Remembrance of things past-9

Having left India in the second half of the 1980s, and not having kept up with popular culture since then means that, well, ....!  Life has been about creating entirely new sets of memories since then, and am all the better and wiser as a result.
Here is one of my many favorite film songs from years past; this one is by a classically trained singer, Vani Jayaram.  As with almost all the film songs that I still cherish, I have not watched the movies in which they were featured.  And, as with operas, I have no clue most of the time about what the words mean because all I had even then was a rudimentary understanding of Hindi, while the lyrics were poetry.  But, yes, no knowing what the words mean did not stop me from enjoying the music then--and even now, for instance, when I listen to Edith Piaff :)

Are we f*ing idiots?

That is what Jon Stewart asks ... this is a must-watch segment, which tells a far better story (of course!) than the one I did earlier ... once again, will be super-hysterically funny if it weren't true.
Stewart also points out something that I tell students when we discuss environmental aspects--the political label of R or D can be misleading, and the best example is Nixon.  Yes, that unethical president who resigned in disgrace and didn't do jail time only because he was given a swift presidential pardon.  Nixon created the EPA that most of the current Republicans dis all the time.
Oh well, here is Stewart:

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Feel good photo (story) of the day

The BBC:

The tawny owl chick tumbled from its nest and hopped right up to Indu, a two-metre-long Asiatic lion.

Zoo visitors raised the alarm, but it was too dangerous for anyone to go into the enclosure to rescue the owl.

The big cat wasn't interested in its new feathery friend though, and it's thought the owl later flew to safety.

Abba performing "Dancing Queen" at the wedding, again?

tomorrow ... Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria marries fitness trainer Daniel Westling. Five hundred million television viewers across Europe are expected to watch the 20m Krona (£1.7m) spectacle in Stockholm's specially renovated cathedral.

That report from The Guardian also notes that:

even non-royal watchers have taken an interest in the celebration, which it has been rumoured, will see Abba re-convene for the first time in almost three decades to perform for the royal couple — and play Dancing Queen.

Will be neat if they did perform :)

Quote of the day: on politics

In opposition Mr Cameron vowed that, were he to become prime minister, politics and government would not be "some demented branch of the entertainment industry". So far, he has been as good as his word. This seems to be a government that speaks up when it has something to say, but when it hasn't, or when keeping quiet is more sensible, it doesn't. It is both quiet and dramatic at the same time.

Awesome, that the British prime minister actually described politics and government as "some demented branch of the entertainment industry" ... Good you, Mr. Cameron.
In that same posting, Bagehot of The Economist also notes that

Right-wing British newspapers are often every bit as shrill as the American media. Leaping on the chance to display some easy, knee-jerk patriotism, several urged David Cameron to stand up for “British Petroleum” and rebuke Barack Obama for demonising the company. Instead, the line has been that the government neither owns nor will disown BP—and quietly to point out that the firm has lots of American shareholders and employees too. Ministers saw Mr Obama’s rhetoric for what it was: the flailing of a politician in a desperate fix. By saying very little in public, they defused what threatened to become a juvenile spat.

I really, really hope that this Tory-LibDem coalition will work out ...

A Tale of Two Gulfs

Taking off on the classic Charles Dickens work, A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps the economic, environmental, and geopolitical aspects of petroleum can be woven together as A Tale of Two Gulfs.

Growing up in India, I, like many others, was familiar with “the Gulf” to which hundreds of thousands of Indians headed every year.  The geographic area referred to was the Persian Gulf, which had gained prominence thanks to the phenomenal growth in employment in the oil-rich Gulf countries—specifically, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait. 

Here in the US, in the current contexts, “the Gulf” now refers to the Gulf of Mexico, where oil has been gushing out from a mile under the sea for two months now.  The live video feed from the site continues to mesmerize not only us here in America, but in the rest of the world as well.

