Salty Leftovers From the Super Bowl

Yesterday, in the kitchen at school, I happened upon an array of salty snacks in a very large bowl.  (I didn't hear anyone call it a super bowl though.)  Beside it was a sign inviting everyone to help themselves to the Super Bowl leftovers.  As others were doing, I gathered up a handful of wiener-sized "cheese curls" (these things have grown while I wasn't looking) and commented as I did so that this would be the extent of my involvement with the Super Bowl.  I seriously doubt that anyone within my hearing was particularly interested in that sentiment, but I said it anyway.  In the same vein, the following . . .

I'm not always a big fan of Bob Layne's column.  He is a retired Episcopal priest and community columnist for The Hutchinson News.  He really nailed something, however, that I referred to briefly in Sunday's post.  Layne calls the Superbowl mania "the yearly crowning of the masters of mayhem."   Here's a link to the column.

Layne has another great line:  "Remember, 'fan' is just short for 'fanatic.'"  He says this in the paragraph where he talks about the cost of tickets to the Superbowl game--$2,000-$3,000 each. Layne reminds us that the National Football League (NFL) enjoys tax-exempt status as a nonprofit organization.  Quote:  "That is absurd, if not criminal."  What is more, commercials dominate the TV broadcast of the game, generating phenomenal revenue on another front.  While often very clever and entertaining, some of the content "stinks" to people whose values do not run along Budweiser lines.  Art Linkletter said, as quoted by Layne:  "Television isn't a news medium, a sports medium, or even an entertainment medium; TV is simply and only a sales medium." Layne continues:  "Commercials rule, and those who hang on to every word are their obedient subjects.  The Super Bowl is their apex."   Also, this quote by Layne:  "The whole Bowl has become just another infomercial interspersed with enough gratuitous violence to keep the viewers'attention until the next commercial break."

Pharmaceutical drugs are often advertised during the Super Bowl, conveying the notion that life is greatly  improved when people ingest the right products.  Layne asks, "Is there any wonder our young people use drugs?  We tell them to, and then dramatically portray the wonderful benefits they can expect from popping a pill.  American pharmaceutical companies are the biggest drug pushers in the world."

Layne is also deeply distressed about the physical trauma--brain injury in particular--that is routine in football.  Average life expectancy for a veteran NFL player is 55.  Ongoing brain damage from concussions has, during most of the game's history, been ignored.  Memory loss occurs frequently after concussions.  Layne again: "Increasingly[,] watching two groups of professional brawlers bash and bruise one another's bodies and brains has lost any appeal."  He speculates that an increasing number of Americans feel like this, and football's twilight may be approaching.

At school, we just wrapped up a "Culture in America--2014" study.  Everyone there knows now, if they hadn't figured it out earlier, that sports is a huge part of American culture.  They also had a chance to evaluate how our culture compares to or contrasts with mainstream culture.  They gave some thought to Scriptural principles that should inform how we interact with culture.  And, by all appearances, many of them completely missed the point when it came to applying it to their own behavior.

When a traditional Sunday evening singing is canceled in favor of watching the Super Bowl, or when a singing shrinks to a fraction of its usual size because of the Super Bowl, it's obvious to me that we're very influenced by an aspect of popular culture that, in my opinion, has very little redeeming value.  I have not heard a single Scriptural principle cited in favor of this capitulation to popular culture.  I have not even heard recognition that Super Bowl mania constitutes capitulation.  What's obvious to an Episcopal priest should be obvious to all of us.  As is often the case, we're getting on board with the silliness just as those who've been on board for a long time are waking up and disassociating themselves from it.  This is embarrassing, at best.

The emperor has no clothes, and God bless Bob Layne for announcing it in appropriately salty language.