Still the Metric System in Short Pants
Yahoo has decided to promote the World Cup by prominently featuring scores to games on its home page. Last night, I saw a World Cup game playing on some of the TVs at a local sports bar. Thus does an event that used to receive as much coverage in America as spelling bees in Uzbekistan creep slowly into the American consciousness.
This is not a good thing. As I noted four years ago, soccer is the metric system in short pants. It's akin to the invasive foreign species that disrupt our landscape and waterways, like the ugly but prolific Asian carp moving ever closer to the Great Lakes, much to the horror of local anglers.
That soccer has made great progress in America as a sport children play, and even some progress as a spectator sport, cannot be denied. I remember the brilliant SCTV parody of The Godfather, in which one Mafia family was trying to force its cable channel, "Ugazzo Home Vision," on the other families, who were understandably unpersuaded of the merits of a channel featuring Bollywood movies and "hours and hours of soccer." Now, of course, many cable systems do indeed offer "hours and hours of soccer."
What has stalled the progress of soccer in this country—apart from the fact that it is so boring as to be sleep-inducing—is the same thing that prevented the metric system from supplanting our customary system of weights and measures in the 1970's: It is seen as an unnecessary foreign intrusion. After all, we Americans invented three great spectator sports: football, baseball, and basketball. We don't need to import an inferior spectator sport from abroad, even if the rest of the world likes it. Or maybe because the rest of the world likes it. Indeed, the American rejection of both soccer and the metric system represents a healthy spirit of patriotic defiance. Of course, such defiance is directly contrary to the steady drumbeat for globalization that has been sounding from the elite media for decades.
I don't want to see America globalized, and that includes American sports. I want soccer to remain of interest only to those who play it. Which is why I was a little disappointed when Yahoo told me that the American soccer team had come from behind and tied Slovenia today. I have nothing against the athletes representing our country in the World Cup, but there is nothing like defeat to cause the TVs in sports bars now showing the World Cup to be turned to different channels.
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I think some of the pro-soccer commenters are taking things a bit too personally. I took Mr. Piatak's piece to be a comment on the importance of particularism, of real diversity, and of attachment to local customs and folkways. And if he expressed a widely spread American bias against soccer, so what? A country's sports reflect its character, that a man should prefer his country's native sports over others is natural and usually mutual. As such it is reasonable for a conservative to be wary of attempts to alter or distort these manifestations of national character.
That they are already corrupt is another matter.
Scotland gave the world its two most popular sports: golf and soccer. Today's sports news routinely reports the stauts of third place loser -- Tiger Woods, and only mention in passing who's in first place. Unbelievable! I will take soccer (association football) seriously when Scotland makes it to the big show. That has not happened since 1976.
Now that the Dirty Digger's Fox network has ruined NASCAR, and free-agency has ruined the NFL, Australian rules football and lacrosse remain the best sports on cable.
I consider myself pretty Europhile, but the metric system is absurd for everyday use and soccer is mind-numbing. I'm not a big sports fan of any kind, but I can at least watch football.
My new bumper sticker: "SOCCER SUCKS"
In this country, but not elsewhere, soccer is truly the revenge of the nerds, and nobody but nobody with any athletic ability would be caught dead on the soccer team. Of course its promotion in this country is an attack on the American notion of manhood, and comments from the likes of Sempronius do prove the point, as the degree of one's support of soccer has become a litmus test measuring one's lack of virility. Another favorite of unathletic goofballs is street biking, where nerds get to wear clothing that looks like they grabbed it out of their wives' underwear drawer. And, don't forget the plastic egg on the head, either, for that seriously effeminate look.
Coach Bob Knight, the last of the amateur coaches once said, " If I had the choice to watch professional sports on channel 5 or a show about frogs mating on channel 4, I would prefer to watch chanel 4 even if the reception was poor and the picture a little fuzzy."
I usually agree with Mr. Piatak about most things and with Sempronius hardly at all, but in this instance other than his derogatory use of the word cowboy, Sempronius has actually spoken the truth. In fact nothing Americans invented in the way of sports can remotely compare to their invention of the cattle man who could ride, shoot, speak the truth and take his coffee in the silence of a pouring rain.
Someone in an earlier post stated their was no violence on the soccer field. However, there is plenty in the stands amongst the fans. I attended a professional soccer match in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1980's and to this day I have yet to witness the barbarity at a American sporting event that I saw in Rio. Then again I have never been to a sporting event in Philadelphia.
