North State Needle

My Last Post on Blogspot

2007-01-10T18:28:00.000-06:00

This is my last post on Blogspot. North State Needle is moving to its permanent site: http://nsneedle.zanlus.com. I hope to see you there.

North State Needler

The Escape

2006-10-28T09:13:00.000-05:00

Now that I have a good Internet connection, I can catch up a bit on the posts. There is much to report, including more photographs that people might find interesting.

Leaving Dharamsala

One of the weirdest parts of this trip has been the craziness of my sleep schedule. I guess it really isn't that crazy if you don't include the entire day that I stayed in bed, but when I found myself awake at 3:30 am on Thursday morning, I was more than a little irritated. I just could not shut off my brain, which was equally unable to focus. I thought about everything from how to start a documentation standards working group to what I want in a home gym. After trying to will myself to sleep, I finally gave up and just started working. Here are pictures of my room at Hotel Shikhar, if you are wondering.

Eventually 6:00 came around and I decided that I would get out of bed and get dressed. I was ready to go at 6:15. I didn't allow myself to move my bags downstairs until 6:40, as the cab driver was supposed to be there at 6:45. I watched the sunrise, filling the mountains with light, but that is a slow process and my brain seemed to be in rather a large hurry. When I moved my things downstairs, I realized that one of the staff actually sleeps in the lounge, presumably to help people who might come in the middle of the night. As far as I know, there aren't very many people who fit that bill, but who knows. I set my luggage on the steps and took a seat to let the landscape sink in one last time.

The cab driver arrived at 7:00 exactly. We placed our bags in the trunk and were off. It was a beautiful morning: bright and cool, not dark and cold. The decent from Naddi is filled with hairpins. When we got to Dharamsala, a school bus blocked the road, collecting children, while anxious parents urged their children forward. It was a gentle reminder that life as I know it is here, too.

As we reached the bottom of the foothills, people's lives seemed to take on a different character. People were sitting around, drinking tea, socializing. Time seemed to offer them more respite than the people that I had been walking past for the last week. I've included here a picture of a typical roadside store.

Jammu-Kashmir

One of the weirdest things about this trip was the amazing number of dry river beds. A few started in the hills, but by the time we reached Punjab, the number and width of these dry waterways increased. I'm extremely curious about the nature of these river beds. Are they channels for mountain run-off that have wasted away over the long, dry summer? Are they former rivers whose water has been purposely diverted into some grand plan? I don't know the answer, but I must say that I am very curious.

As we crossed the border from Himachal to Punjab, the first thing I noticed was the military presence. This presence became a theme of the drive, because as we advanced toward Jammu, and especially after we crossed the border into Jammu-Kashmir, the military was everywhere in full regalia. Of course, Jammu is about 20 miles from the border with Pakistan, so it doesn't surprise me that there was a significant military presence. What was surprising was the massive roadwork project, often forcing travelers completely off the road in order to build a new road. It makes sense, of course (just look at the Interstate system in the US), but I had not expected it.

The roadside in Jammu-Kashmir was quite different, at least in two senses. First, the number of cows increased dramatically. And most of these cows were of the Brahma variety, which makes some sense but which created a rather significant disconnect for me. My father used to tell stories about how mean Brahma could be, so to seem them walking around freely was a bit jarring. And the poverty level seemed to increase by an order of magnitude. (In retrospect, it isn't any worse than a certain place I had the misfortune of finding in Delhi, but it struck me as rather severe then, after the lusciousness of the previous countryside.) I'll include a picture here, not because it adequately reflects the poverty but because it was taken in amongst the poverty, and it is quite a nice photograph.

When we finally arrived in Jammu, we passed down streets that were lined with machine gun nests. It was more than a little unnerving. Even more alarming was the number of civilians who seemed to be wielding AK-47s. I thought America had captured the market on public ownership of automatic weapons, but I was clearly wrong.

This should have prepared me for the airport, but it didn't really. You cannot drive into the Jammu airport. You must collect your baggage outside the compound (that word is truly fitting) and walk through three layers of metal detection security. After you walk for about 300 yards past the initial set of security checks, you arrive at the main entrance, and another security check. Once you finally get in, you go through another security checkpoint and you can then get in line for the check-in desk.

On the way in, I recognized Sherrin Isaacs, so we had lunch with him. The restaurant had very little that looked appetizing. What did look nice was a fresh lime soda. Little did I know that they can be sweet or salty, and I got the salty one. It was like trying to drink the brine that you might gargle with if you have a sore throat. Sherrin was nice enough to tell us that the flights from Jammu to Delhi are often hijacked and detoured to Islamabad. That made me feel really good! I'm facing hijacking in the name of community networking. Fortunately, everything went off without a hitch.

Back in Delhi

The Ashok Country Resort, where Dave had stayed the night he arrived, was completely booked. We were both tired and gross and we really didn't feel like roughing it. So, we decided to splurge. We had been staying at a very cheap hotel all week, which had several most unfortunate quirks, and we felt entitled to one night at the Radisson, which is very close to the airport.

The Radisson was luxurious. I mean, really posh. I crawled into bed, Dave had two of his clothes cleaned for the plane ride home the next day. We napped until 8, which really was only about an hour. I was very groggy afterward. We went down to grab some dinner, and we decided on Chinese. It was great food, and I really needed to have something that was not Indian. We went back upstairs and got online for a few minutes. Then I jumped in the shower and took what I felt at the time was clearly the best shower of my entire life. The problem is that when I was done with the shower all I really wanted to do was to sleep. I gathered my things and went downstairs to catch a cab to the airport.

I checked into my flight without a hitch, only to discover that the flight had been delayed by 45 minutes. Okay, no problem, except that at this point I am nearing the exhaustion point. I fell asleep sitting upright in the waiting area. The flight itself was completely packed. It is THE flight from Beijing to Eastern Africa, so it was an interesting mix of people. It wasn't particularly eventful, other than that this jackass decided to get up and roam around the cabin just as we were taxiing on the runway. He had been loud and annoying during boarding, and I decided that if he did anything like that again, I would put him out for the remainder of the flight. Surly Ross was bubbling just below the surface.

