FIFA holds back the USA

Written on June 20, 2010 at 1:55 am, by Jon Porter

By now, you have most likely seen or heard or read about the debacle in South Africa. For those who haven’t, let me tell you about it.

The United States soccer team coming off a huge draw with favorite England was looking for a win against Slovenia to put them in position to move on in the World Cup. American hopes were dashed quickly in the first half as Slovenia took an improbable 2-0 lead into the half. Americans saw their already slim World Cup dreams vanishing. Then the improbably happened, Landon Donovan came out and quickly scored a goal to bring the Americans within 1 goal. Then, it happened again. Bradley, the coaches son, scored the equalizer. The US fans were rabid. No American team had ever come back from 2 goals down in the cup and this team had done it. They couldn’t win it… Could They? The answer came in the 88th minute. Donovan took a free kick and Edu put the ball in the back of the net for the LEAD! Wait, a whistle… for what? No one knew. The goal was called back for an apparent foul on the USA. But, where was the foul. All the commentators looked at the replays. The English, The Americans, all of them saw no foul on the Americans. Instead they saw multiple fouls on Slovenian players. Bocanegra was wrapped up in a headlock. Dempsey was in a bear hug. Edu escaped the arms of a Slovenian player to score the goal. So where was the foul? It didn’t exist. This may not have been the most ridiculous call in the history of sports based on the call itself. However, it ruined history. It was different then a blown call to lose a perfect game. Perfect games have happened before. Never in the history of the beautiful game has any team come back to win from 2 goals down in the World Cup to win.

What was FIFA’s response to this? Pretty much the only comment FIFA had was that the referee had no comment on the call. Wait a second? You’re telling me FIFA is not going to hold it’s referee responsible for his calls? Nope… Why? Because the call was deflating to the Americans. FIFA does not want America to be on top in Soccer. Americans have almost everything else. Football, Basketball, Baseball, even Hockey. If America becomes the best in the world in soccer it undermines FIFA. Futbol is the worlds sport, the only one the world truly has. FIFA controls the only true world title outside of the USA. They can’t afford to lose even an inch of their stranglehold on this. There is only one country they fear losing that foothold to. That is the USA. If Americans begin to follow soccer and it gets even 10% more popular than it is now, FIFA believes they will be in trouble.

Regardless of this bogus call however, the Americans are still very much alive. With a little help from Slovenia and a win on Wednesday they will move on to round 2. So Americans, Give Soccer a chance. Don’t just be a world cup fan. Support American Soccer. It really is the beautiful game and it really is a much better game then you what you’ve been led to believe.

Boycott BP! But, will it do anything?

Written on June 10, 2010 at 6:56 am, by Jon Porter

Boycott BP!  That is the cry of so many people right now, but will it honestly do anything?  The short answer is no. As a matter of fact, the only thing we will accomplish by boycotting BP is putting local businesses out of business and causing job loss locally.  Lets dig a little deeper into BP, the oil spill and the boycott; maybe we can shed a bit of light on this situation.


First and Foremost, let me just begin by saying that this oil spill while disastrous and appalling is nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to the oil business.  There have been bigger spills than this one, not many but there have been bigger ones.  Now did BP ignore some things that led to the explosion and consequently the spill?   Yes and they should and will be held accountable for that.  Has BP failed miserably in stopping the leak? Yes, however this is not as simple as just putting a cork in a hole and saying it’s plugged.  This is a very expensive and delicate operation and they are working round the clock to fix the issue.  Now I am not going to sit here and theorize what should be done to permanently fix this issue, mainly because I am not an engineer nor do I wish to be one.  However, I will continue on with this post to explain why the boycott will not only do nothing to hurt BP, but will actually hurt our local economies.


A boycott sounds like a great idea.  Lets hit BP where it hurts… their wallet.  However it is not that simple.  BP is a huge company that sells oil.  Arguably the most sought after commodity on the planet.  So, do you think if they have oil that they won’t be able to sell it?  Please people are going to buy BP Oil and they are going to buy a lot of it.  Now lets say that a boycott of BP begins to become effective(it won’t but lets just play the hypothetical here).   That’s going to mean a smaller supply of available oil which means…drumroll please…HIGHER GAS PRICES!  I for one do not want to have higher gas prices and I’m sure you don’t either.  Now, since that was just hypothetical, lets talk more about why a boycott won’t work. You can boycott your local BP stations for the rest of your life, but the truth is, especially in Ohio you can go to the gas station across the street and there is a good probability that you will be buying, you guessed it, BP Gasoline.  Did you know that BP supplies oil to up to 40% of Ohio?  So nearly half the gas stations in this state get their gasoline from BP.  That’s a lot of gas stations to boycott, don’t you think?


Ok, so lets say we boycott the 40% of stations in Ohio that get BP gas.  We subsequently put those stations out of business and BP just sells their oil to someone else.  Most BP stations are privately owned, so you aren’t hurting BP. You are hurting the local economy.   In Newark-Heath, OH there are 6 BP Gas Stations.  How many people will be out of a job if those stations close?  Now lets go beyond that.  Licking County has a great company that has been here for a long time in Englefield Oil. Englefield has over 1600 employees, more than 500 in Licking County alone.  Now, who do you ask supplies Englefield’s gasoline? You got it BP.  So are your prepared to put more than 500 people in Licking County alone out of work because a giant corporation made a huge mistake?  Not in this economy I’m not.  Remember you aren’t going to hurt BP, you are going to hurt local businesses and business owners.  In these times and this economy we shouldn’t hurt ourselves even more.


In closing I want you to understand that BP does need to be held accountable, but a boycott just isn’t going to do it.  It’s going to be up to our government to do something about this.   Local businesses just can’t break a contract because the big corporation made a mistake so they are stuck with BP just as much as we are stuck with BP.  Call your representatives in government if you feel so strongly about this spill.  Write them, Show up on the steps of the government buildings demanding something be done.  A boycott is always the first rallying cry in these situation, but please don’t hurt our local companies. If you got your gas at BP before, continue to do so.  I personally, don’t use BP gas, but if I did I wouldn’t stop going there now.  So don’t hurt our local economy anymore.  It’s already very fragile, and we can’t afford to throw much more at it.