Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Monday, June 30, 2025
Omaha makes history...again
It's been three weeks now since John Ewing Jr. took the oath of office as Omaha's mayor...breaking the color barrier in the process of replacing Jean Stothert, the former City Council member who, in 2013, shattered the mayoral glass ceiling here in town.
I'm glad he's in there.
And I'm excited about Ewing surrounding himself with people who have a better grasp on how to handle the city's road reconstruction projects than Stothert and her people did. (I mean, if you're going to make a street repair, why not make sure the repair lasts a long, long time?)
A little bit about him:
Ewing turned 64 on 4-18-2025; he became the Douglas County treasurer in 2007 and had that job until he became Omaha's newest mayor. Before his stint as treasurer of Nebraska's most heavily-populated county, he spent 25 years in the Omaha Police Department...eventually becoming deputy police chief.
He could've been a US representative here in this House district (known as Nebraska's Blue Dot)...but in 2012, incumbent Lee Terry Jr. (he used to be on Omaha's City Council, too) nosed Ewing out by 4,197 votes.
High school sports fans around here might remember Ewing from his days at Northwest High School, where he was on the football and boys' basketball teams.
Just before the 6-9-2025 swearing-in, JWE talked about looking forward to being able to be mayor and wanting to "tell the people about the great progress we are going to make to economic development and addressing the issues we talked about, affordable housing." He believes in building good coalitions, because, to him, that's "the best way to get things done because then you're partnering with people who do the work and you're partnering with the people who are the beneficiaries of the work as well."
Can't wait to find out what's in store for the Big O and its 52nd mayor!
Sources include Wikipedia and www.ketv.com.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
It sure didn't have to be this way
On Wednesday, 5-24-2020, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the United States became the first country to suffer 100,000 deaths due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
That's just about like wiping a Billings, MT off the map...or a Davenport, IA...or a Sparks, NV.
Think about that.
And it sure didn't have to be this way.
I read an online article at theintercept.com that stated America's first confirmed case of COVID-19 was made public on 1-20-2020. That same article said that Vietnam saw its first case of the disease three days later.
Vietnam still has yet, as of 5-24-2020, to record its first COVID death.
Yes, yes, yes...Vietnam doesn't have as many people in it as the US; the 2020 edition of "The World Almanac" states that Vietnam has 97.9 million people in it compared to America's 327.2 million people (a 2018 estimate).
Now take a look at the world's most heavily-populated country, China.
Not counting Hong Kong or Macao, China's population is 1.39 billion people. Billion.
If you go right now to worldometers.info, you'll find that the latest figures show that 4,634 Chinese have died from COVID.
Nope. That's not a typo.
As far as I'm concerned, it all comes down to the White House's totally inadequate and completely halfhearted response to the coronavirus pandemic.
And yes...it's an utterly racist response.
Maybe you've heard that deaths from the disease have been disproportionately Black and Brown...the two biggest ethnic groups America's Republicans love to defecate on.
If you're thinking about cutting out on this post, just understand that the same article from theintercept.com yielded a quote from HHS Secretary Alex Azar: "Unfortunately, the American population is...very diverse."
That's Azar trying to justify the world's highest COVID casualty total.
Remember: Azar is part of the first White Supremacist administration in Washington since Woodrow Wilson slept at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Republicans- especially those in the White House- made this whole coronavirus pandemic political. They, not I.
To them, it's all about winning on 11-3-2020. The Con Artist in Chief knows that the fewer people out there casting ballots this year, the better his chances of staying in the Oval Office.
And to The Adolf...oops, I mean The Donald, the pandemic is just another weapon in the GOP arsenal. Just like the call to keep the country's meatpacking facilities running, labeling meat as a vital item.
A significant percentage of immigrants and non-White people works at those plants.
And too many of the employees at those plants have complained about the lack of coronavirus (or any other kind of) protection at too many of those facilities.
