Sunday, September 5, 2010

Reflection: Photos and soccer

The one event that really struck me this week happened when we visited the Newseum. The Pulitzer photos showed me how much a single photo can describe an action or situation. The photo that will last in my memory forever is the one showing a vulture waiting for a starving African child to die. The child didn’t even have a family that cared for him enough to at least shoo away the bird let alone feed him. The description said that the photographer later committed suicide over the guilt of not saving the child. Knowing that you could have saved a person is a tough burden to bear. I also can’t forget a photo of children watching a person who was lynched about to be smashed by a chair. Some of them were laughing at the victim. The world is a scary place.

On a brighter note, going to my first soccer game was pretty exciting. The soccer culture in the U.S. we learned in class really did seem to apply here. The hooligans and hard-core fans for D.C. United were on one side of the stadium. The Columbus Crew hooligans surprisingly were separated from them on the second level, cut off from most interactions with the home team. The stadium was nowhere near full capacity, and from what I can tell the crowd had many students and immigrants. A small group of hooligans where we sat tried to get everyone to chant and cheer for the team. Compare this to a baseball game I went to (Phillies): packed stadium, everyone wore a team shirt, and many older fans. Now to be fair these are two different cities, so to make a fair comparison I should go to a Nationals game. The results would probably be similar though.

P.S. I think the event staff and security guards are there to protect the refs, not the opposing team.

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