Uniting the World

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Professor Taboo

Most coveted trophy in all of sports

There is an irrational sports mentality in America that the National Football League (NFL), or National Basketball Association (NBA), or Major League Baseball (MLB), and their televised “world championships” are the biggest spectacle in sporting events in the world. This is strictly an American invention, however. It does not exist anywhere except within the lower 48-states. The reality is this: the NFL, NBA, and MLB pale and pale greatly when put next to FIFA’s World Cup tournament and championship every four years. But certainly don’t take my word for it. Let’s look at these numbers.
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A London, UK-based media company called Initiative, Futures sport + entertainment, a firm that publishes reports and research on all and any sporting events, states “Soccer’s domination of global TV viewing is now complete.” According to Initiative, in 2009 the NFL’s Super Bowl XLIII was knocked off its most-viewed-event-in-the-world perch. This television topple has been coming since at least 2002, and immeasurably and arguably well before 2000.

Let’s start with the size of leagues or associations by the number of teams and their fans. These will strictly be men’s sports.

Number of Teams and Confederations

In the NFL there are 32 teams that play for the Super Bowl Championship. In the NBA there are 30 teams that play for the NBA Championship. In MLB there are also 30 teams that play for the World Series Championship. These three American professional sports have a total of 92 teams playing for three different championships. Now let us examine FIFA, or the Fédération Internationale de Football Association.

For just over three years, 226 national teams all over the world (as of 2014) compete for inclusion into the opening group-play in the FIFA World Cup tournament held every four years. That is over 7-times larger than the NFL and nearly 8-times larger than the NBA and MLB association and league respectively. But this comparison isn’t quite accurate; it doesn’t portray the true size of professional soccer players and their pro teams in each of those 226 FIFA nations.

FIFA is comprised of six (6) futebol, or soccer associations, represented by individual continents. The CAF (Confederation of African Football) comprises 54 national teams, each of those nations with professional leagues of teams/clubs totaling approximately 408 teams within those 54 nations; each team with an approximate roster of 22-25 players. Additionally, the 408 teams are merely the Top professional teams in the continent’s Top Leagues. There are typically lower 2^nd and 3^rd division leagues, or more, on each continent.

The next continental association, in alphabetical order, is the AFC (Asian Football Association) comprising 47 national teams. Within the 47 member nations, there are approximately 248 clubs/teams playing in AFC’s Top professional leagues; again, with approximately 22-25 players per roster. Once again, there are typically lower 2^nd and 3^rd division leagues as well.

UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) is the marquee FIFA association in the world, as well as the richest. It comprises one of the two elite Top footballing associations of the world with 54 member nations. Inside of the 54 nations consists approximately 871 Top professional teams/clubs with typically 4 to 5 lower divisions. And remember from here on out, each club’s roster consists of a minimum 22-25 players!

It is worth noting that with each of these national teams and each of these local or regional club-teams within each nation comes a passionate loyal following of fans five to fifteen times larger than the club’s roster! I dare you to try and do that math.

The next FIFA association continent is CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football) with 45 member nations. The United States is a member of this association. Within these 45 nations are approximately 155 teams/clubs playing in their Top professional leagues. And from here on out remember there are typically a minimum of 2 to 3 or more lower divisions.

Next is the OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) comprising 16 member nations with approximately 30 teams/clubs competing in Top professional leagues within these 16 nations.

CONMEBOL (Confederacion Sudamericana de Futbol), or commonly the South American Football Confederation, consists of 10 member nations. This confederation is the world’s second elite association next to UEFA. It has a staggering 1,931 teams/clubs competing in each nation’s Top professional leagues.

All in all, and if you were not tracking the total number of club teams within each nation in their Top professional leagues (i.e. not including all lower divisions), the approximate total of teams/clubs fielding players who dream about an individual chance to participate in the world’s ultimate sporting spectacle in their lifetime… conservatively it is approximately 3,643 teams/clubs dwindled down to 226 national teams, over a 3-year period, to play together for just two months, every four years. If we multiply those 3,643 teams with their faithful fans, say 5-times the 25-man roster of the club (91, 075 pro players) multiplied by the average soccer stadium capacity of 40,000 spectators, that bare-bone minimum fan-base equals almost 146-million live spectators. But this is a very conservative figure. According to FIFA.com “Facts and Figures”, an estimated 715.1 million fans watched on TV the 2006 World Cup Championship final in Germany; 3.18 million attended the 64 matches of the tournament. And these figures do not include various viewing-venues across the host nation.

