Initially when FIFA announced that Qatar had been awarded the 2022 World Cup I was upset. As an American my displeasure stemmed from hoping to see the Cup come back to the States. That and to be fair I wasn't really sure where specifically Qatar was. But as time has passed, I have become increasingly agitated by the decision. I sincerely wish all the best to Qatar. The game is more important than any single location that may host the Cup; and as a true fan of the game it would be petty of me to wish ill to those that have the honor of hosting. But there are several fundamental issues with this selection, which in their summation drastically question the wisdom of the decision FIFA has made. Publicly, FIFA has stated they are aware of the risks and in granting Qatar the Cup they are taking a calculated risk. But there are certain risks, which no amount of money can overcome. These gross miscalculations are as follows:
The Environment: First and most obviously it is hot in Qatar; but really hot in June and July when the Cup is played. Average summer highs are 106F (41C). But rest assured it is a dry heat. Clearly this is an issue the Qatar bid must have addressed. Their solution is a series of solar-powered air conditioned stadia. That would be fine except how do you get to the cool stadia from your hotel? And if you look even more closely at the designs, most are ringed by seas of asphalt for the parking. So now you have thousands of spectators parking in the desert being asked to walk across the hot asphalt to reach the cool stadium. If they don't pass out getting there the temperature shock in the stadium will do them in. Secondly, where will the teams train? Are there going to be secondary air conditioned training facilities to accommodate all the teams, cause I am confident the English won't be hitting the training pitch in those conditions. These conditions are so horrid members of Qatar's own Confederation have suggested moving the tournament to December. Qatar did a nice job of demonstrating how sustainable this game can be. The air conditioned stadia powered by the sun. The compact size of the country (about the size of Phoenix) allows all the games to take place in a small area. Now if only the English language had a word to describe this...oh wait it does...greenwashing. The South Africa World Cup attracted around 400,000 visitors. All of these visitors need places to stay, shop, and eat. And all of these places need to be air conditioned. So you are going to see a 30% increase in energy demand alone just for the visitors. Then you plan on dismantling your stadia and sending them around the world, thus consuming yet more energy to ship this behemoths. All I have to say to FIFA is if you thought a tournament in the desert in July sounds smart you should have come to the Far West Regional Tournament in Vegas. The players cleats were melting...MELTING!
Human Rights: In relation to many Middle Eastern states, Qatar is quite liberal. But is it willing to challenge their cultural ideology to welcome the world within their borders? After announcing the bid their was concern raised by Israel, who feared their nationals would not be permitted to enter the country. Currently, persons with any visible connection to Israel on their passport are denied entry to the country. Women have also voiced concern. Their dress must remain "modest" (covered legs and sleeved shirts). But more importantly was the gender bias of the legal system. By Western standards women are not afforded nearly the rights that men are. Lastly, homosexuality is illegal in Qatar. When Sepp Blatter was specifically asked about this issue, he coyly told them not to engage in sexual acts while attending the Cup. Thanks Sepp, but that sounds pretty GAY. You expect a bunch of gays to just stand by and cheer loudly when their team wins the Cup? I don't know about the rest of you, but if I was at the World Cup and the US won I would grab the nearest girl and make out with her. But not to fear, the oppressive alcohol laws nearly ensure no one will be celebrating with an adult libation. First you need to secure a permit. Consumption can only take place in a designated restaurant or your hotel room. Then you have to stake out in the putrid 100+ degree heat in search of one of two liquor stores in the country. I imagine the line is going to be pretty long. As a side not it might be a good business move to establish a counterfeit alcohol permitting booth just around the corner from these stores. And after I do walk the miles from my car to the stadium, the heat exhaustion setting in, I won't be allowed to purchase an ice cold beer inside. Well, I guess it is safe to say there will be no drunk Israeli lesbians in mini-skirts at the Cup.
