The marvelous voice of sportscaster Jim McKay is stilled. The longtime announcer for Wide World of Sports whose coverage of the Munich Olympics itself made history, died today at his home in Maryland.

McKay voiced one of the most memorable lines in sports - "The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat" - that opened ABC's Wide World of Sports. The job gave him a national reputation and recognition, and helped define sports coverage as we know it today.

It was his presence in the booth at the Munich Summer Games when terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage that vaulted him into international fame.

Oddly enough my first recollection of McKay was not on WWOS, but on a cheesy, low-budget show called "Divorce Court." A forerunner of "Judge Judy" and similar shows, and the successor to a contemporary show of the same name, "Divorce Court" re-enacted marital splits. McKay covered, or maybe narrated, the trials which, he memorably intoned, were presented in hopes of stemming the ever-rising tide of divorce in this country.

It was always McKay's voice that riveted the attention - cool, crisp, resonant, reflective and emotional at times, such as his coverage of The Miracle on Ice, when the US Olympic hockey team beat the Soviet Union. Thanks to YouTube and other resources, we can hear that voice whenever we want. But the man who owned it is gone.

While most people think of the U.S. Marines as America's premier fighting force, the Corps also provides humanitarian assistance around the world in the wake of disasters. That includes right here at home, as historic flooding devastates large swaths of the MidWest.

(The same is true about our client, the Marine Corps League, who aid other Marines and their families, as well as communities and children engaged in their own battles against crippling illnesses.)

Here's part of the story; click on the headline to read the rest and see the photos of your United States Marine Corps in action.

Marines, Ind. Nat'l Guard fight back storm waters, help save local town

6/11/2008 By Cpl. Jason D. Mills , 26th MEU
ELNORA, Ind. — Approximately 140 Marines and sailors from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit were called into action here after state and local agencies requested their assistance to fortify a levee in imminent danger of being overrun by the floodwaters which have devastated the area.

The Marines, who were later joined by soldiers from the Indiana National Guard, prisoners incarcerated at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle Ind., townspeople, Mennonites, Amish farmers and local volunteers reinforced nearly a mile of levee in Elnora, Ind.

After receiving the word to mobilize, the Marines rushed out to Elnora via CH-53E Super Stallion and CH-46E Sea Knight helicopters and began filling sandbags and building and reinforcing levees shortly after arriving at 3 a.m. and continued their efforts until 5 p.m. when they were called off due to more thunderstorms in the area.

The Marines worked with a feverish determination throughout the night and into the morning, most of the time with smiles on their faces, because they had the knowledge they were doing something of real good for those they are sworn to serve.

“It’s good to know that we can go out there and help these people, and I think it’s going to be a real rewarding experience, just being able to help and know that we’re doing something good for this town,” said Lance Cpl. Alex Nelson, Evansville, Ind., native and Marine with the 26th MEU.

Three cheers for Great Britain's Local Government Association, which sent round a memo to officials and officious bureaucrats to ditch their doublespeak and eschew buzzwords.

Seeing as how we at Hammock are in the business of trying to improve communication between our clients and the rest of the world, I can only shake my head in wonder at this example of "impenetrable jargon": "Why do we have to have 'coterminous, stakeholder engagement' when we could just 'talk to people' instead?" he said.

The list includes some real headscratchers - one wonders how much productive time was lost coming up with some of them.

Several words and phrases that set my teeth a-grind made the list (where present, words in parentheses were suggested as more sensible phrasings):
Best practices (best way)
Bottom-up (listening to people)
Customer (people or person)
Engagement/Engaging (working with people/getting people involved)
Level playing field
Transparency (clear)

Others that didn't make the list - perhaps they aren't used in England? - that I would have included are "corporate/organizational DNA; green, which may have set a record for the speed at which it has become meaningless; conversational media, which too often resembles a shouting match in a late-night bar; and COB - with today's technology, when does a business ever close?

I'm sure you have your own list of buzzwords and clichés and hackneyed phrases. Send 'em along and I will keep a list in which we can all be community stakeholders.

For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be on the DL list recovering from some minor foot surgery. Fortunately, I can work from home, so I will monitor e-mail, phone, IMs, etc. Just another leg of the journey of life, so to speak.