Pen-Elayne on the Web

Lizard Brain Nation

It's somewhat facile to compare international sports competition to geopolitics, but sometimes it can't be helped, particularly when egged on by overly jingoistic, biased announcers. The main achievement of the US soccer football team in today's World Cup game was to drag the Italian team down to their level of unprofessionalism and violence (thereby eking out a draw thanks to an Italian own-goal), when the Italians aren't by nature a lizard-brained team. Almost none of the clubs are. But under the current administration we're now the Lizard Brain Nation, where the TV sports presenters conflate physicality with violence (every football game is physical, but the sport isn't meant to be violent) and it's all in how much one can get away with before being called on unsportsmanlike conduct by the referees - at which point their entire story becomes how it's the ref's fault for catching the player cheating. Sound familiar? I mean, Abu Ghraib and Haditha and Gitmo and Enron and all of it would be just fine if citizens and government watchdogs would just stop doing their job and let the people in power continue getting away with cheating! It's obviously everyone's fault but "ours." How utterly immature. This mentality belongs in a sandbox, not a football field. And certainly not in the halls of government.