Be a Sport

Societies were supposed to have created sports  to be the palliative of the masses. Romans watched gladiators kill each other so they would not overthrow their corrupt emperors. Coming up on the Big Football Game (I’m not allowed to use the protected  term “Super Bowl” … if I did, I think I would be used as a tackling dummy for Ray Lewis), it is interesting to note how passions are aroused by a few men kicking a ball around a big field … even to the point of giving up one’s life.  Just recently 74 soccer fans died in Egypt at a riot over a grudge match there. (see: AP News Story )  Then 21 fans and security personnel were sentenced to death for their part in this melee while another 52 will go on trial in March.  These death sentences next set off another riot in which an additional 37 fans were killed and 110 injured … apparently when the funerals for the previous martyrs morphed into more sports-fan protests and then into a political riot … chanting slogans against Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi.

Now, I’ve heard of hooliganism on the part of English soccer fans, but these Egyptian uprisings seem a little over the top … particularly in that Morsi became a target of the sports fans … when such contests are supposed to assuage such feelings.  Imagine the Baltimore Ravens' fans charging the field in New Orleans next weekend … insisting that President Obama make Beyonce actually sing the words to the National Anthem … and then the 49ers' fans cornering Governor Jerry Brown … forcing him to retract  the recent income tax increases in California.  The Baltimore cheerleaders would then have at the San Francisco pom-pom wavers … to the point where all the half-time TV commercials would be scrubbed in order to televise this lascivious girl-on-girl wrestling.  Even without any fatalities, this would result, the following Monday, in a number of camera-grabbers in Congress (e.g., Chuck Schumer?) calling for the banning of “this grotesque, violent sport” (see: Breitbart Story) … or at least eliminate all the festivities therein … and all football fans should be registered and fingerprinted.

Or perhaps I'm daydreaming again?