Qatar National Team: As hosts Qatar gets an automatic birth to the World Cup. At first I wasn't even certain they had a national team. Yup, the team currently ranked #114 in the world gets to be in a tournament of the best 32 teams in the world. They are just slightly worse than Wales and only marginally better than Suriname. This past cup South Africa became the first host nation in the history of the game to fail to advance out of group play. South Africa is ranked #51. Well, fingers crossed the US gets drawn into the group with Qatar, cause this is the quality finishing we get to look forward to seeing. Perhaps the game looks better when you are suffering sun stroke with your sober male friends and you can't spot a woman cause they are all "modestly" dressed. Simply this was what Sepp Blatter wanted. And what Sepp wants Sepp gets. Whether or not this is a feeble attempt to win a Nobel Peace Prize is unsubstantiated. Bravo FIFA, bravo. Levi out!
And now an update. This just keeps getting better.
This past week a rather magnificent storm pounded the northwest. A frigid torrent of Canadian Arctic air violently collided with moisture breathed from the bowls of Mt. Olympus himself. Snowpocalypse 2010 was born. It was during my long (3 hour) commute home that I began to question why is winter travel so incapacitating here in Seattle. Now I grew up in the rural mountains of Colorado, the kind of place where one drives 70 mph over the passes in a whiteout without batting an eye. So what makes travel so different here? First, the city has 20 snow plows to upkeep 1,524 lane miles of arterial streets (or 76 lane miles per plow). Simply put when it is snowing the city cannot keep the streets open. Once snow stops and the arterial streets are clear then the city can begin to address the thousands of lane miles of neighborhood streets. Keep in mind many of the neighborhood streets are either too narrow, too steep, or cobbled which prevents the use of a plow. Second, we have hills. Sure the Twin Cities see cold temperatures and plenty of snow; but it is flatter than shit there. When a 12% grade is covered in ice there is nothing the city can do except close it. And if you own a gas guzzling 600 HP power stroke diesel, you are still screwed. Just because you feel indestructible in your tank, doesn't mean nature isn't going to own you. Buckle up ass hole!
But, Colorado has snow, cold weather, and hills and they still get around. Yes that is all true, but they not only have ample plows to handle the workload, but they also have a population that is conditioned for living in such an environment. They drive 4X4 cars, have chains and studded tires. But Colorado's roads remain relatively ice free. Why is this? My third point is the hippie paradox. In Colorado roads are bathed in the chemical magnesium-chloride or "mag" as the locals call it. This wonder drug lowers the freezing point and thus keeps the roads wet, not frozen. A oily translucent slime is splashed against your car all winter long, requiring you to carry extra windshield wiper fluid just to make a three hour drive on the highway. Furthermore Mag eats away the paint and many of the casings on your car. So now you have to wash your car all winter long. Although the government claims it is safe, I question this. If it eats away at my car, what does it do to the environment? And in the environmental mecca of Seattle, there is no way the citizens would permit thousands of gallons of this stuff draining into the sound and lubing up Willy. And we all know from the last snow storm we can't use salt cause it is bad for the Sound. So this time we tried a new product; brine water. Essentially a concentrated salt water mix, it was supposed to be less harmful than salt and closer in concentrations to sea water. Sounds great right? Well that was until this past storm when the Artic air from our Northern Neighbors froze that shit to the roads. So we ended up with salty icy roads.
But what perplexes me most is the attitude of Seattle's citizens. We have had snow before. We have had icy roads before. And we have all seen the youtube videos of cars cascading down our streets wrecking havoc on other cars. And yet each year we try again to conquer mother nature. It is devolution at its finest. What nudges a motorist to once again risk thousands of dollars in vehicle damage and the safety of themselves and their neighbors to try to summit a hill? You can walk up the hill more easily, more safely, and come the next morning you don't have to drive your car back down the hill you just so valiantly conquered the previous day. What is more astounding than this are the ones that avoid the secondary hills and go for the gusto. Queen Anne hill is steep, we all know this. There are other less steep routes to the top than Queen Anne Blvd. And yet some people gun their Subaru up the hill in a valiant attempt at youtube immortality. And not surprisingly they come up short and stack by the side of the road with all the other meatheads who too commonly exaggerate the true measure of an inch. This is not some pissing contest or a platform to whip it out and demonstrate how manly you are. This is mother nature and she will kick your ass. So next time leave your car behind. Take to foot or hop on the lightrail. There are better, faster, safer, and more cost effective ways to get home. Leave the hills for the sledders, cause you all know you aren't going to work the next day. And lastly, don't bitch to the mayor, he is mortal and can't walk on water or drive on ice either.
