| I must admit, I usually work on finishing my piece for the Hues on Sundays, i.e., just in time to meet the "drop-dead" deadline -- no doubt a legacy that lingers from my days as a graduate student! I like to work on my piece on Sunday mornings to also take advantage of the perspectives of the "talking-heads" on the Sunday morning news shows. However, the real reason why I try to get this done before noon is because this piece MUST be completed in time for me to watch the kick-off for the Packers game! Recent maneuverings by powerful football and media interests have had the net affect of moving the telecasts of all of my favorite games from "free" television to private networks wreaking untold havoc on my sports routine! As I reflected on this debacle I couldn't help but think about my favorite African proverb "when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers!" Now don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for the Pachyderms as a species of animals. Most of them are civil and wonderful beasts. There is, however, a rogue elephant breed that can be very dangerous. With all of the maneuvering and spin control done by the various parties concerned, it is very hard for "Joe Six Pack" (aka, the average sports fan) to ascertain who is at fault and thereby responsible for invoking such misery and pain on those dedicated fans who have now become the dispossessed. Despite all of the obfuscation, it is abundantly clear that the "grass" that is suffering in this situation is the masses of the people who can no longer watch "the game" or who now find themselves paying a huge new premium to have the Dish installed. I tried valiantly to join this latter group but was told this past Friday by the Dish installers, who, I might add, have been shipped in all the way from Missouri to meet the teeming demand, that our residence didn't have the proper wiring for such an installation. Bah humbug! Transforming the proverb into a metaphor, the question must be asked, just who are the "rogue elephants" responsible for wreaking havoc and trampling upon the lowly grasses? There is the NFL Herd of Elephants who occupy and roam freely over all of the entire Serengeti. There is also the Big Ten Herd of Elephants who roam the vast Upper Midwest regions of the Serengeti. There are also a lot of media "elephants" running rampant across the Serengeti. There is the Charter Cable Herd and the Dish Network Herd. All of these elephants have one thing in common; they want to consume as much as they can as quickly as possible. They also share the fact that none of them want to take responsibility or blame for the pain that they have inflicted across the land. Both the NFL and Big Ten Elephants have attempted to place the blame on the Cable Elephants accusing them of failing to accept their "reasonable" offer for compensation. Big Cable, in turn has pointed the finger at the greedy professional and college football elephants saying that they are holding out because they will only sign a deal if the football packages are added to everyone's cable subscriber's account instead to a limited, by request only "sports tier." Just who are the winners nd losers in all of this? It is quite obvious that the biggest winners are the NFL and the Big Ten Conference. Those elephants will get roundly fattened no matter what transpires! The Dish Network Elephants, owned by the rogue elephant Ruppert Murdock who brought us the Fox Television network, and who, by the way, also owns a big share of the stock in the Big Ten Network, also stands to gain from the misery and pain. Who are the losers? Aside from the grasses, it appears that the cable companies are now losing their customers in record numbers so much so that one must speculate how much longer it will be before the Board of Directors and shareholders will call for the CEO's (Chief Elephant Officer) removal. As to the question of accountability for those responsible for gaining these huge profits at the expense of the masses, the spin meisters for the NFL Commissioner, Big Ten Commissioner and the Chancellor of our local University (who is on his way out to pasture) have assured all that their elephants have truly been working on behalf of the grasses proclaiming that, with the profits, they will fund scholarships for poor and minority elephants. They have assured all that the "trampling" of the grasses is a required "tilling of the soils" and that, the grasses are further enriched and fertilized by the urine and the dung that has been discharged by the elephants thereby enabling the grasses to grow! For those of you who live in the other parts of the Serengeti, stay tuned (that is, if you currently don't have the Dish!) and hold on to your wallets as you prepare for more of the same from the Herds that roam in the SEC, ACC, PAC 10 and NHL. |
| The Literary Divide/Dr. Paul Barrows Famous African proverb: "When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers!" |
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