Among the reactions to last night’s State of the Union message was this late night dispatch from marketing genius and all-purpose idea man Spin Williams, who conducts his business in a rolling conversation he calls The Meeting That Never Ends.
We’ve been kicking it around in The Meeting all night long, and it’s our verdict that the standout feature of President Obama’s speech last night is his repeated exhortation for Americans to “Win The Future”. It’s a brilliant three-word call to action that sounds wonderfully urgent and has the added advantage of being completely vague and is therefore totally flexible. Is “the future” the prize we’re after, or the game we’re playing? The answer could be both! In any case, how will we know we’ve won? The future is always just ahead, so even if we think we’re winning right now, there’s always a chance some unnamed country with a whole lot of hard working people and tons of money in the bank will overtake us before we get there. So if our goal is to Win The Future, we can Never Quit until we’re Told We’re Finished. I mean Victorious! Well done, Mr. President!
I love slogans and I wish we had more of them! For me, the last memorable three-word salvo from a president was Gerald Ford’s “Whip Inflation Now” (WIN). Remember the buttons? I still have a box of them in my basement. People ridiculed it at the time, but eventually inflation got tamed, if not completely whipped. Although buttons that said “TIN” wouldn’t have had the same power – you have to be bold to get attention! I thought at the time that “whip” was wimpy and our goal should be to “Smash” inflation, but people told me the button would be an embarrassment. Why? Last night I suggested that “Win The Future” is deserving of its own line of “WTF” buttons and apparel, but all the younger folks at the table insisted that would be a huge mistake. I still don’t get it. Bright people can be so timid sometimes!
Image from zazzle.com
Anyway, I’m totally on board with this new national effort to Win The Future. Americans love competition, and the slogan is generic enough to connect whatever happens to be the issue of the day (education, energy independence, trade deficits, pollution) to whatever sport you most enjoy playing (football, chess, tennis, air hockey, poker). It may be that our cards don’t look so good right now, but bluffing is an important part of the game and false confidence in the face of overwhelming odds can be a winning strategy. This is our new slogan, people. We should support it. WTF!
I admire Spin for his enthusiasm, no matter the topic. And although I’m not sure I share his fondness for three word slogans, I think he’s right about our love for games.
a gracious good morning to You All
Tennis! played a lot and watched A LOT. in 2002, one late summer a friend and i went to Queens for the US Tennis Open for three days – had such an adventure – it rained for one whole day, but we got to see all of our favorites anyway. our slogan was “PS we love you!”
Ooooh, Spin, you are going to MAKE me reveal my dirty little secret. my guilty pleasure. Of all the topics we discuss and reveal on this blog, you would choose this one to go public.
I like football.
Good Baseball is a close second. It is my father’s and grandfather’s fault. They ruined my earnest feminist stance against violence, scantily clad cheerleaders, and commercialism run amok. Dad and Grandpa used to watch sports, chat and smoke while holding me on their laps and answering questions about the game. Nothing will socialize one to such pervisty than combining it with love and security.
I am very bad at competition…participating and/or watching…but did have a go at showing horses — jumping and dressage. Always with the “when does the fun start?” ringing in my ears. I did, however, get captured in a photo with a big grin on my face after falling off (and getting back on) in a cross-country jumping show.
Good morning baboons and babettes! I’m in deep trouble with this question, for it assumes I have a “favorite competitive sport,” and I regard competitive sports as one of the ugliest character flaws in the soul of American males. When I was thirteen (and thus not responsible for any character excess) I invented a party game in which we would quickly drink a bottle of pop and then jump up and down. The winner was the one who belched last. I’d argue that this competition made as much sense as most, plus nobody ever got carted off the field strapped to a body board in my game.
Heck, I’m in trouble starting with the whole notion of “winning” the future. It makes as much sense as declaring war on terror, which is a technique and not an opponent, and thus can never be defeated. The future is, by definition, always receding ahead of us, so we can’t win it or lose to it or ever get to it. The nicest thing about the future is that we can’t ever get there, or it wouldn’t be the future, so the future is a great place to put goals you don’t really like, like passing responsible budgets.
So my president wants us to whip the future, but I don’t wanna whip anything and I don’t think we can get to the future to defeat it or surrender to it. Gee, Mr. Obama, this wasn’t your platform when I voted for you. I’d rather try to whip the past, as there are fewer unknowns there, but Ms Bachmann seems to have the corner on that game, having declared war on anything we thought we knew about the past (George Washington and Thomas Jefferson fought against slavery).
Maybe we should bliss out in the present (BOIP!) Or BGTAG! (Be Good To A Goat!). Or maybe we should take all acronyms and put them in a place where they can’t irritate us. I suggest the future.
Fretting about the state of the union is too big a job for me. Today I will concentrate on Barbara’s husband. Let’s get him safely back in shape and let Barack fight the future or whatever.
Jacque . . . but I like politics as a cooperative activity, not a competitive one. Last night’s seating arrangements cut way back on all that hopping up and down to clap AT the opposition and nobody howled “You lie!” I did NOT miss that.
Going to respectively disagree with you on this one, oh wise Baboon. I am not sure winning the future in this case implies whipping or defeating it in any way. I heard something more akin to winning as in wooing, getting the future on our side, but then, I was sitting next to someone who was very excited about all the clean energy talk.
The “W” in Ford’s “WIN” button was for “Whip.” Whip Inflation Now. Now . . . getting the future on our side is my kind of thing. That sounds like cooperation.
I didn’t mean to get into this, but I’ve been battered away from a fondness for pro football on TV by the new role of injuries. Used to love it. Now I have a terrible time watching it because of the injuries. Watching the last games of Bret Favre was just one horrible exercise in witnessing Grampa Abuse. I think competition has developed the human body to the point where it can perform at spectacular levels, but the body’s ability to absorb punishment has not kept up. When I loved Vikings games, you almost never saw an injury. Now it seems that most games feature some grotesque injury that threatens to end a career or worse.
At some point, with concussions and shattered tibias and crushed vertebrae I begin to feel like a Roman watching gladiators whaling away at each other. “We who are about to blow out our ACLs salute thee!”
