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  • Soccer, Conservatives & Other Animals

    (Soccer post # 5)

    The US is out of World Cup Soccer, having lost 1-2 to the super underdog team of Ghana. (Ghana’s is the Cinderella story of the 2006 WCS. Their dream run is about to come to an end – they go up against Brazil next.) US fans are disappointed with the American loss even though no one really expected Team USA to win the cup. But they were widely expected to make it to the second round. Surprisingly enough, the conservatives, who wear their patriotism on their sleeves and lapels and want America to be # 1 in EVERYTHING, are relieved that the home team is not the top dog in world soccer ! And they have some convoluted political and cultural justifications for their perverse reasoning. 

    Foul!
    Why, despite everything, America will never embrace soccer.
    by Jonathan V. Last

    THERE’S GOOD NEWS and bad news on the World Cup front. The bad news is that, despite the instructions your media overlords have given you, no one in America is watching the great quadrennial soccer carnival. Sure, if you read only the headlines ("World Cup Ratings Soar"; "World Cup Scoring with American Viewers"), you might think America has finally submitted and embraced soccer.

    The good news is that it will take a near miracle for the U.S. squad to advance to the next round. That’s good because, truth be told, you and I don’t care and the rest of the world cares very, very much. An American loss in the World Cup is basically a requirement for international stability. Look how upset everyone got when we toppled a murderous dictator in Iraq. What would happen if America–not just America, but George Bush’s America!–won the World Cup? Panic? Riots? The upheaval of civilizations? It wouldn’t surprise me if Bush’s "pep talk" with Bruce Arena before the Czech game was really a veiled threat: "Hey, coach, good luck out there. If you win, the vice president wants to take you quail hunting."

    Soccer fans: Read the rest of the story here.  Warning: Like everything conservative, it’s not very interesting.

    Here is a more interesting soccer story.

    _elephantsoccer1 That match involving the Elephants of Ivory Coast and Serbia Montenegro was an epic display of already eliminated team football, but by all indications it didn’t compare to a match in Thailand involving real pachyderms. An all-elephant side took on an all-human side and the result was a 3-3 draw.

    The match was held as part of an effort to discourage Thais from gambling on the World Cup. World Cup gambling is apparently the number one pastime right now in Thailand even though it is illegal and everyone lost all their money when Angola crapped out of the tournament.

    Not sure what affect this animal vs. human match will have on World Cup gambling, but I’m guessing that the money was flying around with people wagering which human would be stomped to death by an elephant first.

    Each elephant had a flag representing a World Cup country painted on its back and were given names like “Beckham”. No word on whether the humans were equally painted or if they were given famous elephant names like “Dumbo”.

  • Sacred Soccer

    Those who wish to scoff at my claim that soccer is indeed the most democratic and ecumenical of all sports, please take a look here! I wonder if the language remains holy when a foul is drawn. And are they playing to score a soccer goal or attain a higher one?  What is amply clear is that they are definitely having some earthly fun.

    P.S:  I am going out on a limb to predict the 2006 World Cup Soccer champs (in the descending order of probability.)

    1. Argentina 2. Spain 3. Germany or Brazil

  • Fire On Ice

    060619rainbowfire_big This amazing picture is of a rainbow seen over Idaho. (From National Geographic)

    Click for enlargement

    "June 19, 2006—It looks like a rainbow that’s been set on fire, but this phenomenon is as cold as ice.  Known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, this rare sight was caught on film on June 3 as it hung over northern Idaho near the Washington State border (map of Idaho).

    The arc isn’t a rainbow in the traditional sense—it is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sight occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58° above the horizon). What’s more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

    When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus’s crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors.

    This particular arc spanned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour, according to the London Daily Mail."  —Victoria Gilman

  • The Red Hot Zone

    I don’t know about you but I no longer hold out any hope that the Iraqi problem is within our powers to resolve in a peaceful or moral manner. We all feel anxious, angry, betrayed and stressed out . I have not heard any solution from politicians of either party that lays out a realistic and compassionate plan of getting out of Iraq without leaving that country looking like Lebanon and Afghanistan of the 1980s and  ’90s. And staying the disastrous course chalked out by George Bush and his cronies will result further in untold miseries for the Iraqis and the US military families. Thousands of older veterans of the Vietnam war are seeking help for renewed post traumatic stress 30 years after their own experience because the Iraq war evokes memories of yet another fruitless war launched by subterfuge, lies and arrogance.

