That must be why I forgot to get this post up yesterday:
"Will Smith enlightened by playing ‘Concussion’ doctor" by John Carucci Associated Press December 27, 2015
NEW YORK — The new Will Smith film ‘‘Concussion’’ tells the true story of Dr. Bennet Omalu who stumbled upon an insidious brain disorder affecting football players that began in 2002 with an autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster.
Smith said the script enlightened him about the dangerous effects of multiple concussions.
Omalu studied the brains of NFL players who had died under dubious circumstances, including former NFL players Justin Strzelczyk, Terry Long, and Andre Waters, who are depicted in the film. Strzelczyk was involved in a head-on collision on the wrong side of the highway evading police; Waters shot himself in the head; and Terry Long died from drinking anti-freeze.
His study, in conjunction with the University of Pittsburgh’s pathology department, led to the discovery that the former players were suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, an asymptomatic brain disease. The effects of the incurable disease don’t show up until later in life and manifest as psychotic episodes, dementia, and suicide.
CTE had been researched previously in boxers and it had been identified in soccer and rugby players, though Omalu’s work first linked it to American football players and has sparked broad discussions about player safety.
Omalu’s claims that he named the disease have been discredited, according to scientific journals and brain researchers who say it had been named decades before Omalu’s discovery.
There you go. He's discredited and they knew about the problem.
Considering how prominent football is promoted in the propaganda pre$$ and ma$$ media, this type of thing is not surprising. Those that bring bad new$ to $pecial intere$ts will be undercut. One of the Globe's grandest claims to fame is the nation's best sports section, and Monday has pages devoted to yesterday's pro games as well as their extensive college and high school coverage on Saturdays and Sundays.
After researching the role and learning more about the condition, Smith remains a football fan. Yet, he feels different about the game.
Oddly, the fantasy sports stuff has turned the players into properties in many fan's minds. I know because I'm around a handful of them. They care about injuries or concussions only insofar as their player will be missing action.
As for feeling different about star players:
"Louisa Moritz says that the entertainer forced her to engage in a sexual act in April of 1969 while she was waiting backstage on the set of “The Tonight Show” in New York."
Looks like piling on, and that's a 15-yard penalty.
David Morse, who plays Webster in the film, found the role a challenge.
‘‘[Mike Webster] was adored by people, the city of Pittsburgh, but what we see is a man at the end of his life with dementia,’’ Morse said. ‘‘He’s gluing his teeth in with Super Glue, tasering himself. He’s just in a kind of hell at the end of his life.’’
Webster’s problems progressed after his 1997 induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He went on a downward spiral, dying in 2002 at age 50.
Morse admits playing Webster affected him.
‘‘I’m fascinated by the game, but I can’t watch it the same way,’’ he said. ‘‘I still watch it, but I understand way more about what’s happening to these people on the field.’’
I must admit I thought about their brains on some of the hard hits I saw yesterday; then I reflected upon how many players were getting injuries other than head trauma. Those young men's bodies must be broke by the time they hit 45 at the latest.
On Wednesday, Sony Pictures issued an invitation to team owners, players and their families to see concussion for free — an offer Tennessee Titans safety Michael Griffin said he was taking them up on it as he’d planned to see the movie anyway.
Shouldn't concussion be "Concussion" there?
‘‘I feel like it’s going to have a contradicting interest just for the NFL in period, but then again we eventually knew this was going to happen anyway,’’ Griffin said. ‘‘
A lot of people in general you read about concussions or hear the stories about stuff, but I don’t think anybody knows, for the fans for their pleasure what we actually put our bodies through each and every week. It’s crazy because people say mild concussion or whatever, but any type of concussion, when it comes to injury to the brain, it’s serious. That’s a vital organ. . . . I think it’s going to be a good movie, but it may play a big part throughout the NFL.’’
I'll be the judge of that.
