Newton on Football

Click HERE for an interesting look at the "physics of the hit," a scientific look at the art of tackling.

I offer this link as a prelude to Super Bowl Saturday. 

The Steelers play serious defense. I like that.

Music Friday: "Methamphetamine"

Click HERE for arguably the best song on Son Volt's last album.

I read they will have a new album out this summer? I look forward to that.

"Know Your Recruits: D. J. Fluker"

While Andre Smith will go in the first round of the NFL draft, Alabama is recruiting a ton of offensive linemen, two of whom could play left tackle next season--D. J. Fluker and two-year college transfer James Carpenter. And if the mammoth offensive tackle Bobby Massie commits on signing day, the Tide will have three new guys to compete with offensive tackles already at the Capstone.

For an entertaining look at one of Alabama's prized recruits, click HERE. Funny stuff.

For an interesting legit article on this guy from SI, click HERE.

Fare Thee Well

The eminent American writer, John Updike, passed away today.

Click HERE for the AP story about Updike, and the "Books" section of the NY Times provides a a bit more detailed look at Updike's contribution to American letters, which can be accessed HERE.

Although I haven't read any of his work in a long while, I did my Master's thesis on his four Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom novels. The main character is an American Everyman of sorts, a guy concerned with money, sex, sports, and getting ahead.  Those four novels are also mirrors of America.

Rabbit at Rest.

Ten Years of the High-Post

It's official.

Coach Mark Gottfried, the head basketball coach at Alabama, resigned today. After taking over a program pretty much in ruins in 1998 when I started school at the Capstone, Gottfried coached the Tide to a number of NCAA appearances and once got them to the "Great Eight," a feat Wimp Sanderson never achieved. 

Although I think Gottfried has always seemed like a good guy, his teams did underachieve quite often, especially the past few years. Alabama played a style of offense that was outdated and stale--that damn high-post offense of John Wooden's teams at UCLA. 

I wouldn't say I'm particularly sad about this resignation. Although for the past seven years I've lived in an area where Alabama basketball games are rarely televised, I watched some Alabama games from time to time. But watching that methodical, awful offense drove me crazy.

I do remember one of the best moments I've had as a fan though. In '02 my wife and I were at the game where the Tide clinched the SEC regular season title by a last second lay-in by Antoine Pettaway. That was a heck of a game and a hell of an ending.

Schlitz and Soldiers & Draft Magazine

Click HERE to read a short blurb about how a distributor in Illinois is shipping complimentary Schlitz to soldiers celebrating the Super Bowl in Iraq.

I happened upon this wonderful factoid on Draft magazine's website. Until today I had never heard of that magazine. But as I went toward the checkout at my local grocery store, a magazine with a large glass of beer and the headline of "Best Beer of 2009" caught my attention. 

If you're a connoisseur of microbrews, craft beers, and smaller breweries, this is the magazine for you. There's an article about Portland, Oregon, the city nicknamed "Beervana." And they also have an article that provides a list of the "best beer bars in America."

In the Midwest category of "beer bars," establishments in the cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, and Kansas City are well represented. In fact, the KC area's representatives are Barley's Brewhaus, Blanc Burgers & Bottles, The Dish Famous Stuffed Pizza, The Foundry at McCoy's, Grinders, and Harry's Country Club. In contrast, the St. Louis area is only represented by Blueberry Hill and Growler's. 

In the online platform of this magazine is another interesting article about what beer an author suggests for the Obama administration. Click HERE for "Real Beer Returns to the White House." 

Tomorrow I brew an "old ale" of my own recipe, so my mind is on beer. 

Music Friday: "How Many More Days"

Click HERE for an explanation of the "blues" and a song by the eminent Howlin' Wolf from the mid-60s.

A blues number, in some ways, exemplifies my adventures in academia this past week.

As Howlin' Wolf says, "Any time you thinkin' evil, you thinkin' 'bout the blues."

Thoughts on the Big Speech

As you can imagine, I enjoyed Obama's inaugural speech.

But I found the media's reaction to the speech a bit odd. The talking heads instantly started comparing the speech to past ones, and to many of their tiny little minds it didn't compare to Lincoln's second inaugural or Jefferson's first (my favorite).

People seem to be disappointed that his speech wasn't as good as Lincoln or Jefferson's. That's a tough challenge. Good luck with that.

