Last weekend was a pretty good football weekend here in the RegenAxe household.  Starting on Friday night, Maplewood-Richmond Heights beat Carnahan 70-6.  Dan and Dave graduated high school from Maplewood and Anne continues to teach there.  Carnahan is a relatively new charter school, named for former Missouri governor, Mel Carnahan.  Mel Carnahan is also remembered as the dead man who beat John Ashcroft.  Carnahan died just weeks before the 2000 election, but with his name still on the ballot, he was elected.  His widow was appointed to serve his term.  Maplewood is now ranked number two in the state’s small school category.

On Saturday, Michigan State beat Illinois 26-6 in East Lansing.  Although the first half seemed conflicted, the second half was all MSU.  Adding icing to this Big Ten victory was Ohio State’s defeat.  They fell to Wisconsin.   Michigan also lost (again), but there is no need to pile it on, right?  Most of the challenging opponents that MSU has this year, have already been faced.  Michigan State and Ohio State are not scheduled to meet this year, at least not in regular season play.  Can you say Big Ten Champions?  Not yet?  How about now?  Now?

Finally on Sunday, the Saint Louis Rams overcame the San Diego Chargers, 20-17.  Sorry Ski.  No, not really.  The Rams have surprised Saint Louis this year, they’re actually winning.  Monday morning, I overheard a discussion between Aaron, the Starbucks barista, and one of his more sports savvy customers; they were parsing the Ram’s chances for the rest of the season.  This was a conversation that wouldn’t have happened a year ago, or even three weeks ago.

In football parlance the two-minute drill is what the losing team does around about the time that the two-minute warning whistle is blown at the end of a half.  They’ll use a variety of tactics like, the hurry-up offence and sideline passes, all designed to squeeze as much time out of the clock as is possible.  This election cycle has two more weeks to go, not just two more minutes.  But, if you consider that this election cycle began on November, 5^th, 2008, the day after Barack Obama was elected president, then a two-year election cycle telescopes these last 2 weeks into the last 2 minutes of this political football game. 

The Democrats are down in the polls and certainly have more to lose than the Republicans, but I think that it is we the people, who have the most to lose.  The dominant issue for this election cycle is the economy, by which I mean jobs.  Many people in this country are out of work, but many more people fear for their jobs.  Overlaying this election cycle, with its political issues was the Supreme Court’s ruling that free speech = money.  This ruling has allowed corporations to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into the electoral process all with the motive of buying this election.

Switching back to the sports paradigm, our two predominant national sports are baseball and football.  Baseball has settled upon a system that has allowed the Yankees to buy their pennant for about a quarter of the time over the last one-hundred years.  Conversely, football has their draft, which regularly turns over the winning and losing teams.  How about those Saint Louis Rams?  I fear that our country is moving from a world where one man person = one vote to a world where one dollar = one vote.  I pray that the American public shows the gridiron grit to prevent this.  Should we just punt or go for the Hail Mary?

In addition to the picture of this year’s crop of political yard signs, I have also included a photograph of the vintage cycling poster for Les Cycles Wonder or Wonder Bicycles.  They are fast and flexible, sont souples et rapides.  The photo was taken at the City Diner, a great Saint Louis greasy spoon, that features all sorts of eclectic artworks.  This poster is for my bike buddies.