Listen, if protein's the issue, cookinglight.com lists 21 other sources of protein.
For instance, you can get protein from peanuts, yogurt, cottage cheese, kidney beans, peanut butter, veggie burgers, lima beans, and all kinds of cheeses from Swiss to mozzarella to Colby Jack.
Okay...is social distancing the issue?
I get that millions of us are chafing to Get Back to Normal...even if it's not going to be all that simple. Millions are chafing to hear the nation's cash registers "KA-CHING!" at the same rate as when 2020 began and we were looking forward to a whole new decade.
Coming back to the article from theintercept.com, epidemiologists Britta L. Jewell and Nicholas P. Jewell said that about 90% of America's COVID-19 deaths could've been prevented if social-distancing policies had been put into effect on 3-2-2020.
At that time, only 11 Americans had died from the biggest global pandemic since the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918-20.
In response to COVID, social spacing finally got placed into effect on 3-15-2020.
Think where we'd be right now if the United States had REAL leadership at the top...instead of the con job that commenced on 1-20-2017.
For now, let's think about saving lives first.
Then we can worry about saving the economy.
That's just about like wiping a Billings, MT off the map...or a Davenport, IA...or a Sparks, NV.
Think about that.
And it sure didn't have to be this way.
I read an online article at theintercept.com that stated America's first confirmed case of COVID-19 was made public on 1-20-2020. That same article said that Vietnam saw its first case of the disease three days later.
Vietnam still has yet, as of 5-24-2020, to record its first COVID death.
Yes, yes, yes...Vietnam doesn't have as many people in it as the US; the 2020 edition of "The World Almanac" states that Vietnam has 97.9 million people in it compared to America's 327.2 million people (a 2018 estimate).
Now take a look at the world's most heavily-populated country, China.
Not counting Hong Kong or Macao, China's population is 1.39 billion people. Billion.
If you go right now to worldometers.info, you'll find that the latest figures show that 4,634 Chinese have died from COVID.
Nope. That's not a typo.
As far as I'm concerned, it all comes down to the White House's totally inadequate and completely halfhearted response to the coronavirus pandemic.
And yes...it's an utterly racist response.
Maybe you've heard that deaths from the disease have been disproportionately Black and Brown...the two biggest ethnic groups America's Republicans love to defecate on.
If you're thinking about cutting out on this post, just understand that the same article from theintercept.com yielded a quote from HHS Secretary Alex Azar: "Unfortunately, the American population is...very diverse."
That's Azar trying to justify the world's highest COVID casualty total.
Remember: Azar is part of the first White Supremacist administration in Washington since Woodrow Wilson slept at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Republicans- especially those in the White House- made this whole coronavirus pandemic political. They, not I.
To them, it's all about winning on 11-3-2020. The Con Artist in Chief knows that the fewer people out there casting ballots this year, the better his chances of staying in the Oval Office.
And to The Adolf...oops, I mean The Donald, the pandemic is just another weapon in the GOP arsenal. Just like the call to keep the country's meatpacking facilities running, labeling meat as a vital item.
A significant percentage of immigrants and non-White people works at those plants.
And too many of the employees at those plants have complained about the lack of coronavirus (or any other kind of) protection at too many of those facilities.
Listen, if protein's the issue, cookinglight.com lists 21 other sources of protein.
Okay...is social distancing the issue?
I get that millions of us are chafing to Get Back to Normal...even if it's not going to be all that simple. Millions are chafing to hear the nation's cash registers "KA-CHING!" at the same rate as when 2020 began and we were looking forward to a whole new decade.
Coming back to the article from theintercept.com, epidemiologists Britta L. Jewell and Nicholas P. Jewell said that about 90% of America's COVID-19 deaths could've been prevented if social-distancing policies had been put into effect on 3-2-2020.
At that time, only 11 Americans had died from the biggest global pandemic since the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918-20.
In response to COVID, social spacing finally got placed into effect on 3-15-2020.
