Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Is it American to score big? Is it sexist to care?

I fell asleep when the US was only up 7-0 in the match against Thailand last night.  I'll admit I was a bit disappointed by the final score; 13-0 is just so unseemly.  I don't like gloating; I'm embarrassed by hugely obnoxious gestures of my country-mates; and big wins feel loud, a trait I am endeavoring to teach my family not to be.
But then I awoke to lots of criticism of the US women, as if they had done something wrong by playing really well and being proud of it.
Someone asked if the same criticism would have been leveled at the US Men's National Team, which I found laughable, because the US men just aren't that good. But it did make me wonder how much of this does have to do with sexist perceptions.  So I'm comparing this to the Dream Team at the Olympics.
I'll point out a few things here:
There are only 3 subs in an international soccer match.  There is no putting in a second team or resting the starters.
The first US Dream Team in 1992 had a 350 point differential over 8 games.  That means they were averaging more than 40 points more than their opponents per game.  I seem to recall comments about how lucky their opponents were to play with the best, and how insulting it would have been for the Dream Team to quit shooting at an international competition.
Thailand may have been out of their league last night, but they are a team who had to win a spot to be here at the World Cup.  In the Asian qualifying tournament, they won a match 6-1 and beat out teams who defeated other teams 10-1.  It is too bad that women's soccer is so poorly supported elsewhere, but winning big is not a US thing, or something to be ashamed of.

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Boats Before Balls

Perhaps because we live on the edge of the high plains, boats fascinate us.  So far on this adventure we have ridden a small tour boat on the Firth of Forth (under the bridges and to Inchholm), a little passenger ferry from Britain to Lismore and back, a motor boat to Threave Castle on an island in the River Dee, a car ferry across the Rhine in Germany and a wonderful current-powered passenger ferry across the Rhine in Switzerland*.

Today the "ball" part of our adventure begins (Go Jamaica!), but the boats have sure been fun.

*Two boat rides included strangers from the internet and we all survived; in fact meeting them was delightful.

Car ferry in Germany

Oh, we also rode a boat through the
world's first water balanced
 circular boat lift.
 
Threave Castle


Isle of Lismore