WHAT'S ANCIENT GREECE GOT TO DO WITH COLLEGE FOOTBALL?

Baseball has always been "America's game." Although football has begun challenging for the title. Because our democracy has its roots in ancient Greece, sports fans might wonder what the Greeks would have thought about this. OK, most sports fans could care a flying fig. But somehow I do.

Doggedly pursuing my wonderment, I found at least 12 football teams who use The Spartans in their name. Not a single one uses The Athenians. Stick with me here -- think of this as your theme for your next tailgate party. The ancient Greek city of Sparta was the warrior state; Athens the philosophy state. Get the point? I mean, what team wants to grunt their way up to the line of scrimmage as philosophers?

When I mentioned this in my old history classes, the students wondered too. About their teacher! That's when I would remind them, "Aha, but this is why we study history...." "What, to find out what dead Greeks think about this year's season...!" Then came my coupe de grace': "No, to find out how our yesterdays really do help shape our todays..."

The dots back in 4th century BC Sparta and Athens don't exactly connect directly to 21st century America, but the connection is there. And connections are what studying history is mostly all about. The way America has divided itself between Spartan and Athenian thought really started from the get-go. Part of us has always thrilled to the warrior code to-the-victor-go-the-spoils (see our Wild West, Capitalism, Wall Street hedge fund managers, and the-least-government-is-the-best-government for details). Our other self resonates with the philosophy code preserving-the-general-welfare (see our Rotarians, TR's anti-trust campaigns, FDR's social security programs, LBJ's medicare programs, MLK's social justice crusade for details).

Two harmony lines running through the symphony that is our great nation. Like Sparta and Athens, they may be sounding different keys; but in the hands of a master conductor, the blending of the two is part of what the Declaration of Independence saying. Which makes me wonder: do you think we'll ever see a team out there with Athenians on their uniforms...?

SO WHO REALLY OWNS THE 60s -- HEFNER OR HOFFMAN?

Most social historians agree the 1960s were a defining [more like a re-defining] time in American history. Our views and values changed sharply. But here's the problem. There are two competing claims for ownership to the fabled 60s. The cool, buttoned-down Playboy cult personified by the eternally cool bunny-hopper himself: Hugh Hefner. Then there's the hot, free-spirited Woodstock cult personified by the eternally angry protester: Abbie Hoffman.

Hef gave us Bunnies; Hoff gave us Yippies. Leaving the rest of us to decide who did his country the greatest service? Or perhaps better said, dis-service?

Maybe we can look at today's television for an answer. TV viewing has reached an all-time high, with the average person staring 158 hours and 47 minutes every month. Nielsen sums up our addiction at more than 5 hours a day from which we're getting a mixed message about those celebrated 60s.

On one hand, there's the hot series "Mad Men" featuring the cool, martini-guzzling advertising barracudas of Madison Avenue who happily frequent the world-according-to-Hefner. On the other, the recurring documentary odes to the-whole-world-is-watching marchers in 1968 Chicago. How is anyone who wasn't there to decide whose 60s it really was...?

I remember being there for both. For the Playboy cult, I was never cool enough to get a key; but I was gratified enough to get to roast the guy in 1978. As to the Yippies cult, I was never angry enough to get into the marches; but close enough to watch their furies that summer-hot night in 1968.

If it sounds like our nation had a split-personality back then, tell me what nation doesn't. What person doesn't. What community doesn't. Labeling any of these one way may be tidy, but truth is rarely tidy.

But then that brings up another question -- what's truth? A man named Pilate once asked that. As best as I remember, the answer he got wasn't exactly tidy either. Truth takes time sorting out.

DID THE BUTLER DO IT? BUT WAIT -- WHO'S THE BUTLER?

Agatha Christie, Mary Higgins Clark, Raymond Carver, Anton Chekhov. Names which speak mystery to the reader. Masters at weaving whodonit tales you can't wait to find out the answers. Right...?

Wrong...! At least according to a new study at the University of California in San Diego. Jonathan Leavitt tells BBCNews.com that, contrary to expectations, their tested readers actually enjoyed the novels more when told the answers ahead of time. Why...? "The pleasure readers get from a good story has far more to do with the quality of the writing and the development of the characters than with how it turns out."