Think where we'd be right now if the United States had REAL leadership at the top...instead of the con job that commenced on 1-20-2017.
For now, let's think about saving lives first.
Then we can worry about saving the economy.
Sunday, June 18, 2017
Dear Democrats in Georgia's 6th House District:
You've got no excuses now.
If you want Donald John Trump out of there, you're going to have to vote for Thomas Jonathan Ossoff this coming Tuesday.
That's all there is to it.
You just can't afford to sit this one out...the way some of you not only sat out last year's US presidential election, but also the 2010 and 2014 midterms.
Some people here in America don't think any sort of anti-Trump resistance is taking place. After all, Democrats are 0 for 2 in special elections thus far this year. Kansans in what used to be Mike Pompeo's US House district rejected James Thompson, the Democrat who was trying to take the seat out of Republican hands.
And Montanans just got through demonstrating that they wanted Republican Greg Gianforte (who beat up a reporter, Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, on the eve of Big Sky Country's US House election, the effort to replace Ryan Zinke) instead of Democrat Rob Quist.
You folks are the firewall. You can't afford to wait until next year and cross your fingers.
Registered Democrats have GOT to end their history of staying away from polling places whenever there's a midterm election or a special election.
I mean, don't you understand, after all these years, that if you don't go out and cast a ballot, you give the opposition the choice?
Don't you remember how millions and millions and millions of Americans put their lives on the line- even gave up their lives- to expand the right to vote beyond White male landowners?
You've got no excuses. None.
The cat didn't eat your homework. What's more, if you electronically turned in your homework, the cat didn't walk across your laptop and hit "Delete."
Matter of fact, I researched Ossoff's platform and that of his opponent, Karen Handel (who, in 2007, became the first elected Republican to serve as the Peach State's secretary of state).
*First of all, the 30-year-old Ossoff has made suggestions that could save the US government $16 billion (an assertion Politifact agrees with). For example, if the government consolidated its data centers, it'd mean $5.4 billion extra to spend. And if the Department of Defense could try strategic sourcing, $4 billion would be freed up.
*If our businesses played with money the way America's government does, those firms would be in deep doo-doo. TJO wants to bring our government up to private-sector standards. (Think about this: The General Accounting Office found out that, in fiscal 2014, Uncle Sam made improper payments totaling $124.7 billion. Also, GAO found out 6.5 million active Social Security numbers have been set aside for people over the age of 112...despite the fact that only 42 such people the world over are currently drawing breath!)
*Jon Ossoff wants to promote high-tech and biotech research...at a time when today's GOP-led Congress wants to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control, one of Georgia's top fifteen employers.
*On top of that, he's out to prioritize STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs, colleges, universities, and technical schools. Ossoff would like to let college students refinance their loan repayment programs and, in the process, reap the benefits of lower interest rates.
*Atlanta native Ossoff supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.
*He doesn't want nonviolent drug offenders imprisoned. (With those nonviolent drug offenders clogging up the jails, where's the room for the convicted murderers, sex offenders, what have you?)
*Jon won't raise your taxes; in fact, he's in favor of lowering taxes for small businesses.
*Ossoff wants the United States to stay in the Paris climate accord.
*Although he doesn't want a single-payer health-care system, he's in favor of keeping the Affordable Care Act the law of the land. (Don't get him started on the proposed ACA replacement, the so-called American Health Care Act.)
*To top it all off, this son of an Australian mother will work for comprehensive immigration reform...the kind that strengthens enforcement along the US-Mexico border and makes a citizenship path for America's 11 million undocumented immigrants.
If you flip this platform around, you can just imagine what Handel's platform looks like.
Still, here it is:
*Handel wants to repeal the ACA (as did Tom Price, the new HHS secretary whose House seat Ossoff and Handel are after) and replace it with the AHCA...a proposal that, contrary to Republican assertions, reduces protections for preexisting conditions (in addition to taking health insurance away from at least 23 million Americans!).
