The Trump Doctrine is in full flight this morning. President Don says he’s gonna lay the steel tariff smack down on China. Funny thing, though: However, he now says he might exempt Canada and Mexico from the tariffs. The Trump Doctrine: Imagine a problem that doesn’t exist. Use it to piss off everybody. Then propose a “solution” that wouldn’t work
Read more
As qualifying wraps up this week, we’re staring at the very real possibility next year’s FIFA World Cup will be staged without Lionel Messi and/or Cristiano Ronaldo. That the greatest competition in world sports, save possibly the Olympics, would fail to include the men most regard as the two greatest players alive (and certainly two of the greatest of all time), seems
Read more
What will the islands and the Atlantic and Gulf coasts look like in a generation? I’m not a climate expert, so I want to tread cautiously here. That said, our recent spate of catastrophic weather has raised some uneasy questions in my mind. As I write this Hurricane Maria is lashing Puerto Rico. It is, in the estimate of some
Read more
What should FIFA do now that the Arab world has had enough of Qatar’s bullshit? Double down, baby! A number of Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt have cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of destabilising the region. They say Qatar backs militant groups including so-called Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, which Qatar denies. The Saudi state news agency
Read more
Instead of making yourself a tool for those whose agendas run counter to the best interests of the nation that flag represents, how about stepping back and asking who’s playing you, and why? This meme came across my Facebook feed earlier today. Obviously somebody has an issue with Colin Kaepernick (and other black athletes) protesting injustice in America by refusing
Read moreSiyayilanda – we are fetching our future. It’s #HopeTuesday, and time for a brief object lesson. Few cultures in our lifetimes have struggled harder against oppression than the South Africans.
Read more
By threatening club finances and limiting player movement, Brexit may inflict serious damage on the world’s best league… On the sports side of things, we have this headline this morning: Premier League refuses to speculate on effects of UK’s ‘Brexit’ from EU The world’s most prestigious football league might be unwilling to speculate, but I’m not. England’s vote to leave
Read more
Is Abby Wambach a xenophobe? I doubt it. But her remarks on foreign-born players were clumsy at best. On Wednesday night Abby Wambach, the greatest striker in women’s soccer history, played her final match, an uninspired 1-0 loss to China that was in no way the sort of send-off she deserved. While the game lacked fireworks, her appearance earlier in
Read more
Can Europe’s domestic football leagues survive the new Premier League TV deals? Not a chance. A good bit has been written about new TV deals for England’s Premier League – Sky domestically and NBC in the US – and the numbers are frankly mind-boggling: Sky is ponying up more than £5.1B (~$7.75B) and NBC is paying around $1B for rights through 2021-22. When
Read more
Walter Palmer, the dentist who killed Cecil the Lion, says he did nothing illegal and that he’s going back to work. I don’t think Dr. Palmer understands the issue. He doesn’t grasp why people are so upset. He thinks we’re all mad because we mistakenly believe that he broke the law. No, Walter, we know you acted legally. We live in
Read moreWhere were you when you heard the news?
Read moreGodzilla ain’t the only hardcore badass from Japan. I’m not the Japan expert around here – that distinction falls to blogger, poet, photographer and Japanophile extraordinare Dan Ryan – so I won’t pretend that I know anything about J-Pop. It just felt like a nice day to do something a little different for SVR, and I’ve been thinking about Dir
Read moreBoko Haram is evil and we all want to see the victims rescued. But how is it our responsibility? Many of us have watched in horror as the story of the kidnapped Nigerian school girls has unfolded. The idea of a terror group like Boko Haram selling these victims into “marriage” violates every atom of our shared morality. But the
Read more
Pussy Riot’s commitment to social justice in the motherland is more than admirable. It perhaps merits a spot in Russia’s artistic canon. The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia closed today, and if you set aside the homophobia and generally strong-armed approach to governance by the host, one Vladimir Putin, these games were remarkable in just about every way. The
Read more
lullaby pit 