The flight to Addis Ababa was shorter than I had expected. But it also meant that the layover was overly short, so that I needed to hustle from one gate to the next. At the security check, I shoved my watch into my briefcase without paying much attention as to which pocket I shoved it in. When I tried to find it, I couldn't. I thought perhaps that I hadn't successfully closed that pocket and perhaps it had fallen out in the xray machine. The lady at the security check put the bag back through the xray and pointed out where the watch was, which was a great relief.

Arrival in Joburg

The problems started at the immigration counter. I handed the woman my passport and she asked how long I had been in Addis Ababa. I explained that it was a stopover on the way from India and she asked for my yellowfever card. My what? I had done the check to make sure that no shots were necessary for the US, but I had not bothered to make sure that South Africa didn't require shots. So, I walked across the airport to a little clinic where I paid $75 for a yellowfever vaccine. But no worries, because when I got back there was no line and as I got to the baggage carousel my bags came rolling out.

I made my way to the rental car counter, knowing full well that I have made a reservation and that I should be at Birgit and Pete's in about an hour. Well... that was the plan as of 15:00. Car companies here require double the cost of the rental to be reserved. I didn't have nearly that amount available on any credit card. But I had the cash in my account. So, what I am supposed to do?

According to the credit card companies, I should make an immediate deposit to fix the problem. I spoke with one guy who said that if I could promise to pay $300 that day then they would accept the charge from the rental car company immediately. This was great, because I could have done that immediately upon arrival in Pretoria. But, as I found out later, that was complete rot, and if I ever get my hands on that guy, he's going to be very sorry for doing that to someone in such a vulnerable position.

To actually rectify the problem, I needed to either get online or provide the routing number for my bank. The only place I'm going to be able to get online is in Pretoria, at Birgit and Pete's, which rules out option 1. Option 2 is always possible, because I always carry around my bank routing number. Basically, after two hours, I discovered that I was just SOL. On the verge of exhausted tears, I called Birgit and Pete to see if they could possibly come and pick me up. Fortunately, they were able to pick me up, and so I was able to have some dinner, call Helen to make a plan for how to deal with things, take a shower, and sleep very, very soundly.

[Announcer Voice]To find out what happens to our anti-hero, tune in next time.

Last Day at Dharamsala

2006-10-28T06:31:00.000-05:00

Conference Notes

The conference began today with a lecture on the developments of WiFi spectrum from a former chairman of the IEEE, the organization that makes that standards that govern wireless. He wasn't a bad speaker, per se, but he really didn't provide much more than a history lesson of the standardization process. What he revealed, when asked a question about involving other people in the IEEE standardization process, was a complete lack of interest in people who are neither high level academics or powerful business interests. It was actually rather depressing.

The next panel was about VoIP, Voice over IP, a service that has been popularized by the Skype application. It was virtually useless if you knew anything about VoIP. Perhaps if you were a complete novice, this might have been interesting.

Then there was a discussion about WSFII, the organization that hosts the conference. I frankly found the dogs who kept coming into the auditorium to nap more interesting.

I had lunch with Sherrin Isaacs from the Meraka Institute. He gave me a very valuable perspective on what the plans of the Meraka Institute are, as well as the political terrain I am going to be walking into. I'm excited about what they are doing, which is to work on a multiple stakeholder initiative across the entire continent of Africa. We talked a bit about how that might be achieved and what strategies might be fruitful in moving forward.

The afternoon panels were much better. There was an interesting discussion about innovation and cost efficiencies in wireless. Dave was on this panel. What was particularly interesting to me was the sense of agreement that surrounded Dave's argument that hardware manufacturers are being unreasonably difficult when it comes to releasing documentation about their products. This has been a problem for CUWiN from the beginning.

The final panel of the day was about how to replicate wireless best practices. The obvious thing for the panel to talk about was documentation. Naturally, no one really addressed the problem of documentation. I wanted to make a point about this, but they didn't allow comments or questions on the panel, which was pretty frustrating. In any case, I see a real need for a formalization of the documentation process for wireless technologies, both for the techies who develop and implement wireless networks, and for the ordinary person who uses the network. I'm not quite sure yet how to make it happen, but I have some ideas that I hope to bounce off of people over the next few months.

My overall impression of this conference is rather negative. I felt that previously formed cliques tended to distance other participants. I felt that the one auditorium, one presentation approach was impossible, given the need to satisfy vast extremes of interest and knowledge. Moreover, too many of the speakers were too oriented toward lecturing and not nearly interested enough in the perspective of others. Perhaps this is skewed because I missed day 2, which by all accounts was pretty amazing.

Post-Conference Headache

After the conference concluded, I went back to my hotel to catch the Himalayas by evening light. In some ways, it is even more spectacular than the morning. I took a few pictures and caught a cab down to McLeod Ganj. I was supposed to meet Dave at 18:00 at the Ashoka Restaurant. I was running late, but as it turns out, so was he, and we decided to sit outside. It was a surprisingly warm evening compared to the previous evenings, and the streets were alive with conversation and lights. We had heard that the Ashoka was very good, and we were not disappointed.

When we left the restaurant, we went next door to do some gift shopping. There were some absolutely beautiful pieces of cloth. I decided that presents were in order for some people that I will be visiting and even decided to splurge a bit. The problem is that the credit card companies hate me. I suspect that this is due, in large part, to the fact that they think I am not capable of being in India. But when I called them on Monday and told them that I am indeed in India and that they should lift the restriction, they failed to do so. I am so angry right now I could scream. What happens when I get to South Africa and they still won't release my credit card accounts? Will I be stuck at the airport without the ability to rent a car? Moreover, what would have happened if I had been ill and needed money to pay the doctor? I assure you that I am going to ream them a new one when I get back to the US. And all of this was compounded by the fact that the only ATM machine in town would not dispense money. In the end, Dave was gracious enough to purchase the items on his credit card, which seems to work just fine, and I will owe him money when I get back to the US.

I'm not sad to say that I will be leaving here tomorrow. I am tired of feeling light-headed from the altitude. I am sick of constantly smelling waste, both human and animal. I'm also tired of feeling like everyone around me sees me as a money dispenser. Tomorrow I will pay for a cab ride to and from the airport in Delhi, and that will be the end of it. I don't hate India, but I'm not ready to stay here for any extended period of time.

Ill in India

2006-10-24T23:19:00.000-05:00

I'll get to being ill in India, but the historian in me is partial to chronological order. Since it's my blog, I'll start on Monday, Day 3.

