Heil Nation von Alligatoren!

The bellicism of the University of Florida is becoming something of a slight concern for me. Orange and blue regalia are nothing new in the 352, but the ubiquity of this color, and any alligator-related iconography, brings to the fore scenes from Triumph of the Will or perhaps Victory of Faith. Neither Bernie Machen or Urban Meyer can assume the mantle of Die Fuhrer, now matter how many good ol' boys show up to UF football games.

Today I had the misfortune of walking by a stadium while the Christians have been eaten (in this case the Vanderbilt University football team) and seeing how this indoctrination takes place firsthand. Young children seem to be taught the various gesticulations necessary to be a true Gator before they've even acquired basic motor skills. The disabled appear to be wrapped in blue and orange adornments despite their garbled protestations. Even the elderly accompany their progeniture clad in Mardi Gras beads and war paint because they understand full well that their sons and daughters will place them in a nursing home otherwise.

I have researched the matter and discovered that though this phenomena is not exclusive to the South, that they are exacerbated by the isolation of Gainesville, and places like it, from larger urban populations, and decided ability to find nothing meaningful in life than a game of excess.

There is no more serious a time for the dispensation of energies than at this moment, what with war, global warming, and staph infection conspiring to bring us crashing through our Victorian porches to the shifting sands below. Yet the Gator Nation is more concerned with whether Tim Tebow will throw an interception, or whether one's peroxide blonde hair should be tied with a blue bow or an orange bow.

I fear that I will be forced to meld my mind to the color saturation and mascot omnipresence of the community at some point in my life. I mean after all, how did millions of Germans fall in line with Hitler and his timeless message if not because of constant exposure? One can only trust one's will to triumph.