Two American Icons

We here at Bloody Nib Manor are what some people would call "old fashioned." We don;t listen to rap or hip-hip or corrida music. We don't watch many new movies. We don't speak Spanish. And we know that marriage between a man and a woman is the definition of marriage. Anything other is is a goose disguised as a duck.

NFL football is not popular here. We think of NFL as the National Felons League as is evinced by Michael Vick and Pacman Jones. It is a thuggish sport dominated by thugs. The NBA is made up of players who spend much of their time posing, preening and trash talking. The last NBA player worth any regard was A.C. Green, who was ridiculed by the press for his Christian convictions.

Major League Baseball, on the other hand, is popular here at the manse. While we realize that not a few professional ball players are on paragons of moral behaviour, the game has not fallen to the level of employing dogfighters or rapists or gun toters. Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco may be a steroid pumped slugging machines, but most ball players behave themselves and do not act like idiots when they hit home runs. They hit, they run and then they go back to the dugout.

Baseball is that odd game where the physical size of the player means little. A little guy can hit and run as well as a big man. The perfect pitcher is a noodle with an arm. Sandy Kofax was the perfect pitcher. Watching him pitch was like watching a ballet. Perfect form. And in that way the game is the perfect American game. Genetics mean little in the Great Game. Talent, smarts and work make a ball player. Not size or bulk. The current standing in the America League show that even money doesn't matter. The Yankees, one of the highest paid teams in baseball, were humiliated last week by the Angels, and they are trailing badly behind the Red Sox, another lesser paid team. In the National League the Dodgers ( high paid team) are stumbling trying to find the call let alone cross the plate. Every game is a new game and work and skill make a winner. Just like the good old USA.

On a more prosaic level, consider the Zippo lighter: Zippo - Product Category listing. 75 years old, basic as basic as can be, low tech. No plastic. Just metal, flint and naphtha. The basic thing like what we hope America will be. And still chugging along.

Who could ask for more?