Sports Unite Us Quotes

I'm Losing Faith in My Favorite Country Throughout my life, the United States has been my favorite country, save and except for Canada, where I was born, raised, educated, and still live for six months each year. As a child growing up in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, I aggressively bought and saved baseball cards of American and National League players, spent hours watching snowy images of American baseball and football games on black and white television and longed for the day when I could travel to that great country. Every Saturday afternoon, me and the boys would pay twelve cents to go the show and watch U.S. made movies, and particularly, the Superman serial. Then I got my chance. My father, who worked for B.F. Goodrich, took my brother and me to watch the Cleveland Indians play baseball in the Mistake on the Lake in Cleveland. At last I had made it to the big time. I thought it was an amazing stadium and it was certainly not a mistake. Amazingly, the Americans thought we were Americans. I loved the United States, and everything about the country: its people, its movies, its comic books, its sports, and a great deal more. The country was alive and growing. No, exploding. It was the golden age of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American dream was alive and well, but demanded hard work, honesty, and frugality. Everyone understood that. Even the politicians. Then everything changed.

I was also proud. Wow. We got under the skin of the president of the United States. I was grateful. Even though he disagreed with us, he turned it into a worldwide conversation. Maybe he wasn’t willing to have a discussion with us about what we were protesting and why it mattered. No beer summit for us. But his comments did allow for us to go global with the problems of racial inequality in this country.

You and McNab sat around talking about women and sports." "I don't believe we got to sports. He had a woman on his mind." Eve's sneer vanished. "You talked to him about Peabody? Damn it, Roarke." "I could hardly slap him back. He's so pitifully smitten." "Oh." She winced. "Don't use that word." "It fits. In fact, if he took my advice ..." He turned his wrist, glanced at the unit fastened there. "They should be well into their first date by now." "Date? Date? Why did you do that? Why did you go and do something like that? Couldn't you leave it alone? They'd have had sex until they burned out on it, and everything would go back to normal." He angled his head. "That didn't work for us, did it?" "We don't work together." Then, when his eyes brightened with pure amusement, she showed her teeth. "Officially. You start mixing cops and romance and case files and gooey looks at briefings, you've got nothing but a mess. Next thing you know, Peabody will be wearing lip dye and smelly girl stuff and dragging body skimmers under her uniform." She dropped her head in her hands. "Then they'll have tiffs and misunderstandings that have nothing whatsoever to do with the job. They'll come at me from both sides, and before you know it, they'll be telling me things I absolutely do not want to know. And when they break it off and decide they hate each other down to the guts, I'll have to hear about that, too, and why they can't possibly work together, or breathe the same air, until I have no choice, absolutely no choice, but to kick both of their asses." "Eve, your sunny view on life never fails to lift my spirits." "And -- " She poked him in the chest. "It's all your fault." He grabbed her finger, nipped it, not so gently. "If that's the case, I'm going to insist they name their first child after me.

The gambling industry actually generates more income than the music, sports, and movie industries combined.

In three weeks, the women's team had done more for soccer in the United States than any team had ever done. Yet, the United States Soccer Federation was unprepared and unwelcoming in its acerbic response to the women's success. With petty, resentful, chauvinistic behavior, the federation would bungle what should have been its greatest moment as a national governing body. Its leaders would criticize DiCicco instead of congratulating him, they would threaten to sue the women over an indoor victory tour and they would wait an unacceptably long period before entering into contract negotiations with the team. Then, at the end of the year, the federation would offer a deal that the women found insulting. Unwilling to trust that the federation was bargaining in good faith, the women would boycott a trip to a tournament in Australia. They would become champions of the world, embraced by the president, by the largest crowd ever to watch women play and by the largest television audience for soccer in this country, embraced by everyone, it seemed, but the officials who ran the sport with the vision of a student council. Increasingly, it appeared, the only amateurs left in sports were the people running the federations that governed them.

In living rooms all over America, I knew people of all ages were glued to their TVs and portable devices. That’s the beauty of the Olympics—the whole world comes together, united in their love for sports. I let myself have a moment to think about how momentous this was. I thought of all the different people who would see us compete: Men like my grandfather, who had taped the competition for my mom twenty years before; women like my mother, the high school gymnast; guys like my brother, who enjoyed the sheer athleticism of sports.