    Today we learnt of the tragic, horrifying news of the two young soldiers kidnapped a few days ago who were found killed, maimed and brutalized. Their deaths bring the total number of US combat deaths to roughly two per day since the war began. And we don’t have any accurate count of the number of Iraqis who are dead and made homeless in their own country.   

    Just a few days ago, George Bush sneaked into Baghdad like a thief under the cover of darkness to bolster the confidence of the newly formed Iraqi government and to score political points at home.

    Shrouded in secrecy, Bush’s surprise five-hour visit to the Iraqi capital marked the first time he had met Maliki in person and came amid a raging insurgency. The visit was marked by the tightest security and secrecy possible — which meant that even Maliki learned that he was to see the US president only minutes before they met.

    "I have expressed our country’s desire to work with you, but I appreciate you recognize the fact that the future of your country is in your hands," the president told Maliki as they met in Baghdad’s fortified "Green Zone."

    Bush was safe and protected during his visit in the Green Zone of Baghdad.  What about the Iraqis who work for the US military in the Green Zone?  How safe are they ?  What is their life like outside the fortified area? 

    By STEVEN R. HURST

    BAGHDAD, Iraq Jun 20, 2006 (AP) : "A recent cable to the State Department from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad outlines a litany of fears and misery among Iraqi employees at the American diplomatic mission that threaten "objectivity, civility, and logic" among workers.

    The collection of anecdotes from Iraqi workers in an undisclosed office in the embassy paints an extraordinarily bleak picture of life in the capital, where local employees do not dare reveal where they work, even to family members, for fear of retribution.

    "Employees all share a common tale: of nine employees in March, only four had family members who knew they worked at the embassy. Iraqi colleagues who are called after hours often speak in Arabic as an indication they cannot speak openly in English," said the memo.

    The author was not known. All cables from U.S. embassies to the State Department are sent under the ambassador’s name, but there was no indication that the top U.S. diplomat in Baghdad, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, had written the document. It was first published Sunday by The Washington Post and apparently arrived in Washington during the early days of June, shortly before President Bush made his surprise visit to the capital.

    The report details fears among women who are taunted and threatened if they do not wear clothing of extreme modesty as demanded by some fundamentalist adherents of Islam. "Two of our three female employees report stepped up harassment beginning in mid-May.

    "One, a Shiite who favors Western clothing, was advised by an unknown woman in her Baghdad neighborhood to wear a veil and not to drive her own car," the cable said. "She said some groups are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative."

    The 23-point cable also detailed the hardships of daily life for Iraqi employees at the embassy who must live without electricity to power air conditioners about 16 hours of each day.

    Baghdad temperatures have already hit 115 and have routinely been in that range since the early days of the month. Others complained of gasoline shortages, and of the high price of fuel when it can be found on the black market.

    "One Shia employee told us [her] family left Iraq years ago. This month, another sister is departing for Egypt, as she imagines the future here is too bleak.

    "Another employee tells us life outside the Green Zone has become ’emotionally draining.’ He claims to attend a funeral ‘every evening.’ He, like other local employees, is financially responsible for his immediate and extended families. He revealed that ‘the burden of responsibility; new stress coming from social circles who increasingly disapprove of the coalition presence, and everyday threats weigh very heavily.’"

    Given the increasing difficulties, the writer of the cable concluded:

    "Although our staff retain a professional demeanor, strains are apparent. We see their personal fears are reinforcing divisive sectarian or ethnic channels. Employees are apprehensive enough that we fear they may exaggerate developments or steer us toward news that comports with their own world view. Objectivity, civility, and logic that make for a functional workplace may falter if social pressures outside the Green Zone don’t abate."                                                       The Associated Press.

  • The Rising Cost of Attention

    Weeks ago, Ruchira invited me to post a message along the
    lines of the discussion
    we had here about the relationship of science
    and art    . Thank you, Ruchira,
    for the generous invitation. The
    continuation of that discussion, which was the goal of her invitation, awaits
    another day, because I am frankly not very clear about what I meant, except
    that the ascendancy of popular science’s meddling in art leaves a bad taste in
    my mouth. The invitation to write is
    inevitably also an opportunity to fret. Even the fluidity and freedom of association of the blogosphere don’t
    cure writer’s block. So, I’ve decided to
    take up another of Ruchira’s suggestions to me, the posting of a book review. I’m a librarian, so I am quite amenable to
    investing my energies and enthusiams in other folks’ published works, one of
    which I recently finished reading: Richard
    A. Lanham’s The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the
    Age of Information     (Univ. of Chicago Press,
    2006) ISBN 0226468828.

