Irrational war on germs a form of self-hatred

We all know, "it takes a village to raise a child." But how about this: "It takes 14,000 times the world's population to create a body."

Because that's literally true. Not a population of humans, but (and germophobes, please grab a paper bag into which to breathe to avoid hyperventilating), microbes. The average human has more than 100 trillion microbes in and on his or her (let's face it: His) body. Put another way, we're 90 percent microbial, 10 percent human, according to several studies.

We're more microbe than human!

Even if those statistics are slightly off, they're close. According to another study, we're made up of 40 trillion bacteria and 30 trillion human cells – still more bacteria than human, but closer. It's a 40-30 split, favoring bacteria. (And in the spirit of transparency, microbes and bacteria may not be the same thing. In fact, they're probably different. But they're both germy.)

The main takeaway? Quit worrying about touching the restroom door at work. Those aren't your enemies, they're your brothers!

Consider this fact, shared by the leader of the National Institutes of Health's Human Microbiome Project: Each of us carries around 3 to 5 pounds of bacteria. Three to 5 pounds! That's like a bag of sugar, but filled with bacteria!

Think about that the next time you're squirting Purell on your hands. Or eating a bag of sugar.

The extreme battle against germs has long been confounding to those of us who are rational. Germs are impossible to avoid (again: you have more bacteria cells than human cells in what constitutes "you"). Exposure to germs helps build up your immune system (unless your immune system is compromised to the extent of the character played by John Travolta in the 1976 TV movie "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble"). Your ancestors lived in dirt hovels, bathed monthly and ate food with filthy hands – and survived to create the next generation.

But this new information (at least it's new to me) changes everything. It confirms that I'm right when I make fun of people who refuse to touch the door handle while leaving a public restroom or who shriek when I pick up food off the floor and eat it.

Because the fact is we're somewhere between 57 percent and 90 percent germs (or microbes, in case they're different). Those little fellas in public restrooms are really our cousins.

You could make the case that if we eliminated all the bacteria/microbes in our body, we'd be better off if for no other reason than we'd be about 5 pounds lighter.

But you could also make the case that by proclaiming our disgust with germs, we're practicing a form of self-hatred.

I agree with the second approach.

Science tells what the wise already knew: When we stress out about a few germs, it's the same thing as spiraling into distress because we'll never be back at our high school weight or because our hairline is rising. We're disliking ourselves.

I, for one, welcome the germs.

To the bacteria and microbes that make up between 57 percent and 90 percent of my body, I quote the opening lyrics from the Doobie Brothers' iconic 1976 (Hey! Two references to 1976 in the same column!) hit, "Takin' It To the Streets": "You don't know me, but I'm your brother."

My brother and sister germs, I just want to be a good host.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Threat to coffee makes climate change real

My introduction to the idea of global warming (2017 version: climate change) came during childhood, when the big threat to the environment – other than thermonuclear war and the fact that people could smoke anywhere – was aerosol gas.

By using aerosol cans for deodorant, hairspray and cleaning products, we put a hole in the ozone. It was heating up the planet.

My dad's reaction? Since we lived in a town that rarely warmed beyond 70 degrees, he was all for it. "I go outside every day and spray several cans," he would tell his buddies. "If it gets about five or 10 degrees warmer here, it will be perfect."

Hah, hah, hah.

My amusement – and distrust – of his views manifested themselves in my adulthood. Like most people, I believe the world is warming. Like most scientists (I'm not a scientist, despite my predilection for white coats), I believe humans are responsible for much of it.

But like most people, I tend to ignore it.

It will get fixed. Smart people will figure out a solution. We're getting better. This won't affect us for generations . . . blah, blah, blah.

At my worst, I bring echoes of my dad: If the oceans rise, it will just make my Suisun City house that much closer to the ocean. It will drive up my home's value.

Hah, hah, hah.

Recently, I saw something in the newspaper that made me panic. It made me the Al Gore of Solano County.

Did you know that global warming threatens the ability to grow coffee beans?

Oh. Em. Gee.

