Football: Can We Be Done Now?

Is this the last straw?

Yesterday it was reported that the former NFL linebacker Junior Seau, had apparently shot himself in the chest. Authorities are treating the incident as a suicide rather than a homicide. He was 43.

Junior Seau was a phenomenal football player. For the majority of his career he tormented offenses as a member of the San Diego Chargers. A 12 time pro-bowler, 10 time All-Pro, at 6″3″ and 250 lbs Seau was built for both power and speed. When I was in high-school and college he was usually regarded as one of the finest linebackers in the NFL.

It will be difficult to ascertain why Seau became so depressed that he wanted to end his life. Listening to the sports talking heads on the radio today, it appeared that folks like Jim Rome were being careful not to speculate too much about concussions that Seau had received while he was playing. Rather they focused on depression that might have resulted from no longer playing at the highest level, the difficulties of adjusting to “normal” life, and then gingerly surmised that playing football may have contributed to Seau’s issues.

So, I’ll just say that it would be reckless for me to pretend that I knew Junior Seau or to offer some sort of pop-medicine diagnosis. However, one has to have their head in the sand to ignore the mounting evidence that something has to change in our culture and that change needs to occur rapidly.

What does it mean for us, as a culture, to celebrate people who are killing themselves in the name of sport? What does it mean for us to continue to promote youth football (especially high school) when the evidence suggests that football is extremely detrimental to one’s mental health? Some may scoff at the notion that our cultural pleasures are not that different to the Romans and their gladiatorial “games.” But are they really all that different? Do we not celebrate violence that is so horrific that it permanently damages people. How is that acceptable to us? Are we not failing to address the larger issues of Americans living out their violent and frustrated dreams through these large and powerful men who literally beat each other’s brains out? When will enough be enough?

It’s time. It’s time to close up the NFL shop. It’s time to ignore the league and what it stands for. It’s time to move on to sports that at their root do not inherently seek to damage their players.

This is not a new topic in this little forum. I’ve been beating the drum for a while in the hopes that we would turn our backs on football. Is Junior Seau’s death enough for you?

Or do you need to read about Dave Duerson? Duerson shot himself in the chest last year in the hopes that he could both kill himself as well as offer his brain to medical science. Boston University School of Medicine researchers found that Duerson had suffered significiant brain damage as a result of concussions received from playing football.

Or do you need to read about Kyle Turley? Turley was a towering offensive tackle in the NFL for ten seasons. He’s not much older than I am, but he has suffered from headaches, depression, and painkiller addiction issues. Like Seau and Duerson, he was a hard-hitting rock star of a player. He has publicly admitted that he is scared to pieces of suffering the same fate as Seau and Duerson.

There are dozens and dozens of other stories out there. Football annihialates football players. If they keep playing, that’s up to them. But must you keep watching?

Can we be done now?

Small Coffee Miracles (and a dose of irritation)

Woke up this morning. Drank some coffee.    Good.

Drove the kids to preschool. Drove to Safeway to buy lunch for a work meeting.    Fine.

Stood in line at the cash register. Lady in front of me takes her time.    Whatever.

Lady pays for her groceries. It’s my turn now.    Relieved.

Lady rolls bag in her cart over accidentally. Three blueberries hit the floor.    Whoops.

Lady tells Safeway cash reigster employee, “whoops.” Safeway employee dutifully asks, “would you like to get a new batch of blueberries?” Lady says “yes.”    Huh?

Lady tells Safeway cash register employee, “I’ll get some more while you take care of this.” Lady really means, “clean my trash off the floor, peon.”    Steaming.

I turn to Safeway cash register employee as lady walks away and say, “what are you? Her slave?” Safeway cash register employee replies, “happens all the time.”    Still steaming.

I buy my groceries. Walk to the car.    Walk didn’t help the steaming thing.

I walk back into Safeway. Going to yell at somebody.   Feeling righteous and stuff.

I see Safeway employee and walk to her side. I ask, “can I buy you a cup of coffee?”   Sure enough.

Coffee bought. Coffee taken to Safeway employee.    Don’t feel righteous at all- still annoyed.