So I failed to make a solitary post for the month of October. Excuses aside, I am going to chalk it up to the fact that I was planning a minor adventure to SE Asia and thus spent two weeks away from the allure of my glowing monitor and clunky keyboard. That is not to say that I stopped making notes of the obscure everyday occurrences I witnessed.
On a recent walk to the grocery store I approached a rather dangerous intersection. Four roads come together, three of which are one way streets, and none of them line up. This not only makes the intersection mind numbing for the motorist, as they struggle to decipher the universe ending possibility of a legal left turn on red, but it creates an equally ambiguous dilemma for the pedestrian. The best part about this intersection is the coffee shop which sits quaintly on the corner. Chairs provide a front row seat to the spectacle of real life frogger combined with Washington drivers. So at this intersection I found myself patiently waiting for that perfect window of opportunity when the red hand transitions to the white walking man. It is at just that moment when one must bravely claim the intersection. While this is going on I see a bum woman and a bum man waiting on the other side. They are talking rather loudly, his speech slurred. People are taking notice, wondering if something is amiss. And then out of nowhere, just before the signal transitions to walking man; she pushes him. I am not talking some playful little nudge. No she forcefully shoves this grown man to the curb. The bags he is holding in his hands spill into the streets, a tsunami of paper bagged liquor. His one tattered shoe shoots airborne as he stumbles for footing with the curb. Full beers cans roll down the street. Not only was her push good and forceful, her timing was impeccable. Just at the moment that his stubbled face is making contact with the asphalt, the light turns green. Motorists are dazed, taunted by the green light they cannot accept and baffled by the audacity of this woman. Pedestrians are equally perplexed, uncertain to whom they should offer aid. Bum, rolling beers, stalled motorists, bagged booze, baffled citizens, and a single defiant woman simultaneously possess the intersection of chaos. Time progresses slower, the only movement that of the brazen woman who crosses the intersection and confidently states, "that felt great!" A wry grin showing on her lips. Green turns to yellow and everyone returns to their senses rapidly helping to collect the man's belongings and return order to the intersection.
The life of a super hero dog is not as glamorous as one would imagine. Each day you awake, expected to accomplish something heroic. In order to do this you must constantly seek out new dangers. As a super hero dog it is easy to get caught up in a competition of sorts with other super hero dogs. Lassie saves a poor boy from falling down a well, then Underdog goes and stops an alien invasion. With so much pressure, when does a super hero dog get to just...well...be a dog? Well to this all to common question I now have the answer. See a few days ago I was busy refereeing a women's college game. The ball had just left the field and we were calmly waiting for its retrieval for the ensuing corner kick. Now I know what you are thinking, dogs like to retrieve things. Please that would be far to pedestrian for a hero dog. Instead it is at this moment I hear the put-put of a third world scooter begin to intensify. The rhythmic sputtering building to an intolerable crescendo, the speed of the scooter moving at pace slightly faster than a jaunt. The scooter slowly moves along the road in front of the goal, the screams of SUSIE NO!...SUSIE NO! competing with the torrent belching from the cylinders. As the topography shifts I see that the thin man, of suspected Indian decent, is being chased by a white puntable lap dog (hero dog). The man desperately maxing the throttle in a helpless attempt to outrun the danger. The hero dog free of its owner's grasp seizes the moment, and chases the car (or scooter). The owner now enters the fray; in hot pursuit of his precious Susie on his electric wheelchair. The bottled oxygen feeding through his nose tube, hand pushing the joystick firmly in the accelerate position, gliding down the sidewalk with the stressed hum of his electric ride. All parties parade in front of our goal, all moving at the same speed. The Indian looking back in terror, the frantic clatter of his ride stressed to the max, Susie with her tongue out and legs incessantly spinning gives chase, and her owner with his labored breaths and electric hum follows close behind.
