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If you really want to be enraged, visit the Pittsburgh Indymedia site to see videos of the police using dogs, pepper spray and tasers on nonviolent protestors. Disgusting. Is this what this country has come to? The answer, of course, is yes.

Pittsburgh Indymedia - Protestors Attacked By Police

As a soccer fan in the U.S., you spend a lot of your time (a) trying to convince your friends that the game is worth watching; (b) watching SportsCenter highlights to see if 15 seconds of soccer coverage made it in; (c) sitting in bars and restaurants with strangers watching TV broadcasts of the US National Team in some faraway land; or (d) all of the above.

Once in a while, though, you find yourself surrounded by soccer people, and you realize that you’re not alone.

Today was a day like that.

For the second consecutive year, I went to the National Soccer Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Oneonta, NY. (Yes, the Hall of Fame is in Oneonta. Don’t ask.) This year was the first all-MLS class to be inducted, and it featured one of the all-time great players in American soccer, Tab Ramos of my beloved MetroStars. Also inducted were Marcelo Balboa, John Harkes, Fernando Clavijo, and Hank Steinbrecher.

Just like last year, the Hall was filled to overflowing with soccer fans who had traveled from around the U.S. (and from Europe) to witness the induction of five men who helped shape the modern game here in the U.S. Everywhere you looked, you saw soccer royalty, from the heads of U.S. Soccer and MLS to folks like MetroStars GM Alexi Lalas and veteran broadcaster JP Dellacamara.

The Hall itself is wonderful, filled to the brim with soccer history and memorabilia from the game’s earliest days to its modern era. But perhaps the coolest thing is to see all the young kids roaming wide-eyed through the exhibits. They already know many of the names, and they remember the best goals and games.

If you’re a soccer fan, you really can’t do any better than Induction Weekend. From now on, many of the great MLS players and Men’s and Women’s National Team players will make up the inductee ranks, and each year promises to bring in a larger crowd. A crowd of soccer people. As Hall of Famer Hank Steinbrecher said today: “Our time has come.”

I just picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, figuring I’d better read the series before I’m the last person in the English-speaking world who hasn’t read it.

While I was reading the book, the neighbor kids came over and said that they’re not allowed to read Harry Potter books because the books are “bad.” I asked why the books are bad.

KIDS: “Because they have witches in them.”

ME: “And why is that bad?”

KIDS: “Because they do magic.”

ME: “What’s wrong with magic?”

KIDS: “Because we’re Christians.”

ME: “But didn’t Jesus do magic? You know, water into wine, bringing people back from the dead, things like that.”

KIDS: “God doesn’t do magic.”

ME: “How do you know?”

KIDS: “It’s in the Bible.”

ME: “But the Bible’s just a story, just like this Harry Potter book.”

KIDS: Blank stare.

And there you have it. As the conservative blogger Kung Fu Monkey recently wrote: “”Everybody who wants to live in the 21st century over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800’s over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that.”

I thought the Savannah Sand Gnats had a lock on the most embarrassing contest at a minor-league baseball game: a fan racing around the bases trying to beat a guy dressed like a big toilet bowl. But that was before I went to see the Rochester Red Wings the other night.

After the game, about 75 women were given tiny shovels — roughly the size of grapefruit spoons — with which they were to dig in the infield dirt, looking for a poker chip that they could then redeem for a diamond.

Maybe you should go back and read the previous paragraph one more time.

So there you have it. The prize for the most demeaning contest ever goes to the Rochester Red Wings and Frontier Field, where it’s always 1951! Dig that, ladies!

It was 108 years ago today — 3 August 1897 — that my great-grandmother, Louise Josephine Lay, arrived at Ellis Island with her sister, Christina, aboard the S.S. Kensington. Louise was 11, Christina was 13. They lived in Trier, Germany, and traveled to Antwerp, Belgium to board the ship.

Louise and Christina went to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to stay with their aunt Johanna (Lay) Honecker and her husband Francis. Johanna, my great-great-great-aunt, paid for the girls to travel to the U.S. Two years later, on 28 June 1899, the rest of the family came over from Germany, also aboard the Kensington: parents Peter and Catharina; brothers Jacob, Bernard and Carl; and sister Johanna. (The youngest sister, Anna, was born after the family arrived in the U.S.)

On 28 September 1908, Louise married my great-grandfather, Orren Elmer Flanders. On 30 November 1912, they welcomed my grandfather, Bernard Orren Flanders, into the family. The rest, as they say, is history.

(Louise Lay was born May 1866. She died on 31 May 1956 and was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.)

And here’s a little more history about the S.S. Kensington — the ship that carried the Lays across the Atlantic:

Kensington and Southwark were sister ships which began their careers with the American Line, and then served Red Star and the Dominion lines before heading to the shipbreakers. Despite these changes, both ships retained their original names.

Southwark was built by William Denny & Bros. of Dumbarton, while Kensington was built by J&G Thompson of Glasgow. Both ships were launched in 1893. They each made their maiden voyage on the American Line’s Liverpool-Philadelphia service, Southwark on 27 December 1893 and Kensington on 27 June 1894. In August 1895, both of them were transferred to Red Star and placed on that line’s Antwerp-New York service. (At the time, both Red Star and American were operated by the International Navigation Co.)

In 1902, International Navigation changed its name to International Mercantile Marine and acquired a number of other lines, including the Dominion Line. After making their final Red Star voyages in March 1903, Southwark and Kensington were placed on Dominion’s Liverpool-Canada service and remained there for the rest of their careers. Kensington made her final voyage in November 1908 and was broken up in 1910. Southwark made her final trip in May 1911 and was scrapped later that same year.

(Source: greatships.net)