Between Football and War
In today’s society sports play a huge role in many people’s lives. Kids are a lot more involved with sports and there is a lot more to offer to children these days then there was about 25 years ago. Children look forward to there games while there parents are even more excited and pleased to be watching there kids join a team and excel in athletics at a young age. Pro sports always being on TV and having the impact on people like they do today, which takes up a lot of time. On Sundays during the football season everyone is watch the NFL, whether it be the patriots or your favorite team. When the spring time roles around its nothing but the Red Sox. Men for the most part are the ones who need to be in front of the television watching the games and for the most part, on Sundays all they care about is football.
In this short story "Between Football and War," by Robert Scheer it inform us that there is something to perverse about a nation engrossed in football while the drums of war beat persistently in the background. Robert Scheer is a syndicated columnist who has spent more than three decades as a journalist, including five years in Vietnam as a correspondent during the war. He is also an author of several books. He wrote this essay, which appeared as a syndicated column in a number of American newspapers in January, 2003 to try to evaluate the effectiveness of the comparison he makes between the Americans attitude toward football and war.
The argument that essay try to get across to the readers is that you can’t just fit the invasion if Iraq between the super bowl and spring training. This is our country that is fighting and people aren’t taking it serious at all. This argument is directed toward people over the age of 18. People under 18 wouldn’t really understand about what is going on in the country and over in Iraq. At the age of 18 you should have a good understanding of what is going on because at this age you’re able to be drafted and could be chosen to be one of many to have to fight for our country.
The purpose of this argument is to inform people of the importance of what’s going on over in Iraq and to be aware that pro sports are the most important thing and you should be thinking about your country and what could happen to it and our troops. There is a lot of emotion shown in this argument by the writer. He makes it clear that he is very disappoint with the people of our country and is trying to prove a point to all Americans. Scheer is making a complaint that Americans are taking sports very seriously, but we pay little attention to the international politics, foreign affairs, rather than seriously rather than seriously and critically evaluating the consequence of these issues, we settle for far less. Unfortunately, for those of us sitting safely in the good seats, it can be a heck of a show, for them it’s a while different scene.
Despite the rampant use of war metaphors in sports, however, war is no game. The whistles are not blown in time, there are no penalties for unnecessary roughness and those risking their lives are never paid the big bucks.