The Washington Post is holding a competition, looking for “America’s Next Great Pundit”.  I entered it yesterday and thought I’d share my piece.  Fingers crossed.

In America, You Can’t Hit the Quarterback

Two of the National Football League’s most compelling stories are connected.  First, many have suggested that football’s repetitively violent collisions may lead to increased rates of dementia or other disabilities.  It’s easy to show steady growth in player mass and velocity; it follows mathematically that the force of each impact has also grown.  Second, the NFL has regularly expanded protections for one particular group of players: quarterbacks.  A simple on-the-field “roughing the passer” penalty has morphed into a complex and unpredictable off-the-field system of monetary fines for impermissibly touching a quarterback.

A causal link snaps tight in considering the timing of these stories.  The public is becoming aware of long-term effects of football on the human body.  It’s not hard to imagine that the players have at least intuitively known about these possible consequences.  It’s also easy to speculate that informed players have already lobbied the NFL for additional safeguards.

Why, though, would the league single out only one type of player for protection from the game’s unforgiving nature?  Maybe because the position is undeniably the most glamorous, high-profile, and marketable.  Quarterbacks are often paid more than teammates, especially if you consider endorsements and commercial opportunities.  They’re often considered to be smarter.  They’re often white.  The quarterback is an institution; other players are grist for the mill.

The true connection jumps out in viewing these stories against the grander game of capitalism and high finance – a game also widely accepted as being violent and unforgiving.  The nickel version of the current meltdown always comes back to a story of major financial players operating at least recklessly and our industry regulators acting at least negligently.  Millions of Americans have lost careers, forfeited homes, and slipped a standard of living.  Even in the wake of these cataclysmic events, it seems like there has been no significant impact for those quarterbacks of capitalism.  They’re somehow insulated from the dangers of playing.

Most of us are not so lucky.  We have a view from somewhere deep in the trenches.  We’re the linemen of the market, colliding every day, and fail to fully understand or contemplate the trend towards special treatment for our fellow players.  For a nation founded on equality, it’s disturbing that we could so easily accept a class of people exempted from the rules.

We’ve hit the stretch of the Alabama summer and my creativity has been forced to take a back seat to real-world considerations.  Plus, I haven’t found a lot of art-stuff happening in Birmingham that I’m dying to go to.  Here’s something to hold me over ’til a meal with bigger portions:

Float Away

I once painted
My idea of space:
Pinpoint stars
On a black canvas.

If you believe in
An infinite universe
With endless lights,
It’s no big leap
That there has to be,
Somewhere,
A place
You might float to
And see the exact view
I created.

But if you can’t commit
To ‘verses with
No boundaries,
The screaming improbability of
Our own view,
Is equally boggling.

Some ordinary days
Make me want to
Float somewhere and scream.

KitKats from Japan
(for Carmel)

If your friend visits Japan
And you warn her
That the long flight and
The jet lag and
The language barrier
Makes the trip
Not seem worth it,

Yet she brings back
Five different varieties of
KitKats
(Five!)
And mails them,
First class,
From Washington to Birmingham,

So they arrive
A little homesick,
Feverish, bruised, and melted,
Misshapen and malformed,
With their crunchy centers
Hugging each other tight
And shifted in the packaging,

You won’t know
Whether to cite
Their stressed condition
And obvious out-of-place-ness
As an easy metaphor
For why that uphill trip
Couldn’t possibly be worth it,

Or whether
Five different flavors of KitKats
(Five!)
Including apple vinegar
And green tea,
Strongly justify
Her trip.

But I know you’d be clueless
About how two of them will taste
Because you don’t read Japanese
(You can’t just google it, you know)
And you’d wonder if
You’re man enough
To eat the apple vinegar.