Tut-Tut DN

With modern technology being what it is, it was only a matter of time before Daily Nebraskan cartoonist Brent Meir would be misunderstood by a wider audience.

The cartoon is, of course, unfunny, but not offensive. It is actually slightly better than Meir's usual cartoons since it's not that hard to figure out he is trying to make a joke

I saw the "greatest fans in the world" doing the wave while Washington was possibly crippled or dead on the ground. This is no surprise. Only a deluded few even pretend anymore that there is any nobility or honor to our bread and circuses. We may get morally outraged at the likes of Terell Owens when it provides us with an excuse to hate black people in public, but the truth is that we don't very much care about our own players, let alone the other teams'. This incident has not revealed anything unknown or unusual.

The Meier controversy was started by KU fans trolling the internet for excuses to be outraged by something.

I would never wish an injury upon any player. Maybe Nebraska fans do, especially after a player for a team they've hammered for so long is now competing with them. Maybe Nebraska can't deal with Kansas improving in football.

So said one outraged Kansan. The blunt truth is that our football team has been beaten by lots of teams in the past few years, and no, we don't take last year's Kansas game particularly harder than any other loss.

There was a time when only psychopaths like Dick Butkis needed to convince themselves that every opponent disrespected him and every game was a battle for personal honor. The fact that winning is beter than losing seemed to be motivation enough for everyone else.

These days, we have sports-talk radio, ESPN, and the internet pumping up the volume and emotion on sports and everything else. Every team is a rival. Every statement of confidence is a "guranteed win" or an insult. The obsession with respect and disrespect in sports culture betrays deep childishness and insecurity in real-life culture. It's enough to make me ashamed to be watching the game with my pitcher of Blue Moon.