Blowing the Lid Off The Can

Twelve hours later and my nerves are still buzzing. Last night, I lucked into some sweet tickets to the Nuggets' playoff game against the Hornets. The hospital CEO, confusing me with somebody important, invited me to the game, along with the Vice-Prez of the hospital, and five prominent Denver surgeons. (Which one of these things doesn't belong?) The CEO bribed our way past the forty-five minute wait at the restaurant when he slipped the greeter a wad of bills. I feasted on a New York Strip steak, sipped my Mormon lemonade while most everyone else drank beer, and talked some shop with the surgeons.

Then we were walking into the Pepsi Center, or "The Can," as it's known. Electricity crackled through the crowd as we jostled into the entrance and were given our white rally towels. The player introductions were ridiculously extravagant and five minutes long, complete with thumping music, flamethrowers, and Rocky the Mascot riding a motorcycle. The arena was whited out with waving towels.

The game was tight for two and a half quarters before the Nuggets blew it open with a barrage of three pointers and then galloped to a twenty point win. There were high fives all around us, including to the drunk stranger sitting in front of me. As electric as the crowd had been before the game, it doubled in intensity at the end. MVP chants for Chauncey Billups reverberated through the arena, as did "bird calls" for the Birdman, Chris Anderson, the shot blocking, tatoo-covered, mohawked microwave off the bench. The crowd chanted in unison, We Want Dallas! Confetti fell from the ceiling (which seemed a bit much, as this was only the first round). It was so loud, I couldn't hear myself screaming. I'm still hoarse this morning.

Even after the game, spontaneous chants erupted from the concourses and spilled into the parking lot. Some dude began spontaneously cleaning my windshield with his Nuggets sweatshirt in an illogical act of alcohol-induced, fan-frenzied fraternalism.

A couple of thoughts: first, the Nuggets are not just a good team, they are a great team, and (dare I say it?) a championship caliber team. And I mean team in the best sense of the word. They have top-level talent and scoring in Carmelo Anthony and JR Swish. They have ahtletic big guys in Nene and Kenyon Martin. They have hard-nosed defenders in Dahntay Jones and Chris Andersen. They have a energizing bench. And most of all, they have a level-headed, tough-as-nails, hometown hero and leader in Chauncey Billups. Before Chauncey was traded to them early in the season, they were a fragmented collection of underacheiving talent. But he has molded the team in his image, and they have synergized to a new level. Their role players accept their roles gladly. The team plays cohesively and with joie de vivre, feeding off the crowd. Chauncey's impact on the team cannot be overstated, and somewhere in there is a lesson on true leadership. Corporate world, book him now.

Second: what is it about big games that are so thrilling? In my life, I've only been to a handful of events with last night's electrical charge: two World Series games (Arizona 2001, Colorado 2007); some of the Chatfield-Columbine basketball classics; a thrilling BYU Men's Volleyball game at the Smith Fieldhouse; a handful of BYU basketball and football games. I remember distinctly the soul-shrieking electricity of my own state tournament basketball games, chest bumping in the bowels of McNichols Arena, the Pepsi Center's fated predecessor. But honestly, last night may have topped them all.

What about last night was so special? For starters, the Nugget's playoff drought has been fifteen years long, ever since Chauncey was still playing at George Washington High. And the city of Denver has been in desperate need for something to cheer about for a while, after the Bronco's epically collapsed last fall, then lost their idiot-boy QB in a national controversy. The Avs and Rockies have been losers as of late, and the college sports programs are all in disarray. So Denver has been in a sports drought, and last night a thunderstorm broke in the Can.

But it was more than just a sports drought. Colorado, like the rest of the world, has been battered by the recession and the relentless negative news as of late. Throw in the Columbine anniversary, the recession, the gloomy spring weather, and the swine flu, and you have a city that is itching for something to cheer about. Last night, they got it.

The truth must be that we live vicariously though our sports heroes, and that in our fractured political and social world, we seek for a common identity, a bond that unites us. When our local heroes--our soldiers, our gladiators, our valiant young men-- taste glory, we taste it with them. If they are winners, then so are we. When else can 19,000 strangers make fools of themselves in front of each other and chant their way into euphoria? Now that one of our own, Chauncey, is the team leader, it makes that connection all the more tangible.

It was a perfect storm of desperate thirst, athletic excellence, and local familiarity that exploded inside the Pepsi Center last night. I feel lucky that I could trick the big-wigs into thinking I was important enough to be there and be a part of that vibrant communal energy.

Go Nuggies!

Columbine

On a clear and windy day last fall, I took a break from writing at the Columbine Public Library and ambled out into neighboring Clement Park. I was eating a packed lunch when the wind blew my sandwich back across the lawn. I chased it down and found myself staring at the entrance of the Columbine Memorial. I had never visited it.

There was a logical reason for my neglect: we had been living out of state when it opened, and had only recently moved back. On any of our numerous family trips to our favorite park, I had been aware of the memorial's presence, but hadn't yet made the effort to enter. The kids are with us was a convenient excuse. Or the timing wasn't right. Or I wanted to be able to give it more time.

But truthfully, I had been avoiding it. I was afraid the only thing I would find there would be pain, reminders of death and senseless evil.

It was ten years ago today when I had just finished one of my final final exams at BYU and walked into my off-campus house. I would be graduating within the week, and I was relieved. But my roommate was glued to the TV.

"Dude," he said, "Have you seen what's going on in Colorado? You're from Littleton, right?"

