It has taken me a bit to think about the recent kafuffle over the Sportscentre show on TSN last Tuesday (19 February 2013) (thanks for the edit AP).  If you aren’t aware, the show was hosted by Gurdeep Ahluwalia and Nabil Karim. A couple of homeys from Toronto.

Now in the ethnic mosaic that is Toronto, running into people named Gurdeep or Sanjay, or Xul Li, or Dieter or Jorge or Ahmad or Olympia or Ndongo or any number of fantastic names found across the globe, is pretty high. It is the beauty of our country, the mosaic versus the melting pot.

Two Canadian of Indo-ancestry hosting our national sports desk…we have made the big time. I hope it will soon become a non-issue like two women hosting the show, or a Canadian of Chinese ancestry as the news anchor on the National…can’t wait for other “firsts” to become non-issues too! There were a lot of positive comments about the “breaking story”, but…

You would think that after over a century and a half of immigration, we would come to realise that our diversity makes us strong and makes us better.  Well, you’d hope.  And most of us do. But evidently not. Take a peek…

Reading those tweets, I had a throwback to my youth, growing up around Danforth and Greenwood Avenues in Toronto in the early 70s.  At that time the “Asian Wave” was hitting Toronto. (Mind you the first “Asian wave” hit British Columbia in the 19^th century during the Canadian National railway construction – flow interrupted by the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908 that effectively managed any immigration from China, Japan and India until officially struck from the books in 1947!)

When I was young, the tormentors were the more established Greek and Italian kids, whose families had arrived a decade or two earlier. Historically I guess they had their initiation back then too, probably at the hands of the Scots, the Irish and the English!

Looking back, the taunts and events were comical in some regards. I remember one of my many fights involving a remarkably dense duo of eleven year-olds (I was 10), spray-painting a wall in the alley way we called Craven Avenue. Their message, a deeply imaginative “Packie Go Home!”.  I, a stereotypical Indian kid – good at spelling and math – could not take the insult and stupidity in silence. Indignantly I thought, at least if you are going to insult us, get it right…it’s P-A-K-I as in Pakistan.  Not P-A-C-K-I-E for packing something!! (BTW wiktionary defines  “packie” as a package store in Massachusetts) .  I proceeded to correct their spelling in a rather

at least they spelled it right…

excited and agitated way, following with my own taunt of,  “What, are you ignorant or somethin’?”  I think the question was rhetorical, but I didn’t really know what that meant in Grade 4. Anyway, the beating ensued, and I wish I could say I won – but I didn’t. I was just a nerdy Indian kid who went home crying and bleeding.  No worries, it wasn’t something a samosa and a glass of chai while watching an episode of Batman couldn’t fix!

Why were they like that? I remember my Dad teaching us to show respect to everyone. Colour, shape, abilities or disabilities meant nothing – we are all human and deserve common respect. I also remember my Dad telling me to turn the other cheek – not a bad use of a Christian adage by a Sikh chappie. But I also remember my Dad, as a young father – younger than I am now – chasing some asshole teenagers who had insulted his family in the park with racial taunts. I can only imagine how unfair he felt it was. He was just a fellow looking to set up a better life, in a better place, for his family. What did colour have to do with it?  He was working hard, he contributed to society, he paid taxes, he liked hockey and maple syrup; he wore a toque and shovelled the snow from his driveway like all other Canadians. He drank Red Cap and Black Label. Why was he any less of a Canadian, with any less of a right to be there, simply because he had more melanin or came from another culture?

Why don’t they just fit in and adapt to our culture?

Holy shit are you kidding me?  How much more can Gurdeep and Nabil fit in than hosting Sportscentre and talking about jams and flushes and biscuits and all that other jargon the sports guys throw about.

