I try to steer from politics, but with all the noise on Facebook about the NFL and anthems, I thought I’d type up a mildly different medical perspective that I haven’t read yet. Or maybe I need to read more.

For starters, what kind of society pays people millions to inflict and receive concussions, and then judges their decision making?

As long as there are people, veterans or otherwise, unhoused in my town and elsewhere; as long as hundreds are ODing on pain killers daily; as long as we have back to back to back once-in-a-century earthquakes and hurricanes, with many still buried or in the dark; as long as our longest war continues, with new ones in the making; as long as there’s Haiti, and a string of newly flattened neighbors; as long as I can’t visit my Venezuelan in-laws for fear of getting kidnapped… I’m simply uninterested in what folks do before they play their games.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love sports… playing them anyways. I actually think they’re critical for preventing wars even. Anything that safely burns time and testosterone during human “musth” has enormous value. And please no offense to veterans past, present and future, or to black lives, blue lives, native lives and any other struggling groups. Thank you for your service, and for your patience with our evolving, tumultuous country.

To me though, the anthem debate is a ruse built for distraction and division. If you’ve ever been in a snowball fight, a clever move is to lob a softball at your target, followed quickly by the ice ball. Anyone busy aggressively debating anthems has eyes on the slow lob. The fast pitch is coming, or maybe we’ve already been hit.

So if you stand, kneel, sit, or stay home, we’ll still be friends… and l’ll still patch you up in a pinch.