When you've been on top as long as we have, it's easy to forget how the other half lives--and more often than not struggles in the day-to-day quest for attention. It's easy to lose sight of the bottom under this ceaseless deluge of praise, press, and the ladies, Omar, the ladies. Note the desperate lengths to which a couple of unknowns will go in order to get their names in the paper:
Remember that story about the aircraft carrier game to be played between the North Carolina Tar Heels and Michigan St. Spartans? Thought it was a done deal already, didn't you? It is now, with the San Diego Sports Commission finally announcing the game will take place on Veteran's Day aboard an as-yet unidentified ship.
What a sorry stunt this is. I could see a number of things going wrong here. What if Karl Hess gets seasick?
Beneath us though this sort of thing may be, impregnable though our empire may be, I nonetheless find myself with an urge to one-up this contest, to once more assert in grandiose fashion our place atop the heap. NASA tells me that we do not in fact have a moon base as yet, despite Arthur C. Clarke's statements to the contrary. Maybe we could play a game on one of those ice road trucks. No, not grandiose enough. Forget I said that.
I've got it. If they can put a tennis court on the roof of a hotel, then surely we could get them to install a basketball court somewhere.