One also, in our milieu, simply didn't meet enough Americans to form an opinion. And when one did—this was in the days of crew-cuts and short-legged pants—they, too, often really did sport crew-cuts and trousers that mysteriously ended several inches short of the instep. Why was that? It obviously wasn't poverty. A colleague of my father's had a daughter who got herself married and found that an American friend she had met on holiday had offered to pay the whole cost of the nuptial feast. I forget the name of this paladin, but he had a crew-cut and amputated trouser-bottoms and a cigar stub and he came from a place called Yonkers, which seemed to me a ridiculous name to give to a suburb. (I, who had survived Crapstone… ) Anyway, once again one received a Henry Jamesian impression of brash generosity without overmuch refinement. There was a boy at my boarding school called Warren Powers Laird Myers, the son of an officer stationed at one of the many U.S. Air Force bases in Cambridgeshire. Trousers at The Leys School were uniform and regulation, but he still managed to show a bit of shin and to buzz-cut his hair. 'I am not a Yankee,' he informed me (he was from Norfolk, Virginia). 'I am a CON-federate.' From what I was then gleaning of the news from Dixie, this was unpromising. In our ranks we also had Jamie Auchincloss, a sprig of the Kennedy-Bouvier family that was then occupying the White House. His trousers managed to avoid covering his ankles also, though the fact that he shared a parent with Jackie Kennedy meant that anything he did was accepted as fashionable by definition. The pants of a man I'll call Mr. 'Miller,' a visiting American master who skillfully introduced me to J.D. Salinger, were also falling short of their mark. Mr. Miller's great teacher-feature was that he saw sexual imagery absolutely everywhere and was slightly too fond of pointing it out [...]. Meanwhile, and as I mentioned much earlier, the dominant images projected from the United States were of the attack-dog-and-firehose kind, with swag-bellied cops lying about themselves and the political succession changed as much by bullets as by ballots.

In the United States we are at such a disadvantage because we do not know how to talk about the genocide inflicted on indigenous people. We do not know how to talk about slavery. Otherwise it would not have been assumed that simply because of the election of one Black man to the presidency we would leap forward into a postracial era. We do not acknowledge that we all live on colonized land. And in the meantime, Native Americans live in impoverished conditions on reservations. They have an extremely high incarceration rate—as a matter of fact, per capita the highest incarceration rate—and they suffer disproportionately from such diseases as alcoholism and diabetes. In the meantime, sports teams still mock indigenous people with racially derogatory names, like the Washington Redskins. We do not know how to talk about slavery, except, perhaps, within a framework of victim and victimizer, one that continues to polarize and implicate.

American Indians share a magnificent history — rich in its astounding diversity, its integrity, its spirituality, its ongoing unique culture and dynamic tradition. It's also rich, I'm saddened to say, in tragedy, deceit, and genocide. Our sovereignty, our nationhood, our very identity — along with our sacred lands — have been stolen from us in one of the great thefts of human history. And I am referring not just to the thefts of previous centuries but to the great thefts that are still being perpetrated upon us today, at this very moment. Our human rights as indigenous peoples are being violated every day of our lives — and by the very same people who loudly and sanctimoniously proclaim to other nations the moral necessity of such rights. Over the centuries our sacred lands have been repeatedly and routinely stolen from us by the governments and peoples of the United States and Canada. They callously pushed us onto remote reservations on what they thought was worthless wasteland, trying to sweep us under the rug of history. But today, that so-called wasteland has surprisingly become enormously valuable as the relentless technology of white society continues its determined assault on Mother Earth. White society would now like to terminate us as peoples and push us off our reservations so they can steal our remaining mineral and oil resources. It's nothing new for them to steal from nonwhite peoples. When the oppressors succeed with their illegal thefts and depredations, it's called colonialism. When their efforts to colonize indigenous peoples are met with resistance or anything but abject surrender, it's called war. When the colonized peoples attempt to resist their oppression and defend themselves, we're called criminals. I write this book to bring about a greater understanding of what being an Indian means, of who we are as human beings. We're not quaint curiosities or stereotypical figures in a movie, but ordinary — and, yes, at times, extraordinary — human beings. Just like you. We feel. We bleed. We are born. We die. We aren't stuffed dummies in front of a souvenir shop; we aren't sports mascots for teams like the Redskins or the Indians or the Braves or a thousand others who steal and distort and ridicule our likeness. Imagine if they called their teams the Washington Whiteskins or the Washington Blackskins! Then you'd see a protest! With all else that's been taken from us, we ask that you leave us our name, our self-respect, our sense of belonging to the great human family of which we are all part. Our voice, our collective voice, our eagle's cry, is just beginning to be heard. We call out to all of humanity. Hear us!

