Letting The Air Out

Justice grinds slow for some. It took three years to find James Holmes guilty of the murders he committed in that movie theater in Aurora. For many, the six months it took to determine if deflated balls were the reason Tom Brady should be kept out of professional football was six months too long. There are a few who believe that life in prison for Holmes was a rush to judgement. There are probably just as many or more who believe that Tom's deflated balls should have kept him off the field for at least four games instead of the zero which he was eventually sentenced. Let the punishment fit the crime. Letting air out of footballs is a crime punishable by an extraordinary amount of media attention followed by a collective sigh as the show that is the National Football League is reassured that it must go on.
Which is kind of the way it turns out that a plea of "no contest" will be held against someone if they beat their four year old son until they are bloody. Adrian Peterson missed an entire season of playing football, along with the four thousand dollar fine and eighty hours of community service. That was a year ago. Now Adrian is back and, if you can believe the pre-season hype, he's better than ever. This was, by the way, an unpaid leave of absence from his job as a professional football player. Even though he only got to play in one game in the 2014 season, fans voted him one of the hundred best players last year. I guess character isn't the thing that attracts a lot of attention for some.
Third degree aggravated assault on your fiancee will potentially get you five years in jail and a fine of fifteen thousand dollars. If you happen to be Ray Rice, you won't do any jail time, and after a seemingly protracted debate that took place in the court of public opinion and TMZ, Mister Rice was awarded three million dollars and change in a settlement with his former employer: The NFL. What will Ray be doing this year? If you read the sports pages, he's just the guy to fill in when your star running back goes down with an injury. Or if he beats on their child or fiancee. Or if he deflates balls. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so it follows that ridiculous times call for ridiculous measures. Justice is blind, but who knew she had such a short memory?