I honestly can't remember a time when I wasn't a fan of college football. I got the bug from my father who had loved the sport early in his life, then became a fanatic about it after attending the University of Oklahoma. In my early years I listened to almost all the games on the radio because in those days television broadcast only one a Saturday and OU was lucky to be featured once a year.
Of course it helped that during the early 1950's Oklahoma didn't ever lose. I mean that literally. OU lost a game in 1953 and didn't lose again until 1957. In other words from the age of three until I was seven my favorite team never came up on the short end of a score. For a little boy that isn't a winning streak, it is a life time.
And that life time isn't over yet.
Now we come to the cursed year of 2020, my 70th on this overheating blue ball. Among other disasters a plague has burned its way across the planet and there is, at this time, no known cure. As these words are being written 772,066 human beings world wide have been killed by COVID-19--163,416 of them are Americans. In this country alone a little over 1,000 persons per day are dying.
Which is another way of saying we're dropping like fucking flies.
Against this background of rampant disease and death there are some--actually many--who want to see the college football season begin in less than three weeks. That's right baby, let's get back to the grand old traditions, marching bands, and young men smashing into each other with wild abandon. Bring us some bloody mary's, beer, and brats as we jam into stadiums by the tens of thousands while we cheer, boo, and sing fight songs.
Does anyone else think this might not be the brightest of ideas right now?
A few do. The University of Connecticut has cancelled its football season. Earlier this year the Ivy League did too. Today the Mid America Conference followed suit. Out on the west coast Pac-12 players are attempting to organize a union of sorts, demanding that their schools provide health guarantees. Some players, on an individual basis, are opting out of the season.
Other schools are saying they will limit the number of fans attending games to ensure proper social distancing, although they are still a little fuzzy on how they're going to accomplish it. The big boy conferences, the ACC, Big-10, SEC, Pac-12 and Big -12 have announced truncated schedules. Most of them have limited play to conference foes only, meaning if you want to take your chances on catching the COVID you'll be limited to places like, Ames, Iowa and Stillwater, Oklahoma to roll the dice.
Other options are still being pursued. There is one which says games will be played without fans at all. Another, the sanest of the bunch, proposes a delay of the season until late February, when a vaccine might be available.
The University of Oklahoma has given me three options for my season tickets. First, take them and do what I will. Second, tell OU I want to apply the cost to next year's tickets. Third, donate the money to the school's athletic department. I'm going with number two, because, as much as I love the Sooners and the game, it isn't worth drowning in my own mucus to see them play Baylor.
Indeed, for me, this season is a wash. I just hope everyone else will wise up in the next few days and see it the same way.
8-8-20
Saturday, August 8, 2020
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
The Most Disastrous Year Imaginable and It Might Get Worse
I wasn't around for the great depression, or WWII so the ever shrinking, "Greatest Generation," will have to forgive me if I consider 2020 the worst year in the last century, or so. There were other bad ones in my life time. 1968 comes to mind, but even with assassinations, race riots, and the conflagration in Southeast Asia, we didn't seem to be teetering on the edge like we are now.
Maybe it's the COVID that has pushed us to the edge of the abyss. The plague has played out like some dreadful slow motion Irwin Allen disaster movie. It has eaten away at our morale, patience, and sanity. In the face of it we have, or at least should have learned some degree of humility, not to mention awe at the mindless, yet sometimes ravenous whims of nature.
In H.G. Wells novel, "War of the Worlds," the Martians were undone by the unseen microbes found on this planet. This year has made it easy to understand how they felt when their triumphant armies began to collapse for no discernable reason. Yet many among us continue to ignore the growing body count.
Of course it doesn't help that in this suddenly shaky republic we have exactly the wrong man in the White House to address, both the virus and the racial crisis which has gripped us.
Let's face it, Donald J. Trump, who at best is a carnival midway barker turned cult leader, doesn't have a clue when it comes to controlling a pandemic. To complicate matters he has, some would say with malice of forethought, done nothing, but exacerbate the anger so many thousands have expressed in the streets.
In fact, looking back at the last seven plus months, it is painfully obvious our man in the White House hasn't made a single correct decision since the shit hit the fan. Not one.