This kind of parenting was typical in much of Asia—and among Asian immigrant parents living in the United States. Contrary to the stereotype, it did not necessarily make children miserable. In fact, children raised in this way in the United States tended not only to do better in school but to actually enjoy reading and school more than their Caucasian peers enrolled in the same schools. While American parents gave their kids placemats with numbers on them and called it a day, Asian parents taught their children to add before they could read. They did it systematically and directly, say, from six-thirty to seven each night, with a workbook—not organically, the way many American parents preferred their children to learn math. The coach parent did not necessarily have to earn a lot of money or be highly educated. Nor did a coach parent have to be Asian, needless to say. The research showed that European-American parents who acted more like coaches tended to raise smarter kids, too. Parents who read to their children weekly or daily when they were young raised children who scored twenty-five points higher on PISA by the time they were fifteen years old. That was almost a full year of learning. More affluent parents were more likely to read to their children almost everywhere, but even among families within the same socioeconomic group, parents who read to their children tended to raise kids who scored fourteen points higher on PISA. By contrast, parents who regularly played with alphabet toys with their young children saw no such benefit. And at least one high-impact form of parental involvement did not actually involve kids or schools at all: If parents simply read for pleasure at home on their own, their children were more likely to enjoy reading, too. That pattern held fast across very different countries and different levels of family income. Kids could see what parents valued, and it mattered more than what parents said. Only four in ten parents in the PISA survey regularly read at home for enjoyment. What if they knew that this one change—which they might even vaguely enjoy—would help their children become better readers themselves? What if schools, instead of pleading with parents to donate time, muffins, or money, loaned books and magazines to parents and urged them to read on their own and talk about what they’d read in order to help their kids? The evidence suggested that every parent could do things that helped create strong readers and thinkers, once they knew what those things were. Parents could go too far with the drills and practice in academics, just as they could in sports, and many, many Korean parents did go too far. The opposite was also true. A coddled, moon bounce of a childhood could lead to young adults who had never experienced failure or developed self-control or endurance—experiences that mattered as much or more than academic skills. The evidence suggested that many American parents treated their children as if they were delicate flowers. In one Columbia University study, 85 percent of American parents surveyed said that they thought they needed to praise their children’s intelligence in order to assure them they were smart. However, the actual research on praise suggested the opposite was true. Praise that was vague, insincere, or excessive tended to discourage kids from working hard and trying new things. It had a toxic effect, the opposite of what parents intended. To work, praise had to be specific, authentic, and rare. Yet the same culture of self-esteem boosting extended to many U.S. classrooms.

Moment, momentum, momentous If you reduce sports to its smallest discrete units, its subatomic particles, you're left with protons and electrons and neutrons called moments. They're the building blocks of every season, every game, every series of downs. Two or more moments may accrete into something more, a propulsive energy called momentum, which in turn can snowball into something greater still, that which is momentous. Consider those consecutive moments last Aug. 4 (2012 summer Olympics) in London, when Michael Phelps-in his final Olympic race-caught and then overtook Japan's Takeshi Matsuda on the butterfly leg of the men's 4 x 100 medley relay. Momentum passed to Phelps's U.S. teammate Nathan Adrian, who pulled away on the freestyle leg, sealing a victory that yielded Phelps's 18th gold medal, and 22nd medal overall, more than any other Olympian in history. It was like the conjugation of some Latin verb: moment, momentum, momentous. Or if you prefer: Veni, vidi, vici (we came, we saw, we conquered). From "moments of the year

