Saturday 12 October 2013

Why I don't watch football, part 3: "FrontLine: League Of Denial"

Frontline has produced a brilliant documentary on the effects and prevalence of concussions amongst football players.  It's not limited to professionals as many belief.  It happens to college players, and to teenagers.

Players of all ages have died from CTE, or Chronic traumatic encephalopathy.  More than fifty brains of deceased NFL players have been examined, and well over forty were proven to have had CTE.  Many living former players are suffering from its effects: memory loss, mood swings, the inability to concentrate.  Many have turned to drug use, violence or suicide (e.g. Junior Seau).

The NFL owners knew about it all along.  And they chose to pretend it didn't exist.

Friday 11 October 2013

Hey, Japan: There's a reason that Germany has gotten past Nazism.

There's a reason that Germany has gotten past its dark era of Nazism.  The country came clean and purged itself, prosecuting criminals and making reparations.  It's easier to be forgiven when you're willing to admit fault and mistakes.

That's why Japan has never been truly forgiven for its past, the history of Japan's imperialism in the first half of the 20th century.  Japan has refused to come clean, refused to admit its mistakes.  Since World War II, Japan has had repeated incidents of historical revisionism in school textbooks, denials of atrocities (re: the Rape of Nanking), and worst of all, the organized and planned mass rape of women from across Asia, the misnomer of "comfort women".

Thursday 10 October 2013

Why I don't watch football, part 2: A player is bullied to death

Christian Adamek committed suicide after bullying...by the school principal.  After streaking through the school on a "dare", the principal sought inflated criminal charges against the teen.  Adamek would have been labelled a "sexual predator", the same as rapists and child molesters.