A Few Thoughts on the Winter Olympics

Posted on February 24, 2010 | Leave a comment
The  Winter Olympics as they are televised on the NBC networks do entertain and compel me. I could talk to you if you were sitting beside me about Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller, Julie Mancuso, Apollo Anton Ohno, Charlie Wise and Meryl Davis as well as Shanon Barkhe and Shani Davis. The stories of athletes from other nations also compel me. While I have skied, sledded and skated a very little — I do not relate to these events as even a competent winter athlete would. Also for me, as for many others, I relate with eagerness to the excellences that are not typical of my own life. The joy of representing a nation on a great stage is not something most us will ever know. Nor will we know the full discipline and dedication of many of these athletes. Further I remeber the youth they live as an increasingly distant memory. 

A US speed skater glides along the ice.

 The Olympics is not the only thing on my mind.  I had supper with last night and spoke today with Seth J. DeMoor who is trying to do some cool blogs and cycle across the country from Orlando, Florida to Buena Vista, Colorado.  He has a blog and his all out effort and adventure has many values in common with the Olympics.  His website is right here for your perusal  http://onebillionstories.com/  The New Testament is actually full of references to the events and traditions of the Olympic Games. So Seth’s faith tie is not unrelated either. However in these weeks I am spending quite a bit of time watching the Winter Olympics. It is not all that I do but it is important. I really get into the Olympics.  I like the Summer and the Winter Games.

USA team racing in the two man bobsled on a fast track.

 So I hope all of you are getting something out of it as well.  Let us press on and be a bit inspired to find an adventure and a winning route.  Let’s view the Olympics and try to live them out a little bit as well. I  may have more to say later after the closing ceremonies. But I do not want to pass up the chance to say something now. 

US figure skater Rachel Flatt fights to keep up a tradition in a tough field.

 Whether it Apollo Ohno becoming America’s most decorated winter Olympian or Rachel Flatt struggling against superb athletes in a field where the USA has long dominated– it is full of  drama and stories.  It recharges some of my creative batteries just to watch it. 

US Hockey team has been dominant.

 This is also a big anniversary for those who remember the famed Miracle on Ice hockey semifinal against the Soviet Union . Some of that emotional magic shone upon our professional hockey team when they beat Canada in a recent match. The Olympics pour out connections of moments in our lives, connections between countries and connections  between courage and opportunity. I do like the Olympics.  I am watching them intently.

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In Time of Lent: A Few Thoughts

Posted on February 18, 2010 | 1 comment

This Lent has begun for me with yesterday’s Ash Wednesday mass at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church in Abbeville. The modified fast and abstinence from meat which the Church still reqires of it adherents where I live combined with the ashes on my forehead and the foreheads of others helped to make the change into this season more palpable and real for me.

I am not going to write much about these things just now. This year has been a rather Lenten year in many ways over the last twelve months. So the sobering feeling is minimized when one was already in a grim mood. The events that made the carnival season a carnival season for me related a great deal to the success of the New Orleans Saints football team. That is not to to say I did not cut and buy king cakes, follow the Mardi Gras events at a distance and remeber previous seasons. But I did less than usual. My usual observances are not among the most extreme or even the large group of moderately active carnival participants. But Lent has come and brings all its associations of spirituality, seafood, a more somber Catholic liturgy and the slipping away of our Southern U.S. winter.  I am really quite ready to think and emote along Lenten lines.

The Crest of the Carmelite Order which operated the Mount Carmel Elementary School I attended.

 As a Catholic Christian my life is marked with moemories of many other Lents. These seasons define my religious identity over time far more than many other more notable and pronounced ceremonies and holidays somehow. 

My brother Simon Peter is confirmed and my sister and Godchild Mary is his sponsor.

 Whether in school, family or parish life — Lent has been important. Not all of my associations and memories are so clearly defined as Catholic experiences as those shown in these three images. But many countless experiences and are so very Catholic.  

