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FIFA World Cup in America

July 11, 2010 By: Chief Category: Editorial Page 1 Comment →

1950 U.S.A. National Soccer Team photo

For the past month, the whole world has been watching the FIFA World Cup football tournament in South Africa. And apparently many Americans were also tuned in and cheering. For the first time in my life, I have actually followed this “soccer” tournament from start to finish.

Before this year’s FIFA World Cup, soccer, to me, was something you drove your middle school kids to play on Saturday morning. Reference all the “soccer moms” in America.

At first, I just followed the highlights on the news and the results. The local weekly newspaper printed a centerfold where you could pencil in all the scores and see who progressed up from the various Groups to the Round of 16, Round of 8, Semifinals and finals.

Check out the 2010 FIFA World Cup action.

OK, that is just a the video game. (But it’s pretty amazing. I might have to get that game!) I could not find any FIFA clips on youtube. I guess FIFA polices that pretty closely and makes youtube remove them immediately.

Controvery and Conflict Stir Interest
This year, there was great controversy, especially concerning the officials. For instance, there was the uncounted goal that England scored over Germany that would have tied the game going into the second half. But the referee was looking the other way and missed it.

So I started watching some games. The first game I watched was U.S. versus Ghana, which Ghana won fairly knocking out the U.S. A few days ago I saw Spain defeat Germany. Last night I watched as Germany prevailed over Uruguay 3:2 to capture 3rd place.

I am eagerly awaiting tonight’s final match between Netherlands and Spain to see which will be the World Champions.

There was also excellent coverage on CNN and BBC World News with a lot of good back stories about the teams and about South Africa. For instance, there was one interesting series about the North Korean football team. Very secretive and there weren’t many North Korean fans that made it to Africa to attend the games.

There were also lots of good reports about South Africa itself. Reporters armed with video cameras went everywhere and sent back all kinds of compelling stories. It was like watching a travel show and I learned a lot about South Africa. Did you know there are Penguins that live at the southern tip of Africa?

What Will It Take For Soccer To Become A Major Sport in America?
But until now soccer never really caught on in the U.S.A. It has always been way behind NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Major League Baseball, NHL Hockey and WWWF Wrestling. So here are just a few suggestions to make FIFA soccer-fotbal more interesting to American sports fans.

1. Say No to Vuvuzela
First of all, they have to ban that stadium horn called the vuvuzela. For one thing, it is not an original idea. I remember back on the 1960s vendors sold them at Shea stadium where the New York Mets played. That was probably around 1965. I wanted one, my mother wouldn’t let me have one. Mothers are smart. They must have been banned the horns in New York after that, because I never saw or heard one again until South Africa this year.

On television, 10,000 vuvuzelas sounds like a continuous buzzing of a swarm of bees. Not pleasant at all. The noise would send a full grown grizzly bear running for the hills.  I would rather watch the Food channel and hear Rachel Ray go on and on about tuna casserole. While I was watching the World Cup matches, I found it a relief when a commercial came on during the break!

2. Cheerleaders
FIFA needs cheerleaders. Take a lesson from the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Nobody watched football until the Dallas Cowboys added their famous cheerleading squad in 1970. OK, maybe a few diehard fans followed football before the cheerleaders. But having pretty girls in cute outfits on the sidelines jumping and kicking can never hurt.

There was one story this year about a group of Dutch girls in orange miniskirts that attended a FIFA match. The orange mini skirts had tiny labels that read Bavaria, for the Bavaria Brewing Company. The dresses were available for free with a pack of beer at gas stations in Holland. The FIFA officials had the women escorted from the stadium and even a couple were arrested for something called “ambush marketing” or something equally nonsensical. That was a mistake. You want more girls in short skirts, not less.

3. Goal Detection Technology
There has been debate over the use of instant replay and review like in American football. One argument against it is that it would be constantly be interrupting the flow of the game. That is probably true. Also, I believe that human error on the part of the officials is part of every game. We don’t want the machines taking over everything. [Reference Skynet.] It would not improve the game for every offside call to be reviewed. Accept it that sometimes mistakes will be made, and in the long run it balances out.

But one area I think technology should be uses is to detect goals. Missing just one goal can be very big a deal in a game like soccer when so few goals are scored. They should be able to do something with lasers and computers that can see when the ball crosses the goal line.

4. More Goals
There needs to be more goals scored. Some matches end in a 0:0 tie after 90 minutes of play. Many times there is but one goal during a half, which is 45 minutes long. Games like that can get pretty boring, especially for Americans who are used to watching basketball with a goal every 30 seconds.

I think it would be more interesting if, on average, there were about two goals per team during each half. The way to achieve this would be to make the goal area larger.

Right now the goal is 8 feet high and 24 feet wide. Anyone that is 6 feet tall can reach up to 8 feet without jumping. So make the goal 10 feet high so that the goal-keeper has to jump to block high shots. Then widen the goal enough so that more balls get past the goal-keeper. Like I said, about 2 goals per side, on average each half.

With these few changes, I think that soccer has a fighting chance of becoming one of the big pro sports in America. It may never supplant basketball or baseball, but I think it can easily overtake ice hockey because you don’t need an ice rink and all the expensive hockey equipment to play soccer. And if America gets enough new immigrants, soccer might even overtake American-style football in popularity.