But, more than thirty years ago, it was that other Gulf, and the oil there, that monopolized the attention of Americans.  In 1979, the Iranian revolution ousted the Shah, and installed a theocratic regime, and the geopolitical instability that resulted triggered a massive increase in the global price for oil.  The high oil prices that were recorded then went unmatched until very recently, immediately before the Great Recession. 

As the planet watched the unfolding events in Iran, and struggled to cope with the high price of oil, President Jimmy Carter addressed the country—and the world—in the “Crisis of Confidence” speech.  Carter noted early on in that speech on July 15, 1979, “I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?”

Thirty-one years have gone by since Carter’s frustration that we have not been able to figure a way out of the energy problem.  Six months later, after losing the election in November, Carter stated in his State of the Union address that the official position of the United States was that “an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

Since then, we have been quite fixated on the Persian Gulf, with mostly disastrous economic and human costs.  While Carter couched this doctrine in the context of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the altered landscape since the fall of the Communist bloc has apparently not dented our perspectives on the Persian Gulf and petroleum. 

Even more, despite the political fixation, I suppose most Americans are unfamiliar with the geography and geopolitics.  Every once in a while I quiz students on the Persian Gulf and Middle Eastern countries, and rare is a student who correctly identifies at least a half of them.   

As problems began in the “other” Gulf—the Gulf of Mexico—I asked students in my introductory class to quiz at least six on campus about the catastrophe.  One of the questions was to list all the states in the union that border the Gulf of Mexico.  The results of this exercise, also, were far from encouraging. 

Our collective apathy about the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico, and the valued resource that is in common—petroleum—is depressing.  Particularly when we project it against the background of Carter’s speech from 1979, in which he observed that “the energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.”

We threw out any sense of urgency once the Persian Gulf crisis eased.  The Gulf of Mexico gusher, which ought to have been avoided in the first place, will be capped, hopefully sooner than later.  But, even after the images of oil-stained pelicans disappear from the daily news, I hope we will stay focused enough to write the rest of A Tale of Two Gulfs, and get to my favorite phrase: The End!

Thank you for smoking!

Ok, if you are like me, well, I am sorry for you :)
No, seriously, if your childhood was similar to mine, then you looked forward to the newspaper or the magazine that had a puzzle for children--to spot the differences between two drawings.

Well, play that game again--this time with the photos of Churchill here.
There is only one difference between the two photos; did you see what it is?
Done?

You think there might be a back story? As Palin might say, "you betcha!"

In the well-known original image, Churchill makes a "V" shaped symbol with his fingers – while gripping a cigar in the corner of his mouth.

But in a reproduction of the picture, hanging over the main entrance to a London museum celebrating the wartime leader, he has been made into a non-smoker through the use of image-altering techniques

Get this: it was at  "The Winston Churchill's Britain at War Experience"
And we thought that Winston Smith lived only in the fictional 1984!

That is smooth--well, no beard :)

Every few years, I begin to wonder how much difference my beard makes, and sooner or later I shave it off ... and within a matter of days I start growing the beard again because it is now so much a part of who I am ...

So, yes, that is where I am now ... but, I am doing it in stages ... I have only a mustache on for now ... looks hiiiillllarious :)

Come to think of it, if I had not left India, there is a fair chance that I would have retained my moustache (as it is spelt there) ...

I tell you, it doesn't take much to amuse myself ...

According to Shakespeare, the beard shows up in the fifth part we play in this world that is a stage:

And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.

I have commented to students on quite a few occasions that Americans are mostly a tad suspicious of men with facial hair.  Thus, it is rare for a male politician or CEO to sport a beard, or even a mustache.  (Yes, that is yet another reason why the Oregon governor race is all the more interesting!)  The last bearded president we had, well, you know who that was :) 
To a large extent, men with facial hair then tend to be found more in higher education settings and in the public sector.  Yet, I am always surprised that quite a few male faculty do not have beards, and even more surprised when they say they have never ever even experimented growing one ...

Anyway, next step--removing the mustache too.  But, a post on that is at least a week-plus away ...

Best lines of the day :)

On Monday night in Ohio, a 62-foot-tall statue of Jesus got hit by lightning and burned to the ground. (The adult bookstore across the street was unscathed.) 

