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June 14, 2010

Why we should all cheer for Bafana Bafana

By Dave Briggs

  

For the record, I have not, yet, seen Invictus. Apart from Morgan Freeman botching Nelson Mandela’s accent, I hear it’s a grand, uplifting film about the hopes and dreams of a reborn rainbow nation as realized through the South African rugby team.
 
I am, however, fervently cheering for Bafana Bafana (Zulu for: The Boys, The Boys), South Africa’s soccer team, despite the improbable odds against them and despite the fact watching soccer is about as much fun as airline travel.
 
My mother is South African. I have two aunts, two uncles and three cousins and their families that have lived there all their lives. Despite what you may have heard about white South Africans of English origin, my relatives are wonderful people who happen to live in a magical and troubled land. We are all quite close despite the distance.
 
The World Cup has rarely interested me, but I’ve been surprised with how captivated I’ve been by this one on a cultural level. Likely, my interest has been piqued by the fact South Africa is the host nation. But there’s also something to be said for finding a rooting interest in a country or two, mostly on the grounds of family heritage.
 
Here lies the real value of the World Cup, particularly when your own country isn’t in it — finding something within yourself with which to identify.
 
In our house, with Canada about as proficient at soccer as Brazilians are at hockey, that means South Africa comes first — with a myriad of “second teams” claimed by my wife and three children for a host of plausible and inexplicable reasons.
 
Surely, we could do without those annoying plastic horns, the vuvuzelas, which sound like an incessant swarm of bees. Yet, despite talk of them being banned, there’s something to admire about mirthful South Africans winking as they claim them as part of their cultural heritage, basically telling the rest of the world to shove it.
 
An old Marxist professor or two or mine would say all this sports stuff is an opiate for the masses. But I believe sports have the power to unify, to transcend. If so, few places need victory more than South Africa in the post-Apartheid era, which has been plagued by crime, AIDS, political scandal and socio-economic upheaval of the highest order.
 
Vuvuzelas or not, I would love to see them celebrating in the streets of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Soweto. I can’t begin to comprehend what winning the World Cup might do to unify a divided nation, though I’m not naïve enough to believe it will cure serious ills.
 
For the moment, anyone who roots for the underdog, for the best storyline, surely appreciates the implication of an unlikely victory by the South African side.
 
For me, it goes much deeper. Bafana Bafana is part of my tribe.
 
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February 26, 2010

Trade your kids for fun, profit and an exotic bird

By Lauren Lee

  

Sports Illustrated has long been collecting and publishing ‘Signs of the Apocalypse,’ whereby some event, action or behaviour is so ridiculous that it simply must portend the imminent collapse of mankind.
 
It’s amazing how often I see other ominous ‘signs’ in the pages of the regular old newspaper, usually in the police blotter or thanks to some obscure headline. It happens so much that I come back to the same question time and time again: What in the hell is the matter with people?
 
In one of our favourite all-time Post Parade answers, trainer Mark Ford said that the one superpower he’d like to have is the ability to make people evaporate.
 
With that in mind, let’s start with the 52-year-old Louisiana woman who recently plead guilty to attempting to sell two children, aged five and four, who had been left in her care, to another couple in exchange for an exotic bird and $175 cash.
 
Hmmmm.
 
Just to review, three adults who were presumably raised in some sort of society  — and not by wolves — and subjected to at least a minimal amount of education, decided it was reasonable to swing the kids-for-bird deal.
 
Oops, I forgot about the $175. How exactly did they arrive at that figure? I’m going to assume something like this:
 
Completely wretched person #1: “So lemme get this straight, I give you the two kids and you give me the bird and $200?”
 
Completely wretched person #2: “No, no — $175.”
 
Completely wretched person #1: “Sounds fair. Okay, deal.”
 
If that story wasn’t disheartening enough, there is also the case of the 35-year-old Pennsylvania woman who was recently convicted of animal cruelty for piercing three black kittens and attempting to sell them over the Internet as a ‘Goth’ accessory.
 
I’m not sure what’s worse — the fact that she had the idea for ‘Goth kittens’ or that there was apparently a market for this crap. Laughably, her defense attorneys argued that parents allow children to get pierced ears at young ages and it would be wrong to hold cat owners to a higher standard.
 
Clearly, as a society, we are only one degree of separation away from someone trying to trade Goth cats and $175 for two kids and an exotic bird.
 
Let's hope they evaporate before that happens.
 
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November 20, 2009

Depends on whom you ask, but for this guy it’s a bigger bladder

By Lauren Lee

You never know what kind of debate you are going to get into over a pitcher of beer with a couple of friends.

“I think if I could change one thing about myself it would be my bladder,” said a friend, recently, who was immediately mocked by the others at the table for his out-of-the-blue comment.

What you would change about yourself if you could is right up there with other popular ‘what-if’ games such as, ‘How will I spend my lottery winnings’ and ‘What would I do if I was granted three wishes’. I’m sure everyone has a little something about them that they wish a fairy godmother could amend, but something struck the others at the table funny about a guy who would burn his personal get-out-of-jail-free card on something as seemingly insignificant as a larger bladder.

“Are you kidding me?” he protested. “Nothing could possibly have a bigger impact on my life — I could sleep in late and not be interrupted, drive for hours without any pit stops, make it through a pint of beer without having the hassle of walking all the way to the restroom… it would be life-changing,” he said, adamantly.

Despite his passion and commitment to the idea, he was immediately shouted down by a chorus of skeptics, who were not convinced that he had given his choice nearly enough thought.

Within 60 seconds, many alternatives were presented for his consideration:

“Wouldn’t you rather have a rocket arm so you could throw a 100 mph fastball?”
“No.”

“What about the speed of a cheetah – be the fastest man alive?”
“Nope.”

“Wouldn’t you like to be taller or have more hair?”
“Don’t care.”

“How about an Irish or Scottish accent that would make the ladies swoon?”
“Whatever.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have laser vision or at least 20/20 so you could ditch your glasses?”
“No.”

“I’m telling you it’s the bladder. Hands down, no question,” he said, rising from the table, en route to the men’s room.

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