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Seau Apparent Suicide Could be Watershed NFL Event
Regarding newspaper troubles, yes, it is a shame that we are going to lose well-funded investigative reporting. Reporters may have to transform into "cyber-monks," devoted to truth and spreading it, and gratefully accepting a bowl of rice from grateful recipients. On the other hand, newspapers could be transformed, but they remain incalcitrant, unwilling to adapt, blind to the possibilities of new media mixed with old, clinging to the the old model of paternalism. Today's "media consumer" shies away from being told, even, increasingly, the merely sensational. They want (and should have) easy and quick access, not only to the latest in "if it bleeds, it leads," but follow-through and history. The newspapers who clutch their archives behind "paywalls" defy their mission to be a true Fourth Estate. They cry that they can't make enough money, when there is vastly MORE money out there to be made--just not in the way they insist upon retaining despite the evidence. Re: dbauder May 4, 5:14 p.m.— May 4, 2012 7:15 p.m.
Seau Apparent Suicide Could be Watershed NFL Event
"The young," especially children and adolescents (including those of advanced age) tend not to "wake up" in the face of evidence; denial always lurks in the culturally-suppressed mind, and is a convenient, if fallacious, hedge against reality, especially under peer-pressure. I don't know why I continue to be astounded at the number of adults who would rather be told what is real than to decide for themselves. "The young" need to know that their elders who can think "have their backs." Example rather than instruction, but close to it. It's an art to know when hold back and when to put the cards on the table. Example: Don't waste your life with cards at all. As Joaquin's father would say, "Get off your butt and get out there and DO something." Preferably that which is really IN YOU to do. Re: dbauder May 4, 5:27 p.m.— May 4, 2012 7:04 p.m.
Seau Apparent Suicide Could be Watershed NFL Event
Actual hero-worship "sucks" at all levels, as does any kind of mere mere worship. Heroism does not. Sports "heroes," in the vernacular, are men and women who have set a good example for the rest of us; they are more than mere "notables," who are infamous for their substandard conduct, which can set the wrong kind of example for the rest of us, especially the impressionable young . . . Re: conanthequasilibertarian May 4, 3:44 p.m. Re: dbauder May 4, 5:57 p.m.— May 4, 2012 6:51 p.m.
Seau Apparent Suicide Could be Watershed NFL Event
I resemble that remark! Possibly those with brain damage suffer more than a hundredfold. How much more is perhaps not as important as whether or not one suffers needlessly. Re: dbauder May 4, 5:10 p.m.— May 4, 2012 6:44 p.m.
Only in Hillcrest
A friend of mine who worked at University Hospital knew of a case of a couple of a certain culture with a low tolerance for sexual oddities who came in for fertility work. They found that the "woman" had testicles inside while outwardly "she" had all the right female equipment, so to speak. They decided to simply tell the couple that they were sorry, but there was nothing that could be done rather than to risk breaking up a happy marriage. They decided to lie to let sleeping dogs lie. Maybe Oliver should be Olivia? But really, why remove them? What else are Frenchies prone to?— May 4, 2012 3:43 p.m.
Seau Apparent Suicide Could be Watershed NFL Event
Heh, heh. Yeah, very funny. People are better informed because they are more widely connected. The Internet, including Wikipedia (not entirely full of errors at least), and other small steps amongst the absurd are growing, slowly, perhaps, but when the critical mass is reached and exponential explosion of greater proportions will render the old ways to the dustbin, irrelevant. With any luck and a lot of determination, the babies will not be thrown out with the bathwater. Re: dbauder May 4, 8:03 a.m.— May 4, 2012 1:21 p.m.
Seau Apparent Suicide Could be Watershed NFL Event
Maybe the physical damage to Seau's brain can provide evidence that the chaplain can use to resign in protest--if he needs any further evidence. Incredible irony, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, such are some of the elements of the atmosphere that Seau had to tolerate in life. When death has become the only solution, we all are complicit. Re: dbauder May 4, 7:12 a.m.— May 4, 2012 1:15 p.m.
Seau Apparent Suicide Could be Watershed NFL Event
Yes, Don, as P. T. Barnum was fond of saying, "People WANT to be humbugged." But this is exactly why the likes of you and Seau give of themselves--so that others have an alternative, a direction in which to grow. Let me tell you this. I have some inkling of what Seau was going through; mental illness is a horrifying thing. Actually having one's brain doing things that one's conscious self does not want it to do is scary enough that the fear feeds on itself--the depths of depression are not something someone who hasn't been there can understand at all. One knows that one's brain is out of control. No one knows exactly what causes depression, but some hints can be gleaned from experience. In my experience, it has been exceptional people, not "common" people who spiral into the depths; Junior is not the only one. Intelligent and caring people tend to become depressed; they feel trapped and isolated. And they are. The culture which insists upon repression of the finest, most full-of-potential minds creates that kind of milieu, where actual stupidity rules and the bright, the perceptive are ignored--life becomes a dark dungeon of the mind, and it eventually becomes intolerable. Millicent Lee walked into the sea . . . Re: dbauder May 4, 11:46 a.m.— May 4, 2012 1:09 p.m.
Seau Apparent Suicide Could be Watershed NFL Event
Even in the nadir of his depression, Seau was thinking of others; in taking his gift to us (his gifted self), he intentionally made his last gift his very brain. That's about as loving and heroic as one can get. What do we owe our heroes? We owe them respect, and we owe them devotion. We owe them maximum energy toward understanding the part of them that they leave behind, their legacy. Seau's legacy demands that his fellow sports "heroes" act heroically, not infamously infantile. Seau stood out as an example for young manhood in the process of becoming, an example of what "character" really is. It isn't football or any other sport per se that young people should embrace, but the principles of maturity and social conscience that Seau exemplified. Junior was victimized, pounded for profits, made the means for the ends of others largely or entirely lacking in character, maturity, manhood--as John Gardner put it ". . . the regrettable burdens of a free society." Will "we" have a sports stand down? Naw, we ain't got the character for it. But will we gain from what Seau sacrificed himself for? A few, perhaps many, but not all. But that's the way it always is--the few lead the many. Be one of the former.— May 4, 2012 12:51 p.m.
Ripples from Walden Pond
My mentor says that Thoreau spent one night in jail and that his aunt bailed him out the next day. Was Thoreau all that he's thorown up to us?— May 3, 2012 9:01 p.m.