Cinemorphosis

Author: Jeffrey McMahon

  • Glory or Exploitation? The Ethics of Football in a Culture Addicted to Spectacle: A College Argumentative Writing Prompt

    Glory or Exploitation? The Ethics of Football in a Culture Addicted to Spectacle: A College Argumentative Writing Prompt

    Essay Prompt:

    Football is more than just a sport—it’s a cultural ritual defined by sacrifice, danger, and, increasingly, moral controversy. With mounting evidence linking the game to brain trauma, long-term disability, and early death, critics such as Malcolm Gladwell, Kathleen Bachynski, and Steve Almond argue that football is not only dangerous but exploitative: a spectacle built on the suffering of young men whose bodies and futures are traded for profit and entertainment. Others defend the sport, insisting that football—like MMA, gymnastics, or bodybuilding—simply demands extreme physical sacrifice, and that athletes like Ronnie Coleman embody the right to choose that pain in pursuit of greatness. Meanwhile, cases like Aaron Hernandez raise disturbing questions about whether teams prioritize talent and profit over the psychological well-being and humanity of their players.

    The central argument you will address is this: Is football an unethical and exploitative institution that sacrifices player welfare for public entertainment, or is it a legitimate arena of personal choice, physical excellence, and cultural tradition?

    In your essay, take a clear position on this question and support it with evidence from Concussion, Ronnie Coleman: The King, Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, and at least three essays from our course materials. As you develop your claim, consider related issues such as:

    • Whether colleges and the NFL commodify athletes or empower them;
    • Whether spectators are morally complicit in the harm done;
    • Whether banning football would protect vulnerable individuals or create worse unintended consequences;
    • And whether the pursuit of greatness necessarily involves bodily sacrifice—and if so, whether that sacrifice is a noble choice or a form of exploitation.

    Use 4 or more of the following sources to construct a well-argued position:

    1. “Youth Football Is a Moral Abdication” by Kathleen Bachynski
    2. “The White Flight from Football” by Alana Semuels
    3. “American football is dangerous, and it should be abolished” by Dave Bry
    4. “Exactly How Dangerous Is Football?” by Ingfei Chen
    5. “Offensive Play” by Malcolm Gladwell
    6. “Is It Immoral to Watch the Super Bowl?” by Steve Almond
    7. “Diehard Fans Defend the Game” by Matt Vasilogambros
    8. “Is It Patronizing to Say Football Players Are Exploited?” by Chris Bodenner
    9. “Book review: ‘Why Football Matters,’ and ‘Against Football’” by James Trefil
    10. Concussion (2015 movie on Amazon Prime)
    11. The Cost of Winning (2020 documentary on HBO)
    12. Student Athlete (2018 documentary on HBO)
    13. Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez (2020 3-part series on Netflix)

    Sample 9-Paragraph Outline

    Title: Blood, Glory, and Profit: The Ethical Dilemma of American Football

    Paragraph 1: Introduction (Choose One)

    • Hook: Start with a vivid image—an NFL player lying motionless on the turf while the crowd cheers for the next play.
    • Context: Football’s status as a national ritual, its cultural significance, and the growing controversy surrounding its dangers.
    • Introduce the central debate: Is football exploitative, or is it a legitimate, even noble, pursuit of greatness?

    Paragraph 2: Thesis (Claim)

    • Example of thesis that opposes football: Football has become an ethically compromised institution that commodifies its players for entertainment and profit, often under the illusion of personal choice—making reform, not abolition, a moral imperative.
    • Example of a thesis that supports football: While football is a physically demanding sport, it is not an exploitative institution—it is a legitimate, voluntary arena where athletes exercise personal agency, pursue greatness, and knowingly accept risk. Far from being ethically compromised, football represents a cultural tradition that honors sacrifice, fosters opportunity, and should be preserved without further moral panic or unnecessary reform.

    Paragraph 3-6: Your supporting paragraphs that explain the reasons behind your thesis or argument. 

    Paragraphs 7 and 8: Your 2 counterarguments and 2 rebuttals to those counterarguments.

    Paragraph 9: Your conclusion, a dramatic restatement of your thesis.

    ***

    Unintended Consequences of Banning Football (to address in your counterargument-rebuttal section)

    Here is a full list of unintended consequences you may need to address to make your argument more persuasive:

    Banning football might sound like a bold ethical stance, but it would unleash a cascade of unintended consequences—cultural, economic, psychological, and even moral. Here’s a breakdown of what might happen if the most popular sport in America were outlawed:

    1. Loss of Opportunity for Marginalized Youth

    • Unintended Consequence: For many young men, especially from under-resourced communities, football is a rare (and sometimes only) path to higher education and upward mobility.
    • Result: Banning the sport could cut off scholarships and recruitment pipelines, exacerbating socioeconomic inequality rather than alleviating harm.

    2. Black Market Football

    • Unintended Consequence: If football goes underground, it doesn’t disappear—it just gets more dangerous.
    • Result: Unregulated leagues may spring up, especially in areas with strong football culture. Without safety oversight, proper coaching, or medical supervision, injury rates could worsen.

    3. Economic Collapse of Local Ecosystems

    • Unintended Consequence: Football is a multi-billion-dollar industry with deep ties to universities, cities, and small towns.
    • Result: A ban could devastate local economies dependent on Friday night lights or Saturday college games—hotels, restaurants, sports vendors, media jobs, and more would be gutted.

