My father will die soon because of COVID-19 — which he never had

Thanks to COVID-19, along with the fact that Idahoans refuse to wear masks to protect themselves and others, my father will likely be dead within the next couple of weeks.
Conservatives whine that COVID cases may be overcounted, that perhaps the number of deaths is being inflated for unknown political reasons – a theory that makes sense only if you think medical professionals around the world are out to take down a president who is killing tens of thousands of Americans through his mishandling of the pandemic. But I am more concerned about the number of deaths that will never be connected to the virus, but which would never have occurred without the pandemic.
Deaths like my father’s, which hospice workers say is likely to occur within days. Yet Dad never contracted the virus, nor have any of his loved ones. Even so, assuming I make it in time, I’ll be suiting up in protective garb next week to say goodbye to the man who, more than any other, made me what I am today.
Dad has Alzheimer’s Disease, and he and my mother now live in separate rooms in a nursing home. Until a few weeks ago, Mom spent most of every day with her husband of 63 years. But then the facility apparently had some sort of COVID scare and residents were locked down, not just within the building but within their rooms. During the next couple of weeks, my father lost more than twenty pounds and the ability to stand, let alone to use the walker he had relied on for his multiple daily walks.
Unfortunately, Dad needed encouragement to eat, and sometimes had to be fed. My mother often took on those tasks, along with making sure he got all of his meds (sometimes he didn’t), and that he was toileted and cleaned in a timely manner (sometimes he wasn’t). Though the facility is rated well and seems ungodly expensive to me, it also always seemed to be poorly managed and understaffed, problems only worsened by the pandemic.
By the time Mom was able to get back to Dad’s side (having never been told why the strict lockdown occurred), he was bedridden. Before the lockdown, he sometimes mistook my mother for my sister, and confused their 50th anniversary photo with one of his own parents. After the lockdown he at first thought Mom was his brother. Only days later, Dad went under hospice care and soon will see his brother, who died more than twenty-five years ago.
Don’t get me wrong. Part of me is glad that my father’s suffering is nearly over. Having had a mother-in-law and some friends also go through dementia at the end of their lives even before my father’s experience, I wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone. But no one should be cheated out of their final days with a loved one simply because the United States happens to be the one industrialized nation in the world that is apparently incapable of dealing with a public health crisis.
And yes, my father’s death is one of those that will be easy for most people to discount. I have certainly told journalism students many times that some deaths are far more newsworthy than others. Dad was an outstanding teacher, coach, and school administrator who impacted the lives of untold thousands of people, but he was also an 83-year-old Alzheimer’s victim who had outlived many of his friends.
So, some might say, as an Alzheimer’s sufferer Dad could have died at any time. And that is absolutely true. But isn’t it also true of the rest of us? Especially in an age in which many Americans treat a deadly pandemic as a reason for political grandstanding, even if that grandstanding kills other people?

After yet another school shooting

The school shooter could have been me.

I was a 14-year-old freshman who had friends, close siblings, concerned teachers, and two parents who loved me. I played in the school band and was on the football team and the freshman basketball team. I read a lot, wrote bad poetry, and earned good grades.

I was also tall, skinny, and incredibly uncoordinated. I had acne and a slight speech impediment, which other boys ridiculed. Girls generally just ignored me. One older boy used to stomp my toes with his boots, while another would walk past me in the lunch line and hit the back of my head with his heavy class ring. Freshmen basketball practice started an hour or so after school, after the varsity team finished, and I sometimes spent the time in between school and practice hiding from kids who were threatened to beat me up, or worse. Sometimes I fought, though neither winning nor losing a fistfight seemed to resolve much. I never told my parents or teachers.

I grew up a in small town in Idaho, and I had easy access to guns. And maybe because I had a few friends, and was involved in sports and music, I never thought about bringing a gun to school. I fantasized about beating up bigger kids, not about shooting them. Like most 14-year-old boys, I assume, I fantasized more about girls who ignored me than about boys who bullied me. I was more likely to harm myself than someone else.

That year, for whatever reason, my body seemed to catch up with itself. As a sophomore, I became a starter on the football team and a regular on the varsity basketball team. I was tall and could make people laugh – with me, rather than at me. I graduated second in my class, and my classmates voted me “most likely to succeed.”

