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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
#weaccept?<\/p>\n
What does that even mean? And what the hell does any of the blatant virtue signalling we saw last night have to do with sports?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I love sports. I love competition. In fact, I spent much of my young adult life swimming competitively. One of my favorite childhood memories is my Dad waking me to watch the Cincinnati Reds win the World Series in 1990. He served Skyline Chili and Barq\u2019s Root Beer at midnight my brother and sister and me, and it was the greatest. I still have my ratty old sweatshirt that says \u201cWire to Wire\u201d. I adore \u201cThe Big Game.\u201d Doesn\u2019t matter the sport or the season \u2013 I can get into anything competitive. I love Buckeye football and Orange basketball, but I don\u2019t even care if it\u2019s my team or not \u2013 I figure out a way to justifiably hate one of the teams (i.e., Tom Brady went to Michigan, I went to Ohio State, therefore I should automatically hate him).<\/p>\n
So,yes, I dig the Super Bowl. Food, alcohol, sports\u2026what\u2019s not to love? Last year, for Super Bowl 50, I was an unapologetic bandwagon Broncos fan, and I don\u2019t regret it for one second. I drank way too much champagne and vodka (that was a big whoops on Monday morning), declared my love for Peyton Manning, and dabbed. I even let my kid skip school two days later for the Official Victory Parade \u2013 mostly because I want him to have the fond memories of excellence in sports that I have from childhood.<\/p>\n
But this year’s Super Bowl? I was hate watching. I admit it. I knew it was going to be a hate-watch spectacle from the second the media focused on the friendship between Tom Brady and President Trump. I saw through the stupid fa\u00e7ade of President George H. W. Bush and Mrs. Barbara Bush flipping the coin in the thinly veiled attempt to make it \u201cbipartisan.\u201d But, literally two seconds later they have a commercial of lots of faces with \u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d in different languages.<\/p>\n
And so, brotherhood: (And sisterhood, since we\u2019re apparently amending the words to national songs now) What is happening here?<\/em><\/p>\n Here are the things we need to accept:<\/p>\n Or, am I just supposed to \u201caccept\u201d anyone who wants to live in The United States of America, even if it\u2019s illegally? Am I supposed to be teaching my children to accept anyone regardless of nationality or color? (Last time I checked, I already do this\u2026even though I\u2019m a (GASP) Republican. Like, literally card carrying. I get the robo-calls and everything). By the way, who funded the #weaccept commercial? So. Many. Questions. (I didn\u2019t know either—turns out that it was Airbnb, who have officially gotten their last dollar from me-Bark)<\/em><\/p>\n Tom Brady is a huge asshole. He\u2019s an asshole because he went to Michigan. Anyone who wears maize and blue is an automatic asshole. He\u2019s an asshole because he left his pregnant girlfriend for a supermodel. He\u2019s an asshole because he doesn\u2019t eat \u201cnightshades.\u201d This means he doesn\u2019t eat tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, or eggplants because they\u2019re not anti-inflammatory. Weird. If Peyton Manning eats chicken parm, Tom Brady should be okay with eating nightshades.<\/p>\n However, Tom Brady is NOT an asshole because he (maybe) voted for Donald Trump. We literally don\u2019t know if he did or not \u2013 he apparently keeps a \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d cap in his football locker \u2013 but, he hasn\u2019t discussed if he voted for Trump because he doesn\u2019t have to<\/em>. It\u2019s called privacy. In America, he is still entitled to this privacy—even if he is an asshole because he doesn\u2019t eat nightshades in his Michigan pajamas. It\u2019s just none of our freaking business. The fact that we are supposed to care about who Brady voted for is a weird narrative. Why is the media trying so hard to tell me what to care about?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the problem with Super Bowl LI. They want us to care about the things they want us to care about and they want us to \u201caccept.\u201d One could say that \u201cthey\u201d should have accepted the law of the land on approximately January 22, but apparently the marketing and advertising departments wanted to go a little wild this year. Forget funny \u2013 let\u2019s be controversial and teach life lessons<\/em>. \u201cThey\u201d want us to watch commercials and make illegal immigration okay. I\u2019m looking at you, 84 Lumber.<\/p>\n By the time the halftime show came around, I was entirely worked up\u2026but, Lady Gaga was (blessedly) vanilla. Apparently no one gave her the political memo—maybe she was super tired from her protests outside of Trump Tower. Or, hey, I\u2019ll give her the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe she actually cared about the fact that the Super Bowl is a time that Americans come together and she focused on, you know, performing. Who knows \u2013 this is a woman who wore a legitimate dress made of meat. I don\u2019t pretend to understand or know what she\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n I might be calming down a little.<\/p>\n Here are the things I learned from the Super Bowl this year:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Whew. Is it time for March Madness yet?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" #weaccept? What does that even mean? And what the hell does any of the blatant virtue signalling we saw last night have to do with sports?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[385,396,391],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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