(At the risk of adding fuel to the fire, or at least offending some or all of you--where "putting out fires with gasoline" has been my lifelong predilection, after all...)
Talk about your "morning after"...
I'm up WAY early Sunday with the worst feeling I've had since last season's Georgia Southern aftermath.
I mean, naturally, it's better than a loss, but on a wider, state-of-the nation P.O.V., this was emblematic of who we've really become, the things we've somehow come to accept with little question as "beyond our control" (and I'm not just talking "GATOR Nation" this time).
When did we cross the line, give in to the overarching idea that "things are just the way they are", and the most we can do is grumble and accept? Oh, as Americans we TALK a good game--we'll even honor American boys we send off as sitting ducks, in truth world-police protecting the planet's corporate oil supply, then wave the flag, pat ourselves on the back and thank them for their service when they come back broken--and for what? For whom?
All of which may seem over-the-top irrelevant to the relatively "small" matter of a prematurely "terminated" football game, but I'm not so sure. Just as we continue to take that and more as our standard-of-living AND our rights are steadily eroded, never doing much about it and by now accepting it as an article-of-faith that there's nothing we CAN do, least of all actually "Throw the bums OUT!", as opinion-polls show is how we'd LIKE to deal with the shill-politicians in Washington. They tell us what they think we wanna hear, then carry on exporting our jobs and generally dismantling everything that once made us healthy and strong as a nation and a society. And yet, we don't. Nothing about the overall trend changes. The beat (or rather "beat down") goes on.
In similar fashion, we get "bent over and abused" by officials running scared that they might get left holding the bag if it is somehow perceived by ANYONE ANYWHERE that anything theoretically "DANGEROUS" was allowed to transpire somewhere in an American football stadium. Time was when football was played in ANY weather and/or conditions--"long as it's the same for both squads" was the ethos. Now, a lightening strike within 8 miles of a stadium is grounds to clear the field and send everyone home after one "play"...and we're left to bitch'n'moan, then what? Just "suck it up" and move on? WTF?!!!
Sure, I'm pissed. And I'm not SURE what we should, or even CAN do about any of it, after the fact. Except maybe to make this a bigger, lingering issue than simply something the media sh*theads get to revise and reframe as somehow "right and proper", "proper action taken", "for our own good", etc. etc. blah blah blah...This began immediately last night, btw, with the game announcers on ESPNU going on and on about how this was "the right call", "the only thing that COULD be done", that the conditions were too dangerous what with all the WATER on the field and look at that TERRIBLE SPLASH and slide the (aptly-named, "isn't that funny?" Not) Showers took at the end of the one run-back play... WHICH IS BULLSH*T!!! Football is played in ANY conditions--dense fog, howling winds, monsoon torrents, "frozen tundra", remember? Whatever nature throws at them, "long as it's the same for both squads" (that's why they change ends every quarter). It's a dangerous game: we give 'em the best equipment modern technology can develop that minimally impedes, often even enhances, their ability to perform out there, then turn 'em loose to go out and confront each other according to the rules-of-PLAY.
What do we do? What CAN any of us DO about any of this? In my view, the "softening up" of America is taking place before our eyes, proceeding apace with that "dumbing down" we DO hear about, and similarly little is done for. All I can think of, at this point, is to raise hell about it everywhere we can, especially online, the modern instant-public-forum that has the scary-to-politicians potential to at least affect their "path-of-least-resistance". And don't think "politicians" are only in ELECTED positions of power and responsibility nowadays. What organizations are more inundated with their ilk than the NCAA, or television and the entertainment industry for that matter? So we HAMMER on this, everywhere we can. Otherwise, it's not just "all for nothing": We get screwed, things continue to slowly get worse, and what was once "outrageous" soon becomes "accepted modus operendi".
I'll leave it to all of you to flesh out all the ways we, as Gators, the team and "the Nation", get screwed by this having already happened. It is going to affect our season in all kinds of ways, direct and indirect, way I see it. But I'm still too close to it all, still too disappointed, angry and frustrated, to turn to all those infuriating, "sinking-feeling"-details at the moment. Frankly, I'm just too damn PISSED.
