- We took a garden tour at the home of one of our church members yesterday. Some people are entirely too talented when it comes to growing things – most of my success comes in weeds and thistles.
- For years, Macintosh users have had slow startups. You hit the power button and it might be a full minute or more before your computer is actually ready for work. But my new dual core Intel Mac laptop is fast. It immediately loads up the desktop and is ready in seconds. It's kind of nice.
- I've been on tilt this last week about the flippant attitude the main stream media shows toward the war on terror (have you noticed I've been a little obsessed?). But with the peacetime way of life that we maintain (and it's good that we can live this way), treasonous and subversive activity is seen as mere dissent, which anti-establishment types value as the highest virtue. But choosing to undermine the efforts to defeat an agressive and uncompromising enemy is an unconscionable position. I just don't think some people get it.
- US Soccer took a hit. The American team in the World Cup only scored one goal in three games and didn't make it to the next round. That's not how you earn new fans and make a big splash for the attention of the country. I think they missed out on a huge opportunity and soccer continues to lag far behind the other major sports.
- One of the richest men in the world, Warren Buffett, is donating $37 billion of his $44 billion to Bill Gates' charitable foundation. When asked why he didn't just leave the money for his own family, Buffett said that he wanted to leave enough for children to do anything, but not so much they could nothing. Hmmm… wise.
- John (everything-is-Vietnam-all-over-again) Murtha may have finally gone off the deep end. This weekend he said, "American presence in Iraq is more dangerous to world peace than nuclear threats from North Korea or Iran." Way to go, John. You are now officially in la-la land.
- I mussed Brennan's hair yesterday and he responded irritably, "Da-aaaad, that's for decoration." For those of you scoring at home, Brennan and Tanner are still strawberry-blond, Elijah has brown hair, and Graham appears to be a redhead.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Random Thoughts 6/26/06
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7 comments:
You said soccer is lagging behind the other major sports....you meant in the United States right? Because soccer is by far the biggest sport in the world. Yet, it won't matter what they do with it in the USA we didn't invent it therefore; it will never catch on here like it has everywhere else.
Yes, I'm talking about the USA. That said, I'm not convinced that soccer is qualitatively better than other sports.
It's an ineffective argument to claim soccer superiority based merely on the number of people who play it. If more people play checkers than chess, that doesn't make chess an inferior game, when chess is more developed and thus more complex and interesting. The reason soccer is popular worldwide is because it has minimal requirements; it's the most accessible sport in the world, all you need is the ball.
Soccer, polo, and hockey represent the simplest of team sports (so long as you can get horses or ice). Sports like basketball are only a step more complex (dribbling and the elevated goal are the primary complexities here). Baseball, cricket, volleyball, and racket sports are even more complicated and/or abstract. And finally, American tackle football is one of the most overly complicated sports ever invented. It is constantly evolving and no sport rivals its sheer complexity. Life snowflakes, no two football plays are the same.
However, a complex sport is not necessarily better or worse than a simple sport; they are just hard to compare to one another. Especially when children in the streets of third world countries never even have the opportunity to strap on a football helmet.
Also there is no requirement for a sport to be invented by an American for Americans to like it. The closest thing to a purely American sport is probably basketball, which was invented by a Canadian in America. But football and baseball and almost everything else owes its roots to other European games.
Soccer could catch on here but Americans will have to learn to appreciate it for what it is and leave it at that.
Edit "like snowflakes, no two football plays are the same."
I am not a big fan of soccer yet, we (Americans) are not going to grasp something until we win at it and until then it is meaningless. I do however feel sadened that we don't pay the World Cup any attention. I think it is a lot more exiting then the Olympics which has multiple games that shouldn't even be called sports. Last World Cup, 5 times as many people watched as did last years Super Bowl. But, back to my original point. If our top athletes were paid as heavily to play soccer in this country as they are in Baseball, Football, and Basketball then I think we would field a stronger team that could be dangerous. Think about it Michael Vick as a Mid-fielder and Kevin Garnett as a goalie. Strong quick players like LeBron James and Duane Wade. I am pretty sure we could change the game of soccer in a hurry. But......that will never happen and games like Football and Baseball will be kings in this country.
Just don't forget that the free market drives the salaries of these professional athletes. Salary is not determined by the quality of the sport (NBA would be grossly overpaid) or the contribution they make to society (they're all overpaid!). They are paid based on the amount of money they generate. Baseball, Football, and Basketball generate Billions of dollars and thus the players are paid a large portion of that. Soccer must first be managed and promoted in such a way as to earn a profit in this country before its players can paid handsomely.
thanks Captain Obvious!!
I was making a pretty good point, I think, that you can't "just pay them more." The salaries aren't arbitrary and that fact is not "obvious" to everybody.
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