An Australian rules football player goes on an end-of-season trip to Las Vegas with some of his teammates. He gets blind drunk, ends up at a hotel where he is not staying, tries to jump from the balcony of a room onto a palm tree and falls to the ground.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the man dies as a result of this fall. He is just 22, not anywhere near the age where one thinks of death.<\/p>\n
A local paper in Melbourne describes him as a hero.<\/p>\n
Which means that many others should aspire to be like him. After all, we all want to be heroes don’t we?
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\nExactly, how stupid can the media be? You’d have to wonder.<\/p>\n
Australian rules footballers and participants in other sports in Australia have a habit of getting blind drunk and doing stupid things. It is always excused. Partly because there is a historic reverence for booze in the country.<\/p>\n
Every time it happens, no-one talks about the danger of drinking to excess. That is never brought up, for if it was, then a lot of people would have to look very hard at themselves.<\/p>\n
The first white people brought to Australia were prisoners from England. In chains, they were locked up and made to work, hard, back-breaking work. Their only relief in the evening was to get sozzled to forget. And so it has continued down the years.<\/p>\n
One of the prime ministers who was said to be a crowd favourite, Bob Hawke, was two parts cut right through his eight years as the head of government. Nobody in the country thought this was an issue.<\/p>\n
Had someone been driving while drunk and ended up dead as a result, there would be a lot of talk about the danger of driving while high. But in the case of this footballer, there will be no such caution.<\/p>\n
He will be extolled as a great mate, and all his other noble qualities will be talked about. There will not be a word said about the fact that if you get blind drunk, then you are bound to do stupid things.
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