*She's made it clear that she opposes the minimum wage: "I do not support a livable wage."
*Handel opposes abortion rights, government funding of Planned Parenthood, and embryonic stem-cell research.
*Karen wants to limit Uncle Sam's role in combating climate change; she'd rather leave it up to the states and their cities. What's more, she doesn't believe that we human beings are the biggest reason the world's average temperature has gone up.
*And, of course, Handel doesn't want an automatic (or any kind of) path to citizenship for those undocumented immigrants.
*Do you remember when the 55-year-old Handel was an executive with Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure? Remember when, in 2012, the foundation pulled back a $700,000 grant to Planned Parenthood to fund mammograms and other breast-cancer-related services?
The cutoff was completely and totally political.
And it had Handel's fingerprints all over it.
The same woman who purged voter rolls as soon as she became Georgia's secretary of state five years earlier.
So there you are, Democrats in GA-6. Take it from me, a man who, in 1986, failed to cast a ballot in an historic election here in Nebraska.
Two women- a first here in these fifty states- fought for Bob Kerrey's gubernatorial seat as he sought a seat in the US Senate. Instead of former Lincoln Mayor Helen Boosalis keeping the governor's mansion in Democratic hands,
State Treasurer Kay Orr put it back in the GOP's lap.
My excuse: "I ran out of time before I had to go to work."
I got raked over the coals for my decision...and ever since, I've made it a point to cast a ballot every chance I could get.
This one's too important to pass up...especially if you want Trump impeached and then convicted (before he and his people do further damage to America and its reputation).
Please...get up off your excuses and VOTE for Jon Ossoff!
Sincerely, Jim Boston
If you want Donald John Trump out of there, you're going to have to vote for Thomas Jonathan Ossoff this coming Tuesday.
That's all there is to it.
You just can't afford to sit this one out...the way some of you not only sat out last year's US presidential election, but also the 2010 and 2014 midterms.
Some people here in America don't think any sort of anti-Trump resistance is taking place. After all, Democrats are 0 for 2 in special elections thus far this year. Kansans in what used to be Mike Pompeo's US House district rejected James Thompson, the Democrat who was trying to take the seat out of Republican hands.
And Montanans just got through demonstrating that they wanted Republican Greg Gianforte (who beat up a reporter, Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, on the eve of Big Sky Country's US House election, the effort to replace Ryan Zinke) instead of Democrat Rob Quist.
You folks are the firewall. You can't afford to wait until next year and cross your fingers.
Registered Democrats have GOT to end their history of staying away from polling places whenever there's a midterm election or a special election.
I mean, don't you understand, after all these years, that if you don't go out and cast a ballot, you give the opposition the choice?
Don't you remember how millions and millions and millions of Americans put their lives on the line- even gave up their lives- to expand the right to vote beyond White male landowners?
You've got no excuses. None.
The cat didn't eat your homework. What's more, if you electronically turned in your homework, the cat didn't walk across your laptop and hit "Delete."
Matter of fact, I researched Ossoff's platform and that of his opponent, Karen Handel (who, in 2007, became the first elected Republican to serve as the Peach State's secretary of state).
*First of all, the 30-year-old Ossoff has made suggestions that could save the US government $16 billion (an assertion Politifact agrees with). For example, if the government consolidated its data centers, it'd mean $5.4 billion extra to spend. And if the Department of Defense could try strategic sourcing, $4 billion would be freed up.
*If our businesses played with money the way America's government does, those firms would be in deep doo-doo. TJO wants to bring our government up to private-sector standards. (Think about this: The General Accounting Office found out that, in fiscal 2014, Uncle Sam made improper payments totaling $124.7 billion. Also, GAO found out 6.5 million active Social Security numbers have been set aside for people over the age of 112...despite the fact that only 42 such people the world over are currently drawing breath!)