My Sophomore Class Award from the Franciscan University of Steubenville

 

So I head into Lent. That is my only comment really in this post. A definitive transition. One thing I like about my religion and faith is that it provides some transitions.

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Posted in Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics, Frank W. Summers, Western civilization, Jesus Christ, New Orleans Saints, Louisiana

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The Saints Win the Super Bowl and Lombardi Trophy

Posted on February 8, 2010 | Leave a comment
The New Orleans Saints have won the biggest contest in the sport they play. This makes them one in 43 in reaching the Super Bowl and one for one in winning Super Bowl’s played.  The victory in sport will not end all ills and secure all good values but it is a very good day. 

Owner Benson lifts Lombardi Trophy

I have seen that all of us here are affected and are rejoicing. There is goodness in having long endured and seen this achievement. There are many great stories from the season and the game. 

 

Tight End Jeremy Shockey Celebrates the Game’s Highest Achievement

I congratulate all the team and all my fellow fans. It is but another part of our journey towards many good things and out of many bad places. There is hope and joy in this land today.

 

Saints Quarterback Celebrates with his Son After Winning The Super Bowl

It is good for our hearts to see the players and coaches trying to build lives here and help to rebuild a city. They are seeing progress in a region as well.  So do we all. The struggles continue but today is a day to look on the bright side of the situation here and in New Orleans.

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Winning the Super Bowl Part Two: The Organizations

Posted on February 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

The last post I put up was an analysis of the Quarterbacks contending for this championship.  This post relates to the organizations as a whole. Who will prevail and why between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts?

The Saints and the Colts both have defenses whose official ratings are below average. I suppose that to some degree these teams disprove the old adage that “Defense wins championships”.  Of course that is an over simplification. There are a lot of oversimplifications that I will not have time nor energy to decipher in this short analysis. However, since so few people read this blog I suppose you cannot expect much collective bargaining power. I will make a flying passing analysis of the whole organization except the quarterbacks to compliment the first part of my analysis.

2. Comparing the organizations outside of the quarterback position.

I. Lets compare the coaches first. Jim Caldwell is a rookie head coach but has been with the Colts as a coach for eight years. He has the advantage also of having been with Tampa Bay from 93-2000. He should have a great deal of experience with the climate in Florida during this time of year — the human climate as well as the meteorological climate.   Sean Payton did coach at Miami for a year or so but unfortunately it was the wrong Miami — Miami of Ohio. However, when the impressive early season with the Saints in 2006 ended, Payton was chosen the Coach of the Year by the Associated Press, the Maxwell Club,  Pro Football Weekly/Pro Football Writers of America and The Sporting News. He seems to have just kept improving since then.  I think he is up against formidable competition but if there is ever going to be a price to pay for being a rookie head coach then Payton will exact it from the other Payton’s head coach Caldwell. COACH GAME READINESS: ADVANTAGE SAINTS, SLIGHT.

II. The next thing to compare is the Bench. Here I am including the quarterbacks not included in the first part of this analysis as well as all the rest. The Saints have so much variety and diversity on offense that I think it takes the pressure off of any given payer’s relief and therefore strengthen’s the whole Bench. I do not think that Drew Brees’ loss could have been survived in any earlier game and leave them capable of winning this game. However, with Burnell as field marshall I think the Saints could march in to victory if Brees left after a first half lead. It would be hard for them to out gun the Colts but possible to hang on. I think if Dwight Freeny is only in marginal condition and a couple of key Colts (Manning and somebody else) then it will be very hard for the Colts to win.   Saints fans have to hope for Vilma and some others to have big games on defense but even so they are a very brad team. BENCH: SAINTS ADVANTAGE, MODERATE.