    Richard Lanham is most well-known as a professor of English
    at UCLA and elsewhere. He is expert not
    only in the history of rhetoric, but also in the very practical matter of
    revision of prose. (It is clear that I
    haven’t read any of his practical work.) He has also served as an expert witness in cases involving copyright,
    trademark, and other issues requiring stylistic judgment (not any court’s
    forte, that’s for sure), and he and his wife run a consulting business, Rhetorica,
    Inc.    , whose web site is well worth a visit, if not entirely
    intuitively navigable. See his “Stuffy
    Biography” there for more details. His
    background plainly accounts for two aspects of his new book: his emphasis on the integral value of style
    to all kinds of informative expression, and the clear, breezy style of his own
    prose.

    The commitment to clarity explains why I don’t recall Lanham
    even once using the word “dialectic” in his new book, but on reflection I think
    that’s what he describes as style’s confrontations with substance, a perpetual
    shifting of powers and priorities along a trajectory of historical evolution. At least this is how he urges the reader to
    view the relationship. His thesis is
    that where once we depended on economics to dwell on the scarcity of “stuff”—material
    objects you can drop on your foot, as he puts it—its focus in our new age of
    marketing and knowledge management has shifted (or at least ought to shift) to
    our scarcity of attention to “fluff,” the plentitude of information propagated
    by digital media. So simply stated, the
    thesis is perhaps more fun than insightful. And perhaps all told this fairly characterizes the book, which is a real
    pleasure to read, but which at the end of the day leaves one wondering what’s
    to be done about the economic shift of attention to attention. By this I don’t mean the book is mere fluff,
    because I for one find pleasure at least as handy as information.

    Lanham’s professional career, however, suggests an obvious response
    to such a quandary: we should cultivate
    rhetoric, the art of persuasion. We must
    learn how to use the language, and now also all competing media with and
    through which we communicate messages, to capture the gaze of our intended
    audience. (The clashing metaphors sum up
    our synaesthetic situation.) Lanham’s
    orientation is thus both prospective and retrospective. He’s an old-fashioned emeritus professor of
    stuffy literature with his sights set on cutting-edge frontiers of
    technological promise, a hip digiphile with a cool web site and references in his
    book to, among others, John Cage and Miles Davis, steeped in the minutiae of
    classical literary technique. To boot,
    he is not an economist, a circumstance he fully discloses. That is, he is not a real economist, the sort
    who would write a book titled, The Economics of [something we never imagined to
    have an economic aspect, but which on second thought does appear to be suited
    for such quasi-scientific modeling, and so something about which we now
    desperately want an economist’s take if we’re to grasp its importance and its
    essence…something like aging, or art, or—if you’re freakonomists Levitt and
    Dubner—everything…or attention]. In a
    way, he hedges this confession when he first holds himself out as a scholar of
    rhetoric—an indisputable claim—and then identifies rhetoric with the economics
    of attention. So he is some kind of an
    economist after all, or perhaps he only means to present himself as one who
    studies, rather than does, what economists do.

    No matter. The point
    of his book is not to prescribe rigorous principles of an economics of attention,
    but rather to set the stage for one from which to rally enthusiasts to advance,
    and to begin to explain why rhetoric is the plunger to wield against the information
    back-up. The stage setting has
    historical and contemporary furnishings, corresponding to Lanham’s depth of
    knowledge of literary history and his genuine excitement with the miscellaneous
    mess of so-called information accumulating in digital storehouses around the
    world. For example, he describes
    evolving formats of script and print. The classical convention of writing without spaces between words or
    punctuation gave way to formal rules for indicating the textual correlatives of
    bodily and vocal gesture, which succumbed to more experimental, iconoclastic
    principles of design that nowadays seem coy after the advent of whoop-de-do,
    bells-and-whistles, pull-out-all-the-stops Flash presentations melding images,
    sound, and text (well, at least the copyright statement remains as a stable vestige
    of print culture).

