Bill Maher comments on the decline of baseball, and the vigorous insurgent success of football:
” . . . football is built on an economic model of fairness and opportunity, and baseball is built on a model where the rich almost always win and the poor usually have no chance. You have to be a rich [team] just to play. The Super Bowl is like Tila Tequila. Anyone can get in.
Or to put it another way, football is more like the Democratic philosophy . . . That’s why the NFL runs itself in a way that would fit nicely on Glenn Beck’s chalkboard – they literally share the wealth, through salary caps and revenue sharing – TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it 32 ways. Because they don’t want anyone to fall too far behind. That’s why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call “punishing success.”
It’s from one of his recent New Rules segments. (I don’t have HBO so I never get to see his show, but do manage bits of it online)
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
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I watched him Friday – it’s pretty funny.. a five minute sit-down with Michael Steele, who’s actually pretty good without the gaffes. And he’s very likable, and you gotta love his teflon-style towards criticism. Naw, naw, naw, brotha.. can’t look at it like that..
Apart from that – the best statement was the G-Rep. from Georgia, the one who said evolution is BS, but he also said this: “science must be off the table.” (in regards to climate change and other things). The panel in shock – he elaborated. “You see, science is so political”. Bill quipped back at an instant; “the only science that’s political is the one that is funded by the oil industry”. Huge applause.
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Unbelievable! We actually have people like that in our Congress. Egad.
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I prefer the George Carlin take on football and baseball.
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