Doing laundry in an apartment building is always an adventure. The communal nature and inopportune moments are firmly cemented in our heads. You never know when you are going to be emptying a dryer; pausing on a particularly nice thong when the owner comes walking in, you holding it like some trophy fish. Or as you try to rush to vacate a washing machine for your neighbor (of course they are hot), you accidentally leave behind your gold lame speedo. But aside from the embarrassing follies, sometimes odd things just happen in the laundry room. Today was no exception. I went down to the basement to do some much needed laundry. As I open the door I find my apartment manager keeping a feather in the air by blowing underneath it. Some other guy (Crazy Man) is keeping time. I slide by pretending not to care; after all I am in the laundry room where weird shit happens and he is my manager and we all know managers are weird. As I begin separating my lights and darks in walks Crazy Mary. Now I am eager with anticipation to see what unfolds. Mary begins to chat me up, of course talking about the weather. Somehow we end up on the subject of camping (I am doing my camping laundry). This is when she reveals that her and no women would ever camp because there are animals that kill people. She is terrified of bears and cougars. But men are strong and can handle cougars. I chuckle a bit in my head as my mind drifts towards the gutter as she continues telling about the perils of cougars. As her story draws to an end, I begin my wash and return to my apartment. Thirty minutes later I return to swap the loads. Crazy Mary is now staring at Crazy Man as he sleeps. As I walk in Crazy Man stumbles around and tries to look busy. I guess he thought I was the manager, and needed to appear busy for his boss. While swapping the laundry, my manager returns. This time Crazy Man gives him a comic in one of those clear plastic dust covers. For the next 15 minutes they discuss comics, illustrators, and the next issue. This is all making sense, I can see my manager as a comic book guy. I again return to my apartment wondering what my final trip will have in store for me. An hour later I return to claim my clean clothes. Now Crazy Mary is sitting on the dryer listening to Crazy Man. This not only makes extracting the laundry awkward, as she doesn't move, but the pontification from Crazy Man is hilarious. As I gather my clothes I hear him attempting to convert Crazy Mary. Biblical babble and tenuous arguments for his form of religion spew from his lips. I am just waiting for him to disclose the location of a spaceship in a comet tail and ask her to drink some Kool-Aid.
It was during my third rep of bicep curls (yes I do lift) when I realized a huge oversight of the modern gym. The floors and walls are littered with a confetti of mirrors, weighted objects, and modern fitness equipment which more closely resembles medieval torture machines. The space is populated with Lycra clad fitness enthusiasts, labored grunts, wheezing, and the demands of personal trainers. Hoping to drown out the peacocking antics of most gym men, the speakers pump some mediocre music over the system. The music attempts to relate to all lifters, but instead only becomes noticeable when a truly horrible song is played. This is the modern gym, for better or for worse. There are many different types of people that use the gym; but only one that truly drives me crazy. I call this person the treadmill mouth. They do little actual physical work, instead laboring their mouth in a non-stop garble of meaningless drama. The gym to them is cheap therapy, substituting the comforts of a professional's couch for the yoga mat and a half ass abdominal regimen. They drone on about relationships, or complain about how hard this is, or mock their friends, or pat their own back while placing themselves on a higher pedestal. The rest of us get to be a helpless audience in their dramatic production. Now to be fair sometimes you learn some truly hilarious things about people. But no person should have to hear a woman tell her trainer that the exercise she is hardly performing is less enjoyable than her last Pap smear. There are some things you cannot un-hear! So I purpose that gyms now come equipped with poison tipped blow darts (non-lethal) and blow guns. When one of these treadmill mouths pushes you beyond the limit, give their mouth the rest is so deserves. Pick up the gun and give it a nice go. You will feel better and your fellow gym mate will thank you.
