Savvy Women

It’s no secret that Cairo is one of the most polluted cities in the world. Often, the air is so dirty that the sky actually looks brown rather than blue. That’s right, you heard me correctly; I said the air in Egypt’s capital is frequently BROWN. Of course, my lungs are not especially happy about this fact.

As an American who lives in such a place, I am aware (sometimes painfully) of what can happen when human beings abuse the environment. I think if more of my compatriots could come to a city like Cairo, they’d become overnight converts to the Green Movement. They’d understand that we can’t trash up the whole place without having it come back to bite us.

I often despair for the future of the planet, but then I see something, like the video I’ve included in this week’s blog, that gives me a bit of hope.

(Note: There is a problem with this video’s embed code, so clicking on the image will redirect you to the site where the clip originally appeared. You’ll have to return to the blog by hitting the “back” button. Sorry for the inconvenience.)

After watching this clip once again, I do feel that the world, and all of us who call it home, might just have a chance after all. But what we need, if this hope is to be realized, are more countries like Sweden and more programs like Climate Pilots and more people like the Stokeses.

I know that what I’m about to say might come across as hopelessly utopian, but I don’t care. I’m going to say it anyway. So here goes. I hope the day comes when a country’s power is no longer measured by how large its army is or by how many weapons it has but rather by how clean it keeps it water and air and land, and thus, by extension, how strong and healthy are its people.

Those SWM readers who live in America know that it is football season. To know this, one would simply need to turn on the TV and do a little channel surfing at just about any time of the day or night on either Saturday or Sunday. Of course, I forgot ESPN’s Monday Night Football and the Thursday evening games. My point is this, football (to the chagrin of many a reader, I’m sure) is ubiquitous, in America, this time of year.

What you may not be aware of is that there’s a new league, something called the Lingerie Football League, or the LFL, for short.

As the official LFL website makes clear, this new league is composed solely of women players, with the rules being slightly different from the men’s game. The game is full contact, and many of the competitors, as official Lingerie Football League promotional materials make clear, have storied athletic backgrounds. There are currently ten professional LFL franchises that represent the following cities: Chicago (Bliss), New York (Majesty), Philadelphia (Passion), Tampa (Breeze), Miami (Caliente), Seattle (Mist), Dallas (Desire), Los Angeles (Temptation), San Diego (Seduction), and Denver (Dream).

To get a sense of what the game is like, there are several videos available on the league website. There’s also this one, shot by a fan, at one of the Bliss games.

After watching the video, it’s clear that the spectators are really into it, but that may not be surprising given the players’ uniforms (or lack thereof). All this raises an interesting question: Should this sport be taken seriously, or is it an example of sex-ploitation?

The LFL would certainly like to give the impression that the sport is for real, and the players themselves talk about how they don’t want to be thought of as “powder puffs,” but then again, LFL officials have used the term “lingerie” to describe this new league. That would be like changing the name of the NFL to the “Boxer Shorts Football League.”

I’d like to hear from my readers. What do you think about this new sport and the LFL?