Drugs, Steve. Pure and simple, and very common in high schools, too. We did not suddenly start breeding 350 lb men who can move very quickly. The human body cannot take hits of they magnitude such bodies can engender. Also, the body is made more fragile by some of the drugs. One of the reasons I quit watching is exactly that, along with all the pretense that this truth is not right there in front of us, how all the major leagues make public cover that they are confronting it while they want it to happen for the billions of dollars at stake.
Love the winning-as-wooing idea MIG. I also have to agree with Steve that we never really get to the future because today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.
I dunno, Spin, I think you need to add some immediacy to the slogan with a fourth word-Win the Future NOW! I think the future historians of America would be with me on this one. It also has that scratch-your-head-what-does-that-even-mean? appeal. I’m still working on “I believe America is the indispensible nation” and what that means-sounds a bit like “too big to fail”, I suspect that is what the Romans thought.
Oh, the question-Like Jacque, I can sit and watch football-2 games last Sunday and yes, we will have to watch the Super Bowl-football makes it so easy to get other things done, put away the Christmas decorations, turn the heel on a sock, do the dishes. It moves slowly and there are plenty of replays from various camera angles, should you miss something in “real time” and plenty of chatter to tell you what you just saw.
Soccer, I have to just watch it, no scripted stops for the commercial break, no stops at all much of the time, the ball just keeps moving. I got very little else done during the World Cup.
I am just not a competitive sports kinda gal. I will tune in for the winter Olympics; I quite enjoy the figure and speed skating – so graceful and athletic at the same time. I have enjoyed a hockey game or basketball game from time to time, but prefer college level to professional level if I’m watching either of those, and haven’t done so in ages. Mostly sports just aren’t on my radar (if it weren’t for TMS, most mornings I wouldn’t know if there had been a game, who played, let alone who won – and Morning Edition doesn’t keep me as up-to-date).
The only competitive sport I have enjoyed participating in was fencing. I never got very good, but did better with that than the few others I tried. And it was fun – strategic like chess, but with a pointy stick and brief bursts of speed. Alas, my knees did not like me fencing. Sigh.
A fellow former fencer! I was never that great either but loved the mental aspect as well as the physical challenge. Without a doubt my favorite competitive sport to participate in. Anna, where/when did you fence?
I fenced briefly at the MN Sword Club in Mpls back in the 80s and then at the Twin Cities Sword Club (at least I think that was the name) in St. Paul in the 90s. Had more fun at the St. Paul club – it was less competitive. I like the sport, but at the Mpls club, at least during my brief time there, it seemed like if you weren’t going to work your way up to competing at events, then why waste your time. St. Paul was an easier place to take classes and muck about during the open fencing time – enjoy the sport as a physical and mental activity without feeling like I needed to prove myself at an organized competition. (I loved the sort-of zen like quality of not seeing well behind the mask – it was almost like being a Jedi and having to guess where your opponent was going to be next and feel your way there…less hand-eye coordination, more mental acuity.)
Boy his name is familiar – I wonder if he was one of the instructors I had at MN Sword Club? I had a super nice instructor there, it was the other members I didn’t care for as much.
You may be thinking of Rich or Ro. Ro went on to be a fantastic internationally-recognized coach with a salle of his own in St. Paul (likely the one you attended). I haven’t kept up in a few years, though. Feel free to email me at halcon@broadband-mn.com if you want to reminisce!
Spin and Mr Obama must be right to use language in this way. I sense this because it clearly irritates Babooners, who are the counter-group for pop language and to some extent pop culture in general.
My favorite competitive sports is NOT WATCHING pro football and big-time college football. Do not get me started on sports in American high schools, colleges, and culture. I made myself very unpopular, or likely even more unpopular is the correct phrase, on this topic. The reason it is a competitive sport for me is that people assume I would love watching football since I played in college–at a very minor level–and coached in high school for awhile.
Today’s piece is very clever, Dale. Funny. You were quick to catch the inanity of his language and the acronymical pun buried in it. I was forced to listen because my wife wanted to watch. I could not escape in a motel room. I used to say about Mr. Clinton smooth and eloquent vapidness is still vapidness, even if it is being used by powerful and effective people and even if for good purposes, which is really even worse in the long-run. So I suggest “win-the-future” is a way to lose the future. I may sound worked about all this, but I am not. Seen it too often to care much either way, but to laugh along with Dale.
Re Barbara and husband: in the church you meet a great deal of the same kind of sloganing and hollow language. So pastors who get tired and cynical from all that try to remind themselves that the church at their level, and dare I say the only level at which Jesus would have had much interest, the parish level, is where language and practice are both real, dealing with people in their daily lives. So, I agree with Steve, what really counts the next few days is Barbara and Detained Husband, along with our fun and laughter.
As I mentioned above, I loved participating in the sport of fencing. For watching and following, though, baseball is my game (but not the memorizing stats aspect). Cincinnati Reds fan in my youth growing up in Ohio, switched loyalty to the American League and the Twins when I moved up here. Best sporting events I have ever attended were Games 6 & 7 of the ’87 World Series! Would love to attend a World Series game at Target Stadium … just sayin’ …
I don’t follow it and certainly keep up with stats, but oh have I loved going to Wriggley Field to see the Cubbies (and thank you Steve Goodman, wherever you now are)
That was so great, I had not heard it before. I love baseball and the history of different teams. Of course, it is my favorite competitive sport. Go Twins!
Well, I did get into a bit of dudgeon there. Have a good day all. My wife seems to be healthy enough for us to drive to our friends’ place in Mesa. While there can I hang a big sign around my neck saying “I am only a very temporary snowbird”?
Clyde, it is good to hear your wife is doing better and I hope she continues to have good luck with recovering from her health set back.
They probably can tell that you are not a real snowbird because you probably do not have a tan from being outdoors in the sun like a real snowbird, but hanging that sign on your neck might be a good move if you want to get some laughs.
For most of my life I have been a big follower of almost any kind of competative spot the you can find on the sports pages of newspapers. Also, I did develop a little skill at playing basketball. I once loved watching boxing, but now will not warch it because I think it is too brutal. I think football, especially professional football, is almost as brutal as boxing
I still follow professional baseball and football closely. I am backing off a little on following these sports. I am doing this becasuse I think I more or less share Steve’s position that many men in this country, including me, are excessivly fascinated by competative sports and that’s not good.