Hmmmm?

Doesn't sound like the way you and I get our daily news. We're not interested in the nuances as much as the results. We want to know how things turn out. Now. Not later in the history books. But wait. Today's news may turn out to be tomorrow's embarrassed corrections. Today's information may turn out to be tomorrow's mis-information. Today's facts may tomorrow be seen for what they really were: opinions.

Ah but tomorrow is such a long way off. Look, if there's anything Americans don't like it's waiting. We're the people who popularized the rocking chair just so we could be on the move even when sitting still. So lets not waste time thinking so much as doing. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood didn't win the West by dawdling their fingers on their triggers.

Presidential politics is very much like that. The first time I voted was in 1952: Adlai Stevenson vs Dwight Eisenhower. The egghead vs the general. Come on folks, we all remember who won. Most voters want their presidents to be smarter than them...but not too smart. Which means most presidents have accommodated us. Either by their native-born, common-touch persona (see Warren Harding, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George Bush II for details); or by their conscious efforts to look that way (see patricians like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and JFK for details).

As it turns out, we like our leaders to be tie-less, kitchen-table-types like us. And yet, we like them to be so smart they can give us all the answers upfront. Not complicated, bad-news details; just good-news generalities along with a few flashy, quick-payoff policies.

If only it were that simple. We won't really know how this story turns out. Our grandchildren will. In their history books. Until then, lets keep turning the pages and paying close attention to the plot. Because lets face it -- we're in there.

THE REIGN OR RUIN OF THE BLUE JEANS??

What are blue jeans doing in the old royal courts of Europe...? Glad you asked!

Films like Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and the countless tales of the elegant-speaking Elizabethan and Victorian eras are attended today by droves of blue-jeaned popcorn-munchers who couldn't tell you the difference between a split infinitive and banana split. What's more they don't care. You see, for most of them (us?) watching the sophisticated form and formality on the screen is like visiting an art museum. Nice to look at....not to look like.

There once was form and formality in 20th C America too. Dad always dressed in three-piece suits; gave his seat to a lady; and in age of properly starched white shirts, his idea of casual was the white shirt without a tie. But not so much after the 1960s. In that raucous re-energizing decade, America started to become something different. Youth challenged Age. Change challenged continuity. The chant was: "You can't trust anyone over 30."

Nothing wrong with relaxing the rules. The question now 50 years later is, what are the rules? Or are there many rules left?

The answer that roars back from the rock-concert, buddy-film, pot-smoking, motor-cycle legions echoes the 60's: "If it feels right, how can it be wrong?" A question -- actually a challenge -- few today are willing to take on, lest they be dismissed as silly anachronisms.

Speaking as a walking anachronism, I can accept being dismissed. What I wonder, though, is why casual grungy America remains so fascinated with Elizabethan/ Victorian form and formality. When you look back you can't help noticing how those sterner & staid worlds, even with all their faults, helped make possible our own amazing & aspiring world. Could that mean....? No, no, that's a silly thought...! But still...?

LIVING WITH A CASINO 6 MINUTES FROM YOUR FRONTDOOR

First, a little name-dropping....!

I spent a weekend seminar in the late 60s with Dustin Hoffman and Marshall McLuhan just as their respective achievements were becoming widely-acclaimed (the movie "The Graduate" and the book "The Medium is the Massage"). Hoffman spoke of the power of the film, McLuhan of the television set. What they addressed in common was the enormous efficacy of the screen in our daily lives.

I was thinking about that as I wandered Chicagoland's newest gambling casino which somehow chose to open approximately 6 minutes from my quiet suburban front door. Nothing quiet about a casino. Everywhere screens popping and flashing and assaulting your sensorium. From the giant wall screens showing today's headlines; from the pyrotechnic screens atop your clanging slot machine; good lord, even from that miniature screen on your slot machine featuring whatever news-breaking event some distant cameras can bring to your jangled nerves while you play this nerve-jangling slot machine.

It's Hoffman and McLuhan's long ago predictions come exhaustingly true. In a casino -- lets admit it, in modern life -- there's no escape from the ubiquitous screens. The only thing missing on them is Big Brother. And he's sure to follow sometime soon.