I walk away heading back to the car. Safeway employee says to my back, “You just made my day.”   Grateful.

My mom raised me a certain way, I guess. Seems Safeway employee was raised a similar way.    Blessed.

$1.70 for a cup of coffee is a total rip-off. Until it makes somebody’s day.    Worth it.

“One-Nil to the Arsenal”

There are many old standards that get bandied about on Saturday afternoons at English soccer stadiums. The title of this post is one you may hear in North London if Arsenal are up a goal. Chelsea fans sing a similar version with their team inserted into the song, naturally. It’s an easy song and one that is sung by the fans of teams that are used to succeeding. It says, “we’re up 1-0 and we darn well expected to be against the likes of you” regardless of who “you” may be.

I commented in my sermon yesterday that I’ve been quite irritated by a bumper sticker some folks have placed on their vehicles that proclaims a score of 1-0 in favor of the U.S. Navy Seals against Osama Bin Laden. You can find it here if you haven’t seen it/ have no idea what I’m talking about.

Americans, in some ways I suppose, are a little like Arsenal and Chelsea fans (or Yankees fans too) in that victory is rarely surprising anymore. When one competes against ramshackle outfits with fewer resources, less glamorous fans, and seemingly poorer historical narratives, one expects to trounce the enemy at will. Arsenal won 7-1 last Saturday, but I guess I’m not really talking about sports anymore, am I?

First of all, the bumper sticker is highly inaccurate. It fails to recognize the people who died on September 11, 2001 and it also fails to remember the people who died in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi in 1998. That’s more than just a pity. It’s an absolute outrage. Certainly, we can debate the merits of assassinating somebody who is almost universally loathed, but it is none too brave to drive to a suburban mall gloating about such things. Of course, if we are to count the lives of people who died in Africa and America at the hands of Bin Laden’s jihad, we must then count the Taliban fighters and Al-Qaeda militants who have been killed by NATO/ American soldiers, shouldn’t we? But nobody wants a bumper sticker that reads ”US 80,000 Bin Laden 5,000″ do they? That would muddy the waters. It would make things more complicated. It would give us the idea that war sucks, that fighting is ugly, and that it’s simply not clever to jump for joy over bloodshed. If you’re happy Bin Laden is gone, then fine. But let’s not simplify a very complex equation, please.

Nationalism and Patriotism are not the same thing. Nationalism is an ideology that seeks to identify preferences for a group over another based on national identity. At the heart of a great deal of political commentary lies a good amount of Nationalism. Nationalism sells and it sells big. It’s worth saying again- it’s an ideology. In many ways, ideologies are fixed philosophies that refuse to adapt to external ideas and waves of progress. Combine a Christian ideology with a Nationalist ideology and one ends up with a dangerous combination: America over everyone else at all costs in the name of Jesus. And clearly, when I say “at all costs” I would include revising history to suggest that Bin Laden hadn’t actually inflicted any pain upon American families.

One of my favorite quotes is from William Sloane Coffin:

There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s lover’s quarrel with all the world.

By the way, when Arsenal fans sing about being up 1-0 and conveniently forget the last time they lost, pretty much everybody else can’t stand them. And that’s just a game…

Remembering My Favorite Christmas Story

If you attended Christmas Eve service in 2010, you might recall the central story that was the basis for my sermon. As I begin preparations for this year, I remember that service fondly precisely because of that central story. Namely, the Christmas truce that broke out during World War I.

In 1914, as the story goes, along the Western Front with Christmas approaching  soldiers from both sides began singing Christmas carols. “Silent Night” would be sung from the trenches in German and then in English with the sides applauding the efforts of the other. On Christmas Day, on several parts of the front soldiers ventured into no man’s land to exchange gifts with one another and then games of soccer broke out. In a few places, the truce lasted several days. The senior officers on both sides demanded that such friendly interactions cease and the soliders go back to killing each other. Junior officers were threatened with courts-martial.

There is a memorial in Ypres, Belgium to commemorate this event that was erected in 1999. A simple cross stands in a field that states, “1914 – The Khaki Chum’s Christmas Truce – 1999 – 85 Years – Lest We Forget.”