A study found that Ethiopia, the world's fifth-largest coffee producer, could lose up to 60 percent of its suitable farming land by the end of this century because of climate change.

Another report from World Coffee Research (which has offices in the break room of the Gallup Organization), says the demand for coffee will double by 2050, but the suitable land to grow it will be cut in half.

This makes sense, because most of the world's coffee is produced near the equator, which is where climate change will have the quickest effect. A recent study by the University of Vermont found global warming could reduce coffee-growing areas in Latin America by as much as 88 percent by 2050.

That is a long time from now (although I remember when 2000 was impossibly in the future), but this is reason to panic. Do you think President Donald Trump would have pulled us out of the Paris Accord (which I thought was a Toyota model until I learned otherwise) had he known that it could ruin coffee? Well, probably, but go with me here.

The news about coffee may be a game-changer. This may finally engage people in the quest to slow climate change. Those who ignore the threat of catastrophic weather events and the danger of coastal cities being overtaken by the seas will react to the threat of bad, expensive coffee.

I know this: In post-apocalyptic books, coffee is always one of the most valuable items on Earth. Now we learn that global warming, not global war, could cause the coffee crisis.

Save our coffee, even if it means we need to rip that aerosol can of Right Guard out of my dad's hands as he tries to warm up my hometown by five degrees.

Hah, hah, hah.

Future generations of coffee drinkers will thank us.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Wildfire reactions, play-by-play announcers, more

It's just over a week until Halloween, which means it's time for me to empty my theoretical notebook of column tidbits.

It's a theoretical notebook. I live in a digital world, next door to Max Headroom. So it's not a real notebook, but on to the topics du jour . . .

• The recent nightmarish wildfires reminded us of at least two important things:

• We're more vulnerable to nature's whims than we think.
• Our community still responds well when others are in danger.
• In an era when we often dismiss others for their political views and spend more time creating conflict than resolving it, it was refreshing to see the empathy and help given by all kinds of Northern Californians.

Now we can get back to bickering.

You know, back to normal.

• High five: The greatest play-by-play sportscasters in national TV history.

This requires people who do play-by-play on the national level. For my purposes, the broadcaster must do at least two sports – proving versatility.

5. Joe Buck. Giants fans hate the voice of Fox coverage of Major League Baseball and the NFL, but it's undeserved. Buck isn't perfect, but he tells stories, anticipates drama and captures the moment. Giants fans want a cheerleader and he isn't one. Because he shouldn't be.

4. Keith Jackson. Before he became a little bit of a caricature – "rumblin', bumblin', stumblin!"– Jackson established himself as the voice of college football. He also was the initial play-by-play man on "Monday Night Football," a longtime ABC baseball announcer and was staple on "Wide World of Sports," where he covered cliff diving, demolition derbies and anything else.

3. Curt Gowdy. He was NBC's voice for every major sport in the 1960s and 1970s. A Wyoming native who was a radio play-by-play man for the Boston Red Sox (Wyoming to Boston!), his nasal delivery personified the AFL, Major League Baseball and Saturday afternoon bowling.

2. Bob Costas. A network announcer before he turned 30, Costas was NBC's Olympics host from 1992 until he stepped down from that role this year. Put him behind the microphone for any major sport and he's a fantastic storyteller with a great pace.

1. Al Michaels. The voice of "Monday Night Football" is also America's greatest baseball announcer and has been the play-by-play man for the national NBA games. After 40 years on the air (he was a Giants radio announcer in the mid-1970s before joining ABC), he's still the best. Ever.

• I hate it when actors on TV shows or movies pretend to drive, but look at their passengers when they talk without checking the road. In fact, I yell at my TV: "You're going to crash!" They don't listen, but I'll keep doing it, just in case.

• Similarly, Mrs. Brad has the unusual ability of spotting when people "drink coffee" on TV while using empty paper cups. How hard is it to add water or something, so they don't lift air-filled cups, making it obvious they are empty?

• Yes, we criticize TV shows while we watch them. Just like you.

