You Reap What You Sow

After I got home from work last night, I turned on my TV set to watch a rerun of MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell (with Lawrence on vacation, it was actually The Last Word with Ari Melber instead)...and I couldn't believe what I heard.

I saw a clip of (Men's) NBA commissioner Adam Silver addressing his first major crisis since he replaced David Stern this past February:

"Donald Sterling...has been banned...for life."

The Los Angeles Clippers (the team Sterling bought in 1981, when the club still lived in San Diego) will have to find a new owner...as soon as possible.

You know what I say about that?

I say: "RIGHT ON!!!" 

It's more than that hour-long conversation this 80-year-old billionaire had with his 29-year-old girlfriend, V. Stiviano. You know, where the real-estate magnate let the cat out of the bag...and demonstrated that he thought of his West Coast basketball team as a Southern plantation.

Sterling's desire that African Americans stay away from the Staples Center when the Clips are the home team (meaning keeping Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, among others, out of the building) was the icing on the cake.

Here's the rest of the cake: 

Until just the last couple of seasons, the Clippers had been a laughingstock...courtesy of The West Coast Donald.

Today, the NBA is thirty teams strong. But in time for the 1970-71 season, the team owners okayed a triple expansion- to seventeen squads. (This at a time when we still had the ABA- at that time, a league with eleven clubs, four of which were six years away from joining the NBA in a partial merger.)

In time for that campaign, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Portland Trail Blazers debuted.

So did the Los Angeles Clippers.

But at first, they lived in Buffalo and were nicknamed the Braves.  

*To make a long story short, the Blazers have made it to the league playoffs 30 times since entering the circuit. Portland became the first of the NBA's 1970-71 newcomers to win it all; under Jack Ramsay (a Basketball Hall of Famer who just passed away recently), the Trail Blazers- led by HOF'er Bill Walton- knocked down a heavily-favored Philadelphia 76ers squad, four games to two, in 1976-77...the year the partial merger took effect.

Rip City got to the league finals in 1989-90 (only to lose to the Detroit Pistons) and 1991-92 (when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls stopped the Blazers), too.

*The Cavaliers got to the playoffs 18 times in club history...none of them since LeBron James left Cleveland. In fact, the Cavs finally got to the (Men's) NBA championship series in 2006-07...only the San Antonio Spurs- one of those former ABA contingents- proved to be too much for King James and Co. 

*The Clippers are still looking for their first contact with the NBA finals.  

Portland's got four division titles to its credit. Cleveland has topped its division three times.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Clippers are two-time division champs.

The 2012-13 and 2013-14 Pacific Division titles are the first ones for this franchise that Donald Sterling purchased 33 years ago. What's more, the Clips' 57-25 mark for this past regular season (one-time Boston Celtics head man Doc Rivers' first as the Clips' head coach) was the best in team history.

But even with Rivers' and predecessor Vinny Del Negro's efforts these last three seasons (and those of players like Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Jamal Crawford, and J.J. Redick), the team did better in Buffalo (259-397 from 1970-71 to 1977-78). Still, the Clips' two division titles enabled the club's Los Angeles history (915-1,497 since 1984-85, the team's first campaign in Tinseltown) to finally top its San Diego tenure (186-306 from 1978-79 to 1983-84).  

In terms of winning percentage, that means .395 in Buffalo, .378 in Ess Dee, and .379 in El Lay. 

Speaking of Buffalo...Ramsay was the first head coach to guide the franchise to postseason action (1973-74 to 1975-76). The bottom had dropped out for the club by the late 1970s, and its then owner, KFC magnate John Y. Brown, swapped clubs with the then owner of the Celtics, Irv Levin. 

Levin moved the Braves to San Diego in time for the 1978-79 season...the team's first under the Clippers name. 

That first season in California, the team went 43-39...and missed a playoff spot. The team's record got worse and worse with each passing season...until a disastrous 1981-82, when the Clippers limped home 17-65.  