    This evolution points out an important thread of the book, Lanham’s
    elaboration of the complementary notions of “at” and “through” reading. We tend to read text by seeing through it to
    the underlying abstract concepts, until the text (or some prescribed reading
    convention) prompts us to attend directly to the material text, to look
    directly at it and its design on the page or screen. In other words, we think of substance as what
    the text means and style as how it means it, and we generally have little
    trouble distinguishing the two. The Web and
    digital media facilitate the “at” approach, just as rhetoric has purported to
    do so since its inception. “If you can’t
    dazzle ‘em with brilliance, baffle ‘em with bullshit” pretty well, if
    cynically, reflects this power of rhetoric to focus attention on style rather
    than substance, and Lanham is justifiably at pains to rescue rhetoric from its
    almost exclusive identification these days with the latter derogatory clause.

    (more…)

  • How Cool Is This?

    I just stumbled upon the Spanish version of Accidental Blogger ! Bloggers linked here, please check out your own Blog names in Spanish. I am sure one can do this in any language – I just don’t know how. Does this mean that someone reads A.B. in Spanish?   I love this. 

  • The Long And Short of Criminal Justice

    A strange judicial tale out of Sydney, Nebraska. I will post it without further commentary.

    "A US judge has sentenced a man convicted of sexually assaulting a child to probation instead of jail, fearing he is too short to survive in prison. Nebraska’s attorney-general will appeal the sentence as being "far too lenient."

    The judge’s sentence outraged advocates for child sexual abuse victims. But supporters of short people said it is about time someone recognised the challenges they face.

    Richard Thompson, only 1.55 metres tall, had faced up to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of two charges sexually assaulting a minor – the 12-year-old daughter of his fiancee – in Sidney, Nebraska.  This week Cheyenne County District Judge Kristine Cecava told Thompson that his offences warranted a stiff prison sentence but put him on 10 years probation, saying he was too small to survive for very long in a state prison.

    Thompson will be electronically monitored during the first four months of his probation, and was told to never be alone with someone under age 18 or date or live with a woman whose children were under 18. Cecava also ordered Thompson to get rid of his pornography.

    "This sentence is far too lenient," said Nebraska Attorney-General Jon Bruning Brunin today. "Anyone who sexually assaults a child deserves to live their life behind bars for awhile."

    Marla Sohl, of the Nebraska Domestic Violence Sexual Assault Coalition, said the judge was more concerned for the criminal and his safety in prison than for his victim.

    But Joe Mangano, secretary of the New York-based National Organisation of Short Statured Adults, said he agreed that Thompson would face more dangers in prison because of his height.

    "He would probably end up being somebody’s woman" in prison, said Mangano, herself 1.62 metres tall.  "Then again, after what he did some people might think he would deserve that sort of a fate."

    AP

  • Soccer & Political Theory

    Forgive me for writing my third soccer related post within one week. I promise the pattern will last only up to July 9. So please bear with me.

    A few days ago, I wrote about the new realities playing out on the soccer field due to globalization. Today, Franklin Foer at The New Republic has an analysis of the relation between the prevailing political system of a participating country and its relative chances of success in the World Cup. It is quite funny and is true for the most part only because Foer has the benefit of hindsight and fitting facts to theory. But he plays cute in the end and takes the easy route.   (Since TNR requires registration, I will summarize Foer’s findings.)

    "There have been revolutions to create socialism, democracy, and authoritarian dictatorship. But humankind has yet to fight a revolution to guarantee one of the most vital elements–if not the most vital element–of the good life. That is, a winning soccer team. If we were to take up arms for this reason, what kind of government would we want to install? 

    Political theory, for all its talk about equality and virtue, has strangely evaded this question. But, after 17 World Cups, there’s now a mass of empirical data, and, using the most sophisticated methods available, we can now determine the political and economic conditions that yield soccer glory."

    According to Foer:

    • Communism creates great players but never championship teams. Examples: Hungary, Poland, the erstwhile USSR.
    • When fascism is a world power, fascist countries do well. Exmples: Germany, Italy, Brazil in the 1930s
    • When the fascists’ powers are on the wane and/or they are engaged in genocides, fascist countries don’t do well.  Blood lust drains winning lust on the field. Examples: Germany in 1938 and Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
    • Military juntas are superb for championships and winning matches. Brazil and Argentina in the 1970s and ’80s. Also true for straggler junta nations like El Salvador and Paraguay.
    • Social democracies do well. Examples: Western Europe and now EU.
    • Colonizers still win over the colonized.
    • Oil producing nations underachieve.  Examples: Russia, Nigeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Norway and Gulf nations.