Now I can be a joker at times and I like to crack what I think are the occasional witticisms.And yes,  I have from time to time made an off-colour joke that has gone deep into “non-politically correct” territory – always followed by an immediate apology. So I get it  – once in a while we get it wrong. And no matter how educated and enlightened we are, we always have baggage. Maybe we are intolerant of the ridiculously liberal, the hard right, the deeply religious, the creationist, the evolutionists, the gun lobby, the oil people, the granolas…or whatever cause or ideology that causes us angst.  And I am sure we have had a not so kind thought to ourselves – but I am sure that we had our say using our “inner voice” only.

But I can’t understand these guys – the 2013 equivalent of my Grade 4 spray-painting buddies. What were they you thinking?   Twitter?  Yeah, that won’t go viral. And once you have put yourself out there, I don’t care what you say or what you think – you are forever known as The Racist.  Apologise if you want – you ain’t getting that spray paint off the wall.

So, whether it was a joke or not, the words were tweeted; the sentiment was expressed for millions to see. Their close-mindedness about what makes a Canadian, and what being a Canadian is all about, was evidently clear. These will be the same kind of guys who complain that the immigrants are stealing their jobs, the janitorial ones or taxi ones or fast food – you know, the ones that they are just lining up to apply for (not) – or that the immigrants smell like ethnic food…I have heard it all  before.

“Why don’t they just go home?”…followed by “just kidding”.

I am hoping that we have moved on from 1970s Toronto. But you know what, in the end it doesn’t matter. Because, when all is said and done, the immigrants will suck it up and carry on. They have done it for a century or a half,  whether they were British or French or ex-Black Slaves or Ukrainians or Slavs or Scandinavians or Australians or Asians or Arabs or Africans or South Americans or Central Americans…and on and on and on.

And perhaps they will, like I did, enjoy a wry bit of irony later. My Dad told me he ran into one of my childhood tormentors a couple of years ago – life as a late night parking attendant was suiting him fine. Maybe he should have learned how to spell…

Later,

ASF

I agree…I am happy upright. Share the pain…

Reclining airplane seats are a terrible idea and should be banned. – Slate Magazine.

The not so Triumphant…

Unless you live in a Buddhist monastery, you probably couldn’t help seeing or hearing about the Cruise Ship TRIUMPH, and its slow limp back into harbour – a 2013 SS Minnow on a three-hour tour. The ship left port on 7 February – for what was supposed to be a four-day trip. And then the trip evidently turned to shit…

The ship lost all power after a generator fire wiped out its electrical system leaving it powerless. And though I still don’t understand how the toilets were affected by the electrical system (unless it has to do with water pressure) the ship became a cess pool.

That does bite. I understand that it would be most, most unpleasant. But I hardly think it is the end of the world.  I mean, add a couple thousand watts of hard rock and a few pyrotechnics and it would be an outdoor concert in any field. Heck, about 44 years ago kids would have slid on their bellies in the stuff.

I admit that I would be torqued if I had dropped a couple of grand on the Turd Boat…and that I had to camp out on the Poop Deck. I might look for a return on investment – like my money back, some compensation and a deal on the next cruise. Oh, wait.  That is what Carnival is offering. However, in the typical “sue-and-I can get-rich for-no-effort-whatsoever” reality that is the American Dream, the lawsuits are starting:

Cassie Terry, 25, of Brazoria County, Texas, filed a lawsuit today [15 February] in Miami federal court, calling the disabled Triumph cruise ship “a floating hell.” “Plaintiff was forced to endure unbearable and horrendous odors on the filthy and disabled vessel, and wade through human feces in order to reach food lines where the wait was counted in hours, only to receive rations of spoiled food,” according to the lawsuit… “Plaintiff was forced to subsist for days in a floating toilet, a floating Petri dish, a floating hell.” (http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/carnival-cruise-ship-hit-lawsuit-floating-hell/story?id=18509079)

Give me a break.

Disconcerting? Revolting? Traumatic? Sure. Life threatening? Seriously…

The  angst has been unreal; the words that were thrown about did a disservice to those across the globe who are really suffering. Ask the poor souls who are trying to survive in Syria, Darfur, Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen or Baluchistan for their thoughts on lining up two hours for food.  I wonder if they are considering lawsuits against their parents, or governments, or the arms industry. Too bad Jim “The Hammer” Shapiro wasn’t practicing law in the Third World – he’d get them a settlement.

