Sunday=Sports Day

So every Sunday I open at my work. I get there around 11am, get my jobs done in about an hour (because I’m super efficient, ha), and then proceed to sit and do nothing from 12-5pm. It’s brutal– especially because theres no wifi that I can steal.  I hate it. BUT, I do get to take in my fair share of sports because after I finish handwriting out possible blog entries (how archaic right?!), and reading magazines for a few hours, I am still super bored with nothing to do.  Most people watch their sports on Sundays, so Sundays=Sports Days is nothing new. But I just felt like sharing that today I watched Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington in the British Open, Bucky Lasek lose to Shaun White, the Bluejays shut out the Mariners, and a dominant Rogers/Dalhausser beach volleyball team win in Long Beach. What an array of sports I watched… what a Sunday… can’t wait till next week.

Momentum

New spot from Nike dropped starring Pau Gasol, Rafael Nadal and Ronaldinho called Momentum. It’s done by Barcelona based Villarrosàs and even though it’s not a W+K spot like most Nike stuff we see– it’s oddly reminiscent of the Freestyle commercials. Thoughts?

It is kind of cool how it’s sort of got that underground Fight Club-esque feel to it though.

Spike Lee goes Commercial

Apparently Spike Lee is now directing commercials– go figure. Check out this ad he directed for New Era;

I think Spike should stick to starring in commercials;

Warriors

The #8 seed Warriors upset of the #1 seed Mavs last night is being deemed by some as the Greatest Upset in NBA playoff history. Of course I didn’t watch the game because I was having dinner with my lovely mother who was in town visiting- womp womp, but Chris over at the treasure chest watched it– from the 8th row. Check out his blog post & pics from the monumental game (the picture above was taken by him). Leave it to me to be completely bored with the NBA, and miss the one game that could’ve sucked me back in to fandom… oh well.

If you missed the game like me, check out the recap here.

Greens Peace

Ironically enough my last undergraduate collegiate course is my hands down hardest. It’s about International Conflict and despite the fact that it’s kicking my ass it’s actually quite interesting. This week between reading about Realism & Democratic Peace Theory, our professor included this hilarious article by David Plotz called “Greens Peace: A Controversial New Theory about the True Causes of War & Peace– in 18 Holes or Less.” I’ve included the article in this post, but you can also read the New York Times Magazine article here. I might be one of the skeptical tennis fans, but this Plotz guy might be on to something- what do you think?

 

ince the rise of the nation-state, scholars and politicians have been struggling to answer the critical question of geopolitics: Why do some countries fight wars and others remain at peace? Yet to date, they have made little progress. Some contemporary thinkers, alarmed by Kosovo and Rwanda, predict that ethnic conflict will be the prime cause of war in the 21st century. Environmental scholars argue that scarce water and land will drive nations to battle. Students of the theory of interdemocratic peace contend that the structure of national government will be the driving factor. But policy makers should discard these dry, unsatisfying academic formulations and start paying attention to a much more powerful explanatory tool: golf.

Countries where golf is popular never fight other golfing nations — and don’t fight much at all — while countries without golf are strikingly belligerent. Have you ever met an Afghan who golfs? Are there any Serbs on the P. G.A. tour?

I can hear the skeptical tennis fans out there asking, Where’s the proof? Years of rigorous data collection and analysis — or at least days of casual data massaging — confirm the theory of greens peace. I consulted experts at the National Golf Foundation and Golf Digest and scoured the records of PlayGolfNow.com to determine which countries take their golf seriously and which are mere duffers. Because the only remotely reliable international golf statistic is the number of courses, I estimated golf’s popularity in each country by calculating the ratio of golf courses to people. Using well-established scientific and astrological methods, I determined that a country needs one course per million people to count as a golf nation. (Fewer than one course per million suggests that golf is confined to rich folks and tourists.)

About 50 countries meet the one-per-million standard. Golf-mad New Zealand leads the world with 136 courses per million. The United States has about 60; France, 11; and Singapore, 6. Sri Lanka, by contrast, has 0.1; Peru 0.08; China 0.05.

David Plotz is the Washington editor of Slate.com.

I compared the golf stats with a list of the 300-odd major conflicts since World War II, and the evidence is irrefutable. Golfing nations haven’t fought one another in 50-odd years, and they aren’t very likely to fight one another today. Of the 27 current major armed conflicts, none match golfing nations. Take a quick spin around the globe. Every peaceful European country loves golf. But Russia, at war in Chechnya, doesn’t hit the links. Non-golf Greece and non-golf Turkey have long warred over non-golf Cyprus. The former Yugoslavia has fragmented into five states. Only peaceful Slovenia swings the sticks.

United Arab Emirates. Photograph by David Cannon/Allsport.

