Posts Tagged ‘billionaires’
Not Buying
Today, I am going to take great pleasure in not buying what the NFL and all of their corporate sponsors are selling. I have an undulating, on-again-off-again spectator relationship with America’s National Football League that started a little before the Minnesota Vikings first made it to the Super Bowl in 1969. Overall, I feel bad for what broadcasting the games on television has done to the sport, even though televised games have provided me with many benefits.
I’ve taken the good with the bad, but it has meant I’d rather stay home and watch than attend a game in person. While the athletes are standing around looking bored during commercial breaks, I can work on my jigsaw puzzle or entertain myself in other ways.
While still on my expedition to avoid news about the political disaster playing out, I saw a report that the NFL had chosen to remove an anti-racism message from the end zones of the field. That’s their prerogative. At one time, they chose to add such a message, and it is their right to stop or change it at any time. There is no requirement that they have to keep doing something forever after they have started.
However, the timing of this decision is something that triggered me and soured my opinion of the league once again. At a time of the kleptocrat-in-chief and all of the billionaires who support his bigoted money-grabbing ways wreaking havoc on society, I don’t want to catch myself chuckling at a creative multi-million dollar commercial during a broadcast on a network I abhor during a game that is hyped beyond reason to be the biggest thing the human race has ever accomplished.
I don’t want to buy the beer or pickup truck or sports gambling app or big pharma wonder drug or snack chips or energy drink or future crypto investment opportunity. I don’t want to know how many times the broadcast will insert a glimpse of Taylor Swift in a suite when Travis Kelce makes a big play.
I also hope to avoid learning which team’s fan base celebrations turn into a festival of drunken property damage.
In its place, I am going to snack on chips and salsa just because I still can. I am going to think about the people who are suffering in the world and gaining nothing from the money being exchanged by corporate advertisers, the NFL, and the FOX broadcast network.
Speaking of snacking, check out the job some critter did on this dead tree:
It munched holes through the snag!
That’s what I plan to do to a bag of tortilla chips later today.
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Distracted
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and all of a sudden
without any explanation at all
the focus of attention jumped
from the poorly arranged merchandise
on the side of the checkout queue
to the understated, but odd colored socks
on the ankles of a person next in line
making it all the easier
to ignore the attention grabbing headlines
of publications so unbelievably stupid
it pains a brain to comprehend
how a person could even read them
which doesn’t matter in the least
when the systems of the planet
keep spinning in tighter decline
and crimes of multiple kinds
flash by every day in headlines
billionaires burning bridges
in a quest for greater wealth
blindly assuming it will protect them
from the crashing global health
turning blessed life itself
into some kind of pyramid scheme
assuming what worked before
will pan out for them once again
and they will get their precious reward
before the inevitable collapse
eventually arrives right on time
bouquet in hand
staring
a sort of Mona Lisa smile
ready to clink drink glasses
and toast ill-gotten gains
that laid to waste all that remains
as attention jumps again
to the little fingers of a child
wrapped tightly around one digit
of a distracted adult hand
all hope and love glowing
in a face of youthful innocence
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Relative Something 