By then, Levin had sold the team to Sterling...who was itching to move the Clippers up Interstate 5.

I wasn't too impressed with Sterling's rationale for bringing his club to America's second largest city: "I always thought there should be a team in the Los Angeles Sports Arena." (The Los Angeles Lakers used the Sports Arena from 1960-61- their first campaign since leaving Minneapolis- to 1966-67. Then they switched to a facility in Englewood, the Staples Center predecessor called the Great Western Forum.) 

While the Lakers became Showtime (thanks to a cast headed up by Johnson and fellow HOF'er Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), the Clippers couldn't draw flies, let alone people. 

The Lakers (under Jerry Buss) became the textbook example of how to run an NBA franchise...and Sterling's questionable decisions (like running the team like a plantation) kept many of the Sports Arena's seats empty. And things stayed the same when both teams moved into the Staples Center at the start of the 1999-2000 campaign. 

It wasn't enough that Sterling's antics killed men's pro basketball in San Diego. 

The wasted draft choices, the questionable choices for head coaches (with a few exceptions- like Larry Brown), other questionable decisions (like the canning of Brown after the 1992-93 season, a rare playoff campaign for the Clippers), and so on and so forth...all of that made Sterling's club the NBA's laughingstock.

It's only since Paul left the Big Easy and came to the Big Orange that the Clippers have been able to fill up Staples...game after game, season after season.

This is the best this once-lowly franchise has been able to do. Ever.

And Donald Sterling's racist rants had put excrement in the punch bowl. 

I'm so glad that Silver and the players in the league got together to throw out that punch bowl and get a new one...as well as a new punch recipe.

If you're going to buy a franchise in one of the most diverse sports leagues in the world, only to treat your team like a plantation, and you have plenty of contempt for not only your players and coaches, but your team's fans as well (and all of this at a time when your team's playing the best ball in the club's history)...you're barking up the wrong tree.

Here's hoping the next owner of the Los Angeles Clippers will be able to help the team get up to the next level...namely, the top of the NBA. 

Sussex 235

This record debuted on Billboard's Pop chart and R&B chart next week in 1972 (its R&B chart debut was 4-29-1972).

It spent 19 weeks on this country's Billboard Pop chart and left the magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart (then known as "Hot Soul Singles") after spending 17 weeks on it.  

On 6-24-1972, the song displaced Bobby Womack's "Woman's Gotta Have It" at the top of this country's R&B chart, staying that chart's leader for an entire week...and did even better as a pop song, making it to Number One on said survey on 7-8-1972, the day it kicked Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue" out of the Hot 100's driver's seat (and enjoyed a three-week run as the most popular single on Billboard's Pop list).  

This song proved so durable that the 1980s dance/disco group Club Nouveau put its own spin on it (Warner Bros. 28430)...and in early 1987, Club Nouveau made it a smash all over again- bringing the number to the top spot on the Pop chart and to Number Two on the Billboard R&B survey.

It's been a staple at contemporary worship services ever since at churches everywhere.

It's the song its composer (Bill Withers, the man who had the original recording, on Sussex Records) is most associated with.  

The ditty's message is timeless and universal.  

And until very recently, I've had so many doubts about whether that timeless message has ever had any REAL meaning for me.  

You see, at the time "Lean on Me" came out, I was still in my teenage years and fighting to survive life with an alcoholic mother...the exact same fight my younger brother was engaged in.

One thing about it, after being told by Mom that "I WISH YOU'D NEVER BEEN BORN!" I just couldn't count on coming to her for any sort of support for any reason.

I didn't dare seek support from any adult relative. (A cousin telling me I'd have to learn to cope with this or that situation was the closest I could come to receiving any support from kin at the time.) 

Had better luck at school...but even then, I had to be very, very careful about who to tell my troubles to. 

Lately, however, I've been giving "Lean on Me" another chance in my life...and fighting the temptation to go back to saying: "I don't need anybody!"

Way down inside, we DO need each other.

America's Most Beautiful City

That's where I went last week.

