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inikamoze.diaryland.com
august 18, 2025

My colleague, a brilliant young French lecturer named Patricia, came by tonight with her apparently world famous tuna bake. Afterwards we popped open a bottle of wine and held a lengthy discussion of the farcical idea of the "role model" in today's society. It pains me to see the men and women of the education profession preach to empty heads, while professional athletes collect ungodly amounts of money to infect children with their televised thuggery. I am completely at a loss to understand how this country lives its collective life so devoid of culture. I mean, if 100 adults between the age of 20 and 35 were polled, at least half of them wouldn't be able to tell you who their state representative is, but every damned one of them could quote a line from the "Super Bowl Shuffle."

Patricia told me that a friend of hers from her days at UNLV called to tell her that he would be taking a leave of absence from his job as a police officer to compete on a new game show called "American Gladiators," in which men and women compete against an overly fit posse of enforcers in various physical activities. The person who wins goes on to the next round, until a seasonal champion is named. This is the sort of thing I can get behind. I took some classics courses as an undergrad, and have always been fascinated by the idea of the gladiator. These were the movie stars of their time, larger-than-life beings who were worshipped by the adoring crowd, even though the fought for their life. To see this concept sanitized and revitalized in the 20th century is, to me, far more appropriate than having men in pads and helmets get thousands of dollars to run into each other. Call me overly feminine, but I just really dislike football.

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