    4. Identity Crisis in American Masculinity

    • Unintended Consequence: Football, like it or not, is one of the last culturally sanctioned rituals of toughness, aggression, and team-based male bonding.
    • Result: Without football as a socially accepted outlet, young men may turn to other riskier or more alienating behaviors to express identity or test resilience.

    5. Decline in College Enrollment and Funding

    • Unintended Consequence: At many universities, football programs are major revenue engines—not just for athletics, but for branding and student recruitment.
    • Result: Removing football could lead to reduced enrollment, cutbacks in academic programs, and tuition hikes as schools scramble to replace lost revenue.

    6. Loss of Cultural Cohesion and Civic Ritual

    • Unintended Consequence: Football games are communal rituals—tailgates, traditions, and team pride bind communities together.
    • Result: Banning football could fracture local identity, particularly in the South and Midwest, where the sport acts as social glue.

    7. Displacement of Violence to Other Arenas

    • Unintended Consequence: Football channels aggression into rules, teams, and strategy.
    • Result: Without that structure, we might see more unchanneled aggression, risk-taking behavior, or violence manifesting in less regulated spaces (gangs, reckless driving, amateur fighting).

    8. Moral Hypocrisy and Slippery Slope Questions

    • Unintended Consequence: Singling out football raises the question: what about boxing, MMA, rugby, or even ballet and gymnastics?
    • Result: Banning football opens the door to more bans—or worse, selective enforcement that reeks of moral inconsistency and political backlash.

    9. Undermining of Bodily Autonomy

    • Unintended Consequence: While the intent is to protect, the act of banning a sport removes agency from individuals who knowingly choose risk.
    • Result: This could spark debates about freedom, personal sovereignty, and whether society has the right to intervene in personal decisions about pain and sacrifice.

    The Relevance of Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez:

    The documentary Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez is a chilling, necessary companion to any serious discussion of the moral crisis surrounding football. Hernandez, a star athlete groomed through the college football system and elevated to NFL glory, was both a product and a casualty of a sport that prized performance over personhood. The film exposes how institutions—from the University of Florida to the New England Patriots—enabled and ignored warning signs: violence, erratic behavior, and deep psychological instability. These weren’t just isolated red flags; they were systemic blind spots, fostered by a culture that commodifies players as disposable assets in a billion-dollar entertainment machine. Hernandez’s case forces students to confront the darker truth behind athletic excellence: when fame, concussions, and unchecked aggression intersect, the results can be lethal.

    Moreover, the documentary complicates the question of self-agency. Yes, Hernandez made choices—but were they truly free? Killer Inside makes a compelling case that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), diagnosed in Hernandez posthumously, contributed to his instability. It raises hard questions about whether players fully understand the long-term cost of participation, and whether teams, coaches, and fans are complicit in a cycle that glamorizes sacrifice while suppressing inconvenient consequences. As students grapple with the ethics of spectatorship and institutional responsibility, this documentary offers a haunting portrait of how far a system will go to protect its profit, even if it means nurturing a time bomb in shoulder pads.

  • Nostalgia Is a Liar and a Thief

    Nostalgia Is a Liar and a Thief

    Romanticizing the past isn’t just foolish—it’s morally bankrupt. To coddle nostalgia is to buy into the comforting lie that things were once better, purer, simpler. They weren’t. That “beautiful past” you’re pining for? Fiction. A curated highlight reel edited by your dopamine-addled memory. In clinging to it, you’re not just turning your back on the present—you’re scorning the real, imperfect people around you in favor of ghostly caricatures from a fantasy world.

    Worse, nostalgia doesn’t just lie—it sedates. It lulls you into a syrupy, maudlin stupor where forward motion feels sacrilegious. Why build something new when your mind’s already rented a timeshare in 1983? The more you indulge it, the more you stall out—emotionally, spiritually, and socially.

    And let’s not ignore the narcissism at its core. Nostalgia gives self-pity a golden frame. You’re not grieving a lost time; you’re grieving the version of yourself you imagined you were back then. The tragedy? That person never existed. You’ve built an altar to an illusion—and now you’re feeding it your present.

    In the end, nostalgia doesn’t connect you to anything. It isolates you. It invents a wound and then forces you to mourn it. Regret follows, not because you lost something real, but because you’ve convinced yourself you did. It’s time to stop romanticizing the fog and start walking through it.

  • Why Ritualized Combat Still Needs a Line You Don’t Cross

    Why Ritualized Combat Still Needs a Line You Don’t Cross

    In The Professor in the Cage, Jonathan Gottschall argues that sports like football aren’t just games—they’re stylized duels, ritualized combat wrapped in pads and broadcast rights, and they function on one essential currency: honor. Strip away the cleats and helmets, and you’re left with the same ancient male impulse—to fight, to dominate, and to prove you’re not the rabbit in a room full of wolves.

    But here’s the twist Gottschall doesn’t miss: even in the most violent games, there are rules—rituals that separate man from animal, performance from savagery. The football field, the octagon, the prison yard, the nightclub—they’re all arenas of testosterone-laced theater where men assert dominance, but with an agreed-upon script. Break that script, and you don’t just commit a foul—you commit a cultural sin.

