Quote Originally Posted by johnb View Post
Over the summer, much of the country decided it was fine to normalize and creep along next to the volcano. This was most obvious in regards to southern/Texan football, where stadiums were half full of yahoos not wearing face masks, where even Notre Dame fans rushed the field after a game (tho it shouldn’t be forgotten that their own college president got COVID after attending a public party without a mask, which is simply shameful—I’m amazed he’s still employed).

In much of the country, for much of the past 9 months, it’s been acceptable to jam together in public spaces, to get drunk in crowds, to fly over the Thanksgiving holiday (!!!), to get in each others’ faces and shout freedom (I’m looking at you, Dems and Republicans, antifa, BLM, and supremacists), but i still think the decision to play football was the single most obvious symbol of a damaged American priority. Sure, most people were careful, and Duke itself has been especially competent, but it’s a bit like a vaccine: a little more than half doesn’t cut it, and now the entire country is paying the price.

We made choices, and many of those choices seemed to prioritize amusements over core businesses, health, and the education of children.

Further, while we Americans like to see ourselves as world leaders, we’ve done very little from a policy standpoint to help the rest of the world. Yep, Big Pharma has created vaccines, and Big Medicine is doing what it can, but the football decision, to my mind, is the most public aspect of a simply catastrophic public response to the virus.

The possibility of a full basketball season went out the window in July, when we agreed to play football and try to fake our way through a pandemic. Worse, of course, is the reality that many of us won’t be around to watch the 2022 season.
AMEN!!