The REAL Big Game: Life and Death

Along with about 30,000 of my fellow Cal people, and maybe 20,000 Stanford people, I was enjoying a typically temperate California Autumn afternoon watching the latest iteration of one of American football's oldest and most-loved and occasionally spectacular rivalries, the 1993 Cal vs Stanford Big Game, watching to see which team would earn the right to take home the Big Game's trophy, 'The Stanford Axe'.

As usual, the horrid Stanford Band took the field at half-time to demonstrate how 'unorthodox' and 'irreverent' they are, in their standard and utterly predictable manner, which went from being amusing and novel to boring and stale some time in the Mid '60s about two years after they started this affectation.

Stanford, unable to resolve their aching compulsion to be 'politically correct' and at the same time appear 'democratic' despite the Stanford president's fatwa that "the mascot issue is not up for a vote", and come up with a respectable mascot everyone could accept and believe would not offend anyone or anything, went from being the 'Indians' to the 'Cardinal'. Not the ecclesiastical official. Not the bird. The color. Stanford, paralyzed by 'political correctness' and a lack of creativity and cohesion had now renamed themselves a color. Of course, this was recognized by the few dozen smart and sane people at Stanford as being extremely lame, so they largely rejected the color thing, especially since coming up with a mascot costume to depict a color was just bizarre - what are you going to do, have a guy dressed up as a color swatch leading cheers and such? No. So, they adopted as a mascot something Stanford was well known for having a lot of and indeed featured on its seal: Trees. They came up with a Tree costume and finally Stanford had an identifiable, although unofficial, mascot.

And today the 'Tree' was hard at work taunting opposing fans, players, and mascots. As the Stanford Band went about its running around in circles and playing bad song arrangements very badly, the Tree danced frantically next to them.

Suddenly, I noticed in the bleachers across the stadium from me, a commotion in the crowd down near the fence bordering the playing field. Two young men leaped the fence onto the field. Security guards collapsed on them and manged to catch one. But the other broke loose, leaving his torn shirt in the hands of the security guard who tried to use the shirt as handle, and sprinted onto the field. The security team lit out after him, but kept losing ground to the much faster culprit. I went from mildly amused to very excited as I realized he was on a beeline for the Stanford Band, which was completely absorbed in their contrived display of 'spontaneity' and oblivious to what was going on in the broader world around them.

I didn't know just how yet, but I knew this was going to be good.

The man dashed right by the first band members he encountered, momentarily puzzling me. Then the situation became entirely clear: He was at full speed and locked on to the Stanford Tree, obliviously spinning and waving his 'branches' erratically to the music like a drunken dervish. Clearly, he had had enough of the Tree's taunts, and was intent on a reckoning.

Over a post-game beer, it was declared by several Cal football alumni friends of mine, including Kevin Moen of 1982 'Big Play' touchdown fame, that this was the biggest and best hit of the whole game.

The man dove into the air, flew headlong, and mercilessly tackled the Tree at hip height, instantly dropping it and scattering the two of them across the grass. I actually cringed at the sight.

The band members then snapped out of their trance and converged, kicking at the man like a bunch of five-year-old girls trying to play soccer.

Finally, security caught up and rescued him from the onslaught of Stanford's most pencilly pencil necks, handcuffed him, and led the shirtless man away, now with an ear-to-ear, clearly-satisfied and elated grin on his face as he acknowledged the roaring approval of the crowd.


Eight years later, this same man found himself on an airplane which had been violently hijacked for the purpose of crashing into a building in Washington DC. United Airlines Fight 93, September 11, 2001. He made the decision to fight back, along with other passengers.


This was the REAL Big Game, now. Life or death, not just his and the passengers', but those of untold numbers of innocent people on the ground. He took back 'The Axe' from the filthy savages that murderously hijacked the plane. Although he and his fellow passengers didn't survive, they saved the lives of those who were targeted on the ground. 

He won life's Big Game.


That man's name is Mark Bingham, Cal Varsity Rugby alumnus and hero.


Never forget!

A Bridge to Glory

Every day, I drive under, by, or over this bridge. Hundreds of thousands of people do the same.

I wonder how many of them are aware of the fact that this bridge, this overpass of Fostoria Way over I-680 in San Ramon, California, is also a monument to a national hero?

Ten years ago, September 11, 2001, a group of evil, filthy savages took control of four commercial airliners by cutting the throats of the unarmed crews, for the purpose of murdering further thousands of innocent human beings by means of turning the aircraft into exploding missiles. One of those airliners was United Airlines Flight 93.

The passengers of Flight 93 learned via phone of the earlier plane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Not willing to wait for their now obvious fate like sheep to the slaughter, the passengers of Flight 93 organized themselves to counter attack those low-lifes and take back control of the airplane, and hopefully save themselves, as well as the lives of hundreds or thousands on the ground below.

These heroes did indeed manage to thwart the maniacal plot of the hijackers and save an unknowable number of people on the ground, but not without giving up their own lives. Although they prevented their plane from being used against a target in Washington DC, they could not avoid the plane and themselves being nearly vaporized on a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

One of those heroes was Thomas E Burnett of San Ramon, California. He left behind a wife and kids, a legacy of heroism, selflessness, and glory, and a nation's debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. It is after him that that little bridge over I-680 is named.

