Even before the first ball was kicked, Houston’s new Major League Soccer team ran into trouble with its name. The first choice, "Houston 1836", a nod to Houston and Texas history, had to be abandoned because it was offensive to some in the Latino community. The new name is "Houston Dynamo" (please note the singular – not Dynamos).
“Dynamo is a word to describe someone who never fatigues, never gives up,” franchise president Oliver Luck said. “The new name is symbolic of Houston as an energetic, hard-working, risk-taking kind of town.” The nixing of 1836 was expected after the name was deemed offensive by some in the Hispanic community shortly after its unveiling Jan. 25.
The team and league have maintained 1836 was meant to honor the year Houston was founded. However, 1836 was also the year Texas fought for and gained independence from Mexico. Some Hispanics, including many of Mexican-American descent, found the name offensive.
The word dynamo, an earlier term for generator and short for dynamoelectric machine, is well-known universally."
Meanwhile in less serious sporting news, George Bush tried his hand at cricket while in Pakistan. Unlike the warm welcome he received in India, Bush’s trip to Pakistan was a disaster. He landed in Islamabad with the lights off and shades down on Air Force One (for security reasons). Musharraf, who is suspected of not being wholly enthusiastic about curbing the terrorists within his borders, is in a huff. He is unhappy about the pressure being put on him for catching Osama and also at what he sees as the US’s newly cozy relations with India. In an unprecedented break with diplomatic protocol, he sent his daughter (!) to receive the President and First Lady from the darkened tarmac. Bush must have sensed the chilly reception but that did not prevent him from indulging in a bit of customary light hearted buffoonery with Pakistan’s favorite sport, cricket. He even threw out some cricketing jargon like "googly".
"President Bush finally got a big laugh in Islamabad. It involved a fling he had taken earlier at cricket, the national pastime of Pakistan.
"I was fooled by a googly, otherwise I would have been a better batsman," Bush said Saturday at a state dinner in his honor.
In the sport of cricket, a googly or "wrong ‘un" is a delivery by a bowler that looks like a normal leg spinner but actually turns toward the batsman, like an off-break, rather than away from the bat. At least, that’s what the BBC Web site says. "Although the action of the fingers and the wrist is the same, the ball starts spinning the ‘wrong way’ — from off to leg. A brilliant ball if delivered correctly, and can make a total fool of batsmen," according to the BBC.
As Bush said recently when asked about cricket back in Washington, "Do what, now?"
Hmm… quite hilarious. After reading this, I too am reminded of some cricketing lingo of my youth. As far as I am concerned Mr. President, you have been "clean bowled", "leg before the wicket", "caught at "Silly Mid-On" and clumsily "run out" several times during your failed tenure. "How’s that?" So, why are you still playing?
Note to non-cricketing readers: All the terms in quotation marks are some of the various ways a batsman can be ruled "out" in the game of cricket. When a bowler thinks the batsman is out, he shouts, "How’s That (howzzat)?" at the umpire, demanding an "out" verdict.
Accidental Blogger 
9 responses to “A Dynamo Deal … and Bush Plays Cricket”
Is he actively trying to make all of Pakistan angry with him/us? To me it looks a lot like American policy in the Middle East, siding with Israel (right or wrong!) over the surrounding Muslim states. “Here India, have some nuclear help, even though you hate Pakistan and have nuclear weapons and there’s this treaty you didn’t sign so we’re breaking all sorts of laws by helping you. Huh, what’s that Pakistan? No, no, everybody’s different; we don’t much care for your sort.” I’m sure I’m not fully informed on details, but if it looks that way to me, how must it feel for people living over there in the non-preferred states?
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I don’t support nuclear proliferation or the Bush Administration’s use of no-holds-barred weapons sharing agreements as a bid for international cooperation. But a few things are worth pointing out in response to your paraphrase of Bush’s gambit: Pakistan hates India, too (this actually makes nuclear proliferation in the two countries scarier); both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons; and both India and Pakistan (as well as Israel) declined to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. For that matter, many contend that the US violates the treaty with our use of weapons sharing agreements in the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey, etc. Also, Bush has expended a fair amount of actual and political capital on his relationship with Musharraf (I think Ruchira used an apt dance metaphor sometime back to refer to their relationship), even following the 2002 “confession” by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic weapons program, that he had shared nuclear technology with Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Given the tenuous stability of the state of Pakistan, which, in terms of control, seems to consist largely of Lahore and some suburbs, I think there’s a logic to aligning with India as the “friendlier” country. Rewarding it with bombs is another matter, and a problem non-specific to the Muslim-non-Muslim divide. This Administration has worked to provide military equipment and training to the stable but despotic Muslim regime in Saudi Arabia, and the US has stockpiled nuclear Jupiter missiles in Turkey, a Muslim country with a fairly egregious human rights record, since the early Cold War. Also, the Israel comparison doesn’t make sense to me, except perhaps in relation to Kashmir, which the Bush Administration, unlike Clinton, seems to care about not at all.
