The Lone Man on the Field

The white logo on my black T-shirt read, ‘Trinity Sports Official’ and that was the only official appearance to me as a Trinity sports official for the soccer game on Tuesday night. I had the least official appearance of all the referees. I wasn’t even wearing my shorts, all of them were. Have you ever seen a referee officiating a game in his grey trousers? I am not surprised. But I was trying my best not to even spill a hint that it was the first game of my life that I was officiating. I was trying to act confident, but my struggle was apparent since confidence has always eluded me. One of the main reasons why I chose to be a sports official was because I wanted to gain confidence, be the in-charge and maintain authority since in real life, I have always struggled with developing a ‘bossy’ attitude.

As the clock struck 9:15, as the main referee, I called the captains to come to the center and call the sides on a tossed coin. Wasn’t I loud enough? No one even turned in my direction. I wondered how they could even ignore me, didn’t they know I was the official? My trousers could be elusive but at least I was wearing the official T-shirt. I knew what I had to be done. I blew my whistle, it made a funny noise but at least the captains walked towards me. Apparently, I realized I did not have a coin. And that is how my first referee debut began. But I knew I had to act confident like every other referee who knows what is going on so, I improvised with Eric Elliot's little trick of placing either one or two fingers behind my back and letting one of the captains call. After the captains chose sides, I realized the team of ‘Engineers’ did not have minimum number of players and the game couldn’t be started. We were to wait until the ‘Engineers’ had at least two girls on their team; it was a co-recreational soccer if you didn’t know. I wondered why these sorts of unusual, anomalous events always happen with me, it was making me nervous for sure. I had to award a goal to the other team as a penalization for not being punctual. Members of the ‘Engineers’ team arrived two minutes later and the game was about to start. But how could it start without my permission? Not a chance. I blew my whistle, as hard as I could; after all, they had to know I was the boss there.

Running on a wet ground in trousers is not fun at all when you are not wearing proper soccer shoes. My laces kept on getting untied every 5 minutes. The players stared at me every time I bent to tie my laces. I realized they were trying to imply that it is the players who tie laces during a game; a referee doing the same appears so ‘unofficial’. I was making every attempt to make right calls to hide my inexperience. I had never realized the task of a referee would demand such excellent coordination of senses and the central nervous system. Scientists claim that a human brain can do only one particular task at a time, but I would say, “Look at the referees, they are the perfect examples of human brain multitasking. From the corner of the eye, they have to distinguish between the colors of the teams and also follow the ball, make close calls, instant decisions and be able to direct attention as quickly as the ball moves without any clue what would happen next.” Really, how many things can you watch out for, with a pair of limited- view-angled eyes?

The first half of the game ended in good note. I was glad that no one had the faintest idea about my debut. I did not make any mistakes. The second half began with my whistle and this time I blew it even harder. The game was going well and there did not seem to be any significant aggression among any of the teams, if at all. I realized I had not blown my whistle even once for any foul conceded. Was it a hint of my inexperience, I thought. Or did I not have sharp enough eyes to spot fouls? I knew I had to prove my officiating ability. Bang! A girl was tackled and she fell down. Without even waiting for the signal from the assistant referee (linesman), I blew my whistle. Everyone seemed to look at me with fear and helplessness. They realized I was the big boss while I tried hard to suppress my smirk of confidence.

I have to admit, time seemed to have frozen in the first half of 20 minutes. I kept on looking at the scoreboard repeatedly out of nervousness and every second passed as if it were a minute. But as the game was approaching its end, I realized I was blowing my whistle more often since the game was beginning to heat up, but the screeches of my whistle served them right. How could they forget I was still around? The second half added legitimacy and authority to my sports official status since, I did not have to bend to tie my laces, not even once. It was my most enjoyable 40 minutes in the last couple of months. I was starting to gain more confidence and it seemed by the end of 30 minutes, I was no more the same referee I had been. It was an enriching experience that boosted my confidence to not be deterred from taking this arduous challenge in the future.

Is France heading towards Brave New World?

Nicholas Sarkozy, the husband of a celebrity and also the French President (did you get the humor?)  pledged 600 million pounds to French newspapers. Additionally, he made a provision to give every 18 year old French a free subscription of his/her favorite newspaper for the entire year. Sarkozy argues that the motive behind this is to save the ailing newspaper industry and moreover it would inculcate reading habits among young people right from 'a young age'. But this move by the French President could be looked with ambivalence and sarcasm.

