February 13, 2005 - Guilt rears...

... it's ugly head.

I really dislike guilt. It makes me feel so, guilty. It makes me feel unAmerican. I mean, how can I be the offended party, a victim, if I am feeling guilty. This just does not feel good. I better go to a meeting. You know (maybe), one of those meetings... where everybody sits in a circle on those hard, fold-up chairs... with a styrofoam cup of really bad coffee... or plastic bottle labled "100% Pure Spring Water" that keeps filled from the water fountain... and introduces him/her self...

"Hello, my name is Kermit."

Seventeen other voices chime in, on que, "Hi, Kermit."

Then, looking carefully into my styrofoam cup, I say, "I didn't watch the Super Bowl".

This shocking admission is followed by 17 soft "Oh mys..." running 3 times around the circle while the group leader wrestles with his inner self over something nonjudgmental to say or ask.

So, where are we going here with this thing?

(1) I didn't watch the Super Bowl (2) The final score indicates a "good game" instead of the usual "one sided runaway" (3) It sounds like the commercials were less raunchy than what has become the standard.

And now the whole world knows my dirty little "Super Bowl Secret".

What is not a secret is that I like this Op/Ed piece from the Washington Times...

The big hand for a few real heroes
Wesley Pruden - 2/11/05

http://www.washtimes.com/national/pruden.htm

"Pass the sick bag, Alice," writes one Stefano Hatfield. "I was too stunned by the [commercial] to really take in the full import of a beer company waving off 'our boys' (and girls) to battle. But battle? Where? The war in Iraq's over, isn't it, or so they keep telling us? ... Pure propaganda, and it picked up on one of the themes of the night: patriotism."...

The entire OP/ED piece can be found at

http://www.washtimes.com/national/pruden.htm...

The news gets worse for the haters. The TV commercial, unlike a lot of television, actually reflects real life. One traveler tells the Wall Street Journal Online: "Last Thursday I was on a flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Portland, Ore. There were four soldiers returning home for a two-week leave from Iraq. As the plane arrived at the gate in Portland, the pilot mentioned and thanked them for their service and asked that they be allowed to disembark first. As each of them walked toward the front of the plane, the rest of the passengers erupted in spontaneous applause."

Another traveler reports a similar experience: "In the past two weeks I have witnessed American Airlines giving empty first-class seats to soldiers and an entire terminal in Denver giving a plane full of disembarking soldiers a standing ovation on a busy Friday night." Still another traveler: "I, too, was spit upon and called a 'baby killer' in September 1971, in the San Diego airport, while wearing my Navy uniform. ... The Super Bowl ad brought me to tears, not of pain remembering my experience, but from pride in today's American patriots."

The entire OP/ED piece can be found at

http://www.washtimes.com/national/pruden.htm

Americans make lousy imperialists. We don't do Nuremberg rallies. Americans make pretty good soldiers, as a lot of men in Valhalla could tell you, but when the shooting stops the American GI only wants to come home, marry the girl next door, pop the top on a cool one and watch the Patriots clock the Eagles. It's what makes him distinctively American.

So here's another round of heartfelt applause for the lousy imperialist: This Bud's for you.

I'll drink to that!

Peace and all good,

Kermit