Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The World Cup: Round One.
Ok the first stage of the World Cup is coming to an end and here's what I have seen. Brazil plays football like Monet painted! Other than Christiano Ronaldo's crazy lone goal, The Samba Boys have arguably, the prettiest goals thus far in the competition.
Along with Brazil, teams from the western hemisphere are faring quite well! Landon Donovan and the US, who has fielded one of their strongest world cup teams ever, which isn't saying much, will make it to the next round along with Chile and Mexico. Messi and Argentina are poised to go far. Messi, voted best in the world, hasn't scored yet but has lived up to billing as the best player on the pitch.
The biggest disappointment so far has been the big boys, France. All the world class stars on this teams and the horrible showing they have had is unacceptable. France lost to South Africa!!! Nuff Said!!!
A few of the African teams were struck by misfortunes. Ghana was without Michael Essien but has performed well and may be the lone African side to make it into the knockout stages. Who knows what would've happened if Ivory Coast would have had a healthy Didier Drogba... Even with a broken arm he has scored their lone goal of this World Cup. Nigeria totally underachieved even though they suffered injuries to big names.
Who else looks good? Germany, Spain and Portugal look great but my money is on the Brazilians. Robinho is my boy.
How Easy We Forget
All the political chatter these days can be confusing and also frustrating if you take it seriously. I know a lot of people do take it seriously as evident by the "tea party" protesters and, going back a few years, the "9/11 truthers". Judging by the cable news channels, it seems as though it ain't that hard to sculpt America's public opinion. If you don't believe me, check out this link when you get a chance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbyFeFhUTmI&feature=player_embedded.
I spent today watching the three major cable news networks to see how they are covering politics of the day. (i was bored after the world cup matches ended.) I tried to be as objective as possible. And I was the only one being objective!! The big story of the day has been the Rolling Stone article entitled the Runaway General in which the leading General in Afghanistan is portrayed at being at odds with the administration. Each network had it's own way of spinning this. Each network's agenda was pretty evident. One was anti-Obama, One was pro-Obama or anti-republican, and the last network was centrist but a little boring. It's no wonder that the popular networks are dominated by opinion shows. I guess we need to be told what to think and we only get two choices. That sucks!
The anti-Obama channel loves to point out the president's poll numbers, and yeah they have been falling since he stepped into his office last year. And they love to point out the 9.7% unemployment rate. So I wondered how past presidents fared in the polls during the same time in their presidencies. I found something very interesting. President Reagan, who is a hero to conservatives, had identical poll numbers and actually faced a higher unemployment rate of 10%. It just proves that poll numbers don't really mean anything. We, the American public have a short attention span and also forget very quickly.
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