You Will Have Soccer, and You Will Like It!

Soccer, I am convinced, has the potential in this country to equal, if not surpass, football in popularity. That is quite a claim to make, I know. But if it were possible to buy sports futures, I would put all my money into soccer.

Dig a bit deeper, past the arguments about beautiful game vs. sissy sport. There are some things that soccer can claim in the USA that no other spectator sport can claim, and in many cases will never be able to claim.

Big on this list is growth in internationalism and the role that technology plays. The cultures of the world are coming closer together, whether the American xenophobe or the Muslim fundamentalist cares to believe it. Communication and transportation are changing the world. People are connecting all over. And people all over love soccer.

In the business world, it is becoming necessity to build connections abroad in order to open up new markets, create international partnerships, and gain access to resources and labor. Television programs, music, and movies from other countries are more and more common in the US. It is hard to imagine these business and cultural connections developing without soccer sneaking in.

Elsewhere in the sporting world, American leagues are setting up shop in foreign countries both as a way to develop players and to develop new fans and markets. With limited success, MLB has set up in Mexico, the Caribbean and Japan, the NFL in Mexico and Europe, and the NBA and NHL in Europe. Whether it be setting up a full fledged league, marketing team gear, or hiring international talent, these leagues see the business need for connecting abroad.

The fact is, in the US we are doing what we have always done: absorbing foreign cultures into our own and exporting the result back to the home countries. This process has been accelerated by internet and communication technologies. It should be no surprise then that soccer is becoming more prominent in everyday American life.

A second big claim that soccer can make pertains to youth participation. Kids love all sports, of course, but the fact that soccer has risen to the top in terms of participation indicates that there is a whole generation of young people coming into their own who have at least a familiarity with the sport. With that, the claim that soccer is for foreigners can be laid to rest. The marketing problem of trying to teach Americans a game that they don't know or understand has vanished. Sports journalists who have been dissing soccer for the past 30 years are having their last hurrah now because they realize they are dinosaurs. The future is with the youth.

American youth are increasingly exposed to soccer through cultural and student exchange programs at schools and universities, television, music, and movies, and friends who come from another country or whose parents come from another country. Strangely, it almost seems that some people believe that companies will ignore soccer and continue to market traditional American values such as baseball and the fucking Hardy Boys to kids. On the contrary, companies will increasingly see soccer as a gateway to connecting with those valuable demographics, teens and young adults.

The growth curve of soccer in the US is not a linear trajectory. Technology will play a big role in the growth of soccer, and the rate of change in technology is exponential. As technology makes it easier for people to watch, talk, and share, for companies to more finely tune their products to customers, and for new niches to be discovered, the vast diversity of the soccer world is perfectly poised to take advantage. What seemed like a miniscule trickle of interest in soccer back in the 60's will accelerate to a flood in the coming years.

I hope no one ever invents solid explosives. This business about liquid explosives on airplanes has got my undies in a bunch. Just imagine what would happen if someone came up with solid explosives that could be put inside a laptop battery or something. They'd have to ban all carry-on luggage. I think people would just stop flying and the airline industry would go tits up.

Speaking of tits up, my lawn mower went tits up last night as I was mowing my sidewalk. There are so many weeds in the cracks in my sidewalk that I have to mow the shit. So the wheel came loose and kinda turned sideways, thus inhibiting the forward motion of the mower. Rather than quit, however, I pushed on to finish the yard. It ripped things up a bit, but I got it done.

Everything has gone all tits up here at work too. Everything I was working on has been put on hold while they sort out this big scandal that involves theft, blackmail, and backstabbing. Four people have been told not to come back to work and at least one of them will end up in jail. One person in a high up position has resigned and the director of the department that spawned the scandal is likely to get the boot. I'm currently negotiating a book and TV movie deal for the story. I've narrowed my working title to "Tits Up" or "Undies In A Bunch."

The Importance of Being Earnest

I wrote this a couple of months ago but never got around to publishing it.

China has recently reached an agreement with Nigeria to loan $1 billion for repair and upgrading of their dilapidated national rail system. The Chinese have been forging ties with third world countries lately to solidify their access to natural resources. Venezuela signed a deal with the Chinese recently to supply them oil and give them rights to operate refineries in the country. There have been other such deals in Angola and Algeria.

For the record, the largest oil producers and exporters in the world are listed here.

If and when the US and China meet on the battlefield, it will be in places like Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria. The Chinese understand that in order to sustain their growth they will need to control energy resources. While most Americans are looking at China as a source of cheap labor, the Chinese are quietly building the military and political structure that they will need to kick the USA off the block.