Another wit this morning: we are thinking of stopping at Montezuma’s Castle National Monument along the way today. But my daughter suggests that after my wife’s day yesterday, we should not stop at any place with the word “Montezuma” in it.
Jacque, I have some of the same fond memories as you of watching sports with my male relatives. I have to admit that my feelings about sports have changed a great deal and I don’t like any competitive sports, not even High School sports. I feel that we would be better off as a society if there were no competitive sports at any level, and I am dismayed when I read that the an inordinate percentage of college students are majoring in physical education. Where in the world is that going to get us as a nation?
Hopefully off the couch and out of the top ten on the obesity charts? PE and recess are big casualties to No Child Left Behind-and yet we fuss over why kids are hyper and out-of-shape-we keep cramming more and more of them into each room with less and less leadership.
Sometimes I wish our schools would push “sports” that 1) have no coaches and 2) have no parental following. Pom Pom Pullaway, Red Rover, Dodgeball, etc. Stuff that makes kids move but doesn’t make them cry at night because someone else is starting at third base.
Daughter is blessed with two fabulous PE teachers. They’re really good at showing kids how they can be active with “everyday” stuff like biking, skating, fishing, sledding and such. They do play some games, but don’t push competitive games or competition as such – they’re more about having fun while you’re physically active (last year one of ’em had the kids looking for heffalump and woozle tracks on the way to the sledding hill). Wish I would have had her teachers when I was a kid…
I was a substitute gym teacher in an elementary school a few times. I was completely on the run almost all day. They brought one class in after another with no break except a short lunch and part of one period off. One group went out one door when the other came in and was ready to start. I don’t know how those teachers can do that day after day. Each class was 1/2 period long so I think there were 10 or more classes per day.
Jim – my mom was a PE teacher for many years, but for junior high age kids. They used to call her Sargeant Carter — but from what I saw, it was a nickname given with affection, even though she was tough!
I also did some junior high gym teacher subbing. You would think that junior high kids would like having a gym class, but they still found ways to make it dificult for a sub or even their regular teacher. At least I didn’t have to keep them from being too loud in the gym like I had to do in their other class. Also, there was at least a short break between classes with only about 5 or 6 classes per day so I wasn’t continuously on the run like I was for elementary gym classes.
Will have to read later… wish we had our laptop already. Y’all are helping me keep my sense of humor. Husband’s Thursday surgery is now dubbed “Thurgery.”
BiR Do you know about Caringbridge.org? IT’s an interactive website that allows folks in the hospital to update family/friends without repeating themselves over and over. For folks not blogging with you it can be quite handy.
My wife is the sports fan in our household and she’s a very enthusiastic fan with the yelling at the TV and jumping up and down. I go find something else to do…
Our son is the goalie on his high School Lacrosse team; we go to his games and Kelly is whistling and wooting and jumping up and down and daughter and I move off to the side to give her room, and daughter plugs her ears and I certainly encourage the team and shout at the goals and near misses… but then I get distracted. And I see a red car or a bird overhead and inevitably that’s when they score and I’m left wondering what happen…
I will admit to a certain amount of fear that Darling Daughter will decide to get involved in some competitive sport or other…not because I’m afraid she’ll get hurt or not enjoy herself, but because I’m pretty sure I can’t be Kelly-like in my enthusiasm for sports.
S&h has done HGRA soccer for years now-it involves teams and competition, but its stated goal is to have kids learn and enjoy the game. Parents must sign a pledge that they will supportive of ALL players. It is a great program and I have only once felt that a dad was taking it waaay too seriously. We are not athletes by any stretch of the imagination, but I am glad my son is probably not going to have the bad taste in his mouth that I got from gym and participating in sports.
Anna, you just have to cheer; not make a spectacle of yourself. 😉
The kids will appreciate it all the same.
MiG, sounds like a great program you have S&H going through… Our kid did some baseball, 4H softball and soccer before finding his niche in Lacrosse… the extent of my sporting career was 4H softball so he has gotten a lot from his Mother.
That’s reassuring Ben. So far she is most interested in things like swimming, which isn’t something you can stand around and cheer for b/c of acoustics and the slippery pool decks. We’ll see what transpires in the coming years, I guess.
I admire sports fans who get that involved and enjoy the experience and who can then walk away not worrying about the win or the lose, and I know many such people. Sports can bring a community together, even a whole state. It is a shame what money has done and that over-competitive edge in our culture. A good and healthy thing has been bent into something else. Too bad. I got to play college football at such a low level, it was played just for fun, a moment 0f competition, and for the sense of team. I know a lot of that is still true, but ESPN will never report it. And truth be told, competitiveness is oned of the dark spots in my dark side.
Clyde, I think my distaste for team sports comes from the problems you just mentioned. Team sports are too serious, too competitive, too expensive, and viewed too much as entertainment. I am happy to report that ND students in Grades 4 and 8 top the nation in their scores on tests of science proficiency.
It is hard to name a sport that hasn’t been messed up by money. You get a sport that is pure fun like Go-Kart racing, and pretty soon the dudes with big bucks will have machines with titanium brake pedals, and the wining cars will cost as much as a small house.
A last tale of the day I just remembered and then I will shut down and drive on:
the friends we will stay with the next few days had a son who was a mediocre hockey goalie. He went to a small private college in MN where he was the third string goalie for his freshman and sophomore years. Towards the end of his sophomore year, the mother chewed out the coach for not playing her son who she insisted was a great goalie. The coach listened without comment and then the next day cut the son from the team.
I’m standing in the “not much of a sports-fan” line today. Currently because the teenager is all about gymnastics, it is the sport I watch… but only if she’s competing. Competition, in general, tends to leave me cold. I don’t even like the competition shows on the Food Network. I think it has to do with how the behavior of competition has changed… the “I’m getting in your face, I’m gonna wipe you up sucka” upfront and then the gloating afterwards.
I will admit to watching the Olympics when it rolls around — although I do like individual events more than team events.
BiR — thinking of you this week. Lit a candle for hubby on gratefulness.org/candles.
