The first two knock-out round games show everything that’s wrong with soccer: 1. Trench Warfare. Almost all the scoring was early, four out of five goals in the first twenty minutes or so. The next two and a half hours…
The Forward strikes a blow for inclusiveness, and calls David Beckham “probably the greatest Jewish soccer player ever.” It does so (because he is a star, yes, but) because he has 1 Jewish grandparent, and probably too because he and…
A reader, John, has nailed me on a recent soccer post, where I echoed Kissinger’s statement that U.S. soccer needs “minorities.” Not sure if you’re agreeing fully with Kissinger here — I hope not, because his comment is effectively racist….
The Ghana victory over the U.S., catapulting their team into the second round, is of course big news in Africa. The Accra Daily Mail is calling the upcoming Brazil match “the mother of all matches.” And from the South Africa…
The authors of the bombshell critique of the Israel lobby showed up two days ago on the Diane Rehm Show and I hear they’re on C-Span, too. And they’re on the cover of Foreign Policy. Diane Rehm was their first…
Monday’s Times Op-Ed contained a powerful ad in the righthand corner. Headlined “How to Befriend the Muslim World” and written by a Leonard Greene, it decried the invasion of Iraq and called for humanitarian aid to win hearts and minds…
Did you catch Michaele Weissman’s piece on the front page of the Times Business section yesterday, about an idealistic Chicago coffee company that is paying double ordinary prices to Nicaraguan growers, willingly, to get connoisseur beans for discriminating drinkers here?…
So this morning I was trying to figure out what they mean. I think “loathe” is attractive because it’s a low-burning feeling, it isn’t pugilistic like hatred. Hatred really means you have to have hostilities. Loathing can come and go,…