The real scale of this sport during the World Cup tournament – not just by persons inside the stadiums but on television, viewing-venues, and now over the internet – is near incomprehensible in size, popularity, and economic revenues. And it is taking place again this June 2014.

The Economics of World Soccer

In this day and age of sports, soccer is king of mega business: a global industry with a wide spectrum of television contracts and lucrative merchandising deals which generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually. A number of clubs around the world now rank among the highest earning wealthiest sports teams on Earth. However, as quickly as revenues roll-in, they are paid right back out to multi-million dollar player contracts, signing fees and bonuses.

ESPN Magazine recently reported (April 2014) the Top 25 highest-paid athletes in the world – their endorsements are not included. Of the Top 5, three are soccer players: Cristiano Ronaldo ($50.2M) of Real Madrid FC, Lionel Messi ($50.1M) FC Barcelona, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic ($35M) of Paris Saint-Germain. According to Sportingintelligence’s Global Sports Salaries Survey (April 2014), Manchester City FC of the English Premier League, is the world’s best paid team paying out an average salary of $172,508 per week to its first-team players. Of the world’s Top 5 highest-paying sports teams, Spanish La Liga giants Real Madrid and Barcelona round out fourth and fifth at $161,373 per week and $158,397 per week respectively. The average professional athlete contract is 5-years. In this latest edition of the Global Sports Salaries Survey (GSSS), it provides a list of 100 teams paying out the most money per average first-team player over five years:

“The eye-watering sums on offer in elite European football [i.e. Barcelona FC] and in the major sports leagues in America effectively mean that a single five-year deal should provide enough money to setup a player for life. Real Madrid have the next highest five-year total: $41M per player on average, followed by the Yankees ($39.7M), then Manchester City ($35M), and Chelsea FC ($34.3M).”

The last table-graphic shown in the GSSS article (below image) is particularly enlightening for American sports fans. It shows that of the Top 20 five-year earnings for first-team players of all major sports around the world, HALF of them (10) are soccer teams/clubs. Of the remaining 10 sports, only five are NBA teams and four are MLB teams. National Football League teams do not make the list at all until No. 93: the Dallas Cowboys.

The primary reason soccer tops most team and player-salary lists is that almost ALL POSITIONS on the playing field are important (probably critical) for the organization to be successful and profitable. Soccer is, as well as basketball and hockey, are true team sports. In the sports of MLB and the NFL, that is not the case. The pitcher or pitching staff and quarterback are the critical positions influencing or controlling most dynamics of the game. Those players earn monumentally more money than their other teammates. It is also the reason why the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL are 20 places higher than the first NFL team, the Cowboys.

Do these numbers explain why soccer unites more of the world than any other sport on the planet? What about the emotion, the passion of its fans?

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The Fans

What does it mean when one asks the question, “What is the most popular sport in the world?” Does it mean the sport most-watched, most-played, or perhaps the wealthiest based on revenue? Yes to all three. I have done the research and spent the time answering this question, and if you choose to search for the answer as well, you will find the majority of polls and surveys will all say the same thing: soccer.

Why is soccer the king of all sports on the planet and has been for many decades? The passion of its fans is certainly one reason. If you’ve never been to a major soccer game in Europe or South America, among singing dancing fans, you are missing out on a life-time experience like no other. Want a taste?

The wonderful atmosphere of top-flight soccer matches are finally growing in the United States. When the U.S. Men’s National Team qualified for the World Cup in Brazil this summer, listen and watch how 40,000+ fans in Seattle, WA – some of the most excitable fans in the nation – celebrated the 3-year achievement:

But simply being amongst a mass of dancing singing humanity is only part of the experience. Understanding what the world’s greatest players do on the field with that ball, as an 11-man team, explains why it is called and known all around the globe as “the beautiful game.” Soccer is a worldwide language; the most popular language spoken in a multitude of dialects. As a naïve outsider and at first glance, an American might think the world’s passion for soccer is overly simple, unimpressive. One might write it off as a dull 90-minute game with an average score-line of 0-to-0 or 2-to-1 most games. But that impression would be from a grossly uninformed unimaginative closed-mind.

