I've lived in Chicago and the sports fans there are brash. I've lived in Nashville and the fans there are tentative but true... like they're still trying to figure out what it means to have professional teams but they love the hell out of the Predators and Titans. And now I live in Seattle and the sports fans here make me wish I had a mute button. For years I've heard them complain about the eggregious blunder in 1998 when Vinny Testeverde's helmet (but not the pigskin) crossed the plane of the goal line resulting in a touchdown for the Jets and robbing the Seahawks of a significant win... and then at the end of the 2005 season there was the Super Bowl... with a ton of close calls for the officials to make and a few of them were probably bad calls... but in Seattle it was the end of the freakin' world... those officials were completely stupid and worthless and and it was a conspiracy and blah blah blah...
For a city with such a rich tradition in music... they sure are singing a different tune now. Now it's all about how they don't owe anyone an apology. No one said they did. But with the whole world looking (with a decided expression of disgust) at last night's dubious Monday Night Football victory for the Hawks... it would be nice if Seattle fans could acknowledge that maybe they weren't exactly seeing things objectively six years ago or fourteen years ago. It would be cool if a few of them would say... yikes... I don't like winning that way. Or gee... I know exactly how this must feel for Packers fans... I know just how it feels and it sucks. But no... the new tune goes something like this... a win is a win is a win! Or.... well if they didn't want to lose on a bad call at the end... they should have scored more points earlier in the game... which is exactly my opinion of what happened to Seattle in the Super Bowl against the Steelers.
It's just a case of sports fans being hypocritical worm-asses... taking a little double standard out for spin... we wouldn't call them fans if they were all logical and rational. But they are annoying... always complaining and whining and sniveling... if not about the officials then about the management of their team... they point to the Yankees and pontificate with righteous indignation that at least the Mariners don't try to BUY their championships. Then they spend every offseason calling the local radio shows and bitching because their team won't fork over the money to get the superstar free agent flavor of the month. I have suspected forever that if the Mariners accelerated their spending on talent and paid 600 million dollars next year for all the best athletes in the baseball world... suddenly there would be nothing wrong with that... I've suspected this... and now I know it.
Seattle sports fans are the shallowest. They feel violated when they lose this way... and understandably so... but when they win this way... well... there are all kinds or reasons why it's okay to win this way. What makes them so trite? I can't blame it on the rain... it's been a long beautiful summer... a little overcast this past week... but no rain really. Maybe the coffee?
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Blowing the Whistle on Cheaters
If you knew a friend of yours was being cheated on, would you tell him or her? Someone asked me this today and I do think it's one of the most interesting scenarios to contemplate. Seems like a lot of things have to be considered and I want to organize my thoughts... perhaps therapeutically.
For one thing when it comes to experience I have never cheated on anyone... one thing that stops me when temptation comes calling is that I would never want to hurt anyone that much. Another thing that stops me is that I'm almost never in a relationship which makes the plausibility of cheating somewhat dubious.
Have I ever been cheated on? I think so... but no one has ever confessed... so all I have is suspicion... plenty of it.
Here is a good reason to inform your friend of the evidence you have: When you find out you've been cheated on one of the things that hurts the most is the humiliation of being made a fool of. Maybe just yesterday you made dinner for your sweetheart. And then today you find out they've been messing around for weeks. What an idiot you were! Making dinner for that piece of (creative expletive very likely pertaining to digestive waste of some kind). Friends inform friends so they can put a stop to their foolishness as soon as possible.
But an important consideration is this... that your friend might not do what you think they should with the information you give them. Breaking up is hard to do and they might not want to do it. They might want to make things work or they might even be in denial of what you've communicated.
Or maybe they already know. I don't see how you can be in a serious relationship and not sense it a little bit when the other person is being unfaithful or untrustworthy. So if you don't want to get involved... I think that's understandable... very likely your friend already knows there are trust issues and they just haven't gotten to that point where they're ready or willing to do something about it.
For one thing when it comes to experience I have never cheated on anyone... one thing that stops me when temptation comes calling is that I would never want to hurt anyone that much. Another thing that stops me is that I'm almost never in a relationship which makes the plausibility of cheating somewhat dubious.
Have I ever been cheated on? I think so... but no one has ever confessed... so all I have is suspicion... plenty of it.
Here is a good reason to inform your friend of the evidence you have: When you find out you've been cheated on one of the things that hurts the most is the humiliation of being made a fool of. Maybe just yesterday you made dinner for your sweetheart. And then today you find out they've been messing around for weeks. What an idiot you were! Making dinner for that piece of (creative expletive very likely pertaining to digestive waste of some kind). Friends inform friends so they can put a stop to their foolishness as soon as possible.
But an important consideration is this... that your friend might not do what you think they should with the information you give them. Breaking up is hard to do and they might not want to do it. They might want to make things work or they might even be in denial of what you've communicated.
Or maybe they already know. I don't see how you can be in a serious relationship and not sense it a little bit when the other person is being unfaithful or untrustworthy. So if you don't want to get involved... I think that's understandable... very likely your friend already knows there are trust issues and they just haven't gotten to that point where they're ready or willing to do something about it.
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