    I will add one of my own to Foer’s list. " Being a huge, diverse, multicultural, overly religious democracy is bad for winning in soccer. Examples: India and the US." 

    Now the most important caveat to all the above political theories.

    "There’s one iron law that overrides all the others. The political reality most likely to produce a Jules Rimet trophy at any given moment in history: whatever form of government has taken up residence in Brasilia that week."

    Ha! Agreed.

  • “Con”sternation!

    Found this funny piece at Truthout.org by Bill Zide via Leiter Reports. It is a pretty accurate description of what conservative politics (aided and abetted by the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rove and DeLay) has become.

    "Once upon a time there were real "Conservatives." They believed in fiscal and political responsibility. They expounded on the virtues of getting government out of people’s lives. They talked about caution with regard to the use of military force and foreign intervention. They even promoted a policy of governmental accountability. Many of these people existed in the Republican Party. They might have been off track, behind the curve possibly, or at times deluded, but most tended to be civil, honorable and sincere. They were more often than not the necessary loyal opposition… [If you are a moderate Republican (a nearly extinct breed) you must be built of stern stuff or simply be a certified masochist. They hate you. No, really really hate you. You are a RINO (Republican in name only). Even though your values are the values of such other "RINOs" as Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln. You are not really a Republican.]

        Now, "Conservative" has become a particularly dirty word. Worse yet, it seems to be heading toward becoming totally meaningless altogether. Once, the root of the word "Conservative" was "conserve," a word that implied caution and preservation. Now, it seems that this new brand of "Neo-" or "Theo-Conservative" that populates the rank and file of the current GOP leadership has put the "con" back into "conservative." They are more about being against things than being for anything real or substantive. It’s all about the "Con": Conceal. Conceit. Concoct. Condescend. Congest. Confabulate. Confederacy. Contradictory. Conformity. Confound. Confrontational. Confused. Conglomerates. Conjecture. Conquest. Conflagration. Conflict. Condemn. Convicted. Con-men. Consolidation. Conspiracy. Consume. Contorted. Contrivance. Control. And, always, always – Contributions.

        Interestingly, the "cons" missing from their agenda and concept of the world include: Concern. Contraception. Constitution. Consistency. Conscience. Contriteness. And, always, always – Consequences."

    A few other "Cons" that Zide forgot to include in what modern conservatism has come to mean are: Conflate, Connive, Contaminate and given their holier than thou uptightness, Constipate. 

  • A Tarnished Halo

    O wad some Power the giftie gie us
    To see oursels as ithers see us!
             ( To A Louse) : Robert Burns (1759 – 1796)

    Tell that to Bush – Cheney Inc.  The New York Times reports that the image of the USA around the world is on a downward slide like Bush’s own approval ratings at home. The downturn is evident even in staunch pro-American countries like India. The Pew Research Center surveyed 16,710 people in Britain, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. The polling was conducted from March 31 to May 14.

    The other significant findings reported are:

    • Pessimism about the future of Iraq was widespread.
    • All groups except Americans and Germans saw the United States presence in Iraq as posing a greater threat to world peace than the threat posed by Iran.
    • The poll found strong majorities in Western Europe, Japan, and India sharing underlying American concerns about Iran.
    • The poll found people in most of the 15 countries unhappy with their own national conditions.
    • Despite the toll taken by the Iraq war, Americans appeared to be paying less attention than others around the world to the controversies that the war has caused.While 3 in 4 Americans said they had heard reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at the United States naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, substantially more West Europeans and Japanese — 9 in 10 — had heard about them.
    • Awareness of global warming was uniformly high in the industrialized countries, but concern about its effects was sharpest in Japan and India, with two-thirds of those polled in both countries expressing great concern.
    • Awareness of bird flu was nearly universal.

    WASHINGTON, June 13 — As the war in Iraq continues for a fourth year, the global image of America has slipped further, even among people in countries closely allied with the United States, a new global opinion poll has found.

    Favorable views of the United States dropped sharply over the past year in Spain, where only 23 percent now say they have a positive opinion, down from 41 percent in 2005… In Britain, Washington’s closest ally in the Iraq war, positive views of America have remained in the mid-50’s in the past two years, down sharply from 75 percent in 2002.

    Other countries where positive views dropped significantly include India (56 percent, down from 71 percent since 2005); Russia (43 percent, down from 52 percent); and Indonesia (30 percent, down from 38 percent). In Turkey, a NATO ally of the United States, only 12 percent said they held a favorable opinion, down from 23 percent last year.

