Orville W. Taylor, Contributor

I AM running an above-average temperature not just because of my irritated sinuses but like most of the world's 6.5 billion residents I am suffering from 'World Cupitis'.

It has been a week of drama and rude awakenings because we have seen that reputation counts fornothing. Irrespective of the ranking of the team, as we say in Jamaica, 'The ball is round'.

Well, not all balls are round, but the 'seeding' of the teams does not mean that they will justify their favourite statuses.

The first wake up call was that of our former 'motherland' England. They eked out an unimpressive victory against Paraguay and squeezed past Trinidad and Tobago in the last 10 minutes of the game.

What was clear was that the 'Trinbagonians' proudly showed 'we aint fraid no mudda country!' They had earlier proven their mettle against Sweden, who failed to break their goalless impasse. Earlier, Ecuador shocked Poland, two-nil.

Perennial favourites Brazil seemed unspectacular against Croatia. Thankfully, Kaka fought for a goal a minute before half time. In a star-studded team, only Kaka holds his head up high despite having the most unflattering of names. He showed that Brazil is more wind than win.

BEATING AND SPANKING

Before that, the United States ran into a reality 'Czech' to the tune of three goals to nil.

Of course, this embarrassing Reggae Boyz-type beating was only surpassed by Ecuador's drubbing of Costa Rica and Poland. Ecuador means equator in Spanish and although Poland is virtually at home in Germany they were not equal to the task. Rather they were 'Poles' apart.

Still, Argentina, after a 'lukecold' game against Cote D'Ivoire stepped up and spanked Serbia and Montenegro, giving them much love: Six.

Given that Montenegro means 'black mountain', it reminded me of the whipping we used to get on the Latin American plantations when they invented the term, 'beating the black off you'.

Nonetheless, high-ranked Spain gave pain to Ukraine with a four goal show of disdain and seems on a train, the cup to obtain.

Hopefully, the Trinbagonians will defeat Paraguay as they have shown more guts than our footballers.

Given this performance of T&T, I cannot help but wonder if it is because they have a president of their football association who has international status.

After all, under FIFA vice-president Austin 'Jack' Warner, they have shown that they are world class. With Captain Horace Burrell, despite his alleged arrogance and debt that he incurred for the JFF to himself, the Reggae Boyz earned global recognition.

The present administration has failed to create an impact. In fact, the only ones who have taken the shame from our eyes are the Reggae Girlz.

I am not saying that the present core of administrators don't mean well. Indeed they do. It is just that they have bitten off more than they can chew.

Our football needs more creativity and imagination, which can come with an opening up to international knowledge whether possessed by a local or not. Jamaican football needs a new paradigm. We must think outside of the Boxhill.

Enough about the World Cup already! I witnessed the fastest 100 metres ever run. Asafa Powell cruised to 9.7620 (9.77) with a trailing wind of 1.5 metres per second (mps) compared to Justin Gatlin's 9.7660 with a stronger 1.7 mps wind behind him.

Interestingly, it took just over a month for his record to be ratified while Asafa's took four. Maybe it is due to the value of our local currency. Let's see how long it is going to require for this second lien on the record to be confirmed. Since Asafa has done it twice, doesn't it make him the majority holder?

Nonetheless, as we relish the success and failures of our teams on Father's Day, all is not well on Jamrock. Oops!

Since it's 'woman time now' it should be called Jamfrock. I will reserve my detailed comments on Jamaican fatherhood because it a hard topic to handle in a few lines.

However, check these facts. Did you know that in a recent exercise by the Registrar-General Department, close to 60 per cent of Jamaican men made positive moves to have their names included on their children's' birth certificates?

Even more noteworthy is the fact that data reveal that 33 per cent of DNA tests taken by Jamaican men to affirm paternity shows that they are not the biological parent.

Remember, this is in cases where the man actually accepts that he believes that it is his child.

I would imagine that the numbers related to 'paternity fraud' are significantly higher when the man denies paternity.

What these figures demonstrate is that women are not as blameless as they typify themselves. More about this another time, so let me wrap up the discussion in a neat 'jacket'.

My final comments this week are concerning the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and the unsettled wage negotiations between groups within the public sector and government.

MoU OBSERVATIONS

Inasmuch as I believe in an MoU and a social partnership, I have to take issue with a perpetual blanket clause that prevents other non-MoU groups from receiving increases beyond those of the average public officer.

While this might be good politics, it is making the good, scarce and flight-prone high-skilled pro-fessionals unjustly unhappy.

The fact is the MoU was initiated to save some 15,000 civil service and local government jobs. This was because there was inefficiently too many of them.

While I have the utmost respect for public officers, it is unacceptable that doctors, nurses and teachers who are hard to train and replace have the same value as civil servants whose jobs are not rationalised.

Dr. Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Mona.