Author Archives: clarkgriffith

THE NFL’S BRAIN INJURY PROBLEM IN REAL

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In this article, George WIll describes the football brain injury problem in detail. The conclusion is that such injury, even minor injury, is inevitable for professional and college players due to the number of hits and the size of the players. 

 

iN by GEORGE WILL September 2, 2017 8:00 PM @GEORGEWILL The head-injury epidemic in the NFL has changed what was once a beloved pastime into a spectacle that degrades its viewers. Autumn, which is bearing down upon us like a menacing linebacker, is, as John Keats said, a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Actually, Keats, a romantic, did not mention that last part. He died before the birth of the subject of a waning American romance, football. This sport will never die, but it will never again be, as it was until recently, the subject of uncomplicated national enthusiasm. CTE is a degenerative brain disease confirmable only after death, and often caused by repeated blows to the head that knock the brain against the skull. The cumulative impacts of hundreds of supposedly minor blows can have the cumulative effect of many concussions. The New York Times recently reported Stanford researchers’ data showing “that one college offensive lineman sustained 62 of these hits in a single game. Each one came with an average force on the player’s head equivalent to what you would see if he had driven his car into a brick wall at 30 mph.” Boston University researchers found CTE in 110 of 111 brains of deceased NFL players. In 53 other brains from college players, 48 had CTE. There was significant selection bias: Many of the brains came from families who had noticed CTE symptoms, including mood disorders and dementia. A BU researcher says, however, that a 10-year NFL linebacker could receive more than 15,000 sub-concussive blows. Football’s kinetic energy — a function of the masses and velocities of the hurtling bodies — has increased dramatically in 50 years. On Alabama’s undefeated 1966 team, only 21 percent of the players weighed more than 200 pounds. The heaviest weighed 223; the linemen averaged 194. The quarterback, who weighed 177, was Ken Stabler, who went on to a Hall of Fame NFL career — and to “moderately severe” CTE before death from cancer. Today, many high-school teams are much beefier than the 1966 Crimson Tide. Of the 114 members of Alabama’s 2016 squad, just 25 weighed less than 200 and 20 weighed more than 300. In 1980, only three NFL players weighed 300 or more pounds. Last season, 390 weighed 300 pounds or more, and six topped 350. UP NEXT UP NEXT UP NEXT Trump pledges $1M to Texas recovery 00:03 00:43 Powered by Players love football, and a small minority will have lucrative post-college NFL careers. Many will make increasingly informed choices to accept the risk-reward calculus. But because today’s risk-averse middle-class parents put crash helmets on their tykes riding tricycles, football participation will skew to the uninformed and economically desperate. But will informed spectators become queasy about deriving pleasure from an entertainment with such human costs? No. They will say: Players know the risks that they, unlike the baited bears, voluntarily embrace, just as smokers do. Notice, however, that smoking, which is increasingly a choice of those least receptive to public-health information, is banned in all NFL stadiums and is severely discouraged on all college campuses, including those that are football factories. And football fans will say: Better equipment will solve the problem of body parts, particularly the one in the skull’s brain pan, that are unsuited to the game. Perhaps evolving standards of decency will reduce football to a marginalized spectacle, like boxing. But the UFC’s (Ultimate Fighting Championship’s) burgeoning popularity is (redundant) evidence that “evolving” is not a synonym for “improving.” Besides, as disturbing scientific evidence accumulates, NFL franchise values soar (Forbes says the most valuable is the Dallas Cowboys at $4.2 billion and the least valuable is the $1.5 billion Buffalo Bills) and annual revenues reach $14 billion. The league distributes $244 million to each team — $77 million more than each team’s salary cap. Local revenues are gravy. The appendage of higher education that is called college football also is a big business: The Southeastern Conference’s cable-television channel is valued at almost $5 billion. Universities, which find and develop the NFL’s players, pay their head coaches well for performing this public service: Twenty head coaches make more than $4 million a year. Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh earns $9 million. It has been said (by Thomas Babington Macaulay) that the Puritans banned bear baiting — unleashing fierce dogs on a bear chained in a pit — not because it gave pain to bears but because it gave pleasure to Puritans. But whatever the Puritans’ motives, they understood that there are degrading enjoyments. Football is becoming one, even though Michigan’s $9 million coach has called it “the last bastion of hope in America for toughness in men.” That thought must amuse the Marines patrolling Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. READ MORE:

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451034/nfl-concussions-cast-doubt-footballs-future

2nd Manassas, Important History

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OVERVIEW

Second Manassas

ThiYou are here

Second Manassas was fought n the same field as the original battle a year earlier. It is worth reading about.

