How many futbols could one bomb purchase?

The end is in sight. The Wilson One World Futbol campaign has ascended the equivalent of more than two Everests and is within 7,000 feet of its fifth Rainier. Everest is 29,029 feet above Sea Level. Rainier rises 14,409 feet. And to date the Wilson campaign has ascended 65,531 feet, just 4,500 feet short of the original 70,000 foot ascent goal we set last fall. We will have ascended the equivalent of five Rainiers (72,045 feet) well before we climb Mount Adams, the state's largest mountain.

And today the Wilson campaign came within eight balls of the original target of 100 one World Futbols to be raised as part of our training regimen to prepare for climbing Adams. The purchaser of ball No. 92 was Joe Colgan, who was featured in this blog on March 17, when we met him during the Madison Street Marathon. Joe and his colleagues were standing outside Seattle's federal building, where they stand every Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. asking motorists to honk if they support opposition to war. (One particular motorist executed some particularly loud honks -- he was driving a garbage truck.)

Joe Colgan rings a bell in memory of a Washingtonian killed in war.

I was supposed to be hiking Mount Si today, but my hiking buddy fell ill, so I used this Tuesday to check in with Joe. I found him ringing a bell while a colleague read the names of Washington men who had died in war. When the reading was over I advised him that, in Valle Chota, Ecuador, there was a one world futbol bouncing around that bore the name of his son, Ben, who had died in Baghdad. Ben's death led Colgan to start his peace vigil, which has been drawing attention at Second and Madison for years.

You know, statistically, a One World Futbol serves about 30 children. It only costs $25. According to Wikipedia, the United States defense budget for 2010 was $663.7 billion. According to the folks who manufacture the One World Futbol, the number of people who could benefit from these toys is about 2 billion. The project says each ball serves 30 people, but let's be conservative and say that a ball serves 20. That pencils out to 100 million balls. Multiply that by $25 per ball, and you end up with an expenditure of $2.5 billion dollars to provide One World Futbols for all the people in the world who could use them.

Let's get crazy for a second. What if our Predator drones fired One World Futbols instead of Hellfire missiles? Since the Hellfire weighs more than 100 pounds, there might be a significant fuel savings due to the lighter payload. If the ball went off target, maybe a child who wasn't killed through collateral damage would have a really rugged toy to play with. And what does a Hellfire cost? How many One World Futbols might we deliver to a battlefield if we bought the balls instead of the bombs?

And can you imagine the amazed looks on the faces of the enemy soldiers when they peeked up out of their foxholes and found themselvse surrounded by a sea of blue spheres? Their first reaction might be to shoot the spheres, and then they would be further amazed to find out their bullets didn't seem to do any good.  Pretty soon, during the breaks between airstrikes, they might form a soccer league and think of something more positive than killing everyone in sight.

Well, OK, it's a crazy notion. But you gotta dream occasionally.

Drop balls, not bombs!

Victory Flag: By the way--are there any seamstresses out there who would know how to make a triangular or rectangular sports flag? What I'm looking for is something that would say "Team Wilson," and might have the image of a One world Futbol on it. I was thinking that when Roger, Wilson and I summit Adams, we ought to plant a flag at the top for the photo op. I would sure appreciate anyone who could help us with this little project. And Wilson will deserve the recognition, having made it up a long, steep slope without arms or legs.

Love,

Robert, and
Wilson