Super Bowl Sunday had finally come and the Burghers and Cheese Heads were at last in those seats for the big one. How all of them got there was an Odessey that all but matched the challenges met by the respective teams. A Storm of Mothra proportions commandeered the resources of the Dallas Billionaires and everything North of North Texas. The once-in-fifty-years blizzard re-directed flights and exhausted travelers who arrived in Dallas/Fort Worth to streets treated -not with salt to deal with the ice and snow - but with sand...ah, Southerners. Green Bay and Pittsburgh alike deal with such conditions as just winter, and go on with the day. De-icing equipment passes over every flight leaving PIT, GRB,EWK and points north this time of year, and no big deal. Delays weren't about leaving cities to fly to DFW, but rather, to land there. By mid week, it was clear; this wasn't shaping up to be anybody's idea of a vacation. The work to get there nearly bested the fans who happily paid three grand for tickets. For Steeler Fans, it was not a year in which 7 had a clean path to Heaven. Lombardi went home to purify. To avoid being charged with a crime that would have forced the Roonies to cut him, Big Ben turned over the bulk of his salary for 2010 to Ed Garland. The Michael Vick experience was affirmed. #7 jereys burned. Vick has served his time and returned to the NFL to make the most of the 2nd chance he's earned. Ben was pummeled by TMZ for taking his Offensive Linemen to dinner - as they always do on Tuesdays, and closing out the evening at a karaoke bar. Geeze! Media can really hold a guy's feet to the fire, no? Big timer, Ed Garland negotiated a couple of incentive clauses to rep Ben's case down there in Georgia.
Option Ben's Super Bowl bonus / Milledgeville LawEnforcement off his case.
Media Glare
_________o_________
Back to Business
It's just business to the piranha drawing a paycheck in sports reporting. Sensation IS substance. Ben now undertakes the off-season of reflection on the responsibility of being 'the Man.' This jock made an idiot's choice to ride a vroom, vroom motorcycle built for the race track without a frickin' helmet! ABATE, an "activist" biker crowd succeeded in having the helmet law revoked in Pennsylvania.
Here's what I know:
Stars are "Bankable"
Prima Donnas are ballerinas.
Yet the ballerina, Tom Brady, won the MVP award.
Quarterback Gunslinger almost pulled it off but those subtle influences that weigh the scale
__In favor of one well-matched team /
over another___weren't on Ben's side.
It was the subtlety awaiting the Business Man, Ben. Deion and Marshall and Shannon entered the NFL Hall of Fame. Dermonte Dawson and the Bus didn't. There's this business arrangement known as a contract. Nothing about Dawson and Bettis mattered. It was that Steeler National Embarassment, Big Ben being a lowlife at a college bar in Georgia, trolling for action with a wing of off duty law enforcement sleaze pimping for him. An offseason civil lawsuit filed by a ski resort concierge to whom the guy's style was just too presumptive weighed them down as well. Nothing the reporters can quite put their finger on, just a missing ingredient that gives the trophy to the others.
Ok, the Steelers shouldn't get SEVEN Super Bowl Trophies before the rest of the league can even get One For The Thumb...we GET it. But, Ben, ... Mr. Rooney, ... your MAN'S WORLD game has made for a lot of really akward moments. I remember when the Media covered things like the incidence of Domestic Violence spiking on Super Bowl Sunday. The volatile combination of gambling, alcohol and football was observed to be a life-threatening one for some family members. A "google" of the claim turns up the astonishing and universally quoted Public Relations assertion that the whole thing's a myth. Whoah, Clydesdales! Does that mean it isn't happening, or that it isn't reported? Are folks having Super Bowl gatherings to provide outlets for energies that might otherwise go haywire? Or has the NFL succeeded in dismissing the notion of mahem off the field in the business interests of the owners? I'm not suggesting that gentlemen who own NFL Franchises have swept it under the rug, but rather, that the wholesomeness of the GAME is the money-maker to be protected. Early in the 2010 season, James Harrison was fined repeatedly for hits that went a jarring bit beyond the League's ability to sustain. They demonstrated a distaste for the brute hit and it showed in the play of the League's MVP defensive player, Polamalu. Once an "everywhere" "Out Of Nowhere" threat to quarterbacks, the playoffs reflected the HAIR, not the muscle. The Ad Men were about the "Pola Molecules" not the athletecism. I thought it looked as though the men in the striped shirts were keeping the rest of the League in the Game; penalties called on Steeler players eclipsed play in the games following Ben's return after a four game suspension. Coach Tomlin and the players who covered Ben's behind discreetly, but at a price, demonstrated the level of substance that the Business Interests of this country have the ability to communicate.
