The Skyline Newspaper

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On a Global Perspective, Our Future Is Virtually Past

Steve Lang
News And Publications

In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." -- Andy Warhol

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." -– Groucho Marx

The next time you flick on the tube, endure another presidential primary sound byte and ask yourself, "how much longer do I have to put up with this?", an answer will be available...

...about 9/10,000 of a second; or six months.

According to Frank H.T. Rhodes, author of "The Evolution of Life," nine-10,000s of a second represents approximately six months in his chronology of the earth.

Rhodes compressed the time from the Big Bang - theoretically 15 billion years ago - to the present generation into a single calendar year, a scale of one to 15 billion.

Based on this, the present generation of 20-year-olds and under have existed for less than four-tenths of a second.

Sorry, Mr. Warhol, to be famous for 15 minutes on this scale, you'd need to be around over 15 million years.
Only Twinkies products and most discarded plastic have outside chances at that longevity and deserve infamy instead.

According to Mr. Rhodes' calculations, the present generation's 20 years of existence is calculated at roughly 36/1000 of a second.

The ticking clock shows the 220-year-old USA began at 11:59:59.6 p.m., and the present generation at 11:59.59.96.
I was born about .105 seconds ago. In my mid-20s, it required about 9/10,000 of a second to gain 45 pounds. In my late 40s, it required about the same amount of time to lose 65.

Ninety 1000ths of a second ago, I spent most of my available nickels on 1958 Topps baseball cards.
I still enjoy them, although filling the set 68/1000 of a second after the initial purchase cost me many of my available dollars.

About 63/1000 of a second ago, I was a carefree dude who picked up hitch-hikers. Over the course of a couple of years, I provided lifts for:

• an AWOL serviceman
• a former college classmate who happened to be hiking down the interstate ditch at the same time I stopped to assist a stranded motorist.
• a self-proclaimed evangelist with a walking stick, a mechanical voice box, and a most unusual interpretation of the Gospel.
• two downhill skiers in Colorado who cruised down the slopes to the highway, then thumbed rides back to the resort, offering tokes of illegal substances as payment for the lifts.

When my children were born, somewhere around 4/1000 of a second ago, I quit picking up hitch-hikers for safety reasons.

To begin, my dog was extremely protective of the kids, and no wanderer, regardless of how weary he/she may be, wants to run the risk of dog bites, catching spit-up down his/her neck, or being poked in the eye with a Happy Meal toy.

Today, I refuse to pick up hitch-hikers for other reasons, including the threat of running into Texas ditch surfers or potential dark-horse presidential candidates traveling incognito while rallying financial support between primaries.

Even 1/1000 of a second in real time seems too long to endure the 2008 campaign rhetoric.

Steve Lang can put Time in a bottle; the magazine, that is.

Super Bowl: America's Favorite Unofficial National Holiday

By David Johnson
Skyline Contributor

The Super Bowl is this Sunday, and America's favorite unofficial national holiday is likely to be observed with the usual reverence. Hail Mary, full of queso. Buffalo wings are with thee.
I'm joking, but less than you think.

I was talking with Dr. Mark Saka the other day, and the subject of the Super Bowl came up. For those who don't know him, Saka hates football and will not be partaking in this year's festivities, nor has he since 1991.

During Desert Storm he was watching a football game where they announced that hostilities with Iraq had gotten underway, and the jumbo screen showed U.S. bombs dropping all over Baghdad. The people in the stands transitioned smoothly from cheering their team on the field to cheering explosions in a foreign city. Saka considers football to be a desensitizing force in American culture, helping us emotionally prepare for war by letting us practice the "U.S. versus Them" mentality and view war as a sport or sports as war. I disagree, but of course I see his point.

War becomes a sport when we root for our young men and women killing other young men and women in exotic places like they're doing it for the sake of our entertainment. We feel good about invading other nations so long as it's going well. They're our team, it makes us feel good. An unjustified war that's going well is easier to support than a justified one going badly.

Sport becomes war even easier. Even if you've never been on a football team yourself, you've probably heard people talking of "doing battle" on the field, players being "warriors," and so on. Sport is war in its most ideal state: brief, conclusive, climactic, and everybody comes home at the end.

On these things I agree, but on the emotional component, I can't. I don't even think the experience of hating is a bad thing.

I love football. I love it like the woman I do not have. I root for my team with conviction that would startle the pope, and I despise the opponent with virulence that shames Fred Phelps.

I hate the New England Patriots. I hate them without pity, moderation, or self-doubt. I hate every member of their team, every coach on their staff, everyone who works for their organization, and the spouses, children, and pets of all these, too. I hate all of their fans, I hate the city of Boston, I hate the state of Massachusetts in general, and if the Patriots win the Super Bowl and Osama bin Laden drops a nuke in the middle of their parade, I will have to resist open displays of celebration and try not to verbalize my desire to personally shake his hand.

I have spent every night for a week and a half praying that, on the Patriots' first offensive series, someone on the Giants' team can channel Lawrence Taylor and "Joe Theisman" Tom Brady's leg in half. Then I will weep openly.
With joy. And I don't even like New York; I just hate New England.

