Canadians and the World Cup - No Thanks!

When will Canada have a team in the World Cup... Well the way it's going in Brazil and shaping up in Qatar, hopefully never.

Even in soccer crazy Brazil support for the games is luke-warm at best, what with forced evictions of poor people at gunpoint off what scant land they have, displacement of aboriginals for "jungle stadiums" a virtual human-rights free zone around the city and the occasional mysterious dead body in the streets, there is not a world sporting event more dirty, more corrupt and with more blood on it's hands than the FIFA World Cup, better to never dirty ourselves with this.

Of course Canadians by and large will disagree, most - particularly in the Toronto area,, no matter how long they've been here seem to still consider themselves the nationality of their parents or grandparents, and will cheer for teams from countries many have never even been to.

As for me, if I did cheer for a team it would be the Americans or any sub-Saharan African team. Because while yes hockey, basketball and football have had their occasional ugly racist incidents, none of them can even come close to the racism and xenophobia displayed by the fans of European soccer teams.

Teams from England, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and unfortunately Poland seem to have proudly among their legions of fans large batches of skin heads, fascists, racists and neo-nazi's that seem to make the worst hockey or baseball fan seem like Gandhi in comparison. Every European soccer riot contains within it a significant racist/fascist component, but hey no reason why a Canadian two generations disconnected not to cheer for them right - wrong!

Torontonians would and - have - booed their own national anthem if a visiting team - particularly Italy is playing a Canadian team, this after over 7,000 Canadians died fighting to free that country.

World Cup of Corruption? No thanks, Go Team USA, Go Ghana (or any African Team) otherwise The World Cup has become a slime hole of sleaze, inequity and even blood that we would be best to avoid.

U2, PBS and Thoughts on Redemption

What does an old PBS debate between a Rabbi and an Imam on the nature of man's interaction with God have to do with a U2 song? Well initially nothing... 

Browsing on the GO Train through a well worn Canadian Armed Forces issue New Testament and Psalms I came across Psalm 39, entitled 'Confessions of a Suffering Man'. It is a piece in the great Old Testament fashion about a man that does everything right but still fails. It beautifully reflects the unique Jewish tradition of getting mad at The Creator and demanding justice, an end to or an explanation of man's collective or individual suffering.

The debate with the Imam centered around suffering and why would a just, loving and all powerful God allow it. As the two went back and forth arguments whirling around concepts of man’s free will and God’s bigger plan and how suffering, injustice and war play into that, the Imam stated to the Rabbi to the effect of “as a Jew you don’t get mad at God”. To which the Rabbi immediately retorted “sir, the Jewish people have a great history of getting mad at God”, then discussed psalms like the above Psalm 39.

For U2 fans, you'll know that what follows next is Psalm 40, or perhaps better known by some as just '40' the last song on their third album 'War'. After the lament of the man who did everything right but still couldn't get a break comes 40, a tale of redemption of making your footsteps firm and being lifted from the 'miry clay'.

That sums up life, and the hope people of all faiths try to cling to;  that you can do everything right and still fail, but in the end you can be redeemed. There is a reason that after 39 comes 40.