The Players

Yes, the world’s love of the game is indeed simple: the action is non-stop; the 22 players improvise tactics in the middle of a flowing game performing spectacular feats of athleticism and skills. But the passion goes much deeper for more complex reasons. The great Brazilian star Pelé describes the game as being so infused in many countries that over time the sport is not just a pastime, but has morphed into a reflection of national character. With the diversity of global geographies and cultures come distinctive playing-styles. These national styles have produced some of the most riveting, most brilliant moments in soccer history! Take a look at these six clips, considered by many footballing fans as the greatest World Cup moments and goals:

World Cup Final 1970 – Brazil’s Carlos Alberto’s goal

World Cup Group-play 1970 – England’s Gordon Banks’ save vs. Pelé

World Cup 1982 – The heavily favored-to-win squad of Brazil: “Ballet with the Ball – A Love Story”

World Cup Qualifier 2001 – England’s goal frenzy vs. Germany

World Cup 2006 – The Tournament’s Best

World Cup 2010 – Top 10 Goals

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One of the most exquisite skills a world-class soccer player can master is the art of dribbling. The game’s biggest stars have signature tricks and moves to beat their opponent. In real time it is a blur, gone in one or two seconds. But the amount of training and practice required to use them in the game is mind-boggling. Watch these élite players from around the world showcase their best tricks and define why this game of soccer is so worshiped around the globe.

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The Nations

In 1992 in the country of Ivory Coast in West Africa, the Ivorians were so determined to have their national team win the African Nations Cup that the government’s sports minister enlisted a battalion of fétisheurs – juju men – to place on the team a supernatural advantage against rival Ghana. When the minister later broke promises of payment to the fétisheurs, they in turn placed a hex on the Ivorian team, which then went on a ten-year spell of losing results. When the defense minister desperately sought to make amends with the witch doctors, offering cases of liquor and large money bags, the hex was lifted. Almost immediately the team did a 180 and qualified for the 2006 World Cup.

In Spain, where soccer is so dramatic it is often described as theater, a Spanish novelist writes his obsession with the beautiful game this way:

“Once you’ve fallen into the game, there is no getting out… [stats] will tell you almost nothing about the game itself. The player who actually wins the game may be the one who moves into space at the opposite side of the field, drawing a defender, forcing a new configuration upon the defense and making virtually inevitable a goal that was before impossible, but no one – not even he – may be aware of this. It’s all narrative, and thus subjective: Each game is a story, a sequence of ambivalent metaphors, a personal revelation couched in the idiom of the faith. No game I know of is so dependent upon such flowing intangibles as “pattern” and “rhythm” and “vision” and “understanding.” Which may all be illusions. And at the same time it is a very simple game: like dreams, almost childlike.”

In today’s Croatia, soccer is a form of group therapy which bore a new nation. A match between Zagreb’s Dinamo and Belgrade’s Red Star in 1990 marked the beginning of Croatia’s war for independence. After the opening whistle at kickoff, fans from both teams clashed in the stadium stands, as well as onto the field. A Serb-dominated police force began beating Croatian spectators while allowing Serbian fans to run freely. This ignited the already boiling-over tensions in what was then Yugoslavia. Upon witnessing a Serb-policeman wail on a fallen Dinamo fan, midfielder Zvonimir Boban rushed and karate-kicked the officer (image above left), and later became a Croatian national hero of their independence movement. In one of the biggest upsets in World Cup lore, Croatia beat powerhouse Germany in the 1998 World Cup Quarterfinals and then went on to win third place by beating an equally stacked Netherlands 2 – 1. After the match, Croatians flooded the town squares and streets in adulation and song. On television, many reporters interviewed grown men who couldn’t stop bawling. Courtney Angela Brkic, a Croatian author, stated that “not since the declaration of independence, had so much unified celebration been seen. Now no one could deny Croatia its place on the map.”

In Brazil, the only nation to have won the World Cup five times and the only national team to have appeared in all World Cup tournaments since its start in 1930, soccer is an ideology and state religion. Nowhere in the world does a nation try so hard to play the game so beautifully as Brazilians. And that is why Brazilian players are so loved around the world by so many fans and top leagues. The Brazilian national team has never been ranked world-wide below No. 10, a record untouched by any other soccer nations. Their fans do the Samba non-stop for ninety plus minutes as their players do indescribable tricks and feats between all ten of their team’s players. It is why Brazil, on any continent, is always the beloved overdog of every World Cup. They are the only favorite that is always a favorite.

