Dear Ann...
WARNING: This is a satire. Every word written after this paragraph is dripping with pure sarcasm and irony. If you cannot hear the irony or sarcasm, stop reading immediately. This is in response to Ann Coulter's editorial written here: http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html
Dear Ms. Coulter,
My hat’s off to you, Ms. Coulter! Bravo! Thank you for voicing exactly what is on the mind of everyone.
I absolutely agree. Soccer (or “football” as the rest of the world mistakenly calls it - you and I perfectly well know “football” is not played at all with your feet, it’s played with your hands, throwing around a pig skin… the rest of the world has it backwards).
The length of a soccer game is morbidly offensive! I mean, 90 minutes (plus, God forbid, a few minutes overtime)? I shudder. I’d rather go to a baseball game that lasts for hours on end.
I mean, it’s not like it takes actual skill to play soccer. And who cares that the harder the work, the sweeter the reward, when you can have immediate satisfaction? I’d rather have a bunch of points stacked up during game time, instead of seeing the goal keeper deftly catch the ball over, and over… Or see the defending team strategize to keep the opponent from scoring… I mean, who does that in a sport, anyway (stop the opposing team from scoring, I mean)?
1. Individual Achievement: You’re absolutely right - there is no individual contributor on a team of soccer players. They are a bunch of nameless men in jerseys running up and down a field (I refuse to call it a “pitch”). No one player makes a significant difference. For example, the Portuguese man who scored the final goal in the match against the U.S. just seconds before the clock rang out, thus tying the game? Totally anonymous. I’m sure no one in Portugal even remembers his name or celebrates his goal… What was his name again… Christian…something?
Like I said: total anonymity.
(2) “Liberal moms like soccer because it’s a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level.”
Sports that have both men and women playing on equal footing, on the same field at the same time? What an idea! I mean, in American football, a woman’s place is not even on the field, but off to the side and jumping up and down in a mini-skirt, sexually objectified. So you’re saying “Let the men play the real game”?
(4) “The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport.”
I know! Which is why we pad our American football players with pads and helmets. It’s an extreme contact sport. Unlike soccer, where they aren’t even wearing a helmet! Sure, a few soccer players get broken and bloody noses, cleated, broken ankles, knees… but they’re just pansies. I mean, that soccer player who was knocked unconscious, and when he came to, he asked to be put back in the game (and actually played for the remainder of it)? That’s nothing! I heard Kobe Bryant was for a whole season due to an injury of some sort.
(5) “You can’t use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here’s a great idea: Let’s create a game where you’re not allowed to use them!”
Yeah, exactly! Any sport that does not require hands is no sport at all! For example, it’s not like marathon running, high jump, speed skating, and the like are real sports, are they?
(7) “It’s foreign. In fact, that’s the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring Americans to love soccer.”
Wow, so are you saying that because it’s “foreign”, we shouldn’t even explore it? Then maybe you’re not a fan of Japanese sushi, German cars, Mexican food, Columbian coffee…?
(8) “Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it’s European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren’t committing mass murder by guillotine.”
Yeah, that crazy metric system? I mean, 100C is boiling and 0C is freezing? Confusing! And that 100 cm = 1 meter, and 1000 meters = 1 kilometer? That’s crazy-talk. It’s much easier to convert 12 inches = 1 foot, and 5280 feet = 1 mile. So much simpler for comparison-sake.
(9) Soccer is not “catching on.” Headlines this week proclaimed “Record U.S. ratings for World Cup,” and we had to hear - again - about the “growing popularity of soccer in the United States.”
Soccer is certainly not catching on… and with currently 1-2 billion viewers, I doubt it ever will. Sigh.
Dear Ms. Coulter,
My hat’s off to you, Ms. Coulter! Bravo! Thank you for voicing exactly what is on the mind of everyone.
I absolutely agree. Soccer (or “football” as the rest of the world mistakenly calls it - you and I perfectly well know “football” is not played at all with your feet, it’s played with your hands, throwing around a pig skin… the rest of the world has it backwards).
The length of a soccer game is morbidly offensive! I mean, 90 minutes (plus, God forbid, a few minutes overtime)? I shudder. I’d rather go to a baseball game that lasts for hours on end.
I mean, it’s not like it takes actual skill to play soccer. And who cares that the harder the work, the sweeter the reward, when you can have immediate satisfaction? I’d rather have a bunch of points stacked up during game time, instead of seeing the goal keeper deftly catch the ball over, and over… Or see the defending team strategize to keep the opponent from scoring… I mean, who does that in a sport, anyway (stop the opposing team from scoring, I mean)?
1. Individual Achievement: You’re absolutely right - there is no individual contributor on a team of soccer players. They are a bunch of nameless men in jerseys running up and down a field (I refuse to call it a “pitch”). No one player makes a significant difference. For example, the Portuguese man who scored the final goal in the match against the U.S. just seconds before the clock rang out, thus tying the game? Totally anonymous. I’m sure no one in Portugal even remembers his name or celebrates his goal… What was his name again… Christian…something?
Like I said: total anonymity.
(2) “Liberal moms like soccer because it’s a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level.”
Sports that have both men and women playing on equal footing, on the same field at the same time? What an idea! I mean, in American football, a woman’s place is not even on the field, but off to the side and jumping up and down in a mini-skirt, sexually objectified. So you’re saying “Let the men play the real game”?
(4) “The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport.”
I know! Which is why we pad our American football players with pads and helmets. It’s an extreme contact sport. Unlike soccer, where they aren’t even wearing a helmet! Sure, a few soccer players get broken and bloody noses, cleated, broken ankles, knees… but they’re just pansies. I mean, that soccer player who was knocked unconscious, and when he came to, he asked to be put back in the game (and actually played for the remainder of it)? That’s nothing! I heard Kobe Bryant was for a whole season due to an injury of some sort.
(5) “You can’t use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here’s a great idea: Let’s create a game where you’re not allowed to use them!”
Yeah, exactly! Any sport that does not require hands is no sport at all! For example, it’s not like marathon running, high jump, speed skating, and the like are real sports, are they?
(7) “It’s foreign. In fact, that’s the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring Americans to love soccer.”
Wow, so are you saying that because it’s “foreign”, we shouldn’t even explore it? Then maybe you’re not a fan of Japanese sushi, German cars, Mexican food, Columbian coffee…?
(8) “Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it’s European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren’t committing mass murder by guillotine.”
Yeah, that crazy metric system? I mean, 100C is boiling and 0C is freezing? Confusing! And that 100 cm = 1 meter, and 1000 meters = 1 kilometer? That’s crazy-talk. It’s much easier to convert 12 inches = 1 foot, and 5280 feet = 1 mile. So much simpler for comparison-sake.
(9) Soccer is not “catching on.” Headlines this week proclaimed “Record U.S. ratings for World Cup,” and we had to hear - again - about the “growing popularity of soccer in the United States.”
Soccer is certainly not catching on… and with currently 1-2 billion viewers, I doubt it ever will. Sigh.