I couldn't believe what I saw. CNN kept flashing the same images and trying to make real time sense of the carnage, but all that was conveyed was fear and chaos. Two (or more) gunmen had assaulted Columbine High School, and there were twenty, thirty, fifty dead. Nobody knew.

I watched, first stunned, then disbelieving, then intensely angry. I was also scared. I called home. Two of my brothers were in a lock-downs at schools just a few miles away. Was this something that could spill over into other schools? It was so surreal. Here was my community, my home flashing across the screen: blue and red emergency lights, pools of blood on the concrete, kids falling from windows, hysterical parents.

I remember pacing the floor, cursing that the monstrous, unknown killers had ever been born, punching our refrigerator and scattering magnets and tupperware across our kitchen. Eventually, I called Elizabeth, who had been back from her mission for only a month, to commiserate, but it was no use. Words couldn't convey my anger, my disbelief, my fear, my sorrow.

This was Columbine, the high school I loved to hate in a friendly way. They were our arch rivals, the only team to beat us my senior year in basketball. In their gym. The same gym that was now a war zone, a killing field.

And now this is ten years later. Littleton is an idyllic place, an island of comfortable suburbia with sublime weather, mature neighborhoods, good schools, the last place in the world you would imagine could be home to one of the most horrific, jarring, senseless atrocities in our nation's history. It was no different ten years ago, only more innocent.

I didn't go to the memorial service tonight. I figured it would be a zoo. But I've been thinking about it all day. Today was a gorgeous spring day in Littleton, with a warm spring sun melting off the last of the weekend's slushy white snows. Suddenly, everyone's grass looks green and lush, reborn after the brown and gray of winter.

I'm glad I went to the Memorial last fall. I was alone on that day. I paced the beautifully understated circles for an hour, read the stone-etched quotes from parents and survivors who were shredded with grief and anger or resolute with faith and purpose. I meditated, remembered, acknowledged, grieved. I wept quietly, bitterly, poignantly, heavily.

Tonight, I tried to explain in careful tones to my children what all of the recent commotion has been about. But how do you explain the inexplicable? They were visibly shaken. I tried to reassure them, but how can you sugarcoat such a thing? How could something like that happen? they asked. Why didn't somebody stop them? Why didn't their parents protect them? Why did the killers do it?

I didn't have an answer. There isn't one.

The Rise of the Rest

I just finished an excellent book, The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria.

It's a discussion of America's unprecedented global economic, military, and political power, and how it will play that hand in the near and distant future.

He suggests that America will remain strong and continue to be the leader of the world, a beacon of capitalism and democracy, but will see a relative decline of its power due to the rise of emerging nations, namely China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa. He coins this emergence of other powers "the rise of the rest," which heralds a new, multipolar international order. Ironically, this global rise, sometimes cloaked in anti-Americanism, is actually a fulfilment and globalization of American ideals.

But you don't want to hear me talk about it. Here's a brief synopsis of the book from his website:

• "This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important new work on the era we are now entering. He describes with prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.

He uses the rise and decline of the British Empire as an apt analogy. In the late 19th century, Great Britain was the Empire of the Sun, with unrivaled power that stretched across the globe. Due to hubris, ill-conceived wars, and even more so over-extension, their decline became inevitable. Yet even as they declined, their former colony, the United States of America, put into practice its British democratic heritage and economic structure, and thus became the greatest power in the history of the world, the first ever "hyperpower." And in this way, British power and influence survives in the legacy of its former rebellious colony.

The book is engaging, well-researched, and convincing. For a book about some fairly obtuse topics, it is extremely well-written, even a page-turner.

What's my personal opinion about his ideas? I think he's spot on, the same way a commentator speaking at the height of the Roman Empire would have been right if he'd said, "You know, this unequaled power thing ain't gonna last forever. Time to adjust."

But I don't take his book to be a repudiation of the Bush Administration's policies, or of the necessity of the Iraq War and prosecution of the War on Terror. (Zakiria, like many other pundits, actually endorsed the invasion of Iraq at the time, but now does a fancy two-step. He was for it before he was against it . . . The book was published in 2008--I wonder if his opinion has changed again by now.)

Perhaps I'm a little too idealistic, or inclined to determinism, but to me, things have unfolded pretty much as they should have. One hundred years ago, America rose to prominence at a time when it, joined at the hip to the declining British Empire, was destined to turn the tide of two world wars and the Cold War, defeated Nazism, Fascism, and Communism, and then, when Islamic Fundamentalism and Terrorism posed its suicidal threat to a globalizing world, to call it evil to its face and defeat that menace, too.

And now, as America's world-saving century is nearly complete, it's time to step down from the mountaintop and make room for the rise of the rest. Or perhaps a better analogy would be that America's new destiny is to reach out to emerging nations, expand the size of the mountain-top, and pull them up alongside us, sharing our wealth, freedom and power. I think President Bush was perhaps the only man with enough stubbornness and idealism to stand strong against the swell of anti-Americanism and choose to exercise American power in one last battle against tyranny, sowing (some would say force-feeding) the seeds of democracy into a dangerously dysfunctional but pivotal part of the planet.

And now, I believe President Obama is the right man to ride into the inevitable chaos produced by that clash of civilizations and repair relationships, heal wounds, listen and build trust, once again allowing America to lead by inspiration, though of necessity in a lesser, more collaborative role.

I look forward to a not-too-distant future where I and my children can travel safely to the Great Wall of China, or the Pyramids of Egypt, or tribal lands of Pakistan (okay, maybe not there), without fear or shame. I believe in the greatness of our nation and our ideals. Sometimes, we have to fight for those ideals. But sometimes, we simply have to live up to them.