How Money Threatens the Future of Soccer

 Samuel Eto'o (Tommy Klumker/Flickr)

U.S. sports fans probably haven’t paid much attention to the latest news in football (as soccer is called outside the U.S.): Cameroon international and Inter Milan striker  Samuel_Eto'o  will be transferred from Italian club Inter Milan to Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala  for a transfer fee of $38.9 million (which is a lot but was dwarfed this season by other transfers such as $42 million for Barcelona striker Fabregas, $60 million for Paris St. Germain player Javier Pastore, and $62 million for Machester City player Segio Aguero).

If Eto’o’s transfer fee is not a record, what makes it so special? First, his annual pay is a record at $28.8 million. That still doesn’t tell the full story. If you have never heard of the Russian football club Anzhi Makhachkala, you are not the only one. It's a club based in Makhachkala, capital of the southern Russian province of Dagestan , quite obscure till it was purchased earlier this year by..............

'What's On The Table? - Combatting New York City’s Hunger Crisis

The U.S. is in a hunger crisis, although you may not know. Especially in America's financial and media capital New York City, where approximately 3 million people regularly have trouble affording food (mind you, this is over one third of New York's population of around 8 million people!) 1.4 million people rely on soup kitchens to feed themselves and their families. One in 5 children live in “food insecure” households, a euphemism for hungry families, and one in 6 senior citizens receives meals from emergency food providers.  Last weekend I joined an event organized by...........

How Important is the Iowa Straw Poll Really?

Tim Pawlenty in Ames, Iowa

As the presidential elections are again looming, Iowa, located in the American heartland and ranked the 30^th state in the U.S with a population of just over three million,( i.e. less than 1 % of the U.S. population), takes on its role as kingmaker of the U.S. presidential elections. But is this role justified or even accurate? Last weekend’s example of its outsized influence was on display with the Ames Straw Poll, which is taken by the Republican Iowans every presidential election since 1979. In this year’s straw poll an impressive 16,892 (!) mostly conservative Republican voters cast their votes, many of whom were bused in and received free tickets and food from the candidates. Winner was ....

Record Breaking Poverty Leads to Poverty Tour

(povertytour.smileyandwest.com)

While one of the wildest weeks in global capital markets is coming to an end, even more economic devastation is going on among the poor in the United States. The most recent U.S. Census data show that 14,3%  of the population or 43,6 million Americans, lived in poverty in 2009, which is the highest percentage in 15 years and the highest number to live in poverty in the 51 years poverty estimates are available. (Poverty is defined as $21,954 for a family of four.) Also,.....

When Bears Attack - in Wilderness and on Wall Street

Over the last month, we have witnessed terrifying news about bear attacks in the natural wilderness, and also on Wall Street, proving animal spirits are making our planet more and more dangerous:

Does Anyone Have a Vision for America?

Edgar D. Mitchell (edmitchellapollo14.com)

“The first thing that came to mind as I looked at Earth was its incredible beauty. […] It was a majestic sight—a splendid blue    and white jewel suspended against a velvet black sky. […]

 Next I thought of our planet’s life-supporting character. That little    globe of water, clouds and land no bigger than my thumb was home, the haven our spacecraft would seek at the end of our voyage […] Then my thoughts turned to daily life on the planet. With that, my sense of wonderment gradually turned into something close to anguish. Because I realized that at that very moment […] people of Earth were fighting wars, committing murder and other crimes; lying, cheating and struggling for power and status; abusing the environment by polluting the water and air, wasting natural resources, and ravaging the land, acting out of lust and greed; and hurting others through intolerance, bigotry, prejudice and all the things that add up to man’s inhumanity to man. It seemed as though man were totally unconscious of his individual role in—and individual responsibility for—the future of life on the planet.”

These are the words of Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut, moonwalker and visionary.  He wrote the above quote in his book Psychic Exploration, published in 1974 just a few years after his visit to the moon. After years of being out of print, this book is now available again and is a testimony to Mitchell’s vision that the world can be a better place and.....

Tale of Two Americas: Democrats vs Republicans

                                                         (Bob Englehart/Hartford Courant)

There is a tale of two Americas going on, and I’m not referring to John Edward’s campaign slogan.
Many of us, regular citizens, journalists, politicians or economists, have been witnessing the saga developing in the US for quite some time now. Grown-up men and women, smart enough to ensure their own career as politicians and to convince donors and voters, seem to have lost it completely when it comes to getting anything else done. They are Republicans or Democrats and convinced they are 100% right and the others are 100% wrong. They don't........