Cool! As I remember, in those days I wore an American flag on my book bag, but it was upside down as a comment on our national priorities. I wouldn’t do that today, but that SE Asian war did bad things to my manners.
Ah, it’s hockey for me! I love watching hockey – any kind, any team. College hockey is fun because they’re not that great, but they can still move the puck pretty well. High school hockey was fun because our pep band played for our high school team. That was fun! Hanging out at the hockey game, and whenever someone scored, you played their school’s song, haha. I do love to watch professional hockey though. I don’t think it’s been corrupted as much as football, baseball and basketball. Don’t get me wrong, the salaries are still too high, but there isn’t as much drug use (which I find to be worse). I’m a die-hard Red Wings fan, but I’ll also watch the Wild when I can. I love watching the players zip around on the ice (something I have absolutely no talent for) and get goals, or make great passes, or…hahaha.
I also enjoy football, soccer, some baseball (I can’t watch too much or it gets boring), gymnastics…skiing/snowboarding! I love watching skiing! Downhill, cross-country, half-pipe, whatever. I love it. I just like watching sports, haha.
I did play soccer when I was younger, after gymnastics made my knees, ankles and wrists too bad to continue. I loved playing soccer. I could never stand just running a mile, but when you’re running in soccer, it’s so much fun! Oh, how I miss it.
Liberty Custard Update. They are open today and will be open through the weekend… Sunday will be their last day. So looks like we’re on for Saturday… 4ish?
I’d be happy to meet the living embodiment of Word Girl. When I mentioned to the teenager that she was free to join us if she wished, I got the big eye roll!
Daughter is not above getting chocolate ice cream and sprinkles all over her face when she’s at LC, so I wouldn’t worry too much about Baboon manners.
And clearly there are different reactions based on age – I did not get the eye roll from the six-year-old, I got a little girl pretending to sit up and beg like a puppy dog when I mentioned Liberty. She didn’t seem to care about the company, just that it meant more frozen custard…
Verily Sherrilee That eye roll interests me. I’m pretty sure that kids pick it up from popular entertainment, which is a relatively new fact. When I was a kid there were shows for kids and teens on TV, but there wasn’t a whole teen culture with its special words, special body language, special gestures and special attitudes toward adults. That all got packaged up and sold to kids after I was a teenager.
I was with a family a number of years ago when the teenaged boy was making smart, clever cracks at his parents. It didn’t sound genuine to me. I finally asked, “Who write’s your material?” He looked sheepish and said he’d gotten the lines from a John Hughes film.
I think part of the change (for I also did not roll my eyes at my parents) is the diminishment of fear. When I was a teenager, I was too afraid of my folks to mouth off. Not that my folks were monsters or anything… but they were the parents, I was the kid and you didn’t mess around with that arrangement.
I’m training to be on a dragon boat racing team. I’ve never really been very involved in team sports – I was always the last one picked by the captains in school sports – so this is a little outside my comfort zone.
Dragon boat racing has a long history, mostly in China and other Asian countries, and in early races it was common for paddlers to throw rocks at the opposing teams, or try to hit them with bamboo stalks. Today it’s considerably more polite, but still competitive.
The team I’m training with is somewhat famous for always coming in last. One of the paddlers says, “We’re the team to beat, and everybody does.” (That’s really the only thing that gives me hope I might make the team.)
I was on a team last year, don’t think my arms will be up to it this year. We’ve been holding them here for a couple of year and it is all for fun, just a community get together. We lost.
Yes, the Lake Phalen Dragon Festival is one of the annual races. The team is called the Dragon Divas. I was there last year, but only as a spectator. I might have seen you there!
Are we talking about the Dragon Boat Races on Lake Phalen??? We love that festival. If either or both of you are racing this year, let me know which team(s) and we will be there to cheer you on.
Greetings! Ah, competitive sports — the honor, the glory, for the team, etc. There are great moments in sports, but like many of you have said — it’s been polluted by excessive salaries, ultra competition and ugly attitudes. I grew up in Green Bay during the Lombardi era and remember watching the games with my family, cheering them on, eating peanuts in the shell, and trying to converse with boys about football; so I have a lot of fond memories. But I don’t watch any sports now. Although, I might watch the Super Bowl now that the Packers are in again.
Of course, I love doing and competing in karate. What’s so great about martial arts is that it’s based on a different attitude (generally) of respect. It’s an individual sport, but you can also compete on teams. We’re very supportive of each other, advance to the next belt at our own pace and love to see each other get better. I overhead one man say to someone that he’s never been in a sport like karate, where fellow students want to help each other get better. Bad sportsmanship and *attitude* are not tolerated at any level. Instructors take it upon themselves to check on students grades at school, behavior at home and demeanor in public when wearing their uniform. It’s kind of a family feeling, and all adult students have no problem telling squirrelly kids to “sit and act like a black belt.” When you advance to the upper belts, you have opportunities to show leadership; as even black belt 10-yr olds outrank a red belt adult.
Obviously, I can’t say enough about martial arts. If you’re looking for a great sport to involve your children, I highly recommend it. I’ve done other sports, but I’ve gotten a lifetime of good habits from being in martial arts. Later baboons …
I’m apparently the sports idiot in this group, baseball, football, basketball, soccer, golf, track and field, swimming karate hockey gymnastics dance luge sailing skiingare all things I enjoy I agree it’s to bad about science math debate chess club acting poetry writing and singing not getting the same kudos in school but real life is seldom fair
Every year at this time I vow not to get involved with following the Twins this year, and every year I get sucked in. I am weird as a fan; I get involved with the players more than the team. I hate to see players fail, move on, be traded because I connected with them. I do not think Nick Punto is really worth having on the team, but I want to see him come back just because he was one of the team, one of my players.
We made it to our friends house in Phoenix, but my computer will not work n their Lan, at least for the moment. thus I have to se their computer, which I will not be doing often for the next four days or so.
Trail Baboon 
a gracious good morning to You All
Tennis! played a lot and watched A LOT. in 2002, one late summer a friend and i went to Queens for the US Tennis Open for three days – had such an adventure – it rained for one whole day, but we got to see all of our favorites anyway. our slogan was “PS we love you!”
