Thursday, October 29, 2009

The End of the NFL?

No, it's not very likely, at least in my lifetime, but who knows? I happened to catch some CNN on an airport TV while waiting for a delayed flight yesterday, and saw some coverage of (congressional?) hearings on concussions in football. CNN is a bit behind, as usual, because it ran this as 'breaking news' when these studies have been ongoing for a while, and Mr. Tipping Point wrote a very interesting article about it in the New Yorker recently.

Is watching tackle football really akin to dogfighting though? Not so sure about that conclusion. But I do know that while most societies consider themselves to be civilized, eventually some future culture looks back at certain aspects of said society and thinks, "those barbarians! how could they live in a world where _____ passed as entertainment! I'm glad we're more enlightened than they were back then." Is tackle football going to fill in that blank one day?