Bitchin Dave's Newsletter - July 21st

Housekeeping: I hope everyone had a fun 4th of July celebration, and took in some part of America turning 250.  Yes, things are about as absurd as they've ever been, but this is still a great nation that in some ways is still finding its feet. 

The World Cup reached its conclusion this past weekend.  In spite of it all (more in a minute), the games were mostly fun and competitive, and the fans were great (tartan army? viking row?  yes, please).  I know futbol (or soccer. if you like) isn't for everyone, but I find the strategy of it all enticing.  And the players are very athletic - did you know the average player runs close to 8 miles in a 90 minute game?  

Spain had a great tournament, and came out on top.  For what it's worth, Argentina “felt like” they got advantages, mostly through officiating. But their opponents absolutely made tactical mistakes, like going defensive late in games, so these advantages may not be all that relevant. Still, they became reviled because of this perception and how they played a very physical game.

Anyway, the stadia hosting the games are in a bit of a rush to put back the corporate names, and return to whatever playing field that had previously been in place, because turf allows for the stadium owners to be more flexible about how the stadium is used, and arguably it costs them less to maintain than grass.

Of course, I can't just leave it there and have to comment on some things I saw during the few weeks:
  • Oh the money grab! Beyond ticketing, you may have noticed the games were at times that best suited the US/Canada/Mexico.  Fans in Europe had late nights and early mornings to watch their teams. And ads on US television were plentiful, especially during the water breaks (even though this wasn’t permissible, based on the contract)
  • There was quite the oddity surrounding a red card handed out to US Soccer player Folarin Balogun, meaning he would miss the next game.  Enter T-rump, who inserted himself, and then FIFA bent its own rules to accommodate him, and reinstated Balogun without explanation.  Two fun moments from that sequence of events:
  • FIFA talks big about environmental issues and yet, Infantino (the president) was jetting around on a private plane, creating emissions to be ashamed of.  
    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cgev5wy0zg3o
  • Officiating - as always in soccer - was a bit strange. To be fair, that's one of the things that makes the game a little delightful because there is some weird random element that plays in.  But I do have to say that VAR (replay) was used haphazardly. An example: in the Argentina - Egypt game, there appeared to be a foul favoring Egypt, but it wasn't called and Argentina scored as a result.  Players and coaches for Egypt were incensed that they wouldn’t even look at replay, and it resulted in a kind of amusing series of yellow cards on pretty much everyone.
  • There was a story involving French star Kylian Mbappe, after the Paraguay game.  A senator from Paraguay decided to make overtly racist comments about Mbappe.  He responded by calling her disrespectful.  And she doubled down and said he needed to apologize to her because he was *attacking her*
  • And finally, there are a couple of other stories about Argentina:
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The Voyager Golden Record carries a small sample of uranium on its cover, placed there so that whoever finds it can measure the decay and work out how long it has been drifting — a built-in clock for a message engineered to last around a billion years.

I love the ingenuity shown here. Scientists came up with a means to let any life form have a simple means to understand intelligent life sent this craft, and included a way to understand how long ago it had been sent. 


On Disney World

Over the summer, I made a trip to Walt Disney World for a little summer fun.  I know what you're thinking: I must be out of my mind to go to the theme parks during the summer when the temperature is soaring in the mid-to-high 90s.  And you'd be right.  Except that it's hot *everywhere* these days and there's no escaping it (thanks climate change!). 

I can say that Disney does a decent job of helping guests find ways to mitigate the heat through shade and AC, and with afternoon thunderstorms it cools down some.  So it was still enjoyable.

But that's not really my intended point.  My point is about something obvious we noticed while visiting.

Since sometime in the early 1980s, when Michael Eisner moved the parks into the international spotlight, summer has been a time when tourists from around the world visit the house of mouse. You would see throngs of people who represent many nations, wait times would be long, and you would hear many different languages spoken.

But with all the absurdity around immigration and visas, that was certainly not the case on our visit.

The crowd levels were low, guests were predominantly white, and we rarely heard anything other than English.  It was very .... weird.  Not something I expected.  And as I said, not something I have seen in 40+ years.

We did talk with a few castmembers, and they confirmed a downturn in attendance and a change in the demographic.  But they could only speculate, much as we did, as to the reason.  It all pointed in one direction. Thanks, Donnie!

To underscore the point, Disney was offering a pretty good discount for Florida residents, something that rarely happens during the summer.  But it does happen when Disney sees attendance numbers slipping due to outside factors.

To be fair, Disney World is undergoing a bit of a renaissance, and there is a lot of construction happening.  It's certainly possible that some people are waiting for some of this to be completed before visiting.  But that would be trying to use corporate-speak to try and put a spin on it. International attendance is way down.

One last thing: on some of the construction walls, they had quotes from Walt Disney.  This one caught my attention under the circumstances.  Given that this administration is making us a kind of laughing stock around the world, this is on point.
  

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Trains in Switzerland Are Now Running Over Solar Panels in a First-of-Its-Kind Test

Using train tracks for solar collection is a novel idea, with some merit. 

I mean, many tracks are in direct sunlight and they remain clear most of the time. 



Can Repair Cafes save a dollar and the planet?

I have to say that I really like this idea. I was fortunate to have learned a lot about how to repair things from my father and grandfather (both were exceptionally handy). 

But this is a bit of a lost art. So many young 'uns in this generation never really express much interest in taking part and fixing things (and to be fair, it's not that they can’t, it’s more about desire with so many other things to do)...

So the idea of being able to go somewhere and get hands on and learn with a kind of an expert is intriguing. 
 

In honor of the semiquincentennial, here are a couple of articles about how a revolution was won. 




Urban Heat Is Forcing Insects to Evolve in Years, Not Millennia - A-Z Animals

Evolution is happening right before our eyes and it’s due to a changing climate. 




Bonus: I'd like to remind you about a quote from Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change.”

This quote highlights a core idea from Darwin’s thinking about evolution and survival. The message is not that strength or intelligence has no value, but rather that neither guarantees long-term survival on its own. Conditions in nature are never fixed, and environments keep shifting in ways that cause living beings to respond or adjust.

If you think about it against the backdrop of how we're acting today, where many humans are unwilling to adapt to any sort of change, we are likely headed toward a cliff of sorts.  (and maybe those of us willing to adapt won't be going over with others... maybe)

Bitchin' Dave's newsletter is published weekly.  Please feel free to forward it around. If you want to subscribe or unsubscribe, send an email to geezergamer92@gmail.com

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