Mission Statement generator

I always bust up when Apple brags about its 100,000-plus apps in its App Store, eight times that in the Android store. Yeah, yeah, lots of volume, but there’s a ton of junk in there too.

But I'm as big a fan of good junk as anyone, and am getting tons of laughs from an app called the Mission Statement Generator that is priceless in a Dilbert kind of way. The concept is simple: Desperate for a corporate mission in these difficult times that will serve as a guiding light to prosperity? No problem. Simply fire up you iPhone or iTouch and problem solved. 

Case in point, is this statement – generated at random: “We build trust and teamwork to proactively coordinate client-centric expertise and also assertively actualize enterprise-wide leadership through continuous improvement.” Who wouldn't rally around something so inspiring?

Or this one: “Our mission is to dramatically fashion client-focused metrics in order that we may intrinsicly (sic) disseminate equity invested scenarios while promoting personal employee growth.”  Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout!

One last one (although the app seems to have an endless supply): “It’s our responsibility to credibly leverage other’s alternative processes and holisticly (sic) foster distinctive synergy for 100% customer satisfaction.” Duh. 

"Talking Old Soldiers"

Bettye LaVette is an old-school soul singer who had something of a comeback a few years ago with "The Scene of the Crime," a CD cut with the Drive-By Truckers, of all people. But it's a nice pairing, with the band giving LaVette room to shine on a variety of cover songs.

For some reason I chose that album to listen to while cleaning a cluttered half of my garage. Not  sure why, but I'm glad I did. It's a great album, with excellent songs top to bottom.

But one song stands tall and that's "Talking Old Soldiers," a gritty re-telling of an old Elton John/Bernie Taupin song. LaVette gives, as AllMusic says, "the most incredible reading of Elton John's "Talking Old Soldiers," a sultry, sad ballad that is completely reinvented here. John doesn't own it anymore, even if he and Bernie Taupin did write it. The emptiness of her surroundings surrounds the protagonist, and there is nothing but vastness and the curse of memory and the frailty of age to express the ultimate truth of life's only promise: the graveyard."

Well said.

The NFL's head problem

Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker is long but a rewarding readThere’s been a lot of media coverage in recent weeks about the high number of retired NFL players who have suffered severe mental degradation as a result of years of head-to-head contact. The numbers and the severity of injuries are stunning, even for a game where players are meat.

Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent New Yorker story seemed to kick off the media frenzy, with his suggestions that the NFL is hypocritical in opposing the savagery of dog fighting while allow its own players to beat their brains into mush. I like Gladwell but he seemed over the top in suggesting on “Pardon The Interruption” that the NFL as we know it would cease to exist within a decade (his theory was that concerned parents would prohibit their kids from playing youth football, thus drying up the pool of players).

My question since this all started was “Look at Australian Rules Football,” an awesome game featuring heavy contact -- but whose players wear very little padding and no helmets. The Wall Street Journal’s excellent sports page did just that todaAussie Rules Football is violent but head-to-head combat is rarey with a story with the provacative headline “Is it time to retire the football helmet?”

As the WSJ story notes, Aussie “footy” players suffer periodic concussions but rarely severe or lasting head injuries. The reason is that players know that with their heads exposed, they tackle differently. Makes sense. Helmets on the other hand, while protective in isolation, can’t insulate the brain from damage caused by thousands of hits over one’s career. The damage is slow, and symptoms harder to notice.

I actually prefer watching Aussie Rules to the NFL, and wouldn’t mind seeing the NFL ditch helmets, taking the game back to the 1930s. But it won’t happen. Without some remarkable advancement in helmet design, I suspect the NFL will relunctantly implement rules changes to further restrict head-to-head combat without gutting the game of the intensity and violence that makes it our most-popular sport. But can you imagine a scenario, as the WSJ story suggests, where lineman are prohibited from taking three-point stances, thus robbing them of power off the line? Me neither.  

I don't know what the solution is, but the status quo isn't acceptable.

Update on Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 5:44 PM by Logan Molen

Sadly, it's taken Sports Illustrated a year to tackle the issue, but in the wake of the NFL's crackdown on violent hits, the magazine has published an impressive package of stories tackling a variety of angles on head injuries.

Perhaps most startling is a piece titled "The Damage Done." The subheadline says it all: "While concussive hits dominate the debate, a groundbreaking new study suggests that minor blows -- and there can be hundreds each game -- are just as traumatic." 

The story examines how high school students involved in non-concussive hits are experiencing clear evidence of short-term memory loss within a very short period of time, as opposed to decades of play. It's a must-read for any parent of school-age children wanting to play football. It's scientific reinforcement of the Gladwell piece that kickstarted the national debate last year.

Here are other stories in the package worth checking out:

• "Concussions: The hits that are changing football." Sadly, despite evidence that their predecessors suffered severe brain damage, current NFL starts bemoan the crackdown on the punishing hits that make the TV highlights.
• "Staggered by the Impact: How do we feel? We love the game, hate the injuries"