THE TROUBLE WITH CELL PHONES (OR, WHAT BRETT FAVRE COULD HAVE LEARNED FROM NAPOLEON) by Brad Eastland, L’Philosophe des Sports

      Too bad Brett Favre doesn’t read my column.   (At least I’m assuming he doesn’t.)     

No need to cry, Brett….just read up on your history next time….

      I feel bad, because if he had only consulted me I am sure I could have helped him.   Helped him to sidestep this public relations nightmare, from which his reputation shall never, I regret to say, recover.

      Too late now, though.

      But it begs the question:  As their quarterback, Favre is the Minnesota Vikings’ “field general”.   To employ a military term all football-lovers love.   So then, I wonder, what would other great generals down through history think of Favre’s field commander instincts?

      Let’s pick one of the greatest generals and field commanders ever.

      Napoleon Bonaparte.

      What would Napoleon think of how Favre has handled this situation?

      Upon observing Favre’s most recent antics, and being French, I suspect Napoleon’s response might have been something along these lines:

      Sacre bleu!

      Or perhaps, if he had access to the Internet, he might well have exclaimed Sacre le grande pénis!, given the accepted historical legend that the Little General’s endowments mirrored his diminutive stature as a whole.   I’m sure he would have been jealous of Favre’s meaty and now-famous digit, which I shall now nickname (if you will permit me a little shameless, gratuitous alliteration) Minnesota’s Most Memorable Male Member.

      Why bring Napoleon into this, you must be asking by now?

      I’ll tell you.   It’s because I get annoyed at famous people who don’t learn from history.   I majored in History at Berkeley.   History matters to me.   It is the only real truth, as Cicero once said.  (Don’t get me started on Cicero.)

      It’s very simple.   Tiger Woods actually used his cell phone to text erotic messages, and then later instructions to keep silent, to these gold-digging opportunistic women, and he paid for it when they went public.   Favre texted pics of his frisky willie to this chick, and now his rep is in ruins.   Plus a couple of massage “therapists” have now also come forward.   Will there be dozens more women to come out of the woodwork, like in Tiger’s case?   Don’t famous people get it that the media watches, analyzes, tracks, researches, and investigates every move they make???

      Back to Napoleon.   And what he’s got to do with Favre.   Relax.   This is the cool part of my column where I get to teach you stuff.

      Napoleon conquered pretty much all of Europe two hundred years ago, but then in 1812 he made a little mistake.   He tried to conquer Russia.   Then he made a BIG mistake.   He tried to conquer Russia during the Russian winter.   Didn’t go well.   Soon he and his army were dragging their frozen asses back to France with their icy tails between their legs.   The Russians have been gloating about it for two hundred years.   A Russian guy called Tolstoy wrote a book the size of a microwave oven about it.   Another Russian guy called Tchaikovsky wrote a cool little song about it, an “Overture” I believe he called it, complete with church bells and cannons and everything.  

      The lesson here is that you don’t march hundreds of thousands of troops into Russia in the summer, so that the bulk of their fighting takes places during their winter.   It’s not that complicated.

      Here is what Napoleon himself said of his ghastly stupidity and poor judgment:

“I made a mistake in attacking Russia.  I thought the whole world would be with me.  Everybody turned against me. . . . One shudders when one thinks of such a mass as Russia that one cannot attack either from the side or from the rear. . . . She overflows on you if you lose; she retires into the middle of the ice banks if you win, and suddenly comes out again like the head of the Hydra…. It is not in our province to attempt such a Herculean task, and I tried it stupidly. That I must admit.”

      Yet exactly 129 years later, a wacky little fellow with a Charlie Chaplin moustache (whose own male organ reputedly would also have made him jealous of Favre’s) ignored that lesson.

      Hitler marched his troops into Russia in the summer of 1941, and it pretty much cost him World War Two.   In fact—and you’re not going to believe this—borne of his admiration for Napoleon, Herr Hitler launched his offensive on the exact anniversary of Napoleon’s ill-fated gamble, June 22^nd.   THE SAME DAMN DAY!   And the same happy result, for the forces of the Good and True.

      I’ll tell you one thing; you can’t accuse Hitler of employing half-measures.   Napoleon attacked Russia with 600,000 men.   Hitler was so determined to crush Russia and Stalin that he moved a staggering 4.5 million troops against his old ally.   I guess those two guys just didn’t play well with others.   Can’t we all just get along?   Anyway, even using 4.5 million troops, it didn’t work.

      Maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on Favre.   Consider that Hitler—while he was arguably the biggest jerk in History—was also in many ways a genius.   A very bright guy.   Almost conquered the world.   And yet he didn’t learn a damn thing from Napoleon, who, as dictators go, was an even smarter monomaniacal little fellow than Adolf.   Even twisted geniuses sometimes ignore History’s great lessons.  

      Why should we expect more from a simple good ‘ol boy from Mississippi like Favre, who throws leather-covered balloons for a living?

meet….The Sports Philosopher!