Thanks to Aviva at The New York Times for another opportunity to contribute to the New York Times OP-ED page.  The following image appears in today's paper for a piece entitled "The Academies' March Toward Mediocrity", by Bruce Fleming.  The editorial discusses how the focus on greatness has been undermined by the propping-up of weaker students who serve non-military interests like football etc.  (read here)

My personal favorite of the sketches was the image of the football player dwarfing and sinking a Navy ship.  Although the story led with a football anecdote, the editors wanted the image to be about the institutions role in weakening itself by producing cadets who needed academic "propping-up".