Trying to get out of India

Monday morning broke beautifully. The sun was out and felt warm against my face. I decided to walk around a bit to take some photographs. While I was out, I saw Xavier, who is a cool activist from Southern California. I suggested that he join us for breakfast, which we had agreed would be at 8 am. I'm trying to arrange pictures into a panoramic shot, but it's not going particularly well. I'll try again a little later. Anyway, when we met up for breakfast, I learned something new: this is the season for tigers and leopards. Apparently, they come down out of the mountains and are often spotted at night. What makes this particularly humorous is that Dave had walked to TCV and back in the pitch black the night before, not thinking about the possibility of wild animals.

Monday morning posed a certain dilemma. Dave and I had agreed that we would use the break in the conference schedule to go to McLeod Ganj and arrange our travel out of Dharamsala as well as take some money out of the bank. We could take a taxi for eleven hours (or more), but neither of us were very keen to do that. First, if we could fly, we might be able to attend more of the workshops. Second, neither of us are particularly keen on how cab drivers here practice their trade. We also decided that we could take the train, but we had heard mixed reviews of taking the train and decided that flying was our first option. The dilemma was additionally complicated by what a colleague revealed to us over breakfast. The Dalai Lama was going to be at TCV (Tibetan Children's Village) that morning for a children's festival. It would be our only chance to see him. As much as I relished the idea of being in the general facility of his holiness, I decided that for me travel was more important. So, I'm sorry, dear reader, that I have no photograph of him for you.

Little did we know that most things are closed on Mondays. We found a travel shop that seemed open, but in fact it too was closed at 09:00. We were instructed to return at 10:30. I was a little concerned that our cab driver would be left in the lurch, as we had asked him to come back at 11. I wasn't wrong to worry about that, but on the other hand he surely understands that time in India has its own rhythm. Sometimes it is very fast, but whenever one tries to conduct business or order a meal, it is rather slower. We took the opportunity to try to find a coffee shop that had been recommended, but it too was closed. We found someplace that advertized drip coffee, which had to be better than the coffee that I had the first morning. It was better, but I'll be glad to return to my own coffee stores.

We returned to the travel agent, who said that there was a possibility to fly, but that he could not arrange this himself. We were instructed to walk back to the main square and look for Dream Travel. Dream Travel happens to be located inside a little building and is not easily accessible from the outside. On a hunch, I walked down the correct street (there were six to choose from) and found it. The man inside was very nice. He said we could not get the flight from the Kangra Regional Airport, which was only one hour away, but we could get the flight from the Jammu airport, which was four hours away. All total, the cost would be $220. That seemed like a lot, but since we were going to be reimbursed and it was our time, we decided to take the flight.

For those of you who don't know your Indian geography, Jammu is one half of the name of a province. The other name happens to be one of my favorite songs by Led Zepplin: Kashmir. Jammu itself can't be less than 100 km (60 miles) from the Pakistani border. There is part of me that is concerned about this decision. I think it is my mother's voice. There is another part of me that thinks that this flight leaves every day, and when I asked about security, I was assured that there had been no major incidents on the flight from Jammu to Delhi.

Actually purchasing the tickets turned out to be a mission of its own. My credit card wouldn't work, which was exceptionally annoying. The company had put a block on my credit card because I had charged a car rental in South Africa. I appreciate their sentiment, but it was rather annoying! I had to call them and tell them that I was in India for work, and then I was traveling to South Africa for work, and would they please let me manage my own credit. However, it still didn't work because the guy kept trying to put a cash advance, rather than a purchase, on the card. I'm glad I gave him that card because cash advances on credit cards are murder. Dave stepped in to fix the problem by putting it on his credit card. Then we waited thirty minutes to have the tickets printed, and we were off to TCV and the official start of the conference.

The conference started without much fanfare. The opening speaker talked about the role of the school. Dr. Roger Downer lived up to his name as the next speaker. He tried to outline the useful of wireless technology in tackling global problems. He argued that the first world is evil and that sustainable development was a myth propogated by the rich to suppress the poor. He couldn't do math (even from his own slide) and he contended that the only institutions that could really effect global change are the nation state and multinational corporations. Remember, almost everyone in that audience lives their lives in ways that are contrary to that argument. The next speaker was one of the organizers, and he must have thrown together his slides at the last possible moment, because they were more disorganized than he was.

I don't know if any of you have heard of Richard Stallman, but hopefully you have heard of the GNU project. Stallman started the GNU project as a professor at MIT in order to counteract the evils of proprietary software. The GNU project argues that software should be free in every sense: freely available, freely copiable, and freely alterable. It's a good idea whose time is certainly now, as most of the wireless initiatives work under some form of the GNU project license, GPL. However, Stallman is one of those guys who beats you over the head with his message. The result is that while I might agree with many of his arguments, listening to him can be a bruising experience.

And then there was Colonel Dave Hughes. Colonel Dave Hughes reminds me a Foghorn Leghorn, except with more substance. He's clearly a really bright guy who managed to do some really interesting things. But he is also a cocky, brash cowboy want-to-be. I say that he's a wanna-be because as much as people might associate his demeanor as the stereotypical cowboy, I've known enough cowboys, most notably my grandfather, to know that Dave Hughes acts more like a ranch owner than a cow-hand. What really set me off was his faux graciousness toward the Dalai Lama. Hughes asked the audience if it was okay for him to present a white silk scarf to the Dalai Lama's secretary on our behalf as an act of respect. I think most people raised their hands, but I didn't. I was just offended by the showmanship of the whole thing. To me it didn't seem to be a genuine act of respect. It seemed to be more grandstanding and bluster.

Evening Activities

Dave and I decided to walk back to our hotel and then head down to McLeod Ganj to grab a bite to eat. We had heard that people were going to be gathering at the Jungle Hut, and we thought we would try to join them. According to the website, the walk from TCV to Hotel Shikhar is 1.5 km, or about a mile. If that is true, it is probably 0.5 kilometers of horizontal travel and 1 kilometer verticle. Still, Dave was very gracious as I had to stop many, many times on that walk. By the time I got back to the hotel, I was hot, my heart was pounding, and it wouldn't have surprised me if I had a heartattack right there. Fortunately, that didn't happen. We both grabbed some warmer clothing and hopped in the cab for the Jungle Hut.