Although we are getting there thanks to the third world creep. One of the points of Mr. Piatak's article.
I began and continued playing rugby union through my thirties. After sustaining one of my many shoulder injuries a co-worker suggested I should join the adult soccer league. My response was quitting rugby for soccer was akin to getting a sex change.
Last time I checked only whites (and possibly some asians) can be called geeks. You don't really get it, do you Dan?
The only time I've ever enjoyed watching professional soccer was when we were in Athens last winter for The Rockford Institute's Winter School. In between viewing the Acropolis and giving a lecture I found this little bar where the locals were gathered for a game. I made sure to ask the barman which team I should care about because I didn't want to get my brains beat in.
I have lots of great memories of Little League (first base), high-school basketball (center), city league football (center/defensive tackle), and the like. We played and then watched the college and big league games for inspiration. It's just part of the experience of living in real American communities. We had soccer at our little Christian school not because everyone loved soccer but because we couldn't afford a football program. I'd play forward or tend the goal, then go home and watch Dan Hampton. He was my favorite Chicago Bear because he'd been a Razorback.
For a lot of us, watching pro sports is an opportunity to drink beer and talk about the glory days. Soccer just isn't a factor in that conversation, the way it is elsewhere.
An American friend living in Europe sent me a link to the following AP story on the degradation of socccer.
http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/world-cup/news/french-national-soul-searching-over-wcup-fiasco--fbintl_ap-wcup-footballfallout.html
The most troubling aspect of soccer is the American soccer fan. Within five minutes of any discussion on sports, the American soccer fan feels it necessary to denigrate football, basketball and any other American sport as "provincial." It is as though a sport is "great" if the majority of the world says so. I don't care what the rest of the world thinks about American sports. I am not a soccer fan, but I do feel that it is being crammed down my throat like many other leftist "ism's." Soccerism - I'm against it.
What a revealing article and commentary. Many new facets of the personalities and characters of folks on this site have come out.
To begin, I'm disappointed in Mr. Piatak's descent to this level of jingoism. I don't care how many famous people have picked up your clever title, you and the others here who have made jingoistic remarks about the sport of soccer and insulting remarks about the skills of soccer players are on the level of a middle school lunchroom screamfest. And comparing a pastime that gives joy to millions of American families and their children to an ugly fish is an ugly slur. When I and most other soccer parents I know also make the extra effort to get their little players to baseball games right after or before soccer, the invasion and takeover charge is just inaccurate, as well. The "rejection" of soccer you talk about, far from being an act of "patriotic defiance", is an act of conspicuous consumption by people who can afford to buy expensive football gear and to live in nice places where they don't have to worry about getting shot at the game. Who are these "defiant" American football fans? Anyone who can watch football on tv - one continuous commercial interrupted by the occasional blur of action - is too close to comatose to be defiant.
Mr. Bailey's metaphor - whites' participation in soccer is white flight in sports - is perfect. I have to take my son to Chicago's lakefront parks to play in safety, driving through twenty minutes of mau mau territory to get there. The Beaver and Papa Bear are dead, wake up and smell the tear gas, folks: basketball and football have become avenues of attack on whites and on what's left of American culture, far more insidious than soccer precisely because they are native species, and as such can still call on our sentiments from an earlier time.
The use of "cowboy" as an epithet directed at Americans is a dead giveaway for the deeply genetically predisposed variety of anti-American. It also betrays the non-American's envy that his culture never produced anything as glorious as a cowboy.
foscl,
As the father of a young soccer player, I wonder if you would be so kind as to elaborate a little on the differences between the way soccer is taught in Brazil and the way it's taught here? I'm sure our kind, intelligent, handsome - and exceedingly athletic - webmaster will allow you to digress for two or three bullet points on this.
It has been stated here that soccer gives a level playing field to non-athletic competitors. It is actually football and basketball that are a haven for very large, but uncoordinated players. Remember the 6'5" kid who was the "star" of the team, only because he was tall? How about the 225 lb. kid who played on the line, only because of his size? That doesn't happen in soccer, where there's no premium for gigantism. A brilliant athlete like Maradona would have sat on the bench in America, behind some big fat kid. Baseball also tolerates fat people with good eye to hand coordination.
