According to NPR [ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102591978&ft=1&f=3 ]:

A soccer coach says he was joking. But when parents didn’t get it, Michael Kinahan resigned from a Massachusetts youth soccer league. He sent an e-mail saying “losing is for losers.” He said the team would be known as “Green Death,” and that parents should cheer instead of sitting there “sipping mocha-latte-half-caf-chinos.”

…Honestly, I’m not surprised. Today’s soccer-parents (and many adults their age—that being slightly younger than the baby boomers) are children themselves who stare blankly into space, then throw a fit when someone breaks their meaningless concentration. The fact that just an email can escalate to someone loosing one’s job is the least surprising aspect of this story. These unengaged parents can throw quite a fit; and they’ve been doing it all their lives… they are the ones who will sue you for anything, paint over the arts, and raise a nation of undereducated brats, i.e. these parents are the modern manifestation of evil in our society (in line with other evils of western culture in recent history a la the Nazis, the KKK, the Evangelicals-in fact some may even fall into these groups).

The best part though is that one person who I assume is the only enlightened parent supporting the soccer team and felt she needed to comment on NPR’s website [ same link as above ]:

Red Hake (Red99) wrote:
To be fair you have to read his e-mail, keep in mind that the letter is written to the parents not the kids. The letter does have a sort of disclamer note alerting the reader that he is long winded and that they might need a sense of humor to read on. He has also written an e-mail resigning from his volunteer coaching position, this and the original can be found at -barstool sports-.

He explains that he is poking fun at the very same mentality he is accused of having. The entire second half of his letter is written in jest, some of if a little bitting if you have thin skin but in jest never the less.

He has coached many of these girls before and year after year thay want to be on his team because thay have fun. 

It all comes to end (apparently) when Mr. and Mrs Thurston Howell III (yes – this is a Gilligans Island reference)get offended.

The blow up of this from e-mail to the parents to someone (not him) posting it on the internet to local and reagonal papers and news stations to NPR picking up this story is a testament to our overal compleat lack of a sense of humor, the revolting level of political correctness and the apparently shallow uninteresting lives we lead that allows us to get somting this far out of proportion.

Now, while this parent has some spelling and punctuation issues, the last paragraph is dead-on. Behold another example of failure on a human level.

Tonight, I went to see Blackbird at the Studio Theatre in DC.

So the basic story: We witness the encounter of Ray (now Peter), a man nearing 60 who has served some time but now has a mediocre management position at a very unkempt office, by Una, now around 30, a young woman we discover Ray abused when she was 12.

The show starts out intense and unfolds the layers of each character’s past, their relationship, and how it came to a crashing halt. Blackbird is raw, rough and real, from the content of the show, to the storytelling by the actors, to the corporate break-room set (complete with harsh florescent lighting).

While there were several moments where the audience is so drawn and responsive to the piece, the first I noticed seemed to set the tone for the production: I saw the show with my sister and didn’t tell her much about the show other than as the lights were dimming that it might be a bit bold. So when Una asks something along the lines of “How many other 12-year-olds have you had sex with?” (telling the audience for the first time their relationship and how young she was), I hear this low quiet “woah” from my sister.

I would recommend everyone to see it before it ends, but I realized as writing this post that we saw the closing performance. C’est la vie. Another great show at The Studio Theatre.