*Jon Ossoff wants to promote high-tech and biotech research...at a time when today's GOP-led Congress wants to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control, one of Georgia's top fifteen employers.
*On top of that, he's out to prioritize STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs, colleges, universities, and technical schools. Ossoff would like to let college students refinance their loan repayment programs and, in the process, reap the benefits of lower interest rates.
*Atlanta native Ossoff supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.
*He doesn't want nonviolent drug offenders imprisoned. (With those nonviolent drug offenders clogging up the jails, where's the room for the convicted murderers, sex offenders, what have you?)
*Jon won't raise your taxes; in fact, he's in favor of lowering taxes for small businesses.
*Ossoff wants the United States to stay in the Paris climate accord.
*Although he doesn't want a single-payer health-care system, he's in favor of keeping the Affordable Care Act the law of the land. (Don't get him started on the proposed ACA replacement, the so-called American Health Care Act.)
*To top it all off, this son of an Australian mother will work for comprehensive immigration reform...the kind that strengthens enforcement along the US-Mexico border and makes a citizenship path for America's 11 million undocumented immigrants.
If you flip this platform around, you can just imagine what Handel's platform looks like.
Still, here it is:
*Handel wants to repeal the ACA (as did Tom Price, the new HHS secretary whose House seat Ossoff and Handel are after) and replace it with the AHCA...a proposal that, contrary to Republican assertions, reduces protections for preexisting conditions (in addition to taking health insurance away from at least 23 million Americans!).
*She's made it clear that she opposes the minimum wage: "I do not support a livable wage."
*Handel opposes abortion rights, government funding of Planned Parenthood, and embryonic stem-cell research.
*Karen wants to limit Uncle Sam's role in combating climate change; she'd rather leave it up to the states and their cities. What's more, she doesn't believe that we human beings are the biggest reason the world's average temperature has gone up.
*And, of course, Handel doesn't want an automatic (or any kind of) path to citizenship for those undocumented immigrants.
*Do you remember when the 55-year-old Handel was an executive with Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure? Remember when, in 2012, the foundation pulled back a $700,000 grant to Planned Parenthood to fund mammograms and other breast-cancer-related services?
The cutoff was completely and totally political.
And it had Handel's fingerprints all over it.
The same woman who purged voter rolls as soon as she became Georgia's secretary of state five years earlier.
So there you are, Democrats in GA-6. Take it from me, a man who, in 1986, failed to cast a ballot in an historic election here in Nebraska.
My excuse: "I ran out of time before I had to go to work."
I got raked over the coals for my decision...and ever since, I've made it a point to cast a ballot every chance I could get.
This one's too important to pass up...especially if you want Trump impeached and then convicted (before he and his people do further damage to America and its reputation).
Please...get up off your excuses and VOTE for Jon Ossoff!
Sincerely, Jim Boston
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
A playoff cycle for the books!
The first six-touchdown performance in the history of these "shoulda-coulda-woulda" Division 1-A football playoffs...the first second-round loss by a Number One seed in six years...a team that'd been 0-2 in playoff appearances finally rising up to win a pair of postseason contests...a Mid-American Conference team making the Final Four for the first time...and a new color in the throne room.
Well, I'm just going to cut to the chase and tell you how the 2016 edition of this version of a big-school NCAA football playoff went down:
FIRST ROUND (seeding in parentheses): Michigan (9) 63, Oklahoma State (24) 21; San Diego State (16) 28, Toledo (17) 7; Colorado (13) 30, USC (20) 23; Wisconsin (12) 31, Nebraska (21) 0; Florida State (19) 41, Western Kentucky (14) 34; Stanford (22) 24, South Florida (11) 21; Louisville (18) 28, Temple (15) 14; West Virginia (10) 31, Appalachian State (23) 27
SECOND ROUND: Michigan 37, Alabama (1) 22; San Diego State 28, Boise State (8) 7; Ohio State (5) 21, Colorado 13; Washington (4) 42, Wisconsin 10; Penn State (6) 46, Florida State 7; Clemson (3) 30, Stanford 21; Oklahoma (7) 28, Louisville 21; Western Michigan (2) 19, West Virginia 3
QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Michigan 42, San Diego State 17; Washington 13, Ohio State 12; Penn State 38, Clemson 27; Western Michigan 35, Oklahoma 28
SEMIFINAL ROUND: Washington 20, Michigan 6; Penn State 34, Western Michigan 20
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Penn State 29, Washington 13
Now...on to the highlights!
