Balls.

Deflated balls.

Tom Brady and his deflated balls.

Tom Brady cheating with his deflated balls.

Tom Brady cheating with his deflated balls because he’s not skilled enough with his hands.

That’s all people have been talking about for a solid week in US media. And no, the news coverage has not come from the gossip magazines believe it or not. This is a “hard-news” issue that has been covered by major media from ESPN to CNN and it’s been NONSTOP.

For those of you who are allergic to sports, please do not be fooled by the dirty innuendos. Here’s the quick recap to catch you up on how ridiculous this controversy is:

The New England Patriots, one of the two teams playing in the Super Bowl this weekend, were accused of cheating in their last victory (the game that won them a prime spot on Sunday). After the game it was reported that the Patriots’ balls were deflated below the regulated pressure, which means it was easier for Tom Brady to grip the balls in the cold weather. (Side note for the uninitiated: American football, unlike soccer or basketball, allows each team to use their own ball when they have possession.)

Never fear, the Patriots’ head coach, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady cleared everything up in a press conference. Well not really, they just denied everything but there were some priceless quotes that the immature child in all of us CANNOT ignore.

Fast forward to 1:34 to get to Jimmy Fallon’s fantastic perspective on the issue:

Important stuff. But while the Football world was worrying about their balls, and late-night comedy shows were making fun of them, there was a whole bunch of other stuff going on that we could have been paying attention to. Quite honestly, there’s been a lot of moves made throughout the world in the past week that have been a lot ballsier than any of Tom Brady’s.

For instance, Greece elected a new president after the party promised to renegotiate the country’s debt to the EU, IMF, and ECB. Greece is supposed to start repaying it’s bailout debt at the end of February, which means they need a solution fast. If they end up exiting the EU, then the euro, and therefore the European market, will become very unstable...or dare I say, deflated?

Over in the States, there’s fight going on between Democrats and Republicans probably since the last time the Washington Redskins won a Super Bowl. This one’s about whether or not to build an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas called the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Senate just approved the pipeline project, but President Obama has said that he is going to veto it when it gets to his desk.

Meanwhile in the virtual world, Amazon announced that it will be expanding its empire even further by developing an email service to compete with Google and Microsoft.

My point isn’t to summarize the news, but to highlight the fact that some important headlines are being overshadowed by stories that ultimately don’t really matter.

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Alex Vinci