    Trash Talk, But Make It Sacred

    We tend to think of trash talk as disrespectful—and, sure, it often is. But it’s also part of the ritual. Mind games, verbal jabs, icy stares, even the headbutt-in-slow-motion during a coin toss—it’s all within the monkey dance. The key is: you stay within the choreography. There’s a line you don’t cross.

    Bill Romanowski didn’t just cross the line—he nuked it. In 1998, the white Denver Broncos linebacker spit on Black 49ers receiver J.J. Stokes. Not trash talk. Not gamesmanship. Spit. A loaded gesture, freighted with the filth of American racial history—slavery, Jim Crow, the days when white men spat on Black men to reduce them to less than human.

    Romanowski’s act wasn’t just disgusting. It was ritual desecration. So offensive, his own teammates were furious. Shannon Sharpe, on national television, looked ready to turn in his mic for a helmet and hunt Romo down himself. Tom Jackson—veteran linebacker, no stranger to violence—said it plain: “If a white man had spit on me, I’d have told him, ‘Do it again and I’ll kill you.’”

    That’s the level of violation we’re talking about. Because saliva isn’t just gross—it’s symbolic. In the world of ritualized combat, putting your spit on someone is not communication—it’s provocation. It’s the opening move in a fight, not a play.

    The Gum on the Ashtray: A Nightclub Parable

    Gottschall’s theory doesn’t just live on the field. I’ve seen it firsthand—in 1989, at a nightclub in Bakersfield. I was a new writing instructor, sitting with some Nigerian colleagues, when a crew of men—hardened, street-weathered, violent-looking—decided they didn’t like our presence. One of them walked over, pulled the gum from his mouth, smashed it into our ashtray with theatrical contempt, and walked off.

    Let me decode that for you: he spit on our table without actually spitting. He made a saliva-based gesture designed to start something. And the unspoken law was clear: respond, or leave and accept that you’ve been punked.

    I left. Because I wasn’t ready to fight five guys who looked like they’d fought their way out of worse places than any writing conference I’d ever attended.

    But the principle was unmistakable: once the ritual starts, you have to define yourself. Are you food, or are you the one eating?

    The Prison Equation: No Bananas, No Mercy

    Gottschall brings it full circle with prison—the pressure cooker of male hierarchy. There, the rules are stripped to the bone. If you don’t retaliate, you don’t just lose a banana—you lose your humanity. You become “the rabbit.” The food. The one they take from, laugh at, exploit.

    He writes, “If you fail the heart test, the other inmates will take your food, exploit your commissary privileges, extort your relatives, and make you a slave.” In other words: show weakness once, and you’re done.

    Football, Violence, and the Unspoken Law

    Now take that mindset to football. When a linebacker stares down a quarterback after a sack, or a cornerback jaw-jacks a wideout after a deflection, they’re not just showing off—they’re broadcasting: “I am not the rabbit. I am not food.”

    That’s why we watch. Beneath the helmets, we’re witnessing status battles in real time, under stadium lights. It’s ritualized war with a rulebook and highlight reels. And we love it. Because something ancient inside us recognizes the stakes, even if we don’t name them.

    But even here, in the modern Coliseum, the honor code must hold. Break it—spit on your opponent, stomp a head, ignore the script—and you’re not just a dirty player. You’re a violator of the sacred order. You’re chaos in a world that depends on containment.

    Conclusion: Spit Happens, But It Shouldn’t

    So yes, ritualized combat is part of our DNA. We can’t scrub it out any more than we can stop blinking. But it only works when the rules of engagement are followed. Trash talk is theater. Respect is the scaffolding. And spit—literal or symbolic—is a bridge too far.

    Because when men fight, they must fight with rules.
    And if they don’t?
    It’s not sport anymore.
    It’s just violence.

  • The Gorilla Pecs of Glory: Why We Watch Men Smash Each Other and Call It Civilization

    The Gorilla Pecs of Glory: Why We Watch Men Smash Each Other and Call It Civilization

    According to Jonathan Gottschall, author of The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch, football isn’t just sport—it’s ritualized combat. A tamed brawl. A socially sanctioned way to indulge our primal appetite for domination without devolving into street warfare. He calls it the monkey dance, a primitive ballet with rules, referees, and halftime shows. I prefer a less polite term: the gorilla pec slap—because that’s what it is. Chest-thumping, ego-flexing theater that feels a lot less like play and a lot more like primal pageantry.

    Gottschall’s thesis is blunt and unapologetic: we are wired for battle. From schoolyard scuffles to rap battles to cage fights, we seek structured conflict to test status, establish pecking orders, and avoid descending into outright anarchy. Whether it’s verbal warfare on stage or two linemen colliding at full speed, it’s all the same story: controlled aggression keeping the real chaos at bay.

    And the stakes, bizarrely, are moral. Gottschall suggests that these “battles with a code” serve a civilizing function: they allow men—yes, mostly men—to hash out dominance hierarchies without burning down the village. Ritualized violence, he argues, is less toxic than the alternative: unpredictable, unsanctioned brutality.

    This raises an uncomfortable truth about the function of sports: men need to know where they stand. The pecking order isn’t just some caveman relic—it’s a form of psychological infrastructure. Everyone knowing their “lane” may sound medieval, but Gottschall insists it’s what prevents society from devolving into a Mad Max sequel. And frankly, he might be right.

