Friday, December 17, 2004

University of Alabama Football Report for 12/17/04

“We’re not losing any cancer cures over there. So there’re fewer gas station attendants when they get back…. What’s the big deal?”

-- caller to a Nashville talk radio show, 12/14/04, on the lack of armor available for troops in Iraq.

Hell is on your doorstep; the latch is open and he’s peeking inside. Laocoon and Cassandra are on the Christmas card list this year. Suddenly, the idea of a bearded man running house to house under cover of nightfall doesn’t seem so comforting.

And the latest Demosthenes of the newschannels can’t talk me off the ledge. Seems like there are more bullets than targets these days, but most of the barrels point straight into the dirt anyway. And why not? After all, as the Secretary points out, armor doesn’t always work. He can at least prove that: he’s planted many soldiers’ limbs deep in the sand.

There’s a common man’s Star Chamber on the rise, an arbitrary grab-bag of promises and prayers that finds enemies where it can and when it will. My neighbor puzzles me. His priorities seem as widespread, and as helpful, as influenza. His head is a stone.

Let Pax Americana be fueled by the blood of Toby Keith. I used to cut the bourbon, now the bourbon cuts me. So I watch football. I watch the Don’s son try to cut the Gordian knot by recruiting enough beef to stock a meat packing plant. I watch the bottle get empty and the clock tick down, and if I can make it to the fourth quarter, it must be a pretty good game.

Roll Tide.