sports to try to assert a bunch of stuff that is far more complex than you appear willing to consider. The military isn't an abstraction to me - it's friends and my closest family. And it's got litle or nothing of any importance to do with the comfortable cocoon of weekend football IMHO. Patriotism can be deep and it can be shallow and it can be both, given the time, place and mood. There's nohing wrong with that. When patriotism goes wrong is when someone, anyone, tries to use the trappings to blow their own tin horn and revel in glib generalizations that are nakedly partisan. (I also find it absolutely bizarre that you write about where you will or will not find "this kind of patriotism" you celebrate. Unfortunately, when I think about it, there's a chance you might be right. And not in the sense you meant it. But I'd rather not go there. ) If there's one thing that summarizes your post, it's that you protest too much. Those don't come across as the words of someone who's secure.

Posted by reg at September 19, 2006 08:28 AM

reg, your oft used and vague anecdotal evidence of left-wing support for our troops does not prove the rule that the left is as patriotic as the right or even patriotic at all. I'm happy that some organization of which you are a part sent care packages to forces. But, the way that you chose to honor the Marines was to highlight those who did not come back rather than recognize their accomplishments. Message: War is bad and Bush's War is the Worst. It's politics and not patriotism.

As far as determining patriotism, consider these actions of the Left and Democratic supporters:

Those people are Democrats, not Republicans, who fought to deny the military access to high school student names for recruitment purposes and still fight their recruitment efforts at schools.

Those people are Democrats, not Republicans, who violently force military recruiters off of college campuses and out of job fairs and block people who want to talk with the recruiters.

Those people are Democrats, not Republicans, who ridicule people who use symbols of support, such as by wearing flag pins and placing magnetic "support our troops" ribbons on vehicles.

Those people are Democrats, not Republicans, who refuse to recite "The Pledge of Allegiance" at public events.

Those people are Democrats, not Republicans, who carry banners saying "We suppport our troops when they shoot their officers."

Those people are Democrats, not Republicans, who refused to allow the docking of the USS Iowa in protest of our military.

Those people are Democrats, not Republicans, who gut the military budgets when they are in power.

Those people are Democrats, not Republicans, who protest our military and demand firings for minor injustices and ignore beheadings by our enemies.

This can go on forever, but I think that many on the Left and many Democrats have not exhibited a very good track record on supporting our troops except in making hollow claims that they do.

On Tillman, I'm not the one who brings up his name. I just headed you and others off at the pass with that, as his name is immediately invoked by the Left in such discussions. Apparently, you have no idea of his purpose in Afghanistan because you said "doubts about (the war's) rationales." This is precisely why the Left and the Democrats should not be trusted with our nation's security and the war on terror.

In response to your comments, "If there's one thing that summarizes your post, it's that you protest too much. Those don't come across as the words of someone who's secure.": consider this.

Word Count
Woody's Post: 461
reg's Comment: 543

Who protests too much? Who's defensive? Who's insecure?

Posted by Woody at September 19, 2006 03:57 PM

Okay, I made what I thought was a clever remark over at the "no ad hominem" post. Then I drop down over here and reg's comment for serious sounds a lot like mine for yuks.

That was obvious to most of the rest of you, right? I'm not shooting too far over your heads here?

reg, I'm thinking this gem should be inscribed on the Lincoln Memorial: "Patriotism can be deep and it can be shallow and it can be both, given the time, place and mood. There's nohing wrong with that."

Posted by Assistant Village Idiot at September 19, 2006 06:32 PM

GM,

As they say, "talk about sports and close the deal". Remainder of comment removed because of being off topic.

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at September 19, 2006 07:29 PM

JJ, since you are such a literalist most of the time, I have to ask why you would want to kill yourself in Iraq or anywhere else? Can I refer you to therapy? Depression can be treated you know.

Posted by GM at September 20, 2006 05:32 AM