Do India or Pakistan golf? Of course not. Algerians shoot one another; Moroccans next door shoot par. Peaceful Thailand is a regular at the range, but belligerent Myanmar isn’t. Golf is sadly absent from Sierra Leone, Congo and Eritrea. The Middle East has hardly any courses; Iraqis still think a bunker is something you want to be in. Colombia and Peru have guerrilla wars but little golf. Venezuela has lots of golf but no war. Malaysia is crazy about the game, but Indonesia has been too busy brutalizing East Timor to pick it up. Taiwan loves golf; China doesn’t — which one of them invaded Tibet and India? Germany and Japan have become golf junkies since the Second World War ended; South Korea took up the game after the Korean War. Is it any accident they’ve remained at peace?

And the more golf you play, the more peaceful you are. Sweet-tempered nations like Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Canada play the most golf. Of the 10 countries where golf is most popular, only the United States and Great Britain have a recent history of autonomous belligerence. But the United States has dispatched troops only against anti-golf tyrants: Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Panama’s Manuel Noriega, Somalia’s Mohammed Aideed.

Two British conflicts do mar the record. The U.K. and Argentina warred over the Falkland Islands in 1982. (Argentina barely meets the one-per-million cutoff today, and I suspect that it wouldn’t have had enough courses to qualify in 1982.) And Northern Ireland’s Troubles set the golfing Irish against the golfing English. Apartheid-era South Africa also tarnishes the theory, with the white golfing minority violently oppressing the black, non-golfing majority.

hilosophers and social scientists will undoubtedly puzzle for decades over the association of golf and peace, but I have a few preliminary theories. Golf teaches players to be gentlemen. It relies on an honor system in which golfers police themselves. Golf has no physical violence, unlike basketball, soccer, football, rugby and so on. (Soccer fans riot, and at least one soccer match ignited a war. Have you ever heard of a golf riot?) Golf is not zero-sum. Your performance is independent of your opponent’s, and nothing you can do to your opponent can improve your score. War, which is founded on violence, cheating and crushing your rival, is golf’s antithesis.

Japan. Photograph by Michael S. Yamashita/Corbis. Angola. Photograph by Anthony Suau/Liason International.

Some cynics may complain that I have it backward: golf doesn’t cause peace, peace causes golf. Golf, they may say, presumes a stable economic and political system. Golfers have to be relatively prosperous people with leisure time. They live in countries that can afford to set aside valuable land and water for golf courses. People who have the time and peace of mind to play golf aren’t worrying about whether rioters are looting their stores or barbarians are swarming across the borders. (This argument parallels Thomas L. Friedman’s “golden arches theory of conflict prevention,” which holds that countries with McDonald’s are too prosperous and complacent to wage war with one another.)

But the far-sighted people of South Korea, who know firsthand the benefits of golf, are conducting a perfect experiment to prove that it can pacify even the most benighted nation. According to recent news reports, South Korea’s first significant capital investment in North Korea will include a multimillion-dollar resort with several golf courses to be built by the Hyundai Group. These will be North Korea’s first courses, and they may be the best investment South Korea ever makes. What better way to end 50 years of strife than to teach North Koreans to make par, not war?

Army Recruiters Get Creative

(Disclaimer: This blogpost is very political in nature. I didn’t necessarily intend it to be, but that’s the way it turned out. I understand that it’s very difficult for some to seperate themselves from their politics, and so I encourage you to read this with caution and/or skip over this post if you feel it might be something that will be personally offensive. I’d hope, however, that you’d feel compelled to read and if you have something to say in response- post a comment. Dialogue, contrary to the belief of some in this country, is actually a healthy thing. This is really nothing more than a personal rant)

On my way out the door the other day I heard a little lead-in on CNN to a story about Army Recruiting. Now, to be honest, I don’t have a very high opinion of the way the military in this country conducts its recruiting to begin with. I know I’ll probably piss some people off by writing about it, but I think the military are schmucks when it comes to looking out for their soldiers. I don’t believe for one second that when the military is recruiting soldiers their actual goal is to help American citizens better themselves- be it through education, vocational training, or by providing a way to give back and serve. This is the message we all receive from their ad campaigns, right? Be an Army of One, or whatever their taglines are. I think it’s a big load of garbage. Perhaps my views are tainted because we’re in wartime, and our situation in Iraq is such a mess. Maybe during peace times the military really is looking for ways to help empoverished, overlooked and neglected young men and women to obtain the American dream- these seem to be the only people they target their campaigns towards. I don’t know, but it’s really hard for me to have respect for a military that subjects young soldiers to horrific conditions in Iraq, sometimes up to 3 consecutive terms, ripping them from their loved ones and providing them little to no support once they return. It’s even more difficult for me to believe that that same military is only looking to improve the lives of the many men and women they are targeting by implimenting a new “ground-breaking” recruitment technique of hanging out in/around paintball fields.