I won't go reactionary on the NFL here. I applaud their genuine business savvy. People benefit from stability. Crazy, negative focus on the dark side of people, such as that delivered by main stream media, has a tendency to diminish confidence. Work in Syndicated News Features Sales brought me into contact with the folks who "keep the doors open." I learned that the Business of News is supported by Advertising. Eight years of Clinton-bashing by the "Vast, Right Wing" conspiracy, followed by eight years of Bush-bashing conducted in the blogosphere and on TV confirmed for me that which I had discerned from the vibe I get from well-dressed women. If you don't have something positive to say; say nothing. Nobody "buys" opinions. Opinions appear on the EDITORIAL Page, where you'll find NO Advertising. That and the Front Page, are sacred common ground. There the rules are universal. Center. Balance. Equal Coverage. Tight and slightly "to the Right." It's just good business. Worried people don't buy. A buyer is one who manifests a "healthy discontent" with things as they are, and takes a calculated step toward improving the conditions of their respective lives. In considering the move, they plan, anticipate obstacles and incorporate all other factors influencing their life. Wholesale Change is poison to that balanced approach. "Throwing out the Baby with the bathwater" is never a wise man's game. Improving, not Overhauling, is the way to go.
An Editor can "influence" with the choice of headlines, photos and cutlines. But the Opinions are relegated to the inside first page. Who reads that? NOBODY!!! So, the back page and page 3 are the high-priced real-estate of the Newspaper Convention. Enter the Internet/Cable News. Perhaps it's time the Journalism Major, Sarah Palin, gets the call to restore the rules and the knowledge thereof to those
There!
I'm over myself. My anger, frustration and disapproval of ignorant, pushy Progressives is contained. I've been here. I know this game. It was the same challenge faced by the newspaper industry in the 70's when television Network News was overtaking daily newspapers. Space is premium. Items crystallized into tight quarters to maximize profits. Stories that conflicted with the business interests of the Advertisers found themselves buried in the throw-away sections of the "fish wrappers" - if they were published at all. Folks checked the Sports Page, looked at the Gossip and the Comics and after that, had little time for the day-to-day stuff. There, TV delivered. "Stories" were parsed according to a Good News / Bad News quotient for the 12 year-old mentality to which news is pitched.
Here, in my private moment, I share this culmination of years of "Observing Objectively." My choices have delivered me here, on my own door step, so to speak. I am "reading" myself, understanding where I go from here. I want to contribute, to be a respectable influence on my "universe." To achieve that, I must find a way to communicate my insight in a language and slant that a twelve year old can process. Becoming a multi-level processing unit has not been an easy task for me, but, here I am, Mother Mary. Back from the "Cleaners" with enough to recommend me to the Editors. My attempts to write for Children initiated twenty years ago get the call. Again. While JR was long-handing and outlining Harry Potter, I was skating the skreets, stretching my neck and EYES to make contact with myself in the mirror behind me. Cleaning Ladies: we have a job call. Let's grab all the tools our expertise has earned and start the economic recovery for ourselves. Last night's super bowl made it quite clear, it's not hard times for everybody. Our success is our business. We have always made our rules and so it is that we do today.
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