Indeed, many promises about the disease have been made, but none have been fulfilled. Then his administration, so corrupt, it makes Dick Nixon's look like a bunch of cheap men's room graffiti vandals, went out and intentionally increased the level of civil violence for apparent political reasons.
And there is the problem. Donald Trump doesn't consider any natural disaster, or civil crisis in terms other Presidents would. For all his braggadocio about not being a professional politician he views every single thing thing as a political issue. All humanity and sense of national good are removed from the issues and replaced with the cold blooded thought, how can this benefit me.
No other Chief Executive in the history of the United States could survive a year like Donald Trump has had in the Oval Office. However that doesn't mean we will be rid of him in November. His cult--and it is a cult--numbers in the millions and ranges from outer limits conspiracy theorists to the most vile racists imaginable.
His disregard for any and all laws and regulations is well known. By now every man, woman, and child, knows he not only has a taste for cheating, but hell, he likes it. To him it is just another part of politics and life to be used like salt on an order of fries.
Trump and his party, now culled of doubters and principled conservatives, are working as busy as rabid beavers to make voting not only more difficult for minorities and the other usual suspects, but down right life threatening.
His shrill protests about voting by mail, which he routinely does himself, are laying the groundwork for future judicial challenges to the election outcome if he should lose. Then there are his old friends the Russians who have thoroughly infiltrated the nation's social networks and possibly some voting machines.
Normally I would say Donald Trump is done, a dead duck, but given what has happened and what might we can't be too sure.
Yes, 2020 has so far been the most disastrous year imaginable, but that doesn't mean it won't get worse.
8-4-20
Maybe it's the COVID that has pushed us to the edge of the abyss. The plague has played out like some dreadful slow motion Irwin Allen disaster movie. It has eaten away at our morale, patience, and sanity. In the face of it we have, or at least should have learned some degree of humility, not to mention awe at the mindless, yet sometimes ravenous whims of nature.
In H.G. Wells novel, "War of the Worlds," the Martians were undone by the unseen microbes found on this planet. This year has made it easy to understand how they felt when their triumphant armies began to collapse for no discernable reason. Yet many among us continue to ignore the growing body count.
Of course it doesn't help that in this suddenly shaky republic we have exactly the wrong man in the White House to address, both the virus and the racial crisis which has gripped us.
Let's face it, Donald J. Trump, who at best is a carnival midway barker turned cult leader, doesn't have a clue when it comes to controlling a pandemic. To complicate matters he has, some would say with malice of forethought, done nothing, but exacerbate the anger so many thousands have expressed in the streets.
In fact, looking back at the last seven plus months, it is painfully obvious our man in the White House hasn't made a single correct decision since the shit hit the fan. Not one.
Indeed, many promises about the disease have been made, but none have been fulfilled. Then his administration, so corrupt, it makes Dick Nixon's look like a bunch of cheap men's room graffiti vandals, went out and intentionally increased the level of civil violence for apparent political reasons.
And there is the problem. Donald Trump doesn't consider any natural disaster, or civil crisis in terms other Presidents would. For all his braggadocio about not being a professional politician he views every single thing thing as a political issue. All humanity and sense of national good are removed from the issues and replaced with the cold blooded thought, how can this benefit me.
No other Chief Executive in the history of the United States could survive a year like Donald Trump has had in the Oval Office. However that doesn't mean we will be rid of him in November. His cult--and it is a cult--numbers in the millions and ranges from outer limits conspiracy theorists to the most vile racists imaginable.
His disregard for any and all laws and regulations is well known. By now every man, woman, and child, knows he not only has a taste for cheating, but hell, he likes it. To him it is just another part of politics and life to be used like salt on an order of fries.
Trump and his party, now culled of doubters and principled conservatives, are working as busy as rabid beavers to make voting not only more difficult for minorities and the other usual suspects, but down right life threatening.
His shrill protests about voting by mail, which he routinely does himself, are laying the groundwork for future judicial challenges to the election outcome if he should lose. Then there are his old friends the Russians who have thoroughly infiltrated the nation's social networks and possibly some voting machines.
Normally I would say Donald Trump is done, a dead duck, but given what has happened and what might we can't be too sure.
Yes, 2020 has so far been the most disastrous year imaginable, but that doesn't mean it won't get worse.
8-4-20
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