Wet Bank Guide

My own special souvenir of my wife's Alma Mater's Sugar Bowl visit.

I'm conflicted about attending the Allstate Sugar Bowl, and not just because I'm misty-eyed about the days when bowls had names without commercial sponsors. The sponsor is a company that is clearly acting in directly contrary to the interests of New Orleans and the state, and should not be allowed to use this sponsorship to cover that up.

What idiot accepted this deal in the post-Flood universe? To paraphrase the Dear Leader: 8-29 changed everything, and some people just don't get it. Allstate and its fellow travelers in the world of legalized racketeering are not just another unpopular big business, like Microsoft or Wal-Mart: it is an organized criminal enterprise that seeks to ruin us to enrich itself, a cabal with a callous disregard for human suffering that would give Tony Soprano pause. And we are letting them trade in our own good name and good will, built over decades of Sugar Bowls, even as they trod upon us on the way to the bank.

What truly troubles me is this: is the national coverage of the Sugar Bowl important enough to the city's image that we should all just sit quietly on our hands when some Allstate exec struts onto the field pre-game, sitting with our hats held reverently in both hands while we closely examine our shoes and murmer, "thank you massah Allstate sir"? Or should we be ready to treat thtem to some of the triple decibel noise we know 70,000 plus angry fans can generate, showering the field with our true feelings and perhaps the odd loose projectile?

Should the Allstate representative have to be escorted off the field by a protective detail sheilding him with their bodies from a rain of beer cups and programs, and the sponsor skybox evacuated as a precaution? Should Fox have to cut the stadium sound lest some tender ears here what people in Louisiana really think about Allstate?

Or would a delay of kickoff caused by a semi-riot ultimately be counter-productive? What will those millions of viewers think? Frankly, my dear readers, I don't give a damn. No, that's not true. I do give a damn what the rest of America thinks. What they need to know is that the property insurance industry in this nation is a fraud, that our experience isn't just an isolated case of a dispute between some homeowner and their insurer over a few dollars one way or the other.

Instead, we have torn back the scab and found a huge cancerous growth. If politely sitting on our hands tomorrow night allows that growth to continue untreated, will we have done a tremendous disservice to the entire nation. America needs to know that when push comes to shove, all of their payments all these years will mean nothing, that the policies they hold are ultimately worthless, that its all a scam, that their friend at Rotary with the bright smile and the Allstate lapel pin is a thieving scum bucket.

Here's hoping that at the first visible sign of an Allstate presence on the field at the Sacredome that I won't be alone when I stand and start booing.

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