Posted on 01/29/2015 10:16:06 AM PST by Aspenhuskerette
Aired-out uproariously on “Saturday Night Live,” “Deflategate” has been a national fixation since word broke that the New England Patriots used underinflated footballs in their Super Bowl-berth-clinching victory over Indianapolis. The alleged-cheating controversy has even pumped up the loveability of the oft-despised Seattle Seahawks.
However, Think Again if you believe Deflategate is merely hot air. Though overblown, Americans’ disquiet reflects our fairness instinct and commitment to equality of opportunity — the ideal that all competitors in the race of life, no matter their status, can succeed on a level playing field.
Sensing a slanted NFL field, Seahawk Richard Sherman questioned the close relationship between NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Patriots owner Robert Kraft, calling it a “conflict of interest.”
Sherman’s unease resonates in an America increasingly distrustful of society’s umpires. President Obama spoke to this anxiety in last week’s State of the Union address.
“This country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules,” he declared, labeling this “middle-class economics.”
Yet the story of our 5-year-old recovery is how poorly working Americans have fared. With workforce participation at 40-year lows, “America’s wealth gap between middle-income and upper-income families is the widest on record,” Pew Research recently reported. From 2010 to 2013, household incomes fell for all except the most affluent 10 percent, a 2014 Federal Reserve survey revealed, with the bottom 40 percent suffering disproportionately.
(Excerpt) Read more at aspentimes.com ...
The media obsessed on a little air, and a lot of wind. (The “Blizzard of 2015”)
It was to take peoples’ minds off the shaft they just got in taxes, jihadis killing normal people, IS expanding rapidly, plans to confiscate money in savings plans, stupid proposals about college tuition, etc, etc.
When I first heard about this it caused me to change my attitude toward Sherman, and the Seahawks, entirely. I used to hate the Hawks now I'm rooting for them big time.
With workforce participation at 40-year lows, “America’s wealth gap between middle-income and upper-income families is the widest on record,” Pew Research recently reported.
I'm sorry, Aspenhuskerette...this is no personal reflection upon you, but I can't help but notice the utter irony of the above line coming from the ASPEN Times.
"The historic character of the city has been challenged in recent decades by skyrocketing property values and the proliferation of second homes, increasingly shutting low- and middle-income workers out of the city and creating a large pool of commuters from nearby bedroom communities such as Snowmass, Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs....Aspen is the most expensive place to buy real estate in the US.[8] Aspen is a mixture of high-end luxury estates and condos intermixed with single-family homes and mobile home parks. As of March 2011, the lowest-priced single-family home on the market was a trailer for $559,000.[9] The median listing price for homes or condos for sale in Aspen is $4,570,633 according to Trulia.[10] It is not uncommon to see listing prices reaching the mid-eight figures.[10]
Source: Aspen, Colorado
An "average" small home in Aspen can sell for $6 million easy these days!
the Hawks got where they are thru suspicious non calls in many games...dirty players....
what with this meaningless "deflate" silliness...the Pats had new balls to play in the second half of their game and that's when they really trounced the Colts....and the 1:30 am fire alarm at their hotel, TPTB are building up to a Hawks win just as planned...
does anybody not think the fix is in?.....
HS sports and some college sports seem to be the only legit sporting outlet....I don't know if I even trust Nascar....
and Richard Sherman has a lot of gall to talk about fairness......white kids can't get scholarships nor jobs and are automatically eliminated of most things because of their skin....where the heck is the fairness in that?
Good article, hard to believe you are based in Aspen!
BTW I think there’s a typo in the Aspen Times website for the article:
Melanie Sturm
Thing Again
??
It is known that the countries with the highest taxes have the largest gaps between rich and poor
But they CARE about fairness - and isn’t THAT what really matters?
...
The web-site won’t let me read the entire article without answering some personal questions.
So I won’t be reading the entire article.
it’s articles like this that give me hope for the future.
As far as the ‘gap’ between rich and poor, 1099 all the gov. benefits and the poor will be in the middle class, IMHO.
I’m not a football fan either but I live in Washington and as you know Seahawks and the 12th man are huge here.
So this week I started reading about some of the players. I was especially impressed with Richard Sherman who comes from Compton but has 2 parents who are still married and actually work, graduated #2 in his high school class and yes, got a scholarship to Stanford but deserved it. He graduated from Stanford with a degree in communications, which is quite funny! But was working on his master’s when Seahawks drafted him.
While I agree that most football scholarships are disproportionately awarded, I think his was righteous. He does talk a lot but he also studies a lot so I think in his case he has a right to talk fairness.
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