The Jungle Hut is about 200 meters outside of McLeod Ganj. It is, as it's name suggests, a hut, hanging out over a ravine. Still, it looked like a fairly nice place to eat, and so I decided to have something that I have been wanting to try for some time: rogan josh. Rogan josh is lamb stewed in a clay pot. It is a punjabi dish, if I am not mistaken, but it is widely known throughout Indian restaurants around the world. This was the first time that I had had meat since the previous Wednesday. I decided that this restaurant looked safe enough to try the dish. In the meantime, we met up with someone from the conference, Kingsly John. Kingsly was a particularly nice fellow from Bangalore who did freelance work for several companies on the east coast. He was full of useful information, like the fact that the snow on the mountains had falled just the previous week and that winter seemed to be coming quite early this year. He also explained why Dave's telephone is not working (which is too technical for me to launch into here).

When the food finally came, I discovered that there was very little meat in my rogan josh. It was first and foremost bones, followed by gristle. Dinner was, thus, rather unsatisfying, outside of the delicious naan. I had asked for rice, as at least that would soak up the sauce, but none was delivered. I was also told later that I was not allowed to order another tea after the meal. I didn't tip much, which is to say that I tipped what I probably should have been tipping but substantially less than I normally do. What made all of this more miserable is that the air had taken a particularly frosty turn, and I was shivering during the meal.

By the time we arrived at the hotel, I was feeling rotten. I was cold and my stomach seemed to have passed judgement against the rogan josh. As I turned on one of the lights in my room, the electricity went out, which suggested to me that I should go straight to bed.

Shivering and Burning

I woke up several times in the night with a very unhappy stomach. I forced myself back to sleep until about 7 am, when I got up to turn on the boiler for my shower. The power had come back on over night, but as soon as I flipped the switch to turn on the boiler, it went off again. By 8, Dave had decided that the electricity was not going to come back on and so we should just go to breakfast. I had a very solid breakfast: toast, cornflakes with hot milk, scrambled egges, and lemon tea. Frankly, it seemed like every bite made me feel worse.

By the end of breakfast I had decided not to go to the conference this morning. I decided that I would crawl back in bed and try to sleep off this nasty feeling. It was a good idea. Once I got into bed, I started shivering and burning all at the same time. My stomach was extremely upset, and I just felt awful. I fell asleep, woke up, turned over, fell asleep again. This lasted until 17:00, when I finally woke up and felt good. In the meantime, the handyman had come to fix my shower and the cleaning lady had cleaned up after them. I barely noticed.

It's now 19:00, and I am both hungry and extremely wary of eating anything. I am sweaty the cold sweats, but I dare not take a shower, less the electricity goes out again. I would really like some soup, and perhaps a lemon tea, but I'm not sure that I want to go downstairs to get them.

Post-Dinner Notes

Dinner was fine. Cream of vegetable soup tasted nice. Dave is becoming quite frustrated with the hotel. I think mostly that he is jetlagged, but there are also some things that are becoming rather annoying. Babalu (sp?), the concierge (for lack of a better word), is becoming a little obnoxious. He is constantly hovering, wanting to know our plans. At first this seemed more genuine, but as time goes on it seems more like he is looking for ways to make a buck. I don't resent him for wanting to make money, but I don't feel like being a cash cow, either.

Perhaps the best part of this evening was realizing that I could turn on the television. This might not seem like such a big deal, but when the International Cricket Championship is on television there is reason for rejoicing. My joy is increased because South Africa is playing Sri Lanka. The South Africans went 219 for 9, and the Sri Lankans went 141 for 10. I know that when Helen reads this, she's going to be jealous.

India on Day Two

2006-10-23T03:03:00.000-05:00

The second day actually presented fewer challenges than the first. I slept well the first night, getting more than eight hours sleep, which is unusual for me. I woke up early and opened the curtains for sunrise. I watched the sky move through its coloration from my warm bed, while trying to collect and convey my thoughts about the day before.

The shower proved to be a bit of a challenge. There is a hot water boiler, so one must wait twenty minutes for the water to heat up. This boiler didn't start heating immediately, which I rudely discovered after 20 minutes and the water was still cold. A bit flummoxed, I decided to run the hot water until the boiler kicked on. I then waited another twenty minutes, and took a nice, warm shower.

I then went down for breakfast. Of course, all I know of Indian food is lunch/dinner fare. What does one eat for breakfast in India? Fruit I suppose, and perhaps some yogurt. But that seemed rather uninteresting. After toying with taking on the challenge of ordering something random off the menu, I decided that it would be difficult to go wrong with an English breakfast. As described on the menu, the meal would consist of “Butter Toast, Boiled Egg, Hot Porridge Juice, Tea/Coffee”. What I got would have made any Englishman protest. They figured out the toast pretty well. They delivered one boiled egg that was actually hard boiled, and another egg that had barely been boiled at all. There was no porridge, hot or cold, and certainly no porridge juice. There was an orange soft drink, which proved to be a sugary concoction that contained virtually no juice. They brought me coffee without asking, and in this case I would have assuredly preferred tea. I admit that I am a coffee snob. Serve me bad coffee, and you have an immediate mark against you. This coffee would have merited ten negative marks. Sugar and milk, which is quite bad enough, but also clearly Nescafe or something similarly wretched.

I then proceeded to make arrangements for a taxi to take me to Dharamsala at noon. In the mean time, I completed my homework for this week, and tried to get a handle on the homework for next week.

The taxi to Dharamsala was arranged by the concierge, which conjures up an image that is true in function but not in form. We stopped at the Tibetan Children's Village (TCV), which is where the conference will be held. I had hoped to register and take care of a few business details. Alas, no luck. I couldn't find anyone there to register with or to point me in the right direction. I did find a ton of children, and was aided (sort of) in my search by some very young boys. They said hello, and so did I. I thought that might be the end of the conversation until one boy asked what I was looking for. I said that I was looking for the conference, which returned blank stares. I decided that the registration had probably been postponed due to the excursions that had been organized. I had wanted to go on one of the excursions, but I had already decided that I was going to be in no condition to walk for five or more hours. The point is that I no longer knew where to go. I decided that it would be a good idea to return to the Green Hotel, where I know that there the organizers are staying and that there is Internet access.

Unfortunately, I was still under the impression that McLeod Ganj was part of Dharamsala proper. Not so much, as it turns out. Nine kilometers not so much. Of course, I only discovered this half-way down the mountain. I inquired and learned the truth. They were upset by the mix up, even though I apologized profusely.

