Is It Immoral to Watch the Super Bowl? By Steve Almond. New York Times Magazine, January 24, 2014. From the January 26 issue. Also here.
Effete New York Times Asks: “Is It Immoral to Watch the Super Bowl?” By Tim Graham. NewsBusters, January 26, 2014.
The Liberals Hate Football. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, January 27, 2014.
Almond:
Pro
sports are, by definition, monetized arenas for hypermasculinity. Football is
nowhere near as overtly vicious as, say, boxing. But it is the one sport that
most faithfully recreates our childhood fantasies of war as a winnable contest.
Over
the past 12 years, as Americans have sought a distraction from the moral
incoherence of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the game has served as a loyal
and satisfying proxy. It has become an acceptable way of experiencing our
savage impulses, the cultural lodestar when it comes to consuming violence.
What differentiates it from the glut of bloody films and video games we devour
is our awareness that the violence in football, and the toll of that violence,
is real.
The
struggle playing out in living rooms across the country is that of a civilian
leisure class that has created, for its own entertainment, a caste of warriors
too big and strong and fast to play a child’s game without grievously injuring
one another. The very rules that govern our perceptions of them might well be
applied to soldiers: Those who exhibit impulsive savagery on the field are
heroes. Those who do so off the field are reviled monsters.
The
civilian and the fan participate in the same basic transaction. We offload the
mortal burdens of combat, mostly to young men from the underclass, whom we send
off to battle with cheers and largely ignore when they wind up wounded.
No
single episode speaks to this twisted dynamic more pointedly than the death of
Pat Tillman, an idealistic N.F.L. star who enlisted in the Army after the Sept.
11 attacks. In 2004, Tillman was killed by friendly fire in a bungled ambush in
Afghanistan. His superiors orchestrated an elaborate cover-up that included
burning his uniform and recast the circumstances of his death as a heroic
charge into enemy territory.
But
suppose Tillman had survived, returned to play in the N.F.L. and wound up with
brain damage at age 50. Would we see him as a victim of friendly fire? Would we
acknowledge our role in his demise? Or would we construct our own personal cover-ups?
The
N.F.L. and the bloated media cult that feeds off it rely on fans not to connect
the dots between our consumption of football and brain-damaged human beings.
But to an even larger extent, we rely on one another.
Imagine Dragons: Radioactive. Video. ImagineDragonsVEVO, December 10, 2012. YouTube. (With Alexandra Daddario).
Arrow 1x22: Oliver and Laurel Scenes (song “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons). Video.
Sebastian, May 10, 2013. YouTube.
Is Israel a “Jewish Nation”? Is the U.S. an “American Nation”? By Ira Chernus. History News Network, January 23, 2014.
The Jewish State and the Story the Palestinians Hold Dear. By Rick Richman. NJBR, January 3, 2014. With related articles and video.
