Monday, January 18, 2010

January 18, 2010

The Jets won Sunday and now they are a step closer to playing in the Super Bowl. I think they have one more game against Indianapolis. If they win they are going on to the Superbowl XLV. (that is 45 in English).

This is as far as my football knowledge goes. I don't understand the sport, I don't care about the sport and I know it is unpatriotic to say it but I think it is a stupid sport. It is not entertaining, it is being dragged out to eternity when it could be played in ninety minutes or less but television makes more money if the game goes on and on.

Basically I find nothing entertaining about it.

Now here comes the irony.

In the early 1980s there was a quiz show on NBC television by the title of To Tell the Truth. The essence of the show was that there was one person who either had a secret or was someone famous but not really recognizable or done something out of the ordinary. In addition there were two impostors who claimed that one of them was that person.

The celebrity panel had to find out who was the real person and for every incorrect vote the impostors received a gift.

I went on the show and I was selected as one of the impostors for Pete Gogolak. Pete Gogolak was a Hungarian born football player who was a place kicker for the Buffalo Bills and the New York Giants from 1964 to 1974. He supposedly invented some special style of kicking and was very successful at it.

I was told a few days in advance what the show was to be about so I started learning as much as I could about football. I tell you it was a huge subject.

The day of the show arrived and I was more nervous than before final exams. I don't have to tell you that it took the panel about five seconds to realize that I was not Pete Gogolak. I knew all about Hungary, the sport clubs but I didn't know anything about American football.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience. I got a whole bunch of La Choy Chow Mein and boxes of chocolates. So, for months we ate Chinese food at home.

Can you imagine if that show would still be on I could volunteer to be an impostor for a particular golfer. I think I might do better than I did at football?!

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When shacks collapse they don't bury and kill people. When concrete and brick buildings collapse they do. These things can not be cleaned away by hand. The pieces, the slabs are too heavy to be moved by brute force.

It needs heavy equipment. Cranes, bulldozers, backhoes etc. Watching the pictures from Haiti there are no equipment visible anywhere.

How is it the American military can move any kind of equipment to anywhere in the world when they need to but can not get heavy construction machinery to Haiti?

If there were machines the rescue people would not be stepping on each other and work could proceed on a more orderly fashion. The way it looks there is a total chaos even amongst the rescuers as much as the rescuees.

Not withstanding the number of reporters there. Every reporter sees this as his/her opportunity for a Pulitzer Prize or whatever other prizes are there.

Every TV network, local TV station, radio station and newspaper are represented there by their own staff. What service these people do provide? They all report basically the same thing.

Nothing moves a hardened reporter. These people see misery all the times, there is no trouble they haven't seen yet. So, they go there because they are getting paid for it and it is 80 degrees against snow and sleet back here.

When the tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004 it was front page news for a short while. Then it disappeared because there were more interesting things to write about. The misery stayed there but the world attention turned away from them.

It is very disturbing that everywhere one turns there is nothing on TV but Haiti. People who want to help will help anyway, no need to shove this thing down our throats.

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