Tuesday, April 14, 2009

On Day 1 of Citi Field

Y'all didn't think my first post after a week-long hiatus would be about baseball, did you? Well, don't worry. I'm not going to write about cutie pants David Wright, but instead, the gross waste of money that is Citi Field (and the new Yankee Stadium).


How fitting that the Mets' new stadium should bear the name of one of the biggest culprits in the financial crash of 2008. All the greed and entitlement - buzz words tossed around in the how-could-this-happen-when-we-thought-it-never-would coverage of the recession - now have a shrine where fat, beer-guzzling, nacho-eating plebes can go worship overpaid and undereducated grown men playing a kids' game. The combined cost for both unnecessary stadiums: over 2 billion dollars. And we wonder why America is going to hell in a handbasket.

If America has been compared to an empire in decline before, then it's only fitting that our nation's greatest city should have not one, but two, Colosseums of its very own. So nevermind the homeless, or those people the presidential candidates called out during the campaign - those poor working stiffs or feeble retirees who live hand-to-mouth - they dont exist anymore apparently because corporate America, and the American public have money to spare.

Now, who was to know that by the time opening day rolled around for these two colossal wastes of private and public funds, that Americans would be trying to embrace some semblance of austerity. Now that conspicious consumption is out, we have two billion dollars worth of ego and greed to look at and remind us of how warped our values are.

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