III. Special Teams is another area to compare. The Saints totally surpass the Colts in punt returning. In almost every other area their special teams perform comparably. I think that the Colts plan on punting very little. That means that the advantage is not likely to count for a whole lot. If Hartley cracks under pressure as he might it would be a foreseeable cost of the key player being so inexperienced and this further narrows the gap beyond statistics. SPECIAL TEAMS: ADVANTAGE SAINTS, SLIGHT.

IV. The last category is the Super Bowl Culture. There are many small factors which make up playing in and winning a Super Bowl that are distinct from the other games a team could play. In each and all of those factors the Saints have little to put up except Sean Payton’s stint on the winning Giants team. Shockey knows about getting there but did not play the game for his ring. These advantages are hard to quantify but they are real. SUPER BOWL CULTURE: ADVANTAGE COLTS, LARGE.

I think that both for the game as a whole and for the organization besides the QBs the final result is too close to call. I am pulling for the Saints but am not picking anyone.

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Thoughts About Winning the Super Bowl Part One — Quarterbacks

Posted on February 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

I am going to class this post as being one of my most “thinking on-line” posts and one of the least complete essays. I am going to address the question: Who will win the Super Bowl?  I will warn you in advance that the final analysis reached here will be short of a true pick.  I am pulling for the Saints.

1. Compare the quareterbacks:

I. Payton Manning has played in this field several times and has won a Super Bowl here.  However, Both teams have played there this year and the saints won a game there. Both quarterbacks and several key players watched the Pro-Bowl there.  Miami is closer to Louisiana than Indianapolis and there is a bit less travel time. COMFORT: ADVANTAGE PAYTON SLIGHT.

II. Brees led a thirteen game streak. Then he really rested much of the last three games of the regular season. He then won by 31 points and squeaked out a victory over Favre and has positioned himself almost perfectly to win the game in terms of momentum. Not likely to be far off from his best game Brees is coming into this week as ready as anyone gets. The bad news is that Manning’s year and pace are almost as good. YEAR’S MOMENTUM: ADVANTAGE BREES SLIGHT.

III. Over twenty Saints scored this season. Kickers like Hartley, defensive touchdowns on a team that creates takeaways often and random chance must be recognized. However, there are still the capacities of Bush to run, take a screen pass and return a ball. There are still the the power and ferocity of elements like Shcokey and Hamilton doing very different things with the two Thomas players. There are still the varied targets when the colts have to cover Shockey, Colston, Meachem and Henderson when a pass is a foregone conclusion. Drew Brees is a masterful leader for this complete attack.  That means that he will use all the advantages this gives him. This leads to this thought, yesterday I went with family and some friends to see the American tour of the Lipizzaner Stallions doing Dressage. Although the name and animals remind us of the Colts I think the Saints resemble these values of fully developed teamwork best of the two teams. COMPLETENESS OF OFFENSE: ADVANTAGE BREES MODERATE.

IV. The facts are that Payton is taller and has a superior field of view. He is heavier and can complete a pass after receiving more force in the  first fraction of a section of contact behind the line. Both are exceptional skill athletes. PHYSICALITY OF ATHLETE: ADVANTAGE PAYTON MODERATE.

I think the quarterback contest is too close to call.

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See You Later Alligator, After a While Bobby Charles…

Posted on January 28, 2010 | 1 comment

I attended the funeral of Bobby Charles, who was Robert Charles Guidry to legal record and Bobby Charles Guidry to his community.  Wednesday afternoon at three o’clock in the afternoon in a fairly full church the Roman Catholic “Mass of Christian Burial” was celebrated for Bobby Charles. St. Mary Magdalen Church in Abbeville, Louisiana has just been renovated and it looks great. Bobby Charles was a big deal around here but not in a splashy way.   He was a big deal in a lot of the world without ever achieving that mega star status held by so many in Los Angeles, California and New York. Here is a link to a summary of his reputation in the United Kingdom, Wikipedia is really pretty solid on this as on most things  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Charles  …

Bobby Charles died last week. When I used to give friends and associates from around the world  a tour of the area with a bit of a historical and current events background I often mentioned Bobby Charles the Swamp Pop Pioneer who wrote “See Ya Later Alligator” and had it covered by Bill Haley and the Comets. He wrote “Walking to New Orleans” and Fats Domino made that a hit. Before his funeral some musician friends played a lesser known and more spiritual song he wrote called “I Believe in Angels”. The church was full of musicians, writers, artists and craftsfolk but mostly people from Louisiana or at least the Gulf Coast. Many of them were like him people who have had moments of national and international fame but in the context of a long regional career of not such bright footlights and modest crowds.