--more--"
I generally like Will Smith, although his meteoric rise is like that of Cosby (although I do not suspect he engaged in that type of behavior). Indicates membership in the Illuminati (for lack of a better word), and some of his films have seemed like a warning (I, Robot) as well as prophecy (After Earth?).
Related: Head games: The story of ‘Concussion’
The media play them all the time.
‘Concussion’ takes NFL head-on
I didn't read the review because I didn't want to spoil the film before possibly seeing it.
Hike!
"A former player says goodbye to football; The game ruins the brains of those who love it the most. And we, as fans, bear some responsibility for this" by Noah Van Niel December 22, 2015
I have a confession: I can’t watch football anymore. Because instead of joy and excitement, I feel like I’m watching a slow-motion execution.
This is hard to say, because I love football. Since I was a kid, Sunday afternoons were spent watching it. Homework could wait. I read more sports magazines than books. I carried a ball around under my arm everywhere I went. I loved playing it. It has given me some of my happiest memories, hardest-won lessons, and strongest friendships. And football was good to me. I played through college, scored touchdowns, and won championships. The thrill was real. The joy was real.
But recently it has become clear that the controlled violence I found so much fun, has some pretty ugly, uncontrolled consequences. Consequences that make me worried I’m losing my mind every time I can’t remember where I put my keys.
As it’s played right now, football ruins the brains of those who love it most, turning many of them into unrecognizable shadows — shadows who are destructive to themselves and those they love. And we, as fans, bear some responsibility for this.
Junior Seau was one of my favorite players. And now he haunts me. Soon after his retirement, he was so mentally scarred that he shot himself in the chest. Sane enough not to shoot himself in the head, in order to preserve his brain for science, but broken enough to turn a shotgun on himself anyway. I think about all the times I urged him on to the next big hit, and I feel guilty. His blood is on my hands.
I'm not conceding that.
His is not the only story like this, and the more stories we get, the more scientific evidence emerges that football can cause serious neurological disease. Knowing this, I can’t watch it. I will not be complicit in the destruction of the lives of players and their families any longer.
I can’t watch it because I have a four-month-old son. And unless the game changes, I don’t want to introduce him to it. I’m hesitant to relive my glory days with him because I fear he’ll love it like I loved it; I’m afraid he’ll potentially sacrifice his future for the short-lived glory of the present.
I can’t watch it because of the hypocrisy of the NFL, which is unwilling to lead the way in admitting that the sport is damaging players of all ages but all too willing to cash in at their expense. This is no secret: The movie “Concussion,’’ which will be released this week, tells how the NFL first reacted to the discovery that football damages players’ brains (spoiler alert: not well). They should be working with medical researchers to change the game enough to minimize the repeated blows to the head that make for damaged brains later in life. But if they did, it would make for a game that, while still fun to play, is slower and less violent, thus less appealing on television, and less profitable. That is, unless the current way the sport is played proves even less lucrative because people refuse to watch it.
But I’m not optimistic that my personal boycott and call for reform will catch on. As evidence about the long-term brain damage being done to players on the field has become increasingly convincing, viewership for the NFL has only gone up. People don’t seem to care that by casting their eyes on it all season long, they are saying that the mortal violence that football espouses — in its current form — is acceptable.
Do I know that feeling, and it has nothing to do with football.
It’s not acceptable. It’s inhumane. It’s a modern-day Roman Coliseum, a gladiatorial spectacle that ends with heads on a platter — in a lab being sliced open to see what went wrong. And, with every bloodthirsty cheer, we speed these fine young men on to that fate. But not me. Not anymore. I’m done.
Sport has always served as a useful distraction -- per protocol.
The Rev. Noah Van Niel is an Episcopal priest and former fullback for the Harvard Crimson varsity football team, class of 2008.
--more--"
That was hard-hitting!
"Concussion, Inc.: The big business of treating brain injuries" by Usha Lee McFarling, December 16, 2015
Entrepreneurs looking to cash in on public anxiety over concussions are flooding the market with pricey products that have no scientific merit — and opening concussion clinics staffed by “specialists” with no expertise in brain trauma.