This June 2014

If you cannot make it to games in Brazil this summer, the next best thing is to find a local pub or bar with an international flavor and history that will be televising the tournament. I guarantee the place will be raucous and rocking with national team fans. I always try to find a Brazilian restaurant-bar; the atmosphere is utterly electric, colorful, and beautiful. I will most certainly support my U.S. National Team, but unfortunately their odds of advancing out of the early group stage are minimal against the exceptional likes of Portugal, Ghana, and Germany. Nevertheless, the spectacle of the game will be phenomenal and the skills and creativity of the world’s best players on the world stage will be unparalleled. Be a part of it. Be united with the rest of the world for two memorable incredible months!

U.S. Soccer: We Are Going to Brazil

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Religious Imperialism Alive Still

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Professor Taboo

A few months ago I got lured into what I thought was a discussion and dialogue over American-Syrian foreign policy. My college friend had an obvious hatred for President Obama and Democratic policies. The discussion, turned heated debate, was regarding the treatment of Syria by President Obama and Syria’s perceived lack of respect for American threats against Assad’s regime and his use of chemical weapons on Syrian citizens. My conservative college friend’s stance on Syria, Islāmic regimes, and basic American foreign policy in the Middle East was one of ‘enforced power‘ applied through America’s alliance with Israel.

zahal_israel_defense_forces_inspection_1949

New Israeli army on parade – 1949

In my attempt to give more historical background to America’s long Israeli support in matters of Middle Eastern conflicts, including our MASSIVE costly mistake in invading Iraq for WMD’s, I stressed how prudent and utterly cautious the U.S. should be when involving itself in Middle Eastern matters so soon after invading Iraq. I eventually let him know that the 1949 U.N. creation of the nation of Israel was a horrible blotch on the U.S. and Western nation’s historical political record in the eyes of Palestinians, Syrians, and Islāmic nations in the region. It is the major reason the area has seen so much violence and blood-shed for the last 65-years toward Israel and Western powers.

My friend blew his top and began using Biblical passages – as if they were God-ordained entitlements – that Israel “belonged there” for several millennia. That’s when I knew I was facing an all too common Christian-Zionist misconception of the region’s history which is TOO OFTEN naïvely understood and ignorantly proclaimed by conservative (Puritan?) American politics. Here are at least 10 reasons why their belief is based in gross fabrication as inspired from the work of Dr. Juan Cole from the University of Michigan.

