Are soccer players from violent countries more likely to get yellow cards?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

A new study [pdf] by three researchers purports to show that soccer players in European leagues who come from countries with histories of civil war are more likely to play violently on the field, as measured by their tendency to get yellow and red cards. Check out the chart here— and notice that the two countries nearly off the grid are Colombia and Israel.

So does growing up in a violent country mean you’ll be a dirtier soccer player? Well, not necessarily. There are, of course, a couple problems with the study:

  • As any Stat 101 student knows, correlation does not imply causality. Perhaps the soccer played in certain countries– Colombia, Israel, Ivory Coast, Georgia– is just more physical than the soccer in Europe.
  • Maybe the referees are biased.
  • Maybe the players are getting yellow cards for diving rather than hard tackles.
  • Maybe a lot of things.

Despite these apparent problems, I find the study ingenious and fascinating. As the study says: “Beyond providing a novel real-world measure of individuals’ willingness to commit acts of violence, this finding indicates that some aspects of national culture are persistent even when individuals are far from home in a different institutional setting, here, a professional sports league.”

More here.

Charlton Heston movie trivia and travel

by Jamie Rhein on

When I read that Charlton Heston died last night, an image of him parting the Red Sea as Moses crossed my mind. “The Ten Commandments” was on TV just two weeks ago. While channel flipping, I came across it and he was just getting ready to hold up that staff. According to the New York Times article, the scene where he came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandment tablets was filmed at Mount Sinai.

“Planet of the Apes” has several locations you can also go to and might recognize if you watch the movie. The scene with the top of the Statue of Liberty resting in the sand was filmed in a cove near Point Dume at Zuma in Malibu. The rest of the desert scenes were filmed around Lake Powell (where the spaceship crashed and the crew went to land), Glen Canyon and Page, Utah. I’ve driven through these places and they are gorgeous. I can imagine back in the 60s they were less traveled than today. Malibu Creek State Park was where the ape village was built. Fox Studios use to own the property. Here’s Charlton Heston’s World, a Web site I came across that has several “Planet of the Apes” photos and audio clips.

Other trivia. If you head to Rome, you’ll be near where the chariot race in “Ben-Hur “was filmed at Cinecittà Studios and the Sistine Chapel where Heston played Michaelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy.

As an interesting aside, not movie related, Charlton Heston was involved in the Civil Rights March on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. With Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination 40 years-ago, just the day before yesterday, and Heston’s death the day after, that struck me. I don’t know why. It just did.

The State of the Planet? Dismal

by Iva Skoch on

As I mentioned on Thursday, I attended the State of the Planet conference, hosted by The Earth Institute and The Economist magazine at Columbia University in New York.

I will try to give you some tidbits of information from the conference without making you run out and commit suicide immediately, just to save the world from over-population. According to some experts, it is too late for that anyway.

On poverty

As I mentioned in this blog last week, Kofi Annan opened the conference. To really get things going, he summarized the state of the planet as “dismal.” Among other things, Annan mentioned that even though the Millennium Villages program has been doing a great job, there are still 200 million people in Africa who go to sleep hungry every night.

On that note, Erik Reinert, author of the book How Rich Countries Get Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor, said that the problem with hunger in Africa is there is too much focus on agriculture and food production. I liked the paradox he used: “Famine occurs in those places in the world that specialize in producing food.” The most efficient farmers are actually in places where industry is much more prevalent and where people tend to die of overeating (US, Europe). At the same time, Europe and the US need state subsidies for agriculture. Same paradox applies to countries low in natural resources. They are usually the ones that get rich.

The two main reasons for conflict in the world are scarcity of local resources and scarcity of global resources. Mineral-dependent countries are the ones most prone to conflict (think Sierra Leone, Middle East…). For example, in Peru, one in every two people live on $2/day. However, in the “rich” mining areas, most people live on less than $1/day. The poor allocation of resources is what they call the ‘resource curse.’

Reinert also argued that we are not helping Africa much by “simply giving.” Giving water to the people “who say they need water” is one of the least effective ways to give. He said we need to learn how to teach them how to prevent these problems in the future, not just trying to fix the symptoms of those problems. Which brings me to my next point…

Climate Change

Africa’s landscape and climate has already been affected by global warming. Plants that used to grow in some regions no longer grow there because some areas have simply become too dry or mineral depleted. Different types of fish have already migrated north.

