Top Ten Things We Should Blog About More in 2015 (our tenth anniversary year!)........: Soccer and Politics

Greetings to our blog readers in the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Vietnam, three places where we are surprisingly more popular than we could have ever expected! Perhaps, you guys will catch up with Slovenia (for my fellow Americans who flunked geography that's a former Yugoslav republic, yeah, that probably doesn't assist you any.......)

For the 109th time this year, we once again make fun of Cong. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va; pict. top) who is apparently fighting for companies like Amazon who don't have to pay taxes. Assuredly, this means he will have to take Jeff Bezos out for pizza the next time he's in Washington, D.C., where one may also run into Vice President Joe Biden (pictured bottom, hopefully, those of you going to Princeton University know he's the second man in charge at The White House.).

The man in the middle is Chelsea star Didier Drogba, a star player from the Ivory Coast, who also had a stint with the Istanbul soccer powerhouse Galatasaray, our favorite team. And, since the men in red and yellow tied Ankara GB 1-1 on Thursday, we presume, he is greatly missed.

Here are the top ten things we SHOULD blog more about in 2015, a year in which we will mark our tenth year of blogging!:

1. European soccer

2. Fox News nonsense

3. Israel/Palestinian nonsense

4. Cong. Bob Goodlatte

5. The Rev. Johnny Robertson of Martinsville, Va. (our favorite crazy Baptist minister)

6. Joe Biden

7. Taylor Swift

8. "Family Circus"

9. Global Warming

10. The death penalty/doing my laundry (tie)

Quotes from Off the Beat and Path (2 of 6): John Waters

When we last posted 12 days ago, Robin Williams was still alive, everyone from Bill Gates to Didier Drogba to the Florida State women's volleyball team had not taken the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and Ferguson, Mo., was a suburb of St.Louis no one outside the Show Me State knew of.

So, here is our quote from the Baltimore hipster, film director and author John Waters:

"I pride myself on the fact that work has no socially redeeming value."

Friday Night Tweets: Sports, Sports, Sports....well, mostly college women's gymnastics

Since I may well be the one crossover NCAA Women's College Gymnastics fan who also happens to love Turkish soccer (I'm a Turkish-American), I want to start by mentioning that Istanbul powerhouse GalataSaray clubbed ElazigSpor, a team from Elazig, which is in eastern Turkey, by a 3-1 score thanks to two goal from Didier Drogba, the former Chelsea star and Ivory Coast national, and one goal by emerging Turkish superstar Burak Yilmaz, earlier today.

Now for the reason 97 percent of you are tuning in, here are some tweets that were generating in regard to the the first session of today's NCAA women's gymnastics championships being held on the campus of UCLA.

The college gymnasts pictured here are British Olympian Marissa King who competes for the Florida Gators (top) and Canadian Olympian Brittany Rogers who competes for the Georgia BullDogs/GymDawgs; both teams, along with the LSU Tigers, advanced today.

The two Big 10 schools in the first session: Illinois and Minnesota were both competing in their first national championships.


There are some other tweets regarding other sporting events, but they are not many, not many at all in fact!

Here we go:

1. @UIBaseball Iowa Baseball: "Tonight's game has been postponed due to rain. #Hawks play a double header with Penn State tomorrow starting at 1:05 CST."

2. Gators Gymnastics: "Gymnastics team advances to Super Six; Bridget Sloan is All-Around leader."

3. Illini Gymnastics @IlliniGym: "Florida, LSU, Georgia advance to Super Six #Illini women finish 5th in session with a 195.7, their highest team total ever."

4. MacKenzi Caquatto @MackMacko (a gymnast with Florida): "@AlexMorganVarga: Congrats to @MackMacko and the Gators for finishing first at NCAA Qualifying #ncaagym_ thank you. Good luck to y'all "

5. UCLA Gymnastics @uclagymnastics: "Session 1 #ncaawgym Finals: Florida-197.775, LSU 19.325, Georgia 197.150, Minnesota 196.375, Illinois 195.700, Stanford 194.700"

6. Minnesota Gymnastics @GophersWomensGym: "@KylaSledita recieves a 9.85 on vault and @JennyCovers gets a 9.825."

7. USA Water Polo @USAWP: "Also don't forget to mention our own Adam Kirkorian @WaterPoloCoachK will be live tweeting tonight's USC-UCLA matchup."

8. Chelsea Davis @Gymdogchels: "RT @ChelseaDfans: Congrats to Georgia #supersix! Thank you!!!

http://www.collegegymfans.com

http://www.twitter.com/turkishsoccer

Sports Desk- Zambia is Feeling the Joy of Victory

In what may well be one of the greatest sports stories in recent years, the southern African nation of Zambia won soccer's African Cup of Nations with a 0-0 (8-7) victory over heavily favored Ivory Coast in Libreville, Gabon, yesterday.

