Honey, did you see the 190,000 AK-47s I put down somewhere, or, it was a bad day, I couldn’t find my aaaaa-kay…

The GAO is reporting that ‘we’ have lost track of 190,000 AK-47s given to the Iraqi government and Army back in 2004 and 2005. One doesn’t have to take a great leap of imagination to surmise that some of those weapons were used against American troops. Despite some horrible aberrations, the problem is not the American military. The problem was, is, and will be that there is no center of control. There is no strong central government un-splintered by sects that can control violence.

The hours with electricity in Baghdad are even fewer than a few months ago..the cities that were getting a lot of the electricity that had been siphoned off from Baghdad are now facing shortages, largely because of sabotage. A surge really is needed, but the center is not holding.

Those folks who decry and belittle those of us who oppose this war as defeatists and pro-terror need to explain what really is being accomplished. If we occupy Iraq for the next twenty years, we can continue to control some of the country and give the people who want to be free of sectarianism a haven, but ultimately, Iraq is not going to be the 51st state, despite having more money dumped into it than any state in the real union.

The truth of the matter is that we are arming all sides in the civil war, and attempting to provide a center. Candidates for the Presidency who cling to the current policies will be doomed. Candidates for Presidency who don’t believe in the current policy better be clear on the alternatives. So far, I’m not real impressed by either side.

He got up, suited up, and showed up – again and again and again, or, they’re not booooing, they’re saying Bruuuuuce

In the decade of the steroid, the mug-shot gallery of the current-day NFL, cyclers re-cycling blood (the big dopes!), the joke that is modern-day boxing, and revelations of referees on the take, colleges recruiting junior high basketball players…it really does look foggy out there. But, sometimes the fog does lift, and as Simon and Garfunkle once sang, we really do see a ‘boxer in the clearing’.

He really wasn’t a boxer, but he knocked plenty of people down. He was one in a thousand, maybe a million. He played a normally anonymous set of positions for 19 years and he played them as well as ever played. Scour the record books for offensive linemen who played 19 years. You won’t find many. Then scour the books for a man who played all five positions of the offensive line and played THEM ALL WELL. Good luck with that search, if you are looking for anyone beyond Bruce Matthews.

Bruce Matthews, late of the Houston Oilers and Tennessee Titans was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame yesterday. His humility and gratitude were on display once again, even on a day when he was enshrined as one of the best of the best. He was a titan.

More importantly, if there was a Hall of Fame just for humans who achieved in any endeavor, but more crucially in what it means to be an example, a guide, a quiet but compelling leader, Matthews belongs in that joint as well. A whole lot of life, as they say, is just showing up, not just showing up when we feel like it or when it is in our best interest, but day after day after day, hurt, mad, frustrated, wanting to leave, ready-for-a-vacation or just plain wanting one damn day off.

Matthews got up, suited up, and showed up every day. This is not one of those balancing acts that redeems all the bad stuff that goes on in sports, but it does tell me that there are still heroes in the game. Sometimes you just have to look down in the trenches to see em’.