Fire Him? Not the Point

No. Arne Duncan won't be fired. And I don't think he should be.

Better that the NEA Representative Assembly narrowly, but clearly, voted "no confidence" in the Secretary of Education. The Obama Administration deserves it.

Read that again. The Administration. Let's keep our eyes on the ball here. Barack Obama appointed Duncan to the position. He had many decent and competent choices. He chose Duncan.

That's because he believes in merit pay as a way to improve teaching. He believes in dissolving contracts that have layoffs based on seniority. If it were his way, all teacher contracts would change in that direction.

It may be politically correct not to blame the President for the present national attitude that, somehow, teachers are primarily to blame for the lack of student progress that's plaguing public education. It may be. But Duncan's indefatigable efforts, the requirements for the Race to the Top, and what appears to be a similar attitude in renewing No Child Left Behind, land at Obama's feet.

Indirectly, of course, a vote of no confidence says that to the President, too. It isn't an easy call, what with the administration strongly behind a new jobs bill that will save over a hundred thousand teacher's jobs if passed. Some thanks we get, might be their attitude toward the NEA.

So as usual, it isn't an easy call to make. The debate on the NEA-RA floor demonstrated that. It is a highly-charged political world we now live in, where bits and pieces of victories are all that can be expected, especially now. It is difficult to accept.

But to move to fire Duncan not only will not get any attention from anybody but the most cynical pundits, it will appear to be sour grapes for supporting a Presidential candidate who did no more and no less than tell everybody just exactly what he was going to do. Sometimes, one must accept the reality.

234 Years, and What Else Do We Know?

The fireworks exploded again last night at the Milwaukee lakefront. Thousands watched. Most parked legally.

It is time to look at ourselves, 234 years on, halfway through this year. Do you like what you see?

Are the Tea Partiers gaining ground and legitimacy? Or are they a passing political force, amorphous and too fluid to hang on?

Is the President the leader he said he would be? He's doing pretty much what he said he'd do, after all. He's actually accomplishing some of it. Isn't that what leaders do?

Or is it ourselves that need a little re-examination? If we elected a person who's fulfilling some of his pledges, why are we still complaining so much? Did we elect someone for a different reason and, faced with the political results, now look back and wish we hadn't? (Been known to happen before; in this case, we get Sarah Palin, too, remember)

Why are the demagogues gaining a foothold? What is it about them that continues to attract? As FDR gained popularity in the 1930s, as the effects of the New Deal kept slowly improving the economy, their rantings died off. Not so much today; cable TV has too much backing. They'll always be there.

And as they do, there is an inevitable wearing effect: the emotional, simplistic, attack-mode approaches of their rhetoric keeps us on edge. It's a different country now: the political intrudes into nearly everything that isn't being sold in front of our faces. A lot of us are needing that Bloom County trip into the dandelions--just to sit there for a moment and think about not very much.

It's a stressed-out nation right now, trying everything it can to find solutions. Change we've got; hope is another issue. 234 years, and I'm not sure we know much else.

At Least They Know

The Canadians have something figured out. We never have.

We kept hearing, during their Olympic gold rush, their national anthem. So simple. So in touch with who they are.

Okay, a little sexist: "True patriot love in all thy sons command." Try some possible substitutes for "sons": "Daughters," "dudes", "sons and daughters", "people", "persons". Won't work. Throws it all off.

And you can actually sing it. Not like ours, where trained people are needed because some notes go through the roof. And they don't always remember the words.

That's because our national anthem commemorates a battle we lost in a war we'd rather forget. After all, the White House and Capitol were burned to the ground.

The British were shelling Fort McHenry in Baltimore, too, and somebody noticed that they missed the flagpole. Big deal. Were they actually aiming at it? Did Francis Scott Key write that poem to salvage what was left?

And the Canadian anthem celebrates the people and the land, unlike ours, which celebrates our flag and whatever it means. It's difficult to unify around it because both parts of it deal with the states, not the union.

Okay, the whole thing is supposed to, but its meaning continues to be discussed, including by people who, in the name of something some people believe it means, damage or destroy it and let everybody know while they're doing it.

Let's end the discussion, say some. There oughta be a law. Nope, says the Supreme Court.

Put it into the Constitution, say others. Nope. Too difficult to do that. And too much trouble to enforce. Better to note the stupidity with which so few others criticize it.

Just say boo. And go fly your own flag in a way that shows the right attitude toward it. So many more do that, anyhow.

There has never been a pandemic of wanton flag destruction. In a free land where so many could do it, so few actually have. That stands as its own comment.