In contemporary Western society, buying a magazine on astrology - at a newsstand, say - is easy; it is much harder to find one on astronomy. Virtually every newspaper in America has a daily column on astrology; there are hardly any that have even a weekly column on astronomy. There are ten times more astrologers in the United States than astronomers. At parties, when I meet people that do not know I’m a scientist, I am sometimes asked “Are you a Gemini?” (chances of success, one in twelve), or “What sign are you?” Much more rarely am I asked “Have you heard that gold is made in supernova explosions?” or “When do you think Congress will approve a Mars Rover?” (...) And personal astrology is with us still: consider two different newspaper astrology columns published in the same city on the same day. For example, we can examine The New York Post and the New York Daily News on September 21, 1979. Suppose you are a Libra - that is, born between September 23 and October 22. According to the astrologer for the Post, ‘a compromise will help ease tension’; useful, perhaps, but somewhat vague. According to the Daily News’ astrologer, you must ‘demand more of yourself’, an admonition that is also vague but also different. These ‘predictions’ are not predictions; rather they are pieces of advice - they tell you what to do, not what will happen. Deliberately, they are phrased so generally that they could apply to anyone. And they display major mutual inconsistencies. Why are they published as unapologetically as sport statistics and stock market reports? Astrology can be tested by the lives of twins. There are many cases in which one twin is killed in childhood, in a riding accident, say, or is struck by lightning, while the other lives to a prosperous old age. Each was born in precisely the same place and within minutes of the other. Exactly the same planets were rising at their births. If astrology were valid, how could two such twins have such profoundly different fates? It also turns out that astrologers cannot even agree among themselves on what a given horoscope means. In careful tests, they are unable to predict the character and future of people they knew nothing about except their time and place of birth.

Ian rested his hands behind his head. “I’m already picturing myself in the Sterling luxury suite at Soldier Field, right above the fifty-yard line.” Both the lawyer and pragmatic woman in Brooke felt the need to manage her CEO’s expectations. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself here, Ian. In fact, I think you just lapped yourself.” “A man can dream, Brooke.” She chuckled. “Who are you kidding? You barely use our suites at Wrigley Field and the United Center.” He waved this off. “Yeah, but football’s different. If we get this deal with the Bears, you better believe my butt will be at Soldier Field for every home game.” He saw her fighting back a grin. “What?” “I just wonder what it is about men and football,” Brooke said. Sure, because of her job she could hold her own when it came to talking sports, but—wow—had her eyes been opened when she’d been down in Dallas, negotiating the Cowboys deal. Those men didn’t just love football, they lived football. “Is it a warrior-metaphor kind of thing? The idea that the strongest, toughest men of the region strap on their armor and step onto the battlefield to face off against the strongest, toughest opponents?” “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what it is.” “I see. And remind me: in what century did it become customary for one’s army to be attended at the battle ground by hot girls with spanky pants and pom-poms? Was that a tradition Napoleon started?” Brooke pretended to muse. “Or maybe it was Genghis Khan.” “You scoff at America’s sport. I have fired people for less.” Brooke threw Ian a get-real look. “No, you haven’t. You don’t fire anyone without trotting down to my office and asking me first whether you’ll get sued. And then I’m always the one that has to fire them, anyway.” “Because you do it with such charm,” Ian said with a grin

Alfredo di Stéfano is maybe the greatest player I have ever seen. I watched him in a match when Manchester United played against Real in the semi-final of the European Cup in Madrid the year before the accident. In those days, there was no substitutes' bench; if you weren't playing, you were in the stand. I felt like I was looking down on what looked like a Subbuteo table—I was that high up—but I couldn't take my eyes off this midfield player and I thought, Who on earth is that? He ran the whole show and had the ball almost all the time. I used to dream of that, and I used to hate it when anyone else got it. They beat us 3-1 and he dictated the whole game. I'd never seen anything like it before—someone who influenced the entire match. Everything went through him. The goalkeeper gave it to him, the full backs were giving it to him, the midfield players were linking up with him and the forwards were looking for him. And there was Gento playing alongside and Di Stefano just timed his passes perfectly for him. Gento ran so fast you couldn't get him offside. And I was just sitting there, watching, thinking it was the best thing I had ever seen. But I had been forewarned a bit by Matt Busby, the manager at the time, because he had been across and seen them play a match in Nice before the semi—in those days it wasn't easy to do that—and, when he came back, we asked him what they were like, but he didn't want to tell us. And I understood why he didn't when I saw them. I think he knew that, if he had said they were the best players he'd ever seen, it would have been all over for us before we'd started. And this was when Di Stefano was thirty. What must he have been like in his youth?

