Shootings, suicides and stereotypes

A friend of mine was talking to me about college football recently and he had an interesting idea.

"We should bring back the tie," he said.

I told him this was a crazy idea and invoked one of my favorite postgame quotes, "You play to win the game." Someone wins, someone loses. This is how we've set it up. We had ties, we decided we didn't like them and, at least in college football, set up some sort of quasi-football-like structure that kind of resembles football but not really to determine a winner.

"But soccer has ties," he continued.

Yeah, but no one likes ties in soccer either. And no one likes settling championship matches with a shootout, but at least we get a winner out of it.

"Yeah, but sometimes in life things are just equal," he went on.

This is true, but sports aren't life. They're artificial scenarios we've created and since we've created them, we want a winner and a loser. So I'm firmly anti-tie, both in sports and the neck variety.

On to the links:

Arthur Bremer shot Gov. George Wallace to be famous.

 This happened before I was born, so other than knowing Wallace was shot, I hadn't thought much about it. The author finds out the gun used in the shooting is for sale and from there takes on a journey through Bremer's life. 

 

Scott Weiland's Family: 'Don't Glorify This Tragedy'

 The ex-wife of the Stone Temple Pilots singer makes a plea to all of us to not glorify the tragedy of his death, but to take the time to do something for kids who may not have a parent there for them.

Let's choose to make this the first time we don't glorify this tragedy with talk of rock and roll and the demons that, by the way, don't have to come with it. Skip the depressing T-shirt with 1967-2015 on it – use the money to take a kid to a ballgame or out for ice cream.

Stop  Immediately Linking Violence to the Perpetrator's Beliefs - Islamic, Christian or Other

People are complicated. I'm not sure I can tell you why I decided to drink a Cherry Coke instead of Dr Pepper the other day. There are simply too many factors that motivate humans. And we're not robots, so what motivates me one day might not motivate me the next. And that's for me. I can't begin to try to explain what motivates someone else to act in their everyday life, let alone when they do something horrific. So let's stop with the simplistic answers to complex problems. We're better than that. 

In an unrelated note, I need to read happier things. Sorry for the depressing set of links today.