    Ritualized battle—be it on the field, the mat, or the mic—feeds something deeper than bloodlust. It gives us narrative. Stories of courage, humiliation, redemption, and collapse. We see ourselves in those stories. We crave them not just for the carnage but for what they reveal: who we are when the pressure spikes and the lights come on.

    Still, some social critics aren’t buying it. They see football and its violent cousins as nothing more than toxic masculinity wrapped in billion-dollar branding. To them, it’s hero cosplay for emotionally stunted men. But Gottschall flips that argument: suppressing these instincts doesn’t make us enlightened—it just makes us dishonest.

    That said, even if we accept that ritualized combat is hardwired and necessary, we’re still left with a lingering question: at what cost? The bodies pile up. The brains deteriorate. Athletes become avatars for our fantasies—and casualties of them, too. Their injuries are real, their careers often short, and their pain long. And yet the spectacle rolls on.

    Meanwhile, the sports industry—like any good dealer—knows how to keep us hooked. Betting apps ping our dopamine receptors, endless content fills our social feeds, and we’re suddenly refreshing stats at 2 a.m. like Wall Street analysts chasing fantasy league glory. What started as play becomes compulsion. Hero worship mutates into dependency. Sports betting morphs into moral rot.

    So where does that leave the thinking sports fan? Are we doomed to either overanalyze the game into oblivion or become wide-eyed addicts to its spectacle? Can we still enjoy a bone-rattling hit without silently calculating the CTE risk?

    There are no easy answers. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: sports are too good at what they do. They hijack our lizard brains, feed our tribal instincts, and offer us drama cleaner than politics, safer than war, and more thrilling than any sermon.

    And like those mythical gorillas slapping their chests in the mist, we’ll keep watching. Because beneath the helmets and highlight reels, we’re not just watching games—we’re watching ourselves. And that, more than anything, is the real addiction.

  • 3 College Essay Prompts That Address the Argument That Football Should be Banned (Brain vs. Game: Is Football Worth the Risk?)

    3 College Essay Prompts That Address the Argument That Football Should be Banned (Brain vs. Game: Is Football Worth the Risk?)

    Here are three argumentative essay prompts suitable for a 9-paragraph essay that ask college students to critically evaluate the claim that football is too dangerous to be allowed, while integrating multiple sources and perspectives:

    Prompt 1: “Freedom vs. Paternalism: Should Football Be Banned for Its Dangers?”

    Essay Prompt:
    Some argue that football should be banned due to its inherent risks—brain trauma, long-term disability, and early death—especially when these dangers are now well-documented through studies, documentaries like Concussion, and essays such as “Offensive Play” by Malcolm Gladwell and “Youth Football Is a Moral Abdication” by Kathleen Bachynski. Others argue that adults, like bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman in The King, have the right to punish their bodies for greatness. Should society protect athletes from themselves, or should personal freedom and the pursuit of glory override concerns about safety?

    Thesis Requirement:
    Take a position on whether football should be banned, regulated further, or left alone. Consider the ethical tension between protecting individuals and respecting their freedom to accept risk.

    Prompt 2: “Is Football Immoral Entertainment or Heroic Spectacle?”

    Essay Prompt:
    Critics like Steve Almond in “Is It Immoral to Watch the Super Bowl?” argue that football is exploitative, violent, and unethically consumed as entertainment by fans who ignore the human cost. Yet, defenders claim that physical sacrifice is the very essence of elite sports, citing Ronnie Coleman’s punishing regimen or the spectacle of NFL Sundays. Drawing from Concussion, Ronnie Coleman: The King, and at least three essays from the list above, argue whether watching and supporting football is morally indefensible—or a celebration of human extremes that demands respect, not condemnation.

    Thesis Requirement:
    Argue whether football spectatorship is morally wrong, or whether it reflects a deeper cultural valorization of sacrifice and spectacle that deserves to continue.

    Prompt 3: “A Necessary Risk? Comparing Football to Other High-Impact Sports”

    Essay Prompt:
    Football is often singled out for its violence and long-term damage to players, as shown in the essays by Dave Bry and Ingfei Chen. But many other sports—MMA, boxing, gymnastics, bodybuilding—also inflict harm in pursuit of greatness. Is it fair to hold football to a different standard? Using Concussion, Ronnie Coleman: The King, and at least three essays from the list, write an argumentative essay that addresses whether football is uniquely immoral—or simply another example of how society accepts risk in exchange for performance and entertainment.

    Thesis Requirement:
    Argue whether football should be abolished due to its extreme risks, or whether it should be viewed in the same ethical category as other dangerous yet glorified sports.

    ***

    Here are three 9-paragraph essay outlines, each corresponding to one of the prompts I gave you. These outlines are structured to guide students in developing strong thesis-driven arguments with counterargument and rebuttal sections.

    Prompt 1 Outline: “Freedom vs. Paternalism: Should Football Be Banned for Its Dangers?”

    Paragraph 1 – Introduction

    • Hook: Paint a vivid image of the risks of football (e.g., brain damage, CTE).
    • Context: Mention growing concern from scientists, journalists, and cultural critics.
    • Thesis: While football poses undeniable dangers, banning it would violate the principle of personal freedom; instead, informed adults should be allowed to take risks in pursuit of meaning, glory, and identity.