    The ebbing of positive views of the United States coincides with a spike in feeling that the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place. This perception was shared by majorities in 10 of the countries surveyed, including Britain, where 60 percent said the world had become more dangerous since Saddam Hussein’s removal from power in 2003.

    Many respondents distinguished between their largely negative feelings about President Bush and their feelings about ordinary Americans. Majorities in seven countries polled had favorable views of Americans, led by Japan, at 82 percent, and Britain, at 69 percent.

  • Your Ribs Are Crushing My Elbow

    One of the worst experiences of my otherwise wonderful university days was the daily commute from home to college using Delhi’s notorious city buses. (It was common for us to live at home and attend local universities, especially when you lived in big cities like Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai etc where most good schools are located.) Except for the super rich, college students did not own cars in those days and we all made use of the public transport system. Apart from rude drivers and conductors, the bus ride for young women was made particularly unpleasant by nasty passengers who thought nothing of verbally and physically abusing women. To fend off the unwelcome attention, most school girls and young women preferred to travel in groups. One morning, a friend of mine was being persistently pestered by a man who insisted on making body contact with her in a crowded bus. After a while my friend turned around and threatened to punch him in the face.  The man replied, without batting an eyelid, "You should be the one to watch out. Your ribs are crushing my elbow !"

    I was reminded of that shameless man and his chutzpah this morning when I read the following story in today’s Houston Chronicle. Speaking of the three recent suicides by one Yemeni and two Saudi prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, some US officials defended the illegal incarceration and blamed the deaths on the mens’ own criminal mentality and lack of regard for human life.

    "THE military prison at Guantanamo Bay was established in 2002 to hold detainees in the war against terror indefinitely, without charge and without access to legal counsel. It marked a fundamental departure from both American and international law. Subsequent events have shown it to be a human rights and public relations disaster that has badly tarnished the image of the United States in the eyes of the world.

    Early Saturday morning, two Saudis and a Yemeni hung themselves in their Guantanamo Bay cells using bedding and clothing. They were the first deaths to be reported at the U.S. enclave on the island of Cuba; 23 prisoners unsuccessfully attempted suicide in 2003. Intermittent hunger strikes continue at the facility, where participating prisoners are now routinely strapped into chairs and force-fed through stomach tubes, according to reporting by The New York Times.

    The U.N. committee against torture issued a report last month accusing the United States of employing interrogation methods at Guantanamo that violate international treaties banning torture, and called for the closing of the facility. The sentiment has been echoed by U.S. allies, including Britain’s Tony Blair and Germany’s Angela Merkel. President George W. Bush has indicated he would consider closing Guantanamo after the Supreme Court rules on the fate of the detainees.

    A British prisoner who was later released was ejected from his tribunal for quoting international law. The tribunal president told him, "I don’t care about international law. I don’t want to hear the words ‘international law’ again."

    The reaction of several U.S. officials to the suicides should embarrass Americans who believe in due process and humane treatment of prisoners. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomacy Colleen Graffy told the British Broadcasting Service the prisoners "don’t value their own life and they certainly don’t value ours … There were means and methods for protestation, and certainly taking their own lives was not necessary. But it certainly is a good PR move to draw attention."

    Guantanamo Bay’s commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, sounded a similar note: "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

    After the remarks by both officials triggered criticism from international media and human rights groups, a U.S. State Department spokesman sought to soften the rhetoric. "We would not say it was a P.R. stunt," said Sean McCormack. "We have serious concerns anytime anybody takes their own life."

    In other words, it is all their fault for not shutting up and quietly accepting their imprisonment without trial and whatever treatment the US military sees fit to mete out.  Matt at Cerulean Blue chronicles the "take no responsibility and blame others for all your blunders" mindset of the Bush administration in a great post, "Asymmetric Logic."

  • Post Colonial Soccer Reality

    I hope those of you who are paying even cursory attention to the World Cup Soccer championship in Germany are enjoying the experience so far. (Too bad, Team USA played an uninspiring match today to lose 0 – 3 to the Czech Republic).  But there is much more going on off the playing field in the area of global politics, cultural rivalries and even which brew is suitable for the world’s biggest sporting extravaganza. The celebrated German beer drinkers, are upset that the championship’s main sponsor is Budweiser, the lowbrow American beer that most German bars don’t even sell. It is safe to assume that the Germans are drowning their contempt and sorrow in steins overflowing with the local "real" stuff although they can’t buy anything except Bud inside the stadium. But beyond the beer snobbery, there are also many undercurrents of history and politics that make this championship interesting to watch.