One reason the findings of Bernstein, Root-Bernstein, and Garnier are striking is that they challenge the belief that intellectual activity and athletic ability are mutually exclusive. Terms like “vita contemplativa” or “life of the mind” don’t exactly conjure up images of physical prowess, and they tap into a medieval belief that cultivation of the mind and spirit requires a denial of the body. Economists’ classifications of “white-collar” versus “blue-collar” jobs, “knowledge work” versus manual labor, and knowledge-based economies versus ones that produce mere stuff, all tell us that work divides into neat, separate categories. In the United States, the notion that integrals and intervals don’t mix is reinforced by American stereotypes about collegiate athletics and the unfortunate willingness of some sports-mad universities to tolerate underprepared student athletes while discouraging bright ones from pursuing academically demanding majors.

This was a media beat-up at its very worst. All those officials reacting to what the media labeled “The Baby Bob Incident” failed to understand the Irwin family. This is what we did--teach our children about wildlife, from a very early age. It wasn’t unnatural and it wasn’t a stunt. It was, on the contrary, an old and valued family tradition, and one that I embraced wholeheartedly. It was who we were. To have the press fasten on the practice as irresponsible made us feel that our very ability as parents was being attacked. It didn’t make any sense. This is why Steve never publicly apologized. For him to say “I’m sorry” would mean that he was sorry that Bob and Lyn raised him the way they did, and that was simply impossible. The best he could do was to sincerely apologize if he had worried anyone. The reality was that he would have been remiss as a parent if he didn’t teach his kids how to coexist with wildlife. After all, his kids didn’t just have busy roads and hot stoves to contend with. They literally had to learn how to live with crocodiles and venomous snakes in their backyard. Through it all, the plight of the Tibetan nuns was completely and totally ignored. The world media had not a word to spare about a dry well that hundreds of people depended on. For months, any time Steve encountered the press, Tibetan nuns were about the furthest thing from the reporter’s mind. The questions would always be the same: “Hey, Stevo, what about the Baby Bob Incident?” “If I could relive Friday, mate, I’d go surfing,” Steve said on a hugely publicized national television appearance in the United States. “I can’t go back to Friday, but you know what, mate? Don’t think for one second I would ever endanger my children, mate, because they’re the most important thing in my life, just like I was with my mum and dad.” Steve and I struggled to get back to a point where we felt normal again. Sponsors spoke about terminating contracts. Members of our own documentary crew sought to distance themselves from us, and our relationship with Discovery was on shaky ground. But gradually we were able to tune out the static and hear what people were saying. Not the press, but the people. We read the e-mails that had been pouring in, as well as faxes, letters, and phone messages. Real people helped to get us back on track. Their kids were growing up with them on cattle ranches and could already drive tractors, or lived on horse farms and helped handle skittish stallions. Other children were learning to be gymnasts, a sport which was physically rigorous and held out the chance of injury. The parents had sent us messages of support. “Don’t feel bad, Steve,” wrote one eleven-year-old from Sydney. “It’s not the wildlife that’s dangerous.” A mother wrote us, “I have a new little baby, and if you want to take him in on the croc show it is okay with me.” So many parents employed the same phrase: “I’d trust my kids with Steve any day.

During the “Bay of Pigs Invasion” One Douglas “B-26” airplane with counterfeit Cuban markings was fired on and crashed into the sea about 30 miles north of the island. Another of these aircraft, which was also damaged but still air worthy, continued north and landed at Boca Chica Key Naval Air Station near Key West, Florida. The following day the crew was quickly flown to exile in Nicaragua. The United States government announced that the downed aircraft belonged to the Cuban air force and was manned by Cuban dissidents. In reply to this, Castro appeared on Cuban State television and denounced these claims. He put his military on high alert and directed defensive operations from the Cuban Military Headquarters, which had just been bombed by two of the masquerading airplanes. Fidel issued orders to detain anyone who was suspected of conspiracy or treason. Lists of these people had previously been prepared and were used to round up suspected dissenters. Within days, his overzealous police force and army incarcerated about 20,000 Cuban citizens, using whatever means were available, including a sports stadium. In a speech to the people, Fidel finally admitted to the public that his Movement was Socialistic. The Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa García, successfully presented evidence at the United Nations, proving that the attacks were foreign in origin. Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, replied that the United States had not participated in any action against Cuba. Ambassador Stevenson, knowing better, insisted that the aircraft that had landed in Miami had Cuban markings and therefore must have been of Cuban origin. Stevenson’s comments sounded contrived since the aircraft had Plexiglas noses, normally used as the bombardier’s station, whereas the actual Cuban B-26’s had solid noses with armament. It was obvious to the General Assembly that the United States Ambassador had been perpetrating an outright lie or, in diplomatic double talk, an untruth! It was an embarrassing moment that left the United States’ veracity open to ridicule