Today, my biggest regrets about my younger years have nothing to do with being bullied myself. What I regret are the times I failed to step in to defend someone who was being bullied. There are worse injuries than those that come from being punched in the face. And sometimes those who end up paying the biggest price are neither the bullies nor the bullied. I grieve for all involved.

Forty-five years later, I still can’t help but wonder what might have happened if things had been only slightly different in my case. If the social awkwardness and/or the bullying had continued. If I hadn’t had loving parents and friends and siblings and creative intellectual outlets. If I hadn’t become a star athlete and a good student. If I hadn’t lived in a small town where I watched little television and rarely went to movies, long before the invention of video games or the Internet. If I’d suffered a great loss of some sort.

I harbor no illusions that I’m morally or emotionally stronger than anyone else. Perhaps, under slightly different conditions, the school shooter could have been me.

My 9/11 story

On Sept. 11, 2001, the first day of a new school year at Whitworth, I was getting ready to teach my first freshman seminar about media & society when the attacks came. Whitworth gave faculty the option of cancelling classes, but I decided that having an afternoon forum for discussion would be good for my freshmen and me.
Like most Americans, I spent the morning following the events of 9/11 on both television and my computer. Yet I remained strangely unmoved — perhaps partly because of my former training and experience as a reporter, but even more, I think, because of the unreality of it all.
Part of my brain just couldn’t process the pictures of a jetliner full of people slamming into a massive tower full of people, let alone the pictures of those two giant towers crumbling to the ground. And maybe the numbness of shock explains my relative lack of emotion.
Yet as a media scholar I suspect that part of my brain recognized what people at the scene kept saying: “It’s like something out of a movie.” Yet in the movies, we had often seen the sound and visuals “done better” than what live television had to offer — more “realistic”-looking explosions, from multiple angles, with music helping tell our brains how to feel.
So, though I am not proud of the fact, on that morning I couldn’t seem to make myself feel the emotions that I thought I should. Frustrated with the media coverage and myself, I walked outside into a beautiful fall day, though a door near which an American flag already flew at half staff. At the base of the flag were bright yellow flowers, planted to greet returning students and their parents. And there, a bee flitted among the blossoms. I stood and watched that lone bee, a tiny creature unaware of the events that would forever change all of our lives, doing what it was born to do.
“Well,” I thought. “Life goes on.” And then, standing there alone in the middle of campus, away from the media deluge and 3,000 miles away from New York or Washington, D.C., I began to cry.
Those tears weren’t the last I shed tears related to 9/11 — those came a little while ago when I read this story aloud to my wife. Insects play a role in Adam Langer’s story, too, and my wife and I have outlived a couple of dogs that looked like the author’s.
We all are witnesses to things we cannot fathom. And sometimes inexplicably, life goes on.

Fear not about race or guns: a BEAFRAID solution

Photo from Twitter @OathKeeper101st

I have refrained from pretending to be someone of another race, at least since picking the losing side in childhood games of “cowboys and Indians” or envisioning myself as Bob Gibson while pitching in Little League baseball games. Still, that obviously can’t prevent me from commenting on issues of race or gender.  (Examples on race can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Examples relevant to gender here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

So, with the wisdom that is inevitably inherent to all white, middle-class, middle-aged American men, and after careful consideration of recent problems involving racial divisions and gun fights in America, I have managed to come up with an idea that is bound to please beleaguered African Americans and gun lovers throughout the nation.

Actually, I must credit the gun-toting, freedom-loving, birther/truther Oath Keepers for prompting the idea. You may have heard of the Oath Keepers because of their recent unwanted-by-law-enforcement incitement help in Ferguson, Missouri. As described by that liberal rag the Washington Post, “The men — all of them white and heavily armed — said they were in the area to protect someone who worked for the Web site Infowars.com, which is affiliated with talk-radio conspiracy theorist and self-described ‘thought criminal against Big Brother‘ Alex Jones.”

As the National Rifle Association has regularly reminded us, our problem isn’t too many guns; it’s too few. My modest proposal: a group of heavily armed African Americans who would show up at random events to make sure order is being kept. I’ve even come up with a name for the group: Blacks Exercising Armed, Free, Responsible, American Interventional Defense. That’s BEAFRAID, for short.