Most of us have forgotten, unfortunately.

It’s a heartwarming story to some degree but, reflecting on it does bring some bittersweet recognition. Particularly that there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers who would go on to be killed in that awful war. My family tree contains a fascinating addendum from my Aunt Hilary that notes that Private George Shaw was killed in Belgium in 1917 at 19 years of age. He is buried less than 10 miles from Ypres.

And then it would go on and on…World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan just to name a few conflicts involving American soldiers. It is true that, on the whole, the world is becoming more peaceful. Too few commentators like to discuss this perhaps because it doesn’t make for sensational news. The arc of history bends towards us all getting along, but my Lord the price has been insanely steep.

There’s not much to be done about the past, of course. And so, may you find some peace this Christmas. May the Savior who came in peace, who was executed by an occupying Empire, who refused to fight fire with fire, bring you some simple reminders. About how the world was, is, and perhaps is becoming. Millions of families around the world have “George Shaw” stories. May we remember them and also resolve to let Jesus change us. Christmas was able to have its way with soldiers almost 100 years ago…and then the world broke the dream once again.

Peace be with you.

The Immediate Lessons of Penn State and Jerry Sandusky

Many of you by now, will be familiar with the allegations that have swirled in Pennsylvania regarding Jerry Sandusky and two Penn State officials. The accusations will make your skin crawl. As I sit here and write I’m fighting back tears thinking about the boys and their families who have become victims of one man’s depraved actions.

Just because we have some awful thoughts sometimes, it doesn’t mean we have to act on them.

Fred Craddock, my favorite preacher, has said, “the cruelest thing in all the world is to steal hope.” Hope has been systematically stolen from young men by someone who allegedly wanted nothing more than to fulfill a sexual fantasy…To “get off.” Sure, there are perhaps other reasons; weakness, a desire to control, a strange and overwhelming need to be the teacher/ mentor figure , the center of attention, and so forth. Whatever. That’s not really important now.

What is important is that those of us who are parents ought to try and be reasonable. This kind of thing is rare. The chances of this happening to your child or mine is somewhere between tiny and none. But it doesn’t feel very good to make that affirmation, as if all we do is shrug our shoulders and place our trust in our neighbors once more. No, we take precautions and rightly so. Most of you who read this are way ahead of me when it comes to those precautions. You’ve already thought this through and have an appropriate set of boundaries for your children. But there are always other lessons to draw from news stories like the one coming to us from Pennsylvania.

It’s my belief that God was trying to make a point to us when Jesus died, that most of us have missed: Surely one of the primary lessons we are to draw when reflecting on Calvary is the way in which we, as people, are willing to scapegoat others. It seems to me that God, via the life and death of Jesus, was trying to help us understand how easily the practice of scapegoating comes to us. We do it all the time. Children do it in classrooms. We do it when we watch the news. I might have been willing to do it to Jerry Sandusky when I started writing this piece. We find someone to blame for all of our woes and then become downright vicious. Humanity was willing to do that to Jesus. Humanity should have been a little disturbed by the fact that we were willing to scapegoat the Son of God.

That’s the dark side of the coin. The bright side is the way in which we put certain people on pedestals. We pick our political or religious or sporting heroes and worship them. Joe Paterno at Penn State might be a good example of that kind of hero worship in Pennsylvania. We’re always on the look out for people that can lead, inspire, and motivate. When these people fail us, we then scapegoat them as if they are responsible for all the ills in society. Back to the dark side then. Until we find a new hero to worship. Back to the bright side. Until…

The immediate lesson for us far removed from Pennsylvania and Jerry Sandusky is not just to hold our children tightly. Rather, it’s to make sure that we understand that scapegoating and hero worship are just different sides of the same coin. And I’ll risk sounding like some of my more conservative brothers and sisters by saying that the coin as a whole is an object of sin.

Hope has been stolen by a man who was worshipped and will now be vilified. I certainly understand the vilification. There’s a small and yet very real dark side of me that would like to do some unspeakable things to Jerry Sandusky. Especially if he is convicted. Would it have come to this if he weren’t worshipped in the first place?