I wonder what Aldous Huxley's (the author of Brave New World, you haven't read it? It's fabulous) reaction would be to this move. This is the modern era's crafty method of controlling young minds much in the same way that people are controlled in Brave New World by the individual states. At a time when we are still assessing the impact of media and trying to determine in what ways it can affect the social, emotional and other aspects of an individual, a family or a society, this provision in the form of 'altruism' seems to be taking shortcuts. It has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that media can have a huge impact on individuals, but the task to determine whether that impact is good or bad is still incomplete. Every single 18-year old French youth would be reading what the French media want them to. Since the state is injecting huge money into newspaper market and trying to disguise itself as an altruist, it could have significant control over the publication of materials. The state virtually would have the power/ability to control every single 18-year old French minds. The situation looks so bleak to me. This is not far from what Aldous Huxley feared in his novel, Brave New World. Could making every French youth read French newspapers be modern version of Huxley's hypnodaeia? Several parallels could be made.

Also, once the French youth start reading French newspapers right from 'a young age', it is highly likely that they would continue it. When you repeatedly engage in some form of art, it can become so addictive. Isn't it the same reasoning why soap operas on televisions make no sense to first-timers while it is so addictive for regular watchers? Sarkozy, you have some intelligent brains besides a beautiful wife. Here goes Huxley's statement, "Oh Brave New World".

Juvenile militarization in America

Did you hear about the bill that is being prepared by some lawmakers and entertained by two republicans that’ll render carrying guns lawfully even inside campus vicinities at Texas State University? And another special provision of this bill is that it will allow guns to be carried by students or anyone without having to conceal it. US already has laws that allow one to carry licensed guns for one’s protection but they have to be concealed. If this law is passed, it would basically mean that people could flaunt the size and luster of their guns, could carry it in the open, hanging from their pockets, or wear around their necks like a necklace or maybe just carry it in their hand all the time. Every street would then become a classic Hollywood scene; people would not have to watch Bond movies anymore to see people carrying guns everywhere. Criminals too would not have to conceal their guns since no one would know who is carrying it lawfully or unlawfully. Who would want to mess around with a person carrying a loaded gun?

I wonder what will become of recreational parks. If you walk down to a park to get some fresh air, you might be greeted with an unattended gun, left out there by mistake or someone might have forgotten it like people forget their belongings like bags, or could have fallen from their pockets like sometimes our pens or wallets do. What will be the repercussions?

The lawmakers argue this law will make the universities safe. Texas state senator Jeff Wenworth said, “I don’t want to wake up one morning and hear on the news that some madman went on a campus and picked off Texas students like sitting ducks.” Furthermore, McCarthy, a member of the national pro-gun group argued, “We think that everyone who can legally own a gun should be able to carry openly. Criminals want an easy target. When they see you can fight back they’re going to go somewhere else.” Applauds. America is setting an example of curbing violence through a new method by starting it right from home. Giving everyone a gun to fight against a possible criminal or thwart any criminal activities is their argument. They believe this will shoo away the criminals and madmen just like a scarecrow scares the shit out of crows. But where would these criminals go then? Possibly to other parts of Texas, or maybe other universities in Texas. What then? Other universities too would have to adopt these rules if they are to protect their students against criminals directed towards them from other places. Soon, the suit will follow and all of American colleges would adopt this law. Am I going too far? Well, 11 universities in the US already allow concealed guns on their campus premises. Is this shocking?

Let’s say whole of American universities will pass this law out of need or desperation and rational judgment. Then would the criminals and madmen emigrate to other countries? Sounds too unreasonable, doesn’t it? After all, what would a madman even care? A madman would still go on a shooting spree, no matter his opponents are carrying guns or not. He would not have any rational judgment; he would not shoot innocent people in the first place if he had any. What would the criminals do? They would do what they have always done-come up with ingenious ideas to target innocent people who are not carrying guns or maybe old people. Additionally, they might start using semi-automatics and advanced weapons. This will give rise to a new age cold war between civilians and criminals and even within civilians or criminals.

But America seems to be on the right track. Are they thinking that the world will follow this after them as the 21^st century fashion? Is America thinking that Israel will distribute free guns to Palestinian civilians for self-protection against Hamas’ insurgents? It’s like waging another war to stop an existing war. This law will backfire severely. At a time when the US federal state is having a tough time curbing violence, equipping everyone with a gun will only make it harder to distinguish between a civilian and a perpetrator. But this will definitely add to the militarization of America. American youths would be more willing to join US Army and America would be better prepared for the third world war if it were ever to break out in the imminent future. Here goes the Black Eyed Peas song, “Where is the love?...Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria. Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema, Yo’ whatever happened to the values of humanity…instead of spreading love we are spreading animosity”.

Are 'Sardars' really so stupid?

I deleted this post because I thought it was stupid.

Wordle.net

Click on it to enlarge it.

I was using this site called http://www.wordle.net/ that lets you type in something and then returns such tags. It is really cool. Give it a try.

I liked this one even more because I thought this one truly represented me.