FIRST ROUND: Freshman RB Chris Evans (12) keyed the Wolverines' rout of the Cowboys by scoring six TDs- four on the ground, one on a catch, and the other on an 84-yard punt return- to break Ki-Jana Carter's one-game record of five, set in 1994 (still the mark for a championship game)...after two first-round failures (1986 and 2015), Aztecs rode RB Donnel Pumphrey's 18-carry, 200-yard spree to victory over the Rockets...Hilltoppers' 30 first downs (and 574-527 yardage edge) weren't enough to stop the Seminoles, who won the game when WR Kermit Whitfield ran it in from seven yards with 3:05 to go in the fourth quarter...in a battle of Mountaineers, West Virginia pulled it out with 4:15 left in the fourth on RB Justin Crawford's two-yard scoring jaunt after K Michael Rubino's 48-yard field goal gave Appalachian State a brief 27-24 lead...Buffaloes avenged a 20-5 loss to the Trojans when QB Sefo Liufau scooted to paydirt from the USC 11...Badgers capitalized on Husker QB Tommy Armstrong's absence (due to an injury against Iowa) by limiting Nebraska to 229 total yards and by avoiding turnovers and penalties...RB Christian McCaffrey (20 runs, 133 yards, 2 TDs) helped Cardinal overcome Bulls' 14-10 halftime lead.
SECOND ROUND: Broncos dismissed the Men from Morgantown by holding WVU to a sickening 76 total yards (44 on the ground, 32 in the air)...RB Saquon Barkley (23 rushes, 101 yards) and QB Trace McSorley (two TD passes, two rushing scores) keyed Nittany Lions' dismantling of Seminoles...QB Baker Mayfield hooked up with WR Dede Westbrook for a 54-yard TD to advance Sooners over Cardinals (and their Heisman-winning QB, Lamar Jackson)...McCaffrey took the opening kickoff 100 yards for a score, but Tigers overcame all that with QB Deshaun Watson's three TD tosses (and 20-of-29 passing for 187 yards)...the Pumphrey Express flattened Boise State (he gained 131 yards on 23 tries and scored a TD)...QB Jake Browning's four air scores (18-29-359 yards-2 INTs on the night) helped Huskies oust Badgers...Crimson Tide outgained Wolverines, 334-253, and kept Evans out of the end zone- but six sacks by Michigan's defense led to Alabama's demise (six years after Wisconsin embarrassed top-seeded Auburn, 28-21, in the second round).
QUARTERFINAL ROUND: 19 Tiger penalties (for 131 yards) caused Clemson to waste Watson's 38-49-358 yard-3 TD-2 INT effort...for the first time ever, a team from the Mid-American Conference reached the semifinals- because WMU QB Zach Terrell flipped a one-yard scoring toss to WR Corey Davis with 4:54 remaining in regulation to kick the Sooners out of the playoffs...in what was a game of three-pointers, WR Aaron Fuller won it for the Huskies by running a punt back 80 yards to daylight (after returning just one other punt during the season- and that for five yards)...QB Wilton Speight's five TD throws (he went 20 for 31 for 311 yards and two picks) helped the Wolverines bury the Aztecs.
SEMIFINAL ROUND: Terrell outdueled McSorley (316 passing yards to 290), but Trace flicked three air scores to Zach's two- and got help from Barkley, who ran 24 times for 121 yards...Huskies held Wolverines to 272 total yards- 54 on the ground (in 28 carries); meanwhile, Browning and WR Chico McClatcher hooked up for two scoring strikes.