My mother and I sat together. She went to high school with Bobby Charles and I worked with his son Bobby Jr. for about fourteen hours a day in making the movie “The Blob” in a square just near the church from which he was remembered and his ashes blessed to be buried. We got to know each other pretty well but have not seen each other since that January and February of 1988     despite both living a good number of those years in the same close-knit Acadiana area. I did not find my old pal at the funeral but later saw him on local television.

In a small place like this our artists seem so irreplaceable. That is because they are. Bye Bobby Charles!

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Posted in Acadians, Louisiana, Vermilion Parish

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The New Orleans Saints Going to the Super Bowl.

Posted on January 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

There is a lot to be said about the Saints going to the Super Bowl. First, I am really happy about it. Secondly,  when they won the NFC Championship Game against the Minnesota Vikings I did feel that moment of euphoria that comes rarely in a lifetime of being a sports fan. Thirdly, I have loved the Saints almost all of their forty-three years and this is their first Super Bowl. I am and should be very happy for the next nearly two weeks watching the build-up to the big game in Miami. I like that they honor the Fleur de Lis, the outline of the State of Louisiana and the name “Saints”.  I like that Devery Henderson is from Oppelousas and played with distinction on the Louisiana State University Football Team. I like the fact that Tom Benson has owned the Saints for a good while and has some history in the area he has built up. I like the fact that recent comers like Reggie Bush and Drew Brees have made a contribution to the local community using their considerable influence in ways that do them credit and are a help to the city, state and region where they play. Jeremy Shockey who is very new is one of my favorite football players and has excelled at tight End. It is a great day and a great occasion and I AM HAPPY!

Unfortunately, I am often a glass half-empty kind of person. There are some glass half-empty aspects of this event for me as well. One of them has a bright side along with its dark side. Payton Manning and Eli Manning are brothers from New Orleans who have deep family roots in Mississippi where the Saints have many fans and they have each taken a team other than the Saints to the Super Bowl. The Team they beat to win the Conference Championship was led by QB Brett Favre who grew up in Kiln Mississippi which follows the Saints and he has taken the distant Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl. In addition Jake Delhomme ( who may retire) has taken the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowlis an athlete who once played for the Saints and is from Louisiana’s Acadiana region. He was the QB at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette which along with LSU is also one of the schools I can call my alma mater. There have been great Louisiana players and are still such in many places and while I am glad the NFL has provided them with work I am also aware of something too transitory for my taste about this economy and system. 

I am glad that the New Orleans and Louisiana generation growing up now will have a team that has distinguished itself but that comes after years of social and legal chaos and various oil booms and busts have remade much of the state and city and where storms plow up the eroded coast and wreak endless havoc. Again, it takes some of the shine off of everything for me.  I salute the many achievements of the Saints and rejoice in the Super Bowl contest but many side stories remind me 0f  all the things that are different from I might wish were the case in managing this state — past, present and future. The truth is that sport, football, competition and other things related to this do matter a lot to us here. I just wish that over the long view the context were and had been very different.

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Haiti, MLK Jr. & Notes on an Almost Abandoned Blog

Posted on January 18, 2010 | 1 comment

This is one of those moments which is defined by the doing of a thing and not by much of anything else. Today is Martin Luther King Junior Day, a national holiday in the United States of America.  It is also the end of the first week since the huge Haiti earthqake. Anything above 7 on the Richter scale is a truly devastating event and we must have compassion for those affected by a cataclysmic shaking of the Earth on which we are all so dependent.