"Let's roll!" - Todd Beamer, hero of Flight 93

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." - John 15:13

A Contradiction in Terms: Organized Labor

Yesterday, September 5, 2011, the president of the Teamsters labor union, James Hoffa, referring to the tens of millions of Americans who are members of, or identify with the Tea Party movement, declared that his followers should "take these son-of-a-bitches out." [sic]

Given the Teamsters' and Hoffa's own family's sordid history of violent thuggery and murder against people who choose not to join unions, this is no trivial remark, nor one that can be dismissed as simply "heated political rhetoric".

Indeed, I have witnessed first hand instances of such violence, or threatened violence.

This threat from Hoffa must be taken seriously, because even if he really did only mean "take out" metaphorically, there is a significant segment of his union and his circle who eagerly look for opportunities to visit physical violence on those who don't toe the union line, and they will certainly take Hoffa's exhortation seriously.

Meanwhile, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, sat nearby, smiling, then said nothing about Hoffa's incitement against millions of hard-working, law-abiding Americans. And still, a day later, nothing from the teleprompter-in-chief.

Also, while Hoffa claims to be "standing up for the American worker", he seems to forget that most American workers are not members of unions, nor do they want to be. In fact, union membership in the USA is less than 12% of the workforce, and dropping, and fully 36% of union members are government workers.

My personal acquaintance with union thuggery:

Two union thugs visited my dad's small business with the goal of signing up the staff with the union. My dad allowed them in to speak with the staff during their breaks, then hold a vote on whether to join the union. The staff, being well-treated and well-paid there, and knowing that the union would take some of their paycheck for nothing in return plus spend it on political candidates and issues they did not agree with, voted 'No' to unionizing - unanimously. The union thugs came back a month later to try again. Although now annoyed by this disruption, my dad let them repeat the exercise, with the same result: Unanimous rejection. Now angered and desperate, the union thugs approached my dad and threatened to burn the place down. My dad's response was very clear and put these cowards on notice that the police would be notified of this threat and that, well, that he would have no hesitation in exercising his Second Amendment rights of self defense if they stepped foot on his property again without permission. The union thugs disappeared, realizing they were not dealing with people subject to their criminal coercion tactics.

*

A guy I used to know was a Teamster representative on the Oakland, California docks. He was a complete idiot who abused anabolic steroids to make himself big and muscular. He would regularly brag to anyone who would listen how part of his 'job' was that he and his friends would gang up on lone and isolated non-union workers and severely beat them, including serious and life-threatening injuries.

*

A few of my experiences within unions and beside workers:

Summers between the college school year at Cal, I got a job at United States Steel. Of course, I had to join the United Steelworkers of America, the steelworkers' union, and they got to skim my paycheck. But that skim was so they could represent my interests, right? WRONG! Without really trying, I found myself evaluated as the hardest-working member of my crew, despite my crew's repeated entreaties to "slow down", "make the job last", and such. So, the management wanted to promote me into a better job. But, the union, which was supposedly 'looking after my interests', would not let me be promoted ahead of the lazy, goldbricking idlers on my crew - because - they had 'seniority'. 

So, they found another way to promote me. You see, there were pay enhancements if individuals or departments produced beyond a certain level. This was called incentive pay. There were two kinds: direct and indirect. Direct incentive meant that if a worker produced a certain tonnage, for example, he/she would get paid extra per unit over the standard. Indirect incentive meant that if your department did well, which meant that the direct incentive people were working hard, the indirect incentive people would get paid a bit more. Guess which type my crew were? That's right, indirect. The management found an opening for me on direct incentive pay, operating a crane loading rail cars. Of course, since pay was proportional to work, my lazy crew-mates wanted nothing to do with it, so by default, I got the job.

One of the guys on my crew, who had 'seniority' over me and got paid about double what I got and had priority over me for promotion by union rule, would punch in in the morning, find a place to hide, sleep all day, then punch out in the afternoon. Every time the management tried to fire this piece of garbage, the union would send out a couple of thugs to issue threats. It took THREE YEARS to fire this jerk because the union protected his worthless, thieving butt.

*

I helped build my dad's last veterinary hospital. Myself and the other laborer, and all but two of the sub-contractors were non-union. We all arrived around sunrise, worked our butts off, and left around sunset. Two of the sub-contractors were in the union. They never showed up before Noon, didn't get their work done on time and often did it badly, and held up the project because their piece was often in the critical path, and they never left a moment later than 3:00 pm.

*

Don't get me wrong - I'm not against unions as a general concept, and certainly, there is a role for them to play in ensuring employee rights, and they were instrumental in putting an end to the industrial abuses of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. But unions as they've existed for at least the last four decades and most certainly today are completely corrupt and a major impediment to commerce. Indeed they are one of the root causes of poor workmanship, off-shoring of jobs, and destroying the fiscal integrity of our local, state, and federal governments.

People like Hoffa must be rejected and people with integrity and intelligence put in their place. 

As for Hoffa's threat, he wouldn't like the result if he came to 'take me out'. Not at all.