Dallas Cowboys

The “Dallas” Cowboys haven’t, strictly speaking, been in Dallas for almost 40 years. They started playing in 1960 at the Cotton Bowl, just a few miles from downtown Dallas. In 1971, they moved to the Texas Stadium, in Irving. Although Irving has been described as a “suburb of Dallas”, and is definitely part of the area usually referred to as “the DFW metroplex”, it is a city in its own right. Last year, the team moved to the newly built Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, which is “centrally located between Dallas and Fort Worth”, having been offered financial incentives that few could refuse (including Jerry Jones, the current owner). It’s one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world, second only to the Manchester United football team, and you don’t get to that position without cool-headed and ruthless financial acumen.

Protest sign ...

... and a 100 yards down the road

 I drove past the shell of the old Texas Stadium this morning – it’s only a few miles from the hotel – and was saddened to think that it will be completely demolished on April 11^th. They auctioned off the stadium seats, the scoreboard, the clocks, the chandeliers, and anything else that didn’t move. As I drove past, I was listening to Brulé’s Buffalo Moon – Brulé are a native American band – and an interesting juxtaposition of ideas occurred to me.

Native American culture is gaining momentum here, as well it should. There is a story behind the band, but it is not my place to tell it. The music represented, for me, something agelessly spiritual, and the stadium, something purely temporal. It seems as though we build things just so that we can tear them down, like a child with a sandcastle; as if we are emphasizing our mortality, writing it bold, italicizing and then underlining it. The native spirituality predates the corruption of Christianity, in which we have descended from illumination to evangelism, from learning to lust, from cathedrals to child-molesting.

We no longer have the stomach for majesty, the heart for love, or the will to survive. We will continue to rape and pillage until there is nothing left to rape and pillage, or until, as is more likely, nature tires of our futile attempts to circumvent her need to contain our voracity.

Infuriating, isn’t it?