Putting on your thinking cap?

The 17th of June has passed, the so called day when we celebrate our independence, and as usual was lackluster just as the weather. Everybody did their usual thing; the tents were placed in Hljómskálagarðurinn, the same balloons were for sale and almost every shop upheld their duty by displaying a tiny Icelandic flag in their window. Even our new prime minister gave a speech drenched by banality, in which he described Iceland in these prophetic words: "Everybody is doing better than before although some are not happy with what they have". Such wise words by Davíð, oh no wait Halldór - uh.. no Geir? Actually, I think he is prime minister, at least he was yesterday. Our government seems to be orchestrated by a baboon playing musical chairs in the country of Houyhnhnms. The faces change but the same agendas remain with the same clichés to shackle us into submission: we live in the greatest country "of all possible countries" and Alcoa is the greatest thing to happen to us since the Marshall aid.

Even though I am not happy - and might be better off than I was a couple of years ago, I still find our government's policy hard to swallow and the World Cup is not helping. I often feel this strange urge to read the newspapers, actually expecting to read relevant news, which to me means not sport related. For example, what is happening in Iraq. But of course, there had to be another sporting event on 17th of June, in this case it was Iceland versus Sweden in handball, a sport that in my opinion is as fun as watching torn up socks in a dryer. Because Iceland won the series but lost the game they managed to reserve Iceland a seat in World Championship. That is what you read about in the papers here in Iceland. Football and handball. And then there are the articles about football, and about the players, their wives and everything else you can imagine. One female journalist mentioned how tantalizing it was to watch the World Cup, to see the sweaty, muscular body of each player. Are you serious? I thought I was reading a newspaper not Cosmopolitan. Everybody is either watching, talking, writing about the World Cup, or in my case complaining. Few people are talking politics. Instead, anybody that doesn"t watch football is force fed the results and everything related ad nauseam, and what is worse, people are turning the World Cup into a debate about sexism.

Let's get one thing straight: I am a male and I loathe football. And because of this I consider myself neutral, that is why I find it hilarious to read articles about the girl themed television programming. Essentially, the consensus is that women dont' like sports that much, especially the World Cup. Of course, this is a ludicrous generalization. But the point is that it really doesn"t matter if the O.C, One Tree Hill and South Beach reruns are shown and geared towards the female viewer. As sexist as that is, I have a novel idea. Why not try enjoying the summer by reading a few good books or meeting up with some friends.

Frankly, I don't grasp the importance or revelance of complaining about how mediocre or brainless the television programming is and then glorifying the World Cup. It' not like it's called the idiot box for no reason, nor is football exactly a film by Terence Malik. Of course, we don"t need the same mind numbing, predictable, does he love me angst themed shows. But, in my opinion, elections are nowhere close enough and we don"t need the same sport being played day after day, whether you are male or female viewer. I, at least am signing up for the "people who don"t watch FIFA World Cup" league in Iceland.

Marvin Lee DuPree