Well, we really want to win.  We’ve got our starter jackets on and our team colors and we are tailgating our Sunday away for our home team.

Nobody likes a loser.

It is a ‘no pain, no gain,’ refrain.  T-E-A-M.

The NFL has concussion syndrome and we are conflicted because we want to be the wild card at least, or better yet, be in the bowl of supers.  Once again, the American sports machine collides head first with the idea of ethical conduct.  Our compass is so damaged we are unable to tell.

Choose.  Choose.  Choose.

Now look, you could have the thrill of victory today or the agony of memory disease defeat tomorrow.  Come on, it is a no brainer.  I mean of course to say, proceed with your swelled brain and scattered thoughts and before you know it you can be like Hansel and Gretel in your own home, dropping sunflower seeds  to find your bathroom.  

Beware of Mr. Ward with his slippery tongue, confused on loyalty and justness by his blindness for the machismo machine that for so long has given us mean joe’s and the curtains of steel where head on head contact and horse collars are penalized but celebrated.

Mr. Goodell, take a stand, forget the money, think of what is right, kind, safe and you will be a hero, a leader, an MVP among each and every pony leaguer and aspiring QB, RB, DB, OL, WR.  Put on your helmet Roger and take the hits necessary to change and evolve this culture of suck it up and lie it up and shoot it up.  Get out of the midfield and step around this minefield and be a revolutionary and renaissance man who above all protects and pads a man’s brain for after all, you should know, because of the brain, they are all the little engines that can. 

Stop playing the blind sided leader.  In this game, there is none.

If we are to improve, find our kindness, discontinue the tolerance of bad and dishonorable behavior, we are going to have to take out the earphones.  We are going to have to turn off our ipod.  We are fascinating, there collected in our huddles in our London fogs that our fathers wore with white wires dangling from our head.  We are on shuffle as we shuffle through and often unaware or disinterested in the one beside us.  They too, are often locked into their own personal jukebox.

We are losing our hearing and losing touch for one another during our moments when the possibility of hello and how are you presents.  The experience, critical and deeply human of ‘striking up a conversation,’ with a complete stranger, one unknown is more and more uncommon.  Many of us remain locked in our little, solid world with all the drapings of ‘ do not disturb.’

We are, in many ways a ‘ Do Not Disturb’ culture.  Possibly this results from the overly litigious nature of our society.  Possibly it results from the total consumption of our lives to the pace of being all to all.  Possibly it results from the fear that is daily driven into our consciousness from the tele and the papers. 

The Don’t Ask and Don’t Tell of American exchange.

Please, do ask.  Please, do tell.  For this, by this I will, we will be outside of ourselves and our personal electronic devices that have served to isolate us and shut the door of approach from another.

For one day, let all of us put down our cell phones, black berries, ipods, iphones, laptops.  Let us look up away from the screen or keypad and meet people, eye to eye, a smile and a hello; a how are you.

That, I say, would be the ultimate in ‘ CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW.’

What

is

wrong

with

us?

I

cry.

My

tears

of

blood

and

mercy

for

the

lost

and

confused,

the

dead

and

the

unliving.

They

break down

in their

minds

and

their brains

with

their

torn hearts

and

splattered, splintered

lives disconnected

and

unfelt,

strangled

in

their sickness of sorrow

and

numb

to the

violence

and

suffering

they

reek on

the ones

who

fall

in

their

madness,

bloodred

path.

It begins

as just

a day

like

any other

day.

maybe

sunny,

maybe

not

maybe

cold,

maybe

not

maybe

morning,

maybe

not

maybe

night,

maybe

not

maybe

at

work,

maybe

at

worship

maybe

sitting

at

a

desk

in

a

too

small

chair

learning

french

or

engineering

studying

the

bible

or

esl.

And then a strange face, a weapon released and that crack, fissure and fracture in the peace or stillness of that

last,

good,

safe

and

innocent

moment

before the world as once known to her pretty face or his marvelous smile is erased, eradicated forever.

While

all

of

us

die

just

a

bit,

fall

just

a

bit

piece

by

peace

toward

our

collective

sorrow

of

and

for

both

the

murdered

and

the

guilty.

So

deep

we

dig,

should

we

not

to

mine

what

so

sadly

has

happened

to

us

that

such

crimes

are

our

standard

fare

in

this,

the barbarian

carnival

of

our

times.

Perspective is essential to getting it right. Sometimes, I think we aim at the wrong target.
I would much prefer to greet my cereal box in the morning with my foggy get up and go and my fifty two year old feet still shuffling to the grind if Michael Phelps was on it. I’d be happy to see Michael.
Michael, Michael, go to Madonna’s camp and take that class on know who your friends are and be savvy and be smart and play a good hand of cards.
I’d take Michael any day with his follies of youth and experiment and happiness over the malevolence and narcissim of a character like John Yoo. There, he is in his Brooks Bros. suit and Christian Dior ties with cufflinks with his JY engraved while he was carving up the Geneva Convention and authorizing our collective barbarianism in how we played the game.

John, John didn’t you learn at that top tier law school you attended that it’s really all about how you conduct yourself on the way to the dance. It’s all about your grace under pressure and the skill of dignity and the power of the brain for negotiation and kindness and diplomacy. Didn’t you learn that the guy who wins the fight is the guy who doesn’t have to raise his fists but rather raises the bar for how we act, treat one another, give and receive.
John, John somehow you got so blinded by some God awful belief that it was your right to rewrite our rules that so very long ago defined and enabled our greatness.
Can’t you see how torture is never justified for it can never, ever be just?
Can’t you see where fear is not a good enough reason for falling below the bar of civility and decency, rightness?

Can’t you see how they didn’t talk and all we got was shame and the very worst kind of notoriety?
John, John can’t you see?
So, let’s keep our crimes and punishments in focus, balanced and reasonable and just. Some things are bad and some things are wrong. But some things are outrageous and profoundly destructive and rise to the level of distorting the core value and ethic of what is fundamentally right and wrong.
Pass me the Wheaties and put Michael back on the box and put John Yoo in the box where he belongs.