The ancient geographical history of Judaism begins in Mesopotamia, loosely modern-day Iraq and Syria, not Jerusalem or the Levant.
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The actual settlement of Jerusalem and its surrounding region was founded between 3000 to 2600 BCE by a Semitic people (possibly Canaanites), the common ancestors of modern Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and Jordanians. However, outside of Old Testament passages, Judaism as a state or kingdom did not exist in or around Jerusalem. To date, there has been no archeological evidence found of a “Kingdom of David” or of Solomon’s Temple claimed in the Bible during this period.
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The settlement of Jerusalem was named in honor of Shalim, (salem) from the Canaanite religious pantheon, found on inscriptions in Syria. According to the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (1999), the word Jerusalem means “built-up place of Shalim.” Modern Judaism wrongly translates the word as City of Peace, and has romanticized its historical context as their own at the exclusion of Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, and Jordanians.
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Strictly from Biblical sources, i.e. not from additional independent sources, Judaism asserts that the prophet Moses led slaves inside ancient Egypt. Judaism asserts slave labor and a major slave revolt by Jews in ancient Egypt followed by a mass exodus into the Sinai Peninsula. Judaism also asserts a Jewish invasion of Palestine by fleeing slaves from Egypt. Yet no Egyptian records or evidence during the reign of Ramses II, as recorded at Luxor, exists to support any of these claims. Furthermore, the only archeological evidence of a monotheistic worship happening inside Jerusalem doesn’t take place until around 1000 BCE. All evidence prior to 1000 BCE clearly demonstrates common Canaanite deities were worshiped. And even in this case, as noted in #4 below, substantial evidence of a monotheistic religion beginning in Jerusalem doesn’t begin happening until after 900 BCE as a small sect or population!
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There is no definitive proof that Jerusalem was even inhabited between 1000 and 900 BCE. No archeological evidence of glorious palaces, great states or kingdoms, or recognized kings of the region by Assyrian tablets, which record even the minutest events throughout the Middle East, has been discovered. But once again, strictly from Biblical sources only, Judaism asserts these buildings, kings, and states existed. The independent archeological records simply are not there.
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Finally, with much exhaustion, a Jewish group known as the Hasmoneans did rule Jerusalem briefly between 168 and 37 BCE. This is a grossly different time span (almost a 2,200 year difference) from what Zionist Judaism claims: 3000 BCE to present? Yet even during this period (168 – 37 BCE) the reign over Jerusalem was with the significant help of Parthia. The archeological and historical sources clearly show the Assyrians ruled Jerusalem and the region in 722 to 597 BCE when the Babylonians conquered it. They lost it in 539 BCE to the Achaemenids of ancient Iran and ruled until Alexander the Great took the entire Levant in the 330’s BCE. Alexander’s descendants, the Ptolemies, ruled until 198 BCE when his other descendants, the Seleucids, took it. Enter the well-known King Herod of Parthian heritage from 37 to 6 BCE, at which time the Romans conquered all of Palestine. The Romans and then later the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium, or later Constantinople, or modern Istanbul) reigned from 6 BCE until 614 CE when the Iranian Sassanian Empire conquered Jerusalem. They ruled until 629 CE when the Byzantines took it back. But wait! The fighting and conquering isn’t over!
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Beginning in 637 CE, the Muslim Arabs put siege to Jerusalem and conquered it a year later. They ruled until 1099 CE when all the European Crusaders took it. It is at this point when the Jewish and Muslim inhabitants of Jerusalem fought side-by-side but were horrifically murdered in mass by Christian Crusaders. The Gesta Francorum, the chronicle of the First Crusade, states “…[our soldiers] were killing and slaying [women and babies alike] even to the Temple of Solomon, where the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles…” The estimated genocide is calculated today to be between 10,000 to 25,000 lives.
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Saladin

Upon the incursions and invasions of the European Crusaders, the great Sultan Saladin led his Egyptian and Syrian Muslims against the Christian armies, conquering much of the Levant and freeing Muslim slaves, then put siege to Jerusalem in 1187 CE and conquered it less than a month later. Saladin, in unprecedented military fashion of the time recognizing the historical significance of Jerusalem to so many, allowed non-combatant Christians to leave and allowed Jews the choice to return. Muslims ruled Jerusalem until the end of World War I, or in sum for about 1,192 years!
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To conclude #5, advocates of Zionist Judaism did not found Jerusalem. Judaism as a firm stable known religion or as a kingdom did not begin until around 200 BCE. And the Hasmonean dynasty only ruled Jerusalem (in part) for about maybe 170 years.
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Perhaps the most notable part of Jerusalem’s history is in 136 CE after the Bar Kochba revolt against Roman authority failed. Some of the Jews in Jerusalem remained, but firmly under the rule of Rome and then Byzantium. Many converted to Christianity to escape the harsh oppression. After 638 CE and the Arab Muslim invasion, 90% of Jerusalem converted to Islam! Thereafter, the entire region was almost exclusively Muslim for the next 1,300 plus years. Palestinians are the legitimate descendants of Jerusalem, Eastern Israel, and the region!
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In 1947 the virtual city and region of peace was completely turned upside down. Despite the above historical and archeological chronicle of Judaism, the United Nations enacted the Partition Plan for Palestine following World War II and Jewish Holocaust. This plan for the State of Israel developed from the post-war British political and military withdrawal from Palestine as well as wide Western sympathy for Jews and the Holocaust. Suddenly, it seemed, the U.N. and West completely forgot what European Crusaders did to Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem in 1099 CE in the aftermath of the First Crusade. Naturally, Palestine breaks out into civil war shortly after Resolution 181 (II) of the United Nations General Assembly implementing the partitioning of Palestine. All out war followed between Arab militias and Jewish militias eventually leading to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Because of Western powers and alliances with Zionist Israel, and dare I say ignorance, the region has seen very little peace ever since. Today tensions, violence, and terrorism trickle over into other contemporary conflicts from Western nations over-meddling in the Middle East, i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan, based indirectly on religious imperialist differences.
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1967 Six Days War