And I found out just how San Diego, CA lives up to its nickname: "America's Most Beautiful City."

Until 3-12-2014, I'd never, ever set foot on America's West Coast before. 

National University's decision to show "The Entertainers" (that 2012 documentary about the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival) gave me all the more reason to come out to California.

To get to the Golden State, I caught a pair of Southwest Airlines Boeing 737s (I changed planes in Denver, CO).

On the way out to San Diego, I was nervous. After all, this was just the fifth flight I'd ever taken in my life. (My other plane trips happened in 1967, 1981, 2002, and 2012.) 

And this 2014 flight was the first plane excursion that didn't involve work or going to see relatives. 

Once I saw Michael Zimmer (one of the documentary's codirectors) at the San Diego International Airport, I started to finally relax.

I knew everything was going to be all right.

Michael rented a Chrysler 200 sedan and drove us out to our hotel, Courtyard (by Marriott) San Diego Central (8651 Spectrum Center Dr., 92123). 

Great place to stay! 

Not only did National pay for our hotel rooms and fly us out to America's most heavily-populated state...the school (Michael teaches a screenwriting class at National's Los Angeles campus) wined and dined us.

Matter of fact, a few hours after I had a chance to kick back in my room, we ate dinner at a restaurant on Park Blvd. [I've been racking my brains trying to remember the eatery's name. All I know is that its name has "Bellezza" in it...and that its menu features pizzas with people's first names as the pizzas' monikers (handles such as "Julieta").] 

And we- Michael, girlfriend Tiara, his parents (Michael Sr. and Margaret), "Perfessor" Bill Edwards, and I- really loved that restaurant.  

The pizzas themselves are fired up in a brick oven- the same way they were made when pizza came over to the United States around and after World War 1. 

Speaking of fired up...I was really fired up about the next day, one that would culminate in the actual showing of "The Entertainers." 

And after we ate breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, we went sightseeing...and we focused on Balboa Park.

Balboa Park, all by itself, makes Ess Dee earn the "America's Most Beautiful City" nickname. Lots of gardens (including a striking Japanese one)...lots of museums...and the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, home of America's largest outdoor pipe organ. 

The 1915 installation (built by the Austin Organ Co.) used to be the world's largest...until one of the cities in Austria put up an outdoor pipe organ that passed up the San Diego one. (But now, the Spreckels Organ Society and San Diego's government leaders are out to give the lead back to the instrument that currently boasts 4,518 pipes with 73 ranks...with four manuals to control it all.) 

We split the pre-movie sightseeing in half...and in the second half, Faye Ballard joined us. (A blizzard messed things up in the Chicago area, forcing flights out of O'Hare International Airport to get canceled...meaning Faye couldn't get a plane from Champaign, IL to Chi-Town that Wednesday. So she got a plane from Champaign to Dallas-Fort Worth, then changed planes in the Metroplex and came out to San Diego.)

Meanwhile, Four Arrows was in San Diego...at a teaching seminar across town.

Before we were all given the chance to get inside the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, the entourage splintered...and Faye and I got a chance to tour Balboa Park's Museum of Photographic Arts (the very venue where "The Entertainers" would be screened that night). 

That week, MOPA exhibited a mind-blowing display of photos depicting political leaders in action, acts of civil disobedience, and virtually anything else that could've been ripped out of your local newspaper (or at least out of the Associated Press files). 

Then, after touring Spreckels, we all made it inside MOPA, whose 200-seat auditorium was set up to show that documentary about the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing Contest and Festival.

At that time, Four Arrows (an online college professor when he's not playing old-time piano) was en route from the seminar across town.

It was 7:00 PM (Pacific time)...and just as the film started rolling, Bill, Faye, Tiara, Margaret, the two Michaels, and I went out to eat (Bill: "We've all seen the movie before!").

So we ate at a restaurant in the middle of the park, The Prado. 

Even if Omaha's got more eateries per capita than any other city in America, that's no reason to put San Diego's cuisine down. When it comes to restaurants, SD gives the Big O a run for its money...and The Prado is one of the many proofs.