But, that rambling response isn’t why I wanted to post: I wanted to put in my objections to the name, “The Dynamo.” For one thing, it suggests, through the misleading power of alliteration, that the team’s from Dallas. More importantly, it joins the ignoble ranks of basketball teams such as the “Utah Jazz” and the “Orlando Magic” in the use of abstract nouns as team names. I expect better from soccer, if only because it’s the only sport I ever played (albeit not very seriously) and understand. This needs to stop. Has Houston entirely exhausted its supply of names that are both aliterative and concrete? Houston Heroes? Huston Hogs? Both taken? What gives?
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The US’s attitude towards India is nothing like the one towards Israel. For one thing, India does not need the US’s help for its own defense. In fact until the time of Clinton, the Indo-US relations were civil but cool. India is therefore very pleased with these warming trends. India wants to also maintain its always good ties to Russia and (now fraying) ones with the Muslim world. (India has more Muslims than any Islamic nation, other than Indonesia)
US’s new interest in India is twofold – economic and strategic. India offers up a huge market (300 million + members of the affluent middle class) for US goods. The rate of economic growth there has US companies eyeing India as a potential gold mine. There is also a lot of reverse brain drain with many US trained doctors and IT engineers returning to India, providing affordable, quality services within India for US businesses at a lower cost than is possible in the US. So some of this friendliness is driven by corporate pressure.
India has been the target of Islamic terrorism since long before Americans had heard of Osama, Taliban or Al Qaida … with little sympathy from the west. Pakistan has always been behind that mischief. Now that the US must fight the same menace in that part of the world, India is seen as a useful ally.
The nuclear deal is a hollow gesture – I doubt that the US congress will approve. Although it would have been hugely advantageous for India, I think that realists there know that it may be another example of Bush’s expansive but useless gestures. Also, wary as India is of Pakistan’s instability and unreliability, it is in the interest of India to develop a peaceful neighborly relation with Pakistan. There are several efforts on the official as well as grass roots levels being made in that direction. I don’t know if Bush’s nuclear deal is going to throw a spanner in the works. But I don’t see why Pakistan should act so miffed. After all, India has tolerated decades of unfair, one sided and harmful US foreign policy tilted towards the rogue state of Pakistan in that region, without losing its composure. But then India is a huge country, confident of its own identity whereas Pakistan (carved out of historic India) has unfortunately, always defined itself, mainly as “un-India”, leaning towards Arabization and eroding its natural south Asian roots.
A more interesting fallout from the nuclear deal is India’s relations with Iran which has always been good. I think India is much more worried about that than what Pakistan might do. It is no wonder that the Indian Prime Minister has requested the US that Russia should be the mediator with Iran and the US ought to refrain from doing anything rash.
See a report here from an Indian newspaper.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1642939,001301970000.htm
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Ditto, to everything Anna said – the comments got crossed in posting.
As for Houston Dynamo – I too don’t like this somewhat arcane, industrial sounding name. I was betting on alliteration – something along the line of Houston Hurricanes which also, I dont’ care for. Soccer players being sleeker in build, Hogs would have been unsuitable, I think. But for a choice of name from the world of biology, I would pick Houston Fire Ants any time over all other life forms. If you have evern been bitten by one, you would understand why.
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Ditto right back at you on Israel. Also, if I could ammend my comments, I would to reflect that Kahn’s acknowledgement and pardon were in 2004, not 2002, and by my ambiguous use of quotation marks around “confession,” I meant to highlight that there’s no reason to believe that Pakistan (and the US) didn’t already know.
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I just read that the MLS team in New York, the Metrostars, is to be renamed Red Bull New York, after the corporation that has purchased the club.
This moniker might seem sillier even than “Houston Dynamo,” but some of the great clubs in Europe are named after corporations; PSV Eindhoven began as the company team for Phillips, and Bayer Leverkusen was similarly affiliated with the aspirin giants. In that context, Red Bull New York doesn’t sound that awkward a note, at least to me.
Having said that, I prefer the classic, simpler names: Liverpool, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Coventry City, and, of course, my beloved Tottenham Hotspur.
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I don’t follow European football enough to know the relative merits of these teams, but “Tottenham Hotspur” is a particularly awesome name. I may have to name someone or something that– whether a child, a pet, a plant, or a character in a story, I haven’t yet decided.
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I like Real Madrid also. And somehow Kiev Dynamo(Dynamo Kiev) has a better ring to it than Houston Dynamo.
Tottenham Hotspur is indeed a name to cheer for. Come to think of it, had it not been for the negative cultural baggage, “Houston Hottentots” would have been a nifty name. And alliterative too!
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Now that I have some of you thinking about Tottenham Hotspur, let me recommend a wonderful essay that Salman Rushdie wrote in which he talks about his own love affair with Spurs. The piece appears in the volume STEP ACROSS THIS LINE, published, I think, by Random House.
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