After proceeding to Dharamsala, we went to McLeod Ganj and the Green Hotel. I told them that I would be a long time and they insisted that they would wait. I told them that I would go inside to make sure that I could get what I wanted and then give them an idea of when they should pick me up. I went inside to inquire, decided to stay so that I could use the Internet connection, and returned outside to tell them that it would be several hours, only to find that they were nowhere in sight. I waited a little bit, thinking that it was possible that they had needed to move to allow traffic through. After a few minutes in the rain, I decided to return inside and that they would sort themselves out.

98 email messages and more than 70 were spam. This is just stupid. I skyped Helen to let her know that I had arrived and was well. It was 3 am for her, which was unfortunate, but I thought she would be more unhappy if I had not called. I also discovered that Dave had made it to Dharamsala the night before and was staying with Shannon at the Hotel Himgira. I directed him where to find our hotel on a reply email. And amongst a hundred other things that I was doing, the concierge an the taxi driver came in a bit upset. They were insistent that I had failed to return outside, and I simply explained that if they would wait two more minutes I would be ready to go. I feel both happy that they are so eager to assist me and frustrated that their assistance is rather overbearing. I know that some of the problem is a language problem, but the other part is that I am sure that they see me as a cash cow. I both understand and resent that thinking in the same moment.

I returned to the hotel, where I decided that I would work on next week's homework, in an attempt to get it finished. On the way, I noticed that the Hotel Himgira is right next to my hotel. Dave spent the night less than 100 feet from me. I was highly amused.

When Dave arrived at about 6 pm, I arranged for us to have dinner while he brought his things over. He arrived with the last of his things at about 7 pm, just after dinner had been declared ready. We ate a very interesting meal. Yellow dal, Shahi paneer (which I think is cheese in curry sauce, chaphati, vegetable raita, and tea. Wondering what vegetable raita is? Me too! It is clearly a yogurt-based dish that had cucumbers, garlic, and onion in it. I reminded me of really lumpy tzatziki sans dill. To be perfectly honest, I could only eat a little bit of it. Dave ate even less.

And then we went to bed. Dave was fading fast, and I was pretty sure that I would be as well. Sure enough, I crawled into bed to continue working on the homework and found my eyes drooping.

Sleep was surprisingly restless. The bed is about six inches too short, which means that I lie diagonally across it. In addition, I had a really disturbing dream. I have had the start of this dream before. I know that I am in my home, things are well lit, and the shudders, which are external and white, have been drawn. Suddenly I notice that there is a set of black fingers reaching through the shudders and pulling them open. This is the dream I have already had, but it was at this point that I have previously awoken. Not last night. Last night several sets of fingers appeared. They continued to force the shudder open, so I grabbed the mechanism which closes the shudders and wrenched them completely shut. Several fingers were snapped off in the process and I remember feeling this cruel sense of please at having snapped them off. Then I opened the blinds to try to see if there was anyone still there. And the last thing I remember is seeing a set of huge dark eyes staring straight at me, a sense of dread washing over me as I awoke. Just freaky.

The conference starts today at noon. Before noon, Dave and I will be going down to the McLeod Ganj, where we will take out more Rupees in order to pay our hotel bill, and we will also inquire about flying out of Dharamsala, rather than taking the eleven hour trip of terror. Then we will head up to TVC, which is very close to our hotel, so that I can register for the conference. Should be an exciting day!

Arriving in India

2006-10-22T03:00:00.000-05:00

The tale I have to tell began more than two days ago. It is neither particularly happy nor particularly sad. It is filled with the exhaustion of international travel and sensationalized by what still feel like near death experiences. What I am also about to share with you might be offensive, not because I intend to be offensive, but because I am exhausted, my feet have swollen into their own baby elephants, and I today I have had the grand total of an onion naan (a large kin to the pita, served like a buttery quesadilla with sweet red onion), a banana, and three sections of a tangerine. [Note: I started this last night, but finished it this morning. Can you tell how far I got the last night?]

International Travel

I like to travel, but as my backside broadens I am less enamored of air travel. The flight from Chicago wasn't bad. Boeing 777s are far and away my choice of jet liner. However, my seat kept wanting to slide forward, which meant that I often felt like I was going to slide onto the floor. If you add that onto a relatively sleepless night, you can understand why all I wanted to do in Heathrow was sleep.

But sleep was highly elusive! First, there was the security checkpoint. When flying from Chicago to London, my toothpaste posed no threat to airline security. Magically, when I landed my toothpaste became liquid C4. Of course, the people who love these rules are the shops, because people will throw away a perfectly good tube of toothpaste and they are encouraged to buy a new tube of their favorite brand at the shop in the terminal. I, on the other hand, am unwilling to throw away a completely full tube of toothpaste just because somebody decided that my toothpaste was a potential bomb threat. So I asked if I could check the bag and keep the toothpaste. The lady escorted me to the baggage check, I deposited my bag, and she even let me reenter through the first class security checkpoint, which meant that I didn't have to wait in line, which had gotten quite long for all the “other class” passengers.

Once I got to terminal 4, I got some lunch at a pub. The Bombardier was warm and tasty, although less tasty with a chicken caesar salad. It's not that the salad was bad. In fact, it was really quite tasty for a salad (especially one served in a bar), but it was not intended to be mixed with beer. I had hoped to get shepherd's pie with peas and chips, but I had failed to note that this was only on the children's menu. In my haste, I ordered the salad. If I had paid attention to the menu, I would have had meself a nice piece o' steak and mushroom pie. Oh well.

Then I sought out my gate, which was conveniently posted nowhere, not even on my boarding pass. I made the proper inquiries and went to that gate. I found a place to briefly lie down, but was soon awoken by the fire alarm. It went off for about twenty minutes. An hour later, it went off again, by which time I had a splitting headache. I found some Icy Lemon Fanta, which is second to Bitter Lemon in my pantheon of sodas, took two Advil, and decided that I would build one of the webpages that I needed to construct before Tuesday.