At The Prado, they serve a half chicken as an entree...and that chicken rocked! 

As things turned out, the 140 people who came to see "The Entertainers" found out the movie rocked, too. 

They loved Bill, Faye, Four Arrows, Michael the Younger, and me. The Q-and-A session was a blast...and so was the concert Four Arrows, Faye, Bill, and I launched into after the Q-and-A.

Had a great time in San Diego...and if things turn out, I'm going back there as soon as possible.

Third First-Time Champ in Three Years

FIRST ROUND (seeding in parentheses): Louisiana-Lafayette (24) 28, Fresno State (9) 14; Oklahoma State (16) 13, Clemson (17) 8; Oklahoma (13) 31, Rice (20) 13; Louisville (12) 42, Duke (21) 10; Arizona State (14) 36, Ball State (19) 24; Bowling Green State (22) 35, Missouri (11) 29; Oregon (18) 21, South Carolina (15) 14; Stanford (10) 14, UCLA (23) 13

SECOND ROUND: Florida State (1) 56, Louisiana-Lafayette 28; Central Florida (8) 21, Oklahoma State 14; Oklahoma 31, Ohio State (5) 28; Louisville 35, Northern Illinois (4) 14; Alabama (6) 28, Arizona State 14; Michigan State (3) 28, Bowling Green State 14; Baylor (7) 28, Oregon 23; Stanford 37, Auburn (2) 27

QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Florida State 49, Central Florida 21; Louisville 49, Oklahoma 7; Michigan State 20, Alabama 0; Baylor 26, Stanford 0

SEMIFINAL ROUND: Louisville 25, Florida State 22; Baylor 21, Michigan State 14 (2 OT)

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Baylor 35, Louisville 28 

Yep...Baylor is the third team in as many seasons to pick up its first-ever NCAA Division 1-A football playoff title (following Notre Dame in 2012 and Oregon the year before). What's more, Art Briles' Bears became the first Big 12 team since the since-departed Cornhuskers of Nebraska (in 1999- their sixth and most recent championship) to nail it all down. 

How 'bout some highlights?

FIRST ROUND: Mark Helfrich's Ducks pulled it out against Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks with 2:51 to play in the fourth quarter, when QB Marcus Mariota fired a three-yard touchdown pass to WR Josh Huff (Oregon went 12-for-17 on third down); Dave Clawson's Falcons got help from their special teams to overcome a 21-14 Missouri lead with 21 unanswered second-half points (to embarrass Tigers head coach Gary Pinkel, who previously headed up Toledo, one of Bowling Green State's MAC foes), and BGSU's defense thwarted a Mizzou effort to pull this game out in the final minute of regulation; Bob Stoops' Sooners totaled 605 yards of offense (WR Jalen Saunders caught six balls for 205 yards and three TDs) to cook Rice (David Bailiff's team, which blew a 13-7 Owl lead); razzle-dazzle let Mike Gundy's Cowboys beat Dabo Swinney's Tigers when QB Clint Chelf caught the game-winning 47-yard TD toss from his understudy, J.W. Walsh, with 11 ticks to go in the fourth; QB Teddy Bridgewater (27-43-293 with an interception) launched four TD strikes and ran for another score...while Cardinal defenders chipped in by snatching five Blue Devil tosses (a pair of Louisville picks were by CB Terrell Floyd) to spoil Duke's first 1-A playoff game; QB Terrence Broadway made a splash with a 15-21-200 showing that featured three air scores and an INT to help Mark Hudspeth's Ragin' Cajuns, who were flagged down just ONCE (for five yards, at that), move on; Todd Graham's Sun Devils outran Pete Lembo's Cardinals, 324-69, with Arizona State QB Taylor Kelly running 25 times for 114 yards and a TD while going 22-for-30 for 199 yards and- you guessed it- three TDs; David Shaw's Cardinal led all the way...but almost lost it with 0:33 to play in the final quarter: After flicking a 17-yard air score to WR Shaquelle Evans, Bruin QB Brett Hundley tried to run for the winning two-point conversion...but was stopped at the Stanford one.