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Rise and Shine Baboons:
Ooooh, Spin, you are going to MAKE me reveal my dirty little secret. my guilty pleasure. Of all the topics we discuss and reveal on this blog, you would choose this one to go public.
I like football.
Good Baseball is a close second. It is my father’s and grandfather’s fault. They ruined my earnest feminist stance against violence, scantily clad cheerleaders, and commercialism run amok. Dad and Grandpa used to watch sports, chat and smoke while holding me on their laps and answering questions about the game. Nothing will socialize one to such pervisty than combining it with love and security.
So there you have it. Busted.
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I am very bad at competition…participating and/or watching…but did have a go at showing horses — jumping and dressage. Always with the “when does the fun start?” ringing in my ears. I did, however, get captured in a photo with a big grin on my face after falling off (and getting back on) in a cross-country jumping show.
Morning all…!
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Good morning baboons and babettes! I’m in deep trouble with this question, for it assumes I have a “favorite competitive sport,” and I regard competitive sports as one of the ugliest character flaws in the soul of American males. When I was thirteen (and thus not responsible for any character excess) I invented a party game in which we would quickly drink a bottle of pop and then jump up and down. The winner was the one who belched last. I’d argue that this competition made as much sense as most, plus nobody ever got carted off the field strapped to a body board in my game.
Heck, I’m in trouble starting with the whole notion of “winning” the future. It makes as much sense as declaring war on terror, which is a technique and not an opponent, and thus can never be defeated. The future is, by definition, always receding ahead of us, so we can’t win it or lose to it or ever get to it. The nicest thing about the future is that we can’t ever get there, or it wouldn’t be the future, so the future is a great place to put goals you don’t really like, like passing responsible budgets.
So my president wants us to whip the future, but I don’t wanna whip anything and I don’t think we can get to the future to defeat it or surrender to it. Gee, Mr. Obama, this wasn’t your platform when I voted for you. I’d rather try to whip the past, as there are fewer unknowns there, but Ms Bachmann seems to have the corner on that game, having declared war on anything we thought we knew about the past (George Washington and Thomas Jefferson fought against slavery).
Maybe we should bliss out in the present (BOIP!) Or BGTAG! (Be Good To A Goat!). Or maybe we should take all acronyms and put them in a place where they can’t irritate us. I suggest the future.
Fretting about the state of the union is too big a job for me. Today I will concentrate on Barbara’s husband. Let’s get him safely back in shape and let Barack fight the future or whatever.
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Dang. Did it again . . . wandered off the question. My favorite competitive sport is kite flying.
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Perhaps your favorite competitive sport is politics?
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Jacque . . . but I like politics as a cooperative activity, not a competitive one. Last night’s seating arrangements cut way back on all that hopping up and down to clap AT the opposition and nobody howled “You lie!” I did NOT miss that.
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Going to respectively disagree with you on this one, oh wise Baboon. I am not sure winning the future in this case implies whipping or defeating it in any way. I heard something more akin to winning as in wooing, getting the future on our side, but then, I was sitting next to someone who was very excited about all the clean energy talk.
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The “W” in Ford’s “WIN” button was for “Whip.” Whip Inflation Now. Now . . . getting the future on our side is my kind of thing. That sounds like cooperation.
I didn’t mean to get into this, but I’ve been battered away from a fondness for pro football on TV by the new role of injuries. Used to love it. Now I have a terrible time watching it because of the injuries. Watching the last games of Bret Favre was just one horrible exercise in witnessing Grampa Abuse. I think competition has developed the human body to the point where it can perform at spectacular levels, but the body’s ability to absorb punishment has not kept up. When I loved Vikings games, you almost never saw an injury. Now it seems that most games feature some grotesque injury that threatens to end a career or worse.
At some point, with concussions and shattered tibias and crushed vertebrae I begin to feel like a Roman watching gladiators whaling away at each other. “We who are about to blow out our ACLs salute thee!”
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Drugs, Steve. Pure and simple, and very common in high schools, too. We did not suddenly start breeding 350 lb men who can move very quickly. The human body cannot take hits of they magnitude such bodies can engender. Also, the body is made more fragile by some of the drugs. One of the reasons I quit watching is exactly that, along with all the pretense that this truth is not right there in front of us, how all the major leagues make public cover that they are confronting it while they want it to happen for the billions of dollars at stake.
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Love the winning-as-wooing idea MIG. I also have to agree with Steve that we never really get to the future because today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.
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I dunno, Spin, I think you need to add some immediacy to the slogan with a fourth word-Win the Future NOW! I think the future historians of America would be with me on this one. It also has that scratch-your-head-what-does-that-even-mean? appeal. I’m still working on “I believe America is the indispensible nation” and what that means-sounds a bit like “too big to fail”, I suspect that is what the Romans thought.
Oh, the question-Like Jacque, I can sit and watch football-2 games last Sunday and yes, we will have to watch the Super Bowl-football makes it so easy to get other things done, put away the Christmas decorations, turn the heel on a sock, do the dishes. It moves slowly and there are plenty of replays from various camera angles, should you miss something in “real time” and plenty of chatter to tell you what you just saw.
Soccer, I have to just watch it, no scripted stops for the commercial break, no stops at all much of the time, the ball just keeps moving. I got very little else done during the World Cup.
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I am just not a competitive sports kinda gal. I will tune in for the winter Olympics; I quite enjoy the figure and speed skating – so graceful and athletic at the same time. I have enjoyed a hockey game or basketball game from time to time, but prefer college level to professional level if I’m watching either of those, and haven’t done so in ages. Mostly sports just aren’t on my radar (if it weren’t for TMS, most mornings I wouldn’t know if there had been a game, who played, let alone who won – and Morning Edition doesn’t keep me as up-to-date).
The only competitive sport I have enjoyed participating in was fencing. I never got very good, but did better with that than the few others I tried. And it was fun – strategic like chess, but with a pointy stick and brief bursts of speed. Alas, my knees did not like me fencing. Sigh.
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A fellow former fencer! I was never that great either but loved the mental aspect as well as the physical challenge. Without a doubt my favorite competitive sport to participate in. Anna, where/when did you fence?