• In a world where we criticize road planning all the time ("who decided to do that construction now?"), we should acknowledge the job transportation experts did to make the Interstate 680 drive from Concord to Fairfield work better. From the expanded Benicia Bridge to the 680-80 interchange, it's dramatically improved from a decade ago.

• Three foods still remain among my favorites, as they have been in every decade: Pizza, peanut butter and milk.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Should we worry about Elon Musk's AI warnings?

Elon Musk is a smart man. He's the brains behind Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and Musk fragrance (maybe not the last one). He's just 46 and already an iconic figure in American business.

(I wonder if Musk changed his name to seem cooler, like when Laurence Turead became Mr. T. Apparently not, according to Wikipedia. However, Wikipedia once briefly listed me as a famous graduate of the college I attended and a frequent contributor to the Gary Radnich show on KNBR, back in the days when it was easy to change things.)

Anyway, I reached two conclusions: Elon Musk is the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, and Elon Musk makes me afraid.

Not because of what he does, but because of what he thinks.

Recently, he warned us about the dangers of artificial intelligence.

He commented on Twitter that AI (what we call artificial intelligence, although I habitually think of former NBA star Allen Iverson when I hear "AI") is more dangerous than North Korea. That might come as good news to South Korea, but is bad news for the rest of us.

Musk's tweet came after a product from his OpenAI company appeared at a $24 million video game tournament, beating some of the world's best players. (Frankly, the fact that I just typed a sentence that includes the phrase "a $24 million video game tournament" frightens me more than artificial intelligence.)

Musk warned that AI should be regulated. This echoed his statements a year earlier, when he said if IA is not regulated, humans could devolve into the equivalent of "house cats," compared to computers. (One plus: House cats wouldn't hold a $24 million video game tournament.)

Musk's campaign isn't just about video games and house cats, although that would frighten most right-thinking Americans, who don't like either. Musk joined other CEOs in signing an open letter to the United Nations, calling for a ban of the use of AI in weapons. The letter said, "lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare," following the gunpowder revolution and Prince and the Revolution, if my grasp of history is correct.

This wasn't the first time. Musk joined a bunch of other smart people who wrote a similar letter in 2015.

So what should we do? From my perspective, here's what's important: The source. This warning about artificial intelligence posing a threat to humanity isn't coming from someone who watched too many science-fiction movies or one of the nabobs on an internet message board. It's not from someone who wears aluminum foil hats. It's not from your crazy brother-in-law who thinks 9/11 was an inside job.

This is from Elon Musk, a successful, forward-thinking entrepreneur.

This is from the guy who is possibly changing the energy game with solar-powered batteries. This is from the guy who suggested a "hyperloop" from Northern California to Southern California and no one laughed, because he had a plan.

That's the guy who warns about artificial intelligence taking over the world and turning us into house cats.

So what to do?

Don't go to all the websites recommended by your computer. Don't let the navigation app on your smartphone dictate where you drive. Don't . . . ahh, what am I saying? I will continue to do all those things.

Anyway, who is Elon Musk, anyway? Did you see the hyperloop thing he proposed? What a nabob.

I read on an internet message board that this isn't real and I shouldn't worry. Of course, the phrasing seemed slightly less than human, so . . .

I'm sure it's nothing.

And you can count on me. I used to be a famous graduate of my college.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

America has fallen for pumpkin spice ruse

Let's get this much clear: Pumpkin spice is fake news. It's like calling a vanilla milkshake (milk, ice cream, vanilla extract and sugar) "chocolate spice." Because, of course, there is rarely any pumpkin in pumpkin spice.

Pumpkin spice is usually some combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and the eye of newt. Calling it pumpkin spice is like calling the NBA team in Utah the "Jazz."

Nonsensical.

Yet we've fallen for it, in the biggest triumph of American marketing since we thought "Happy Days" was funny. Watch "Happy Days" sometime. It's not funny. Never was, but we were told it was funny. We obliged.

We're now told pumpkin spice flavoring is great and is what autumn tastes like. We oblige.