In one of my classes I can remember reading about how the military was souping up Hummers with spinners and tinted windows, and driving them through poor urban neighborhoods bumping hip-hop and rap to attract attention. It’s no secret (at least to most) that the U.S. military targets those from lower socio-economic groups as a way to provide these Americans with a “ticket out of the ghetto” so-to-speak. It seems to me, that military service has become less about SERVICE, and more about what a military life can do for the individual soldier. I think this is dangerous because even though it might be a powerful tool to get people to enlist, it has a very polarizing result. Let’s be honest, in today’s world the military doesn’t have much to offer someone who already has a ticket into college, or is on the fast track to a 6-figure salary. So if the military is all about what the individual can receive who do we see choosing the military path? And who do we see dodging it? This reminds me of the part in Fahrenheit 9/11 where we discover that only one U.S. congressperson has a son or daughter serving in the military. Again, perhaps if I felt the military actually had the best interest of it’s soldiers in mind, I wouldn’t be so pessimistic about how they conduct themselves regarding recruitment.

In terms of recruiting at paintball fields, I find myself terribly torn over the topic. On one hand I feel like it’s really slimey of the military to be so segmented with who they market to- it feels exploitive and unethical. But on the other hand, why should I expect them to do anything different? It feels like everything in this consumer-based world is oriented towards identifying and isolating your target market, and I guess a bunch of people running around playing with semi-automatic weaponry (be it real or paintball) would qualify as a target market for the military. So in this regard, I have to admit it’s pretty smart of them. In an article from kdka.com, Army recruiter Levie Conway said they receive about 50 leads each visit from frequenting paintball fields- each visit! So far, in Illinois alone, they’ve enlisted 13 new soldiers by marketing at paintball fields. Below is a link to a news segment about this new technique. Perhaps the most alarming quote from this interview was from the owner of the CPX paintball facility. He says “I think that they may be looking for somebody who might be interested in taking it to the next level.” The next level?! So once paintballing gets boring, people should aspire to shoot insurgents in Iraq? Is the next step after laser tag, deployment to Afghanistan? I think this is a very dangerous linkage being made between SPORT and war. It’s scary, and it freaks me out.

Here’s the link to the interview clip; http://kdka.com/video/?id=30785@wbbm.dayport.com. You decide. I feel like I should end with some big conclusion, or summation of what I’ve written but really it just feels good to write about something that had sparked my interest in last week’s news. So this really wasn’t much more than a personal rant.

The Big Mazungo

Every so often there comes an athlete so talented, so full of heart, so ground-breaking and legendary that they transform and revolutionize their sport. Steve Prefontaine, Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods- the list goes on. Their passion and charisma turn the average spectator into die-hard fanatics and their lives read like stories worthy of an inspirational movie script. I got this link to a short video from a while back called The Big Mazungo (about Australian runner Craig Mottram) from some of my UW runner friends, and was completely blown-away. In the world of distance running- which is completely dominated by East Africans, here comes Craig Mottram. This little intro into the life of the Big Mazungo will give you chills, make you inspired, and leave you counting down the days until the Beijing Olympics. He may not be wearing waffle runners, but this emerging Australian hero is highly reminiscent of another legend who donned the green & yellow- and might just have what it takes to revolutionize the sport in much the same way.

I also want to note that I think this video is an amazing example of advertising-in my mind. It’s almost effortless the way they link the dominance of East Africans, to barefoot running, to Craig Mottram being the only real force against the Africans, to Craig’s use of the Frees. Yet it still doesn’t detract from the poignance of the short. Effortless.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Ninja Warrior

I was flippin through the channels tonight and happened upon a show called Ninja Warrior on G4. Think American Gladiators, meets MXC (Most Extreme Elimination Challenge), with the aesthetic of cage fighting and you’ve got Ninja Warrior. I had to stop and watch- it was captivating. Take a look. Just like with most of these shows- the commentary makes the show!

Just for the record, I do indeed have a personalized signed photo of Laser from American Gladiators- thanks dad!

“Will Work-Out for Electricity”

This is sort of an addendum to the post I made about dancing for electricity. Just another example of human energy being converted to power. Who knew my lame joke about running to power the TV was actually right on point?

Respect the Architects

Found this clip posted on W+K Studio (from forever ago) and loved it! It’s a good reminder that great design inspires great design- and easily transcends genres. Before you watch, here’s the inspiration, and here’s the result.

How inspiring is Tinker Hatfield? His philosophies on design make you forget he’s talking about shoes. It’s so interesting to hear him speak about how the Air Max I was born and how the Centre Pompidou was an inspiration for him to be bold with his design. How beautiful is this short in general though? I love the credits and the overall aesthetic. Kudos to Thibaut de Longeville.