About two weeks ago, Roger Goodell spoke at a news conference on the topic of the personal problems and immoral activities of some players in the National Football League.
That evening, commentators began their newscasts talking about the speech. They dissected every sentence, spoke about the mega million dollar salaries and how the performance of each individual involved affected his team. On and on they went about the domestic violence in the players’ personal lives.
In very recent days the headlines were about Ebola, beheadings, bombings, ISIS, President Obama, Benghazi hearings, fake cell phone towers and many more important matters. I find it very curious that newscasts from coast to coast deleted the most important issues and replaced them with the activities of a violent sport.
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Those of you who are of my vintage remember Al Kelly. Younger readers are now be asking two questions. Q) What does “my vintage” mean? A) There are several definitions of the word “vintage,” but in this particular sentence it means “old”… like me. And question 2: A) Who’s Al Kelly? A) Al was a vaudeville comedian who became famous during the early Ed Sullivan-Milton Berle days of black and white television. He had us laughing out loud performing his act of double-talk. My Merriam Webster Dictionary tells us that double-talk is language that appears to be earnest and meaningful but in fact is a mixture of sense and nonsense. Al Kelly left us in 1966.
I was glued to the tube when I saw something that instantly brought the venerable vaudvillian back to mind. It seems that the old-time funnyman has been reincarnated, is now working under the name of John Kerry. Think not? The Secretary of State was asked about the word “war.” Instead of a simple response, he bloviated: “I think ‘war’ is the wrong terminology and analogy, but the fact is that we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity … I think people have to view it as a heightened counterterrorist activity. We’re engaged in a major counterterrorism operation, and it’s going to be a long-term counterterrorism operation.”
Yup! Kelley is now working under the name Kerry.
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There were about twenty of us at a friend’s home and as usual, the discussion turned to the events of the day. The group is a mixture of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Jews and Christians, and for the very first time everyone, including me, agreed on the subject. Not one of us wants to see American “boots on the ground” in this war on ISIS.
I stirred things up by asking, “Is there any way that any of you would change your mind?”
The responses were, “No!” “Not me!” “NEVER!” “Sorry, but I don’t ever want to see another American soldier carried home in a box.” “There is nothing there that is worth one American life.”
The room became silent when I asked, “would you change your mind if there was another attack similar to the one on 9-11?” I am StanGershbein@Bellsouth.net asking: is there any way that YOU would change your mind?