A Note From Alastair

The inbox has become a little clogged lately thanks to an old friend of mine from England. Alastair Montague-Williams is an old classmate from The Solihull School and has managed to put his trust fund to good use, what with bailing on the market in 2006 and opening a number of successful patisseries in the Chelsea area of London in recent times. He shops at Harrods for things like toilet paper and mittens. He loves cricket and 1945
Chateau-Mouton Rothschild Jeroboam. Naturally, he has some strong opinions on
“the colonies.” Here’s his latest dull note to me on the state of the world:

What-ho my diminutive émigré! I do say!

I’m rather hoping business is going well for you. Things have been smashing here in Blighty of late with the glorious autumnal weather. You just can’t beat fair old England in late October when the sun comes out once a fortnight or so, now can you? Of course, you’ve probably forgotten all about our stupendous weather after all that time in the colonies, haven’t you? ( Note from D.S…No, I haven’t. It’s why we left in the first place.) My reason for writing though is not so much to gloat about the weather, but rather I do need to tell you, my old chum, of a little tale that will surely leave you flabbergasted.

Just the other day I’d popped over to my local, “The Saville and Burberry” for a little snifter or two of Jeroboam and someone, rather rudely it seems to me, had left a three hour old copy of The Daily Telegraph right on my usual chaise. The horror! I mused for a moment about the insufferable duper who’d brought such a rag into my “abode
away from la maison” when I noticed a rather curious headline. After I’d composed myself and found some Harrods sanitizer, I do say, I was rather bemused to see some news from the colonies. “Blimey, the whole lot’s gone pear-shaped” I said to James, my good barman and confidante. “RON PAUL: ‘LET THEM DIE’” was what that rag purporting to be a daily herald exclaimed. My first question quite naturally was, “Who the bleeming heck is Ron Paul?” The next thing I asked James was why Ron Paul wanted to let people die. I say!

Now, my old bean, I don’t want to get you all hot and bothered about this nasty bit of business. It’s not as if Mr. Ronald Paul wants to become the next PM, thank her majesty, but it seems that this “Ronald” has become quite serious about residing on Pennsylvania
Avenue. I certainly can’t imagine why. My friends at Chequers are absolutely insistent that the Chinese will want their money back soon..But I digress.

But, it appears that Mr. Paul had suggested in one of those rather excruciating “debates,” that commoners without “health” (shouldn’t that be “sickness?) insurance should be left out in some rodent infested alleyway receiving their last rites from a dear parson such as
yourself! Now, David, I’m all for “what’s fair is fair” but even I, sumptuously tailored as I am, would rather not hear about such a thing. Don’t the colonists take care of their own as we do in the glorious land of Elizabeth Regina? Well, we may argue about who our “own” may be, but still…we tend to let one go to the Emergency Room when one’s heart packs it in.

Naturally, those liberal “wallys of the colonies” suggest that all is rather well over here in Blighty with regard to medical care. Which is not, dare I say, quite true. Well, it is for me of course. Owing to the fabulous trust fund mummy gave me for the seventh jollification of that wonderful chronos of my birth, I have some rather private insurance. David, a few months prior I had a dastardly case of halitosis, which required a thorough and lengthy regimen of laser treatments. It was all rather painless though as my nurse, Jacques, offered the requisite temple massages throughout my stay at St. Hubbin’s Convalascentry. I was full of vim and vigour only a short two fortnights later and was back at “The Saville and Burberry” resplendent in the customary chaise. But my experience is not, as they say, “normative.” Because I am most certainly not “normative.” Shudder at the thought,
old boy! But I do say, without actually experiencing it myself, that I think many Yanks would be really quite unhappy with medical care in Britannia. Occasionally, or so I’ve heard from James, one is told by a physician here to “take an aspirin and see how you feel tomorrow” without fearing the threat of litigation. Commoner English people seem to think that is rather “normative” while I suspect many Yanks rather would not.