And let's find a national anthem that celebrates this country's people and its land, something around which liberals and conservatives have found nothing to criticize. Impossible? Not at all.

We have one: "America the Beautiful." I've never met anybody who has ever had a problem with this song representing all of us.

It's easy to sing. And it'll work better when history teachers try to get kids to memorize the words for their next test. That kind of standardization goes without challenge.

We can learn from Canada, if we'd only listen. Listen to what they sing and how. It's about who they are. At least they know.

Why They Won't Wait

I'm getting tired of all the nonsense.

Nine million kids are without health care in this country. Nine million. And it doesn't look like anybody's going to do anything about it now.

All that trouble. All that discussion. All that ranting. For nothing.

All the Republicans can do is smirk; their intransigence worked like a fine-tuned watch. All the Democrats can do is disagree with each other.

Leadership? Ha. Where is it?

We have a President who ran on the outrageous idea that there actually were a few things in the world bigger than people themselves. He's been slammed around like a pinball.

We're a year after the last elections. Where are the jobs? The "jobless recovery" is nonsense. Who is it, exactly, who's recovering?

So the deficit, apparently, will be skyrocketing if the President's new budget passes. And this will help whom? For how long?

In the meantime, state governments will have to accept teacher merit pay as one of the prime conditions upon which to get more federal assistance for education. Some states will do this deal with the devil; some won't.

Where they won't, the teachers' unions are getting the brunt of the blame. But this will not work. It hasn't yet. Why would it now?

There's a lot of frustration out here, away from Washington. For the first time in quite a while, I'm beginning to understand why people get fed up. Nobody seems to be listening. They're in their own world.

To be sure, there's an inclination for that to happen inside the Beltway. Nothing else seems to matter. Trouble is, that comes home for a visit a little too late, oftentimes, for anybody to do anything about it.

I think it will happen again in November. People are fed up. They want the country to improve. They waited for a while, but they aren't waiting any longer.

Did It Die? Did He?

Is health care now dead in America--again?

With Ted Kennedy's Senate seat now occupied (or soon, little diff) by a Republican who has vowed to oppose President Obama's health care legislation, one must ask: Without a filibuster-proof majority, does it even make any sense to bring it up again?

Does it make any sense even to go to a conference committee with it?

Does it make any sense to force a vote?

I say yes. I say that the Republicans should be held responsible for denying health care for nine million children in this country, who clearly won't get it otherwise.

Nine million kids. And of course, they'll say it costs too much.

But they won't tell you what they will do about it. Because the answer to that question is: Nothing.

All that potential now wasted. All those possibilities lost. I, for one, want them to go on record and say so--say that it's not worth it.

Then I want Democrats to go on the warpath themselves, with rhetoric as severe as what's been used again them, and the President. But they won't.

They won't get tough with anybody. They've already caved in on taking a vote in the Senate before Kennedy's replacement takes office.

Tell you what: The Republicans would have. They'd be doing it today, right now, hours after they knew they'd be faced with this kind of legislative disaster.

All that work. All that bother. All that conversation. Now for nothing.

Simply pathetic. Too many people aren't thinking in this country. They're reacting. And that's dangerous.

We do live in a dangerous world. We're creating that danger for ourselves. Never mind terrorists.

I am truly afraid for this country. Truly.

Ted Kennedy didn't die last year. He died yesterday.

Where is the Center?

Barack Obama is still trying to find the center. I don't think he can do it. It's too small now.

Too many have gone to the edges. Everybody, it seems, has found something to be angry about. The administration is beginning to look as if it is not in control of events.

That's because the last administration left us with the feeling that, somehow, it was. But it wasn't, either. 9-11 certainly proved that.

Funny, isn't it, that even Rudy Giuliani could distance himself so far from 9-11 that he immediately--obviously without thinking--could say that no major terrorist attacks took place on George W. Bush's watch. The Republicans were so good at separating themselves from that event, largely because Democrats are too nice to point fingers at them.

I lay this at the feet of the Democrats. They don't know, and have rarely ever known, what they really want. Republicans want mostly the wrong things for this country, but they're united in wanting them. That attracts people, if for no other reason than it gives them someplace to stand.

And now, Democratic lackadaisical reactions to recent elections are bringing with them one disaster after another. New Jersey's gubernatorial race was the first; the Massachusetts senatorial race, for Ted Kennedy's old seat, is another. A Coakley victory would be the upset, it says here, should it happen tomorrow.