    Paragraph 2 – Background on Football’s Dangers

    • Use examples from Concussion, Gladwell’s “Offensive Play,” and Ingfei Chen’s article to detail the physical and neurological toll of the game.
    • Discuss youth football concerns using Bachynski’s critique.

    Paragraph 3 – The Paternalist Case for Banning Football

    • Lay out the moral argument that society has an obligation to protect players from harm—even from themselves.
    • Reference Steve Almond’s and Dave Bry’s essays.
    • Raise the point about fans being complicit in systemic exploitation.

    Paragraph 4 – The Freedom to Choose Dangerous Paths

    • Use Ronnie Coleman as a counterpoint: he knowingly destroyed his body in pursuit of greatness.
    • Argue that personal agency and risk are part of greatness in many sports.

    Paragraph 5 – Informed Consent and Regulation

    • Propose that the real solution is not banning but making sure players are fully informed and medically monitored.
    • Mention existing reforms in football and suggestions for further safety protocols.

    Paragraph 6 – Counterargument: The Problem of Informed Consent in Minors

    • Acknowledge that children and teenagers cannot truly give informed consent.
    • Revisit Bachynski’s argument about moral abdication in youth football.

    Paragraph 7 – Rebuttal: Ban Youth Football, Not the Whole Game

    • Suggest a middle-ground policy: ban tackle football for minors, regulate pro and college levels.
    • Emphasize adult autonomy and institutional responsibility.

    Paragraph 8 – Broader Implications: Personal Risk in a Free Society

    • Link to other professions and sports with risk (e.g., firefighting, racing).
    • Defend risk as a necessary ingredient in human excellence and personal identity.

    Paragraph 9 – Conclusion

    • Reaffirm thesis: Football is dangerous, but banning it would be paternalistic overreach.
    • End with a call for ethical regulation, informed choice, and cultural honesty.

    Prompt 2 Outline: “Is Football Immoral Entertainment or Heroic Spectacle?”

    Paragraph 1 – Introduction

    • Hook: Contrast images of Super Bowl Sunday parties with a football player in a wheelchair, suffering CTE.
    • Context: Critics argue football is a bloodsport; defenders see valor.
    • Thesis: While football’s dangers are real, condemning it as immoral entertainment ignores the deeper human drive toward spectacle, risk, and transcendent physical achievement.

    Paragraph 2 – The Moral Case Against Watching Football

    • Summarize Almond’s, Bry’s, and Gladwell’s critiques of football as exploitative.
    • Emphasize the consumer’s moral responsibility.

    Paragraph 3 – The Physical Toll of Greatness

    • Compare football players to Ronnie Coleman: both destroy their bodies to reach the top.
    • Use Ronnie Coleman: The King as evidence of informed sacrifice.

    Paragraph 4 – The Heroic Spectacle Argument

    • Argue that what we celebrate in sports is the extreme: speed, pain tolerance, power.
    • Football is thrilling precisely because it pushes limits.

    Paragraph 5 – Football and Consent

    • Highlight that football players, unlike gladiators, choose their path.
    • Many see it as a path to identity, meaning, and upward mobility.

    Paragraph 6 – Counterargument: Viewers Are Still Morally Complicit

    • Acknowledge Almond’s point that fans create the demand.
    • Point out that cheering injuries is a moral low point.

    Paragraph 7 – Rebuttal: Admiration Is Not Exploitation

    • Make the case that admiration and exploitation are not the same.
    • Use examples from Concussion and Vasilogambros’ essay showing many players don’t see themselves as victims.

    Paragraph 8 – The Cultural Importance of Football

    • Explore football’s symbolic value in American identity and tradition.
    • Mention Concussion to show that reform, not erasure, may be the better path.

    Paragraph 9 – Conclusion

    • Restate thesis: Football’s violence is part of its mythic power, not its moral failure.
    • Leave reader with a question: Do we truly want to live in a world without high-stakes heroism?

    Prompt 3 Outline: “A Necessary Risk? Comparing Football to Other High-Impact Sports”

    Paragraph 1 – Introduction

    • Hook: Imagine a risk-free Olympics—no broken bones, no injuries, no edge. Would anyone watch?
    • Context: Football is under fire, but risk is foundational to many beloved sports.
    • Thesis: Though football is dangerous, it should not be singled out for abolition when other high-risk sports continue with public admiration and participant consent.

    Paragraph 2 – The Case Against Football’s Danger

    • Outline the evidence from Concussion, Chen’s article, and Bry’s essay.
    • Include the cultural concern about long-term brain injuries.

    Paragraph 3 – Football’s Uniqueness (Critics’ View)

    • Present the argument that football is worse due to repeated head trauma.
    • Highlight Gladwell’s and Bachynski’s emphasis on sub-concussive hits.

    Paragraph 4 – But Other Sports Are Just as Brutal

    • Bring in MMA, boxing, gymnastics, bodybuilding.
    • Describe Ronnie Coleman’s spinal degeneration from lifting.

    Paragraph 5 – The Freedom to Risk and the Myth of the “Safe Sport”

    • Emphasize that even “safe” sports carry injury risks.
    • Athletes know the trade-off and often embrace it.

    Paragraph 6 – Counterargument: Kids Can’t Choose Risk Responsibly

    • Acknowledge the issue of youth sports, echoing Bachynski.
    • Minors can’t weigh long-term risk like adults.