Gilbert Jacobi,
Next time I am in Chicago I would like to shake your hand and buy you a cigar -- maybe even have dinner on the other side of the "Mau Mau district." Thanks for your always good posts. As for dropping names, I was friends with Lovie Smith in college. He was an all American then in more ways than one, and nothing he has accomplished is a surprise to me. I am surprised you haven't seen him at one of the soccer games your son attends on the lakefront. He is from Texas.
All right that did it. I don't have the time right now, but later I'm going to have to respond to some of the more stupid and uninformed comments on this thread. Stay tuned.
Oh, please Sempronius, not a response!!!!!! Throw me in that briar patch but please,please,PLEASE!!!!!-- Don't respond ...
The over-examination of sport is a bit silly. The fans for any major sport are increasingly brutish. The athletes usually worse. Plutocratic state oligarchies often use sport as an integral component in the system of bread and circuses to keep people stupefied. So it is that we must regard sport in its proper context in these discussions. That said this discussion has been compelling. Rarely do I disagree with my friend Tom Piatak but in this case I found myself disagreeing with everything suggested in this piece.
First, football (soccer) is a sport invented by America's cultural ancestors, the English. As such, it is difficult to regard it as entirely alien.
Second, for any that have played it, closely watched it, or discussed it with serious players it is known that football (soccer) is demanding in skill as well as strength and stamina. We should hope that children, whose obesity rates are rising at an alarming rate in our country, would aspire to the athleticism required of the sport. Anyone doubting football’s physical demands should try running for 45 minutes straight with repeated bursts of sprinting and kicking a ball over 30 meters.
Third, for its athletes and aficionados the sport has a beauty to be found in its ball movement and not merely in the scoring of goals which statistics obsessed viewers in our country too often give exclusive focus. I suppose one man’s boredom is another’s excitement in this case.
Fourth, the sport has become an interesting context for debating national identity which is something that traditional conservatives should welcome. West European teams who increasingly supplant their national squads with foreign-born players are taken to task by commentators on the issue of national identity and what this means in inter-"national" competition. It becomes a context for discussing immigration and what it does to the character and culture of a country.
To the extent that Americans might dislike the sport because it is a favorite amongst Latin American immigrants whose numbers increasingly alarm traditionalists concerned with the cultural balance in the country, this should be stated forthrightly rather than veiled as an attack on the favored sport of Europeans. That crowds at a US versus Mexico game in Los Angeles will overwhelmingly cheer for Mexico says more about the state of our politics and culture than about the sport itself.
Finally, the sport is "football" not "soccer". Americans erroneously and obstinately call a game that is largely played with the hands "football" while the rest of the world regards "football" as something else. Because our country is persistently in the vanguard when it comes to inventing new rules for language, perhaps many consider this linguistic misuse as acceptable.
Additionally, as regards the metric system, there is little debate remaining regarding the superiority of this measurement system. That is why all serious science and engineering educational programs - yes, even in the United States - teach students the metric system. It is the standard in research and development across our country. Whether we should adopt the system for our everyday usage, say in distance markers on roadways, is up for debate. However, to challenge the merits of the system or, even more astonishingly, to suggest its usage as a sign of lacking patriotic zeal is to demonstrate inadequate knowledge of its actual use and usefulness.
American rejection of things and ideas that others regard as good, useful, or interesting is hardly a sign of healthy patriotism. By this logic we should embrace the recent American zeal for disregarding territorial sovereignty that forms an imperfect but important basis for international order. Let us recall that challenging Washington on this particular sort of political recklessness and other wrong-headed ideas has earned some Chronicles writers the unwarranted accusation of being unpatriotic.
I for one hope and believe that Mr. Piatak’s article was a bit of parody, just as my response rises to the seriousness merited by sport and no more. I will continue to watch the world cup and to take my son to little league football (soccer) and not for a second believe it an unpatriotic or emasculating act. In fact we’ll simply continue to regard it as good fun, good exercise, and completely apolitical.
Mr. Jacobi,
I'm sorry to have disappointed you, but I see nothing wrong with a little jingoism now and then, particularly in relatively inconsequential matters. Generally speaking, people in this country are allowed to have strong opinions on sports, even if self-censorship is rampant in other areas. Besides, the thrust of my comments--which I intended to be humorous--dealt with soccer as a spectator sport, not as a sport children play. I didn't comment on the skill it takes to play soccer, just that it is 1) foreign and 2) boring. I preferred the days when the World Cup received no attention in America, and don't want to see soccer on TV when I walk into an American sports bar. I also preferred the days when Americans were instinctively wary of foreign imports.