More highlights to come! 

Well, It's Just a Thought...

Things have been some kind of hectic for me thus far in 2014...and that's why I'm just now posting for the new year. (Just glad to be back!)

Hope this new year is treating you right thus far.

At this very moment, Winter Storm Leon is treating America's Southerners far from right. And it's also dogging people in this country's Northeast.  

I just got through visiting Wikipedia to do research for this post...and I found out that only The Weather Channel is naming winter storms.  

That's right...and that means that not even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (whose National Hurricane Center has been giving names to that kind of disaster since 1953, using girls' names only from that year until 1977, when boys' names were added to the mix) wants to go along.

And AccuWeather isn't even in the game. 

In fact, 2013-14 is the second winter in which this division of NBC Universal Media, LLC has been giving names to winter storms. And that's only if the storms prove disruptive, according to TWC senior director Bryan Norcross.

The network gets its names from Greek, Norse, and Roman mythology. (Last winter, blizzards and near-blizzards were named after deities such as Athena and Gandolf.) 

When I first found out that the winter storms were getting their own labels, I got a crazy thought in my mind: 

"What if, instead of naming winter storms after Greek/Norse/Roman gods and goddesses...they named winter storms after brands of cigarettes?"  

Yeah, I know. It's a crazy thought.

But I figured that, first of all, cigarettes have been proven to be health hazards. (Researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities came up with the first evidence way back in 1926; the studies continued over the next 26 years before the doctors and the scientists found a way to make them public so that everyday people could dig it all. And even then, the research continued for years to come.)

And think of all the deaths winter storms have caused through the years. Matter of fact, this year's first major winter storm (labeled Atlas by the TWC folks) took eight lives.

Each winter, The Weather Channel comes up with 26 names for blizzards and near-blizzards. And that's the same number of names NOAA annually uses for hurricanes.

Now if you go to www.cigarettespedia.com, you'll find that enough brands of smokes have come out all over the world to cover A through Z. So you wouldn't have to restrict the labeling of winter storms to American brands- current and defunct alike.

Even so, you'd have more of a case if you used brand names that are the same as people's first names...like Kent or Carlton or Raleigh or Winston (or even Adam, a brand Liggett Group marketed for a little while in 1973).

Well...there are two strikes against naming winter storms after cigs (depending on your point of view, those strikes could be lucky):

First, this country's tobacco companies would object. You can imagine some industry spokesperson saying: "Our products give people pleasure! How dare you name winter storms after our fine products!"

And here in America, cigarette commercials were taken off TV and radio on 1-2-1971. (It could've happened on the first day of 1971 if the networks hadn't given the tobacco companies one last lick...that last lick being the chance to sponsor the New Year's Day bowl games.)  

Just remember: NASCAR's Sprint Cup, previously called the Nextel Cup until Sprint bought that wireless company out, was- for a long time- called the Winston Cup.  

Oh, well...this was just a thought. 

How do you feel about the network of Wake Up with Al giving names to winter storms? Is it helpful...or is it, as so many critics contend, self-serving?

I'm Jim Boston, and I hope you're having a ball here in 2014!

Notre Dame Didn't Get In This Time

Nebraska didn't make the field, either. (Both the Fighting Irish and the Cornhuskers came home 8-4 here in 2013...not good enough for an at-large team to make the 24-team field.)  

In fact, just nine of the teams that made a would-be version of the 2012 NCAA Division 1-A football playoff made it to this year's version. (We'll meet them later.)

And this year's field includes four clubs that are making 1-A playoff debuts...plus three that hadn't made this version of a playoff since it featured a 16-squad field. 