    Soccer is a truly international game. Everyone from Mongolia to Chile plays it.  It is an egalitarian game, not the bastion of the well heeled or the well trained. Superior physical stature of an opponent can be effectively neutralized with speed and co-operative team work.  All you need is a ball.  You can play it anywhere – even in a war ravaged country side.  And the game has a flamboyance and natural feel to it which is only possible when you are not geared up in ridiculous space suits or tight, starched pants. (It also helps that soccer players for the most part, look like real human beings.) And with more nations from Africa, Asia and the Caribbeans making it to this year’s World Cup, the game is also no longer the sole prerogative of European and Latin American teams.

    This brings up interesting possibilities for match ups that are fraught with factors other than just athletic competition. Do the players only think of the game when playing a particular team or are there other scores to settle?  World War II is more than sixty years in the past but most of Europe still bears the scars in their minds. So what do the Polish, Czech, French and English teams think of when facing off with Germany?  I am not at all surprised that Germany has enlisted John Cleese (of Fawlty Towers fame) to exhort the Brits not to bring up WW II during matches. There are several past colonizers and colonized in the mix. Think of the possible match-ups (not supported by most odd makers for a final showdown). England against Ghana or Trinidad – Tobago.  France against Ivory Coast. Portugal opposite Angola. Japan and South Korea.  Given the current immigration debate, even Mexico versus the USA. (Iran and the USA may be the two countries whose team members are much better liked in the international arena than their elected national leaders.)

    Emotions will run strong and perhaps along the lines of past and present politics and memories of old war wounds sustained both on the battle field and the playing field will spur on the enthusiasm of players.  I am not saying that all that is necessarily good (in fact those British fans need to be put in cages.)  After all, it is only a game.  But it is also understandable when this exciting event watched by billions, provides a level playing field for the wealthy and the poor nations, blacks and whites, democracies and dictatorships.  So it is to be expected that minor wars or major mayhem may indeed break out. 

    In recent years, soccer too has been transformed by globalization. The international nature of soccer is even more "international" now because most players on the national teams of competing countries, play for foreign clubs during the pro-season. And due to the presence of European born children of Arab and African immigrants, European teams no longer have the lily white complexion of yore.

    "Today, a match in London between Arsenal and Manchester United involves players from Latin America, much of West Africa, the Arab world, northern, southern, and eastern Europe, and Asia. The global TV audience it attracts is good news for the marketers of players’ jerseys and other soccer paraphernalia, even if it’s a tad bizarre for a British army squaddie patrolling Basra in southern Iraq to encounter a Mehdi Army militiaman sporting the shirt of Arsenal, the soldier’s "local" London team…. But there’s nothing "local" about Arsenal anymore: When it played Real Madrid earlier this year in the Champion’s League, there were only two Englishmen on the field, both playing for the Spanish side.

    Despite the urge of fans to invoke national mythologies from a distant past, many European national teams now reflect the continent’s increasingly cosmopolitan makeup. Thanks to postwar economic migrations into Europe from former colonies, many of the best players available to a European national team are second- and even third-generation immigrants. France fields a team in which all but one, sometimes two, players are of African or Arab origin. The racist politician Jean Marie Le Pen actually complained in 1998 that the World Cup winners were "not a real French team." Some English fans are more accepting of their cosmopolitan fate, as reflected in one of their chants that extols Britain’s new national cuisine: "And we all love vindaloo…"

  • Design or Oversight?

    Came across this (probably unintended) architectural misstep by the US government via Neural Gourmet. No one bothered to check the aerial view, I guess. It would have been just laughable in happier times but seems a little sinister in this day and age. The Bush regime evokes such images in our minds even in the absence of concrete brick and mortar symbols.

  • Glimmers of Good News

    Summer has begun in earnest, at least in Houston and along with that will set in lethargy among bloggers and readers. Some bloggers I read regularly are slowing down. Others have disappeared inexplicably without so much as a "see ya later." My own co-bloggers will be scattered over the world – Anna in China, Sujatha in India and Joe is so impatient to start law school in the fall that he can’t gather his thoughts for blogging. A new guest writer might join me over the summer.