Robert,
You may want to re-read Sempronius' charming post. He expresses disdain not only for cowboys, but for all Americans (and black Americans in particular). And his point is not that professional sports are bad, but that Americans are too stupid to appreciate the wonder that is soccer. To quote Sempronius: "Americans are so stupid and tasteless that they don’t know (and can’t appreciate) a good thing when they see one." Assuming Sempronius is an American, his post calls to mind these lines, from "The Mikado:" "The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own." I cannot think of a single problem in American life that would be lessened if Americans stopped watching one of the sports we invented and started watching soccer instead.
You may also wish to read my post number 48.
"American rejection of things and ideas that others regard as good, useful, or interesting is hardly a sign of healthy patriotism."
In addition to soccer (soccer), I hate the Green Bay Packers, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Detroit Redwings. Also, that kid from Twin City Nazarene who always whined when I boxed out under the basket.
Also, Yankee dressing.
There are no stats of interest in soccer; many of us grew up knowing our teams through box scores that were 'data rich' and open to analysis and debate--to "pick-up" soccer as a consumer after we likely changed our perspective of Big Sports in general, is a bit of a weird stance to take. Rugby and cricket are far more interesting as team sports go, offering the American so much insight in to the nature of his more populist-capitalist (I think they use the term democratic) expressions of these sports.
I happen to enjoy the World Cup spectacle in the abstract, precisely because I loath the Olympics--Goebbles lasting curse it would seem.
But I also rooted for England and Slovenia in both games.
Can't we all agree on this? I mean, is any country less worthy of futball excellence?
Mr. Wolf has now taken it too far by attacking my beloved Detroit Red Wings. If my blue collar team of Canadian, Swedish, and Russian millionaire puck sluggers is to be targeted, is anything or anyone safe in the American sports pantheon!
Now we're getting in the spirit
A tomahawk still beat an octopus in a throwing contest!
You can't play soccer at twice the legal blood-alcohol limit. Bowling people! Bowling!
No discussion of "sokker" would be complete without the late great Lewis Grizzard.
"Any nation with soccer as the national sports dissolves its government every 6 months."
Or something along those lines.
RIP Lewis, you are missed.
McCallum
Gilbert Jacob,
I am somewhat close to people (white Americans) that are very much involved with youth soccer so I have been to some of the major tournaments in the West Coast. In my opinion, everything is just too organized with too much parent involvement. The kids’ exposure to the game is limited to the actual games and training sessions. You cannot learn if you do not observe top level players performing and if you do not practice often.
And another ‘problem,’ unique to America, is the fact that American kids alternate sports during the year. American football, baseball, and basketball are all played with the hands. Soccer demands a completely different set of skills. Overall, American players are very athletic but with limited technique. I totally understand that most kids simply play for fun but, for those aspiring to play at a higher level, these peculiarities are very detrimental to their own development.
As far as coaching, in my view, most do not have enough technical skills to teach kids the basics (passing, trapping, shooting, etc…) of the game and focus way too much on tactical systems and strategies. Soccer is more dynamic game than baseball, basketball and American football in the sense that there is no pause between plays or time-outs. It is pointless to try to anticipate every possible situation. The focus, at the youth level, should be to develop technical skills and leave strategies for latter stages.
That is how I see it.
Eagle,
I like you, even if you do like soccer.
I am surprised to learn that the Scotch invented soccer. My prior understanding was that it was discovered by some English ditch diggers who unearthed the skull of an ancient Danish soldier and proceeded to kick it around. Of course, being English, they made sure that the hapless Dane was safely dead for many centuries. More modern Brits would likely send in the Irish and the Scots first to make sure that things were safe.
Now, I must admit that I am a person of proud Danish heritage, and I consequently cannot understand why this "sport" has become so popular. I suspect that if this "sport" started out as "kick the Swede's skull" Dr. Fleming would be a proud supporter of it. From what my family sagas tell me, a Swedish skull is much smaller and thicker than are Danish skulls. But, I have not done the necessary empirical studies to confirm this.