This time around, fourteen at-large spots became available. And it was all because (1) the Western Athletic Conference celebrated its 50th birthday by giving up on offering its schools a football championship and (2) a rift between the Big East's men's basketball-oriented schools and the conference's football-oriented members caused that league to drop football. (The men's-hoops-first institutions were allowed to keep the Big East name. Never mind that half the schools in the now ten-member league aren't even located in the Atlantic states, but right here in the Midwest.) 

The other members that were in the 2012-13 version of the Big East got together with some other schools to form a new league, the American Athletic Conference.  

Well...let's do it. Let's reveal the field for this year's version of a shoulda-coulda-woulda NCAA D-1-A playoff, with teams listed in order of seeding:

1. Florida State (13-0; ACC champ)/ 2. Auburn (12-1; SEC champ)/ 3. Michigan State (12-1; Big Ten champ)/ 4. Northern Illinois (12-1; MAC at-large)/ 5. Ohio State (12-1; Big Ten at-large)/ 6. Alabama (11-1; SEC at-large)/ 7. Baylor (11-1; Big 12 champ)/ 8. Central Florida (11-1; AAC champ)

9. Fresno State (11-1; Mountain West champ)/ 10. Stanford (11-2; Pac-12 champ)/ 11. Missouri (11-2; SEC at-large)/ 12. Louisville (11-1; AAC at-large)/ 13. Oklahoma (10-2; Big 12 at-large)/ 14. Arizona State (10-2; Pac-12 at-large)/ 15. South Carolina (10-2; SEC at-large)/ 16. Oklahoma State (10-2; Big 12 at-large)

17. Clemson (10-2; ACC at-large)/ 18. Oregon (10-2; Pac-12 at-large)/ 19. Ball State (10-2; MAC at-large)/ 20. Rice (10-3; Conference USA champ)/ 21. Duke (10-3; ACC at-large)/ 22. Bowling Green State (10-3; MAC champ)/ 23. UCLA (9-3; Pac-12 at-large)/ 24. Louisiana-Lafayette (8-4; Sun Belt champ)

Baylor and its old Southwest Conference foe, Rice, are in these Division 1-A playoffs for the first time ever. The Bears and Owls join fellow 2013 playoff newcomers Duke (the Blue Devils got pummeled by the Seminoles in the ACC title game, 45-7) and Louisiana-Lafayette (the Ragin' Cajuns ended Arkansas State's two-year reign at the head of the Sun Belt Conference, earning the automatic bid by beating the Red Wolves in mid-season, 23-7- getting the tiebreaker despite the two clubs sporting identical 5-2 league marks).  

The Bruins needed help from Fresno State in order to make the field and become the only one of eight at-large hopefuls with nine wins apiece in 2013 to extend the season. The Bulldogs came through, crushing Utah State in the first-ever Mountain West title test. 

Result: The Bulldogs' first 1-A playoff appearance since 1989, when Miami (FL) took it to Fresno State in the first round, 24-10.  

Three years later, the Hurricanes eliminated Bowling Green State in the first round, 15-6. (While the 'Canes went on to win it all in those 1992 playoffs, the Falcons never again made this version of the 1-A playoffs...that is, until this season's.)  

And UCLA is making its first playoff appearance since 1993, when the Bruins lost in the second round to eventual runner-up Notre Dame, 24-9.  (Eight years afterwards, these 1-A playoffs went from a 16-team field to the present 24-team one.) 

The 24-team field was in place the last time Ball State was a playoff entry...and that was in 2008, when the then sixth-seeded Cardinals (they skipped the first round) staged a miracle rally to bounce Oregon, 35-28, only to lose to Florida in the quarterfinals, 35-14. 

And as for the nine teams that are holdovers from 2012...they're Florida State, Northern Illinois, Alabama, Stanford, Louisville, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Clemson, and Oregon. (The Sooners won it all in 1985, 1986, and 1987- the only three-peat. The Seminoles came through in 1995, 1998, and 2000. And the Ducks took the 2011 playoffs, preceding the Fighting Irish as playoff kingpins.)  