Those were the opening lines from Gail Collins' column in the NY Times.
Pretty good.  Not Dickens, or Tolstoy, or Melville.  But, pretty good :)

An OMG edition: Sarah Palin

TPM via Slate:

"Well, then what the federal government should have done was accept the assistance of foreign countries, of entrepreneurial Americans who have had solutions that they wanted presented. They can't even get a phone call returned, Bill. The Dutch—they are known, and the Norwegians—they are known for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills. They offered to help and yet, no, they too, with the proverbial, can't even get a phone call back."
—To Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, June 15, 2010.

You know, maybe it is time for that Stephen Sondheim classic:

Product of the day: bicycle

I think I was about nine years old when I learnt how to ride a bike.  In my teenage years in high school, my friends and I biked all over the town, and many a time outside of the town too ...
Even as a grad student, I relied on my bike for everything from going to campus to the grocery stores.  I loved my bike, which I bought as a used--very much so--bike, and the basket in front was just the right size.  I was devastated when somebody stole it.  I could not believe that somebody would steal that very old, used bike!
Anyway, later when I was gainfully employed, I bought bikes.  But, I sold my bike more than a year ago--as I got older, the more I found the damn seat too uncomfortable!!!
But, I would love to have the bike pictured here--looks way too cool and simple ...

Bangalore-based Neil Foley is a leading Product Designer. This year he won the ‘Silver Prize' in the 14th International Bicycle Design Competition. His design ‘Spine', as the name suggests, is designed like the backbone and supports the whole body.

The designer explains:

The essence of the bicycle design is brought out by its simple, elemental and basic structure and lack of visual clutter. So I concealed the drive within the skeleton, which made it more elegant. Then the durability factor; I had to take Indian roads and weather into consideration. The basic factor I concentrated on was safety. Usually when you have an accident with a bicycle, the metal components cause the injury. So I clad the metal in Elastoma which is a shock absorber. This will help reduce injury. Also, the bicycle was made out of light weight metal; so it's easier to manage it.

Yes. I want it.  Hey, btw, if I get this bike, given the name of the design, I suppose people will no longer call me "spine"less :)

Cartoons of the day: the BP Oozathaon

We continue to fail "to resolve our serious energy problem"

After listening to President Obama's Oval Office address yesterday, I prefer the Jimmy Carter "Crisis of Confidence" speech from 30-plus years ago.  But, the fact that I am referring to Carter's speech is itself a reflection of how much the US has failed to act when it comes to energy and the environment.  Pathetic.  And, even when Obama talked about an energy policy need, he did not use that pulpit to urge the Senate to get cracking on the stalled bill ...

Bloody depressing that politics is thus ... To get more depressed (!) I thought it might be neat to dig up what President Bush (II) said about offshore drilling; wasn't a difficult search.  Here he is in July 2008--his last days of the presidency:

As all these are happening, I thought this might be the best opportunity for Al Gore to come out swinging, and say "I told you so."  But, of course, Gore is dealing with his split from his wife, and his daughter's divorce as well.  If that is what is preventing Gore from being in the public on this topic, then I am all the more impressed with his priorities--as they ought to be.
Yet,

Contrast this with last summer, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought her climate bill to the floor of Congress. Gore phoned wavering members and twisted arms alongside the president to pass the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act. As the Senate debates a version of that legislation that could reduce emissions and consumption of domestic oil reserves, Gore is far behind the scenes.

Here is the first part of Jimmy Carter's 1979 speech, where he states the main purpose behind his address: "why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?"

So, how much things do not change? Jon Stewart explains it in the context of Guantanamo:

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Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research

A couple of months ago, the dean of the college, Stephen Scheck, where I work reviewed my work over the past few years and declared that it essentially amounted to me being on the "mashed potato circuit" ... I asked him whether writing in a third- or fourth-rate journal that nobody ever reads was really worth it.  His response was even more classic--that "bean counting" was his responsibility.  (Yes, the phrases in quotes are his very words!)