Dadaab Refugee Camp Kenya

How did this small problem – compared to the countless of real tragedies involving hundreds and thousand of people – gain such prominence?

Simply.  The media did it.

The national media, from the good old CBC to CNN covered “the Disaster” – the ill-fated voyage of the QE Poo. CNN even devoted hours to it.  Especially near the end. Photogenic anchors with no journalist skill kept asking stupid and leading questions in the hunt for a story – disgruntled people to spew venom about the trip. All it got were gentle kudos from its interviewees about the crew and how hard they tried their best to keep people out of the “dumps” – perhaps it was the crew’s heightened sense of “doodie” (okay…sorry, enough of the scatological puns). And bravely, CNN tele-linked passengers with their loved ones at home – give me a break! They were on a cruise ship, safe if not sound…not in a radical compound with hoods over their heads fearing for their lives. Their families weren’t really expecting to hear from them anyway and who wanted to listen to those private phone calls anyway?

Seriously?…

The major story became the shared red bio-hazard bags…shared as in “do-you-have-a-spare-bag?” vice shared as in “…can-I-poop-in-your-bag?” whch was the CNN angle.  Even the potential voice of doom and suffering –  Dr Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical guru –  was hard pressed to come up with a shocking by line, admitting “that it was unlikely the passengers would experience widespread illness, despite deplorable conditions”. The eyewitness testimonials and the good doctor’s prognosis did not jive with the dramatic “Sheisse-Sturm” theme musik CNN was playing before the constant footage of the ship under tow. ”

And CNN and FOX and MNBC and CBC Newsworld and CTV News One were not any better.

Once upon a time I used to look at all these stations with awe using them to understand what was happening in the world. To follow major breaking news stories. CNN was a news leader at one point, just like Ted Turner wanted it to be. It’s coverage of world stories – German Unification, Gulf War I, 9/11, the Tsunami, the Japanese’s Earthquake, the Arab Spring are just a few events in a long list.

But somewhere over the 33 years since it started, it has changed.  Aside from the global game changers, which are easy to cover

Breaking News….

because they are global game changers, the all-news stations suffer. We aren’t interested. Unless something remarkable happens, they have nothing to do.  But bills have to be paid and advertisers want viewers. So the newsies have changed the way the biz’ is done. No longer a news reporter, the media has now become the newsmaker.  Small stories become big stories. And the incessant, repetitious reporting sensationalizes the trivial.  The constant loops of the same news cycle has them scrambling for new angles to report the same details. No longer is the aim for detailed investigative journalism that provides all the facts in a well presented package; the goal is to present the biggest bang in the shortest time.  And to keep it reporting it over and over until the next thing comes along.

And do they care if it is true?

Evidently not. Otherwise why would they broadcast hours of numbing repeat footage and useless interviews with so-called experts and dubious eye-witnesses.  And like watching a train wreck, we cannot help but stare.

Bad things are happening all over the world, and there are events and places that we should be staring at.  But we don’t.   The Fifth Estate made a disabled cruise ship into a major news story. And it will continue to do so. I can’t wait for the coverage of the litigation as Ms. Terry looks for compensation for her ordeal. Hope her filth encrusted, shrunken shoes fit so she can prove she was a victim.