To channel some of that compassion consider the following:

To find out about particular victims and survivors call this hoptline provided by the US State Dept.1-888-407-4747.

To help some follks I know doing long- term work in community development : http://www.societyofourlady.net/missions-caribbean.html

To find out how the Red Cross sees this situation,and maybe connect with their efforts:

 http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/disaster/Red-Cross-Appeals-100-Million-Haiti–81921597.html

I am not including direct donor links but I feel that you can find them from what i ahve given you here. Some donor links work in large areas but few work everywhere and my small and diverse readership would not be best served by that approach.

Haiti has been through many phases in its development and has had many milestones in its development. There was the period in which Touissant L’Overture and the Man who became King Christophe struggled over the revolutionary heritage and there was the effor by Christophe to extablish a real Negro West Indian Kingdom of Haiti and then mostly there has been the chaos ever since. Prior to that there was the colony of sugar and other plantations which had a ten percent white population, a substantial free colored population and a still majority negro slave population.  Almost half of that slave majority was born in Africa at the time of the Revolt and revolution.

  I am a citizen of the United States and of Louisiana and there are many ties between me and my home and nearby Haiti. I think that this earthquake  occurring so near to Martin Luther King Day on the first observance of that holiday when a  half  Negro (or Mulatto) is President of the United States for the first time is very notable.  As a Roman Catholic with a lot of French ancestry and heritage I also think that there is a Catholic component to Haiti’s strengths and weaknesses. America contributes to Haiti’s problems by enabling overly easy immigration and an insane equality in this nearby country and having bad aid  policies, the Catholic Church contributes to the problems by not taking better responsibility for population control.   Haiti also manifests the racial differences that really do exist.

I wish I did not feel that the world was careening  in a drunken stagger towards ruin. However, I do believe that it is. Haiti has suffered a catastrophe but it problems predated this and have made its natural disater worse. It is time to help but also to think.

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Posted in Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics, race

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Slacking Off and Carrying On

Posted on December 2, 2009 | Leave a comment

I am not sure whether I am winding down this blog or just going through a period where I post fewer blog entries.  I am sure that I am slacking off  a bit and am not too concerned about it. However, in general I honor and encourage both industry and enthusiasm. I am therefore  posting a Facebook about perseverance and the triumph over apathy even as I myself may be a bit more apathetic than usual.

 Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 10:05am | 
We have all had days when we felt like staying in bed all day. Those of us who are privileged enough to spend time on Facebook probably have at least come close to spending a day in bed feeling weary and sorry for ourselves. A great deal of modern culture tends to make us feel that life spent doing whatever we can to make ourselves comfortable is a life well spent. So why not just stay in bed?

Of course in theory many of us will starve if we don’t get out of bed. But while a minority of people get paid for staying in bed in some sense or another — none of us (that I know of) get paid much just for getting out of bed. Still, we sort of know that our survival chances are statistically better if we get out of bed. Is it that statistical analysis which gets folks out of bed in the morning?

Staying in bed is at worst a very low risk and low pain way of channeling self destructive tendencies. In bed we find time to think and dream of a path to a better future. So why not just stay in bed?

Doctors have given orders for complete bed rest a vast number of times in history. If such behavior was right for their patients why not for us this morning?

There are serious cases of torture and homicide that go unreported, a worldwide web of unregulated slavery, land being deforested and turned to desert, species disappearing and millions of people starve. Very few of us will effectively address these problems in whatever it is we do each day. On the other hand in our bed we may feel we are doing nobody much harm. If we are fortunate, we may either have the consolations of the newlywed or at least the memory of such consolations in our beds. Why not just stay in these havens and burn less fuel moving around?

