Belichick's Bungle

So Bill Belichick got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

So what?

In principle and practice it was wrong. It was cheating - stealing signs. Trying to gain leverage over another team with 'inside' knowledge.

Professional and college sports teams (should I mention high school?) all do it. No one is clean.

That doesn't make it less wrong. But it is common practice.

And again, I say,

So what?

It doesn't affect me. Nor does it really affect you or anyone else. We still get our mortgages paid, taxes paid, try to raise our kids to be upright, moral citizens.

I hope.

So what it's done is taken down the glamour or mystique of a team and its leader - that which was trying to be taken down regularly anyway by those who are jealous of the Patriots' success.

That's really what naysaying a successful team is all about.

Jealousy.

So again I say,

So what?

I am not training my kids to revere sports people. After all, they only exist for their entertainment value. And what's entertainment ultimately based on anyway? Nothing real important.

Unfortunately, celebrity is raised to godhood status as a normal part of our culture, and I think that is the saddest statement I take from all this.

Not that a sports figure was caught cheating.

After all, so what?

What else is new?