There are not a ton of people out there who truly understand politics, and how it is constantly affecting our lives. It pollutes all sorts of things such as the job place, sports rankings and awards. And this past week, we have seen politics at its worst.

If you’ve been reading our lovely sports section at all during this basketball season, you’ve seen how our men’s team has not quite gotten the recognition it deserves. Other teams with worse records that we beat were ranked higher. Why?

People who decide the rankings still try to give recognition to teams that were good in the past, even though they really aren’t that great anymore.

And this stuff that goes on in basketball can easily be related to the entertainment world — specifically the Grammys.

Before I go any further, I know many of you are thinking that rankings don’t mean anything, and award shows are dumb and pointless. I totally agree, but there are so many people who put so much emphasis on these sorts of things that they have become a large part of our culture whether we like it or not. Award shows can make or break an artist’s career because of the strong emphasis society has placed on them.

So the Grammys took place Wednesday, and if you missed them, I consider you lucky because they pretty much sucked.

Except, of course, for the Britney Spears performance.

One of the men up for tons of awards this year was Carlos Santana, who won eight Grammys. But Santana’s big hit song, “Smooth,” wasn’t even written by him. “Supernatural,” which won album of the year, took the hip-hop approach, having guest musicians on every song, meaning that Santana didn’t really write crap from that album.

But the people who decide the Grammys, much like those who pick the Oscar winners, realized they never gave Santana the overdue recognition he deserved.

When he was writing his own albums and making great music, Santana was largely ignored by the recording industry. Now, they had to give him all these awards for “Supernatural,” although he really doesn’t deserve them at all, to make up for his lack of recognition in the past.

The same thing happened with Eric Clapton and Bonnie Raitt, who were both ignored for years, and then cleaned house all at once for work that wasn’t even comparable to what they were doing in the years they were snubbed.

This sort of thing happens all over the place, not just in a national spotlight.

Last weekend was the sweepstakes competition, the final event in a long process known as Varieties. When it was all over and the awards had been given, many felt that strong sense of politics.

One of the skits, “A Quest For Love,” received a number of small awards including best actress, best female and male vocals, best duet, best music (they had a sweet drummer) and best costumes among others. Basically all the ingredients, that when put all together, would equal the best show.

But for some weird reason, “A Quest For Love” didn’t win.

Instead, the same group that has won it for the last seven or eight years won. You can’t help thinking that this group won more because of their reputation than the actual quality of their performance. Not to mention that one of the judges who chose the winners was rumored to be a parent of someone in the winning group.

Sure, this isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s just one of those things that you can’t help getting a little mad about. It makes you wish that things like this weren’t affected so much by politics.

The whole meaning of award ceremonies is to acknowledge the absolute best. When crap like this gets involved, the whole meaning is taken away.

So until awards can truly be given in the manner that they were once intended, the entertainment world will be a superficial one in which just a few old people can decide the fate of entertainers.

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Kyle Moss is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale. He is assistant arts & entertainment editor for the Daily.