The pumpkin spice ruse started with Starbucks in 2003. It's the same company that told us that "venti" is a size, frappuccino is a word, that it's a "mistake" when they foul up writing our names on the cups (and we share on social media, giving Starbucks free advertising) and that there was a controversy over their holiday coffee cups, requiring us to buy their coffee to prove we're open-minded.

Starbucks told us in 2003 that pumpkin spice latte was how to celebrate autumn.

People like it, which is fine – no different from Starbucks selling eggnog lattes in December and McDonald's selling Shamrock Shakes around St. Patrick's Day. It was a seemingly harmless diversion.

Then it spread. Pretty soon, you couldn't walk down the street without seeing advertisement for a pumpkin spice product.

Pumpkin spice tea. Pumpkin spice pancakes (well . . . sure!). Pumpkin spice gelato. Pumpkin spice peanut butter.

It continued.

Pumpkin spice cough drops (cough drops!). Pumpkin spice pretzels. Pumpkin spice butter. Pumpkin spice Pringles chips. Pumpkin spice Cheerios. Pumpkin spice Oreos. (OK. The last three have plenty of flavor varieties, so it's OK. Even though pumpkin spice, again, isn't really a spice and rarely contains pumpkin.)

It's over the top. It's marketing. Starbucks launched a campaign that has us craving something that didn't exist in 2002. It created the illusion that their product is linked to the arrival of autumn and Halloween and the holiday season and cool, crisp nights.

Fine for coffee, maybe. But butter? Cough drops? Gelato?

There's no end in sight and it's getting worse.

The idea went fully off the rails earlier this year when San Francisco-based, all-natural deodorant maker Native, which previously offered such scents as coconut and vanilla, apricot and white peach, and cypress and cedar, launched a new line.

Pumpkin spice latte deodorant.

Seriously.

Not only does it smell like pumpkin spice (again, not really a spice. And pumpkin is rarely included), it allegedly smells like a pumpkin spice latte.

Your armpit can smell like the most popular drink of autumn.

This is no knock on companies that are using pumpkin spice flavors and scents – they're just chasing the market.

This is a cry for the America consumer to see clearly. We're being exploited. We're being played. We're being molded into what Big Coffee and Big Cookie and Big Butter and Big Deodorant want us to be, so we'll buy their products.

Stop the madness. Buy a pumpkin spice latte if you need it, but stop there.

Take back fall. Take back pumpkins. We can do better than this.

And when we win, remember that the revolution was started by me, the official pumpkin spice columnist of autumn.

Reach Brad "Pumpkin Spice" Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Ranking Solano's seasons, worst to first

Mrs. Brad and I were in the Sierra Nevada on the first day of fall. It snowed.

Meanwhile, in our hometown of Suisun City, it was in the mid-70s and sunny, which goes to show you at least one thing: Your perception of a season largely depends on where you spend it. Winter in Wisconsin is not winter in Hawaii. Summer in Alabama is not summer in Alaska. Falling in a sand pit is not the same as falling into a wood chipper, although that's a different issue.

Since I live in Solano County and I like to rank things (I've previously ranked generations, decades, punctuation marks and holidays, for instance), it's natural to rank the four seasons in our region (summer, fall, winter, spring. Not Frankie Valli's singing group nor the 1981 Carol Burnett-Alan Alda film), based on a scientific compilation of selective facts, feelings and personal history.

Starting from the bottom:

4. Winter: The best thing about winter here: It's better than elsewhere. It's not as cold, our rain isn't as plentiful, our fog isn't as bad.

Still, that's like saying that Hot Pockets aren't as bad as hot dogs . . . a dubious honor. When you support something by saying it's not as bad as it could be, you make a losing argument. Winter is dark, wet, cold and dreary. It includes all of January and February, our worst months. The best day of the season is Christmas, which comes four days into winter and is followed by three months of dreariness.

3. Fall: Few things are more predictable than the insistence of women in their 30s and 40s that they love fall. The only problem? They're wrong (just like they're wrong about pumpkin spice flavors, Ryan Gosling's acting talent and "The Bachelor").