Hundreds of these clinics have sprung up across the country, some of them run by dermatologists, orthopedists, chiropractors, and physical therapists.
“It’s so Wild West right now,” said Rosemarie Scolaro Moser, a neuropsychologist who has been treating and researching concussion for more than two decades at the Sports Concussion Center of New Jersey. “I would say buyer beware.”
Many clinic directors market themselves as “credentialed” concussion management specialists, but that term has no medical meaning.
It just indicates they’ve completed training offered by a private company that sells a controversial computer test for evaluating concussions — and that promises to help its legions of trainees launch and market their own clinics.
Concussion products, meanwhile, flood the market: A pressurized neck collar is touted as a sort of “bubble wrap” for the brain. Pricey mouth guards and helmet covers promise to reduce the risk for young athletes, even though experts say no external device can protect the brain from slamming into the skull. A $300 genetic test claims to identify a child’s risk of concussion from a mouth swab — though scientists say the research is far too immature for such tests to be of value.
Parents and athletes worried about brain trauma — a fear likely to be fanned by the upcoming movie “Concussion” — make up a large and avid market.
OOOH!
This whole society is based on fear and panic right now; otherwise, you might $ee what is really going on out there.
The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, has issued repeated and strong public warnings that dietary supplements can’t prevent or treat concussion. But interest has hardly abated; the market still teems with pills and powders that promise to aid concussion recovery with ingredients like fish oil, turmeric, and resveratrol.
Apps that purport to diagnose concussion are also proliferating, with names like “Brain Check” and “Play it Safe.” Neurologists say it can be misleading and even dangerous for parents and coaches to rely on them because they reduce complex brain injury to a simplistic algorithm.
“Some of these products are just silly. Everyone’s out to make a buck,” said Steven Broglio, a kinesiologist who directs the Neurotrauma Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan and is a lead researcher on a $30 million concussion study funded by the NCAA and US Department of Defense....
That's when I started feeling woozy.
--more--"
Here is how you can recover faster if you have been banged around:
"Questions linger over Tom Brady’s relationship with ‘body coach’" by Bob Hohler Globe Staff December 20, 2015
The Patriots, in an unusual departure from National Football League practice, have created a revenue stream for a private business owned by their franchise quarterback, Tom Brady, and a partner who faced federal sanctions after falsely presenting himself as a medical doctor and deceptively promoting nutritional supplements.
One notable product that Brady’s partner, Alejandro “Alex” Guerrero, promoted — and the quarterback enthusiastically endorsed — was marketed as helping to prevent and heal concussions, a grave health issue for NFL players and a challenge to the sport’s image....
Our whole society is based on the illusion of imagery, which seems more important than any reality -- whatever it may be.
--more--"
Brady is also one of the Illuminati, and he is apparently a cheater(?).
Speaking of cheating:
Manning denies HGH use after source recants allegations
Charlie Sly says he lied to Al Jazeera because he was "testing the reporter," and one can only wonder who got to him.
Looks like AJ got set up for a bone-crushing hit by one of those Manning ducks he's been throwing this year.
Game Break: I may be out a few days posting per concu$$ion protocol, dear readers. I hope I don't need surgery.
UPDATE: Peyton hires ex-Bush aide Ari Fleischer to quarterback HGH crisis
And who is Ari Fleischer?
He was the pre$$ secretary of the criminal Bush cabal that helped bring you the Iraq invasion and warned us all to "watch what [we] say, watch what [we] do" in the land of freedom.
Good thing Peyton Manning's reputation is impeccable; otherwise, you might need to get your head checked.
UPDATES:
Sideline doctors: How the NFL’s concussion-spotting system is — and isn’t — working
Still haven't seen the movie and likely won't. I have to be dragged there now.
Manning story has been dispatched down the memory hole, too.
"Amid growing concerns about concussions and other injuries, the Somerville Recreation Department will replace its youth football program with noncontact flag football, an increasingly popular alternative nationwide."
And down comes the house!