And there goes health care. It could simply get deep-sixed, or look like a Republican victory, very easily now. And a Republican turnaround, now considered impossible for at least eight years, might happen in another eight months.

But that wouldn't find the center, either.

Two Playoff Observations

A couple of things crossed my mind as I watched the playoffs this weekend.

As the San Diego Chargers were busy trying to mop up their many errors and catch the New York Jets--which they didn't--one of their wide receivers kicked a challenge flag that Jets' coach Rex Ryan threw to the ground because he didn't think the fellow made what was an excellent catch along the Jets' sideline in the fourth quarter with about two minutes left and the Jets leading, 17-7.

The official saw that and threw a flag on him for unsportsmanlike conduct. CBS commentator Phil Simms didn't think that was necessary. "It's an emotional time of the game," he observed. "You might want to let that one go."

But then, maybe not. As offenses go, this was not harmful in any noticeable way. But that's the point.

Why kick the flag at all? Because you're frustrated, you're angry because you're losing to a team you never should have lost to, and you just don't like Rex Ryan, who's known for his outward swagger--read "cockiness"--and he's about to get even cockier.

Ryan evokes great loyalty from his players, though, and there might just be one of them who might take particular exception to this otherwise relatively minor diss. It might be like saying, "Yeah, you beat us, but you still aren't good enough to be in this stadium."

It would take just one Jets player to hit that receiver--or some other Chargers--with a cheap shot in retaliation. That might set off a whole bunch of things nobody likes, which would put a bad stain on an otherwise pretty exciting finish.

If you're the lead official, you want to put a stop to this pettiness right now. So you flag it. Back went the Chargers, but they retained the ball, they got a first down, and--eventually--they scored anyhow.

So did that matter in the whole outcome? Actually, no. The Chargers had one last chance to stop the Jets with about a minute to go, but the Jets went for a first down on the San Diego 29 on fourth-and-one, and made it, allowing them to run out the clock. (Which leads us to San Diego's odd strategy of an onside kick, with 2:14 left and one more time out--thus two more chances to stop the clock, which at the very best would have forced the Jets to pooch kick out of bounds inside the ten. If the Chargers would have kicked off deep, they might have been able to stop the Jets around their own 30, made them punt, had the ball at their own 30 with a chance to move about 40 yards in about a minute for a field goal attempt by their poor kicker--otherwise one of the best in the league--who had missed 3 makeable tries earlier that day and I'm quite sure was aching for one more chance. But I digress.)

Did Minnesota run up the score against Dallas, passing for a touchdown while up 27-3 with less than two minutes left in the game? No. This is the playoffs. You win by so much you wipe out any thoughts of defeat.

What could Dallas have done at that point? Recovered a fumble or intercepted that very pass that went for a touchdown, and returned it for a touchdown themselves. Then gone for two points and made it; 27-11. Then onside kicked it, recovered, and scored within, say, two plays. Another two-point conversion: 27-19. Now, it's maybe 30 seconds left. They have to onside kick again. Nuttier things have happened.

After all, we just saw a playoff game in which each team scored 45 points in regulation, with one getting 35 in one half. No lead is safe enough.

Several other playoff games have been blowouts which have been worse. I'm quite surprised Brett Favre put the ball in the air at that point whatsoever, when the smarter thing to do might have been to kick a field goal to make it 30-3 and make it officially a four-score game. But then, who's surprised at anything Brett does on a football field anymore?

Oh, Brother

Now the NFL is saying that the play ending the Packers-Cardinals game last Sunday constituted a legitimate no-call.

Oh. Aaron Rodgers' facemask getting grabbed was no big deal. Anybody ask him about that?

The NFL rule says that the mask violation, bringing with it a 15-yard penalty, must constitute a twisting motion.

Okay, fine. Take a good look at the play. If the referee did see it--and yesterday, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt because he might have been paying attention to the status of the ball, once Rodgers fumbled--he had no choice but to throw that flag.

The NFL's saying that the mask was tugged straight down, without twisting; that it was "incidental", not intentional; that it didn't violate any rules.

Nonsense. That's a dangerous play to make for anybody against anybody. Grabbing the mask and pulling straight down, or forcing it straight down due to inadvertant action, is a dangerous thing do to to any player, in any game. If you've had it happen, you know.

The Packers got robbed, at least on that play. And while it's true that their defense was pretty much non-existent the entire afternoon, nobody knows what might have happened if Arizona would have been give 35 yards to go to score, rather than allowing them to romp into the end zone and end the game right there.

