Where Did My NFL Go?

Leonard Little killed someone with his car while he was drunk. He now owns a $19.5 million contract in the NFL. Michael Vick killed dogs for sport, tried to smuggle drugs through airports and he is welcomed back in the fold of the NFL with open arms. A number of other felons enjoy generational riches in the NFL, yet fear mongers can keep Rush Limbaugh from being a minority owner of an NFL franchise because of his opinions?

I am not a Rush fan, don’t listen to his radio program, and rarely agree with his politics but the last time I checked this is America and we are allowed to express our opinions. When did the NFL decide killers are welcomed but opinionated people aren’t?

The fact that fear mongers such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can support killers yet rail against Rush for his opinions is only surpassed in scariness by the fact people accepted their stance.

This begs to ask important questions.

How soon until the NFL has no player standards and anyone regardless of criminal record can suit up and get paid millions? Can you see the future football version of “Murderer’s Row” as a new intimidation factor?

When does it become the norm in order to make athletic money standards and expectations must be met to enjoy such opportunity? Currently how are drug dealers and employed NFL convicted felons demonstrating role models any differently? Is this what the NFL wants as its legacy?

How soon until fear mongers create a societal expectation that we have to watch every word we say so as not to voice an opinion different than theirs? Oh wait, that day seems to have already arrived. Why are we accepting and in fact, supporting these wayward attitudes? It’s time to stop letting the fear mongers think and speak for us.

I don’t know about you but I want my NFL athletes to be felon-free, cheat-free and all NFL personnel to have the freedom to express themselves. We built this country on freedom and a system to penalize those who break the law. The NFL used to support those American ideals.

Once the NFL caters to fear mongers pressing their own agendas and shutting down the voice of those with different views, we no longer have the country we were when times were great, we have oppressive people pushing their agendas. How is this any different than how people were repressed in our history?

The fact is people in power will always want to oppress those with different opinions. The fact that the NFL is supporting such behavior tells me they no longer are a sports entity, but a political entity. I miss my NFL that was about playing football where felons and fear mongers were not welcomed.

Get Over Balloon Boy Distractions

The news channels are convinced a boy is in a balloon and give his story a cute name: Balloon boy. How much money was spent on recovery, and how much productivity was lost on people distracted by this non-event? Can we afford to waste millions of dollars stopping what we are doing to follow a story that has no impact on our society? It is sad our country is more focused on the lies in this story (boy in balloon) than on focusing on doing something about issues that are important. Get real people. The news channels need to be held accountable to deliver facts. The story was on CNN, MSNBC, Huffington Post, and probably more and it was all crap. Why do we tolerate such cavalier treatment of the facts? This is America acting like the United States of Panic and it is out of control.

What happened to knowing the facts before running a story? What happened to following a story of real interest to our economy and country? This story was nothing more than tabloid journalism creating a Bright Shiny Object to distract us, which we appear all too willing to do instead of focusing on the hard work we need to be focusing on to correct our declining economy and quality of life.

The media only cares about the shocking and the unusual. Why get sucked in? In this case it was nothing more than a renegade weather balloon without a kid even in it! Get a grip people. Focus on what is important and turn off the news channel terrorists and get back to creating a country we can be proud of. That means not being sucked into a story that was all hype and substance. Turn off the news, which anymore is anything but real news.