It's not Roger Goodell, and it's not Ray Rice. It's us.

As long as there's a shit-ton of money out there buying tickets, apparel, and eyes watching games players will misbehave. Oh hell, they'll misbehave whether we're there or not. They're people like us, and we misbehave. Ray Rice, sadly, wasn't the first person to hit his fiance/wife. Adrian Peterson was not the first person to whip a 4 yr old with a switch either. Roger Goodell, and Ravens ownership weren't the first people to try to sweep the issue under the rug, and hope it goes away either. Penn State anyone?

Elite athletes who make universities, and professional franchise owners piles - PILES - of money are coddled. They have been for a long time. Owners want their stars on the field because they sell tickets, apparel, and drive ratings. Why are we even surprised that there was a video of one of them punching his fiance? I'm surprised this didn't happen years ago. As shitty as what Ray Rice did was, at least he didn't lie about it - which is the only positive you can credit it him for. So the Ravens wanted to put this to bed before it blew up. Roger Goodell works for the owners, and he decided to help the owner put it away. He perpetuated the status-quo. It was the same way Florida State did a half-assed investigation into the Jameis Winston rape allegation last year. It was the same way Penn State looked the other way in the Sandusky episode. The program and the franchise are gold mines to a lot of people, and if your access to a gold mine depends on you looking the other way, as we've seen, too many people are willing to get along to get along.

You could google and find out how many arrests NFL players have. Never mind. San Diego Union-Tribune did it. I'm reminded of the Col Jessup monologue from A Few Good Men; "Deep down inside, you don't wanna know." So, yes, athletes do the same terrible things that many others do, but WE coddle them, because WE want our teams to win, not because we don't care, but indirectly because we buy tickets to winning teams, and jerseys of winning players, and tune in to games of those teams and players more than other teams with smaller stars, and fewer wins. Owners, boosters, GMs, university presidents, and commissioners know this. Knowing this they've sheltered people that do monstrous things from real consequences so their gold mine is protected.

So instead of getting all indignant about these people while wearing a jersey, tuned in to a game, maybe we should not look the other way when we see some child, or woman with a suspicious bruise.

Atlantic County Prosecutor, and Atlantic City Police - what the fuck?

This is the Atlantic County Prosecutor

image http://www.acpo.org/prosecutor.html

Ray Rice cold cocked his fiancee' in an Atlantic City casino elevator. That, we all agree is pretty low. In fact one might argue there's not much lower one can do.

For all the bungling, and mishandling done by the Baltimore Ravens organization, and the NFL Offices why are they the ones catching all the shit?

Ummm - Atlantic City Police, and Atlantic City District Attorney's Office, I'm talking to you. Does the NFL have subpoena power to get the casino to hand over the elevator tape? While I don't believe for a second that the NFL, nor the Baltimore Ravens, did not see the elevator video till just the other day, it's at least plausible that they did not. If the Atlantic City Police didn't see it, it's grossly negligent. Here's how I'd expect law enforcement would handle that based on the lobby video.

"Oh wow. He's dragging an unconscious woman out of the elevator. We're gonna need the security video from the elevator."

There's not an enterprise in the world with more security video than a casino, so you know the Atlantic City PD, and DA knew that it was there. There's no way they DIDN'T know. Once they got the video, and see him cold cock his fiancee' HOW is he only charged with a misdemeanor, and a plea deal that can be expunged once he finishes his court ordered therapy?

The NFL and the Baltimore Ravens are dealing with a PR situation at worst. People are pissed at that more than they are at anything else. They're calling for the resignation of Roger Goodell. Why? They're businesses. That's what they do. Really, who cares about PR? Atlantic City DA - what the fuck? You're in charge of public safety, and prosecuting

Twain - my man!!!

"Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand." - Mark Twain

(image: marktwaincircle.org)

Mark Twain is, in my mind, the best creative mind that America has ever put forth. Go to any quote aggregation site, and there are many to fuel the twitterverse and Facebook inspirational status updates, and Twain will always be well represented. He stands as the greatest American writer by many. He is held up as the greatest American humorist. The Mark Twain Prize by the Kennedy Center Honors is regarded as the most prestigious award for a comedian.

It's no coincidence that the most significant voices on current events are Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. The latter having elevated satire to a level heretofore unseen. Colbert's satire is so good, and complete, many conservative friends of mine think he actually is making "a god point" at times. You can say it's sad that Jon Stewart's The Daily Show is actually more respected as a news source than traditional news sources. You might be right. I only hope that the mocking done to current events, political discourse, and what passes for news on the 24 hour cycle breaks the current paradigm of ratings driven content. Comedy has always had that power to show the ridiculousness some take seriously as just that.

Archie Bunker as a character most certainly said, and did ugly things on our televisions. What he also did was take the mask off the corner bigot, and show him to be the ignorant fool he's always been.

George Carlin's monologues, notably the 7 words you can never say, while appealing to the lowest common denominator of laughing at naughtiness, also exposed the veneer of consumer culture's preoccupation with how things looked as opposed to how they actually are. 40 years hence we still are.

Richard Pryor made us look at, and compare, the white/black side of the American coin. He joked that drug use was an epidemic in 1983, and that meant that white kids are doing it.

I guess the question is how ridiculous does it have to be before the collective laughter crumbles the facade? I don't know that it ever will, because we're still uptight about language. We still collectively worry more about how things look than how they actually are. There is still a bigot on most every corner, and instead of the n-word they use words like "thug." You could argue that all we've done since the 1970s is add another word to the 7 we can't say on television, which is too bad because the racist word association Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor engaged on SNL in the 70's did more to show how stupid, and ridiculous it all was.

I was hopeful when this post started, but now, fuck it. Twain was wrong.