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I fenced briefly at the MN Sword Club in Mpls back in the 80s and then at the Twin Cities Sword Club (at least I think that was the name) in St. Paul in the 90s. Had more fun at the St. Paul club – it was less competitive. I like the sport, but at the Mpls club, at least during my brief time there, it seemed like if you weren’t going to work your way up to competing at events, then why waste your time. St. Paul was an easier place to take classes and muck about during the open fencing time – enjoy the sport as a physical and mental activity without feeling like I needed to prove myself at an organized competition. (I loved the sort-of zen like quality of not seeing well behind the mask – it was almost like being a Jedi and having to guess where your opponent was going to be next and feel your way there…less hand-eye coordination, more mental acuity.)
Where did you fence?
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Small world! I fenced at the U of M club during the same time period mostly under the tutelage of the wonderful Ron Frazzini.
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Boy his name is familiar – I wonder if he was one of the instructors I had at MN Sword Club? I had a super nice instructor there, it was the other members I didn’t care for as much.
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You may be thinking of Rich or Ro. Ro went on to be a fantastic internationally-recognized coach with a salle of his own in St. Paul (likely the one you attended). I haven’t kept up in a few years, though. Feel free to email me at halcon@broadband-mn.com if you want to reminisce!
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Spin and Mr Obama must be right to use language in this way. I sense this because it clearly irritates Babooners, who are the counter-group for pop language and to some extent pop culture in general.
My favorite competitive sports is NOT WATCHING pro football and big-time college football. Do not get me started on sports in American high schools, colleges, and culture. I made myself very unpopular, or likely even more unpopular is the correct phrase, on this topic. The reason it is a competitive sport for me is that people assume I would love watching football since I played in college–at a very minor level–and coached in high school for awhile.
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Today’s piece is very clever, Dale. Funny. You were quick to catch the inanity of his language and the acronymical pun buried in it. I was forced to listen because my wife wanted to watch. I could not escape in a motel room. I used to say about Mr. Clinton smooth and eloquent vapidness is still vapidness, even if it is being used by powerful and effective people and even if for good purposes, which is really even worse in the long-run. So I suggest “win-the-future” is a way to lose the future. I may sound worked about all this, but I am not. Seen it too often to care much either way, but to laugh along with Dale.
Re Barbara and husband: in the church you meet a great deal of the same kind of sloganing and hollow language. So pastors who get tired and cynical from all that try to remind themselves that the church at their level, and dare I say the only level at which Jesus would have had much interest, the parish level, is where language and practice are both real, dealing with people in their daily lives. So, I agree with Steve, what really counts the next few days is Barbara and Detained Husband, along with our fun and laughter.
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yes, Clyde – had to read yesterday’s blog to catch up –
Barbara iR – strength to you and husband.
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Favorite sport to play- golf.
Favorite to watch- baseball, followed closely by hockey (college first, then pro)
Chris in Owatonna
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As I mentioned above, I loved participating in the sport of fencing. For watching and following, though, baseball is my game (but not the memorizing stats aspect). Cincinnati Reds fan in my youth growing up in Ohio, switched loyalty to the American League and the Twins when I moved up here. Best sporting events I have ever attended were Games 6 & 7 of the ’87 World Series! Would love to attend a World Series game at Target Stadium … just sayin’ …
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Now you have me thinking about baseball, Connie–
I don’t follow it and certainly keep up with stats, but oh have I loved going to Wriggley Field to see the Cubbies (and thank you Steve Goodman, wherever you now are)
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This is one of my faves from TLGMS and RH. Thanks for the YouTube video!
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I’ve always loved this one, MIG. Thanks!
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That was so great, I had not heard it before. I love baseball and the history of different teams. Of course, it is my favorite competitive sport. Go Twins!
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Every time I go to wriggly I hear steve goodman sing that song
Look how young he was. Wow
Thanks
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Well, I did get into a bit of dudgeon there. Have a good day all. My wife seems to be healthy enough for us to drive to our friends’ place in Mesa. While there can I hang a big sign around my neck saying “I am only a very temporary snowbird”?
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Clyde, it is good to hear your wife is doing better and I hope she continues to have good luck with recovering from her health set back.
They probably can tell that you are not a real snowbird because you probably do not have a tan from being outdoors in the sun like a real snowbird, but hanging that sign on your neck might be a good move if you want to get some laughs.
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Good morning to all,
For most of my life I have been a big follower of almost any kind of competative spot the you can find on the sports pages of newspapers. Also, I did develop a little skill at playing basketball. I once loved watching boxing, but now will not warch it because I think it is too brutal. I think football, especially professional football, is almost as brutal as boxing
I still follow professional baseball and football closely. I am backing off a little on following these sports. I am doing this becasuse I think I more or less share Steve’s position that many men in this country, including me, are excessivly fascinated by competative sports and that’s not good.
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I am kind of spaced out this morning. I follow baseball and basketball, not baseball and football.
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Another wit this morning: we are thinking of stopping at Montezuma’s Castle National Monument along the way today. But my daughter suggests that after my wife’s day yesterday, we should not stop at any place with the word “Montezuma” in it.
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but perhaps a small offering to appease him would be a good idea?
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Jacque, I have some of the same fond memories as you of watching sports with my male relatives. I have to admit that my feelings about sports have changed a great deal and I don’t like any competitive sports, not even High School sports. I feel that we would be better off as a society if there were no competitive sports at any level, and I am dismayed when I read that the an inordinate percentage of college students are majoring in physical education. Where in the world is that going to get us as a nation?
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Hopefully off the couch and out of the top ten on the obesity charts? PE and recess are big casualties to No Child Left Behind-and yet we fuss over why kids are hyper and out-of-shape-we keep cramming more and more of them into each room with less and less leadership.
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Oh, I agree with you. I wish there was as much emphasis on exercise and activity as there was on competitive team sports.
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Sometimes I wish our schools would push “sports” that 1) have no coaches and 2) have no parental following. Pom Pom Pullaway, Red Rover, Dodgeball, etc. Stuff that makes kids move but doesn’t make them cry at night because someone else is starting at third base.
