Why I Can’t Enjoy The Super Bowl

It’s because the Cleveland Browns have never made it.  And it seems like every year the field of futility — that is, the teams that have never made it — gets smaller and smaller.  This year, the New Orleans Saints get off the schneid, and the Browns are left behind again.

I remember the first Super Bowl.  I lived in Akron and was 10 years old, for God’s sake!  The Beacon Journal had special story about the game and Len Dawson and Mike Garrett, the Kansas City Chiefs star players.  At that time, people wondered whether the Super Bowl would even be played again — much less that it would become an enormous media event that would draw huge TV audiences and generate massive ad revenue.

Every year, when the Super Bowl rolls around and the Browns aren’t in it, the sharp-edged Roman numerals are like a knife to the ribs.  I think of how the Browns lost to the Vikings and the Colts in back-to-back NFL championship games in the late ’60s, of how Brian Sipe threw the Red Right 88 interception on a cold day at Municipal Stadium, and particularly of how John Elway and the Broncos gouged the heart out of the Cleveland faithful in the back-to-back championship games that will forever be recalled simply as The Drive and The Fumble.

I hope the Colts win today, because I have good friends who are Colts fans.  Mostly, though, I hope that next year the Browns will somehow, some way, make it to the Super Bowl, and the shame and ignominy of the franchise’s (virtually) singular failure will end.

New Albany, Under Snow

Today is another bright, sunny day.  After I finished shoveling a path to our front door, Kish and I took Penny for a walk.

We struck out for the Yantis Loop.  We found that the leisure path is completely snow covered, and the top of the snow has hardened to a crunchy shell.  Penny enjoys crashing around through it, but it is hard slogging for us two-legged creatures.  Kish and I decided that the better part of valor would be to stick to the roadways, which were passable for walkers.

The neighborhood is very pretty under snow.  Ashton Grove, in particular, looks like a New England town — which is the whole idea, I suppose.

A Hot Topic (Cont.)

Here’s an article that summarizes some of the latest embarrassing revelations about “global warming” science.  I obviously don’t think the entire notion of man-made global warming has been shown to be a house of cards, but the seemingly unending disclosures about sloppy science, phony claims, conflicts of interest, and other chicanery clearly have undercut the political argument that the United States needs to take immediate, drastic action to stop global warming.  If the disclosures have put “cap and trade” legislation on the back burner, and will allow Congress instead to focus on budget issues and taking action that will allow our economy to create jobs, they will have served a very useful purpose.

A Hot Topic (Cont.)

A Hot Topic (Cont.)

A Hot Topic (Cont.)

A Hot Topic (Cont.)

A Hot Topic (Cont.)

A Hot Topic