It is my argument that American liberalism is a totalitarian political religion, but not necessarily an Orwellian one. It is nice, not brutal. Nannying, not bullying. But it is definitely totalitarian--or "holistic", if you prefer--in that liberalism today sees no realm of human life that is beyond political significance, from what you eat to what you smoke to what you say. Sex is political. Food is political. Sports, entertainment, your inner motives and outer appearance, all have political salience for liberal fascists. Liberals place their faith in priestly experts who know better, who plan, exhort, badger, and scold. They try to use science to discredit traditional notions of religion and faith, but they speak the language of pluralism and spirituality to defend "nontraditional" beliefs. Just as with classical fascism, liberal fascists speak of a "Third Way" between right and left where all good things go together and all hard choices are "false choices". The idea that there are no hard choices--that is, choices between competing goods--is religious and totalitarian because it assumes that all good things are fundamentally compatible. The conservatives or classical liberal vision understands that life is unfair, that man is flawed, and that the only perfect society, the only real utopia, waits for us in the next life. Liberal fascism differs from classical fascism in many ways. I don't deny this. Indeed, it is central to my point. Fascisms differ from each other because they grow out of different soil. What unites them are their emotional or instinctual impulses, such as the quest for community, the urge to "get beyond" politics, a faith in the perfectibility of man and the authority of experts, and an obsession with the aesthetics of youth, the cult of action, and the need for an all powerful state to coordinate society at the national or global level. Most of all, they share the belief--what I call the totalitarian temptation--that with the right amount of tinkering we can realize the utopian dream of "creating a better world".

In the American colonies, the first laborers were European indentured servants. When African laborers were forcibly brought to Virginia beginning in 1619, status was defined by wealth and religion, not by physical characteristics such as skin color. But this would change. Over time, physical difference mattered, and with the development of the transatlantic slave trade, landowners began replacing their temporary European laborers with enslaved Africans who were held in permanent bondage. Soon a new social structure emerged based primarily on skin color, with those of English ancestry at the top and African slaves and American Indians at the bottom. By 1776, when “all men are created equal” was written into the Declaration of Independence by a slaveholder named Thomas Jefferson, a democratic nation was born with a major contradiction about race at its core. As our new nation asserted its independence from European tyranny, blacks and American Indians were viewed as less than human and not deserving of the same liberties as whites. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the notion of race continued to shape life in the United States. The rise of “race science” supported the common belief that people who were not white were biologically inferior. The removal of Native Americans from their lands, legalized segregation, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II are legacies of where this thinking led. Today, science tells us that all humans share a common ancestry. And while there are differences among us, we’re also very much alike. Changing demographics in the United States and across the globe are resulting in new patterns of marriage, housing, education, employment, and new thinking about race. Despite these advances, the legacy of race continues to affect us in a variety of ways. Deeply held assumptions about race and enduring stereotypes make us think that gaps in wealth, health, housing, education, employment, or physical ability in sports are natural. And we fail to see the privileges that some have been granted and others denied because of skin color. This creation, called race, has fostered inequality and discrimination for centuries. It has influenced how we relate to each other as human beings. The American Anthropological Association has developed this exhibit to share the complicated story of race, to unravel fiction from fact, and to encourage meaningful discussions about race in schools, in the workplace, within families and communities. Consider how your view of a painting can change as you examine it more closely. We invite you to do the same with race. Examine and re-examine your thoughts and beliefs about race. 1

By the nature of their basic design, families tend to have a strong, united identity. In this natural state families live in the same house, eat the same meals, work on the same projects, suffer the same misfortunes, have the same friends and extended family relations and protect the weaker members. It takes an alien, unnatural culture to create a family that eats separately, has separate friends, separate interests and identifies more strongly with a peer-based subculture than their own family. Most of what families must do to bring back a strong family identity involves resisting the forces that want to pull the family into its individual parts. In our family that means we don’t worship separately, we worship together; we don’t play sports separately but together; we don’t learn separately but together; we eat most of our meals together; we make money together; we go on adventures together because we are one unit and we opt out of many opportunities that force us to spend too much time embodying our individual identities.

