Nothing is.
Nor should it be.
I say that wistfully, after getting a glimpse of the upcoming Derby Day clash between my beloved Manchester United Red Devils and the powder blue faggots from Manchester City.
I am a lot of things, but I am not stupid.
If I was still a betting man, I would take City and parlay that they will put at least two in the back of the old potato sack, past the much-hyped, but highly overrated Onana.
This isn’t Nobby Stiles, Bobby Charlton, and George Best from United’s storied history.
Man were they something to see when they were in sync.
No, we have some great young talent, but the chemistry, or more accurately, the lack thereof, of this team endangers even the thought of Top Four; they will be extremely lucky, given their current form, to qualify for Europa at seasons’ end.
Living in England in the late sixties, we had to wait for an entire week after a Sunday NFL game to have the game reel flown to us, and it was a big deal to our little American high school. We often filled the school auditorium Sunday afternoons, after church to watch the NFL Game of the Week.
I remember seeing the Kansas City Chiefs and their exuberant coach Hall-of-Famer Hank Stram. I liked their fire-orange and red and white uniforms, but I remember thinking the new AFL league was a gimmick (kind of like the YFL today) and the team would soon disappear in history.
Now, they rule the NFL.
They are encroaching on the unpredictable Dallas Cowboys as America’s Team.
I used to chuckle to myself at old buzzards that would say, “it’s not like it used to be.”
I thought no shit, you old buzzard.
Now I am the old buzzard that sees his once safe, comfortable world morph into a sickening arena of hatred and divisiveness.
War never dissipates; it merely changes locations.
Today Ukraine, tomorrow Gaza.
Pick a country, any country, because it doesn’t matter where you are.
Nowhere and no one is safe anymore.
As safe as any country can feel, knowing your enemies possess the nuclear capability to start The End of Times.
We have always held the ultimate trump card when it comes to the possibility of a mutually-destructive war, and that was the assumption that life itself was mutually agreed upon to overrule total annihilation.
But what happens when an enemy, let’s say one with nuclear capabilities, or with access to nuclear weapons, say like a Hamas organization, for example, and let’s say they are friends and allies of say, Iran, a country always bragging about their shiny weapons of mass destruction, or even Kim Jong-un, that crazy bastard from North Korea. And let’s say they see annihilation as a step UP.
Then what?
One thing is for certain.
It’s not like it used to be.
Stay well.
