It is scandalous. It is hypocritical.
While Canadians hype themselves as being tolerant, humane, gentle and polite people, the opposite happens in ice hockey, bandied and glorified as Canada’s national sport. It spurts blood!
The Wikipedia says violence has been with ice hockey since the 1900. It also says that in 1904 alone four players were killed. It didn’t say died. It said killed! While talks bubble inside and outside the National Hockey League, extreme violence continues today and on national television at that. Fans love it and the fans are Canadians.
Studies based on actual cases have shown how the rough and tumble players conduct themselves during the games have resulted into injuries that often have long term effects, if not felt while they are in their youth sooner the same injuries would come to debilitate them in their older years.
Within its world, sex scandals in form of abuse and exploitation, drugs and lost souls hound its muscular psyche. If you follow the news on Graham Michael James, Sheldon Kennedy, Theoren Fleury, etc., you would know what I mean. And these are the ones we know because these people came out in the open like a gaping wound of the professional hockey world.
Just like during the time of the Caesars in Imperial Rome, blood sports were used to entertain and divert the attention of the Romans away from day-to-day problems. Human gladiators, usually captives from wars that Rome launched against far off kingdoms, were forced to combat hungry lions, or other equally fierce gladiators, in the arena.
Some say, gladiator combat was not of Roman origin but copied by them from vanquished lands. Regardless where it came from such barbarism has become a Roman trademark, and irony for an empire that touted itself to be the central of civilization of its time. An irony shared by Canada as it promotes the barbaric in ice hockey even by just supporting and tolerating it.
And if this violence continues at this level in hockey sports we might as well legalize cockfighting and dog fighting, that way we would be fair to both humans and animals. Meanwhile, let’s move on to another place and to another story.
In the Philippines, the Supreme Court just handed a unanimous decision favoring the distribution to farmer beneficiaries the land covering Hacienda Luisita, known to be the largest hacienda in Asia, owned by the Cojuangcos of Tarlac. It was the current President’s mother, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, who put Luisita under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. Applying the CARP law to Luisita, however, never became a reality. Now a decision is made but how it would be implemented is another story.
If the late President Cory Aquino was sincere in her inclusion of Hacienda Luisita in the country’s agrarian reform and if her son, the current president Noynoy Cojuangco Aquino is true to his words that he is a pro- poor and a just president, the SC decision to distribute the 4,916 hectares to the farmers must be done, pronto. By doing so Noynoy Aquino will go down in history not only as a president who follows up on his words but as a scion of the wealthy and the powerful who defies the interest of his own clan. In short he would be another Aquino hero.
If he does this, he will also prove to all that his going after Chief Justice Renato Corona is not a personal vendetta but an attempt to restore decency, honesty, and integrity not only in the justice system but the entire Philippine government. This is an opportunity that Aquino should not miss. Will he, personally, and his family be poorer by doing so? Yes, but who is the rich man? Let me share this story:
One day a wealthy father took his son on a trip to the country so that the son could see how the poor lived.
They spent a day and a night at the farm of a very poor family. When they got back from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?” “Very good, Dad!”
“Did you see how poor people can be?”
“Yeah!” “And what did you learn?”
The son answered, “I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden; they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the house; they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard; they have the whole horizon.
” When the little boy was finished, the father was speechless. His son then added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are!”