Ironically, while politicians here in the US complain that China is offering aid to countries without stipulating human rights reforms, the US government engages in wars in the name of human rights but with imperialistic goals. Although it is said that we tamper in places like Panama, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea in the name of human goodness, the fact that we ignored East Timor, Rwanda, Haiti, and Liberia and are currently ignoring Sudan, Uganda, and Myanmar (Burma) is proof that there are more than our noble humanitarian causes at work. It would seem that US officials who criticize Chinese involvement in countries with poor human rights records are engaging in hypocrisy.

The names involved in the US picture go back to the Reagan administration. Gentlemen such as Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld realized that control of oil was going to be critical in maintaining US economic power and they started laying the foundation for military buildup that would ensure control. One of the reasons now, in 2006, that our military is still spending billions on equipment to fight large scale ground wars when the published threat is terrorism is because the underlying situation has not changed. We still need to assert our dominance over countries who try to hinder our oil supplies.

It is, in fact, imperative for us to invade places like Iraq to control the flow of oil. Without oil, the US economy is nothing. This makes China as big or bigger a threat than the Soviet Union was. We are engaged in a battle for oil with China now. Without political favor in Iraq we needed a military solution. Iran must be next or China will step in and pull yet another critical supply out from under us. As we continue to consume more and more oil, growth in China and India will ensure the same in those countries. Given the emotional response most Americans have to high gas prices, the showdown over oil is likely to result in emotional responses rather than diplomacy and non-military resolutions.

It would certainly help if we could start using less energy. The hardest part is convincing people to make sacrifices. Expansion is easy and fun. Contraction hurts. People will not give up the luxuries and comforts in their lives once they have come to expect them as we have. Indeed, the American sense of entitlement for wealth and independence could get in the way. More troubling, however, is the addiction to power and money of the ruling class. The people who give the money to the politicians who get elected are not about to give up their elite position at the top of the heap. They will push the politicians to fight the wars that give them access to the energy their companies need to be profitable.

Cars are the scapegoat for our dependence on foreign oil. It is said that if we drive less then we'll have to import less oil. While this is obviously true, oil is used for a lot more things. If it became too expensive due to short supplies, people could always start taking the subway or the bus to work. But oil is the main ingredient in plastic, which is used in the manufacture of just about everything these days. Oil byproducts are used in electricity generation and to power the trucks, trains, and planes that bring products and services to their customers. If oil gets to be too expensive, prices for everything go up and economic growth slows.

Economic growth is the key here. Without growth, stocks do not make money for their investors. While the working class American might want to take a step back and try a different tack, the money behind our politics will stop at nothing to keep things profitable. So we have a situation where the majority of Americans do not approve of the President and the majority do not like the direction the Iraq war is taking, yet the President will not alter his course nor will he even consider compromising. There is too much at stake for the people with the money.

Airline Travel

I never finished this like I said I would. As a seXXy world traveler, I think the world needs to know what I think about airline travel.

This thing is, I flew to Frankfurt, Germany on June 10 of this year by way of New York JFK airport. My luggage, it seems, decided to stay behind.

I had to talk to a nice fellow in an office in the airport to track down my bag. He put in a note to have it shipped to Cologne, where I would be staying for three days and then gave me a claim slip and a phone number to call the next day.

Well, after three days of calling, borrowing t-shirts, not bathing, and trying to coordinate the delivery of my bag to the apartment I was staying in, I finally got the bag four days after arrival.

Inside the bag I found that everything had been unpacked, a plastic travel mug had been shattered, and the friendly folks at the Transportation and Safety Administration (TSA) had left a little note explaining what had happened. The TSA is the outfit that ensures your safety everytime you board a plane in the USA. Somehow they deemed my luggage to be safe leaving Minneapolis for New York, but the New York guys decided they needed to take a look as I was boarding my Singapore Air flight to Germany. The note they left was actually a 4" wide by 10" tall printed card with the usual BS about security and a phone number I could call if I wanted to complain.

I really got the sense that the TSA cared about what I thought. First, they didn't bother to send any notification ahead to the airplane so that someone could tell me not to expect my bags. Instead, I waited an hour at the conveyor and then another half hour in line at the claims office. Over the following four days, no one was able to tell me if my luggage was lost, where exactly it was, or when it would arrive. And ultimately it was Lufthansa, the German airline acting as an agent for Singapore Air, that came through for me and delivered my bag to Cologne.