    At the close of the week, George Bush has given me no compelling reason to write about him – busy as he was recently, trying to prevent gays from marrying .. or was it to keep them from having abortions?  Who knows? Nothing new there. Here instead are a few pieces of good news that I would like to share – some you must know, others may have escaped your notice and another that you may not care about.

    1. The murderous Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed yesterday. Great relief for the US and the world but greater relief for the Iraqis who were by far the biggest targets of his brutal campaign. Now we must wait to see what effect his death will have on the terror campaign in Iraq – whether Zarqawi’s death has eliminated a significant source of terrorism or just one head of a Hydra-headed monster. This deranged, violent man was also responsible for the savage beheading of American Nick Berg. Amazingly enough, Berg’s father, Michael Berg had this to say about Zarqawi’s death.

    "Michael Berg, whose son Nick was beheaded in Iraq in 2004, felt no relief at the killing of the al-Qa’ida leader blamed for his son’s death.  Asked what would give him satisfaction, Mr Berg, an anti-war activist and candidate for US Congress, said: "The end of the war and getting rid of George Bush." Mr Berg, who is running as a Green Party candidate, has repeatedly blamed Mr Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his son’s death."   

    2. The first successful vaccine in preventing cancer has been approved by the FDA.  Gardasil is a vaccine against the human papilloma virus or HPV which infects 20 million Americans every year and is the leading cause of cervical cancer in women. The vaccine has tested 100% effective, especially if administered during pre-puberty years. Merck is already making the case that vaccinations should begin early and made routine like all other childhood vaccinations. It says one in four people between the ages of 15 and 24 are infected with HPV, and that 80% of mothers say that they would vaccinate their daughters, given the chance. This remarkable breakthrough predicatably was opposed by the religious reactionaries such as the Family Focus Group because they believe it would promote sexual promiscuity among young women. I wrote about that preposterous claim several months ago.

    3. After enabling Bush and his lawless cronies to do their hatchet job on the world at large and the world of science for two unbearably long presidential terms, some conservatives are experiencing the mental equivalent of a cold shower. I came across this internet petition drive launched by CAID – Conservatives Against Intelligent Design (via 3 Quarks Daily) ! Better late than never, but what will Pat Robertson say?

    "CAID holds that there is no conflict between evolution and religion because each speaks to a different level of understanding and to a different level of explanation: Namely empirical versus metaphysical. Neither threatens nor invalidates the other. However, by their very nature alternative theories like ‘intelligent design’ rely on the supposition of a metaphysical creator and therefore stand outside the domain of rational empiricism. Science–being based upon the latter–has no room within it for theological supposition; therefore such theories must remain outside the science classroom, being more suitable for discussion in philosophy courses.."

    4. Every four years I experience something akin to  what a weary traveler lost in the desert must feel on nearing an oasis. Stuck in the arid sports zone of football, baseball and basketball (the last two a bit better than the first) in the US, I take a crash course in the latest soccer news when World Cup Soccer comes around. I no longer keep up with pro soccer and the emerging new stars of the game on various continents are mostly unknown to me. But during one month every four years, I focus again laser like on everything soccer and the extravaganza which is surely the most popular sporting event in the world although fans of the Super Bowl may find that hard to believe. The 2006 World Cup Soccer begins today in Germany and the frenetic action will last for a month, culminating in the final championship game in Berlin. During this one month fans all over the world will sway between extreme elation and abject hearbreak. I will try to absorb as much of it as possible via the internet, newspapers and ESPN 2. Despite fears of neo-Nazi attacks on non-white visitors, the possible embarrassing (for the German hosts) presence of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at the Iranian games and human rights concerns over the import of prostitutes from east European nations (prostitution is legal in Germany), the real focus will be on the elegant game. And a good time will be had by all.

    LONDON – Question: what quadrennial sporting extravaganza brings the world together for weeks on end, transcending war, poverty, class, and culture, and culminating in the most watched television event ever?  If you guessed the Olympics, odds are you’re an American. The rest of the world knows better. Soccer’s World Cup kicks off Friday in Germany. And while the month-long spectacle may not leave much of an impression on Americans, for most other nations it is an incomparable event.

    Brazilian banks will close early, British productivity will nosedive, elections in Mexico could be affected, the fate of the French prime minister may hang on results. The event will touch even the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, where scientists have set up a live Internet feed so as not to miss the action.

    And at the grand finale on July 9, as many as a billion people – one-sixth of humanity – are expected to watch 22 men, adept at propelling a piece of leather around, compete for the ultimate victory in team sports."