Week 1 A Passage To India

'There is no painting and scarcely any carving in the bazaars. The very wood seems made of mud, the inhabitants of mud moving. So abased, so the Ganges comes down it might be expected to wash the excrescence back into the soil." This quote from A Passage To India, by E. M. Foster on the scenery and life of Chandrapore, is very significant to the flow of this novel because it in a way sets the mood of this community and the racial tension that is supposed to exist between the British and the Indians. After reading this quote, I felt that the community would be life-less and that this "excrescence" would be this sense of racial tension that occurs in the lives of the natives and the British colonials. This tension resulted in the British feeling like they were superior to the Indians, which relates to the reason for their dwellings on a higher ground than that of the Indians dwellings. This type of tension relates to the same racial tension that persists today among minorities. From the tension that occurs between African Americans and Hispanics to the tension that still persists between African Americans and Caucasians. There are some among these races that feel that they are superior to others among different races, and so they themselves will cause tension by exercising this "superiority". Another reason I felt this way about Chandrapore because of it's dull description, was because there were no paintings drawn anywhere in the bazaars. Paintings bring objects and ideas to life with color and sharp images. Reading that there were none of these, made me think of Chandrapore as "city full of the dead". These first depictions of the city, showed me that the mood of the novel would be boring.

Questions For Discussion

1. Did anything resonate with you as you read the description of Chandrapore?

2. How do you think the tension between the Indians and English will excel?

3. Does Chandrapore's description connect with the people of this community?

How Soccer Explains The Sentimental Hooligan

In this chapter of How Soccer Explains the World, Foer explains the rising of Hooliganism and it's downfall. Throughout the chapter Foer explains his interview with a man by the name of Alan Garrison and he tells about his life as a soccer hooligan and the leader of one of the English organized crews of soccer hooliganism. Throughout the interview Alan tells about his childhood and how he came to like an English soccer club know as Chelsea, and then how he came to be a hooligan for that club. he explains his battles, brusises and then how the hooliganism or at least the original hooliganism started to decrease. Alan started to explain how big corporations who invested in the soccer teams started influencing on who went to the games from rebellious young men to young men and women with office jobs and the average worker. In the end Alan discussed how hooliganism then started to become organized and the hooligans would run if they had organized a beating against a rivals's club fans and saw the cops around. He explained how his pride in hooliganism of Chelsea had died along with the globalization of these big corporations such as McDonald's.

How Soccer Explains The World Chunk #1

How Soccer Explains The World, by Franklin Foer discusses the ways in which globalization has produce both cultural and economic failures. Foer does this with his use of soccer as a metaphor to show how the game explains this globalization. Foer when he was young, was horrible at soccer and because he couldn't play; decided to thoroughly study the game and soon became an expert in all aspects of the game. This is why he's able to explain why soccer explains the world and does this in his first chunk with the gangs created in what used to be Yugoslavia. He explains that fans of rival teams would create games and attack each other and even threaten opposing teams players. This was also mainly do to the different forms of governments being fought over by the Serbs who were against communism. Foer uses anecdotes of a once powerful instigator and notorious criminal of crimes committed by rival gangs while also producing an interview with those, who once were a part of these games. Thus Foer's first chunk explains different gangs, violence, and sects produce from globilizations failures.