So I follow a blog called the Sartorialist. It is a simple blog. A man consumed by good fashion travels the world posting dramatic images of people exhibiting smart fashion. Rarely do his posts include anything more than the image of the person, the title detailing the location. This blog provides visual eye-candy of some of the most unique and classy examples of fashion. It is this one I am reposting here that recently captured my attention. The allure of sexy and classy is one that people strive for daily. Often woman miss the mark; their look coming off as slutty as oppose to a vibrantly confident feminine masterpiece. But this wonderful ensemble put together by Anna Dello Russo is refined expression of the marriage of sex and class. Her look is minimal and simple. As Americans we have much to learn about fashion and good style.
Sometimes you stumble across a story that causes you pause. This latest one for me took place on 8 April 2007. The Washington Post decided to conduct an experiment about beauty. You can read the full article and see the videos here. The editors at the Post wanted to see if people when confronted with a true act of beauty would recognize it. So they hired 39 year old Joshua Bell, an internationally acclaimed virtuoso, to play Bach's "Chanconne" on Kreisler's violin (valued at $3.2 million) at Metro's L'Enfant Plaza Station during morning rush hour. Dressed as a street performer, the Post set a camera and watched as he performed a 43 minute concert. A compressed version of that video is displayed below. They tabulated how much money he brought in and how many people stopped to watch him play. Bell's haul for his music was a meager $32.17. Only a handful of people stopped to listen and only one person recognized him.
After reading this and watching the videos I sat in silent reflection. How could this be? I may know little about classical music and even less about the violin, but I recognize the skill this individual has is something special. But if I was faced with the same situation as all those that just casually walked by, would I act no differently? Of course my heart screams that I would have stopped, for fear of letting something so beautiful pass one by. But the experiment brings up an interesting discussion. How often do we pause in our lives to just enjoy the moment? Do we notice the vibrant fall colors, or pause to breath in the heavy sea air during sunset? When was the last time you paused and just closed your eyes and let the sounds, smells, and textures around you take center stage? This article while inspirational should serve to remind us all of the beauty around us. We can't become so engrossed in our jobs, our destinations, or our technology that we forget that the present is what today is all about.
It is an early morning flight; one which is oversold and they have already populated a 'volunteers' list. Everyone knows that the flight is packed; and for the most part each person is doing their personal best to be good neighbors. The overhead bins are full and bags are being checked on the jetway. Those travelers who didn't have assigned seats are being shuffled while still trying to honor their preferences. Two young (mid 20's) people are such travelers. The woman looks like a trashier version of Lindsey Lohan and her boyfriend a round squat man who probably still plays D&D while working on his Fragglerock look (his style is a buffet of colors and textures that fail at hitting the hip look). They are sat in the row behind me, but separated by the aisle. This upsets them. They begin in a pathetic passive-aggressive triad about how tough it is not to get to sit together. Everyone ignores them and their poor attitude. Then the flight attendant has a family to try and seat. A young child and his mother and father. The three remaining seats are sprinkled around the main cabin with one being in the woman's row. The attendant asks the young woman to move back a few rows, trading an aisle seat for an aisle, so that one parent can sit with the child. She then tells the family the other one will have to sit alone in the other available seat. But NO!, the young woman thinks this is an injustice. She looks at the attendant and says, well I want to sit next to my boyfriend and I don't get to do that. The attendant, clearly a seasoned veteran, interrupts the self-entitled diva. Matter-of-factly she states, "Well you didn't purchase seats together anyway. The flight is only one hour and ten minutes, I think you will survive." The woman dramatically exhales and whips her hair in distaste and begins to move. Now the boyfriend asks the guy next to him to move so his girlfriend can sit by him. This passenger is 6'3" and could really use the extra legroom his current row offers, which I suspect may be why he selected this "assigned seat." But for the sake of us all and the diminishing hopes of our on-time departure he acquiesces. So now all the world is right, the prince and princess seating side by side in a row with extra legroom. As the plane climbs and we reach the safety of 10,000 feet, he pulls out his headphones never to utter another word to his girlfriend. His girlfriend opens her trendy magazine and does the crossword. If this is how you were going to spend your flight, why was it relevant to sit next to each other? A punch in the face would have been just.