It’ll make for riveting and entertaining TV. It should be on right after the Oscar Pistorious trial…

The white-out…aka The Squall

We were supposed to drive to Ottawa today, to have a nice reunion dinner with friends.  But as you are all aware, Eastern Canada – including sweet little Kingston – enjoyed a full dump from Old Man Winter’s icy bowels.  We had a nice deposit of 30 cm of snow over the past 24 hours. That pretty much choked our road network like an Occupy Wall Streeter hit with pepper spray.  The plows and sanders did an admirable job – most of the main arteries were passable – but I was required to bring out my best Swedish Snow Rally Driver skills as my little VW Golf churned through the piles of white stuff on our little side street. The Little-Car-That-Could did well.  But at the risk of being immodest, knowing how to drive in the snow helps too.

f**nuts, rhymes with duck-butts

It is obvious that not everyone in our stretch of the woods does. Now I won’t call the drivers that are on the road the same lovely pet name  used by The City of Vaughan…which I believe rhymes with “duck-butts”…but over the past two weekends I have noticed that many people drive like morons when facing snow. It was just last week that we were caught in a surprise squall 20 km west of Kingston (and that last 20 km took 45 minutes to travel!), and this week I took a brief spin on the 401 to see if a drive to Ottawa was worth it. From what I saw, it wasn’t.

All I can say is that some people have no right to call themselves Canadian, or drivers for that matter, based on their skills, their etiquette, or their common sense.

What is going through their brains? I do not know if they have some sort of invisible force field, or Star Trekkian deflector shield.  How do they develop the audacity and boldness to drive like that? Do they have some sense of invincibility, of immortality, because they are driving shiny SUVs? Or are they  exempted from the laws of physics.

Doubt it.

I just think they are duck-butts.

Unless there is a dying person involved, I can think of no circumstances that create such urgency that rushing quickly to any place is more important than staying alive. They must have some logic or rationale, because driving the way they do creates life or death situations.

It is stunning.

how the heck….

To be honest, they piss me off. In the end, I do not care if their vehicles end up in the ditch or kissed against a guard rail.  Again, I wish I was a perfect human being, but I am not. I have to admit that I enjoy that wee bit of schadenfreude when the driver who sped past you ends up in the snow bank (uninjured of course). Or gets a speeding ticket. You know the one that I mean. That guy with the halogen headlights on high beam that cause those retinal burns; the one that violently splashes icky yucky salty slush across your windshield (leaving you vision-less as your windshield wipers fought valiantly and frantically to restore sight), or creates that snow rooster tail that obscures the road. We have all met him.  Truthfully, once you know all is alright and no one is injured, who amongst us hasn’t smirked to ourselves, “How’s that Porsche Cayenne working for you now, Ducky?”

And honestly, I could care less if they are waylaid. But you know what? These same morons are the ones that create the accidents. Lane hopping, tailgating, quick braking, they create confusion and mayhem, that inevitably ended up creating collision chain reactions.

By relying solely on their daytime running lights  they are invisible…duh…half the battle in not getting hit is taking action to be seen. Don’t people know that most rear vehicle lights are not on during the day? Turn-the-lights-on in bad lighting conditions!

And as the Classic Rock radio guy commented today…”What the hell, people?” There is a foot of snow on the ground. It is not August. You can’t go roaring around at 80 km per hour, and then expect to stop in 10 metres. You-are-going-to-slide!

Regardless of the energy you try to impart on your brakes – à la Fred Flintstone – the equation for momentum, P=Mass x Velocity, means that your car will keep moving when you are screaming for it to stop. Force=Mass x Acceleration, will decide how much of the car in front of you will be destroyed as you plough into it. The physics is easy…either you start driving around on a roller skate with no mass, or you slow the “duck” down.

And use your brain. To see snow physics in action – your hysterics will be twinged with incredulity, and at some stage in the video, just plain pity for their errors and consequences – check out the Utah drivers at this link… Snow Turns Utah Drivers Into Morons Too (Editorial Amendment – this video is a little more scary… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RK0x20SJVY )

Still from the Utah Drivers…

That is in town. What about those highway drivers?

Their lack of snow plow etiquette is staggering . Yes they go slow. But they make the road safe. Let them do their job; follow them and take the cleared, sanded road. Why do people drag race them? The plow  will win the ensuing collision. An empty snow plow weighs 60,000 lbs and is armed with a 12 foot steel wing plow that can push tons and tons of snow. The average car weighs 4,000 lbs. I betcha it’ll just toss that car aside like an Emo kid brushing aside their bangs.

