Euro watch: Football first, Sunderland second!

THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2016

Portrait of a world:
International football remains a peculiar cultural expression.

As we just saw with Portugal/Poland, they start with two hours of a format where it's virtually impossible to score a goal. Then, they switch to a tie-breaking format where it's virtually impossible not to.

Countries live and die on this apparently irrational arrangement. They're almost as crazy as we are.

Tomorrow, we'll start with this portrait of the British working class. It appeared in Tuesday's New York Times, written by Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura.

(Be sure to note how many kids the Times got into its photo. Those People breed like rabbits. It has ever been thus.)

Should we loathe Sunderland's working class because their city voted for Leave to the tune of 61 percent? We're going to say that the answer is no, as was suggested this morning.

Amazingly, we'll give the same answer about our own country's white working class, even in this face of this peculiar expression of loathing from a very smart writer.

All that contempt and loathing tomorrow! Then, the Fourth of July!

10 comments:

  1. That is the second post by Kevin Drum that I've read recently where he poo-poos the notion that people are worried about the economy. He is living in a bubble. 'Doing OK' does not cancel out economic angst. I'm solidly middle class, but I feel it slowly slipping away. When your living expenses go up every year, and your pay raise (if you even get one, it is not a given!) only covers a fraction of that increase, and you know you are only an unplanned catastrophe away from economic ruin - you got angst!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trump feels their angst.

      But of course the reason he will win is because liberal elitism is offensive.

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    2. Another Sarcastic AssholeJuly 2, 2016 at 2:38 PM

      No, I'm sure you're correct, sarcastic asshole @ 10:09: The contempt liberals regularly express for the working class (together, obviously, with the donkey's embrace of Fortune500 corporate-HR Best Practices identity politics in lieu of a true class-based politics) surely has no impact whatsoever on driving them into the arms of the right. It's just nature and stuff.

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    4. @2:38 -

      Hear, hear!

      Delete
  2. "International football" sounds like one of those p.c. terms like "differently abled" when you mean "gimpy." It's like calling baseball "American cricket." To adapt E.B. White's classic cartoon caption, "I say it's soccer, and I say the hell with it." If the aim is to sound all worldly and internationalist, just say "futbol" or "calcio" or "Fu[s]ball." Anything but "International football," please.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please, Jeeves, you don't know what you are talking about. When someone says "international football," that adjective is there to distinguish between a tournament or match between teams representing nations, and tournaments or matches between independent club teams.

      So now look back at your post and count how many wrong-headed conclusions you came to through your ignorance.

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