{"id":6053,"date":"2014-06-28T14:54:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T14:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=6053"},"modified":"2014-06-28T14:54:36","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T14:54:36","slug":"take-politics-out-of-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6053","title":{"rendered":"Take politics out of … the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

It’s astounding how pervasive politics is these days.<\/p>\n

It enters every possible discussion on every possible topic. Take soccer, or as they call it in Latin America and Spain, “futbol.”<\/p>\n

Now it seems, according to one blogger at least, that conservatives have a problem with soccer more so than liberals or moderates. They call it boring, I guess because there’s usually so little scoring associated with it.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2014\/06\/27\/romneycare-supporter-ann-coulter-is-100-wrong-about-soccer\/<\/p>\n

Radio talk-show gasbag Ann Coulter said something the other day about Americans’ infatuation with the World Cup is a sign of “moral decay.” Huh?<\/p>\n

By my way of thinking, a surer sign of moral decay is taking seriously the idiotic pronouncements of Ann Coulter.<\/p>\n

But I digress.<\/p>\n

I’m not a soccer fan — as in fanatic, from which the word “fan” is derived. I’ve watched some of the matches from Brazil. I enjoyed watching the team from Greece — the home of my ancestors — beat Ivory Coast in a thriller and move to the round of 16. I’ve gotten a kick out of the fans’ reaction when Brazil scores a go–o-o-o-a-a-a-a-a-l-l-l-l-l!<\/em><\/p>\n

And of course I’m enjoying how our American team finds ways to win while losing and advancing into that round of 16 “knockout” phase of the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Is all of this a sign of moral decay? Does it matter what conservative talking heads think about soccer, or the World Cup? Not in the least.<\/p>\n

When it ends, I’ll return to watching American-style college football and baseball.<\/p>\n

That is, of course, unless the “U.S.A!”<\/em> wins the World Cup.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s astounding how pervasive politics is these days. It enters every possible discussion on every possible topic. Take soccer, or as they call it in Latin America and Spain, “futbol.” Now it seems, according to one blogger at least, that conservatives have a problem with soccer more so than liberals or moderates. They call it … Continue reading Take politics out of … the World Cup<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[394,1835,4297,5296],"class_list":["post-6053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ann-coulter","tag-futbol","tag-soccer","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}