Crisis of Capitalism

July 08, 2010 By: Max Smart Category: Critical Thinking No Comments →

Animation of a lecture by Professor and author David Harvey about the roots of economic crisis.

The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe

July 01, 2010 By: Chief Category: Critical Thinking 1 Comment →

Reading and text of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Gold Bug.

It’s In Our Nature

June 29, 2010 By: Mark Category: Critical Thinking No Comments →

Short film about embracing a fellow traveler in the wilderness. Is this the greatest film ever made.

Light Up A Lucky L.S.M.F.T.

June 21, 2010 By: Chief Category: Critical Thinking Comments Off

So round, so firm, so fully-packed.
–Lucky Strike Television Commercial
At one time television commercials were dominated by cigarette adverts. This classic television commercial shows a couple at breakfast enjoying “the first cigarette of the day.”

Today cigarette advertising is banned from television, and every pack of cigarettes is required by law to have a warning from the [...]

Dutch Minidress Women Arrested at FIFA in South Africa

June 17, 2010 By: Chief Category: News No Comments →

Johannesburg, South Africa–Two women wearing orange minidresses during a World Cup football match were arrested for so-called “Ambush Marketing.”
Thirty-six women dressed in orange mini-dresses were ejected from a stadium in Joannesburg for wearing the dresses, which had a small tag that advertised Dutch beer brand Bavaria. Bavaria is not an official sponsor of the FIFS [...]

The High Price of Happy Motoring

June 15, 2010 By: Chief Category: Editorial Page No Comments →

No doubt about it, America is a car culture.
The automobile is sung about, celebrated in movies and in art. One of the most followed sports in America, NASCAR, involves racing cars rather than human athletes.
Americans have embraced the concept of private transportation. Public transportation systems like the railroad network and street cars, which were once [...]

Nude Tube: London Commuters Ride Naked

May 19, 2010 By: Chief Category: News No Comments →

Commuters ride the London tube in the buff to promote a television show.

Full Frontal Nudity on Youtube?

May 14, 2010 By: Chief Category: News No Comments →

Recently we have been experimenting with creating videos for youtube. Questions arise regarding what is acceptable content on youtube, specifically with regarding to nudity and material of a sexual nature.
Sometimes we may have images that contain nudity. For instance, we might present fashion nudes which is common in mainstream fashion magazines like Vogue, especially the [...]

Orders of Magnitude

May 08, 2010 By: Chief Category: Critical Thinking No Comments →

Many fields of study have to deal with measurements that are much smaller or larger than normally encountered as we go through life. For instance quantum physicists deal with tiny things on the atomic or sub-atomic level. Meanwhile, astronomers often deal with the vast distances across the universe. Even economists have to work with large [...]

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D

May 06, 2010 By: Chief Category: Critical Thinking No Comments →

A NASA video shows a fly-though the deepest part of the universe.

People of Walmart

April 23, 2010 By: Chief Category: Editorial Page No Comments →

Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. This website posts pictures of the people that shop at Walmart.
The pictures show the outlandish look of Americans that shop at Walmart. If this doesn’t want to make you abandon America and move to another continent, I don’t know what will.
I had a difficult time deciding which [...]

Working Conditions in Chinese Factories

April 22, 2010 By: Chief Category: Editorial Page No Comments →

These tired factory workers in China work 15-hours shifts for about 70 cents per hour. The picture was smuggled out of the KYE Systems factory at Dongguan, China. A human rights organization called the National Labour Commitee (NLC) has been investigating working conditions in Chinese factories for three years.
The shift starts at 7:45am and [...]

Americans Need Their Cars

April 20, 2010 By: Chief Category: Editorial Page No Comments →

Look at any U.S. from the sky, and you will see that surburban houses are too far away from services to be able to walk, making America dependent on the automobile, and therefore cheap gasoline.

How American Towns Got So Ugly

April 19, 2010 By: Chief Category: Critical Thinking No Comments →

Artist R. Crumb shows the evolution of one place in an American town.

Dust Cloud Nightmare in Europe

April 18, 2010 By: Chief Category: News No Comments →

A sinister-looking dust cloud from Iceland has shut down air traffic all over Europe.

Burger King Ad Sparks Controversy

April 15, 2010 By: Chief Category: News No Comments →

A new Burger King ad has come under fire. It shows an out-of-control King rampaging through an office pursued by men in white coats.
But mental health groups are protesting, claiming the ad is offensive to the mentally ill.
What do you think? Watch the ad and see for yourself.

Here’s a link to the story on Yahoo [...]

Why Will Men Pay For Sex?

April 06, 2010 By: Larabee Category: Critical Thinking No Comments →

Why are men willing to pay for sex, but not women?

A Tale of Two Generations

April 03, 2010 By: Chief Category: Editorial Page No Comments →

The Baby Boomers, who grew up in prosperity, are compared with the World War II generation, who grew up during the Depression.

Prohibition Doesn’t Work

April 01, 2010 By: Chief Category: Editorial Page No Comments →

Alcohol prohibition in the U.S. was a total failure. Today, marijuana prohibition is responsible for a soaring murder rate in Mexico. Prohibition does not work.