Daily Archives: June 5, 2014

Eduardo Galeano: ‘My great fear is that we are all suffering from amnesia’

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“Most mornings it’s the same. At the breakfast table Uruguayan-born author, Eduardo Galeano, 72, and his wife, Helena Villagra, discuss their dreams from the night before. ‘Mine are always stupid,’ says Galeano. ‘Usually I don’t remember them and when I do, they are about silly things like missing planes and bureaucratic troubles. But my wife has these beautiful dreams.’ One night she dreamt they were at an airport where all the passengers were carrying the pillows they had slept on the night before. Before they could board officials would run their pillows into a machine that would extract the dreams from the night before and make sure there was nothing subversive in them. When she told him he was embarrassed about the banality of his own. ‘It’s shaming, really.’ There is not much magical about Galeano’s realism. But there is nothing shaming in it either. This septuagenarian journalist turned author has become the poet laureate of the anti-globalisation movement by adding a laconic, poetic voice to non-fiction.” Guardian

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A Fairer World Cup Draw

“The United States has drawn one tough World Cup group, which includes Germany (currently the second-ranked team in the world), Portugal (ranked third) and Ghana (38th). (In the October rankings used for the Dec. 6 draw, Portugal was ranked 14th and Ghana 23rd.) That much is known. But here is something many fans don’t know: The difficulty of the United States’ group is not merely a byproduct of bad luck. It’s a perfectly normal outcome from the selection rules created by FIFA, soccer’s governing body.” NY Times

Jürgen Klinsmann’s Soccer Mandate

“If you talk with Germans about Jürgen Klinsmann’s ill-fated stint as the coach of F.C. Bayern Munich, it’s only a matter of time until they bring up the matter of the Buddha statues. After arriving in July of 2008 at Bayern—the free-spending New York Yankees-style hegemon of the German soccer league—Klinsmann’s first intervention was to personally oversee an overhaul of the team’s training center. The local press openly wondered whether the movie theatre, the so-called ‘quiet room,’ and the high-end d.j. console that he installed had much, if anything, to do with soccer, but they seemed willing to give Klinsmann the benefit of the doubt.” New Yorker

World Cup Commercial Featuring Chilean Miners Will Give You Goose Bumps

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“Chile is once again rallying around the miners who were rescued after being trapped underground for 69 days. However, this time, the 32 men who survived the mining accident are not asking for food or prayers, but rather for support for the country’s soccer team as it heads into this year’s World Cup. And ’32 men’ is not a typo. Thirty-three workers were rescued; however, one of them was from Bolivia and is not featured in a new commercial from Banco de Chile. The bank is an official sponsor of the Chilean team and published its new commercial on YouTube on May 27.” Yahoo (Video)

The World Cup of World Cup 2014 songs – as it happened

“You join us for the inaugral Guardian World Cup of World Cup songs. The idea is simple, we’ll put each country’s World Cup song up against each other and you, the reader, can vote on which should go through to the next round. We’ll hopefully end up with a final that will lead us to this year’s best/least worst World Cup song.” Guardian (Video)