Whoopin' It Up

There used to be an easy comedy bit to be made about the way the sports pages and the police blotter began to merge. It's not so funny anymore.
Currently, the National Football League finds its collective self standing over the can of worms they opened up when they went back and banned wife-punching Ray Rice from their party. Much has been made, here on this blog and elsewhere, about the relative justice of this whole escapade. Public figure, security camera, privacy, yadda yadda yadda. If Ray Rice had been an employee at Wal Mart, would he have been welcomed back with open arms? Would his supporters have been hanging around the store entrance, wearing his blue vest in a show of solidarity? I don't expect that they would. And I'm guessing that his co-workers might have found a safe distance to sit before issuing their own encouragement. It's the world without wads of cash.
In the world that runs on those great big wads of cash, Adrian Peterson the star running back for the Minnesota Vikings and indicted child abuser, has been reinstated by his team. "Whooping" his four-year-old son with a switch caused him to miss a game, or one week of work. A year's salary for most of us. And he got plenty of that vociferous support for his actions from his colleagues. His division rival and fellow running back Reggie Bush discussed his child-rearing theories with WFAN's Boomer and Carton. "I was punished the same way," the Lions ball carrier said. "And I know a lot of my friends and a lot of the guys I played with, they were punished the same way, too. I got what we call whoopings." There's that word again. He went on to speak about how he might treat his one-year-old daughter, “I definitely will try to — will obviously not leave bruises or anything like that on her. But I definitely will discipline her harshly depending on what the situation is.” 
Obviously. Because leaving bruises is what gets a guy into trouble, isn't it? Leaving lacerations that lasted for weeks, that seems to be the issue for Mister Peterson. Leaving security video behind seems to be the issue for Mister Rice. "Whooping" is something that has cultural acceptance. Not in Third World countries. Not in poverty. In America. Now. And other Americans are defending it. Here. Now. Sleep tight, America.