Coach Eric Mangini Fired: Is This Truly News?

Okay, I get that for sports-lovers, the fact that Eric Mangini was fired from the Jets seems like really "happening" news. And maybe it is. I'm not a sports-lover, I don't claim to love sports in the least. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't know one team from the next even if someone told me.

My main issue isn't with sports itself, it's with the fact that news channels, newspapers, and magazines seem to find things about sports being the only things truly 'newsworthy.' I have a major problem with this. I don't know who Eric Mangini is, I don't know who Brett Favre is, I don't know who Chad Pennington is.  You know, I'm not even sure I know who Troy Aikman is. Okay, perhaps I exaggerate.

But my point is- aren't there other more important things going on in our world right now? What about the war in Iraq? What about Afghanistan? What about the issues that China seems to be having with things they produce? What about the American economy?

Oh, I realize that all of those things are reported on. But I've also noticed that people tend to talk about sports more often. I'm not sure why that is, unless we simply don't want to deal with all the "bad stuff" in our world, so we choose to focus on the more mundane and trivial matters.

The point is- Ten years from now, twenty years from now- it's not going to matter who was fired from what team, what player made the most money, who got caught with their pants down, whether Britney Spears wore underwear under her ridiculously short skirts, or anything else.

Let's focus on real-world problems People! It's time to wake up and realize, regardless of whether or not we pay attention or ignore the problems in our world, they're still going to be there. And unless we wake up and pay attention, we are incapable of changing anything.

Before you turn on that television and start pushing buttons on the remote, how about watching the news for a bit before you switch over to ESPN? How about choosing to make a difference in your world, rather than becoming a mere bystander? Or at least, be aware of the changes in your world, so that you aren't caught off-guard.

There's a reason why people thought Russia invaded the STATE of Georgia in the United States, it's because they were too busy paying attention to sports and tabloid news, and skipped right over world history and geography in the first place!