You’ll notice that I made sure to get the words, “free,” “responsible,” and “American” in the name to enhance the credibility and trustworthiness of the group.

The Oath Keepers have apparently been thinking along similar lines themselves, supposedly offering to arm 50 Ferguson African American protesters with AR-15 rifles. That’s a start, and at $800 or so each, a significant investment. I wonder if they’ll also provide the ammunition. Or if they’ll be able to find 50 black guys willing to openly pack firearms while surrounded by white guys with guns and badges.

Obviously we need to think bigger, with a permanent, heavily armed African American paramilitary force ready to step in wherever the potential for unrest exists. Just think of the places the presence of BEAFRAID could be useful. Some that come immediately to mind: Confederate Flag rallies, NRA meetings, the 2016 Republican National Convention, Rush Limbaugh’s next wedding.

A couple of potential problems come to mind. The first is money. But “life NRA member” Donald Trump is rich and always looking for a good cause or something that will bring him media attention. When his presidential run inevitably ends, perhaps he’ll help out. He may also want to buy the domain name beafraid.com.

The second potential problem is leadership. As a white, middle-class, middle-aged American man with great ideas and at least a couple of black friends, I would naturally be an excellent choice. Unfortunately, with a full-time gig as a professional corrupter of young minds, I don’t have time to do take this on. But I think Rachel Dolezal might be available. And she has her own guns.

Catching up: A brief social media summary

A couple of nice comments on my most recent post made me realize that it had been more than three months since I’d written anything for this blog. Twitter, Facebook, my classes and one letter to the editor about Baltimore protests have been my only outlets for commentary during that time.

I can’t recapture here what happened in classes, but thought it might be worth sharing a few highlights of what I’ve posted on social media. I’ll exclude my regular ranting about the ineptitude of the Seattle Mariners, and there’s no way to include my hundreds of witty or snarky or reflective comments; after all, I’ve posted more than 1,300 tweets since February. For those comments, you’ll need to friend me on Facebook and check out my Twitter feed.

Topics, in no particular order, have included:

The idiocy of John Thune complaining that a Supreme Court decision against the Affordable Care Act (a decision scheduled for this week or next) could cost 6 million people their health care subsidies, which helps show “why Obamacare is bad for the American people.” Of course, the subsidies would not exist without Obamacare, and are at risk now only because of a Republican lawsuit, King v. Burwell. And even Ted Cruz has signed up for Obamacare.

Related to health care, as many of us already knew, Americans pay more for worse care than some people elsewhere.

Evidence that American politics have shifted far to the right, even as the American people have not. The good news about that is that it makes it more difficult for Republicans to ever again win the presidency.

The unprecedented secrecy of the Obama administration (also here).

Evidence that the economy performs far better under Democrats than Republicans.

“Altruism pornography” via “The Briefcase“: Just because reality television and privileged Americans’  disdain for the poor haven’t quite hit bottom in a country that is become increasingly divided economically.

Doubts that allegations regarding the Clinton Foundation will amount to anything, though I also have concerns about the foundation and its donors.

Problems with journalism in regard to dying newspapers, how Facebook filters news, and Fox News viewers being LESS informed than people who watch no news.

Lies or hypocrisy by Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, in a fundraising email; Jeb Bush in talking about his brother’s rationale for the Iraq War; Ted Cruz over federal aid; Mike Huckabee over military service; Carly Fiorina about Chinese ingenuity; the State of Tennessee over a law making the Bible its official book; Idaho legislators worried about Sharia Law; the NRA restricting guns at its national convention; Cruz again about a variety of topics; Fox News over Benghazi.

In education, separating Wheaton (College) from the chaff (Dennis Hester), an arrogant professor, and the largely mythical idea that political correctness is scaring teachers. Plus God helping Ben Carson cheat in a chemistry class.

Craziness involving guns in Idaho, Texas, Hollywood (Vince Vaughn), an NRA seminar and the NRA’s national convention.

Race issues on Twitter and elsewhere on the World Wide Web, and new “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah.

