AMERICANS AND SOCCER, A Unified

AMERICANS AND SOCCER, A Unified Field Theory of World Entertainment: Found via Ken Layne’s Web log, this is an excellent screed on why soccer is so popular in Europe, and why it will never be in the US. It also helps to answer a question that baffles the otherwise alarmingly astute Group Captain Mandrake: Why an event like the Super Bowl can involve only US teams, and yet still be considered The World Championship.

The author, H.D. Miller, gets extra bonus points for this paragraph:

There are no worthwhile French video games (“Le Lepin Savauge: Help Pierre the Rabbit find his way to the Rive Gauche where he can become despondent in a cafe and smoke many Gauloises.”), no Swiss monster movies (“Cashzilla, the creature that delayed the 7:14 to Bern”), no German Westerns (“Das Boothill”). (It should be noted that Italian westerns are solely the work of Sergio Leone, and as such are anomalous.)