So, here we have the desecration of a grave of a brave Dane, who was only seeking a better life there in England, and was willing to do the jobs the Anglo-Saxons were unwilling to do until the time of Henry VIII, such as sack monasteries. Already, xenophobia rears its ugly head. and, where is the soccer community’s commitment to diversity? Shameful, utterly shameful!
Hence, soccer or, as they erroneously refer to it in Third World Hellholes--- “football,” was conceived in sin, and on top of that is lacking any visible strategy and is generally boring to watch. When I played it years ago, it seemed fruitless, as it mainly involved running around and being frustrated by the fact that any scoring was largely the result of random events. In this sense it resembles golf.
True patriotic Americans are involved in useful and fun sports like long range target shooting, which have real world applicability.
Grizzard may have a point, but that German coach whose name I cannot recall right now said it best: "Is football the most important thing in life? No, no, people, it's much more than that."
Bruce has it all wrong. You can indeed play football at twice the legal blood alcohol level. And based on this fact alone I know we can change Mr. Berg's opinion of the game.
What! Eagle, do you mean that there is drunken brawling on the field not just in the stands?
“The Mikado:” “The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own."
Thanks Tom Piatak for the reply, I actually prefer the Mikado idiot to Yule Brenner in the King and I, who never tired of telling anyone who would listen that his country was the best country because ....." Or the contemporary American who believes his time is the apex of time and his generation, "the greatest generation." But as Andrei Navrozov points out in his latest post above, Americans have never been very interested in any history other than their own and not very much of that. I appreciate your good humor and can always find ways to forgive a poor lawyer. Cheers
In some ironical sense, the rise of FIFA's predominance in the world is a product of a marketing campaign that would make any US Advertising Agency proud. It´s a product of mass culture as developed in the US over the years.
By the way, did you know FIFA is looking to ban demonstrations of religious fervor among the players? It seems last year, after a match between Brazil and the US that the Brazilians won, they huddled together to the center of the field and said a prayer, making one FIFA official furious. Now they want to ban any sign of the cross, or perhaps raising its hands to heaven after a goal.
Now I don´t know if it is just another of the soul selling things you have to do for a gangster-like organization like FIFA. Or if I should thank them, for not allowing a hypocritical prayer from players that treat their wives and family like scum.
For those who are interested, here's Steve Sailer's take on soccer from 2006: http://amconmag.com/article/2006/jul/17/00018/
And a very fine anti-soccer polemic by John Derbyshire from 2000:
http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/Culture/soccer.html
My apologies for not keeping my word. I was unable to find time last night to respond. Tonight, I will make a special effort to do so.
Odd request: Dr Fleming, I am curious what your opinion is on soccer and/or soccer mania.
I will extend on a point Sailer touches: football for hyphenated European-Americans does allow the expression of pride in a European identity. Said expression is often overshadowed by the multitude of minority-rights exultation in our country or quite simply regarded as "racist".
Amongst my friends of various European origins it's great fun we have ribbing each other about our teams. It's good natured. No one takes it too seriously. And we get to trumpet our European-ness without being made out to be racists or nazis.
But it does beg the question of de-racinated countries what their team stands for - is the US team "our" team even to those of us born here? Generally not for those within two generations of birth to immigrants whose ethnic consciousness survives. And it opens up significant questions for a team like Germany: for a nation with a long history of success in the sport, why is the current squad comprised of so many foreign-born players? At which point is the German team no longer, well, German? My German friends will ask then what is and should be the make-up of the American team. (My general response is that our American team is mostly comprised of men actually born in the US.) It does lead to thinking about the larger issue of national identity.
By the way, football loyalty for hyphenated Americans only serves to underscore Clyde Wilson's prescription that no one born within three generations of immigrant stock should be permitted to hold public office. Based on the split loyalties I have described above, I would find difficulty in disagreeing. Professor Wilson please excuse me if I've misquoted but I believe I've touched on your basic point.