The “American tradition” of rioting, the deadliest hate crime in U.S. history, LGBT equality and Republicans who favor it.

An old negative review of L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, along with the insanity of Paula Geller, who compared herself to Rosa Parks, and of a Playboy-posing veteran who wants to “protect” the American flag.

The stupidity of war as tied to patriotism and the end of the world by the end of this year.

Why Americans should slow down and take it easier. Huh; maybe that’s why I haven’t posted for so long until now.

So there’s a small sample of what I’ve been thinking and writing about. But I’ll try to make better use of the blog as the political season heats up.

 

Why I tweet

Drawing by Stuart McMillen

The title above is of course a variation on the title of one of my favorite essays, George Orwell‘s “Why I Write.” Joan Didion liked the title, too, borrowing it for one of her works.

“There’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space,” Didion wrote in a sentence that might have characterized social media at least as well as anything Orwell came up with. That is, assuming there’s any longer such a thing as “private space” — which brings us back to Orwell all over again.

Orwell’s best-known work is 1984, a book that may have killed him. Like many other great (and countless not-so-great) writers, Orwell “had always thrived on self-inflicted adversity,” and his death at age 46 came not via evil government agents, but via illness aggravated by trying to beat deadlines.

Orwell might also have argued that he was far from alone in his appreciation of adversity; as pointed out today in a Washington Post piece about an Orwell review of Mein Kampf, Hitler knew “that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene… they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades.” Considering the number of mindless Americans and ignorant politicians who now apparently favor getting involved in another ground war, Orwell obviously had a keen understanding of people.

At least since the 1985 arrival of Neil Postman‘s Amusing Ourselves to Death, one cannot meaningfully discuss 1984 without considering another dystopian view, that of Aldous Huxley‘s Brave New World. Postman, in the forward to his book (a forward so brilliant that it has been illustrated via a Stuart McMillen comic and a YouTube video), compares the two worlds.

He notes that in Brave New World “people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think,” and that the sheer amount of information would become so great that “we would be reduced to passivity and egoism” while “the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.” It may seem incredible that Huxley was writing before the arrival of television. At least as impressive is the fact that Postman wrote his book warning about “a trivial culture” before the arrival of the Internet or smart phones.

Few things exemplify this trivial culture better than the social media with which many of us spend much of our time. After I finish this blog post, I’ll post links to it on both Facebook and Twitter, where it will compete for attention with information about lying “news” anchors, war in the Middle East, Congressional inaction, vaccines, various health scares, funny cat videos and countless other messages.

I’ll post links on those social media sites despite the fact that I have regularly denigrated “anti-social media,” especially Twitter (also here, here, here, here and here). I have proclaimed that I would avoid Twitter, and for five years or so I did. But this past weekend — in what may prove to be the dumbest Sunday decision since the Seahawks failed to give Marshawn Lynch the ball at the end of the Super Bowl — I began tweeting at @JimBMcPherson.

“Why?” Three reasons: First, much of the news is being reported (and sometimes misreported) via various media organizations first via Twitter, so it relates to my job to my job as a journalism professor. Second, I found when I was making contacts for a recent off-campus study program that some media professionals probably would have been easier to reach via Twitter than they were through other means.

And finally; as I’ve managed to demonstrate here on my blog and on Facebook, I’m an egocentric fool who often thinks his thoughts about media and politics worth sharing. In that, I am like Orwell, who offered as his first reason for writing:

Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

Orwell offered three other reasons; I also agree with those (and will let you read them for yourself) before noting in his final paragraph, “All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy.” Perhaps so, though he adds, in conclusion:

One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.

My own writing may be driven primarily by ego. But for better or worse, what I write — even in 140 characters — rarely lacks a political purpose.

The VaGUYna Monologues

My Facebook feed this morning provided a link to a Washington Post opinion piece by Michelle Goldberg that laments the fact that “while digital media has amplified feminist voices, it has also extracted a steep psychic price. Women, urged to tell their stories, are being ferociously punished when they do.”

That punishment, for feminist women writers, regularly includes threats of rape and/or murder. Not surprisingly, much of the criticism they get is for how they look, rather than for their ideas. “Some,” Goldberg notes, “particularly women who have the audacity to criticize sexism in the video-game world — have been driven from their homes or forced to cancel public appearances. Fake ads soliciting rough sex have been placed in their names. And, of course, the Twitter harassment never stops.”