Once I finally boarded, all seemed well in hand. I found my mark right away, as he was sitting next to me. Before this story takes on a spy novel quality, I should say that my mark is Sebastian B�ttrich, a friend of Sascha, my boss. Somehow, and it really is a bit of a mystery as to how, Sascha found out that Sebastian was sitting in seat 32C, so I snagged the seat next to him on the plane. Because Sascha had discovered this without his knowledge, you can imagine the surprise on Sebastian's face when I walked down the aisle and said, “You must be Sebastian.” Good times.

The flight was uneventful. I took sleeping pills, I had the vegetarian meal, I went to sleep. I did manage to watch The Devil Wears Prada, which wasn't great but Meryl Streep was in fine form. Mostly, I slept, and it's a good thing I did, because the international travel was nothing compared to the domestic travel.

My First Impressions of India

I am completely unprepared for India. Nothing, and I honestly mean nothing, has prepared me for the 10 hours I spent in a taxi whose driver seemed to have strong suicidal tendencies. I had expected the driving in Delhi to be chaotic. I should say that by chaotic I meant chaotic like Rome or Paris is chaotic. Lots of little cars darting everywhere in a nice, orderly rhythm. (I'm sure that some people might differ with this description, but it never really bothered me, even when I was the one behind the wheel.) Driving in India is not chaos. It is a state better described as total anarchy, when all order is subverted by the impulses of the various actors. There are three demarcated lanes of traffic with six vehicles across these lanes at any given point. The patrons of the roadway include (but are by no means limited to) bicycles, scooters, motorcycles (often with the entire family on the motorcycle), animal-drawn carts (cow, donkey, mule, horse, take your pick), cars, trucks, and cows. Just because there is a barricade dividing the traffic into two clear directions, don't think that there aren't cars going in both directions on one side of the barricade. Some are going the opposite direction head-on, others are just backing up. And don't forget that people are darting across the roadway at any given moment.

If the visual spectacle puts you off, imagine the audio track. Each truck has the following printed on it's tailgate: “Blow horn.” As much as I might want to poke fun at this, it is a highly useful mechanism for letting someone know that they are about to run you off the road or letting that same someone know that you would like to pass, or for signaling drivers coming around a mountain curve that you are coming around that same curve. Add into that the normal noises from such a mix of transportation devices and you have a fairly good idea of the soundtrack to this ten-hour trek.

Cows. Somehow I was unprepared for number of free-roaming cows. Somewhere in my mind I knew that cows roamed freely here, but that image had not moved past the trite pastoral imaginings based on my own experience with cattle. If you missed it, there were cows mixed into the traffic. Most often they were toward the outside of the road, but this was often not the case. In a completely insensitive moment, I found myself wondering if a global economy can actually work in a place where cows are a roadway hazard. The answer is clearly yes, because even in the remote location of Dharamsala, there is Mountain Dew. But it raises another question: if a cow wandered onto the runway as a plane was taking off, what would happen?

I suddenly realize that I need to provide more detail about the arrival. Fred Pook, one of the organizers of the Air Jaldi Conference, arranged for a group of us to be picked up by taxi drivers from the airport. There were to be seven of us, which required two vehicles. Joy was already at the airport, Sebastian and I arrived at 06:15. David and Shannon had arrived the night before and were camped out at one hotel, while Kloschi (whose actual name I still don't know), was camped out at another hotel.

Of course, neither driver knew anything about where the others were or where anything was in Delhi. I thought I remembered where Dave and Shannon were staying, so I searched my email to find a number and called them. They thought that they were going to be picked up at the hotel. We attempted that, but it was hopeless. No one seemed to know where the hotel was, and the driver had no idea where he was going. We were, at various moments, going head-first and backwards down the road the wrong-way. We did manage to pick up Kloschi, who called while we were stopped with no idea of where we were going. He ended up being very near the airport, down a side street off of another side street that we happened across because the driver saw the sign in his rear view mirror as we were driving backwards down a one-lane alley.

At this point, we were quite clear that six passengers were simply not going to fit in the one car. I telephoned Dave and Shannon and told them to take a taxi to the airport where they could meet up with the other driver, who was waiting for Lars, who was supposed to arrive at 07:20. The other driver was supposed to wait around because there could be other passengers who were stranded. Did I mention that neither of the drivers spoke English? As it turned out, the other driver left immediately when Lars arrived. I still haven't heard from Dave. I am relying on his ability to handle himself, because there is literally nothing that I can do for him, other than notifying Fred of the situation, which I have done.

We drove a little ways outside Delhi and the driver asked us if we wanted to stop for some breakfast. This seemed like a good idea. It was here that I had the onion naan. Yummy. The others got either fried cheese or fried vegetables. I was much happier with the naan. I also ordered a rotti, which would have been really tasty, but they never delivered that. Oh well. Back in the car.

The Journey

I can't even begin to describe in full what I have seen. I didn't take pictures. Partially because that destroys my ability to actually take in what I am seeing. Partially it is because I wouldn't know what to take pictures of, and I really hate it when people take random photographs that lack personal context. I think those types of photographs do the worst violence to their subjects and they also make for really boring slide shows. Here's some snippets.

I don't know what kind of agriculture I'm seeing. It's everywhere along the roadside. I recognize some rice fields. I recognize a potato digger. There is a bunch of stuff for which I don't have any frame of reference.

We hit a dog. We had moved from the large multi-lane highway to a country road. The dog came off of a field and started to run along with us. He was right in front of me, and then I saw him dart in front of the car. I heard the bump, and then the yelp. It was a sickening feeling. I don't think I've ever hit a dog before.

The clothing on the roadway was intensely colored, especially the women. The men were mostly in drab clothing, although some wore bright blue or pink shirts, and some of the headwear, I'm not sure it is called, was bright pink and green. The women wore colors of every possible hue: stunning blues and greens, shocking pinks, vivid yellow.

Diwali. The Indian New Year, as it was described to me. A festival of lights. Firecrackers everywhere. Amazing. Way better than New Year's Eve in the Netherlands or Germany.

Dry river beds. I'm not sure why, but so many of the river beds we crossed were dry. I suppose this might be the result of the season. Fall is setting in, and after a long, hot summer the rivers are dormant, waiting for the delivery of run-off from the Himalayas. There was strong river that was not dry. It's water was crystal clear. I wonder about it's origin, given the emptiness of the other river beds.