The Plows will always win!

And, I also heard someone say that it took over 6 hours to get from Kingston to Brockville  – a distance of 83km. (I admit, it was second-hand, from the radio announcer who knows a guy who knew a guy who had a Timmy’s coffee with that couple who apparently took 6 hours).  They were waylaid by the accidents, the snow ploughs, the closed-off sections, and the

Near Montreal…

white-outs…I can believe it. They must be living in a cave where there is no internet, or TV, or radio. Do you not have the Weather Channel so you can check the conditions when you drive? Oh yeah, the roads are bad, but man, I just need to get there …or my car can handle it…or I have snow tires…or I could do it. Maybe you can, but what about your fellow travellers?

People are so optimistic about car travel. We’ll get there.

Jeez…when do you give up and get a hotel room, grab a case of beer and hunker down eating a pizza watching Pay-per-view?  Or dig into your Facebook contacts list and refresh that acquaintance with your Grade Six BFF who lives in Gananoque?

And I would love to know how many of them have an emergency kit in their car. Oh right, their car coat and Esso ball cap will keep them warm in sub-zero temps. (If you need a steer on what to pack in your car for those unavoidable winter trips, check out Winsconsin’s link here…How to Make a Winter Car Survival Kit

I know friends who safely made the drive down from Ottawa today. At one point I was fairly confident in my ability to navigate the 401 and 416 to Ottawa. But as we moved down Highway 401 from our house to the West end of town (12 kilometres) to do some errands, both m y wife and I Iooked at the nasty and brutal end results of two spinouts and one multi-car collision. The vehicles were The Invincibles– pick-ups, SUVs and mini-vans. And I know that they are all safe and sturdy vehicles that if driven with care can get you anywhere.  Great vehicles really that should not crash with proper care. The only variable was the duck-butts who were driving them.

Multi-car accident north of Toronto.

And that, in the end, the thought of sharing the slippery roads with people like that was enough to make me stay at home.  So we stayed home, all stress-free, and dug out the movies (and watched the Leafs pot 6 goals against the Canadiens – sorry I couldn’t resist).

It’s winter. If you have to drive, drive safe. If you don’t have to drive, crack a bottle and enjoy being warm and cozy – and safe.

Later,
ASF

I am writing this while watching Super Bowl 47 (or EX-EL-VEE-AYE-AYE if you prefer), so my thought streams might be a little more convoluted than usual.  Add in the stupefying pre-game show, I am unable to concentrate well as I am caught up in the high tech, sternum-thumping music and sensory overload that psyches us up for the game to come. All I can say is, “Wow”… do the Americans ever go big!

Is it me or is the Super Bowl way more than a sports event; I feel like a 21st century Titus or Maximus preparing to watch full-blown Roman theatre.  Based on the hype and pageantry,  I keep expecting to see Joaquin Phoenix lower his thumbs as the vanquished gladiators prepare to retreat from the field of battle – a panem et circenses sort of thing. (Sorry, still justifying that Grade 11 Latin class). I guess that is why it is XLVII instead of 47!

I am convinced the Super Bowl is fantastical. It is no longer a game – it is a Major Event (note the caps). It is a  stunning (not like “holy cow” stunning… more like a “taser” stunning), mesmerizing festivity that keeps us hooked with the promising potential of a  “train-wreck”.

Really, who even cares who is playing? Maybe fans of the two teams (who are the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers, if you care).  As for me, I‘ll just root for whoever loses the coin toss – I love the underdog! (By the way,  in keeping with the sheer extravaganza, did you notice the coin toss also included a laudatory speech from the Referee…reminding us how America provides great opportunity for anyone who is willing to work hard… or has a spare $124,707, 285 to payroll a NFL team).