Many people seemingly can’t resist proving the very point they oppose, so about half of the first several Facebook comments simply reinforced — often with sexist, obnoxious language — the idea that many men can’t deal with feminism. (Many of those same guys seem incapable of coherent thoughts, let alone coherent sentences).

I then commented, “And… the comment parade of sexist male idiots has begun. Guys, you’re not helping.” The negative responses to my comment (tempered by many positive comments and more than 120 “likes,” thus far), were as predictable as they were pitiful. I’ve copied and pasted some if them below (as written, to avoid have to use “sic” repeatedly to signify that the error was in the original).

“James, have a vaGUYna much?” [Thanks for the title, Eric, though I’ll twist the meaning a bit below.]

“Who want’s to help anyway? Sexist feminists?”

“Go sit on the toilet when you pee, okay?”

“A tamed white knight appears.”

“I’m for women’s rights I just don’t like women whining about how tough it is. Really?! I thought you could roar? I guess not.”

“Most men do not spend a lot of time worrying about feminism, but when they do they realize that feminist extremists have taken feminism beyond reasonable expectations.”

“feminism makes women look like mentally unstable lesbians and you even have feminist leaders talking about a male holocaust… and these people who talked about the male holocaust teach their literature in gender studies classes…”

“‘Feminism’ is sponsored by the ones oppressing women. Boom” [Whatever the hell that means.]

“Go wear a burka, get a forced marriage and get some real problems.”

“These idiots over here that pass for strong women couldn’t handle a days hardship that most third world women have to face on a daily basis. These feminists first world problems pale in comparison to the real problems of women the world over.” Because apparently death threats aren’t “real problems” for

“Feminist be like ‘I got PTSD from someone disagreeing with me!!'”

“You assume all anti feminists are male. James, YOUR not helping you sexist male idiot.”

“feminist concept of a man helping women achieving social justice = ‘whatever you say is right my feminist goddess. I am ashamed of being a man and display natural manly behaviours.  I’ll be your personal dog and attack every primitive barbaric male who dares doing or saying something that bothers your highness, meanwhile losing touch with manly friendships, my masculinity and those women out there who are actually looking for a man, and not a castrated politically brainwashed creature.’ NO THANKS”

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t support equality, but I do know many people tired of benevolent (what these ‘guys who speak in support of equality’ are) sexism, as well as the malevolent sexism that is waning towards woman and increasing towards men.”

“Male feminists may actually be the worse, because in their benevolent sexism, they start threatening men and women who disagree with the constant demonization of men.”

“how can you say that being sexist makes you an idiot? are you the ideological fountain of the universe you male betrayer” For that one, I responded simply, “I said nothing about causation, Jimmy — simply pointing out what is in this case correlation.”

The comments directed at me, of course, are very mild compared to some of those aimed at women on both the Facebook page and on the article:

“If a threat has no bearing on reality then it doesnt matter what the threat is. Sorry, but you feminists are just so fragile. Words can’t hurt you.”[For the record, that comment did not come from Anthony Elonis.]

“Feminist writers only care about themselves and making money off of womens issues but don’t help women at all! Feminist have done more damage than good!  Look at the U.S. military they have allowed sexual assaults to go on for decades and have ignored it!” [And no, I can’t figure out what the last sentence had to do with either the first two sentences in the comment or the article.]

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” [But of course many of these folks think women should stay in the kitchen, except when they’re in the bedroom, shopping for groceries, or cleaning other rooms in the house.]

“They sound like quitters that can’t handle criticism. I have also noticed that a lot of what falls under feminism isn’t really feminism at all, but comes off more as a defensive, man-hating agenda.”

“Well, some feminist deserve it. The elitist ones, but the ones who genuinely want equality, dont deserve it” [Remember, this is about threats of rape and murder.]

“Here i thought the message of feminism was ‘look at how awesome and powerful i am sans men….’ but a few internet comments are giving them emotional distress?? Sounds like gas. Take some Maalox and deal with your actions, sweetheart.”

“….and they have only themselves to blame.” [Again, this is about threats of rape and murder.]

