Football is a hard-hitting sport where frequent significant collisions can result in serious injury. New research found that 110 out of 111 former NFL players, based on samples from a Boston brain bank studying CTE, had evidence of brain disease. Although these samples were contributed mostly by family members wishing for the study into CTE, prompted by troubling symptoms before their relative’s death, the results prompt further investigation into the game’s injury risk.… [Read more]
The Biggest Hearts in the NFL
The past couple of seasons have made it tough to be a football fan, at least if you’ve got a conscience. Even the most ardent fans can’t ignore conclusive evidence of brain damage associated with playing the game. More than a handful of ex-players continue to refuse the NFL’s settlement offer. There were charges of domestic abuse.… [Read more]
Goodell Must Go
Maybe the naysayers don’t have it completely wrong. Maybe there is something to be said about the dangers of getting swept up in every gust of opinion that blows its way across the national stage. Perhaps it’s true that bowing to public pressure isn’t always the best course of action, and a mob mentality shouldn’t decide whether or not people should get to keep their jobs.… [Read more]
Bread and circuses
“The once athletic sport has degenerated into a contest that for brutality is little better than the gladiatorial combats in the arena in ancient Rome” Beaumont Express, 1904, when 18 US football players died on the playing field.
“I’m a big football fan but, I have to tell you, if I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football,” President Barack Obama, January, 2013.… [Read more]
Everything’s Bigger in Texas
Here across the 49th , and in all civilized democracies that abide by the rule of law, the presumption of innocence is our guarantee against the evils of arbitrary power. From Lord Edward Coke, the venerable English lawyer and advocate who first declared his King to be accountable to the law…and not the other way around: ‘Tis best to have 10 guilty men run free, than an innocent man convicted’.… [Read more]
I’m with ya, Bob Costas.
Let me start by saying I am not anti-gun.
My dad, my grandpa, my uncles, and my brothers are hunters; I grew up around guns. I even learned to shoot one when I was a kid.
I don’t believe in banning firearms or revoking our right to bear arms.
I do believe that there has to be firmer control over guns though.… [Read more]
Bad Call
It would take a controversial, outcome changing, and bungled call by a stand-in scab referee in the Seattle Seahawks-Green Bay Packers game to get even notorious public union buster Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisc.) tweeting in anger for professional football team owners to end their lockout and bring back competent unionized officiating. After all, it was something as vital as Monday Night Football, and not annoyingly coddled nurses, schoolteachers, and librarians minding our kids.… [Read more]