The Gabonese capital was the site of a great soccer tragedy for Zambia some 20 years ago in 1993 when a military plane carrying 30 people, including 18 Zambian soccer players for the national team, crashed killing everyone on the plane.

But, yesterday, Stopira Sunzu, 22, killed the game-winning penalty kick to prople Zambia to vicotry. Goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene, 27, (pictured) was the other hero of the game for Zambia as he stopped a penalty kick from Ivory Coast superstar Didier Drogba (who also plays for Chelsea) during the penalty shoot-out phase of the game.

To put into terms of how incredible Zambia's road to victory, which also included a 1-0 victory over Cup favorite Ghana in the semi-finals, it essentially would be something akin to an Ivy League school winning the Final Four here in America.

Ivory Coast has many soccer icons, including English Premiere League players in Droba, Gervinho (Arsenal) and Yaya Toure (Manchester City).

During regulation time, Drogba also missed a penalty kick in the 70th minute of play and a header in extra-time. Toure also missed a key goal-scoring opportunity in the 30th minute of play.

For Zambia, Emmanuel Mayuka, who scored the game-winning goal over Ghana, missed a key chance to win the game in regulation.

The BBC reported this morning, that people were puring onto the streets of Lusaka, Zambia's capital and celebrating well into the night.

Quote of the Week/Day- Che Guevara

For the record: "No, I'm not a socialist, but I would be one if I lived in Provo, Utah."

Nevertheless, the Argentinian radical revolutionary figure Che Guevara (1928-1967) who was executed in Bolivia at age 38, has been good for massive hit totals on our two blogs. And, personally, I'd love to have this puppet for Christmas, if not to see the shocked look on a conservative friend's face.

By the way, we are dedicating to one Paul Doss of Roanoke, Va., who wrote in a letter-to-editor to "The Roanoke Times" in which he defended folks like Donald Trump and Uncle Scrooge. He added that 'anyone who wants socialism should move to Europe.' Of course, my response to that is that if Newt Gingrich becomes president, many of us may actually opt for Cuba.

And, while researching this piece, we found that many actors have played Che Guevara on film, including Antonio Banderas (in "Evita," 1996), Benicio Del Toro, Gael Garcia Bernali and most astonishingly Omar Sharif (?!). Yes, the Egyptian actor who is still alive played the title role in "Che!" (the dubious 1969 version, not the one which got a Criterion Edition release). Of course, in this same version of Che, the late Jack Palance (1919-2006) played Fidel Castro.

So, irregradless if your political legions are with Ron Paul or Noam Chomsky, here is the quote from Che:

"In a revolution one wins or dies, if it is a real one."

This our first in a month-long series of quotes from famous Latin Americans.

SIDEBAR ONE: The road trip between the two Charleston takes C) 8 hours, 30 minutes (see Saturday's entry).

SIDEBAR TWO: Didier Drogba, the Ivory Coast national, who is the main star for English soccer power Chelsea, scored two goals in UEFA Champions play for a 3-0 victory over Spanish team Valencia. This helped Chelsea win Group E.

Here is a partial rundown of the eight games played today in Europe; the stars indicate the teams that advance:

Shankhtar Donetsk (Ukraine) 2 *APOEL (Cyprus) 0

Porto (Portugal) 0 *Zenit (Russia) 0, tie

*Barcelona 4 BATE (Bulgaria) 0

*AC Milan 2, Plzen (Czech Rep.) 2, tie

SIDEBAR THREE: Last night, my fellow Turkish-American progressive Cenk Uygur made an impressive debut with Current TV on his show "The Young Turks" as he took great digs at Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann. But, my favorite segment was when he uncovered footage from Fox News of some right-wing nut pundit saying that the new Muppets movie "The Muppets" is encouraging children to become communists. And, the reason for this is because the film suggests big oil companies don't have our best interests at heart; uh huh! Tonight, Uygur welcomes Al Gore as his guest.

Quote of the Week- Brian Orser

Today, we continue to quote famous Canadians we quip men's figure skater Brian Orser, who turns 50 on Dec. 18. Orser won silver medals at both the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo (which was in Yugoslavia at the time, now it's the capital of Bosnia) and the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, in front of Orser's home fans.

Orser lost his quest for gold to American ice skater Brian Boitano, in what became known as "The Battle of the Brians."

Today, Orser is known for coaching young figure skaters. Among his proteges is Yuna Kim (or Kim yu-Na), 21, a South Korean women's figure skater who won gold at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Here is Orser's quote:

"It's not who does the most tricks, but the total package."

SIDEBAR: Tonight, my alma mater Radford University faces the University of Kentucky, a team ranked second in the nation, in NCAA men's basketball. The game will be in Lexington, Ky. I wish the Highlanders well as they face the Wildcats. Assuredly, if the team wins I may have a chance of a date with Vendela.

