Superb Owl: Football as America (semi-barf alert)

ESPN.com ^ | February 7, 2011 | Jeff MacGregor

[conservativebuckeye]

Declaration of Independence.

"America the Beautiful."

Bad anthem.

Bad commercials.

Weird night.

I admit to having watched it wrong. No one is supposed to pay 100 percent attention to the Super Bowl. You're not meant to stare at it. You're not meant to derive meaning from it.

[dr_lew]

There was a time not long ago -- back before Sept. 11, 2001 -- when Americans were more suspicious of patriotic tripe like this.

This is manifestly untrue. "Patriotic tripe like this" was accepted by all as a confirmation of the common will. What was the clip I saw recently of the Apollo astronauts leading the Pledge of Allegiance at some kind of sports event, I believe? I was amazed to see it. I remember saying the Pledge in school, but I had completely forgotten its larger role in public life.

[conservativebuckeye]

The article itself doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the idiots making comments at the bottom. So far, all 40 comments are in support of this. Where does this guilt and self-loathing come from?

[Not now, Not ever!]

Jeff MacGregor, It’s folks like him that makes me think Jock itch is the ultimate targeted disease.

[the invisib1e hand]

As posted elsewhere, football brings out the obnoxious in people, including the clueless faggot who wrote this article.

the chief purpose of the superbowl is to remind everyone that spring training is right around the corner.

[malkee]

He sounds like he is angry he was actually entranced by the game itself, not everything else. I was paid to write for more than 20 years and this is one of the most disjointed, poorly -written pieces of tripe I’ve ever seen.

[Dr. Sivana]

This not only on the eve of a probable lockout of Labor by Capital, but on Ronald Reagan's centennial, on the very day of that great union buster's double jubilee.

Please, stop the carnage! Let's take up a collection and buy the poor writer some verbs!

[napscoordinator]

Not everyone in the World is gay. This site calls everyone homsexual. We make the 3 percent sound like a majority. Seriously enough. Not everyone is gay.

[Dr. Sivana]

Last seen selling the United Nations an elaborate and unfounded promise of weapons of mass destruction, the self-made general was this time seen next to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, the self-made senator's son who pulled himself up by his loafer tassels to his present position of absolute authority.

It looks like Keith Olbermann spawned before leaving ESPN. Yes, the U.N. should make General Powell come through and fulfill his promise to provide the U.N. some WMDs, since it must have bought the promise he was selling.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"July 4th will be forgotten, as will Memorial Day and Labor Day and Election Day."

Well, we can only hope that Labor Day will be forgotten. Hopefully clueless idiots like the writer of this article will forget Election Day on a regular basis. Truly, the only two things that were worth watching on Sunday night was the game and the reading of the declaration of Independence. They were both examplary....

[arderkrag]

The strangeness of the spot being that it shifts blame while sentimentalizing failure. As if a series of things had happened to Detroit over which Detroit had no control.

Well, actually, yeh, it was pretty muich exactly like that.

If this year's edition of our professional football championship is predictive, 25 years from now Super Sunday will be the most sacred holiday on the American calendar. July 4th will be forgotten, as will Memorial Day and Labor Day and Election Day.

Awwwww, look - another Nancy boy sick of the mean old Jock culture!

[the invisib1e hand]

Unwuttever.

[driftless2]

I didn't catch any of the patriotic stuff, because I didn't start watching until the game started. As usual. However, I've been reading these particular kinds of liberal screeds for more than forty years, and they never change. Any hint of patriotism is to be mock and jeered by some hack who owes his freedom to the country and the very people he mocks.

So the SB is many times loud and obnoxious. So what? It's also entertaining (not so much with the actual halftime entertainment), and that's what Americans want. I think that's what the hack dislikes more than anything. If he had his way, at the pregame ceremonies we'd probably see encomiums dedicated to Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky with sounds of The Internationale in the background while the halftime entertainment would the some hags from the NAG's reading speeches savaging men and football.

[conservativebuckeye]

I didn’t post this so you could bash football. I don’t understand why you dislike it so much. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always liked baseball, but I love football. I love the strategy of both games, but football is more intense and fits my personality better. Besides, it’s not as though baseball can’t bring out the obnoxious idiot in people. Ask Cliff Lee’s wife. Is baseball the only sport you like?