However . . . fall in Solano County is a time of glorious weather (usually in the 70s and 80s until early November), overshadowed by two negatives: Days get shorter and fall actually lasts until Dec. 21, which is dreary, cold and dark. The good things? High school football returns (we can hear the Armijo High public address announcer and the cheering crowds from our house), heat waves are largely gone and the best holiday (Thanksgiving) takes place.

Fall in Solano County is better than spring and summer in many other places. But not here.

2. Summer: I grew up in a town where summer meant fog and 60-degree days, so when Mrs. Brad and I moved here, it was glorious. One-hundred degree days? Bring 'em on!

Decades of living here changed my view. Somewhat.

I still love warm weather, but don't enjoy heat waves. And when we get heat waves (arguably the worst weather events in Solano County, which is saying something), they're in the summer. But here's what else is in the summer: Outdoor community activities, camping, plenty of 85-degree days, late nights of sunshine.

For my money, summer is a winner. Just not the winner.

1. Spring: Just the name seems great: Spring! The weather gets warmer and the days get longer. It means the start of baseball, the NBA playoffs, the end of the school year and the start of outdoor activities. We're never more optimistic than springtime.

Warm weather, vacations, more sunlight? Spring is the best season here.

And in just more than five months, it will return!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Another tough year for most-popular baby names

I always defend millennials. But really?

Babies named Kylo? Zayn? Zyaire? Royalty? Itzayna? Poppy?

All of those were among the names that increased the most in popularity from 2015 to 2016, according to the Social Security Administration.

To be fair, none are in the top 100, but still . . . how is it possible that Royalty is a more popular girls name than Brittany and Anne? How is it that Grey is a more popular boys name than Bobby or Willie? Has there been a great San Francisco Giants outfielder named Grey? I thought not.

The annual list always causes intrigue. For instance, the 2016 rankings bring a question about whether the transformation of Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner affects things so much that the four girls' names that decreased the most in 2016 were Caitlin, Caitlyn, Katelynn and Kaitlynn?

Hmm. I would have thought the reaction would be the opposite.

It's time to admit the obvious: People don't know what they're doing when they're naming their children.

Of course when the "most popular baby names" list comes out every year, the focus is on the top. It's Noah, Liam and William for the boys, Emma, Olivia and Ava for the girls.

All fine. But I'm more concerned about the others, bubbling beneath the surface.

For instance, did you know that Valentino and Talon were both in the top 1,000 boys names? I mean, that's a good law firm (who would want to go to court against Valentino and Talon?), but would you trust your 5-year-old daughter in a class with a kid named Valentino? (Of course, the only people who understand that reference are dead).

On the girls' side, it's more of the same. Wren, Myah and Lennox. All top-1,000 names. Also potential names of kitchen appliance companies.

Of course, there's some good news for people who want it to be 1945 again. James, Daniel, David, John, Jack, Charles and Leo are all in the top 100. They sound like my father's friends. Evelyn, Grace, Penelope, Lillian, Eleanor and Lucy (all of whom could have been my grandmother's sisters) are top-60 names.

Names are obviously a personal choice. With my oldest son and his bride expecting their first child, I'll be quiet when they make their choice, even if it's Royalty. Similarly, I'm not criticizing you for giving your child one of the names I mocked. I was talking about other people.

However . . . when it comes to girls names, there's this: Charleigh is No. 500. That begs the question of why not Bradleigh? It's not in the top 1,000. Maybe in 2017?

My personal pet peeve is that Aileen is listed at No. 599. That's the name of my sister and lifelong nemesis. Although I'll remind her that Bradley has only been out of the top 200 once in my lifetime, and that was 2008 when it was 201st. That's the year the U.S. economy crashed.

Solid names are always good, something we need to remember in 2056 when people named Kingston, Jax, Daleyza and Dahlia are presidential candidates.

They'll be fine and seem normal, but I stand by this: Never trust someone named Royalty to be president.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

There's a reason clowns have an image problem

The scariest clown movie in a generation was released last week when Stephen King's "It" hit theaters. Public response was strong. The response from the clown community wasn't funny.