Arrival

When we arrived in the Mcloed Ganj area of Dharamsala, which is where most people seem to be staying, our driver informed us that he couldn't go any farther. He was partially correct, as the streets were very narrow and full of people. He was also lying, because he knew that he could have gone farther but didn't want to. We unloaded our things and trekked up the street in the cool night air. I mean up, because Dharamsala is in the foothills of the Himalayas, as you can see from the picture taken from the window of my room [soon to be added]. Everyone else was staying at the Green Hotel, which we were able to find rather easily.

At the Green Hotel I learned that my hotel was actually 4 kilometers away, in a little village called Naddi. I walked back down the road to a place that seemed like it was full of taxis just half an hour earlier. Taxis were now sparse. I asked one driver, who refused to take me. I asked another, who said no as well. Finally, I found someone who was willing take me. It cost 120RP, which is just about $3. Best investment ever! The people at the Shikhar Hotel are very nice. I had a lovely dinner of curried mixed vegetables and allo gobhi, a curried potato dish, with chapati, (a close relative of the tortilla) and sweet tea. I was also given water, which I decided to drink. I have been constantly advised to not drink the water unless it was from a bottle, and I held to that until we arrived in Dharamsala. But this area seems so fresh and clean that I have decided to partake in the water, at least until I can find some bottled water this afternoon. This great meal cost about $3.

I struggled to make it to dinner without falling asleep, so when I returned to my room, I crawled into bed (it was about 21:00) and fell asleep. I woke up this morning at about 05:30. The light was just starting to creep across the mountains. I'm getting rather hungry, so I'll wrap this up. It is about 8:30 at the moment and I'm pleased at the thought of taking a shower. I'll turn on the boiler, crawl under the warm blanket, and wait until the shower is ready.

Score another for Olbermann

2006-08-31T09:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I don't have time for an original post, but if you haven't seen Keith Olbermann's response to Donald Rumsfeld's "all the dissenters are Nazi sympathizers" speech to the American Legion, you must. It's here: crooks and liars website. If you think our country is in peril, you're right.

If it's funny...

2006-08-29T07:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I realized that I spend a good deal of time looking for something humorous to lighten the day. Whether it is a clip from the Daily Show or an amateur video mocking Mel Gibson, I dig it because it breaks the serious mood I easily get into when I'm working. To find these online gems, I have a stock collection of websites that provide entertainment. For example, Salon's Video Dog provides humorous clips along with boring clips of its kitten fascination. Truthdig.com has some good stuff. Crooks and Liars is a gem. But perhaps there are other sites that you know of which are worthy of consistent perusal. I'd love to hear about them.

Yesterday's clip of the day goes to Bill Maher, who does a great mocking of idiotic "stay the course" rhetoric. Here's the clip.

Focus and Flexibility

2006-08-27T09:44:00.000-05:00

It's official: I'm behind the times. Perhaps I've been that way for a long time now, but the realization is reinforced by the fact that I want to write about Brokeback Mountain, the much acclaimed "gay cowboy" movie by Ang Lee, six months after everyone was writing about this twist on the classic American romance. I don't suspect that I'll offer any new insights to the movie or the criticism that accompanied it. What I hope to get is a better sense of balance between focus and flexibility.

I have been very busy of late, working probably the better part of each day for the last three weeks. In my case, working isn't about physically doing anything in particular. Nor is it necessarily the act of writing or reading. For while it encompasses all of those activities (and certainly there are many of these activities that I still need to accomplish), work is first and foremost thought. Creating a website, drafting a position paper, responding to email inquiries, writing a shell script, designing a logo, and organizing a not-for-profit are all first and foremost acts of contemplation and imagination.

I realize as I write this that I have not been this creatively engaged since my first year of graduate school. At that time, my intellectual focus was driven by fear: fear of failure, fear of ridicule for thinking that I was intelligent enough to be in graduate school, fear of the void should I fail at that endeavor. To some extent, that fear remained with me until I finally quit, five years later. But, much to the chagrin of the current administration, fear wears thin on the psyche over time, losing its potency.

Of course, the thoughtful activities of the last three weeks have come at a price. In some respects, it has come at the price of my other interests. I was making good progress on learning to play the banjo, but I haven't picked up the instrument in over a week. I haven't played a video game in more than a week, not even FIFA or Battle for Middle Earth. I also haven't been getting much exercise. That isn't anything particularly new, but I have tried to at least make myself go for walks. I enjoy them, but they often leave me feeling even more harried because they generate so many ideas about things that I'm working on.

Perhaps the biggest loser of all is flexibility, and here is the tension that I wish to probe. I will gladly give up most of the things mentioned above for the creativity and drive that I feel currently, but can I be socially flexible in that same mode? Does the conviction which harnesses the focus destroy my ability to express empathy, even with someone I profess to love?

My wife and I watched Brokeback Mountain and Girl with the Pearl Earring yesterday. She is uncomfortable with both films because she feels trapped by the weak roles that the women in the movie enact. She acknowledges the response as a purely emotional one and recognizes that the characters played by Michelle Williams and Scarlett Johannson both engage their power selectively. I feel like I cannot engage this response fairly, because I cannot seem to find my way out of a sentence that begins with "Yes, but...".

In fact, that sentence is my best attempt so far at acknowledging her emotions. Does that matter? Must I as a good partner sympathize with my wife's reactions? Is it imperative that I find a way to end the sentence at "Yes."? To be honest, I feel morally compromised by such an effort. I think that her emotional reaction is a failure to use the suspension of disbelief in order to experience someone else's story. If one cannot see through a couple acts of violence by Ennis Del Maar to see the seething self-hatred that generates these acts, perhaps they don't deserve a sympathetic reading of their response. Or is this just the crass reaction of a man too focused to be compassionate?

I am left wondering if I must choose between the anxieties of flexibility and the ambitions of focus. Surely there must be an equilibrium, but finding it will be left to another day.

Family of Spam

2006-08-15T18:27:00.000-05:00

Gentle reader, you are about to embark on a thrilling expedition into my world of rage. I realized in the car today that rage is actually a pretty good description of what I do as my stress level gets higher. Thom, the best man at our wedding, got a taste of how out of control that rage can be. His response was to get me a magnet that said, "I don't have an anger problem. I have an IDIOT problem."

