Yes. The Sparks are
flying high. They went down to City Hall, had a little shindig with
Mayor Byron Brown and the Common Council, and are riding high.
So what.
They won the state
football championship for their division, whatever it is.
So what.
South Park is one of
the schools designated for receivership. It is being prepared to be
“linked up” with Solar City to train the technicians and
everything else that they will need for the sale, manufacture, and
installation of solar panels. They are being prepared to be the new
poorly paid proletariat, working class.
Poorly paid?
Manufacturing pays good and Solar City claims that the salaries of
the workers will be good, possibly as good as the wages that auto
workers make. Until the new machines come out and they cut the size
of the workforce, raises aren't as much, and benefits – we know the
story. We saw it in the auto industry. Mechanization allows fewer
workers to over-produce more goods, for less cost, and the profits go
elsewhere.
It is joked that the
quarterback of the South Park Sparks is more popular than the
quarterback of the Buffalo Bills. Yes, the injury bound professional
players. The ones with the severe concussions that are killing
themselves or rotting away into obscurity while the NFL rakes in
millions off of their broken bodies (and our taxes).
How many of these
football players have what it takes to make it into college and
graduate with a 2 or 4 (or even longer) year degree? How many of
them will get into college, might make the first years cut on the
team, and that is it? They are officially done with football.
Without that, some of them won't make it through college and be stuck
with a minimum wage skill set and a massive college debt that will
hang around their necks like an albatross for years to come.
How many of these
students come from the Fruit Belt and other minority-majority areas
of the city (let's face it – Buffalo is segregated. We just don't
want to talk about it.) and have no hope outside of sports or maybe
the music industry? How many of these students are hoping that
sports is their magic ticket out of town, when it really turns into
a bus ticket home.
They put all that
effort into the “field of dreams” only to see the dream turn into
a nightmare of permanent injuries (arm, legs damage ; concussions and
assorted neurological damage. We've seen it all.) And their coaches
and teachers urge them on. They put their best work into the field
and not enough into the classroom. And when the dream is over and
they have to wake up and deal with reality.
The school district
puts all this money into expensive sports programs and cuts teachers,
fights against raises, cuts benefits, and takes other actions against
those that would dare to speak out against the waste that school
sports are because “we need these kids to have some kind of hope.”
They need school spirit. And could care less about the real lessons
that school is supposed to teach.
And the Sparks won.
What exactly?
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