    Paragraph 7 – Rebuttal: Reform, Not Abolition

    • Support banning tackle football for kids, but defend adult participation.
    • Cite reforms in helmets, rules, and concussion protocols.

    Paragraph 8 – Sports and the Human Drive for Glory

    • Revisit Ronnie Coleman: he knowingly embraced suffering for excellence.
    • Link this drive to the nature of sport and human aspiration.

    Paragraph 9 – Conclusion

    • Restate thesis: Football isn’t uniquely immoral—it’s one chapter in a larger story of human performance and risk.
    • Conclude with a call for honest conversations, not blanket bans.
  • The Salma Hayek-ification of Writing: A Love Letter to Our Slow-Motion Doom

    The Salma Hayek-ification of Writing: A Love Letter to Our Slow-Motion Doom

    I’ve done what the pedagogical experts say to do with ChatGPT: assume my students are using it and adjust accordingly. I’ve stopped trying to catch them red-handed and started handing them a red carpet. This isn’t about cracking down—it’s about leaning in. I’ve become the guy in 1975 who handed out TI calculators in Algebra II and said, “Go wild, kids.” And you know what? They did. Math got sexier, grades went up, and nobody looked back.

    Likewise, my students are now cranking out essays with the polish of junior copywriters at The Atlantic. I assign them harder prompts than I ever dared in the pre-AI era—ethical quandaries, media critiques, rhetorical dissections of war propaganda—and they deliver. Fast. Smooth. Professional. Too professional.

    You’d think I’d be ecstatic. The gap between my writing and theirs has narrowed to a hair’s width. But instead of feeling triumphant, I feel…weirdly hollow. Something’s off.

    Reading these AI-enhanced essays is like watching Mr. Olympia contestants on stage—hyper-muscular, surgically vascular, preposterously sculpted. At first, it’s impressive. Then it’s monotonous. Then it’s grotesque. The very thing that was once jaw-dropping becomes oddly numbing.

    That’s where we are with writing. With art. With beauty.

    There’s a creeping sameness to the brilliance, a too-perfect sheen that repels the eye the way flawless skin in a poorly-lit Instagram filter repels real emotion. Everyone’s beautiful now. Everyone’s eloquent. And like the cruelest of paradoxes, if everyone looks like Salma Hayek, then no one really does.

    AI content has the razzle-dazzle of a Vegas revue. It’s slick, it’s dazzling, and it empties your soul faster than a bottomless mimosa brunch. The quirk, the voice, the twitchy little neurosis that makes human writing feel alive? That’s been sanded down into a high-gloss IKEA finish.

    What we’re living through is the Salma Hayek-ification of modern life: a technologically induced flattening of difference, surprise, and delight.

    We are being beautified into oblivion.

    And deep inside, where the soul used to spark when a student wrote a weird, lumpy, incandescent sentence—one they bled for, sweated over—I feel the faint echo of that spark flicker.

    I’m not ready to say the machines have killed art. But they’ve definitely made it harder to tell the difference between greatness and a decent algorithm with good taste.

  • The Salma-Hayek-ification of Beauty and the Algorithmic Flattening of Everything (And Why Your Weirdness Is Now Sacred)

    The Salma-Hayek-ification of Beauty and the Algorithmic Flattening of Everything (And Why Your Weirdness Is Now Sacred)

    If technology can make us all look like Salma Hayek, then congratulations—we’ve successfully killed beauty by cloning it into oblivion. Perfection loses its punch when everyone has it on tap. The same goes for writing: if every bored intern with a Wi-Fi connection can crank out Nabokovian prose with the help of ChatGPT, then those dazzling turns of phrase lose their mystique. What once shimmered now just… scrolls.

    Yes, technology improves us—but it also sandblasts the edges off everything, leaving behind a polished sameness. The danger isn’t just in becoming artificial; it’s in becoming indistinguishable. The real challenge in this age of frictionless upgrades is to retain your signature glitch—that weird, unruly fingerprint of a soul that no algorithm can replicate without screwing it up in glorious, human ways.

    If technology can make us all look like Brad Pitt and Selma Hayak, then none of us will be beautiful. Likewise, if we can all use ChatGPT to write like Vladimir Nabokov, then florid prose will no longer have the wow factor. Technology improves us, yes, but it also makes everything the same. Retaining your individual fingerprint of a soul is the challenge in this new age. 

  • The Gospel of Manuscriptus Rex: Confessions of a Failed Novelist and Reluctant Exorcist

    The Gospel of Manuscriptus Rex: Confessions of a Failed Novelist and Reluctant Exorcist

    In my quest to diagnose the writing demon that refuses to release me from its grip, I turned to Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do, edited by Meredith Maran. In her introduction, Maran paints a bleak portrait of the literary life: writers waking before dawn, shackling themselves to their craft with grim determination, all while the odds of success hover somewhere between laughable and nonexistent.

    She lays out the statistics like a funeral director preparing the bereaved: out of a million manuscripts, only 1% will find a home. And if that doesn’t crush your soul, she follows up with another gut punch: only 30% of published books turn a profit. Clearly, materialism isn’t the primary motivator here. Perhaps masochism plays a role—some deep-seated desire for rejection that outstrips the mere thrill of self-rejection. Or maybe it’s just pathology, an exorcism waiting to happen.