The game is one thing, but if you ask me, most could really care less about who is playing or who will win.  I betcha that most of us are hypnotised by the prospect of gorging on gluttonous volumes of food and gallons of alcohol.  According to msn.com, the stats are staggering – we will consume 51.7 million cases of beer, 6.2 million pounds of nachos (that is a mere 3 million kg for my Euro friends…), 2 million pounds of chips (crisps, old boy…) and who knows what else. After the binge, I am sure all of us will look like NFL linemen on Monday…

The Super Bowl is simply an excuse to party; a chance to enjoy our first post-Christmas celebration.  Think about it; it has been a proverbial 40 days and 40 nights of roaming the wilderness since our last festival of merry-making. And it is so friggin’ cold and cheerless, that we need something vaguely positive event to justify our want to drink ourselves into forgetting it is only February and Punxsutawney Phil or Wireton Willy has seen his shadow… SO why not drink like a bunch of honey-badgers?!

“But. but, but…” say the football purists among you.  This is really about celebrating American Football!

You sure about that?

I will admit that the Super Bowl is more modestly named than the major league baseball finals, humbly dubbed “The World Series” (in what atlas are the continental United States and Toronto featured as the World? – what about Japan or Korea and Cuba?).  No one pretends that the Vince Lomabrdi trophy is a World Trophy (though it probably has more right to do so than baseball’s).  Football takes the moral high ground and posts for the simple and plain adjective, “Super” (and funnily enough the trophy is not a bowl either, not like the CFL’s Grey Bowl).  I am surprised that the game is not called the Most Fantastic Marvellous Tremendous and Terrific Bowl of the United States of America. “Super”, in comparison seems quite sedate.

But how Super is it?

Well, a 60 minute game is tightly jammed into a closely choreographed 5 hour-long spectacle, showcasing all that emotion, glitz and “over-the-toppedness” that only the US of A can generate. It is a showcase…and why not? It is watched by 11o million people worldwide. I think that is roughly the same size as the seating capacity of New Orleans’ Mercedes-Benz Superdome (Mercedes-Benz? Is that even American?)

I admit that the spectacle started poignantly, with a Celebration of America…Jennifer Hudson and the Sandy Hook Childrens’ Choir. And though that was a touching moment. that made me think back to the horror and how resilient kids are/ With a nice version of America the Beautiful, I couldn’t help but think of the subliminal and manipulative message it heralded: children who have experienced horrific gun violence singing with an adult who has also suffered through gun violence. A tribute to America or an indictment of the Gun Culture? I am not sure that was all about the pigskin…

And then it moved to Alicia Keys…a great artist for sure. But her stylised US anthem, “a 45 rpm song delivered at 33 rpm”, must have frustrated everyone. Those waiting for the game and those ad execs who were robbed  of an extra ten 30-second commercial spots. And what about her ad-lib at the end? Why don’t our singers do that on Hockey Night in Canada? Oh wait, our singers  know they and the anthem are merely foreplay; get it over with, let’s get to the main event!

So now, 35 minutes after flipping on the TV – the TV guide did say “Super Bowl XLVII @ 1800” – and the game has just started…and now at 1838 hours, it has been an exciting three minutes of football – two plays!

And then on the 39th minute, CBS created the commercial. Lots of them.

Now Super Bowl commercials are legendary and there have been some very good ones over the years. But then again, they should be good at $3.8 million per 30 second spot (that equals $456 million/hour – or  I am guessing, about one minute’s interest on the US national debt).  But I am pretty sure that the Super Bowl advertising revenues subsidise all the CBS Executives’ annual Christmas bonuses. Why else would there be a commercial break every 12o seconds?!  How do you keep up our interest with such a choppy game flow? How do they possibly hope to stoke my competitive fire? Or is it a conspiracy to keep me drinking more Anheuser-Busch and scarfing down Chili Heat Doritos.

