Intentional Grounding: Shutdown Shuts Down Service Academy Games
Published on 1-Oct-2013 by J Square Humboldt
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OK, enough is enough.
Time to get a real alpha dog into the fight and sort the weasels in DC out.
If only we could conjure up Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis. Or cajole Roger Staubach and Joe Bellino. There's no way they'd let this happen.
What is the this they wouldn't let happen?
A federal government shutdown causing games by the service academies to be postponed and possibly cancelled. Right now, that's the state of play.
Believe it or not, the Department of Defense classifies all upperclassmen at those schools as government personnel, and as such, they're subject to the effects of the financial taps being plugged by the current escapades in our nation's capital. Air Force and Navy were set to play their leg of the Commander in Chief's Trophy this Saturday. Army is scheduled to meet Boston College, and that one's hanging fire right now, too.
The Eagles represent a Jesuit school. Maybe the Pope could put in a call.
Final decisions will be made on Thu 3 Oct.
The irony is thick. The service academies represent the entire country, not just the faction that echoes to itself on Fox News or the faction that echoes to itself on MSNBC. They even represent the faction that goes brain-numb watching reality shows. And they especially represent the righteous, well-perspectived masses who faithfully turn to sports in a world gone mad.
Their games are above these silly games that threaten to cancel them. And those games have already gotten so silly that, until a modicum of rationality finally prevailed, visiting veterans weren't being allowed to visit veterans' memorials. It's notable that congressionals from both parties rushed to be a part of rectifying that bit of absurdity.
Now, if those politicos could only figure out how to come together like that in the course of doing the jobs they were elected to do, which is giving voice to their constituents as part of a diverse chorus that is allegedly a key trait in making the USA the exceptional nation it claims to be.