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Daughter is blessed with two fabulous PE teachers. They’re really good at showing kids how they can be active with “everyday” stuff like biking, skating, fishing, sledding and such. They do play some games, but don’t push competitive games or competition as such – they’re more about having fun while you’re physically active (last year one of ’em had the kids looking for heffalump and woozle tracks on the way to the sledding hill). Wish I would have had her teachers when I was a kid…
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Hey Anna… sounds a lot like the program that the child had when she was at Burroughs. The two PE teachers there are fabulous!
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Sounds almost too good to be true, Anna. You give me hope.
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I was a substitute gym teacher in an elementary school a few times. I was completely on the run almost all day. They brought one class in after another with no break except a short lunch and part of one period off. One group went out one door when the other came in and was ready to start. I don’t know how those teachers can do that day after day. Each class was 1/2 period long so I think there were 10 or more classes per day.
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Jim – my mom was a PE teacher for many years, but for junior high age kids. They used to call her Sargeant Carter — but from what I saw, it was a nickname given with affection, even though she was tough!
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I also did some junior high gym teacher subbing. You would think that junior high kids would like having a gym class, but they still found ways to make it dificult for a sub or even their regular teacher. At least I didn’t have to keep them from being too loud in the gym like I had to do in their other class. Also, there was at least a short break between classes with only about 5 or 6 classes per day so I wasn’t continuously on the run like I was for elementary gym classes.
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Too True, Catherine.
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Love watching any skating, esp. the Olympics.
Will have to read later… wish we had our laptop already. Y’all are helping me keep my sense of humor. Husband’s Thursday surgery is now dubbed “Thurgery.”
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Hang in there BiR. “Thurgery”- Love it!
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I’m sure what you are going through, BiR, must be hard to take. Don’t let it get you down. Good luck to you and your husband with Thurgery.
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BiR Do you know about Caringbridge.org? IT’s an interactive website that allows folks in the hospital to update family/friends without repeating themselves over and over. For folks not blogging with you it can be quite handy.
Sending healing thoughts your way!
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I’d forgotten about Caringbridge – will think about whether that fits. Thanks…
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Hoping for the best possible outcome and a brief detention. Hospitals are stressful places to be. Remember to breathe.
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Morning–
My wife is the sports fan in our household and she’s a very enthusiastic fan with the yelling at the TV and jumping up and down. I go find something else to do…
Our son is the goalie on his high School Lacrosse team; we go to his games and Kelly is whistling and wooting and jumping up and down and daughter and I move off to the side to give her room, and daughter plugs her ears and I certainly encourage the team and shout at the goals and near misses… but then I get distracted. And I see a red car or a bird overhead and inevitably that’s when they score and I’m left wondering what happen…
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I will admit to a certain amount of fear that Darling Daughter will decide to get involved in some competitive sport or other…not because I’m afraid she’ll get hurt or not enjoy herself, but because I’m pretty sure I can’t be Kelly-like in my enthusiasm for sports.
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S&h has done HGRA soccer for years now-it involves teams and competition, but its stated goal is to have kids learn and enjoy the game. Parents must sign a pledge that they will supportive of ALL players. It is a great program and I have only once felt that a dad was taking it waaay too seriously. We are not athletes by any stretch of the imagination, but I am glad my son is probably not going to have the bad taste in his mouth that I got from gym and participating in sports.
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Anna, you just have to cheer; not make a spectacle of yourself. 😉
The kids will appreciate it all the same.
MiG, sounds like a great program you have S&H going through… Our kid did some baseball, 4H softball and soccer before finding his niche in Lacrosse… the extent of my sporting career was 4H softball so he has gotten a lot from his Mother.
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That’s reassuring Ben. So far she is most interested in things like swimming, which isn’t something you can stand around and cheer for b/c of acoustics and the slippery pool decks. We’ll see what transpires in the coming years, I guess.
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I admire sports fans who get that involved and enjoy the experience and who can then walk away not worrying about the win or the lose, and I know many such people. Sports can bring a community together, even a whole state. It is a shame what money has done and that over-competitive edge in our culture. A good and healthy thing has been bent into something else. Too bad. I got to play college football at such a low level, it was played just for fun, a moment 0f competition, and for the sense of team. I know a lot of that is still true, but ESPN will never report it. And truth be told, competitiveness is oned of the dark spots in my dark side.
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Clyde, I think my distaste for team sports comes from the problems you just mentioned. Team sports are too serious, too competitive, too expensive, and viewed too much as entertainment. I am happy to report that ND students in Grades 4 and 8 top the nation in their scores on tests of science proficiency.
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AaaGgghhhh… Competitive science
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It is hard to name a sport that hasn’t been messed up by money. You get a sport that is pure fun like Go-Kart racing, and pretty soon the dudes with big bucks will have machines with titanium brake pedals, and the wining cars will cost as much as a small house.
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A last tale of the day I just remembered and then I will shut down and drive on:
the friends we will stay with the next few days had a son who was a mediocre hockey goalie. He went to a small private college in MN where he was the third string goalie for his freshman and sophomore years. Towards the end of his sophomore year, the mother chewed out the coach for not playing her son who she insisted was a great goalie. The coach listened without comment and then the next day cut the son from the team.
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I’m standing in the “not much of a sports-fan” line today. Currently because the teenager is all about gymnastics, it is the sport I watch… but only if she’s competing. Competition, in general, tends to leave me cold. I don’t even like the competition shows on the Food Network. I think it has to do with how the behavior of competition has changed… the “I’m getting in your face, I’m gonna wipe you up sucka” upfront and then the gloating afterwards.
I will admit to watching the Olympics when it rolls around — although I do like individual events more than team events.
BiR — thinking of you this week. Lit a candle for hubby on gratefulness.org/candles.
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Favorite competitive sport? Book club, natch.
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Back in the day, I had one of those “Whip Inflation Now” ” WIN” buttons but I wore it flipped upside down so it read “NIM” : “No Immediate Miracles”.
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Cool! As I remember, in those days I wore an American flag on my book bag, but it was upside down as a comment on our national priorities. I wouldn’t do that today, but that SE Asian war did bad things to my manners.
