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GELFAND’S WORLD - What a bore! You can't even call it a game, at least in the sense of an athletic competition. We could call it an execution. Slaughter is a bit provincial but also fits. I wouldn't say it was dull as dishwater, because there were a couple or three moments which were kind of fun, one being the interception taken back for a touchdown, and another being a 46-yard touchdown pass, cleanly thrown and dropped right into the hands. There were several field goals that looked particularly impressive because they were photographed from the opposite end zone camera and thereby looked almost miraculous.
The problem for one's sense of drama was that these were all Philadelphia Eagles scores and served mainly to develop a narrative of a failing Kansas City dynasty. This narrative worked a lot more strongly than any competing narrative of a dominant Philadelphia.
Perhaps this is because professional football as theater depends on offensive performance in a close game. There are people who still remember (and talk about) the Unitas pass that won a championship or the winning touchdown that gave Green Bay the victory over the Cowboys on a more-than-frigid winter day. We remember Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady for their remarkable comeback victories. When it became obvious (along about the 34th Philadelphia point) that this wasn't going to be one of those days, the game stopped being a game and settled into a countdown to the final gong. (Curious thought: Didn't there used to be a final shot from a starter's pistol to signify the end of the game? When did that go out of fashion?)
Politics soils the game
It was explained that Donald Trump's visit was the first attendance by a sitting president in the history of the Super Bowl. And guess what? I have a theory about the confluence of Trumpian politics and the awful trajectory of Sunday's game. We have been hearing about one or more Kansas City stars being supportive of Trump, or at least one of the spouses. And Trump predicted a KC win. Considering the old rule that everything Trump touches turns to garbage (using a euphemism here, but you know the line), it was not surprising that the Chief's game was at the level of Trump's foreign policy. And one more observation. Late in the game, the camera panned over Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox and the architect of so much that is bad in American politics, and the announcer spoke well of Murdoch. It's true that Murdoch is, ultimately, the announcer's boss, but somebody made an editorial decision to bring praise of Murdoch into the broadcast.
And once again into foreign policy and economics and tariffs on steel and aluminum
We seem to be re-fighting the economic battles of the 1960s and '70s, considering all of Trump's obsessions over reciprocal levels of tariffs. Back in the olden days when the United States had been panicking over losing the electronics and automotive industries to Japan, there was a lot of talk about "non-tariff trade barriers." We were taught in great detail how Japan managed to keep out American grown fruits and vegetables, cars and pretty much every other manufactured product, without actually charging a tariff. Americans tried to adapt to Japanese ways, but the Japanese adapted equally well.
There was a lot of discussion about losing manufacturing jobs to foreign competition. At the time, the idea of using tariffs -- and thereby provoking a worsening of a trade war that already existed -- was considered unthinkable by careful economists. So now Trump is announcing that he will introduce tariffs (and pretty high ones) on imported aluminum and steel. I wonder how anybody thinks this can help the economy. What I haven't seen is a judicious defense of the proposal that has been vetted by the economic community.
But as I said in the previous column, we should wait patiently, discount anything Trump says today, and give it a week or so to find out what, if anything, is actually going to be decided.
And that brings up the Trump solution to Gaza. About a week ago, Trump declared that the US would take over Gaza, deport its residents, and rebuild the place as a beach resort. In reply to world-wide condemnation, the presidential press secretary said that Gazans would be allowed to return after we had rebuilt the place. This kind of talk is referred to as "walking back" the original comments. Well, guess what? While flying to the Super Bowl on Sunday, Donald Trump walked back the walk-back, by saying that Yes, we will take and own Gaza. You can read about it here. This isn't even a flip-flop. It's more of a zigzag. Is it some kind of approach to getting the remaining hostages released? Is it another gambit in Trump's fanciful way of opening negotiations? Who knows?
The weekend's latest scuffles
The news was full of an argument about the National Institutes of Health deciding to put a lid on what are called "indirect costs" on grant funding. Without going into details, let me point out that this is an old, old argument in the research community. When a researcher submits a grant application to the NIH for, let's say, looking at the expression of microRNAs in the development of breast cancer, the grant includes money that goes to the researcher as well as a certain percentage that goes directly to the institution where the research will be carried out. This indirect money is supposed to pay for the costs of the buildings, electricity, water, maintenance and waste removal, and so forth. The indirect costs are real and substantial. The question is this: How high should that indirect cost percentage be? And more politically, why should some prestigious Ivy League college get to collect more in the way of indirect costs than State U?
The problem is that the latest NIH move comes in the middle of all the other Trumpian outrages, and nobody really knows where this is going or who to talk to about it.
There is one amusing side to the NIH story. The junior senator from Alabama, one Katie Briggs, has suddenly felt the heat of this as it affects the University of Alabama. She is therefore pleading for the U of A to be spared in this war, as you can read here.
Apparently, there is at least one form of federal expenditure that is OK to the conservative side. It turns out to be any expenditure that occurs in Alabama.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
