Tag: melting pot

British newspapers try to salvage melting pot after Brazilian defeat

There was a marked difference between the Brazilian and British coverage on the Brazilian soccer defeat of 1-7 against Germany.

The Brazilian sport daily Lance called the crushing loss of Brazil against Germany “The Biggest Shame in History.” “The Maracanazo becomes nothing and literally a thing of the past,” the newspaper said on its website.

Newspapers and TV commentators called the defeat the “Mineirazo,” an allusion to the Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte and Brazil’s traumatic Word Cup defeat at home in 1950 known as the “Maracanazo.”

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff added to the gloom.
“Like every Brazilian, I am very, very sad about this defeat. I am immensely sorry for all of us. Fans and our players,” she wrote on Twitter.

Brazil’s national media dubbed the team’s record loss – equal to a 6-0 defeat by Uruguay in 1920 – the “Shame of Shames”.

Spanish sports paper Marca wrote: “The Germans … can lay claim that Tuesday night’s beat-down of Brazil is the most dominating performance in World Cup history. Adding to the indignity of it all, the crowd shouted ‘Ole!’ with each completed German pass to complete the darkest hour in the history of Brazilian football.”

The British nevertheless still tried very hard to sell their multicultural melting pot ideology to the losers by pretending to be heartbroken over their loss.

In the Daily Mirror, Martin Lipton, himself a wreck, “feared” for a football nation.

“In shame. In humiliation. In tears of utter shock, disbelief, disrepair, records rewritten for all the wrong reasons.

“The hearts of a nation of 200 million people were not just broken here in the Estadio Mineirao last night.

They were smashed into a billion tiny pieces. Irreparably.”

Other British commentators had similar pronouncements to make. “It was simply too much. Too brutal, Too excruciating. Too painful to watch,” cried Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail.

“Six minutes of football that would live in the memory — Brazil 0 Germany 1, to Brazil 0 Germany 5. In six minutes. Six minutes. It needed repeating, digesting. There has never been a World Cup semi-final like this.”

Brazil invested $11 billion to host this tournament.

The American Dream is dead

melting_potThe American Dream is impossible to achieve in the US.

So say nearly 6 in 10 people who responded to CNNMoney’s American Dream Poll, conducted by ORC International. They feel the dream — however they define it — is out of reach.

Young adults, age 18 to 34, are most likely to feel the dream is unattainable, with 63% saying it’s impossible. This age group has suffered in the wake of the Great Recession, finding it hard to get good jobs.

Younger Americans are a cause of great concern. Many respondents said they are worried about the next generation’s ability to prosper.

Some 63% of all Americans said most children in the U.S. won’t be better off than their parents. This dour view comes despite most respondents, 54%, feeling they are better off than their own parents.

The downbeat mood is not surprising, say economic mobility experts.

“The pessimism is reflective of the financial realities a lot of families are facing,” said Erin Currier, the director of the Economic Mobility Project at Pew Charitable Trusts. “They are treading water, but their income is not translating into solid financial security.”

The vast majority of Americans have higher incomes than their parents, but that’s in large part because most families have two earners now, she said. Only half have more wealth, she said. Meanwhile, the savings rate is low and unemployment is high. College costs are rising faster than inflation and student loan debt is exploding.

People also tend to be more pessimistic about the next generation’s fortunes in general than their own children’s prospects, Currier said. In Pew’s polls and focus groups, parents say that it will be tougher for their children to succeed, but they still believe it’s possible.

Source: CNN Money