Where were we? Ah yes…Yanks. More specifically, the libertarian, former obstetrician, Texan sort. So I did say, old bean, to James that the colonies had appeared to move a step closer to the uncouth ways of the era when our Lord was out and about. One way for some like me and another way for others like, well, you dear chap. Believe me, while you’ll never have Jacques attend to you, I do think it would be seemly for people to be able to not expire in alleyways. But that naughty rascal James, he did put a lovely little bee in the
bonnet. He did mention to me that Mr. Paul might have been up to something deliciously devious: “Errm…Guv?” he began in his frightfully cockneyfied timbre, “I was thinking…what if Ron there is taking the Michael? What if…Ron actually meant that less governmental intrusion and lower taxes meant that institutions like churches and other non-profits could assist people and people would have more lolly to give to churches and
non-profits and therefore, the whole system would be free of red-tape? What if the whole system didn’t have a patron like the government to back everything up? What if Ron there, was actually saying that government drives costs up rather than down? What if Ron there, was actually saying that people of all walks of life, especially the religious, would be better off taking care of each other rather than relying on The Man?”

Quite frankly David, upon hearing James offer this little soliloquy, I think about 500 pounds of Jeroboam ended up on my cashmere trousers! My word! And by Jove! James might be onto something unlike that Fleet Street rag. So, I was musing dear chap, has anybody there of the Christian persuasion ever wondered what it would be like to have libertarians running the show? Has anybody had a gander at the numbers? I would be most interested to hear if any of your little Christian friends have had a discussion about all of this. I do recall you mentioning that a fair few of your parishioners have had a bit of a…how do you Yanks say it? Ah yes…A bit of a “thing” for Obama and his democratic legion. But remember, old boy, the Chinese want their money back and it might be very soon! So, I shall depart for now…but please answer me this with some good old data to back things up…Is it a Christian exercise to want government to sod off?

I presume you know exactly what I mean, dear chap. For now I shall return to my Jeroboam, the chaise, and a proper read like The Times. And perhaps I’ll listen to James a bit more…Uncouth he may be, but he’s a rather interesting commoner. Cheerio old boy! And we’ll give India hell in the next Test, eh?

Sincerely,

Alastair

Reply:

Dear Alastair,

I don’t have much in the way of hard data at the moment, but I’m working on it. In the meantime, Ron Paul and other libertarians would do well to explain how we, as a country, would get from a to b and what b would look like. If social services are to primarily function without government assistance, that’s fine by me. But what would the transition to that kind of worldview look like? That’s the frustrating part. Nobody wants to read studies by sociologists. They just shout.

Dave.

Marijuana and Mexico

Our local airwaves have contained an interesting commercial since last weekend. “Legalize Responsibly” has put forth an ad that features a seemingly middle class woman talking in a coffee shop about how we ought to have an honest conversation about legalizing the use of marijuana. You can find her here. The talking points are:

1)     Colorado loses out on income when marijuana is improperly regulated.

2)     That income could be used to fund important social projects like schools, law enforcement, and healthcare.

3)     We can take money away from gangs.

It is, in my mind, a well made commercial. The woman looks like the type who will get up from her table in order to pick up her handsome twin 7^th grade boys and escort them to soccer practice in Littleton or Cherry Creek. Her kids will someday settle for scholarships at Duke after, horror of horrors, being waitlisted at Dartmouth. She’s married to a nice guy and enjoys walking their golden-doodle by a lake. You get the idea.  This isn’t a person who aspires to be a roadie for the Wailers.

Her first two points are interesting. I do have a hard time believing that $400 Million would end up in the state’s coffers if marijuana were regulated by the state, which is what the lady appears to be arguing without actually making that point. In other words, this is like Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman arguing over which state has been the “number one job producer.” Well, ok. But by which metric? As a percentage? By gross numbers? Does that
include part time jobs? Well paying jobs? Quite frankly, throw away lines like “$400 Million industry” mean nothing without further data being included. Additionally, the website www.legalizeresponsibly.org  suggests that legalizing could generate up to $117 million in revenue for the state. For Colorado, which has a budget shortfall in excess of $1.2 Billion, legalizing marijuana isn’t quite the nest egg our Super-Mom purports.