    For those unwilling to embrace despair, Maran brings in George Orwell’s “four great motives for writing”: egotism, the pleasures of good prose, the need for historical clarity, and the urge to make a political argument. Sensible enough. No surprises.

    Where things get interesting is Joan Didion’s take. Didion, never one for sentimentality, strips the writer’s motives bare: “In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even hostile act.”

    Reading that, my eyes lit up with recognition. Didion had just sketched Manuscriptus Rex in perfect detail—the secret bully, the compulsive brain-hijacker who isn’t content to write in solitude but needs to occupy the minds of others, to install his worldview in their most private spaces.

    Terry Tempest Williams, on the other hand, writes to confront her ghosts, a sentiment that deeply appeals to me. The idea of the writer as a haunted creature, forever pursued by stories that demand exorcism, feels not only true but inescapable.

    But here’s the kicker—Maran makes it clear that the twenty writers in her book aren’t failures like me. They’re not Manuscriptus Rexes, howling into the void. No, they are the anointed ones, welcomed by publishers with open arms, bathed in the golden light of editorial gratitude.

    And yet, they didn’t land on Mount Olympus by accident. They fought. They clawed their way up, word by painful word, which means they have something to teach—not just to their fans but to me, a self-aware Manuscriptus Rex still trying to understand what, exactly, makes him tick.

    There is no shortage of delicious tidbits in Why We Write. Isabel Allende talks about the necessity of writing like a growing tumor that has to be dealt with or will simply grow out of control. She adds that even if she begins with a germ of an idea, the book has a life of its own. It grows from her unconscious obsessions and preoccupations, so that in the beginning she has not yet discovered what story she is going to tell. Also, she is a writer of ritual and routine. Every January seventh is the day before she starts writing a new book. She gathers all her materials in her “little pool house,” which she uses as her office. It is her sacred space to work, just “seventeen steps” from her home. 

    The idea of having two separate spaces—one for writing, one for everything else—fascinates me. It reminds me of something Martin Amis once told Charlie Rose: he needed to be a writer because toggling between the world of the novel and the earthly world created a kind of necessary duality, a parallel existence where imagination could thrive. For someone wired for storytelling, living between those two realities wasn’t just a luxury—it was a survival mechanism.

    At home, Isabel Allende straddles two universes, one sacred, the other profane. And it calls to mind the lesson my college fiction professor, N.V.M. Gonzalez, drilled into us: a fiction writer must know the difference between sacred and profane time.

    A great writer conducts these two temporal forces like an orchestra. Sacred time—mythic, timeless, symbolic—stretches beyond the clock, charging pivotal moments with fate, destiny, and the weight of history. It’s the crossroads where a single decision echoes through eternity. Profane time, by contrast, is the ticking metronome of daily existence—the coffee that goes cold, the unpaid bills, the search for a parking spot.

    A great novel moves between the two—one moment steeped in cosmic significance, the next trapped in the drudgery of real life. A character might wrestle with divine purpose—but that won’t stop their Wi-Fi from cutting out mid-revelation.

    Allende enters her writing enclave in a state of terror and exhilaration, grappling with ideas—some brilliant, some best left in the trash bin—while navigating stress, disappointment, and suspense. Her process feels high-stakes, and really, what is life without high stakes? A slow, numbing descent into low expectations, inertia, and existential boredom—a fate worse than failure.

    Maybe writing addiction is just the relentless drive to keep the stakes high. Without it, life shrinks into a provisional existence, where survival boils down to the next meal, the next fleeting pleasure, the next song that momentarily sends a tingle up your spine—a desperate Morse code from the universe to confirm you’re still alive.

    The writers in this book all share the same unshakable compulsion to write. For them, writing isn’t just a craft; it’s therapy, oxygen, a way to make sense of chaos. They write because they can’t not write—because failure to do so would send them spiraling into an existential crisis too dark to contemplate. Writing gives them self-worth, wards off insanity, and serves as the only acceptable coping mechanism for their undying curiosities. It isn’t a choice—it’s a chronic condition.

    These successful authors write relentlessly, enduring the agony of writer’s block, self-loathing, and the horror of their own bad prose, all while clawing their way toward something better. And while I share their compulsions, I lack their stamina and focus. Reading about Isabel Allende’s fourteen-hour writing binges was my moment of clarity: I am not a literary gladiator. These novelists can paint vast landscapes of story without crapping out halfway. I, on the other hand, am a wind-sprinter—a lunatic exploding off the starting block, only to collapse in a gasping heap a hundred yards later, curl into the fetal position, and slip into a creative coma.

    And this, I suspect, is the great torment of Manuscriptus Rex—an insatiable hunger to write the big book, clashing violently with a temperament built for sprints, not marathons. This misalignment fuels much of my artistic misery, my chronic dissatisfaction, and my ever-expanding graveyard of unfinished masterpieces.

    Still, whatever envy and despair I felt reading about these elite warriors of the written word, this book offered a cure—I will never again attempt a novel unless divine intervention forces my hand. I’ve seen too many of my failed attempts, the work of a man pretending to be a novelist rather than one willing to endure the necessary rigor. But I do have another calling: identifying unhinged, demonic states in others.