For me, one of the most noteworthy aspects of the attacks is that almost all of them come from men engaging in “mansplaining” — or what might justifiably be termed “VaGUYna monologues.” Speaking of women’s bodies, of course, most of those who make laws regarding abortion also are men.

Naturally some folks pointed out that many women also oppose what they understand to be feminism (and many oppose abortion, as well), while also arguing that men are also threatened. (Hey, I get that.)

But even if the abuse were anywhere close to equal, I fail to see how abuse of one group justifies abuse of another. And as for the argument about how “some women” feel, so what? Just as no feminist I know would argue that every man is evil, none would argue that women can’t also be ignorant. For example, here’s how “Jeanne” responded to my Facebook comment:

“Sad that I stood picket with my Mom at age 11, I am now 58, for equal pay at a factory where she worked. I wouldn’t wipe my butt on so-called feminists of today. Make me sick. Equal rights does not mean more rights. Grow up. Not all men are predators. Funny how loudly many of these women protest, however, I’ll wager most of them have read those abusive books, ’50 Shades of Gray,’ and are now either breathlessly watching the stupid movie or planning a ’50 Shades of Gray,’ party, or planning a ‘Girl’s’ night out to go see the crap. Shut up.”

First, while the abominable 50 Shades of Grey was weirdly popular, I suspect Jeanne would lose her bet about how many feminists chose to read/watch it. Second, there was nothing in the Post article or my comment asking for “more rights” vs. “equal rights.” Third, no one claimed that “all men are predators.” And finally, though “Mom” may have picketed for equal pay almost 50 years ago, she probably didn’t get it — despite the best efforts of feminists whom her daughter now denigrates.

 

The Stupor Bowl — enjoy it while you can

On Sunday I hope to see my favorite professional football team win a second consecutive Super Bowl. So it feels odd that a column on the front page of my local newspaper this week would have me considering when professional football will end up like boxing, another American sport that glamorizes brutality.

Say what? Pro football is the most popular sport in America, with both viewers and gamblers, while professional boxing now barely hangs on. The National Football League’s championship game typically is the most-watched television program of the year, which is why companies this year paid an average of $4.5 million for 30 seconds of advertising. (Though GoDaddy has made more money from ads it supposedly couldn’t run than from ads it could.) We take football far more seriously than we do a lot of other far more important topics.

In short, if football is dying, some might say, give me the disease.

And maybe I’m nuts. After all, I have suffered multiple concussions and take a bit of weird pride in the fact that I was once knocked unconscious in a college football practice (yes, practice) by a guy who is (at least for now) the head coach for the Cincinnati Bengals. But if I were a gambler, I’d bet that next year’s Super Bowl — the 50th — will be the high point for pro football before an inevitable downward slide.

Unless some prominent Republican politician’s kid gets killed on the gridiron, I don’t expect football’s decline to be sudden. There’s too much money involved — perhaps most importantly at the college level. As long as doddering alums will pay big bucks to relive their college days by cheering for nonstudent athletes clad (if only for a year or two before they go pro, get hurt or flunk out) in the alma mater’s colors, major universities will continue to pay football coaches far more than their presidents. And even if colleges start paying their players, the reason many of them play in college is for the chance to turn pro.

Still, the column by Los Angeles Times writer Bill Plaschke helps demonstrates why I believe pro football may be peaking in popularity. At some point we will have to come to terms with the fact that our favorite sport kills and maims too many people, most of them kids. There’s a reason that, as Plaschke points out, even “Iron Mike” Ditka wouldn’t let his own son play football today.

Like football today, boxing was once one of the top three sports in America for viewers and gamblers,  Aside from the corruption that came to characterize the sport, those of us old enough to remember Muhammad Ali battling Joe Frazier could no longer in good conscience watch the bloodshed — especially after seeing what the sport did to the wit and vocabulary of a man who could have been the rhetorical model for Richard Sherman. (Even as young sportscasters now emulate others who copied Howard Cosell, perhaps without knowing who Cosell was.)

We’ve now seen the corruption that football madness can engender, even at the high school level. It’s much worse in college, and of course this year has been a bad one for the NFL. People still have a somewhat favorable view of the league, but disgust or disinterest has set in for many. As scandals and awareness of the bloodshed both increase, people will find other entertainment options.