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Barkley (this season's playoff MVP) toted the Nittany Lions on his back by scoring a pair of TDs (while running 24 times for 88 yards).
Result: Penn State won it all for the first time since 1994 (when the team from State College, PA crushed Kansas State, 63-14, in Carter's monster game).
The Nittany Lions kept the "shoulda-coulda-woulda" crown in Big Ten Conference hands (Iowa was last season's champ after stopping Alabama, 14-7, in overtime).
The Blue and White became the fourth club in the history of these playoffs to win it all under two different head coaches- joining Nebraska (Tom Osborne in 1982, 1989, 1990, 1993, and 1997 and Frank Solich in 1999), Miami (FL) (Dennis Erickson turned the trick in 1992, followed nine years later by Larry Coker), and Ohio State (which won in 1996 under John Cooper, then did it again in 2005, 2007, and 2010- all on Jim Tressel's watch).
And 22 years after Joe Paterno brought the crown to Happy Valley, James Franklin got it done...and became the first African American to head up a champion in this version of a D-1-A playoff.
Had Washington come through, Chris Peterson would've made "shoulda-coulda-woulda" history, too...as the first head coach to take two different teams to the top. (His Boise State squad went all the way in 2006 and 2008.)
This playoff cycle was truly one for the books.
Can the 2017 playoffs top that?
I'm Jim Boston...thanks for reading this blog!
Well, I'm just going to cut to the chase and tell you how the 2016 edition of this version of a big-school NCAA football playoff went down:
FIRST ROUND (seeding in parentheses): Michigan (9) 63, Oklahoma State (24) 21; San Diego State (16) 28, Toledo (17) 7; Colorado (13) 30, USC (20) 23; Wisconsin (12) 31, Nebraska (21) 0; Florida State (19) 41, Western Kentucky (14) 34; Stanford (22) 24, South Florida (11) 21; Louisville (18) 28, Temple (15) 14; West Virginia (10) 31, Appalachian State (23) 27
SECOND ROUND: Michigan 37, Alabama (1) 22; San Diego State 28, Boise State (8) 7; Ohio State (5) 21, Colorado 13; Washington (4) 42, Wisconsin 10; Penn State (6) 46, Florida State 7; Clemson (3) 30, Stanford 21; Oklahoma (7) 28, Louisville 21; Western Michigan (2) 19, West Virginia 3
QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Michigan 42, San Diego State 17; Washington 13, Ohio State 12; Penn State 38, Clemson 27; Western Michigan 35, Oklahoma 28
SEMIFINAL ROUND: Washington 20, Michigan 6; Penn State 34, Western Michigan 20
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Penn State 29, Washington 13
Now...on to the highlights!
FIRST ROUND: Freshman RB Chris Evans (12) keyed the Wolverines' rout of the Cowboys by scoring six TDs- four on the ground, one on a catch, and the other on an 84-yard punt return- to break Ki-Jana Carter's one-game record of five, set in 1994 (still the mark for a championship game)...after two first-round failures (1986 and 2015), Aztecs rode RB Donnel Pumphrey's 18-carry, 200-yard spree to victory over the Rockets...Hilltoppers' 30 first downs (and 574-527 yardage edge) weren't enough to stop the Seminoles, who won the game when WR Kermit Whitfield ran it in from seven yards with 3:05 to go in the fourth quarter...in a battle of Mountaineers, West Virginia pulled it out with 4:15 left in the fourth on RB Justin Crawford's two-yard scoring jaunt after K Michael Rubino's 48-yard field goal gave Appalachian State a brief 27-24 lead...Buffaloes avenged a 20-5 loss to the Trojans when QB Sefo Liufau scooted to paydirt from the USC 11...Badgers capitalized on Husker QB Tommy Armstrong's absence (due to an injury against Iowa) by limiting Nebraska to 229 total yards and by avoiding turnovers and penalties...RB Christian McCaffrey (20 runs, 133 yards, 2 TDs) helped Cardinal overcome Bulls' 14-10 halftime lead.
