I've been trying to get my head around the mystery during much of the week. On the football field Ben faces only 11 hostile opponents at a time, each of them weighing 200-300 pounds, and he wears a helmet for protection. In traffic he faces an endless stream of vehicles that may not be out to get him, but weigh an average of a ton apiece for the passenger vehicles; but he wore no helmet while riding a motorcycle that could reach speeds of 180 mph.
There have been a lot of great jokes about the incident this week. I've enjoyed most of what I read on The Carbolic Smoke Ball, especially this post and this one.
A friend sent me this picture of "The New Ben Roethlisberger."
All these pictures and and jokes are attempts to deal with our annoyance, or perhaps it could be said more bluntly, our anger that a person who matters so much to so many would take such risks with his own well-being.
Dave Walker (a blogger for whom the term "Big Ben" has a very different meaning) in his Cartoon Blog has a very helpful and thoughtful note today about Online Anger. It is worth reading.
2 comments:
I know myself all week long I kept trying to grasp why we people in cars have to wear seat belts and people on a motorcycle don't have to wear a helment. In all it was a sad event, and I think the thing most people over look is that if you get down to it people in cars have no respect for people on bikes. they pull out in front of you, they don't pay attention enough to see a bike, and this I know because about 5 years ago I was a avid back seat rider myself and I know what I experienced by being on the back of a motorcycle and I know in turn what it did to me. It made me never get on one again. To many people have no respect for bikers point blank....
You would think that a professional footballer would know better, but today’s news story of the Steelers’ quarterback being involved in a motor bike crash, and receiving serious facial injuries because he wasn’t wearing a helmet, just proves how ‘essert’ human beings can be. (Essert is an old Scottish word which means stubborn, stupid and ornery rolled into one). In this case, the footballer, who wears helmet protection on the sports field, opted to express his freedom by not wearing a safety helmet whilst riding his super-charged motor bike. Evidently, he felt that his independent thinking was more important to him than the head which carries all of those precious free will thoughts. I would hope that after this experience, he’ll be wearing a helmet both on and off the field of play.
Post a Comment