Three universal habits drive home the point. First, most people simply cannot control this peculiar passion to wave at any television crew's camera. Second, watch people watching an event being watched by a television camera; 9 out of 10 will be watching the monitor more than the event. Three, McLuhan enjoyed telling the story of guests in his home remarking about how handsome were his children; to which McLuhan grinned proudly: "Yes, but you ought to see their pictures!"

We walk in a world of images. From our casinos to atop our latrines to inside our bedrooms. Each image spun by its image-makers in whatever ways they and their cameras choose. Now the question becomes: What and who and why is really real in this new media-ized world?

Frankly, I gave up long ago. So you'll excuse me. I've got a hot slot here...!

IS GOD REALLY IN YOUR COFFEE BEANS?

So there I was, grinding my morning coffee beans. Their deep brown color, their aromatic fragrance, their tongue tingling taste. Why I wondered do I like coffee so much. Why indeed do billions of us. Every day, every hour, every country.

I suppose it's not an especially crucial question. And yet.... Could it be, as the story of Eden has it, God created us and then all the good things of the earth and sea specifically for us? If so, coffee appears to have a high place on the divine list. Along with oranges and bananas, tomatoes and cucumbers, wheat and corn, wine grapes and beer hops, tuna and talapia.

But wait.... Geologists and biologists will point to evolution. The evidence seems conclusive. Everything we are and everything the earth and sea are just sorta happened. Like the universe sorta happened about 14 billion years ago. There was no divinity whose hand triggered the Bang or whose voice boomed "be fruitful and multiply." Look, this is the age of science. Shamans and holy books really have only peripheral place in all this.

So I kept grinding, accepting the evolutionary wisdom we have been taught. But still... As I poured my morning cup and scanned my morning newspaper, I had to pause a puzzled moment. In one hand the horrific news from a mad world; in the other, a mug of one of that world's gentle treasures. How to reconcile the two? The madness with the treasures?

The way I once learned the answer was this. A loving God had created a spectacular world for us...we blew the offer...but we are still left with his spectacular world if only we re-learn how best to use it. And its gifts. Like my coffee...my bananas...ahh, but maybe not so much my broccoli.

WHO'S MANAGING TODAY'S MUSTANGS?

Someone once said: politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. The status of our country's current tunnel depends largely on where you're standing. If you're in it, right now it looks dark and endless. If you own it, right now it looks like there's nothing to worry about. Either way, you have to wonder about the quality of the construction crews.

Visit your local VFW, Shriners, Rotary or Senior Center and this is what you're likely to hear about today's crews. "Too spoiled..." "Too greedy..." "Don't have the right stuff..." Followed by the "in-my-day" refrains salted with references to the Great Depression, being in service during the War, struggling to make ends meet, holding family and flag high in their pantheon of values.

Next visit your local sports bar, comedy club, rock concert or Starbucks. The demographics here are different. Even more, the values are fiercely different. Most of this generation has grown up with an easier America. Until now, less experience with economic depression, with service in the military, life without a safety net, or family and flag the center of their universe.

Now here's the question: how will this generation face up to the current crush of problems? The elders have their doubts. The young as yet aren't sure themselves, because first they have to get over the shock. The shock that their America -- a race of noble people master of all they survey in a world of admirers -- is suddenly in trouble. Whattya mean no jobs...? No perks...? No car...? No insurance...? No love from the little peoples of the world...?

Actually, the same question was heard among the elders after their America crashed at the start of the 30s. Hard for them to imagine how that generation of spoiled silly kids were up to the daunting frontier-day challenges of their parents. And yet -- the annals of history are filled with this catch-you-off-guard phrase -- and yet those spoiled silly kids were soon to survive the rigors of the Great Depression at home and the tragic World War abroad.

Since then, they've been awarded the name The Greatest Generation. Some question whether they really earned it, considering their many flaws and prejudices. Time will tell. Time will also tell whether this generation of spoiled silly kids will rise above their indulgent food, fun, cars, sex and drugs. The challenge is certainly there. As a generation. As a nation. But, like a herd full of angry mustangs being driven across the range, the ramrod riding point can't do it alone.

If the kids in the 30s learned anything, they learned this sort of job is not spelled "you." It's spelled "us!" Something both generations should be able to agree on....