The 4^th Geneva Convention of 1949 along with the Hague Regulations of 1907 explicitly forbids occupying powers (i.e. Britain or Jewish Europeans) to alter the lifestyles of non-combatant civilians who are occupied. It furthermore explicitly forbids the immigration of people from the occupiers’ country into the occupied territory (i.e. Palestine). Western nations of the U.N., including the United States, sat idle as the newly formed State of Israel removed Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, usurped Palestinian property and settled on their property, annexed districts of Jerusalem, all in gross violation of International Law. Ironically, to state mildly, the Nazis began the same violations in 1938 and 1939 Europe.
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Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin

Past and present Israeli governments have not been united, much less consistent, about how East Jerusalem and the West Bank should be settled and managed once they were taken over. Comically, this is reminiscent of Judaism’s long history of sectarian division and fragmentation going all the way back to 37 CE. The Judaization of Galilee, a region in northern Israel, was implemented throughout the 1960’s and ‘70’s but with limited success. Prime Minister and Nobel Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin was primarily responsible for bringing Israelis to peaceful coexistence with Palestine through the Oslo Peace Accord in 1993 and granting Palestinians their right to become a recognized state and withdrawing Jews from Gaza and Jericho. For these proceedings Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by Jewish-Zionist elements in 1995, specifically Yigal Amir, and elements that are now associated with current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. As late as 2000, rhetoric and hints of Palestinian assurances by post-Rabin Israeli officials have been given but fourteen years and counting none have materialized.
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The archeological record and linguistic history of Jerusalem and Levant show who has the most legitimate claim to sovereignty from best to least, in chronological order, by the number of years settled:
In the end, the only real claim Judaism has for Jerusalem and a state of Israel is based subservient to Persians, Greeks, and Romans when they ruled Palestine. To make assertions to inhabit Jerusalem and the Palestinian region based on Biblical history, is like Americans claiming the European continent as legitimately theirs because of their ancestors, or Mexico claiming the southwest United States as their own because prior to the 18^th century CE it belonged to them. Spain could then lay claim of southwest America prior to them! Yet, in a post-WWII world, by pandering to the West’s sympathies and political imperialism, Zionist-Jews robbed western Palestine and expelled Palestinians from their legitimate homeland while the “civilized” Western nations turned their heads.

Christian Biblical Fundamentalism

My conservative college friend no longer acknowledges me. Because I questioned and disagreed with his political, religious, and social positions, he no longer speaks to me. In fact, many of my former college and seminary friends – yes, I attended three years of seminary in Jackson, MS – no longer speak to me much less listen to me. My more moderate college friends and my current liberal friends enjoy having these types of discussions and examinations. Why they do, compared to the far-right fundamentalists, I cannot specifically answer. I can speculate, but without any level of communication it is impossible to figure his or the far-right’s obstinacy.

For the last twenty-three years, my once biblical fundamentalism has been increasingly deprogrammed and deconstructed until finally there was no intellectual basis for it whatsoever. It eventually became all together Pagan or non-religious until I finally determined my current “title” or label: Freethinking Humanist.

I recently read a post from one of my favorite bloggers, 500 Questions, where he examines whether the canonical Bible is divinely inspired (click here for that post). He delves into the power and persuasion of memetics or the transfer of information or stories socially over the span of many generations. If popular and useful enough, the meme can take on a life of its own becoming seemingly factual. It is an excellent post if you have a chance to read it!

My now former conservative friend is a microcosm of a larger global problem: religious extremism or literalism. When I study all the world’s various faiths and social systems, I am appalled by how much of humanity’s history is filled with religious conflict and imperialism. More striking is how much of it has been born from the Abrahamic religions. If historians compiled the top ten worst moments in human history so far, half of them would be religiously based with the Crusades of Jerusalem topping all of them. Two to three more would be politically-religiously based.

In light of what I’ve written here, in an age where geneticists and modern genetics have determined time and again that all of humanity has less than a 1% difference with each other, it is appalling that religious extremism and imperialism still exists. Ninety-nine percent of us have the same tools genetically to live in peace and prosper together! Everything outside of that 1% is taught to us (truthfully or falsely) by our parents, family, and community. What does that say about potential change and world peace?

