First, it was climate change and global warming denial. Now, we have someone arguing–under the?imprimatur of Fox News–that concussions in football are not really a threat to players. This birdbrain even has the nerve to question the science behind the legitimate worries of football players around the country.
Dylan Gwinn, in a piece published on FoxNews.com, begins his article by excoriating former San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland. Borland, you may recall, decided to quit the NFL after only one season because he said he feared being permanently disabled by concussions. ?But Gwinn wonders who gave Borland the permission to make a decision based on his health:
“Borland’s announcement was greeted by the anti-football sports media with the kind of frantic clapping one only hears in the seal enclosure at the aquarium during feeding time?a cacophony of crazy that borders on hero/idol worship.?But Chris Borland shouldn’t be a hero. He made a career choice. Millions do it every day, and none gets a parade.”
So a 24-year-old man who decides he doesn’t want to wind up as a vegetable and passes on making millions of dollars in potential salary isn’t a hero? Sounds to me like that would be the very definition of a hero.
Gwinn then proceeds in attempting–unsuccessfully–to pretend there is no evidence that the bone-shattering collisions found in football cause brain damage over time:
“Don’t look now, but concussions have become the new global warming: a debate where ‘consensus’ trumps evidence, and heroes and villains are determined by their stances on an issue where the science is bogus at worst and murky at best.?What we know for sure is that, as with the climate-change debate, the media will feed us nothing but a steady diet of fear and angst. And the facts that show football isn’t killing people will be an inconvenient truth.”
What I suspect is going on here is that Mr. Gwinn, who makes his living as a sports radio host, cannot stand to see the fatted calf he feeds upon being damaged in any manner whatsoever because that would cut into his bottom line. It’s a pattern we see often in America: People are making so much money off an activity that even if it’s harmful to others, we are told to tolerate it in the name of capitalism.
Sorry, but I gotta throw a penalty flag on that.
