The Favela Project

Dixieland Footie has found causes left and right that it supports wholeheartedly. From shipping balls to Iraqi children in the memory of Nick Madras, to the Homeless World Cup.

I believe that football is one of the more significant driving forces in the world today.

It is the most popular sport by far and it draws players from every corner of the globe.

We have seen, in the case of Pele, of how it can lift people out of oppression. There are stories of how it has brought civil wars to a halt because the country's national team qualified for their first cup in years. It is truly one of the few equalizers left in the modern world.

Dixieland Footie would like to announce a new group who are striving to bring the game and all its beautifulness to children in poor towns.

The Favela Project is a non-profit that is working towards providing poor children with the equipment they need to play the game and truly succeed and change their stars.

Go support them or your team will never win the league.. ever again.

The Friday Edition

So, I am going to start a new thing here at Dixieland. Friday's will be a omni-post of things that
have crossed my mind for the the last week. It's kind of something kick off the weekend with.

And I know what you are saying, "Bela, it's Thursday, mate. Have a lil something extra in your cuppa tea this morning, yeah?"

No, I'm not drunk. However, I do not have class on Friday, so once I get out of military history on Thursday's, my weekend begins. I suppose I could change this to The Thursday Edition but that would require me to move my mouse up to the title bar and delete Friday and write in Thursday.

-I have seen some recent pictures on facebook, myspace, and another message board that I post to that have solidified my belief that you should have to have a license to operate a digital camera recreationally.

The simple fact that you went out and bought one does not come with the right to subject your friends, or personal associates with pictures of you taken at rather inopertune times.

-After sitting through my military history lecture today, I have came up with the perfect anology to describe the oft times heated relationship between the different intelligence agencies.

The inteilligence community, or IC as we gov. acronymn soup people like to call it, is like the SEC. No, no. Not the security and exchange comission but the south eastern conference in college football.

Anyone who has ever went to an SEC school will understand me when I say that the conference is back to back rivalry games. You hate any other team that isn't your own. That's pretty much how the IC is and why we expereince intelligence failures on such a broad scale.

Islamaphobia: Not Just For the US Anymore.

I realize that the title of this article may seem a bit "racy" but it seems that the general fear of peoples of the Islamic faith is spreading outside the boarder of the US.

The event that sparked this article occurred at matched between Middlesbrough and Newcastle on the weekend. An Egyptian player, Ahmed Mido, was warming up on the pitch when the two fans started to chant at him.

The FA has agreed to look into the matter but Mido has stated that the insults went beyond him and struck at his faith.

While the two individuals were removed from the ground and will have to face a judge, it is likely that the worst penalty they will receive will be a lifetime ban from Newcastle games. This gives them the freedom to go to another Middlesbrough match and taunt Mido again, or any other Islamic player for that matter.

You would think that with as much racism that has went on in English football for the past quater of a century, that the FA would have done more than just an annual campagin and match bans to quel the improprerly motivated attacks on player, both physical and verbal.

I suppose the FA has more to worry about such as building the grassroots programs and paying off Wembley.

Body by Soccer.

While I was home for Thanksgiving break, I had a chance to catch up on some cable shows. We don't have cable here at the house, you can imagine what I'm like on match days with no ESPN.

I ended up laying on the couch and watching a marathon of True Life on MTV. There was an episode about these two individuals that could not control their eating habits, so they both experimented with dieting.

The gentleman cut himself off from his family and friends and ate a meal of 800 calories once a day.

One meal for the entire day.

He went from roughly 340 pounds down to 214 in around a years time. He was pushing himself to loose the weight so much that he went out and ran steps on the night before he reached his goal weight. He was exhausted to the point of near sleep from doing so because he was not taking in the food his body needed.

The young lady experimented with crash dieting. Apparently the experiment never worked, because she continued to do it over and over again. She participated in very little physical exercise during her diets but she would loose the weight. However, she would gain most, and oft times more, of it back once she went off the diet.

I think that it is sad that people cannot bring themselves to find an activity and participate in it instead of locking themselves in an apartment for a year, or crash dieting.

I started playing soccer casually at first, simply because I had never touched a ball outside of a school gym. But then it became more than that to me. It became a pursuit. A need. My balls, my cleats, and my gloves are all my friends.

My weight has fluctuated a lot since I started playing. I attribute most of it to breaking my leg last summer. I have never given up though. When my heart races from bounding down the wing with the ball and delivering a beautiful cross, it makes me want to be in better shape so the ball goes further when I swing my leg at it.

I suppose it takes getting to that point. If you have the fortitude to eat 800 calories a day, then I am sure you have the fortitude to do ball work for forty five minutes a day.

My daily routine, when it is not too cold to venture out, consists of general stops of the ball. Simple passes against a wall coupled with trapping exercises. Throw in some cuts, crossovers, turns and pullbacks. After all that is done, I juggle. I always do 100 touches a foot.

By the end I am sweating and I feel better than when I started.

Some people have told me that it is impossible to loose my weight.

Impossible is nothing.