The scientists who tell us that dogs are simple creatures have never owned sled dog teams. They have never tried to organize twelve minds and forty-eight canine legs into a unit that moves forward with conviction. The physical differences in dogs are sometimes the least of the musher’s worries when matching up a team. He must consider the dogs’ personality quirks and varying degrees of dedication. When a well-trained team glides quietly down the trail, spectators may think the sport looks easy, but I guarantee that the driver of that team has put in his time.

Perhaps nothing in sports or in life is as accessible to all as running. It didn’t matter our language, creed, or skin color, running was a commonality we all shared. Two hundred of us ran down that highway as one. So many things in this world divide us, rip us apart, but here was something that united us, that brought us together. The fact that running is available to all doesn’t diminish its significance; it amplifies it.

All were eager to go home, happy and smiling, except when they saw her. Noticing brown or black skin was a favorite sport in the States, so most stared at her.

Naperville Community Unit School District 203 in Illinois, profiled in John J. Ratey’s book Spark, is a particularly inspiring example of how physical movement enhances cognitive ability. School officials implemented a district-wide PE curriculum that focuses on fitness as opposed to sports, and then had students take some of their hardest subjects after exercising. As a result, Naperville students achieved stunning results on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a standardized test administered every four years to students worldwide. In 1999 it was given in thirty-eight countries31, and Naperville students scored first in the world in science, and sixth in math—behind only math superstars such as Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. This is remarkable, since Naperville students are a cross-sampling of ordinary American students. The stunning results from Naperville echo other studies suggesting a strong link between exercise and learning. Researchers from Harvard32 and other universities reported in 2009 that the more physical fitness tests children passed, the better they did on academic tests.

In short, this country has developed a ridiculous blind spot: the power and glorification of money. This is truly an affliction. It is holding us back as a nation, as a community. The true heroes of America are not the new Internet billionaires or the overpaid sports stars and movie actors or the wise guys who jack up their companies’ stocks. The true heroes of America are the men, women, and teenagers who go to work for a modest wage, fulfill their responsibilities to their families and friends, and are kind and generous to others—because that’s the right way to live.… The working people of the United States are the most important ingredient in the enduring American story. But

I want to dedicate today's journal to Football . I hated it before because of my father and elder brother: they were so fanatic that there were Football news playing at home almost everyday. How boring! For this world cup 2014 I decided to give football a last chance and...what a great expeience it's being! I have learnt a lot and I stopped refusing invitations to watch the games. As a result, I have better relations with my co-workers. I will never be a big fan but at least I will be more tolerant with sports in the future. Theee is one thing I have to say about football in my country, Colombia: There ks not one thing or person that can form a patriotic spirit as football does. It is the element that unites people most.Our national identity is not about language nor religion but the passion for this sport. Can you imagine that? I do not mean to criticise but it's our reality, what make us 'unique'. So, enjoy this world cup, colombians!

oday so many children aren't involved in their families' lives. Let's change that! Get them active in your family. Start by creating times for sharing and conversation.. .at the dinner table. Turn off the TV, all phones (including cells), and any other distractions. Toward the end of the meal, ask everyone this question: "What's the best thing that happened to you today?" Make dinnertime fun. Find out what's happening in your children's hearts and lives, and let them know what's happening in yours. Honor jobs well done, good grades, and positive contributions to the family and community. love having family pictures all over the house. It's a great way to promote family identity. Do team sports together. Have a family night out every now and then. The apostle Paul says, "If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ. . .then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose" (Philippians 2:1-2). hen was the last time you did something really special to say "I love you" to your husband or boyfriend? In the morning, tell your husband, "Honey, tonight is a special evening-just for the two of us." Then get busy. Set up a card table on your patio or deck-or even in the living room. Get out a beautiful tablecloth, your best napkins, flowers, and candles! Fix him his favorite meal and your best dessert, put on some soft romantic music, give yourself enough time to look your best, and you're all set for when he gets home. He'll feel like a king and know he's a top priority in your life.

