Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

I know that some of my readers don't really understand that the Superbowl has come and gone for another year until they read what I have to say on the subject. So this one's for you. The Broncos/Panthers matchup was widely anticipated. Neither of the two teams comes from a really huge consumer marker (no New York, Chicago, or southern California team was involved) but the comparisons were intriguing. A great offense, Carolina's, would be going head to head with a great defense, Denver's. Things went Denver's way, almost from the start, more consistently than anyone had expected. Another big item: the standout commercial in the first half was a Marilyn Monroe take on the Snickers bar series, "you're not you when you're hungry." The stand-out for the second half involved a herd of running hot dogs, and the tagline "Meet the Ketchups." The evolution of the game One much watched player: Michael Oher, the inspiration for the huma...

I have nothing to add to what has been said about the significance of this day, 50 years ago, in U.S. history. Yet on this day I can't imagine myself devoting my blog entry to some other subject, so let's see if I can scare up an unusual angle. Well ... there's a striking fact involving the National Football League. One of the weird facets of the weekend following the murder of President Kennedy was that the NFL proceeded with its full schedule of games. Nothing else went on as normal that weekend, but football did. Sports Illustrated magazine ran this on that subject on the 30th anniversary . Of course, there was nothing normal about that Sunday. Less than an hour before kickoff of the early games., Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. In Pittsburgh, the Bears and the Steelers played to a 17-17 tie. "Before the game you're usually talking about picking up blitzes," says former Pittsburgh running back Dick Hoak. "Instead, we were saying, 'Di...