Friday, February 5, 2016

The Human Cost of Super Bowl 50

I'm not usually a fan of Fox Sports, but this is a really good  article about how San Francisco has driven the homeless from their "homes" to present a better city image for Super Bowl 50.  On one hand, I've become a Carolina Panther fan while living here in NC.  I've been an underdog throughout my life, and have a tendency to root for the underdogs I see.  That's what the Panthers always seemed to be.  Here's why I became a Panthers fan.  Years ago I was watching a game, it was third and fifteen, Panthers ball.  They RAN IT, and converted.  Next series it was third and 17, they RAN IT, and converted.  Next series it was third and 15 again.  They ran it, and converted.  I thought, "OK, I can root for this team."  Any team who can pound away like that has my respect.  So I want the Panthers to win the Super Bowl to finish off this amazing season.

But there's another part of me that knows how ridiculous huge events like the Super Bowl are.  I heard on the news that San Jose, Santa Clara, and San Francisco are spending $50 million on this football game.  Obviously, there are a lot of other things they could spend that amount of money on.  I've lived in San Jose.  So I know that "The City," as locals call San Francisco (not "San Fran" or Frisco") is an hour's drive in traffic from the stadium in Santa Clara, which is at the very bottom of the San Francisco Bay.  It huddles into San Jose.  So 40 miles from the actual staduim, homeless people have been pushed out to God knows where at this point.  That really, REALLY sucks.  The good news is that this attack on the homeless people's daily lives has backfired on the city.  Instead of quietly moving the homeless out of sight, San Franccisco's homeless problem has been brought front and center.  Hopefully some good will come out of all of this.

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