Anyway if you care, at the half Baltimore has bitch-slapped San Francisco. It has that disappointing feel of another Super Bowl blow out…

So now, I am sitting here having watched two hours of commercials and a bit of football waiting impatiently for the Halftime Extravaganza – Beyoncé…in all her Bootyliscious glory. Now if you have not been tracking Beyoncé – I have to ask why not? (Kidding.)  Seriously,unless you have been stuck under a rock for the last two weeks, you have to know that she is still reeling from that Inauguration scandal – LipSynchgate! The question asked ridiculously often the past week has been “Will she sing live, or will she pull a Brittany?” It was big news on the major news channels.  Guess that civil war in Syria was just too dull.

And because I was not going to make the under-over spread on the game now that Baltimore is kicking ass, I checked NFL.com for the stats to get a reasonable betting line on the Halftime Show.  I found that for Super Bowls played in February in the Southeastern US, where one of the teams is named for a Bird, or if one team’s uniform has gold as a supporting colour, the odds of a lip-synch performance by an act of two or more performers was 83%. Gambling on an NFL trifecta of “lip-synch, wardrobe malfunction and arrest of a starting linebacker for a concealed weapon”, the payout would have been 3800 to 1.  Mind you, those are the odds is in the pre-NFC/AFC unification era – today’s odds might have been less. Unfortunately I could not get that bet into Sports Line before the 6pm deadline.  For once I wished there was a British bookie shop nearby; that bet would have been a nice pairing with my betting stub on whether the Queen would wear Lime Green during the Royal Jubilee Flottilla or whether the new Royal Baby will have 11 toes…

Anyway, all I can say for the half time show, and the much vaunted togetherness of Destiny’s Child, is that after all the hullabaloo, Beyoncé should have lip-synched. It was no Janet Jackson…

And so we move to the last half. Looks like it is might be boring…oh wait, the lights have just gone out. Seriously? Well half of them anyway.  Jeez, why didn’t I put money on that? Wearing my tin-foil hat, I am thinking that SanFran may have paid off some the Mercedes-Benz staff  to turn the lights out – maybe they are hoping for the game to be called off on account of “dark”.  Or maybe it was just good old Mercedes-Benz engineering and a German-manufactured switching transformer blew; don’t worry they can get the parts at the nearest dealer…on Monday!

And so the minutes tick by…and during the glorious 31 minute delay…I witnessed the best of American Sports Journalism. (Okay, I sat and watched it…Loser)  Interviews with the sideline crew, replays of the first half low-lights, detailed analysis on Beyoncé’s “dress”, and explanations on why the Forty-Niners still haven’t showed up for the game. 31 minutes to figure out the lights…amazing that the most technologically savvy country in the world, the one that is the envy of the undeveloped world in terms of infrastructure and wealth, can’t figure out how to play football with only half the lights on.  Anyway, in the stadium there was still enough light for every kid in Africa to read a bedtime story; just not enough for a professional football player to catch a ball. Did these guys never play sports in the dark as kids? Maybe they should have asked all the fans to turn on their cell phones and turn them around – it worked for the half time show. Ummmm….sorry, was that my internal voice?

….Sorry, I was transfixed for the second half. Who knew a power outage would kick start a 49er? Okay the game is over; it turned into a good game. 34-29 for Baltimore…and San Francisco made a game of it.  After 5 hours and 10 minutes of  TV coverage – or 60 minutes of game play –  EX-EL-VEE-EYE-EYE is over.  I hope that I am not the only one who watched it all!

But is it really over?  Wait, here comes the onslaught of post-game analysis. Baltimore will be applauded for their effort and SanFran will be consoled for their bad luck and misfortune;  Beyoncé will be heralded as a great entertainer, and everyone will comment on the ocean of tears shed for brave kids from Sandy Hook.

And for one more year, the Super Bowl will have served its purpose of rejuvenating the Stars and Stripes and reinvigorating America’s love for manufactured goods, food and alcohol.  And for a brief evening I forgot it was the middle of a cold, snowy winter…regardless of the score.  Perhaps like the Roman theatre, maybe that is what it is was all about in the first place. The Super Bowl,  just like the panem et circenses, cures everything.

Can’t wait for EX-EL-VEE-AYE-AYE-AYE!

Later,

ASF