As I wrote in an essay in the Chronicle Review, almost ten years ago, most of the academic "research" is pretentious work that will not sell even for penny, or for a kopek according to Anton Chekov's "Uncle Vanya" that I quoted in that essay.  I am hoping that the financial urgency will force higher education to review its bizarre facade of scholarship, before the public figures it out as much as Uncle Vanya figured it out ...

In this essay in the recent Chronicle Review, the authors note:

We need policy makers and grant makers to focus not on money for current levels of publication, but rather on finding ways to increase high-quality work and curtail publication of low-quality work. If only some forward-looking university administrators initiated changes in hiring and promotion criteria and ordered their libraries to stop paying for low-cited journals, they would perform a national service. We need to get rid of administrators who reward faculty members on printed pages and downloads alone, deans and provosts "who can't read but can count," as the saying goes. Most of all, we need to understand that there is such a thing as overpublication, and that pushing thousands of researchers to issue mediocre, forgettable arguments and findings is a terrible misuse of human, as well as fiscal, capital.

The authors list a few suggestions for reform.  What is their bottom line?

Best of all, our suggested changes would allow academe to revert to its proper focus on quality research and rededicate itself to the sober pursuit of knowledge. And it would end the dispiriting paper chase that turns fledgling inquirers into careerists and established figures into overburdened grouches.

Here is the ultimate kicker: the authors are, implicitly, referring to the research universities.  If this is their set of observations on the happenings at research universities, then one can easily imagine the state of "research" at the vast number of universities that are not research universities but teaching universities ....

In another essay, elsewhere at InsideHigherEd, Arthur Levine notes that rapidly widening gap between "Digital students, Industrial-era universities" :

[It] is important to ask how much colleges and universities need to change. In 1828, facing industrialization and a Connecticut legislature that disapproved of Yale’s classical curriculum, the Yale faculty responded with a report which asked, in part, whether the college needed to change a lot or a little. This, Yale’s faculty said, was the wrong question. The question to be asked, they argued, was: What is the purpose of a college? This remains the right question today.

Ahem, 20 years ago, the late Ernest Boyer wrote about this issue of the need to (re)establish the priorities of the professoriate!

"English muffins" are now "Freedom Muffins" :)

The anti-British rhetoric is getting a tad nasty ... click here for a round-up ....

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The Ghost Writer ...

I delayed watching the movie because I was conflicted about its director--Roman Polanski.  He is, after all, guilty of having raped a 13-year old.  And has been dodging the legal complications for 33 years.
But, dammit, he makes good movies .... an artist he is .... Now, of course, it does not mean that everybody else in the entertainment industry is a Gandhi either ...
Well, finally, I did end up watching it ... and, yes, it is a well-made movie, and well acted too.  I had no idea that Pierce Brosnan can be this good an actor.  Ewan McGregor was, as always, good.  Kim Catrall's performance was even more of a surprise--in a good way :)
Half way through the movie, I started thinking that this is a re-telling of The Manchurian Candidate.  So, to some extent, I was playing a guessing game of who the hidden spy was: the ex prime minister's wife or his erstwhile foreign secretary.  They both were good candidates ... There were a few illogical aspects in the storytelling .. but, then, come on, this was no Hitchcock movie, eh...

This Time for Africa

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Kafka and the Gulf of Mexico Oozathon

I have always been drawn to Kafka, and now I can't stop myself from following the BP catastrophe ... It is neat that thanks to one of my favorite websites I came across this fantastic piece that combines Kafka and the great ooze from the bottom of the sea:

Is there any hope in the situation? This is where on our darker days, Kafka is a bleak New Orleans prophet. He was often dark, though never a nihilist. He lived, always, at the edge of faith. Once, his friend Max Brod asked him if there was any such thing as hope in the universe. “Yes,” Kafka replied, “of course there’s hope, plenty of hope—for God. Just none for us.”

I know that punch line sounds grim, but right now it hurts so much it’s funny. In the land of disaster, even a bitter laugh is a start.

