Clearly soccer is a minor sport in the United States, even though these days millions of young play the game. So why has soccer, the world’s most popular sport, not caught-on here at home?
Simple. Advertising, or should I say lack of advertising. You see, in soccer the play is continuous and the networks do not have as many opportunities to sell commercials, and advertisements on the jerseys or in the stadium go to others, not the networks. So…. given the choice of sports to promote, American football is the clear favorite of the networks, where the actual playing time is a mere fraction of the overall game and at the end of the day, for the last half-century the networks have decided what is and is-not seen by Americans.
Why Soccer is not popular in the United States? Simple, lack of network revenues.
March 18th, 2010Rupert Murdock is the man behind the green curtain of the Tea Party.
March 13th, 2010This Australian man probably has more influence over American politics than anyone. This media mogul owns New Corp and loves to leverage his organization to promote his own political agenda. Chief among his tools is Fox News which doesn’t do anything without Murdock’s not-so-subtle consent and direction, so when it comes to the “grass-roots” founding of the Tea-Party by Fox News, who do you think is at the helm?
And millions of Americans are his unwitting lackeys…..
Cauchemar de la fée des dents (Nightmare of the Tooth Fairy)
March 13th, 2010I live in a world where most adults believe in the tooth fairy. Not only do they believe in him, but they think they know what he wants.
It is a nightmare from which I can find no escape….
The day of the earthquake in Chile, two older gentlemen came to my house to tell me about God. One of them made a statement that was extremely scary. He asked me if I thought the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti were just random. He went on to imply that he thought they were a message. This is a very dangerous part of religion, where people start to believe they know the mind of God, which invariably leads to blaming certain groups of people, which in turn leads to all kinds of atrocities done is His name.
I told him he might look at how mountains are made, but I don’t think it will have any impact.
I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny.
March 4th, 2010I know that Easter is coming, and I do like chocolate and hard-boiled eggs (colored or otherwise), but I don’t believe in an actual Easter Bunny. The thought of some giant rabbit, partially clothed, carrying a basket of goodies and delivering them to kids (often hiding them to make the children “earn” them), just seems altogether silly. I suspect you feel the same.
The same is true for Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and any other supernatural entity.
Over the course of human existence, people have invented thousand of supernatural entities. I don’t believe in any of them, and I find it astounding that anyone does.
The era of “defense via offense”, aka saying the opposite of the truth.
January 30th, 2010I bought a banana at the Starbucks this morning that had a sticker on it reading “Lose weight”. Since when is a banana a weight loss food? It isn’t. But these days it seems that the corporate world has taken a page of the political playbook and decided that saying the opposite of the truth will create enough confusion to overpower the truth. They seems to be thinking, “We have more money than you do, and if we say it enough times, people will start to believe us.” Sadly, I think it works.
The new secret MO is simply, take your biggest shortcoming and claim the opposite. Another recent example in the food arena was a box of cereal which more closely resembles a candy bar than a breakfast, claiming that it is “Healthy!!!!” and part of a balanced diet. What a bunch of BS. If I had a bunch of rocks, I imagine I could find someone to create a study that came to the amazing realization that eating rocks was good for you. That they clean out your intestinal track, that they contain various minerals that the body needs, blah, blah blah.
The fact is that no one has time to verify every claim being made by corporations, and they have learned that if they lie to us, their sales will go up. Hey, they are just telling us what we want to hear. Yeah, go ahead and eat that junk. I know you like it. Will it help if I tell you it is good for you…. Okay. It is. There you go. Does it taste even better now?
I don’t know about you, but I am sick of this utter nonsense. I hate it. I wish it were illegal to make such ridiculous claims. The bar on “proof” should be much higher. Instead of finding some paid-for hack to create your proof, if you had to have consensus among the experts in the field in order to make a claim and that you had to publish all negative effects as prominently as you make any claims of benefit.
This is why I voted for the guy…..
January 30th, 2010If you didn’t see Obama meet with the Republicans, you should. This guy is so presidential and smart! Such a contrast to many of the pathetic questions that we posed by the others.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
If you don’t love this guy, then you simply aren’t paying attention.
Apple Tablet – Crossing the Chasm – Could be a game changer.