However, her final point, which takes approximately 1.1 seconds to convey, is the most interesting of the three. Taking money away from gangs is something that many of us might consider a reasonable argument. My take is that I sincerely hope by “gangs” she means “cartels.”

My wife and I were shaken recently by the news that a friend’s father had been kidnapped and then murdered in Mexico. This innocent father refused to pay “protection” money and was kidnapped shortly thereafter. My wife’s friend cobbled together the ransom money and sent it south of the border. AFTER the cartel had received the money, they killed the man anyway. Just last weekend the Zetas, the newest and worst cartel, hung two 20-something bloggers (who had the audacity to write online that they were fed up with gang violence ruining their country) from a bridge and then disemboweled them.

It is true, surely, that the media has exaggerated and exacerbated the situation in Mexico by suggesting that the entire country is unsafe. I wouldn’t have a problem going to Mexico. It just depends where in Mexico and with whom. I couldn’t and wouldn’t pretend to be an expert, but facts are sometimes really and truly facts:

1)      On the whole, the police in Mexico are notoriously unreliable, corrupt, and don’t take care of the poor.

2)      Politicians are usually corrupt. If they aren’t, they risk their lives and the lives of their families.

3)     Marijuana is an enormous cash cow for the cartels.

4)      Good paying (and honest) jobs in Mexico were in
short supply for the poor before the recession of the last few years. Plenty of folks have three options available to them: Starving, working for a cartel, or getting across the border to the U.S.

Anybody who cares about the plight of either the undocumented immigrant who is trying to escape the bloodshed, the average Mexican citizen, or your local youth who may have an interest in “experimenting” ought to be careful about how to proceed both intellectually and electorally.  Arguments can be made for both sides of the equation regarding legalization in our state. It is mostly a question of framework. Ethicists will weigh in along with politicians, talk show hosts, and your average citizen, but one needs to be mindful regarding “the school” from which they speak.

Without getting too bogged down in philosophical jargon, one may make the argument that to some degree our politicians are supposed to be good utilitarians. That is, they are elected to bring the most good to the most people possible. Unfortunately, we know that a politician’s brand of utilitarianism is frequently reserved for themselves and their desire to be reelected. Utilitarianism is also “the school” out of which many of us create our own
ethical structures. For example, involvement in World War II was justifiable, because at the end of the day it brought about a greater good, which included an increase in happiness and an end to misery for those who suffered under Hitler’s rule. But, utilitarianism also has its weak points. Namely, that “good” and “happiness” are often interchangeable, which is strikingly different to the teachings of Jesus who didn’t have much to say about personal happiness, but a great deal to say about “good.” Ironically, Jesus’ words were a forerunner to Comte’s philosophy on ethical altruism, which states that one must live for others. This is ironic because Comte wanted to abolish the church and was a secular humanist. But, this is part of the issue we now face with regard to the legalization of marijuana. Does my self-interest matter?

If marijuana were legalized and properly regulated in the State of Colorado, who stands to benefit? If we are good utilitarians we must ask ourselves if this is both in our best interest, in the best interests of our youth, as well as the citizens of Mexico. Further, we must ask if we have no interest in smoking marijuana does an ethical altruism matter more than our
own need for utility? Would we benefit (through tax revenue) and would the
citizens of Mexico benefit (wouldn’t the cartels shift their emphasis to methamphetamine production)? To be sure, this can get complicated quite quickly. But, in my mind, if it can be proven that there would be a great decrease in kidnappings and murders in Mexico via the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, I’m all for it. My self-interest is not that important here. I won’t smoke whether or not it’s legal to do so. I’ll lecture my kids on what a dumb decision it is to smoke up while acknowledging that they’ll make their own choices.

Would it matter to you if your neighbor got high once in a while if those two 20-something blogger’s lives could have been saved? If someone’s father could have been saved? From 2006-2010, more than 36,000 people have been murdered in Mexico by the cartels.

Take September 11, 2001 and multiply it by 12.

The lady in the coffee shop is right. It is time to have an honest conversation about legalizing marijuana.