Kafka offers wonderful insights through his works.  It is too bad that many universities provide enough and more pathways for students to completely bypass Kafka--they can graduate and earn diplomas without ever even having heard about Kafka.  Unfortunate.  There is one college that has apparently been requiring incoming freshmen to read Kafka and Charles Darwin's works in the summer before they start college, and then the first few weeks of college is nothing but Kafka and Darwin all the time

[We] have asked incoming first-year students to read two texts in the summer before they arrive at Bard---Kafka's The Metamorphosis and the fourth chapter of Darwin's The Origin of Species, "Natural Selection." On some level, students will find something familiar about these summer readings as well as something counterintuitive and obscure. A simplified version of what takes place in Kafka's short story has some presence in popular culture, and at a minimum most students will have heard someone use the word "Kafkaesque." A direct encounter with the writing of this remarkable German-speaking Jew from Prague who was reluctant to have his writings published can be inspiring precisely because of the tension between image, reception, and textual reality that characterizes both The Metamorphosis and Kafka's life.

The disjunction between image and reality could not be more pronounced than in the case of Charles Darwin. The claims of no other thinker or scientist, with the possible exception of Einstein, have been so mangled and distorted in the popular imagination. Somehow every citizen thinks he or she knows what Darwin thought without actually having read his writings. Direct engagement with Darwin's work not only makes the character and significance of modern biology more apparent, exciting, and vital, but the brilliance and subtlety of Darwin's thought quickly dispel the distortions that dominate scientific journalism in the popular media.

Colleges must counter the experience of conventional high school education in the United States, where learning is little more than a standardized test-driven chore with utilitarian benefits. In college, students should discover that most of the important writings and discoveries they will study were not generated for their benefit, but rather came into being in order to illuminate and improve life. It is precisely the connection between learning and living that justifies the life of the mind and makes study and inquiry a treasured form of human activity and among the most rewarding.

This belief cannot be preached; it can only be experienced. What better mechanism to set this experience in motion than assigning common readings in the summer?

Chart of the day: Worse than Rwanda, .. or Cuba ...

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More waking up to the reality that a college degree might be worthless

I wish more would engage in sincere discussions on this critical issue that I have blogged about, well, forever it feels like! .... this time, it is the Los Angeles Times ...

After spending tens of thousands of dollars on higher education, often taking on huge debts along the way, many face a job market that doesn't seem to need them. Not only is the American economy producing few new jobs of any kind, but the ones that are being added are overwhelmingly on the lower end of the skill and pay scale.

In fact, government surveys indicate that the vast majority of job gains this year have gone to workers with only a high school education or less, casting some doubt on one of the nation's most deeply held convictions: that a college education is the ticket to the American Dream.

Therein lies the problem--universities continue to sell college as the route for economic gains.  That is what I refer to as a ponzi scheme.  Higher education is about way, way more than learning a few tricks, or how to use a tool ... If higher education were only as utilitarian and materialistic as that, well, I won't be in it :)
But, what colleges seem to do is promise students--particularly from low and low-middle income families--that a pot of gold awaits them upon graduation ... and then four years later students find out that is not the case :(

Professor Harry Frankfurt noted that whenever we begin to market, to sell--whether it is a candidate, or a consumer good--we begin to bullshit, and truth goes out the window ...

Barack Obama v. Jimmy Carter: Crisis of Confidence

With economic stagnation of sorts, and with the threat of deflation, we have the potential for a new kind of stagflation, as opposed to the stagflation during the Carter years.

The more I kept thinking about this, the more I started wondering whether there might be any more parallels ...

Congress:
Carter, too, had significant Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House:

Both chambers had a Democratic majority. It was the last time either party held a filibuster-proof (60 member) majority in the Senate, until the 111th United States Congress in 2009 (in which both chambers once again held a Democratic majority)

Petroleum:
The BP oozathaon presents a petroleum challenge to Obama, though different from the petroleum issues Carter had to deal with.

The "Gulf"
In Carter's time, it was only the Persian Gulf issues.  Now, we have the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf as issues.