I had put a small padlock on the bag to thwart curious baggage handlers. One of my travel companions explained to me that there is an official TSA padlock one can buy at Target that will thwart the baggage handlers but allow the TSA to use a master key to open it. I've used the same little lock on my baggage on trips dating back to 1998, but they cut it off and thoroughly used and abused my bag this time around.

So what did I learn about airline travel and security? If you are a terrorist, put an official TSA lock on your luggage. An unofficial lock will draw attention. In the event that your luggage does get confiscated, you've got four days to make your getaway after touchdown. Most importantly, though, it is probably best that you don't put your bombs in your checked luggage because they could end up blowing up the airport instead of the plane. And we all know that use of wireless detonation mechanisms is not permitted while in the air. So take your bombs along with you in your carry-on bag.

Seriously, what could I put in a checked bag, other than explosives, that could pose a threat to security? A gun? A grenade? A missle? None of these things would get past the x-ray machine and none of them is useful if I can't be there to operate them. Timed or remotely detonated explosives are really the only thing. Did the TSA really think that is what they were going to find? Did something at the JFK x-ray station catch their attention, and if so why did MSP miss it? And if something did catch their attention, why wasn't there a security team waiting for me at the airport in Frankfurt?

Airline security, my friends, is a fallacy.

Now that I've gotten myself added to whatever ridiculous Homeland Security Terrorist Databases that may or may not exist, I'll switch to the actual flying experience. I flew on NWA to New York and then switched to Singapore Air. I had heard Singapore Air was nice. This arrangement allowed me to use NWA miles to get to New York and then take advantage of the ridiculously low fare of $640 to Frankfurt on Singapore Air.

The thing that distinguishes Singapore Air is the in-flight service. The planes and the gates and the departures and arrivals are the same as any other airline. But they have several meal choices, including such exotic things as Japanese, Indian, seafood, and vegetarian options. I chose seafood for my flight there and got some sort of steamed whitefish and vegetables. For the flight back I chose Indian vegetarian and got a bunch of bland vegetables. I guess it is great that they had options, but the stuff wasn't any better than any other airline.

I'd estimate that over the course of the trip the flight attendants made a trip down the isle at least once per hour to offer drinks and crap. After the meal was done, they handed out bags with slippers and toothbrushes in them (both of which I had saved for some reason and which came in handy given my checked bag was delayed). When you consider all the time spent collecting trash and handing out headphones and meals and drinks and slippers and customs forms, the interruptions were too much. I suppose it is nice to be loved, but after a while it started to get annoying.

As for NWA, I don't see what the big deal is when people complain about the service and the fact that they are in bankruptcy. Sure they have cut back on service, but in a country like the US where the standard of living is so high, I think we need to get used to it. As for meals, I wish they would start serving all food and drink a la carte as they do in a train. Maybe they could set up a little snack stand up front and improve the quality to the point that one would actually be inclined to buy it that way. I think as long as the fare prices are lowered and the food quality was better than the stuff they have now, people would be receptive.

I've been meaning to write this for a while now, independently of Mel Gibson's idiotic drunken tirade of the last week or so.

Fuck Israel.

In the US, that statement is one notch below "fuck America!" But I could walk out on the street and yell "fuck Mexico" and people would cheer me on. So what the fuck about Israel, the tiny little desert shithole in the Middle East, puts it beyond criticism?

I think the main reason is the lobbying and PR activities they promote in the US. They've bought our sympathies.

When you consider the money we've given Israel over the years and the influence they've had over our politics, it is sort of sad how self-defeating it all looks. Really, why should we care about a bumble fuck country with only 7 million citizens? Why do so many American dollars get wasted on them? Isreal is the sort of country that we should forget exists except the one time every ten years something happens there. How often do we get to hear about Lithuania, Wales, New Guinea, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan or Suriname? Hell most Americans have never heard of those places. Israel should be one of those places.

Don't get me wrong, the fact that many of the Muslim countries of the Middle East do not officially recognize Israel and would like nothing better that to destroy it is equally inane. But there has to come a time when we have to stop and say, "sorry dude, you're on your own. We've got our own problems."

With respect to Israel, the country has been a model democracy and a remarkable source of scientific knowledge. Frankly, I think countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria should aspire to be more like Israel. But there is no reason something so insignificant as Israel should garner so much of our attention.

Unfortunately, we've got our own problems here at home to tend to. And I say it all the time, the entire continent of Africa needs our help more than anyone in the world. If Israel can't make a go of it on their own, maybe it's time to let them sink. It would be sort of like telling your nagging girlfriend to fuck off. For a while you might miss the sex and companionship, but after a while you'd realize how much better off you are without someone spending your money and using up your time. Plus, Israel isn't the only fish in the ocean.