Choices and Consequences

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The National Football League 2015-16 season came to an end last night with Super Bowl 50.  I hadn’t noticed, but a friend pointed out, this was the first time they hadn’t used Roman Numerals in the name.  We all assume the NFL felt we were no longer smart enough to figure out what L meant, or perhaps in their thinking was L is not as impressive as 50.  After all, last year’s Super Bowl was XLIX and that my friends is a pretty impressive number!

This game pitted a post season #1 offense against the post season #1 defense and proved out the old adage: defense wins’ games.  Personally, I watched Denver and thought they would have a hard time containing Cam Newton.  Obviously that was not the case, as he spent most of the night behind the line of scrimmage running for his life. I also thought Payton Manning would have a tough time with Carolina’s defense but he did just enough; aided by some foolish defensive penalties.  So congratulations Broncos!

Each of these teams made conscious choices on how to approach the game, and the consequences of those choices became obvious within the first 100 commercials after kickoff.  Life is like the Super Bowl, except not with as many snacks and bathroom breaks in a short time.  We are constantly confronted with information from which we must decide and chose, from those come the consequences of our act.  This reality holds true whether you acknowledge it or not.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the on-going political debates and nightly opinion broadcasts referred to has the nightly news.  On the one side we have the two aging white candidates who are promising all the free stuff you can want, and fighting over who will provide the real free stuff and who will actually provide free stuff to wall street because they pay better.  On the other side there is a diverse group of candidates who are fighting over who will undo all the sins of the last eight years the fastest.  Among this group is one youngish (at least by democratic party standards) woman who ABC doesn’t like, or who doesn’t like ABC.

Speaking of ABC, who writes the questions for their moderators, surely it’s not the talking heads themselves is it?  Some of their lines of questioning reflected the questions I heard in the boy’s room in High School. 

David Muir:  Mr Trump did you hear what Ted Cruz said about you?  What do you think? (I paraphrase)

David Muir:  Dr. Carson did you know Ted Cruz sent messages about you in Iowa, what do you think he should do about it? (I am not paraphrasing)

Martha Raddatz:  Senator Cruz, people say you’re full of tough talk, would you preemptively bomb North Korea? 

I am sure they are all legitimate questions and ABC probably challenged the other party’s candidates just as firmly.  I believe that was the debate where Mr. Sander’s was tired of hearing about Ms. Clinton’s e-mails.

Finally, I have to admit to laughing at the “big guns” Ms. Clinton is rolling out to tell the American woman that if they don’t vote democratic based on their gender they are either going to hell or are boy crazy.  I wonder what the consequence of that little bit of theater will be?