And how did Carter summarize the situation then?  The following is an excerpt from his "Crisis of Confidence" speech that he gave on July 15, 1979.  Seriously, don't you think it is applicable, quite verbatim, even today?:

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.
The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America. 

 Consumer confidence is way down now.  Approval ratings for every branch of government are not anywhere near favorable.  Corporate leaders seem to be only a step or two away being from falling victims to lynch mobs ...
Carter went on to say:

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.
These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.

 I guess the difference is that we no longer bother to even say "disrespect" ... instead, we simply say "dis" :)
 More Carter:

The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.
What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.
Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don't like it, and neither do I. What can we do?
First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.

Hmmmm .....

Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources -- America's people, America's values, and America's confidence.

Good luck, President Carter, er, Obama

How Soccer Explains the World

While India and China seem to be in the news all the time when it comes to economic matters, their noticeable absence from the World Cup tournament in South Africa might be obvious even to those who are not sports junkies.

With a combined population of about 2.5 billion, China and India account for almost two-fifths of the humans on the planet, and yet their teams did not make it to South Africa.  This is not merely the result of the preliminary rounds that determine the qualifiers for the tournament, but might be a reflection of the respective sociopolitical ethos as well.

When the Olympics were held in Beijing last summer, it was clear that China had morphed into a sports power.  Chinese athletes earned the most gold medals—51—but, the United States beat China in the aggregate medal count by ten.  This rapid rise in Olympics was triggered by the Chinese government’s extensive investment in facilities and athletes themselves.

It also turns out that political decisions to invest in sports mean that there is a lot more attention paid to individual performances—such as gymnastics or diving.  Team sports require a lot more planning and coordination at various levels, and are not amenable to delivering quick results.  Further, a football—er, soccer—team, for instance, is simply more than a mere collection of eleven players on the field, and is a wonderful illustration of the philosophical notion that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.  The net result is that China did not get past the third round of the qualifiers for this World Cup. 

The US offers quite a contrast to the Chinese approach in that there is no formal government investment in sports, including football, and expenses are met primarily through sponsorships and endorsements.  The extensive network of youth soccer programs has been slowly and steadily developing quality players and the US soccer teams are no longer taken for granted.

India has neither the Chinese approach to sports, nor does it have an American style bottom-up grassroots structure.  But, it is not because the Indian population or government is indifferent to sports.  For instance, later this year, in October, India will be hosting the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, and the government spending for it has generated immense controversy. 

Whether it is the Olympics or football, India does not suffer a shortage of television viewership either.  Millions, like my high school friend who lives in Chennai, even re-arrange their schedules in order to keep up with the telecasts from abroad.  But, this passion is not reflected in the results on the field—at the Beijing Olympics, India won one gold and two bronzes for a grand total of three medals. 

Such a situation is not a result of the attention on that other great game—cricket.  After all, teams from countries with significantly lesser population, like Australia or Sri Lanka, often humble the Indian cricket team.  And in field hockey, which is another popular sport in the Subcontinent, teams from the tiny Netherlands routinely rout the Indians.  In soccer, India’s team lost to Lebanon in the first round of the qualifiers.  It turns out that a billion people do not make a sports powerhouse!

A reason that is offered more often than not—even during my childhood years—is that the Indian culture advocates contentment.  Hence, the lack of a “killer instinct” that is needed to push oneself to be a winner in sports. 

As much as it is tempting to buy into this explanation, Sweden offers quite a comparison.  The Swedish folks, after all, have their own word for moderation—“lagom”.  “Lagom” is a way of life that emphasizes individual and social attributes such as enough, sameness, and average.  However, this has not precluded the Swedes from excelling in individual or collective activities. 

A sport is, thus, more than merely about the game itself.  It presents yet another opportunity to begin to understand the peoples of the world, and their cultures and politics.  Yet, if the game of soccer does not grab one’s attention, I suggest the following books as summer readings—“Soccer and Philosophy” and “How Soccer Explains the World.”