This was America's new cable-wired, online nationalism, honey-combed lives intersecting during collective agony, the knee-pad titillation of Oval Office sex, the rubbernecking of celebrity violence. Until the Women's World Cup, the two biggest sports-related stories of the 1990s were the murder trial of O.J. Simpson and the knee-whacking shatter of figure skating's porcelain myth. Fans cheer for professional city teams and alma maters, but there is no grand, cumulative rooting in the United States except for the disposable novelty of the Olympics. With the rare exception of the Super Bowl is background noise, commercials interrupted by a flabby game, the Coca-Cola bears more engaging than the Chicago Bears.

In the US, for instance, a former member of Congress will lobby Congress for whatever company or country will pay him; meanwhile in a poor country, a politician pockets an illegal bribe.

How can intermediate level beings see or experience this artificial life? The answer is that we already have virtual reality goggles through which we can view, in three dimensions, sporting events on the opposite side of the world. Today you can purchase equipment that enables you to watch and listen to a professional basketball game that takes place in the United States while you are in your bedroom in Japan, wearing the virtual reality goggles and headphones. Imagine the authenticity, accuracy and realism of virtual reality that a civilization a thousand years more advanced than us can produce!

Warden Høidal and I walk outdoors on a winding path that leads us into a modern building that is one of the living units. It’s silent. During my visits to Northern, I’d made notes, trying to capture the feel of the place. Looking back through those notes, I saw that the noise was a theme to which I’d subconsciously returned over and over again. Floors, walls, ceilings all concrete. Doors are metal. Railings metal. There is nothing to absorb sound—it reverberates, echoes, expands. There is constant slamming. Whenever someone speaks to me, I have to strain to understand what they are saying. The staff that works here doesn’t seem to notice. From a second visit: Doors slam. There is yelling out. The walls are concrete and cinder block. It is cold, loud, jarring. Every noise echoes, a harsh reverberation. A third: The noise is unbelievable. I’m trying to think of the loudest places I’ve been. Concerts. Sporting events. Airfields. This is loud of a different quality. It jars. It obscures and obfuscates. I can’t hear what’s being said to me. There is yelling, but the words are indistinguishable. Or there is no yelling but inmates on their work duty from other facilities rumble carts

On December 1, 1930, as the Great Depression was raging, the cornflake magnate W. K. Kellogg decided to introduce a six-hour workday at his factory in Battle Creek, Michigan. It was an unmitigated success: Kellogg was able to hire an additional 300 employees and slashed the accident rate by 41%. Moreover, his employees became noticeably more productive. “This isn’t just a theory with us,” Kellogg proudly told a local newspaper. “The unit cost of production is so lowered that we can afford to pay as much for six hours as we formerly paid for eight.”30 For Kellogg, like Ford, a shorter workweek was simply a matter of good business.31 But for the residents of Battle Creek, it was much more than that. For the first time ever, a local paper reported, they had “real leisure.”32 Parents had time to spare for their children. They had more time to read, garden, and play sports. Suddenly, churches and community centers were bursting at the seams with citizens who now had time to spend on civic life.33 Nearly half a century later, British Prime Minister Edward Heath also discovered the benefits of cornflake capitalism, albeit inadvertently. It was late 1973 and he was at his wits’ end. Inflation was reaching record highs and government expenditures were skyrocketing, and labor unions were dead set against compromise of any kind. As if that weren’t enough, the miners decided to go on strike. With energy consequently in short supply, the Brits turned down their thermostats and donned their heaviest sweaters. December came, and even the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square remained unlit. Heath decided on a radical course of action. On January 1, 1974, he imposed a three-day workweek. Employers were not permitted to use more than three days’ electricity until energy reserves had recovered. Steel magnates predicted that industrial production would plunge 50%. Government ministers feared a catastrophe. When the five-day workweek was reinstated in March 1974, officials set about calculating the total extent of production losses. They had trouble believing their eyes: The grand total was 6%.34

Having the might of the U.S. Marine Corps at your disposal is one thing. Having the 2015–16 Aston Villa squad was quite another. Villa couldn’t win on the road at Norwich, hardly a Premier League minefield. Things fell apart for good on April 16, with a defeat at Manchester United. By then, the Villa fans were so deep into gallows humor that they chanted, “Let’s pretend we’ve scored a goal,” before belting out a rendition of “We’ll Meet Again.