I don’t know what might replace football in popularity. I’d hope for baseball, but basketball is more likely. Mixed martial arts, soccer, golf and auto racing all have rabid fans, but not enough to convince the rest of us to buy expensive apparel and plan our weekends around events.

Maybe we’ll give politics or community affairs or education more attention. Perhaps we’ll read more. Maybe we’ll go back to actually engaging in activities ourselves, rather than simply watching others do so. But probably not, unless those activities involve some form of video gaming that we can do while drinking beer, eating pizza and burgers, betting big money, and yelling at the screen.

In the meantime, of course, most of us will keep watching football, rooting for laundry, hoping “our guys” crush the competition without anyone getting killed in the process. Go Hawks!

Eggs. Or Samuel, Utah and James.

I sat on a metal chair in a small room, chatting with James Garner. I remember thinking that the last time we’d met the chair was made of wood, and in a different corner of the room.

Garner was surprised when I mentioned the death of Utah Phillips, saying that they were friends and had eaten eggs together but that he hadn’t known about the other man’s passing. He asked about the cause of death, seemingly concerned about his own mortality, and I filled him in on the details.

Then my alarm went off, and I awoke, realizing instantly that I’d conflated details about Phillips with the life and death of Sam Day, Jr. And since Garner was also dead, I’d never be able to correct my error. Maybe they’re all friends now.

I got up and went to play basketball, forsaking sleep for exercise in hopes of outliving three men whose work I admired: one I knew, one I met only once, and one I never met but managed to mislead in a dream. And because I feel guilty about that, I promise that every word above is true.

Except the part about the eggs. Though I’ve tried, I can’t remember what James Garner said he ate with Utah Phillips. Still, eggs feels right.

What’s more American than stupid, dishonest Super Bowl advertising?

“What’s more American than America?” Bob Dylan asks in an ad for the Chrysler 200 that appeared during the Super Bowl (the ad is posted above).

The question is stupid — and in this case, largely irrelevant since in most years you can come closer to an “American car” with a Toyota than with a Chrysler. Last year’s Chrysler 200 was less than three-quarters “American.” The company itself is a wholly owned subsidiary of an Italian company, Fiat.

The Chrysler ad was also misleading in another way. You may have heard the line, “What Detroit created was a first, and became an inspiration to the rest of the world.” If the line refers to some specific type of car, such as Henry Ford’s revolutionary assembly line version, that line may be accurate — but the first two real automobiles were made in France and Germany (and the first American ones weren’t made in Detroit). The ad also shows a picture of an American freeway, followed by a sign for the German autobahn — which, in fact, inspired the American interstate highway system.

The Super Bowl must be a great place to sell cars: Besides the Chrysler ad, viewers saw commercials vehicles from Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Suburu, Volkswagen, Maserati and Jaguar.

Of course, the entire Chrysler ad fell short of what many of us would have expected of Dylan (though he had previously “sold out” to Cadillac and Victoria’s Secret). Designed to pull at the heartstrings like a campaign ad for Ronald Reagan, it was very similar to a Chrysler ad done by Clint Eastwood two years earlier. But it made me wonder how soon Dylan will stand alone on a stage, talking to a chair.

Coke did patriotism much better than Chrysler with its “America the Beautiful” ad. (Though the best Super Bowl ad of all was one apparently seen originally only in Georgia, for a personal injury lawyer.)

The Coke commercial also drew some criticism because of its use of multiple languages — which predictably offended Glenn Beck, some at Fox News, and other nitwits — and its portrayal of a gay family. The latter point is especially interesting, considering the fact that the words for the featured song were written by Katharine Lee Bates, a feminist who probably was a lesbian. Perhaps more surprising in regard to the Coke commercial is the reasoned liberal objection to the ad.

Incidentally, this was perhaps only the second time in decades that I’ve been more interested in the outcome of the game than in the advertising. As a longtime Seattle Seahawks fan, I was much happier with the result this year than when the Seahawks were robbed in 2006.

Next-day follow-up: Below is a video of Atlanta anchor Brenda Wood talking about the Coke ad.