The president of the World Clown Association (seriously!) said the movie, in which a monster takes a variety of forms (including a clown) and hunts down children, hurts the image of clowns. He blames the movie for the clown industry downturn.

The WCA, in fact, issued a statement that the character should be understood as a fantasy character, not "a true clown" and said "various horror clown portrayals work against our goal."

I'm sympathetic with the clown community, but they're wrong. The movie isn't what makes clowns scary. Clown makeup does that.

For me, at least.

My understanding of the horrors of clowns goes back to a time when I was about 20 and the future Mrs. Brad (then known as Brad's Girlfriend) and I were co-activity directors for a weeklong kids' camp for our church. We were at a remote campground with maybe 75 elementary-school-age kids and their counselors, directing relay races, water balloon volleyball, skits and singing.

And a clown makeup session.

Neither of us were advocates, but an influential adult loved clowns and figured the kids would love it, too. So on about the third day of camp, we got all the kids in the picnic bench area, had them pair up and paint each other's faces. It would be a hoot!

Problem 1: Kids don't know how to paint faces.

Problem 2: I don't know how to paint faces.

Problem 3: I paired up with Brad's Girlfriend, who did know how to paint faces. Or at least better than me.

As the 30-minute painting session progressed, you could feel energy being sucked out of the camp. It's nearly impossible to kill the spirit of 75 excited elementary school kids, but clown makeup did. I could almost hear the funeral dirge as the kids sat patiently (and impatiently), while friends painted their faces.

We weren't playing tag or Frisbee golf or capture the flag. We were painting each other's faces.

When Brad's Girlfriend and I finished, I didn't know how I looked, but I could see her. It was horrific. It was funny. Someone just arriving might have commended her for allowing a young, non-artistic, blind child to paint her face.

She wasn't happy. She was mad because I was laughing. And because I committed a makeup atrocity.

The kids were no different. The mood went from anticipation of another fun day to feeling like they'd been told the family dog died. We lined up for a group picture (the clown-loving adult thought it was great!) that undoubtedly revealed 75 pairs of slumped shoulders and pouting lips. Including Brad's Girlfriend.

It took a day to recover the energy. Even the campfire that night was somber. An event designed to make everyone happy created a heartbreaking experience for a group of kids – and a tortuous experience for Brad's Girlfriend, who had to wait an hour or so to remove the mess I painted on her face.

Some people love clowns. The World Clown Association says it wants to bring joy. The wider clown community seems nice.

But this much is clear: The image problem for clowns predates the current movie.

One good thing: For at least one day, decades ago, Mrs. Brad was legitimately the "It Girl."

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

New elements spread scientific knowledge, fear

I'm no scientist, although I played one in the 1966 horror movie "Mothra's Excellent Adventure." In fact, my science knowledge stops at the freezing temperature for water (cold) and what's in table salt (salt).

But news that scientists added have items to the periodic chart was an eye-opener for me.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) last winter approved the name and symbols of four elements – elements 113, 115, 117 and 118. They are called, in order, Nihonium, Moscovium, Tennessine and Oganesson.

According to an announcement by IUPAC, the newly discovered elements were named after a location or a scientist, following the early naming convention that honored Frank Oxygen and Harriet Nitrogen, both whom lived in the Hydrogen neighborhood of Baltimore.

I wouldn't give a nickel for that gag. Get it? Nickel is an element!

I just hope that the person who came up with Oganesson, which is abbreviated as Og, now calls himself "the Wizard of Og." Seriously.

But let's commemorate the use of the word Tennessine, which I have always used as the past tense for the word Tennessee. Now I know differently.

The periodic chart is interesting, although I missed most of the instruction about it during high school science due to the fact that I was surreptitiously listening to the Giants on a transistor radio. But I was apparently misinformed: I thought that like the number of planets in the solar system (eight after Pluto's unfair demotion), faces on Mount Rushmore (four), members of the pop group Hanson (three) and turtle doves (two), the number of elements on the periodic table was settled.

Apparently not. It never was.

Sneaky scientists have been adding to the chart since it was introduced in 1869 – bringing criticism that they're just doing it to force amateur chemists to keep buying new charts, like those pesky college textbook authors.

