More trouble for the World Cup

Some dozens of recent killings in Mexico have stirred up anxiety about that country’s ability to safely co-host the World Cup.

The U.S. has safety worries, too. E.g., who will pay for the extra stadium guards and police in little Foxborough, Mass.? Not the 18,000 townspeople, who are threatening to deny FIFA the use of their locality.

Good for them.

See this New York Times article.

“We may get a little more [than usual] in meals tax and hotel tax,” a local official explains:

But this is not a moneymaker for this town. In fact, it’s probably more of a headache than it’s worth.

This is nothing more than seven events up there. If [the] World Cup wasn’t coming, we’d probably have seven concerts in that time. We’re not gaining much of anything by hosting this event.

So it goes when a country that doesn’t really care about soccer – or about, you know, the world – is awarded World Cup hosting rights. You run up against locals who refuse to sacrifice. Which is what hosting these games is. FIFA always has made money for the rich and compensated the masses with an experiential high. But these particular masses don’t care about soccer or foreign visitors, so they aren’t going to get that high.

FIFA should give more games – or all of the games – to Canada. I’m curious what the people of, e.g., Edmonton or Regina would say. Those cities have pretty stadiums; I’ve looked at them on Wikipedia.

Timothy Dexter

Ecuador is mentioned in the first sentence of the main body of the Harper’s Weekly Review.

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The Facebook bots kindly shared a mini-bio, in Spanish, of Timothy Dexter (1747–1806), history’s hombre más suertudo (luckiest man). It was intriguing enough that I went on to read Dexter’s Wikipedia bio. Then I read that bio aloud to Karin.

Certain commonalities with our President suggested themselves. Dexter, however, made money instead of losing it. And he didn’t start out with money from his father; he extracted it from his rich wife, whom he abused.

In business, he seems to have been lucky and devilishly intuitive, e.g. he turned a profit literally “shipping coal to Newcastle” (the proverbial expression for exporting to a saturated market).

I don’t intend to read any full-length biographies of Timothy Dexter. But I went looking anyway. The major ones are from the 1800s. The last notable book, the most recent edition of which is 65 years old, is by John P. Marquand – like Dexter, of Newburyport, Mass. – the author of the “Mr. Moto” fictions and of the Pulitzer-winning, satirical Late George Apley. I wonder how serious his treatment of Dexter is.

The shipping news

These are tough times for the USPS. I ordered a book in early June. Although its shipping label was created in Saint Louis on June 5, the package remained in that city until June 12. It arrived in Memphis on June 13 and departed the next day. Thus far, not too terrible; but then, on the 15th, the package arrived in Springfield, Massachusetts, where it rested several days. Now it’s in Jersey City. I expect it to tour the eastern seaboard, and then maybe the Florida Keys, the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas. Then it’ll rush like a shot to Indiana. I’ve noticed that everything that ships from Nevada comes promptly to Indiana.

Another package departed on June 1 from Eureka, Missouri. It, too, passed through Memphis. It appears to have become stranded ten days ago, in Detroit.

For what it’s worth, both packages contain apologetics textbooks.

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Here is a quite interesting review of Roger Crisp’s new book on the British Moralists. I’ve been looking for a good guide to this group of philosophers. Several are on the market, but this one seems best. Alas, the current price is $70.

But still! The buyer is made privy to such tidbits as this one:

The appeal of impartiality for Hutcheson [notes the reviewer] is in part due to his ethical aestheticism: “Impartiality has a certain dignity or nobility, which can be explicated in analogy with architecture: ‘the most perfect Rules of Architecture condemn an excessive Profusion of Ornament on one Part, above the Proportion of the Whole’” (116).

Try persuading partialists with that argument today. “Treat strangers on a par with yourself, or with your children, because an evenly ornamented building looks nicer than an unevenly ornamented one.” I’d like to hear that on NPR.