No doubt you feel less strongly than I do, but the point is that football and sports as a whole are one of the few things left that still allow us to express hate without reservation. Society doesn't let a person truly hate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality anymore without comparisons to Hitler and images of the Holocaust coming up.

Of course it's a good thing it's not socially acceptable, but it's a bad thing in that people really and intrinsically need something to hate. I hate the Patriots and you probably think I'm "a little extreme," but if I'd said the same thing about Jews, I justifiably wouldn't be allowed to attend this university anymore (I think Jewish people are very nice, by the way).

So, as much as I think Saka has a point, I don't agree with it. I literally hate the Patriots more completely than I hate Al-Qaeda. I don't agree with anything Al-Qaeda does or believes, but I understand some of the historical and geo-political reasons for what they do.

I don't even try to understand the Patriots. They are wholly bad; I wholly hate them. I can be unreasonable when it comes to one thing and reasonable about another. If we're going to hate something unreasonably, (and naturally we are) I'd rather it be something pointless like a sports team than something potentially meaningful like the characteristics of other human beings.

But Saka mentioned something else that rang more true.

"Football is idolatrous," he said. "People like to think we're a Christian country, but we're not. We're an entertainment country."

As evidence of this, he pointed out that churches will not be holding services on Sunday night. Even God has to make way for the Super Bowl, after all. No one would show up if there was a service, probably not even the clergy. There's no rational reason why everyone couldn't just record the game - the outcome won't be any different whether it's watched live or not, but no one would even dream of doing such a thing. Watching a taped version of the Super Bowl when you can avoid it is downright sacrilegious.

I'll take what Saka said further. Football -- sports of all kinds, but in America, football -- is a replacement for God. In Europe, soccer has been a replacement for national chauvinism, but in America we've never been raptured with patriotism. We're patriotic, but we don't get arroused from watching troops goosestep and tanks roll.
Religious fervor is what has excited us, and it's on the decline. Religious belief may go up - I don't doubt that it does - but that unwavering faith, that fanatical devotion, no longer has a place in our religion.

Many people in America believe in God, but how many feel God? Who goes to church and has a religious experience anymore? As I said before, people have a need to hate, but, even more, we have a need to worship. We worship celebrities and live their lives vicariously, loving them and hating them in equal turns, but seemingly unable to ignore our new pantheon. We worship consumerism. Our advertisements are intrusive and universal to a point that would dwarf the cults of personality of Stalin, Mao, and Saddam Hussein at their respective heights. And we worship sports. We have our ceremonies, our rituals, our superstitions. We invest ourselves into them more than we invest ourselves in God or Christ. God doesn't feel real, He's far away and not doing any new miracles. I've never seen water turn to blood or wine, but in '99, I saw Frank Wycheck lateral to Kevin Dyson on the last play of the game to beat the Buffalo Bills. Religion is static and habit. Sport is alive and we worship it in Texas more so than most places. High school, college, pros. People who couldn't tell you the beatitudes or how many books are in the Bible can rattle off how many touchdowns and yards Joe Redneck, the starting tailback of Podunk High School, had in 1970. People (most of whom haven't even sniffed UT Austin) plaster themselves in burnt orange as crosses shrink and are hidden with their chains under shirts. I can't name all twelve disciples, but I can tell you who played in and won the Super Bowl for the last 20 years.

Tens of millions of people will come alive this Sunday watching twenty-two men on a field run into each other and matriculate an oblong calfskin up and down the gridiron. It's the silliest thing to care about, but people will, and when the time runs off the clock, millions of those people will be ecstatic -- or dejected -- depending on what pattern of lights are on the scoreboard. And life will go on, a little duller, a little less fulfilling.

At least until fall rolls around again.

P.S. -- Go Giants.

Ouch, a Call for Help

Nurse John Hughes
Guest Columnist

Ouch! That hurt. It'd be nice if it was that simple.

Sadly, the pain of partner abuse runs far deeper. The fact is, intimate relationships are held together by at least one member's commitment. This is not enough. Shared devotion to one another's happiness and wellbeing is what brings couples close together. Life is full of challenges and disagreements. It's during these problematic times that many relationships either grow stronger or unravel.

Abusive relationships are lop-sided, much like a flooded ship. If the holes are not plugged and excess water pumped overboard, whatever maneuverability exists may not be enough to keep the vessel from a muddy reckoning.

One's perception of events greatly impacts the outcome of a bad situation. If couples view each other as trusted mates, they'll survive, as it takes both individuals working as a team. Nothing is healthier than being in a non-judgmental and supportive relationship. Anything less may require damage control to patch the emotional wounds. If a relationship is beyond saving, the decision must be made to drop a life-raft and move on. This can be scary due to feelings of isolation in a vast ocean of uncertainty. This is where a flare comes in handy.

Use it to signal for help from friends, family crisis centers, counseling services, or a law enforcement agency.
There are a number of safe harbors where the victims of abusive relationships may turn. No one deserves the cruelness of being under siege by a partner.

Perpetrators also have a choice. Either stop their abusive tactics and find help or get out of the way.