August 28 – 30, 1862

The Battle of Second Manassas
Second Bull Run, Groveton, Brawner’s Farm

After compelling Union Gen. George B. McClellan to withdraw from the outskirts of Richmond to Harrison’s Landing on the lower James River, Gen. Robert E. Lee turned his attention to the threat posed by the newly formed Union Army of Virginia, under the command of Gen. John Pope.  The Lincoln administration had chosen Pope to lead the reorganized forces in northern Virginia with the dual task of shielding Washington and operating northwest of Richmond to take pressure off McClellan’s army.  To counter Pope’s movement into central Virginia, Lee sent Gen. T. J. “Stonewall” Jackson to Gordonsville on July 13.  Jackson’s force crossed the Rapidan River and clashed with the vanguard of Pope’s army at Cedar Mountain, south of Culpeper, on August 9.  Jackson’s narrow tactical victory proved sufficient to instill caution in the Union high command.   The initiative shifted to Lee.

Confirming that McClellan’s Army of the Potomac was departing the Virginia Peninsula southeast of Richmond to join forces with Pope in northern Virginia, Lee ordered James Longstreet’s wing of the Army of Northern Virginia to join Jackson.  After providing for Richmond’s defense, Lee arrived at Gordonsville on August 15.   Lee intended to destroy Pope before the bulk of McClellan’s reinforcements could arrive and bring overwhelming numbers to bear against the Confederates.  However, Pope foiled Lee’s plans by withdrawing behind the Rappahannock on August 19.

To draw Pope away from his defensive positions along the Rappahannock, Lee made a daring move.  On August 25 he sent Jackson on a sweeping flank march around the Union right to gain its rear and sever Pope’s supply line.  At sunset on August 26, Jackson’s forces completed a remarkable 55-mile march, striking the Orange and Alexandria Railroad at Bristoe Station and subsequently capturing Pope’s supply depot at Manassas Junction overnight.  As expected, Pope abandoned the Rappahannock line to pursue Jackson, while Lee circled around to bring up Longstreet’s half of the Confederate army.  After fending off the advance of Pope’s army near Bristoe, Jackson torched the remaining Union supplies at Manassas and slipped away, taking up a position north of Groveton, near the old Bull Run battlefield.

Alerted that Lee had reached Thoroughfare Gap and would arrive the following day, Jackson struck a lone Union division on the Warrenton Turnpike, resulting in a fierce engagement at the Brawner Farm on the evening of August 28.  Believing that Jackson was attempting to escape, Pope directed his scattered forces to converge on the Confederate position.  Throughout the day on August 29, Union forces made piecemeal attacks on Jackson’s line, positioned along an unfinished railroad, while Pope awaited a flanking movement by Fitz John Porter’s command.  Although the Union assaults pierced Jackson’s line on several occasions, the attackers were repulsed each time.  Late in the morning, Lee arrived on the field with Longstreet’s command taking position on Jackson’s right and blocking Porter’s advance.  Lee hoped to unleash Longstreet on the vulnerable Union left, but Longstreet convinced the Confederate commander that circumstances did not favor an attack.

August 30 dawned on a morning of indecision, as Pope confronted conflicting intelligence and weighed his options.  Convinced that the Confederates were retreating, the Union commander ordered a pursuit near midday, but the advance quickly ended when skirmishers encountered Jackson’s forces still ensconced behind the unfinished railroad.  Pope’s plans now shifted to a major assault on Jackson’s line.  Porter’s corps and John Hatch’s division attacked Jackson’s right at the “Deep Cut,” an excavated section of the railroad grade.  However, with ample artillery support, the Confederate defenders repulsed the attack.