To Mr. Maxwell: I played soccer in high school, because my phys ed instructor, also the football coach, though American football was not a good game to play without training and equipment, especially when the teams would include both varsity players and 120 pounders as I was then. At good old Moultrie High, soccer was a rough game, the way the farmboys and fishermen's kids played it, and I well recall the future Captain Magwood of Mt. Pleasant leaving his large shoeprints on my back as he ran over me. Despite my size, I much preferred football, because I was pretty fast--fast enough to make the track team--and although my throwing was indifferent, I was able to get my hands on the ball when it was thrown to me. I wasn't terribly good, but good enough to play with more athletic friends. There was something I did not like about soccer, and it is something shared with basketball. I always had the sense that I was a fish in a school. In football, there are discrete plays in which you do your best and the play is over; in baseball, by far America's greatest game, while you play on an integrated team, you have a discrete part to play that also permits you a zone of moral freedom. Of course, a hitter who blows off the take sign and hits the ball out of the park can and should be fined, he can still do it. I am not expressing this very well, but for me both football and baseball expressed certain American qualities I have never seen in either basketball or soccer. Baseball requires a certain three-dimensionality and although not all players have to be smart, intelligence and awareness are assets. Football is a bit more like a tournament in which tough men battle it out for honor, but soccer and basketball strike me--and this is just an entirely subjective impression--as good games for the YMCA or prison camp. I know, I know, I am a hopelessly provincial American.
I do agree with Coach Simon Lewis that soccer is a better sport for school, but I am absolutely repelled by all the soccer obsession in private and religious schools. Students are robbed of time they could be spending with their families, doing homework, eating supper, reading, or just daydreaming and are lured into a repellent Nazi youth culture that seems designed with one purpose in mind: to turn out the mindless zombies who believe their favorite news channel and vote the straight party ticket of Dems or GOPS or Greens. Anyone wonder why zombie movies are so popular the past 30 years? Talk to a soccer mom and you'll know at least part of the reason.
Thank you Dr Fleming. You reminded me of one great past time of my youth - the neighborhood baseball game. Living on a military base in the 1980s, most of the neighborhood boys were a tight bunch and it was easy to assemble a game almost every weekend - proof to me that America still had some good in it even up to the 80s. Now kids think baseball as 'boring'; kids rarely even play catch anymore.
I should add that before high school, we played baseball everyday during Spring and Summer. The nearest decent diamond was six blocks away and controlled by our school, so the boys in my neighborhood, with a little--but not much--help from a father or two--picked out an old pasture that who knows who owned, filled in holes, rolled the field, constructed a mound, and built a backstop. We had a quite proper suspicion of adults, and we formed our own team and played teams, similarly formed, from other parts of town. Our big rivals were the boys from St. Pats. Although an atheist, I played on a strictly Proddie team, and we jeered every time the Catholic pitcher crossed himself or kissed his medal. Funny thing, when they weren't playing baseball or getting into fights with us on the way to school, some of the Catholic boys were good friends. I was secretly ashamed, because I knew my father was an ex-Catholic.
My point is that up to a certain age and before organized sports--especially the Babe Ruth League--stepped into ruin our fun, we were as free as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and in the Summer we did not see a grownup from breakfast to suppertime and sometimes not even then, since we lived on the edge of the woods and from an early age we could go and spend the night in lean-to shacks we made. I have never been as satisfied with life as I was at the age of 12, but then came high school, girls, cigarettes, booze, jobs.. "though nothing can bring back that hour..." This is why being a father can be fun. You can take your kids camping and watch them go wild again. Just keep them out of the clutches of counselors and coaches and music camp directors and they may grow up with a little sanity. I prevented my own kids from being imprisoned by the soccer culture by the simple expedient of insisting they eat supper with us at least 5-6 nights a week.
"in the Summer we did not see a grownup from breakfast to suppertime and sometimes not even then... I was never as happy as I was at twelve." Dr. Tom Fleming
When your twelve you never wonder,
then,one Summer turn thirteen.
The blue-eyed girls get blonder
and the brown ones keen.
Tom and I raced down the reaches
barefoot over squelchy turf,
to the wild, white beaches,
swimming naked in the surf.
Returning home one afternoon
when every blade of grass,
heated to a dazzle, shone
like splintered glass,
and asphalt on the driveway sunk
beneath the lightest heel,
we saw upon the porch's brink
(terrible to tell)
His Black Seraphic Majesty,
the Potentate of Perils,
looped around a nosegay
of roses on the trellis.
Lord of asp and basilisk,
long at least as I,
a muscular contraction like
Mohammed Ali's thigh.
Know thyself," he hisses
(a trembling in our kness
like Phaedrus in the sweet Ilissus
numbed by Socrates).
