Iraq Chalk, revisited

It was fun to watch new ESPN commentator Bobby Knight poke holes in the pseudoscience of bracketology after the KU game on Sunday. While the other announcers did their best to analyze the advantages of seedings and locations, Knight insisted that it didn't matter, visibly flinching when his co-anchor tried to lay a hand on his shoulder. It was pretty amusing.

However, it's a bit sad when you think of how much attention we pay to the NCAA tournament each year in comparison to other things. Like the war in Iraq, for example. If we applied the money, attention and enthusiasm we give to bracketology on solving some kind of social issue, just imagine what we could accomplish. Instead of filling out brackets, we could all submit our own exit (or occupation) strategies. If enough office pools got involved, we could put our heads together and maybe figure out a way to pull out completely before 2099.

Five years ago this month, what I remember people taking to the streets about was not the start of a war, it was our basketball team advancing to the final four. A Lawrence Journal-World story about U.S. servicemen cheering on the Jayhawks from the desert was accompanied by the glib headline, "Iraq Chalk Jayhawk," followed up a few days later by "Hawk and Awe."

This isn't to say that I don't like basketball. Seeing Mario (Mare-ee-oh, as they pronounce it) drop 8 threes and 30 points on the Longhorns on Sunday was nothing short of beautiful. And as this puff piece from today demonstrates, politics and basketball aren't entirely incompatible.

Alls I'm saying is it's been five years since the war started and our generation still doesn't seem to be paying any attention.

If you give half a s*** what other people our age are up to overseas while we watch tourney games, go to South by Southwest, get drunk and enjoy day-to-day life, I recommend visiting Doonesbury's The Sandbox, a military blog made up of posts from troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The entries from these soldiers cover a whole range of subjects and emotions dealing with the war, and I find it pretty fascinating to read the accounts of people who are stationed there, unfiltered by media or political bias.

So I'll get off my high horse now and close this post with the wish that you all enjoy the tournament and have a great holy week. But as a veteran of final-four fall-out, let me kindly remind you not to take March Madness too literally.



Photo credits: Top photo taken from fan-submitted pics on kusports.com. Above photo from Joplin, MO circa fall 2005.