In a week where the SEC and Big Ten squabble over who invented the preposterous 16-team playoff, one might reasonably ask whether Wander Franco’s judicial pardon for sexual abuse was granted by the same moral arbitrators who decide our football fixtures. The sporting world appears aflame with righteous indignation over a rookie quarterback shaking hands with a President, yet seems remarkably sanguine about a shortstop escaping prison for abusing a minor—a triumph of branding over basic decency that would make even the Pope’s new AI ethics algorithm short-circuit in confusion. Meanwhile, President Trump has apparently found time between normalising Middle Eastern relations and personally cancelling late-night comedians to reshape the republic, proving that while freedoms are never free, they are apparently available at a considerable discount if one knows the right people.
🎵 (s)Hit of the Day 🎵
📜 Lyrics 📜
[Intro]
[Heavy distorted guitar skank launches, kick drum pounds like a headache]
[Melodica wails bleak melody over the top]
Yeah... right then.
[Verse 1]
Sixteen teams, that's the grand design
The SEC and Big Ten drawing battle lines
Pointing fingers, screaming who gets paid
From the unpaid labour that they've already betrayed
It's a messy squabble for the TV gold
While the student athletes do what they're told
Monetising virtue in a corporate shell
A petty little bicker in aShortcut to hell
[Chorus]
[Shout] Whistle blows!
But justice never came
[Gang vocals] Justice never came!
A judicial pardon? What a wicked game
They're counting coins while they erase the blame
Yeah, the whistle blows
But nothing's gonna change!
[Verse 2]
Down in Dominican, the courtroom's dark
A star walks free after leaving his mark
Guilty of abuse, yeah the verdict was clear
But the prison cell? Nah, that's not around here
A judicial pardon keeps the record clean
The worst sort of favour that I've ever seen
While NFL pundits wring their hands in fear
'Cause a rookie quarterback shook hands with a peer!
[Spoken] Oh, the horror! The scandal!
[Breakdown]
[Bass guitar drops out, just kick drum and triangle hits]
Acho calls it stupid on the television screen
A photo-op with a President, if you know what I mean
But where's the outrage for the child in the dark?
The machinery failed her, left a permanent mark
[Gang vocals, prison-yard chant style]
I say! NO! MORE! PARDONS!
I say! NO! MORE! LIES!
I say! NO! MORE!
[Guitar Solo]
[Distorted electric guitar solo, frantic and ska-influenced, organ swells underneath]
[Verse 3]
The Commander-in-Chief has got a busy day
Cancelling Stephen in a terrifying way
Micromanaging jokes from the highest seat
While peace in the Middle East sits incomplete
Urging Arab nations to normalise and sign
Watching Thomas Massie for the eighty-eighth time
The priorities are crooked, yeah the tower's gonna lean
When a late-night monologue traps the whole regime
[Bridge]
Pope Leo writes with a heavy heart
Pleading for A.I. before it tears us apart
"Keep the humans in the loop," he cries to the sky
But the organic intelligence has already said goodbye
It can't tell the difference between a summit and a show
Between a ratings war and a peace treaty, no!
[Verse 4]
In Garden Grove the toxic tank might blow
But tempers are exploding in the status quo
Meanwhile in Normandy, a soldier finds his rest
Nathan Baskind finally with the righteous and the blessed
A Jewish boy among the heroes laid
Not with the Nazis in a shallow grave
Clarence B. Jones has closed his eyes
The architect of dreams beneath the skies
I Have A Dream... now there's a thought
In a world where justice can be bought!
[Chorus]
[Shout] Whistle blows!
But justice never came
[Gang vocals] Justice never came!
A judicial pardon? What a wicked game
They're counting coins while they erase the blame
Yeah, the whistle blows
But nothing's gonna change!
[Outro]
[Bass guitar grinds in dropped-B, melodica returns]
Count the money.
Ignore the crime.
Build the playoff.
Serve the time.
[Spoken] Not that they will.
[Final distorted guitar skank cuts out abruptly]