Incidental? Oh, brother. Puh-leeze.

What I Think Happened Last Sunday

The Packers' painful loss Sunday was only exacerbated by the final play, in which a facemask foul was clearly missed.

The whole world saw it. But the one person who could have, and might have at least called the Arizona Cardinals back from scoring on that play--perhaps at that point, merely delaying the inevitable (except we'll never know)--didn't.

Thing is, he probably couldn't have. Let me explain.

Before I begin: I officiated high school and small college football for 22 years. My high school crew position was that of the referee--the one who not only announces the calls on fouls and enforcement, but covers the plays on the line of scrimmage, behind it. That's his territory. It isn't necessarily exclusive, but for the plays I'm about to discuss, it is.

That means--the passer. That means--knowing when a pass has officially been made. That means--calling fouls on the defense for roughing the passer (which also was missed, in my view, but I'll get to that one, too). That means--calling whether or not a pass was forward or backward. That means, or it could mean--knowing when or whether fumbles take place behind the line of scrimmage.

Some big calls, right? Absolutely. Games are won or lost depending on those judgements.

And at least one call was missed. Another, maybe, depending upon how he saw it.

Two plays before the final play, Aaron Rodgers was hit particularly hard after he threw a pass. The Arizona defender pretty much launched himself at Rodgers, contacting him with his helmet and hitting Rodgers on the bottom of his own helmet. But it's not exactly where he hit him. Not exactly. It's when.

The NFL has made it a point of penalizing helmet-to-helmet contact this season, when it was clear that that was the point. And from what I saw Sunday, it was, because of the way the Arizona player wished to contact Rodgers. He didn't merely try to run into him and throw him down; that in fact would have been roughing the passer because it would have taken him that extra second of commitment to having made contact after the pass left Rodgers' hand.

The official in question has a guideline that those officials in that position have pretty much agreed upon to determine when hitting the quarterback is hitting him too late, and that's why the official--the referee--has to have the correct position to watch the play: behind the quarterback, and to his throwing-arm side.

That's because when he knows for certain that the ball has left, that the pass has been made and it's forward, he says to himself: "The ball is gone," or "It's gone." After that extra second or so, if a defender hits the quarterback on his own accord (not blocked into him, and it doesn't matter if he simply lost his balance; you can't determine intent), it's roughing--no questions asked. The flag goes down. (There must be a tighter time span, too, having watched enough pro games this year to see something of a trend.) Inside of that second, all bets are off because the defender has to have some benefit of the doubt.

The Arizona defender hit Rodgers too soon for that statement to be made, I believe, so roughing on its own couldn't be called. I think the helmet-to-helmet contact should have been, though, because of the way the defender launched himself at Rodgers. So that call--unnecessary roughtness--first of all, was missed, and the Packers would have had an automatic first down at or around their own 35.

BUT--the angle at which the contact was made might have been precisely the angle from which the referee couldn't have seen the helmet-to-helmet contact, because he's standing behind the quarterback on his throwing-arm side. He's looking through Rodgers, and might not have been able to see that exact contact.

(Never mind that Rodgers missed a chance to hit Greg Jennings for what looked like a touchdown on the first play of this series; everything else would have been irrelevant. That must be said here.)

But that leads us to the final play in question. So there's the referee, standing on Rodgers' right side and behind him (see above) when Arizona #27 blitzes and grabs Rodgers' right arm. The ball comes loose.

He also grabbed Rodgers' facemask almost simultaneously. But the referee isn't watching that anymore. In that split-second, he could tell that the ball was loose. He had a more important decision to make.

And that decision was: Who has the ball? And with that decision, he has to find the ball first. Failure to do that is death to an official. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to be accused of blowing an inadvertant whistle, killing a play that has every right to continue on. When all plays look like they're finished, the watchword for every official, before he blows the whistle, is: Find the ball, and don't do a damn thing until you do. It's sacrosanct. It's chiseled into their heads.

At the angle at which the referee was watching, he couldn't immediately tell. But his eyes were focused on the Arizona defenders between whom the ball was clearly now being bobbled.

What he could no longer do was watch Rodgers, who was now getting his facemask tugged pretty decisively, and in those first few split-seconds, his helmet was turned away from him. The rest of the world saw it, including just about everybody in the stands. The referee couldn't possibly see that, and determine the possession of the ball, at the same time, even though the two events weren't five yards from each other.