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Ah, it’s hockey for me! I love watching hockey – any kind, any team. College hockey is fun because they’re not that great, but they can still move the puck pretty well. High school hockey was fun because our pep band played for our high school team. That was fun! Hanging out at the hockey game, and whenever someone scored, you played their school’s song, haha. I do love to watch professional hockey though. I don’t think it’s been corrupted as much as football, baseball and basketball. Don’t get me wrong, the salaries are still too high, but there isn’t as much drug use (which I find to be worse). I’m a die-hard Red Wings fan, but I’ll also watch the Wild when I can. I love watching the players zip around on the ice (something I have absolutely no talent for) and get goals, or make great passes, or…hahaha.
I also enjoy football, soccer, some baseball (I can’t watch too much or it gets boring), gymnastics…skiing/snowboarding! I love watching skiing! Downhill, cross-country, half-pipe, whatever. I love it. I just like watching sports, haha.
I did play soccer when I was younger, after gymnastics made my knees, ankles and wrists too bad to continue. I loved playing soccer. I could never stand just running a mile, but when you’re running in soccer, it’s so much fun! Oh, how I miss it.
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Hi Alanna: Nice to hear from you. You’ve been scarce lately.
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Liberty Custard Update. They are open today and will be open through the weekend… Sunday will be their last day. So looks like we’re on for Saturday… 4ish?
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I shall be there – Saturday 4:00 or so. With Daughter. (Hope it’s okay to bring her along…she’s mostly well mannered…mostly…)
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If she is too well mannered she will pt the baboons among us to shame.
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I’d be happy to meet the living embodiment of Word Girl. When I mentioned to the teenager that she was free to join us if she wished, I got the big eye roll!
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Daughter is not above getting chocolate ice cream and sprinkles all over her face when she’s at LC, so I wouldn’t worry too much about Baboon manners.
And clearly there are different reactions based on age – I did not get the eye roll from the six-year-old, I got a little girl pretending to sit up and beg like a puppy dog when I mentioned Liberty. She didn’t seem to care about the company, just that it meant more frozen custard…
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Verily Sherrilee That eye roll interests me. I’m pretty sure that kids pick it up from popular entertainment, which is a relatively new fact. When I was a kid there were shows for kids and teens on TV, but there wasn’t a whole teen culture with its special words, special body language, special gestures and special attitudes toward adults. That all got packaged up and sold to kids after I was a teenager.
I was with a family a number of years ago when the teenaged boy was making smart, clever cracks at his parents. It didn’t sound genuine to me. I finally asked, “Who write’s your material?” He looked sheepish and said he’d gotten the lines from a John Hughes film.
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I think part of the change (for I also did not roll my eyes at my parents) is the diminishment of fear. When I was a teenager, I was too afraid of my folks to mouth off. Not that my folks were monsters or anything… but they were the parents, I was the kid and you didn’t mess around with that arrangement.
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I’d like to go, but I have a couple of other things going that are probably going to run too long. so I expect I’ll miss this one. Have fun!
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I’m training to be on a dragon boat racing team. I’ve never really been very involved in team sports – I was always the last one picked by the captains in school sports – so this is a little outside my comfort zone.
Dragon boat racing has a long history, mostly in China and other Asian countries, and in early races it was common for paddlers to throw rocks at the opposing teams, or try to hit them with bamboo stalks. Today it’s considerably more polite, but still competitive.
The team I’m training with is somewhat famous for always coming in last. One of the paddlers says, “We’re the team to beat, and everybody does.” (That’s really the only thing that gives me hope I might make the team.)
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I was on a team last year, don’t think my arms will be up to it this year. We’ve been holding them here for a couple of year and it is all for fun, just a community get together. We lost.
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Yes, the Lake Phalen Dragon Festival is one of the annual races. The team is called the Dragon Divas. I was there last year, but only as a spectator. I might have seen you there!
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Are we talking about the Dragon Boat Races on Lake Phalen??? We love that festival. If either or both of you are racing this year, let me know which team(s) and we will be there to cheer you on.
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Me too! That little Asain festival, right?
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Oops, meant to reply here, but the reply landed a couple of posts up.
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Greetings! Ah, competitive sports — the honor, the glory, for the team, etc. There are great moments in sports, but like many of you have said — it’s been polluted by excessive salaries, ultra competition and ugly attitudes. I grew up in Green Bay during the Lombardi era and remember watching the games with my family, cheering them on, eating peanuts in the shell, and trying to converse with boys about football; so I have a lot of fond memories. But I don’t watch any sports now. Although, I might watch the Super Bowl now that the Packers are in again.
Of course, I love doing and competing in karate. What’s so great about martial arts is that it’s based on a different attitude (generally) of respect. It’s an individual sport, but you can also compete on teams. We’re very supportive of each other, advance to the next belt at our own pace and love to see each other get better. I overhead one man say to someone that he’s never been in a sport like karate, where fellow students want to help each other get better. Bad sportsmanship and *attitude* are not tolerated at any level. Instructors take it upon themselves to check on students grades at school, behavior at home and demeanor in public when wearing their uniform. It’s kind of a family feeling, and all adult students have no problem telling squirrelly kids to “sit and act like a black belt.” When you advance to the upper belts, you have opportunities to show leadership; as even black belt 10-yr olds outrank a red belt adult.
Obviously, I can’t say enough about martial arts. If you’re looking for a great sport to involve your children, I highly recommend it. I’ve done other sports, but I’ve gotten a lifetime of good habits from being in martial arts. Later baboons …
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I’m apparently the sports idiot in this group, baseball, football, basketball, soccer, golf, track and field, swimming karate hockey gymnastics dance luge sailing skiingare all things I enjoy I agree it’s to bad about science math debate chess club acting poetry writing and singing not getting the same kudos in school but real life is seldom fair
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Every year at this time I vow not to get involved with following the Twins this year, and every year I get sucked in. I am weird as a fan; I get involved with the players more than the team. I hate to see players fail, move on, be traded because I connected with them. I do not think Nick Punto is really worth having on the team, but I want to see him come back just because he was one of the team, one of my players.
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I still miss Luis Rodriguez.
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We made it to our friends house in Phoenix, but my computer will not work n their Lan, at least for the moment. thus I have to se their computer, which I will not be doing often for the next four days or so.
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Good to hear you made it to Phoenix – will not fret if we don’t see you much on the blog in the next few days. Hope Phoenix is lovely!
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