Conflicted

Well campers,  I'm conflicted. On this, the holiest of holy sports days, the one in which it is all about teamwork and talent and will, stories of underdogs and loyalty and heart, I'm about to lay one big Debbie Downer on you regarding that oh so ultra American past time, football. In particular, the Superbowl. In the process I'm sure I'll be accused by some of being in simplest form, antisocial or "a hater," on up to the more complex unpatriotic, traitor, or gasp! socialist, in effect preemptively ruining any chance of my ever running for office successfully given this blog's existence. I can live with that because who could effectively argue that the Superbowl is anything but one big win for all?

Hooray for our winning economy with roughly 5 billion dollars generated by this spectacle and its collateral. I'm sure a big bunch of that dough is going right back into yours and my neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, and small business pockets and not instead to some tax free corporate entity and its CEOs. I'm definitely sure none of it is going to the $745 million dollar fund (that a federal judge rejected for being too small a figure) for former NFL players suffering from health injuries related to their careers. Speaking of which, even Brett Favre is now reporting such post career memory loss. (If he starts to claim it regarding his sexted weiner, I'm calling bullshit.) And I can almost guarantee none of that 5 billion is going toward the baseline salaries and earned benefits of some of our most important and vital community workers: physicians and nurses, police and firefighters, teachers and child care workers.

So it must be going to something worthy then, right? Like maybe a study of what concussions do to even the youngest of players, those in middle and high schools? And/or injury prevention programs which you know, might cause us to question even allowing young adults to play the sport when all scientific evidence reveals that the frontal lobe of the brain, the one most important for organization, decision making, and impulse control, hasn't fully finished forming until around age 25. But that would mean we would also have to call into question college play, scholarships and television and advertising contracts based on such play, alumni contributions and university donations and even players who can't read and write beyond an elementary level. Poof! There goes your 5 billion. Clearly it's not economically worth it, so hooray Superbowl for making us forget all that.

Hooray also for the 90,000 hot dogs consumed at the stadium during the game. If everyone of those fans also signed a whitehouse.gov petition, we could make massive changes in education, poverty and gun control. Did you know that in the first 14 school days of 2014, there were at least seven school shootings, an average of one every other week? There were 28 in all of 2013. It's only been four weeks but we're one quarter of the way there already! I know it's hard to mobilize that many people over one looming issue. Look how hard it was to mobilize them over something far less important, one nineteen year old celebrity behaving badly who threw eggs at his neighbor's house, drag raced in Miami while high, and assaulted his limo driver? What? One day you say? One day to get 100,000 signatures? Oh.

Well then hooray for the super entertaining and clever commercials we all love and laugh at, except for the sexist ones objectifying women and the ones that reduce men to animals who only respond to beer, cars, and Cialis. And hooray for politicians who support insurance companies covering four hour erections for men but think twice about covering the possible prevention of a pregnancy triggered by one of those monumental four hour stints.

And hooray for the super entertaining and clever half time shows we all love, excerpt for the sexist ones objectifying women and the ones that reduce men to animals who only respond to beer, cars, Cialis, and objectified women.

Conflicted? Don't be. Yay, rah. Gorge on the 90 million chicken wings. Don't think twice about the 45 million wingless chickens left behind. Enjoy. It's all a distraction designed specifically for you.