January 21st, 2010Ever since its initial success, I have been wondering how Apple would leverage the iPhone with their computer line. Surely, iTunes would not be the only bridge. So, what would Apple do? Make a touchscreen iMac or Macbook?
How exactly would they take advantage of the hundred-thousand or so iPhone applications? And now that they have created an army of developers who write in Objective-C, how can they leverage that army on the computer side of the company. Well, one way would be to provide a migration path. Imagine a tablet that could run all the iPhone applications and all the desktop applications.
Imagine if you could drop your SIM card into the tablet and have it also be your phone. Your giant iPhone!
Now you have a computer, ebook reader, iPhone, iPod super device…. It could be the missing link in the migration to future desktop and laptop devices that make it easier (maybe even transparent) for developers to move their touch-based applications to any Apple device.
Well, in a few days we will find out exactly what Apple is planning. I’m thinking that it might be a game-changer. Wouldn’t that be fun?
Believer or Belonger
January 19th, 2010Religion has somehow managed to hijack the word belief. Religious people are “believers”, the rest of us are “non-believers” or something worse. Not long ago, I told a teammate on my soccer team that I am an atheist. His response to me was “Well, I guess you can’t blame someone for what they don’t believe.” I resent the idea that someone who has deferred to the church on all matters of what to and what not to believe, could call me a “non-believer”.
It is the fact that I greatly value my beliefs which makes me defend the right to have my own. I do not defer on matters of belief to anyone or any organization. If I learn something tomorrow, my beliefs may change. I don’t have to ask anyone. I have no internal conflict over whether I might be disowned by those with whom I socialize, my family, or anyone.
There are so many things to believe in that I find it almost impossible that any two people could believe the exact same thing. So how is it that millions of people can claim to believe the same thing? By confusing the words belief and belong.
The successful religious organizations have learned to distill the entire subject of belief down to a single question. Generally a question that is very simple and intentionally vague, such as “Do you believe in Jesus?”. Nothing specific. That he was born of a virgin. That he performed miracles. That he was crucified. That he rose from the dead. That he was the son of God. That…..
But rather the most broad and simple of questions. Even I could pass this test, since I am not at all certain that Jesus did not live. He might have. There is a decent chance that he did.
So, if you can answer “yes” to the “one” question. Then great, you are one of us. Don’t worry about the details. We will fill you in as necessary in the future. Welcome aboard.
So what do these “believers” really believe? Who knows. I can only suspect that they try not to think about it…. That they prefer ignorance to the risk of losing membership. After all, membership has it privileges (reference intended). Not to mention the historically dangerous alternatives. No, I would call these people “belongers” not “believers”. The word “believers” should be reserved for those that actually exercise them. And I can proudly call myself a believer.
Great videos
January 19th, 2010This section is simply links to video that I recommend. Since they are links (largely to Youtube), I’m not sure how long those links will remain valid.
BBC video on chaos Added 1/19/2010.
I find my religion in the ever-changing gaps in knowledge that evolve from the pursuits of great minds like these….
There are 6 videos. Scroll down and press the “Play All” link to play the next video in the sequence. They are organized as video responses to the previous chapter, so you have to do this for each chapter.
The Theist, The Diest and The Atheist
January 16th, 2010The way I look at it, throughout the history of the species, humans have worshiped thousands of gods. Gods of volcanoes, rivers, oceans, sky, wind, rain, fire, harvest, sun, moon, constellations, down to the goddess of parking lots (to whom my wife prays when we enter the mall parking garage – she points out that we always find a spot). But let’s just round it way down, down to say 1,000 gods.
If you were to ask a Theist how many of these gods they do NOT believe in, I suspect that they will say 999. I would expect the same answer from a diest. If you ask the same question of an atheist you get the number 1,000. So really, a theist and a deist are atheists when it comes to 999 gods. If they would simply go one further, they could become atheists.
Definitions for background.
The theist believes in a personal-god. That this god created the universe and continues to be involved directly with the lives of each person. He suspends the laws of the universe to perform miracles, listens to prayers, etc.
The deist wikipedia.org on Deism believes in a god as creator of the universe, but not as a personal god.
The atheist does not believe in anything supernatural.