Like Orange is the New ....

Nature abhors a vacuum and based on the amount of technology I own, I abhor nature so we're even despite the preponderance of people who are firmly convinced that I am odd.

We are currently in the doldrums between the football games which produced the two teams that are going to the Super Bowl and the game itself. Idle hands and minds are the devils' playthings, and they play their home games not too far from the Super Bowl.

When I get enthused or engaged about something, for purposes of illustration let's say pony rides for birthdays and move on, I am often considered by those who do not share my passion as boisterous bordering on the extremely loud.

At no time do I think anyone who regards me that way considers those characterizations to be code for 'aging white guy.' I recall the Humpty Dumpty's words to Alice on the power and majesty of definitions, "a word means what I say it means, no more and no less."

Which brings us to The Perfect Storm for this point of the televised sports calendar (all of which is important because if you don't think TV is integral to the success of the National Football League and vice versa, you have no idea what is going on my friend) as the days crawl to next Sunday's blessed relief and release.

I don't follow American football stopping shortly after Namath, Sauer, Maynard, Boozer and Snell shut down Tom Matte and the Baltimore Colts way back in III which was XLV years ago. I'm glad we've gone to Arabic numbers since I find them easier to read and sexier. LXIX,  I rest my case.

The news item that continues to bubble up is Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks who was critically important to his team getting to the game before the super Bowl and then winning it. He had a sideline outburst in the nanoseconds after the game's conclusion, I'm sure you've seen it, that has led observers of sport and other things to call him a "thug."

I think Al Capone was a thug, based on what I've read and I suspect that's not what people mean when they call Sherman that. Instead, I fear we're repackaging an old insult as a new insight and fancying ourselves mature adults. As kids we chanted "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." To whom were we speaking and when will we start listening?
-bill kenny