Now he moves, defying Zeno,
swifter than an arrow could,
motionless as zero,
gliding from the place he stood,
gleaming in the greeny vines,
a shaft of black sunlight,
and streaks along exciting veins
of shining anthracite,
down the geologic cracks,
into his secret room.
They say he symbolizes sex:
Which symbolizes whom?
John Senior, from Pale Horse Easy Rider.
Oh believe me, Dr Fleming, my brother, myself and friends were free as birds all day long. We used to wander all around Andrews Air Force Base, which at the time had a large wooded area; my old man bought us those model rockets which we used to blow up on some of the abandoned runways. Every boy HAD to have a baseball mitt, or you were considered weird. For us, our teams were organized by streets usually. The boys on Columbus vs the boys on Oregon street, not as sectarian as your games. I cant remember busy-body teachers and parents ruining boyhood completely until the 90s, although undoubtedly the process had begun long before that.
Dr. Fleming your post makes me a bit sad because it reminds of better days when kids could be kids. I believe I'm a bit younger and even in my youth in the 1970s in the suburbs we had relative freedom to roam and play with our friends, whether that involved sports, sledding, bike-riding, or just climbing a tree. I didn't play on a coached or organized team for anything until high school.
Wouldn't you say though that the "over-organization" imposed by parents these days is partly due to some parents' obsession with achievement and building a resume for college but perhaps maybe even more a response to the environment we live in? What I mean by that is that is that it is more dangerous; one can't let his kids roam the way we did in our youth. The other reason is that our environments are unfamiliar. Today's economy requires people to move frequently, particularly among the "managerial class". This inevitably means people don't know their neighbors the way they did in preceding times (whether it's because they are doing the moving or their neighbors are).
And all this feeds on itself: people are obsessed with organized activities (or overworked with crazed hours) so you never see anyone on the front porch or in the yard anymore and therefore do not even have the opportunity to meet them. When I was young my parents knew everyone for at least two blocks - now I (somewhat) know my immediate neighbors. When I was young it was not at all unusual for us boys to know the old retired grandfatherly men in the neighborhood who would indulge us with stories and fix our bikes which we seemed to break every other day. I cannot see letting my kids drive to someone's garage down the street these days. Has the world become crazy or younger parents paranoid?
"Has the world become crazy or younger parents paranoid?"
I think both. And fewer fathers around to mitigate the hysteria of over protective mothers.
I remember my classics teacher telling a group of parents that they should allow their kids some freedom for adventures. One old timer spoke up and said,"Well,we lost a few kids back in our day allowing too much of that." The professor responded,"Yes, but today we are losing all of them."
In one of the first essays I ever published, I opined that it is better for a boy to break his arm falling out of a tree than to grow up afraid to climb trees.
I think parental incompetence has many causes, but the danger of the environment is among the least of them. Working mothers and divided schedules are far more significant, and if the two working parents, after sticking their kids in soccer camp and music camp, can say, "we're doing this for the kids, so they can get into Yale. We're making sacrifices because we are being good parents," then they can feel good about themselves for abandoning their children. Mel Levin, a prominent adolescent psychologist who actually has some common sense, observes that the programming of kids' lives is a more significant revolution than TV and computers combined; indeed, computers would not pose such a threat, if parents were home, cracking down and making the children's lives so miserable that have to escape to the ball field or the woods. It is time to encourage children to "light out for the territories." But this is a big subject, one that involves our work habits but also our growing timidity. If two twelve year old boys get into a scrap, one of the parents will be sick enough to call the police. This has been true since the 80's.
What an amusing article and debate. I admire Mr. Piatak's attempt at Americanism but do think he has missed the mark. As soccer continues to grow in our country, it need not be at the expense of other sports, or our identity. We Americans appear to have a bottomless gut for sports.
As for the strategy of football, it is nearly all in the coach, not the players, as their plans are laid out for them like lines on a prison floor. Speaking of the NFL, it and the NBA are indeed proud American institutions.
I have always thought football the most raw sport in terms of physical skill. Speed, size, and strength turn war plans into points. But the NFL is horribly boring to watch and attending games in person may induce epilepsy. High school football is pretty fun still. College has its moments.
Basketball at the pro level is pretty bad, but the game itself is great. Strategy and tactics are involved from the coach, but the players are also very creative on the court, and it's run on a diversity of physical and acquired skills. It's dominated by height which is its only drawback.