Lee and Longstreet seized the initiative and launched a massive counterattack against the Union left.  Longstreet’s wing, nearly 30,000 strong, swept eastward toward Henry Hill, where the Confederates hoped to cut off Pope’s escape.  Union forces mounted a tenacious defense on Chinn Ridge which bought time for Pope to shift enough troops onto Henry Hill and stave off disaster.  The Union lines on Henry Hill held as the Confederate counterattack stalled before dusk.  After dark, Pope pulled his beaten army off the field and across Bull Run.  A final Confederate effort to flank Pope resulted in a bloody fight at Chantilly (Ox Hill) on September 1, hastening the Union retreat toward the Washington defenses.  With Union forces in disarray, Lee grasped the opportunity to lead his army across the Potomac into Maryland for its first incursion into the North.

THE AP NOTICES: DEMOCRATS MAY BE MAKING A MISTAKE

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POSTED ON AUGUST 19, 2017 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN DEMOCRATS, TRUMP ADMNINISTRATION

THE AP NOTICES: DEMOCRATS MAY BE MAKING A MISTAKE

Democrats have responded to the tragic events in Charlottesville by obsessively picking apart President Trump’s multiple statements about those events, while steadfastly refusing to admit that the far-left antifas had anything to do with the violence they precipitated, and by demanding the removal of Confederate monuments. A casual consumer of the news might assume that Charlottesville has been a political triumph for Democrats, and a disaster for Trump and the GOP. But the Associated Press now realizes, with evident dismay, that the Democrats may have miscalculated: “Dems risk culture war fight in Charlottesville response.”

Democrats have denounced Trump for blaming “both sides” for deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, and, more recently, for defending Confederate monuments.

…Democratic leaders across multiple states now are pushing to take down Old South monuments like the one that ostensibly sparked the events in Charlottesville, and three rank-and-file House Democrats want to pursue a congressional censure of the president.

In interviews this week before his resignation was announced Friday, White House strategist Steve Bannon gleefully suggested Democrats are falling into a trap.

One of the problems is that the Democrats’ position on Confederate monuments is highly unpopular:

Polls taken after last weekend’s violence offer some evidence backing Bannon’s and Trump’s view. While polls found widespread disgust with white supremacists, a Marist Poll for NPR and PBS found that just 27 percent of adults queried believe Confederate monuments “should be removed because they are offensive.” About two out of three white and Latino respondents said they should remain, as did 44 percent of black respondents.

The AP’s fear is that Democrats’ obsession with President Trump will prevent them from communicating a positive agenda to voters:

Trump upset Democrat Hillary Clinton on the strength of his support from white voters, particularly working-class whites who possessed a combination of economic frustration and racial resentments salved by Trump’s promises of immigration controls, law-and-order and a booming economy.

Clinton, meanwhile, concentrated so much on Trump’s deficiencies and outlandish statements that her own policy proposals received less attention. That’s a problem that has beset Trump rivals since he first declared his candidacy: All the attention focused on Trump — even unflattering stories — prevent them from getting out their own messages.

Overlooked by the AP is the possibility that the Democrats have no messages of their own to communicate. Which reminds me–whatever happened to the Russia collusion story? It was of world-historical significance until it disappeared overnight, succeeded by a new opportunity for Trump-hatred.

Which doesn’t seem to be of much significance to voters. Rasmussen finds that the president’s approval rating hasn’t been significantly affected by the hysterical attacks on him following the violence in Charlottesville:

Despite the media furor over what the president did and did not say following last weekend’s incident in Virginia, his approval ratings appear little changed.

Over time, the Democrats’ perpetual hysteria will only make them look silly. The biggest thing they have going for them is the timidity of Congressional Republicans. If the Republicans stop reading the Washington Post and the New York Times and get on with the business of governing, the Democrats have no answers on the level of policy.