What were the other officials doing? The closest one to the referee, the umpire, was in all likelihood watching for holding and other lineman-to-lineman fouls (like hands to the face, ironically). But he's not responsible for making the call on the quarterback. Had he seen it, he might have. But he can't be faulted for missing that one, either, obvious though it might have been. He has to back up the issue of the loose ball as well, and consult with the referee if the referee has a question.

That's why the blue beanbags come out immediately upon a loose ball issue. Once possession has been determined to have been changed, enforcement of subsequent fouls needs to be determined, as close as can be done so at that moment (imprecise, but as long as it's in the general area, nobody gets too excited).

The other officials are downfield, covering pre-determined territories (with individual and overlapping responsibilities) and calling fouls possibly before the ball's even thrown, such as the illegal contact or defensive holding or pass interference on the offense (which, once the ball's been thrown, can be called because it's now clear that the receiver isn't blocking for a runner).

They won't be throwing a flag on Arizona #27, either. No way on that one. They might have viewed the play, but they certainly didn't see the whole play, and an official who throws flags or blows plays dead and didn't see the whole play is asking for trouble, big-time.

So. The referee was too consumed with trying to figure out--in the real time of, maybe, a second and a half--who had the ball, and whether the ball had hit the ground (because if it did, he would have had to determine whether or not Rodgers had in fact made a bona fide forward pass or not, or whether the "tuck rule" would have been in effect, in which case it was still a fumble and a loose ball, so he would have determined whether or not to blow the play dead or let it ride).

In that second-and-a-half, Rodgers' helmet was turned back toward the referee, and #27 still had a hold of it. But the referee's eyes are not there at all anymore. They're trying to find the ball, and determine its status. Everything now rides on that call.

All of which came down to the golden rule of officiating: You call what you see. Beyond that: You don't call what you don't see, and you don't see what isn't in your territory. Any official who does that risks a kind of anarchy about who makes calls and who doesn't--and the stability of how a game is called is part of how everybody understands it. Besides, once he does that to somebody else, he risks having it done to him.

There's a certain dignity to that that officials don't like to risk with each other, because crews work together in ways that most people don't know about, and there's a certain brotherhood involved in which embarrassing a colleague isn't advisable. You can risk not getting calls to work future games in a big hurry.

Anyhow: Those things were all at work in those few seconds on Sunday. Sometimes, it's just too bad. And this was one of those "sometimes".

They Should Be Embarrassed

So you're the second-string quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals.

You've been put into the game on a cold, blustery Sunday night at Giants' Stadium against the New York Jets. Your team's record is 10-5. The Jets' record is 8-7.

The score is 30-0. You're losing.

You're losing because nobody feels like playing tonight. Despite the fact that you could have the third seed in the playoffs instead of the fourth--a difference that may, or may not matter, depending whether or not you keep winning and somebody else doesn't--your team has decided not to play very hard. Too many players must figure that they're going to make the playoffs anyhow, and with a home game in the first round to boot, so let's get this one over with.

The Jets absolutely need this win to make the playoffs. They come out spitting fire. They run the ball right at your defense and do it well.

The starting quarterback for your team has completed one pass of ten for zero yards. He has hit four receivers right in the hands, and they've dropped the ball. One of throws was quite deep, and your team could have scored some points.

In the meantime, nobody wants to stay outside in this horribly cold weather. But the game must be finished, and 30 points down, the coach wants you to finish it.

So you get something very rare tonight: A first down. You've moved the ball into Jets' territory. Here it gets fascinating.

You call for a new formation on the line of scrimmage. Nobody seems to know where to go. You leave the center, point people to their new positions--and the play clock runs out before you have a chance to call time out. So you have a five-yard penalty for delay of game.

This is followed by not one, but two, false starts. Now it's first-and-25. You fade back to pass, and are sacked. Now, it's second-and-forever. This does not make the weather any warmer, either.

You're thinking, at this point: They're paying me what to do this?

And I, as a fan, am thinking, Somebody thinks this is entertainment?

The announcers, also freezing in the booth, are trying hard to pretend that this represents competent football. They can't, either.

This isn't the only game in which one team could easily have faxed in the final score and been better off not reporting to the stadium; the New York Giants were embarrassing, as well, in their final loss of the season to the Minnesota Vikings.

And, of course, the Indianapolis Colts' management already decided not to pursue an unbeaten regular season--which would have been only the third in league history--for the sake of preserving its players for the playoff run. Maybe they'll be right.

The Jets are glad for it. They won last week, too, setting up yet another tanking of efforts by a playoff-bound team so they could slide right into the fray.

So you're the second-string quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals and you're thinking: What kind of a team am I playing for?