SIDEBAR 2: As of late, I have become very interested in European soccer, especially regarding English teams. Today, in UEFA action, Arsenal beat German team Dortmund 2-0 on two goals from their star Robin Van Persie.

But, Chelsea did not fare well against another German team Bayer Leverkusen by a 2-1 margin. Chelsea star and Ivory Coast national Didier Drogba scored the first goal of the away match in the 48th minute of play. However, Eren Derdiyok, a Swiss national of Kurdish descent who also has Turkish citizenship, scored the equalizer for the home squad in the 73rd minute. And, then German national team star Manuel Friedrich scored the game winner for Bayer in extra time. Thus, Chelsea fell 2-1.

In other games, Bracelona beat AC Milan 3-2, and the Czech team Viktoria Pizen scored a 1-0 victory over BATE Borisev, a team from Belarus.

Things We Learned on Google Today- Bayern Munich Has Won Four UEFA Titles

This is the seventh entry in our series of looks at professional soccer teams. So far, we have looked at teams from two continents: Europe and North America.

Today, we turn our attention to the German Bundesliga where Bayern Munich has reigned supreme over the decades. The two has four UEFA titles, including three in row from 1974-76, and another title in 2001. The team was runner-up in 2010.

In addition, Bayern has won 22 German titles, and 15 domestic cups.

Yesterday, Bayern beat their long-time rival Kaiserslautern 3-0, a week after they destroyed Hamburg SV 5-0. Yesterday's game started at 9:30 a.m. yesterday, east coast American time.

We are featuring an image of Mehmet Scholl, who was a star player for the team in the 2000s, and he was among the first players of Turkish heritage (Germany has the largest Turkish population outside Turkey) to become a soccer superstar in the Bundesliga.

The team's most legendary player is Franz Beckenbauer who played during the '70s and helped Germany dominate world soccer internationally (well, there was also Brazil which featured some guy named Pele) during his career.

Bayern's current roster includes German players Thomas Mueller and Mario Gomez as well as Dutch star Franck Ribery, who once played for Turkish soccer power GalataSaray (a team we featured earlier in the series).

SIDEBAR: Yesterday, in the English Premiere League, Didier Drogba of Chelsea, one of the star player in the league, suffered a 30-minute concusion in the 71st minute of play in Chelsea's 3-1 win over Norwich City.

SIDEBAR TWO: Our congratulations go out to American tennis player John Isner, of Greensboro, NC. The 'local boy' won the Winston-Salem Open over Julien Benneateau of France in a match that somehow did not get rained out due to Hurricane Irene, which battered the North Carolina coast yesterday.

Things We Learned on Google Today-Galatasaray Founded in 1905

I wasn't sure if the year was 1905 or 1907, but Google told me that the famed Turkish soccer powerhouse club Galatasaray (they play in Istanbul) was founded in (what year was it again) 1905.

While researching this piece, I found out some other interesting things about the team I root for in Turkish soccer, along with Bursaspor in Bursa, Turkey.

Apparently, the current GS captain Arda Turan, 24, is on his way to play for Chelsea in the English Premiere League in exchange for the Ivory Coast legend Didier Drogba, who captained his country's national team at the 2010 World Cup. This was reported in the English newspaper "The Daily Mail," though Turan is still listed as a member of GS on his Wikipedia page.

This would be quiet ironic for two reasons. The first is that there was an ugly incident involving soccer fans from another English team Leeds when they played in Istanbul in 2000. An argument broke out between fans for both teams and two Leeds fans were murdered. The fact that Turkish authorities were not able to convict anyone until just last year was actually given as a reason why Turkey shouldn't join the European Union, which ironically many Greek citizens now want out of. (Irony is perhaps my favorite word in the English language, so perhaps I allowed to overuse it!).

The other surprising item I came across is that former GS captain and legendary soccer player Hakan Sukur (b. 1971) who scored a record 228 goals in Turkish Premiere League is now a member of the Turkish Parliament in Ankara. Alas, he represents President Abdullah Gul's and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's conservative AK Party. I would have actually preferred to see him play for Fenerbahce (the main GS rival).

Quote of the Week- Didier Drogba (Soccer Player from Ivory Coast)

This quote from soccer player Didier Drogba, an Ivory Coast national player who also plays for the English soccer power Chelsea FC, wraps the quotes from people associated with the 32 countries in The World Cup on this blog.

Keep in mind, I divided the quotes between my two blogs (the one being "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time) so there are actually 16 people from 16 countries here on this blog which started with South African playwright Athel Fugard of "Master Harold and the Boys" fame.

Alas, Ivory Coast did not advance from its group which had two highly touted teams in Brazil and Portugal. But, Ivory Coast won its last match over North Korea 3-0.

I guess from now on (pardon the pun) we resume 'regular programming.'

Here is the quote, which is of course about soccer:

"Our number one opponents are not Liverpool, Arsenal or Manchester United. It is ourselves."