SECOND ROUND: Broncos dismissed the Men from Morgantown by holding WVU to a sickening 76 total yards (44 on the ground, 32 in the air)...RB Saquon Barkley (23 rushes, 101 yards) and QB Trace McSorley (two TD passes, two rushing scores) keyed Nittany Lions' dismantling of Seminoles...QB Baker Mayfield hooked up with WR Dede Westbrook for a 54-yard TD to advance Sooners over Cardinals (and their Heisman-winning QB, Lamar Jackson)...McCaffrey took the opening kickoff 100 yards for a score, but Tigers overcame all that with QB Deshaun Watson's three TD tosses (and 20-of-29 passing for 187 yards)...the Pumphrey Express flattened Boise State (he gained 131 yards on 23 tries and scored a TD)...QB Jake Browning's four air scores (18-29-359 yards-2 INTs on the night) helped Huskies oust Badgers...Crimson Tide outgained Wolverines, 334-253, and kept Evans out of the end zone- but six sacks by Michigan's defense led to Alabama's demise (six years after Wisconsin embarrassed top-seeded Auburn, 28-21, in the second round).
QUARTERFINAL ROUND: 19 Tiger penalties (for 131 yards) caused Clemson to waste Watson's 38-49-358 yard-3 TD-2 INT effort...for the first time ever, a team from the Mid-American Conference reached the semifinals- because WMU QB Zach Terrell flipped a one-yard scoring toss to WR Corey Davis with 4:54 remaining in regulation to kick the Sooners out of the playoffs...in what was a game of three-pointers, WR Aaron Fuller won it for the Huskies by running a punt back 80 yards to daylight (after returning just one other punt during the season- and that for five yards)...QB Wilton Speight's five TD throws (he went 20 for 31 for 311 yards and two picks) helped the Wolverines bury the Aztecs.
SEMIFINAL ROUND: Terrell outdueled McSorley (316 passing yards to 290), but Trace flicked three air scores to Zach's two- and got help from Barkley, who ran 24 times for 121 yards...Huskies held Wolverines to 272 total yards- 54 on the ground (in 28 carries); meanwhile, Browning and WR Chico McClatcher hooked up for two scoring strikes.
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Barkley (this season's playoff MVP) toted the Nittany Lions on his back by scoring a pair of TDs (while running 24 times for 88 yards).
Result: Penn State won it all for the first time since 1994 (when the team from State College, PA crushed Kansas State, 63-14, in Carter's monster game).
The Nittany Lions kept the "shoulda-coulda-woulda" crown in Big Ten Conference hands (Iowa was last season's champ after stopping Alabama, 14-7, in overtime).
The Blue and White became the fourth club in the history of these playoffs to win it all under two different head coaches- joining Nebraska (Tom Osborne in 1982, 1989, 1990, 1993, and 1997 and Frank Solich in 1999), Miami (FL) (Dennis Erickson turned the trick in 1992, followed nine years later by Larry Coker), and Ohio State (which won in 1996 under John Cooper, then did it again in 2005, 2007, and 2010- all on Jim Tressel's watch).
And 22 years after Joe Paterno brought the crown to Happy Valley, James Franklin got it done...and became the first African American to head up a champion in this version of a D-1-A playoff.
Had Washington come through, Chris Peterson would've made "shoulda-coulda-woulda" history, too...as the first head coach to take two different teams to the top. (His Boise State squad went all the way in 2006 and 2008.)
This playoff cycle was truly one for the books.
Can the 2017 playoffs top that?
I'm Jim Boston...thanks for reading this blog!
Friday, November 22, 2013
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?
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?
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