Yes, Super Bowl Sunday is upon us once again. That's right, for millions of chickens from sea to shining sea the apocalypse has arrived. Their wings will be devoured by voracious omnivores as beer is swilled by the gallon. In addition pizza delivery people will be working non stop for hours as places like Domino's and Papa John's happily suffer through their version of the post Thanksgiving, "Black Friday."
Indeed, you can say many things about Americans, but you'll never be able to accuse us of not overdoing everything.
Of course the Super Bowl, like many nationwide events, is a crassly capitalist affair. For this year's game in Atlanta it is reported CBS is charging $5.1 to $5.3 million for a mere 30 second spot. That's what happens when a television network can guarantee an advertiser 100 million plus viewers will be watching their sales pitch.
On the shadier side, others have been charging less for more, let us say, private products and services. Media sources are reporting metro police, assisted by Homeland Security investigators, have already rounded up close to 50 people in the greater Atlanta area and hit them with various sex trafficking charges.
During the stings, which were carried out by undercover personnel over social media sites and in local motels, the authorities recovered more than 2000 counterfeit, "items." While the cops wouldn't specifically say what the, "items," were it is generally believed most, if not all, were fake tickets to the game.
Such suspicions were reinforced when Homeland Security released a statement warning buyers to purchase tickets only from reputable sources.
Yeah, well that doesn't always work either.
Fox News has said police are currently searching for an Atlanta area business man named Ketan Shah. Shah, who owns a, Digital Xpress printing store in Norcross, GA, is accused of collecting $750,000 from various people for Super Bowl tickets he apparently never had. His marks included acquaintances, friends of his relatives, and his own mother.
Since Shah was well known, he was a board member of the Georgia Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, the victims--not to mention dear old mom--assumed their cash up front deals were safe.
Silly them. According to Shah's wife he's been missing for weeks now. He not only left her dangling in the wind, but also his 12 year old son and a daughter who is a student at the University of Georgia.
In the midst of all this chicanery the New England Patriots, who used to be the Boston Patriots and for a brief moment, the Bay State Patriots, will meet the Los Angeles Rams tomorrow in, The Game.
The Rams have their own history of conning people into believing them. They started out in 1936 as the Cleveland Rams. By 1946 they were playing in LA. In 1984 they blew town for St. Louis, then two years ago went back to Los Angeles. God only knows where they'll end up next. The only thing certain is before they move again the team's owners will extract concessions from their new home's naive tax base worth millions of dollars to them and them alone.
Hey, if you're going to pull off a scam go big like Ketan Khan and the Rams before you hit the road looking for new suckers to bilk.
It is, after all, The American Way.
2-2-19
I would say Las Vegas would be the next stop for the Rams, but it appears the Raiders will get there first.
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