I don't know what people are thinking any more...

Every time I think the world can't get any stupider, stories like this come across the wires.

No, really. In what universe is it sane to take sports so seriously that one person would shoot and kill another because she thought the other woman wasn't sufficiently upset that their team - in this case, the Alabama Crimson Tide - had lost a big football game?

I thought it was bad when I was in the grocery store one day and, apropos to the conversation I was having with the cashier, I expressed the opinion that I am not a fan of either football in general or the local state college's football team. Before I knew what was happening, there were four or five store employees grouped around me, trying to convince me of the error of my ways. You would have thought that I had declared myself an atheist in the middle of St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, the reaction was so extreme. But, you know, none of them threatened bodily harm over it or anything.

Now, to be fair, police investigating the killing have been quoted as saying that it is "unclear" whether the shooting was really motivated by the game. On the other hand, witnesses to the event have been explicit in their contention that the shooter was upset by other fans at a party who she felt "weren't real Alabama fans."

This just points out what I see as one of the big flaws of American culture in the 21st century. More and more, it seems, too many people are adopting - re-adopting, really - the position that anyone who doesn't agree with them deserves to die. I was under the impression that as civilization has advanced, we had abandoned that very old notion and were learning to live with at least some of our more minor disagreements. You know, like disagreements over games.

Yes, I said that. Football, baseball, basketball...they're all just games, you know, no matter how much money and how many egos have gotten tied up in sports, especially at the professional level. They are not life. Ultimately, they are entertainment rather than something that is actually important. And, yes, I love baseball, and I have "my team", but as vocal as I might get when watching games, I know that it is just a game, and not important at all in the grand scheme of things.

It alarms me enough when people take important things like politics with that deadly seriousness. It shocks me when I see people threatening the life of a politician (and I have seen that on social media as recently as in the past couple of months) just because they don't happen to agree with the politicians policy positions. It likewise shocks me when I hear people express their belief that others who don't agree with their religious beliefs deserve to die. Even that sort of thing, a few years ago, was considered to be so much on the fringe that almost everyone was shocked when such threats were made. In the past few years, though, that sort of threat has become almost normal, and people are not even subtle about making them sometimes.

It is even more alarming, though, when people prove willing to kill over a reaction to a game, or over wearing the wrong color or the wrong sports jersey. Have we so devalued human life that violence over personal opinion is coming to be accepted?

It hurts me to write this, but when I see stories like the one linked at the beginning of my post, I start to suspect that we might not really have the right to call ourselves civilized in the sense that most people take that concept.

I don't know. Maybe I'm blowing this up all out of proportion, and this is just a case of someone drinking too much for their own good and having access to a firearm. But I don't think so. This sort of thing, someone injuring, maiming, or killing of what is really something minor, happens much too often for all of those incidents to be outliers that don't reflect the culture at large.

What Super Bowl? Spring training is just around the corner...

I really wish they would just play the Super Bowl game and get it over with.

It's time for a confession here: I don't like football, I don't care a thing about it, and I'm tired of hearing about it.

Ordinarily, football and I do not clash. I can avoid the games, avoid the references to it, and everything is fine. But, for the past week, at least, that's all I've heard about. Every time I turn on the television. Every time I turn on the radio. Nearly every time I get on the Internet. Really. And I'm tired of hearing about it.

I can understand the constant promotion on CBS outlets. They're carrying the game tomorrow, so it stands to reason that they would be promoting the crap out of it. Not that there's much chance that it won't get top ratings. It always does. But the network wouldn't be doing it's job if it didn't do those promotions.

I'm not quite so sure that I understand all the programming around the actual game. As I understand it, the game starts in the middle of the afternoon, at least in my time zone. I think they mentioned 3:30 p.m. as the start time. But they also have been emphasizing that their pre-game programming will start at 8:00 a.m. Maybe it's just because I'm not a football fan, but I can't quite imagine how they are going to get seven and a half hours of pre-game programming out of one game.

Plus, they are, in truth, starting the pre-game programming today. On CBS' weekend morning newscast, they were already broadcasting from the site of the game, and mostly talking about the game. And then, tonight, there is going to be some sort of football-themed awards show broadcast on the network, according to some advertisements I saw.

I do get that there are a lot of football fans out there. But, are what amounts to a day and a half of pre-game programming really necessary? Really?

I'm not writing any of this to criticize football fans. You like your game. I understand that. I hope you enjoy the game tomorrow. I'm just not sure why, in the past few years, Super Bowl Sunday has come to be treated like it's a national holiday.

There is hope for people like me, however. It's February. Spring training is just around the corner, and before we know it the baseball season will be starting.

But, I can pretty much guarantee that there will not be a day and a half of programming on a major broadcast network before the first game of the World Series. And, as much of a baseball fan as I am (I was raised to be one, from as long ago as I can remember), I wouldn't want there to be.

Since tomorrow is Music Sunday anyway, and because it makes me feel better, I'm leaving this with you, John Fogerty's "Centerfield":