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**Nov. 22nd, 2014 — More Information:

“Few Americans today are aware that US support enabled the creation of modern Israel. Even fewer know that US politicians pushed this policy over the forceful objections of top diplomatic and military experts. As this work demonstrates, these politicians were bombarded by a massive pro-Israel lobbying effort that ranged from well-funded and very public Zionist organizations to an “elitist secret society” whose members included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.”

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Alison Weir’s organization: IfAmericansKnew.org

John Crewdson’s October 2007 Chicago Tribune article

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Live Well * Love Much * Laugh Often * Learn Always

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This work by Professor Taboo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://professortaboo.wordpress.com.

Real Men

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Professor Taboo

I love my teaching job for moments like these:

Last week I had to pull an 8th grade boy aside to address his ‘cocky’ bullying. It became quickly apparent that his version of “a man” was arrogant hyper-testosterone peacocking. Where or how he learned it didn’t matter. What did matter was the chip on his shoulder.

I shared with him a lesson I learned when I was about his age about “being a man.” It was taught to me by a REAL man who had it taught to him…

Tearing down people’s lives, maiming them, or even taking life is easy and over-glorified; it requires about as much “manhood” as a gorilla picking up a stick or rock. But helping put lives back together or literally saving them takes an immeasurable amount of manhood. There is no comparison!

[Boy], if you must “stand out,” then stand out with and for the ones who can’t. Choose the harder higher road, not the easiest, and then you’ll understand what it is to be a real man.

Some great examples of “Real Men”…

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Since I Was A Boy

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Professor Taboo

Several years ago I lived in an apartment no more than a mile from a suburbia airport north of Dallas. It is the home of a vintage flight museum I have visited countless times and volunteered two or three times just to touch and be near the famous warbirds. Like a boy loves his dog or a little girl loves her favorite doll, I marveled at the history, pilots, and flying machines of World War II. Some days I would utterly frighten my son and daughter by suddenly dropping whatever I was doing and run out the door as fast as I could. Seconds later they would hear what I already heard. Sometimes the windows and knickknacks on the mantel or shelves would vibrate. Turn your volume up as loud as is appropriate to get the full effect and play this 20-second clip:

My kids would chase after me, sometimes out of breath because I would keep moving around in order to see as much sky as I could watching the spectacle arrive and depart. “How can you always tell the difference between modern planes and the old ones!?” my daughter would ask. “That is amazing!” as she shook her head bewildered. As I have gotten older, been to many airshows, and gotten more informed and educated on EVERYTHING World War II Aviation, a few of those traumatic surprises would start with pumped adrenaline, then goose-bumps, and then tears. My son, always emotionally connected to me since his first breath, upon seeing my tears would ask “Why are you crying Dad?” And this is how I would describe to him the honored, revered tears.

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I love almost all of the WWII planes whether they were combat or cargo, they all had a vital importance to the war effort. Their pilots were some of the bravest heroes under the most extraordinary circumstances. All of our veterans from any war or combat service are and will be heroes. However, if I had to choose just one WWII plane to love most, I know exactly which one she would be.

p-51-mustang-credit-caf — The P-51 D Mustang

If you are not aware or cannot remember, at the onset of the Second World War the Allies were grossly unprepared to fight Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Both Axis nations had a big head start in fine machinery and experienced well-trained pilots. In the first 24 to 30 months of combat, most air battles were won by Germany and Japan with much better maneuverable faster planes and better pilots. Losses due to combat or dogfights were often staggering for the Americans and British. Plain and simple, the German Messerschmitts and Folke-Wulfs, and the Japanese Mitsubishi Zeroes were flat-out better machines. Any high-ranking general will tell you every time, if you don’t control the skies, you either will not win or you might win but at astronomical losses in men and materials. In 1942 and ’43 the war in both theaters was very uncertain for America and Britain. The Germans controlled the skies over Europe and the Japanese controlled them in the Pacific.

The Allies desperately needed an edge in the skies!

The primary reason Great Britain thwarted Hitler’s Luftwaffe (air force) in the Battle of Britain was because of their Spitfire and Hurricane pilots. Spitfires could handle the Messerschmitts while the Hurricanes could take out the bombers. The problem was that Britain could not quickly replace losses; both in planes or pilots. The Spitfire housed one of the most superb engines ever built: the Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12. The Americans had a few good fighter-designs but most of them at the time were under-powered and couldn’t match the high-altitude performance of the German engines. Finally, with British ingenuity and American manufacturing, emerged a single fighter-plane that would change the course of the air war in Europe and the Pacific…

The North American P-51 Mustang.

