I think this photo deserves a caption competition. My entry is "All that hair, and no hair spray? What's going on?"
There is no country with a more respectful, consistent, thoughtful and humane police force than that of Sweden. It sadens me tremendously to hear the news that came out of Göteborg this morning.
very sad https://www.voaafrique.com/a/suède-un-policier-tué-par-balle-une-première-depuis-14-ans/5949383.html
You're from Louisiana aren't you? All the help you need is back home. Go spend the summer with your grandmas and their friends and learn to cook proper Cajun food. Women have a hard time resisting a man who can really cook. Get her into the kitchen doing the chopping with you and you'll soon have her somewhere else doing something else with you.
I LOLled watching that. Really loudly. So loudly in fact, that I decided to replay it. Also, so loudly that my daughter came in and listened. Then she LOLled as well
After (and deep contemplation of Stonehenge) you get to: "Your vagina is a self cleansing muscular tract/with 50000 nerve cells ready to act" has been in my brain since 2012
He's in Cyprus: looks like Mix started and assisted on the opening goal in a friendly today for his new club, Cypriot side Omonia FC 🇺🇸🅰️https://t.co/pOBF3Q9BF8— 🇺🇸 ⚽ east (@eastdeflection) July 6, 2021
Omonia announced on Wednesday that Mix has signed a one-year contract with the club. Omonia have a spot in the Champions League second qualifying round (first leg to be played on July 20th or 21st) where they will face the winner of the Dinamo Zagreb vs. Valur (Iceland) tie. Dinamo Zagreb won 3-2 at home on Wednesday in the first leg. Congratulations and good luck Mix!
Political history of Cyprus is difficult. Please join in if you have any interesting angles or other input. (In Scotland club soccer is about ethnicity religion, in Norway about heritage and loyalty, in Korea about a mix of yin & yang, respect, and somewhat sensible club authocracy.) Here in Cyprus - it is a lot about politics, I'm told - from left to right - and scaled threrein. Just to check if we (participants of this BigSoccer thread) are on the same page - tell me; what is soccer (along such lines) about in the U.S., and in MLS in particular?
American sports in general rarely scale that way. There are hardcore fans for whom fandom defines a big part of themselves, but there's rarely something that stands for something more than the community in terms of politics or ethnicity or religion. In other words, the team can be a big part of a local shared community here, but it rarely, if ever, is part of a sub-community. The Browns are a big part of Cleveland (American football) and in college American Football, the fortunes of local college often become THE proxy for local pride, especially in parts of the country that are often are made fun of or don't have much to brag about in the larger context. For instance, people from West Virginia are prouder and care more about West Virginia sports than a New Yorker would ever care about NYU or Columbia -- they don't. MLS has done well to attract very active local fanbases. Mostly, it tends to be urban hipsters who like the community but never liked traditional American sports. And so it mostly hangs liberal / left wing, though there are some right wing elements, like at NYCFC where you were. But it's nothing like St. Pauli or Lazio is perceived over here. People don't pick a team because it aligns with their politics.
If you look at American soccer in the days before the original NASL, you get a very different picture. Some of the clubs: New York Hakoah (Jewish) Bethlehem Steel (at first, a company team) Bridgeport Hungaria Prague Americans Philadelphia Ukrainians New York Ukrainians Greek American Atlas Astoria San Pedro Yugoslavs Maccabee Los Angeles (Jewish) New York Hota Bavarian S.C. Chicago Croatian The American sports scene was an amalgam of company teams and ethnically-oriented (though not always ethnically restricted) club teams. Some of that passed over to the professional ranks, but mostly it was in the "amateur" world that the more insular approach happened. Obviously, most of the teams were racially segregated and some were probably officially restrictive in their selection process. Undoubtedly, some clubs formed because their members weren't welcome in other clubs.
Red Sox vs. Yankees is a big rivalry, and it's in part about the identities of the two cities. With so many major universities, Boston is the intellectual capital of the US. New York is the journalistic and financial capital of the US. Duke-UNC in basketball is a terrific rivalry. In part, it's a rivalry about native North Carolinians (the UNC fan base) and all of the new arrivals to the Triangle drawn by tech jobs and just a generally vibrant economy (the Duke fan base) Many states have 1 flagship university for liberal arts and also medical school and law school, and then another flagship for applied sciences and agriculture. So you'll have the snooty effete leaders of the state (UNC, University of Virginia, etc etc etc) against the backwoods (negative) or "real men" (positive) of NC State or Virginia Tech. As I understand the New York pro market, the Mets and Yankees, and the Jets and the Giants, have different fan bases in socio-economic terms. The Knicks are popular with everyone. A New Yorker can probably flush that out. In California, there's a rivalry between LA and the Bay Area, and it's based in part on a general fight for 2 big dogs vying for state leadership, and in part on LA stealing water from the Bay Area. I wonder how sports fandom in the US would have developed if we had been a 1 sport nation, with for example 15 teams representing different groups in New York, and 10 teams representing different groups in Chicago, etc. I think we're lucky to have avoided that, or else we would have a ton of Old Firm style rivalries in which ethnic identity reflects and exacerbates civil strife. Like, under that scenario, New York would probably have a traditionally Italian team, an Irish team, an African American team centered in Harlem and another in Brownsville, etc. Kenya is a total soccer backwater, but they have a Luo team and a Luhya team. Whom does that help? (My Luo wife would insist that I point out that the Luo team, Gor Mahia, is definitely the big brother in that relationship.) Sports should be a diversion from society's ills, not a contributor.
Here is an interesting article and graph along the lines of what you're talking about. 7 years old now, but still... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/politics-sports-you-like-2013-3?amp
It's true. You joined the communists' team. But they're pretty mild as communists go, and they're the least nationalistic and the most inclined for a settlement with the Turks in the north.