In a world of sound bytes, many weren't happy that there wasn't one snippet that could be beaten into our heads such as "The only thing to fear is fear itself," "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," or "Does this suit make me look fat?" (Taft). 

Regardless, although I'm no political "scientist," I can't remember an inaugural address that invokes the crossing of the Delaware. Interesting metaphor for where are country is right now.

And I really enjoyed that President Obama took on either-or thinking. Part of the speech was a stinging indictment of the past eight years and how we need to move the country in a much better direction.

One More Day...

Although President Bush has been a lame duck for quite a while, I offer this link from Harper's. In the January issue, the magazine did a special Harper's Index devoted to the past eight horrible years.

Click HERE if you're interested. 

I also wanted to provide a link to Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz's informative essay entitled "The $10 Trillion Hangover: Paying the Price for Eight Years of Bush," but Harper's will only give online access to current subscribers like me. That article by the former assistant secretary for administration, management, and budget within the Department of Commerce and a Nobel Prize winner in economics is sobering.

I will provide some passages of note though:

"The worst legacy of the past eight years is that despite colossal government spending, most Americans are worse off than they were in 2001. This is because money was squandered in Iraq and given as a tax windfall to America's richest individuals and corporations, rather than spent on such projects as education, infrastructure, and energy independence, which would have made all of us better in the long term."

"The Obama Administration, facing the most serious economic crisis in at least a generation, will need to mount an expansionary fiscal policy. The problem is how much the country's debt mountain will crimp our ability to pay for the type of change we just voted for--better health care, public investment in alternative forms of energy, and a renewal of our aging roads and bridges--and that we need in order to rescue the economy."

"Whether we struggle to break our addiction to deficit spending in order to pay off our debts, or wind up inflating them away, the economic mistakes of the George W. Bush White House will cast a long shadow over the next generation of Americans."

That history will not vindicate the Bush administration. 

Good luck, President Obama.  

Music Friday: "Graveyard Shift"

Click HERE to enjoy Uncle Tupelo's performance of  "Graveyard Shift" in 1989, the year I graduated high school.

America 101

Click HERE for what I think is an interesting article about how knowledge about government and our responsibilities as citizens need to be fully integrated into school curricula across the nation.

The author, Eric Lane, puts forward an ambitious proposal for fully integrating civic literacy into our schools. 

Lane ends the article in this way: "America, unlike most of the world's nations, is not a country defined by blood or belief. Rather, it is an idea, or a set of ideas, about freedom and opportunity. It is this set of ideas that binds us together as Americans. That's why these ideas have to be taught. Our understanding and appreciation of them is how we grade our civic literacy. We are now failing, and heading toward what the philosopher Michael Sandel has called a 'storyless condition,' in which 'there is no continuity between present and past, and therefore no responsibility, and therefore no possibility for acting together to govern ourselves.' We need civic education to reverse this course."

Who are the Suspects?

As I read in "The Fix" today, a number of GOP Senators will be retiring in '10. Click HERE for the post. One of those retirees will be Kit Bond.

So politicos from Missouri, who will run for that open Senate seat in the Show-Me State? Any early talk?

"The Promise of Wind"

If you're interested, click HERE for a recent article by EMagazine about the surge in wind energy production and projects in the past few years.

Thankfully, as the author points out, "more and more equipment [wind turbines] is being manufactured in the U.S. Where 70% of wind power equipment used to come from Europe just a few years ago, it 's down to about 50% today." 

Denmark and Germany have been the leaders in building wind turbines for years, and it's a positive development that US companies are getting into the market, especially since shipping the parts for those big things is costly. 

What needs to also happen is some type of support and/or equal playing field for smaller-scale wind farms that help rural communities, as is discussed in this related article (HERE).

If You're Tired...

If you're tired of the Tebow love-fest as much as I am, you may find this article (click HERE) wonderfully satirical.

And So It Begins...

The B(C)S Championship game just happened yesterday, and Tony Barnhart already has a pre-season top 25 out. Click HERE to read his top 25.

I think Ole Miss is the front runner in the SEC West. Alabama has too many crucial positions to shore up (left tackle, center, quarterback, and safety where Rashad Johnson pretty much ran the defense) to take another shot at the National Championship. But I hope to be proven wrong.

And now today it's clear that starting running back, Glen Coffee, is going pro.