    Like a literary taxidermist, I want to capture these wild, self-destructive compulsions, mount them for display, and present them with maximum drama—not for amusement, but as cautionary tales. This is my work, my rehabilitation, the writing I was meant to do. And unlike novel-writing, it actually feels like a necessity, not a delusion.

  • Left Behind in a Dream: How Grunge Crushed My Jangle-Pop Heart

    Left Behind in a Dream: How Grunge Crushed My Jangle-Pop Heart

    In 1990, I was standing under the humming fluorescents of a dusty T-shirt and poster shop on Hollywood Boulevard, flipping through faded images of Morrissey, when a song hit me like a velvet brick: “Obscurity Knocks” by the Trashcan Sinatras.

    A wall of shimmering guitars spilled out of the speakers—jangly, melancholic, and so clearly descended from the holy Johnny Marr school of emotional resonance. It was as if “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” had been reincarnated in a Scottish bedroom, passed through a reverb pedal, and handed to someone just wounded enough to understand.

    That same year, I fell headfirst into The Sundays’ Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, and I’ve never quite crawled out. “You’re Not the Only One I Know” may still be my favorite song of all time—part lullaby, part confessional, sung by someone who sounded like they were trying not to wake the ghosts in the room.

    In those moments, I was sure I was witnessing the dawn of a new musical epoch—an era where introspective, literate guitar pop would inherit the emotional crown left by The Smiths. I imagined mixtapes stretching into the next decade, filled with chiming guitars and lyrics that quoted Yeats and quietly ruined you.

    But then the mood changed.

    Nirvana showed up, kicked in the door, and everyone suddenly wanted to scream into the void instead of whisper into the ache. Nevermind dropped, and within what felt like minutes, everyone moved to Seattle, grew out their hair, and baptized themselves in feedback and flannel. The dreamy pop I loved didn’t just fall out of fashion—it was buried in a landslide of Grunge.

    The prophecy had already been written in “Obscurity Knocks”—and it delivered.

    But I refused to let go. While the world air-guitared to “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” I doubled down on Lloyd Cole, The Cocteau Twins, Lush, Chapterhouse, and The Go-Betweens. I curated sadness. I polished it. I stayed loyal to the bands that sounded like rain and minor chords and unspoken longing.

    Grunge? Too growly. Too aggro. Too much boot-stomping and not enough sighing into the mist.

    So what carries the flickering torch of that era for me today? What band whispers instead of roars, dreams instead of demands? One song comes to mind: “Love Yourself” by Lovejoy.

    It’s not a perfect mirror of those early ’90s tracks, but it has the same fragile DNA—the ache, the beauty, the subtle drama folded into melody. It’s as if someone reached back into my old shoebox of mixtapes, pulled out a strand of sound, and stitched it into something new.

    Call me stubborn. Call me sentimental. But I’ll be here, still thumbing through my old CDs, still worshipping at the altar of bittersweet jangle-pop, long after the amplifiers of Grunge have gone quiet.

  • Teaching Writing in the Age of the Machine: Why I Grade the Voice, Not the Tool

    Teaching Writing in the Age of the Machine: Why I Grade the Voice, Not the Tool

    I assume most of my college writing students are already using AI—whether as a brainstorming partner, a sentence-polisher, or, in some cases, a full-blown ghostwriter. I don’t waste time pretending otherwise. But I also make one thing very clear: I will never accuse anyone of plagiarism. What I will do is grade the work on its quality—and if the writing has that all-too-familiar AI aroma—smooth, generic, cliché-ridden, and devoid of voice—I’m giving it a low grade.

    Not because it was written with AI.
    Because it’s bad writing.

    What I encourage, instead, is intentional AI use—students learning how to talk to ChatGPT with precision and personality, shaping it to match their own style, rather than outsourcing their voice entirely. AI is a tool, just like Word, Windows, or PowerPoint. It’s a new common currency in the information age, and we’d be foolish not to teach students how to spend it wisely.

    A short video that supports this view—“Lovely Take on Students Cheating with ChatGPT” by TheCodeWork—compares the rise of AI in writing to the arrival of calculators in 1970s math classrooms. Calculators didn’t destroy mathematical thinking—they freed students from rote drudgery and pushed them into more conceptual terrain. Likewise, AI can make writing better—but only if students know what good writing looks like.

    The challenge for instructors now is to change the assignments, as the video suggests. Students should be analyzing AI-generated drafts, critiquing them, improving them, and understanding why some outputs succeed while others fall flat. The writing process is no longer confined to a blank Word doc—it now includes the strategic prompting of large language models and the thoughtful revision of what they produce.

    But the devil, as always, is in the details.

    How will students know what a “desired result” is unless they’ve read widely, written deeply, and built a literary compass? Prompting ChatGPT is only as useful as the student’s ability to recognize quality when they see it. That’s where we come in—as instructors, our job is to show them side-by-side examples of AI-generated writing and guide them through what makes one version stronger, sharper, more human.

    Looking forward, I suspect composition courses will move toward multimodal assignments—writing paired with video, audio, visual art, or even music. AI won’t just change the process—it will expand the format. The essay will survive, yes, but it may arrive with a podcast trailer or a hand-drawn infographic in tow.

    There’s no going back. AI has changed the game, and pretending otherwise is educational malpractice. But we’re not here to fight the future. We’re here to teach students how to shape it with a voice that’s unmistakably their own.