Saturday, June 09, 2012

Living By the Sword*

I got back from a holiday to Scotland over a week ago and have barely had time to do more than download my pictures from my camera to my computer. So I had pretty high hopes for this three-day weekend with an entire extra day and no excuses to get some posts up about the trip.

So you can imagine my disgruntlement when I had to leave work early on Wednesday because of what turned out to be food poisoning. I lost about 30 hours of my anticipated long weekend, most of it spent laying in bed waiting for my guts to calm down.

On top of that, I smacked my head on the front door, leaving a red mark that is still there two days later, and Azza peed on my bed (she snuck up there to play with the cat, a forbidden activity, and got too wound up).

With an already bad attitude and a reputation for being a curmudgeon, you might not be surprised at my reaction to news reports of the NFL player suit against the league accusing them of "turning a blind eye" to the risks of head injuries.

I know that football players are not chosen for their intelligence. But even for really stupid people, it should be a pretty strong clue that when participation in a "sport" requires nearly every surface of one's body to be covered in plastic and steel and foam (all of which is tested for its impact resistance), that participation is probably going to be harmful to one or more parts of said body, including your brain.

Football and boxing are two of the most pointlessly violent "sports" that are commonly (and endlessly) discussed on sports shows. It is also utterly and sadly predictable that these "sports" are most popular in the U.S.

America's sports "heroes" are idiots who get the shit knocked out of themselves on a regular basis, for money, willingly lining up and signing up year after year, who then come whining back years later complaining that they "had no idea" there would be any consequences.

I have no sympathy.

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