Well, to get these 2013 playoffs off the ground, I'm going to do it with Lance Haffner Games' 3-in-1 Football computer game, and all the contests will be computer vs. computer. Soon as all the games get played, I'll come back to this blog and post all the results.

In the meantime, may you have a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Kwanzaa...and thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"

Fifty Years Ago Today

It changed America's spirit.

It changed politics.

It changed history.  

It helped turn television into America's leading source for news and information.

And, yes...it made for a somber Thanksgiving and a somber Christmas.

On what turned out to be a sunny day in Dallas, TX, one of three bullets fired from the Texas Book Depository ended a history-making presidency one thousand days after that tenure began.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the youngest ever elected to the most talked-about political job there is (he was 43 years and almost six months old when elected on 11-2-1960), the first Roman Catholic person to get the job, and, as things turned out...the last standing US senator to win a presidential election in this country during the 20th Century.

And the fourth (and most recent chief executive) gunned down by an assassin.

I'd turned eight years of age eleven days earlier. And I was one of the millions of Americans who cried when it happened. 

Yep, I was born during the Dwight Eisenhower years...but I barely remember living through Ike's second term. Compared to memories of Eisenhower's last four years as commander in chief, I've got more memories of JFK's abbreviated term of office.

And those memories include his inaugural speech, his handling of the Cuban missile crisis, a nuclear test-ban treaty signed during the JFK years, America finally getting its space program rolling (okay, flying), the creation of the Peace Corps, and Kennedy's stand on civil rights. 

It took Joseph's and Rose's second son a good while to get hip to the message that advancing freedom all over the world (a message the 35th President brought out in his inaugural address) also means advancing freedom right here in these fifty states.

But after 250,000 assembled in front of the Lincoln Memorial on 8-28-1963, that did it.

And those Southern Democrats Kennedy spent most of 1960 trying to woo in order to take the White House back from the Republicans were just going to have to get hip, too.

Almost a week ago, someone from the Associated Press turned in an article talking about the speech JFK gave in response to the 1963 March on Washington. (The AP article made it to this past Monday's Omaha World-Herald, and that's where I saw the report.) 

One thing the article's author put in really struck me. It was the observation that, in lots of American homes during the bulk of the 1960s, you'd find pictures of three prominent people: Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and...John F. Kennedy. 

Three symbols of hope.

Three symbols who ended up brutally murdered.

And these three symbols were killed before any of them could reach the age of fifty.     

When Kennedy took a bullet from Lee Harvey Oswald, it began the demise of America's famous "can-do" spirit. 

Don't think so? 

Think about all the talk about health-care reform...and about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Think about all the talk surrounding whether immigration reform should take place here in the United States. Think about what's being said as to whether effective gun-control laws can ever get passed here. And now we talk about whether we should see to it that all of our country's children get a decent education...rather than how. 

One thing's for sure: Oswald's act (no, I'm not into conspiracy theories...especially about just how Bobby's and Ted's and Joseph the Younger's brother died) led to the 1965 proposal of the Constitution's 25th Amendment...an amendment that finally got ratified on 2-10-1967.

When Lyndon Johnson moved up to the presidency this afternoon in 1963, the nation went without a vice president...until LBJ's 1964 runningmate, Hubert Humphrey, became America's second-in-command on 1-20-1965.

Never again would America's government run sans a vice president.    

I've been going on YouTube to check out how ABC, CBS, and NBC (as well as WFAA-TV, the ABC station in the Metroplex) covered the events of 11-22-1963. 

Words such as "disbelief," "anger," "sadness," and "indignation" were reported to have come out of so many people's mouths that day.

Some of the mouths belonged to key government officials.

Speaking of key government officials...some of today's government officials would absolutely love to see the next US senator to have won the White House (that's right, the man in there now, Barack Obama) removed from the White House.

And at least one big-name hate-radio (oops...talk radio) host would love to see Obama (a US senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008) gunned down. 

Really now...do we HAVE to go through this again, with another history-making chief executive?  

Haven't we learned anything from the events that took place fifty years ago today?