You might ask how can just one fighter plane change the course of a war? Simple, the P-51 D Mustang saved thousands of American bomber crews from their deaths. From 1942 to early 1944, American bomber losses were intolerable because the bombing raids required deeper penetration into Nazi Germany. In the Pacific air war, vast oceans with few islands also required long-range aircraft. The Allies had no such fighter plane capable of escorting bombers all the way to their target and back until the P-51 Mustang.

Not only did the Mustang, with its high-performance high-altitude Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, match and exceed those of its enemy fighters, but it was also highly maneuverable and lethal in the hands of a good pilot. To put it in perspective just how much the P-51 Mustang changed the air war, the survival rate of American bomber crews in Europe prior to its introduction was 1-out-of-3 crewmen killed from 1942 to late 1943. After the winter of 1943-44 when Mustangs flew escort, the survival rate rose to 67% after 25 missions flown, then 81% by 1945 and the end of the war. The P-51 Mustangs were quite literally their knights-in-shining-armor for bomber crews, or “Angels on our wings” as many bomber pilots and crewmen would describe. The Mustang helped turn the tide of war and bring it to a quicker end.

That is the historical impact of the Mustang. Now I want to describe from a boy’s perspective the emotional impact of this gorgeous mighty bird.

Leave it to Steven Spielberg to capture the moment perfectly how it feels for a boy. His 1987 film Empire of the Sun starring a young Christian Bale, tells the story of a small British boy fascinated with flight and “the brave daring pilots” of the Japanese Zero fighter. He gets separated from his parents in Shanghai, China at the outbreak of war with Japan. Though his captors are brutal to him and his “new” British prison-family, Jim (Christian Bale) worships the Zero pilots and their magnificent planes throughout the first half of the war.

After they are moved late in the war to an airbase to build a runway for the Zero fighters, Jim hears rumors about a new fighter plane called the Mustang, the Cadillac of the Skies. He eats breaths and reads everything he can get his hands and ears on. I relate completely to Jim’s obsessions of flying and the machines these brave pilots fought in.

And then one morning while paying his respect and admiration to the Kamikaze pilots and planes, Jim’s whole world and those of the planes and pilots he worshiped so long are turned upside down. Apologies that this heart-wrenching scene is broken up into two clips – blame YouTube!

It is hard to put into words how the flight, the speed, the beautiful lines of a P-51 looks and feels to a young heart. There is no other sight or sound in this world like the air being sucked into the intake whistling at a high pitch as it dives toward you, and a second later the reverberation of that V-12 roaring by as it climbs away at over 4,160 feet per minute! “Go P-51…Cadillac of the Skies!” As Jim screams, “HORSEPOWER!“

Since I was a boy I have always dreamt of flying in this mighty magnificent warbird. To feel the immense rumble of that Rolls-Royce Merlin engine supercharged and forcing me back into my seat. That would absolutely be one of the best days of my life!

For a few very lucky months the software company I use to work for had their offices at the end of the runway. Every two or three weeks the owner of the flight museum and the P-51 D Mustang would take it out for some fly byes. On one particular occasion he throttled it out on take off. Just over halfway down the runway he had enough airspeed to lift-off and put this beautiful bird into a 35-40 degree climb with ease, banked it, and then leveled off about 600-700 feet at cruising speed. It seemed effortless. I thought to myself, so that’s how it must have looked and sounded back in 1940’s Europe and China. Imagine if you were Japanese or German what it meant watching the Mustangs fly by and listening to that whistling horsepower. Imagine how it felt if you were British or American back then: finally, the beginning of the end. Wow! I still get chills up and down my spine every time I hear that distinct engine and watch it zip from one horizon to the other.

Some of man’s creations are works of beauty and timeless. Today my son no longer has to ask why I have goose-bumps and tears watching famous warbirds; he gets it…just like I did when I was his age.

How’s that working out? — Part Two

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Professor Taboo

As part of the Alternative Lifestyles blog-posts migration over to the new blog The Professor’s Lifestyles Memoirs, this post has been moved there. To read this post please click the link to the blog.

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!