Talk about your "morning after"...
I'm up WAY early Sunday with the worst feeling I've had since last season's Georgia Southern aftermath.
I mean, naturally, it's better than a loss, but on a wider, state-of-the nation P.O.V., this was emblematic of who we've really become, the things we've somehow come to accept with little question as "beyond our control" (and I'm not just talking "GATOR Nation" this time).
When did we cross the line, give in to the overarching idea that "things are just the way they are", and the most we can do is grumble and accept? Oh, as Americans we TALK a good game--we'll even honor American boys we send off as sitting ducks, in truth world-police protecting the planet's corporate oil supply, then wave the flag, pat ourselves on the back and thank them for their service when they come back broken--and for what? For whom?
All of which may seem over-the-top irrelevant to the relatively "small" matter of a prematurely "terminated" football game, but I'm not so sure. Just as we continue to take that and more as our standard-of-living AND our rights are steadily eroded, never doing much about it and by now accepting it as an article-of-faith that there's nothing we CAN do, least of all actually "Throw the bums OUT!", as opinion-polls show is how we'd LIKE to deal with the shill-politicians in Washington. They tell us what they think we wanna hear, then carry on exporting our jobs and generally dismantling everything that once made us healthy and strong as a nation and a society. And yet, we don't. Nothing about the overall trend changes. The beat (or rather "beat down") goes on.
In similar fashion, we get "bent over and abused" by officials running scared that they might get left holding the bag if it is somehow perceived by ANYONE ANYWHERE that anything theoretically "DANGEROUS" was allowed to transpire somewhere in an American football stadium. Time was when football was played in ANY weather and/or conditions--"long as it's the same for both squads" was the ethos. Now, a lightening strike within 8 miles of a stadium is grounds to clear the field and send everyone home after one "play"...and we're left to bitch'n'moan, then what? Just "suck it up" and move on? WTF?!!!
Sure, I'm pissed. And I'm not SURE what we should, or even CAN do about any of it, after the fact. Except maybe to make this a bigger, lingering issue than simply something the media sh*theads get to revise and reframe as somehow "right and proper", "proper action taken", "for our own good", etc. etc. blah blah blah...This began immediately last night, btw, with the game announcers on ESPNU going on and on about how this was "the right call", "the only thing that COULD be done", that the conditions were too dangerous what with all the WATER on the field and look at that TERRIBLE SPLASH and slide the (aptly-named, "isn't that funny?" Not) Showers took at the end of the one run-back play... WHICH IS BULLSH*T!!! Football is played in ANY conditions--dense fog, howling winds, monsoon torrents, "frozen tundra", remember? Whatever nature throws at them, "long as it's the same for both squads" (that's why they change ends every quarter). It's a dangerous game: we give 'em the best equipment modern technology can develop that minimally impedes, often even enhances, their ability to perform out there, then turn 'em loose to go out and confront each other according to the rules-of-PLAY.
What do we do? What CAN any of us DO about any of this? In my view, the "softening up" of America is taking place before our eyes, proceeding apace with that "dumbing down" we DO hear about, and similarly little is done for. All I can think of, at this point, is to raise hell about it everywhere we can, especially online, the modern instant-public-forum that has the scary-to-politicians potential to at least affect their "path-of-least-resistance". And don't think "politicians" are only in ELECTED positions of power and responsibility nowadays. What organizations are more inundated with their ilk than the NCAA, or television and the entertainment industry for that matter? So we HAMMER on this, everywhere we can. Otherwise, it's not just "all for nothing": We get screwed, things continue to slowly get worse, and what was once "outrageous" soon becomes "accepted modus operendi".
I'll leave it to all of you to flesh out all the ways we, as Gators, the team and "the Nation", get screwed by this having already happened. It is going to affect our season in all kinds of ways, direct and indirect, way I see it. But I'm still too close to it all, still too disappointed, angry and frustrated, to turn to all those infuriating, "sinking-feeling"-details at the moment. Frankly, I'm just too damn PISSED.