I have a pretty dark view of the world over all and I feel largely unable to help those I care about to make a better passage through this cruel world, Yet I am not in bed as I type this. If I listed all the bad things I have found waiting for me in the non-bed cosmos it would make this a book instead of a note. Yet out of bed I roll.

I think a lot of us get out of bed, pay taxes, work, get married, go to worship services, vote and shave because, whether we are Christians or not we sort of believe the teaching that hope is a theological virtue. We sort of know that humans are meant to try, to struggle, to love and to laugh even in the darkest times. We sort of hum along to songs like “Anyway” sung by Martina Mcbride, “The Impossible Dream” from Man from La Mancha and even tunes as different as Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” and George Michael’s “Gotta have Faith”. We may not see very many good options but we proceed not only out of fear or inertia but partly out of courage.

I believe that in every human I have met there is a bit of a fool, an oaf, a coward and a scoundrel. I have known lots of people I would readily identify as very bad folks. Yet I would encourage you to remember that next time you drag yourself out of bed to meet the challenges of the day you have my vote for hero of the day. Likely at least part of what gets you going every morning is that part of you which is a hero self daring to do the right regardless of the cost. It probably isn’t most of who you are, but if your first thought is usually “Arrghuuuuhhhhhmmmm–****—moorning” then maybe remembering the hero in there will help a little bit. I bet he or she is right there somewhere pushing those feet to the floor.

End of Facebook Note–

I wish all of ye few, ye brave, ye proud — ye readers — a good day out in the big world. I am feeling weary but am still sort of here.

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Posted in family, Frank W. Summers, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics

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Thanksgiving Thursday Round-up…

Posted on November 26, 2009 | 2 comments

1.Monday I had Sarah, Kevin, Anika and Soren as well as my nephew Eli (Mary’s son)  over for a large thankful dinner. I really enjoyed it.

2. Mom, Dad, Alyse, Joseph, Brooke, Simon and many others are celebrating the Family Missions Company Thanksgiving down in General Cepeda, Coahuila, Mexico.

3. Sarah, Kevin, Anika and Soren are down in Pensacola, Florida with Kevin’s family who are reuniting with a son of Kevin’s brother whom they never knew before recently.

4. I went by my maternal grandfather’s house and my maternal aunt Rachel’s houses yesterday for a Thanksgiving Day related visit.

5. Yesterday’s post on this blog gives some ideas and thought about the history of this holiday.

6. I sent out 41 e-cards for the holiday yesterday and my first response was from my dear niece Alyse.

7. Some notes about the holiday:

i. Most Roman Catholic missalettes have a mass for Thanksgiving Day in the missa of readings, antiphons and themes on the datel even though it is not quite an utterly official holiday in this Council of Bishops domain but it has often been proposed and much of the basic work has been done. It is complicated.

ii.The Thanksgiving Day Macy’s Parade, Advertising for Black Friday sales, two NFL football games on TV, and the National Dog Show (not the Westminster) are traditions to many people.

iii. The menu at Plymouth is the general inspiration for many regional, familial and personal repertoires from which individual meals are drawn. In my experience this is what the repertoire in the Acadian region of Louisiana more or less:

Turkey (with cranberry sauce), ham, rice dressing,  corn bread dressing, potato salad, some kind of congealed or frozen or fruit salad (or several), vegetable casserole, yam or sweet potato casserole covered with marshmallows,  pecan pie and pumpkin pie. Not all tables have all these things and many tables will have an additional set of family specialties but these are the core.

 iv.People pray for the members of the Armed Forces and often listen to some Christmas music on this day at some point. 

 8. I hope to be eating Thanksgiving Dinner with my Dad’s family who are gathered in force.

9. I will try to reach my other family members by phone.

10. For a good number of my non-American friends I am the main reminder they have that there is a Thanksgiving Day.  

Have a Happy Thanksgiving Day!

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Posted in Acadians, family, Family Missions Conpany, Frank W. Summers

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