For the Integrity of Soccer

Heads up for: Wanderings of Morpho sulkowski.

        The "Wanderings" are going to be a sub-section of //fortheintegrityofsoccer.blogs.com/, and will include anything I care to write about or clarify in my "butterfly brain".  Morpho sulkowski is a south American iridescent butterfly with a wingspan of 4-5 inches, and the one I have in a shadow-box on my desk.  A gift more than a decade ago from my wife Jane E. Stevens, it symbolizes the nature of some of my thought-processes, flitting from subject to subject, attracted by a new idea, a new question.

        
                                    Morpho sulkowski

                                      (Pearl Morpho)

        I suspect that had I been born in the last few decades I would have been diagnosed with ADHD or some-such condition, then pumped full of ritalin to keep me in my seat, when all that I really need is a regular supply of interesting stuff to keep my brain occupied.  Fidgety kids need to be kept busy, not stoned.  So I will use this blog as a place to put down thoughts and ideas about anything that interests me: planet Earth, its continents, biology and oceans; humanity's inhumanity; good writing and storytelling; twentieth-century literature, especially the work of "confessional poets", including the two I am writing about--Dylan Thomas and John Berryman.  Football and refereeing you will find in the usual place, where I will signal any new postings in "Wanderings".

        Another way of looking at this new item is that it will be my practice-place, my experiments that may flourish into larger or more permanent pieces, possible for publication.

        I doubt that I will comment on politics, because I find that subject to be based far less on facts than on emotions and prejudices.  Besides which I have been a socialist all my life, and will never change.  We are a social animal, and have been since the first bands and packs of humans walked out of Africa.  Individually we cannot survive without the aid of our fellows and neighbors, and there is not a country on the planet that could function without socialism as the basis of its society.  (That includes the U.S. by the way, despite the vehement denials of the Tea-Patsies.)  When all is said and done, Ayn Rand spewed poisonous bullshit.

        If you want the bookmark to this part of "integrity", you can find it here.

 

Anyone in a match can destroy The Beautiful Game . . .

        The new Premiership season is off and running only a few months after that dramatic day at the end of last season, when in the last moments of the 380^th game, Manchester City bettered Manchester United by scoring in the 94^th minute of their match against Queens Park Rangers, winning the title on goal-difference.  In a piece of fiction, such an ending to a story would be called fanciful or implausible, but there I sat, watching enthralled as reality performed its magic.

         I have loved this game for more than six decades, captivated by the skills involved, the drama of sporting contest, the ability of two teams to create a panoply of human emotions in one short interval of an hour-and-a-half, and its ability to transform what appears to be a collective stalemate into a victory in one supreme act of match-winning brilliance by an individual player.  It is indeed The Beautiful Game, and I am pleased that I have shared the field with the man who invented that phrase.

         So, what am I leading up to . . . ?