The four new elements last winter were the first to be added to the table since Flevorium and Livermorium were accepted in June 2011.

Livermorium! It's from Livermore . . . and it also gives cachet to my plan to buy a crematorium in Livermore and name it "The Livermorium." Cool, right?

That the periodic table of the elements continues to expand should be seen as good news. Knowledge keeps expanding. People keep discovering new things. The borders of science keep growing.

Except . . .

The first 94 elements exist naturally and the subsequent 24 have been synthesized in labs or nuclear reactors.

There's no reason to fear.

I'm sure scientists creating new elements in a lab or a nuclear reactor is purely harmless. The fact that every time that's happened in a movie has led to disaster shouldn't make us fear. Right?

Right?

I guess we'll just have to trust the scientists. And hope that nothing goes wrong with the new, synthesized elements.

If it goes bad, I guess we should have Tennessine it coming, right?

Dumb puns are a key element in jokes. Get it? Element?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

America's shaky love affair with the NFL

America's love affair with her dangerous boyfriend begins again soon.

The NFL season starts Thursday.

For decades, our relationship with the nation's most popular sport (listed as the favorite sport by twice as many people as any other sport in 2015) was simple. The NFL was a weekly battle of wholesome, all-American athletes. It was the perfect television sport: framed in a tight space, with enough time for replays and commercials. We gambled on games, played fantasy football and held tailgate parties even when we weren't at the game.

The Super Bowl is an American holiday and we turned Monday Night Football (then Sunday Night Football, then Thursday Night Football) into a weekly ritual. If you didn't love the NFL, you kept quiet about it.

And then . . .

NFL players kept getting into legal trouble. You couldn't go a week without hearing about an NFL player being arrested. Drunken driving. Domestic abuse. Assault. Was it an epidemic or just that we were finally hearing the truth? The league needed to do something.

The tide turned. A little. But we kept watching.

And then . . .

Retired players started coming forward with tales of brain problems. They couldn't remember their phone numbers. They couldn't endure light. Headaches. Premature deaths. And some of the men were in their 40s and 50s.

Soon it became a stampede. Brain injury after brain injury. A movie starring Will Smith. Studies about the prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) among NFL players.

The love affair with the NFL got a little shakier.

The news got worse. Just last month, a study showed that of 111 brains of former NFL players that were studied, 110 showed signs of CTE. Sure, they were men whose families suspected something was wrong. Sure, that's not a representative sample. But as observers pointed out, even if the next 1,200 brains of former NFL players tested negative – which is next to impossible – NFL players would be vastly above the normal expected level of CTE.

A fact: Playing football, particularly at its highest level, significantly increases your chances at brain injuries.

We keep watching, but we're less comfortable.

It's still the NFL. It's still America's Sunday celebration. It's still the Cowboys and Patriots. It's still Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger.

The NFL has survived challenges from four other professional football leagues. It overcame the embarrassment of ignoring a culture of off-field violence. It survived – even thrived – while franchises moved, ticket prices skyrocketed and entertainment competition increased.

But . . .

This is a league that causes brain injuries.

Many of the players we're cheering for on Sundays will suffer brain trauma that will make their retirement years a nightmare.

Maybe the NFL is the new cigarettes.

For years, Americans suspected they were bad for our health but ignored the warnings. Then the surgeon general declared that cigarettes cause cancer and the tide slowly turned. Tobacco products kept selling, but decreased. Smoking became less acceptable. It was banned in some, then most places.

Smoking hasn't gone away, but it's not what it was. Society recognizes that it's dangerous and spurns it, even though some people still smoke.

Will the NFL follow suit? In a few decades, will children be amazed that we celebrated a game that inflicted brain damage on its participants?

Former Atlanta Falcons coach Jerry Glanville was once caught on film, arguing with an official. "This is the NFL," Glanville said. "That means not for long when you make them (bleeping) calls."

A reasonable question: Does the cascade of medical evidence about the adverse health effects of playing pro football mean the NFL's future as the No. 1 sport is not for long?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.