Baseball is still the best in my book as both an American sport and a summer/spectator sport. However, many of the criticisms of the athletes are valid. It's not very physically demanding (162 games in a season would be impossible in any other sport) and the players often pull muscles running to first. But it's baseball. It's the best.
All that said, the criticisms against soccer are just hilarious. Comparing children playing the game to the World Cup game is like observing children learning to spell and coming to a conclusion about beautiful literature. Even those here who have played high school soccer in America have not really played the game.
As for it being a spectator sport, if we had a better professional sports culture, we might discover the great fun of getting together with our friends and singing our local town/club songs as we battle people from another town on the soccer pitch. We did this all throughout high school for all our sports, and it is great fun. The kazoo phenomenon in SA is new to the game and not widely appreciated.
Metric system in short pants. Funny.
# 55 Mr Flinn writes: My new bumper sticker: “SOCCER SUCKS”
Very classy Mr. Flinn, unlike them football hooligans, eh?
# 56 Danny-boy writes: Of course its promotion in this country is an attack on the American notion of manhood, and comments from the likes of Sempronius do prove the point, as the degree of one’s support of soccer has become a litmus test measuring one’s lack of virility.
Allow me to clue you in, Danny-boy. The world doesn't give a rip about American notions of manhood. (Or any other American notions for that matter.) Further, it is common knowledge that people with insecurities and doubts regarding their own virility often feel under "attack" and must constantly fret, "test" and "measure" in a vain attempt to overcome their deficiencies. You see, men secure in the possession of their masculinity don't feel the need to constantly flex biceps and flaunt chest-hair. It is also common knowledge that, frequently enough, the real "flamers" seek to disguise their true selves behind a facade of machismo. Careful who you swill beer with at the next Super Bowl, ol' boy.
In a similar vein-and this may come as a shock to you Danny-there is a fine line between masculinity and simple brutishness. Using a napkin, rather than wiping your mouth on your sleeve, isn't a slippery slope into faggotry, old shoe.
In responding to his critics-blockheads just like you, Danny-boy-Scipio Africanus, the hero of Zama, in a somewhat different context, captured this truth quite nicely. He said, "imperatorem me mater, non bellatorem peperit." (Ask Dr. Fleming to translate for you, dummy.)
# 58 Bryan writes: "My response was quitting rugby for soccer was akin to getting a sex change."
Aside from the fact that rugby players wear short pants like soccer players, I believe thatit was America that pioneered the procedure of sex change operations. You may wish to savor the irony in that little fact. I know I do.
# 64 Mr. Jacobi writes: "The use of “cowboy” as an epithet directed at Americans is a dead giveaway for the deeply genetically predisposed variety of anti-American. It also betrays the non-American’s envy that his culture never produced anything as glorious as a cowboy."
First let me clarify. I did not intend "cowboy" as an insult. I was poking fun at Piatak's assumption of airs. "Tough-guy" or "macho-man" could have substituted quite nicely.
I do not know what, in this contxt, "genetically predisposed" means exactly. I'm not sure you do either.
There is nothing particularly unique in herding cattle. Men have been doing it for ages. In many different parts of the world. I will let the last sentence quoted stand as a testament to the delusional ignorance all too often displayed by 110% Americanos.
I will pause here for now. Dinner time. Penne with zucchini. I hope Mr. Piatak won't mind the "foreign" fare. I trust he won't attempt to regulate my dinner table.
In my next post I'll clarify a few issues regarding the game of English Football (EF) and respond to further provocations provided by Mr. Piatak.
Tom, I'll be in Cleveland for a wedding July 3, then a couple of days at Put-in Bay. We must have whiskey (and tsuica), and cigars.
Erienne,
Excellent news! Yes, I hope we can get together then.
Sempronius " There is nothing particularly unique in herding cattle. Men have been doing it for ages."
Yes indeed,no less a man than Aristotle observed that raising stock, tillage of the soil and beekeeping were the three most natural means to creating wealth. Usury, which is so much defended these days by republican conservatives joined at the hip with Goldman and Wall Street types, was considered unnatural vice like same sex marriage. It makes your use of populist condescention towards the word, cowboy, all the more remarkable for a man like yourself who appears so enamored with Henry James type manners decorum and learning. Let us give Will James his due and at least admire his drawings if our acquaintance with the contemporary "fine arts" have blinded us to his noble life.