Near the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown gets depressed and starts screaming about how there’s nobody left who knows what Christmas is all about, then gets abruptly shocked to silence when Linus walks to center-stage, asks for lights and delivers an impassioned reading of Luke 2:8. It cuts through the bullshit, and gets to the heart of the matter. It’s even more poignant coming from Linus, a kid who just wants to hold his blanket and suck his thumb and watch everybody believe in stuff and get along.

A comedy sports blog is the last place you need to read about Jovan Belcher. It’s a terrible, inexcusable situation made progressively worse by the awful condemnation/hero worship stuff that has to come after it. I could make jokes about it, I guess, or tell you about how pro wrestling fans know how you feel (because we went through this with one of our best back in 2007, and it has yet to get even 1% better), but that’s not going to help. Nothing helps, because what happened was the meanest, least reasonable side of human nature. It’s f**king terrible, and it doesn’t make any sense.

What I will do is share this quote from (of all people) Brady Quinn from the presser after the Chiefs’ 27-21 victory over Carolina on Sunday. It’s a Linus moment. Quinn cuts through the bullshit and says what needs to be said — that the situation is sad, and we should try harder to pay attention to each other and really give a crap, because that would be really important. No glorification, no condemnation, no making it about him. Just the truth.

He should’ve asked for lights.

[h/t to Yardbarker]