Experts, however, remain optimistic on climate change. At least those who believe that progress and innovation are the cure for everything. “One hundred years ago, the problem in Manhattan was horse crap,” said one of the panelists. Apparently, so many people used horses, there was literally horse droppings everywhere (not just all around Central Park as now). Back then, the alarmists used to say that the planet would end because it would be buried in horse crap. It didn’t. Instead, people invented a car.

The point being, of course, that now we are at the stage where we fear the car is the source of our imminent doom. Instead, we need to encourage innovation and let R&D experts come up with better alternatives to the car. Here, I especially enjoyed the not-so-popular argument of Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems and, hence, a billionaire, who said the US is going to solve the world’s climate change problem. “Who else is going to do it?” he said. “The UN in useless. Europe is even more useless.” Ouch.

Jeffrey Sachs, economist and head of the Earth Institute, closed the conference by saying that the world has changed to the point that America can no longer put its national interests ahead of international interests. That could be a problem. As Sachs said, “Part of America’s founding principles is that you don’t have to love your neighbor.” If we want to get anywhere in the next few years, that attitude will apparently have to change.

You can watch video of the entire event here.

Photos: Courtesy of The Earth Institute.

Pico Iyer: Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

by Jamie Rhein on

Pico Iyer, my ultimate favorite travel writer, has a new book out Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Whenever I see Iyer’s name, it’s like a laser beam calling me to read it.

The book chronicles Iyer’s 30 year history with the Dalai Lama that that began when he first met him. This was back before fame struck either of them. As he told in an interview with World Hum, Iyer got the idea for the book five years ago after the war in Iraq started. Then Iyer began to look into the patterns of the Dalai Lama’s life and travels and Iyer’s own. From my understanding, the book is mostly about the Dalai Lama with Iyer’s presence dipping in and out of depending on the chapter and theme.

The idea sounds fascinating to me. I do think there are people who come into our lives at particular times that are turning points for us. Certain world events offer a backdrop or a heightened sense of awareness in our own day to day meanderings. The book also intrigues me because of my own chance encounters with both Iyer and the Dalai Lama that left an impression.

In Dharamsala, in the courtyard of the monastery where he lives, the Dalai Lama walked right by us as he made his way to address the audience who had crowded in to hear him talk. It was the day before the U.S. went into Iraq. I remember how beamy he seemed when he walked by right where I stood leaning against a fence of the courtyard. Being with people from all over the world at an audience on the day before the U.S. went into Iraq is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It’s an unusual happening at an unusual time in an unusual place kind of thing.

As for Pico Iyer, I had no idea he was in New Delhi when I sat down in my living room with a cup of coffee and the newspaper one morning. There his name was under a things happening today type section. At a writers conference. “Pico Iyer’s at a writing conference!” I sputtered out, spewing coffee. “Pico Iyer! Today, as in now,” I moaned. “Oh, why do I find out about these things so late?”

“Let’s go then,” my husband said, grabbing our then one-month old and the diaper bag. He didn’t want to be left stranded for who knows how long until I returned. So there we were, hustling for a taxi. We sat in the balcony of the auditorium during the panel discussion that Iyer was moderating.

Afterwards, I went downstairs to say hello and hand Iyer a short odd little creative non-fiction piece I wrote about him. He shook my hand, seemed pleased, and sent me a thank-you post card later. And that’s my Dalai Lama/Pico Iyer global journey story. I’m not sure what turning point I had in my life as a result of seeing either one of them. I think I’m still waiting, but the encounters make me smile when I think about them, so perhaps, that’s enough. [via World Hum]

Tip for women: confront men only while walking or driving

by Iva Skoch on

This is my fourth day in Colorado. So far, I have learned a few important things:

  1. It is not always as sunny as they say. (This is clearly bad luck on my part)
  2. Airport conveyor belts can be really cool and helpful
  3. Women should get into arguments with men only while walking or driving

The third point has nothing to do with my personal experience. I heard this tip on TV here on Friday. Some expert was talking about how to keep the married flame alive after 10+ years of marriage and one of her points was that men do not like face-to-face arguments. Apparently, they are much better at arguing when they can look straight ahead and not into your eyes. Hence the tip about approaching sensitive subjects while driving or walking. There you have it. glad I saved your marriage?

Now, please, do not attempt to get into Italian-style arguing while driving. Could be dangerous.