The last two weeks have been fairly stressful. Mostly, I'm aware of the stress and its resulting rage and I have found ways to channel it productively. However, sometimes it catches the unsuspecting bystander in what can only be described as a vile act of snarkiness. Most of this stress is caused by the growth of CUWiN and its need to shed the cocoon and actually make it happen. Sure, there have been some other issues, but mostly this is it. And one of the ways I deal with this workplace stress is to write emails that I would never send, but that clearly express the rage I am feeling at that moment. By the end of the email, I'm ready to get back to work.

Yesterday wasn't actually a particularly stressful day. It also wasn't a particularly anything day, although it was long. Late in the afternoon I wasn't feeling all that great and I got an email from my uncle's wife. Now it should be said that he is having his sixtieth birthday and many in the family are going to go on a cruise. I had hoped the email would be about some special present they are setting up for him. Well, not so much.

Subject: Let's say thanks please read very important!!!!!

If you go to the web site at www.letssaythanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services. It is FREE and it only takes a second. I just did it...it's cool give it a try

Now, if you have followed this blog at all or know who I am, you will know that I'm a pacifist and that my appreciation for the military is non-existent. With few exceptions, militaries are despicable institutions that commit unconscionable acts. So I don't want to get this email. In fact, I view this email as little more than an invasion of someone else's politics into my personal space. This only got worse when I decided to go to the website and see that what would be sent was pictures drawn by children (or chickenhawks who act like them). What an obvious case of brainwashing our children to believe that everything soldiers do in the name of the military-industrial complex is a positive act that defends freedom.

I decided to write back. But rather than writing about how I would prefer not receive a bunch of crap (I received several more items later in the afternoon), I decided to engage. Well, I thought, if she wants me to engage in this, I will. I'll write back some thoughtful words about saying thank you to poor bastards who are in Iraq because GW, Dick, Donny, and Wolfie (sounds a little too much like a boy band) decided to make the rest of us live out their fantasy. I didn't want to alienate them by raging. Instead, I decided to say something else to the troops: "I'm sorry." I replied to all recipients with the following:

Dear all,

I'm all for saying thank you, even if I am a pacifist. But perhaps thank you isn't the most important sentiment that we need to be relaying to our troops. Perhaps we should say, "I'm sorry." Here are ideas about what we might want to apologize for:

I'm sorry that we supported going to war against an enemy who had _nothing_ to do with September 11, 2001 or Al Qaida.

I'm sorry that we re-elected officials who lied about the causes for the war and knowingly spouted false intelligence to bully members of the global community into going to war.

I'm sorry that we sent you into battle without the necessary equipment to keep you safe and without the necessary troop numbers to actually secure the country and win the peace, even though many of our own experts told us that we were seriously underestimating both.

I'm sorry that we continue to keep you in Iraq, some of you through a back-door draft, without any hope of bringing you home.

I'm sorry that you must watch a civil war unfolding right before your very eyes while I watch "Dancing with the Stars" and "The Surreal Life".

I'm sorry that we have decided to flaunt the Geneva Conventions and use torture on people in your name. We know that this only results in false information and making your job more difficult.

I'm sorry that we feel it is more important to give ourselves tax breaks than to actually pay for all your medical care when you are injured in this war.

I'm sorry that when you come back the freedoms you think you are defending will have been usurped by an administration that breaks the law in the name of expanding executive powers, even when it is contrary to the law.

Sincerely,

Ross

The irony of all of this is that I looked into the website and found that Xerox was actually running this site. They claim that this is an act of social responsibility, an attempt to ensure that the troops feel warm and fuzzy right before they get maimed by an IED. I actually just finished writing to Xerox to offer an alternative idea about what to say to the troops.

I hope we can start turning this cockamamie bs patriotism that can never question and that can't hold people accountable when they volunteer to kill people in foreign lands into the mockery it is by starting a counter campaign. Every time you see one of these stupid websites, send the troops a real message that expresses the sorrow you feel for their terrible situation.

Sunday Morning Ramble

2006-07-23T08:40:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

So much has happened since my last post that I'm not sure where to begin. Part of the reason for the delay in posting new items is that I am no longer focused on the World Cup. This has challenged my writing process to find new items for focus and to actually "think" about them. Writing about the World Cup was particularly easy, as I had 1 1/2 hours to actually think about the game as I was watching it.

Let's start with the personal. Helen and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary with Pirate's of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, a visit to Sholem Pool (a public facility in Champaign that has two waterslides), and a beautiful meal prepared that we prepared ourselves. I would call our first year of marriage a splendid one, with several personal battles that have tested and steeled our relationship.

Yesterday I turned 31. It's amazing to think that I am 31, not because I suddenly feel old or am finding more gray hairs, but because 25-31 has in so many ways been a blur. I suppose that graduate school made it particularly blurry, but then I wonder if most people don't experience that same sort of head rush, either because of their career or the addition of children or some other factor. Perhaps theirs stops at 30, when many people have a pre-over-the-hill sentiment as part of their birthday celebration. (I didn't because the wedding last summer really overshadowed my birthday.) But perhaps this rollercoaster will continue for the next thirty years, a colossal battle between the truth and scourge of time, the beauty and exhaustion of children, the triumphs and challenges of employment, etc. Maybe I will wake up at age 62 and feel that time is slowing. No matter what will be true for my life, I know this one thing: for the people in generations that have preceded me that I have close contact with, time never slows, even as life approaches the speed of light.

On a political note, I am yet again saddened to be an American. I am saddened that our country is fighting a proxy war with people in Lebanon who are not any more guilty of kidnapping or murder than I am. I'm saddened that Bush's response has been to speed up the transfer of military aid to Israel, rather than to see the state of Israel as the belligerent nation it has become. Bush parades around Europe, groping and cursing, acting like the high school quarterback who can do no wrong, while authoritarians like Vladimir Putin lecture him and us about the finer points of democratic societies. Rather than a city upon a hill, this country has become the slum that strangles people of conscience with false arrests and illegal, unwarranted spying by the petro-con mafia.

Is there good news? Sure. It looks like Clerks II might not suck. Jürgen Klinsmann might actually take the job with US Soccer. CUWiN is doing really well, and I still love working there. (I had a sudden moment of insight here. I was going to type that "I still love working for them", but I realized that this is exactly why I love working there: I always feel like I'm working for me.) And perhaps the tide is turning against the petro-cons, especially the religious-freak wing of that constituency.

But perhaps the best news of all is that yesterday I was reminded that life is great when friends and family can get together for boccee, beer, and bar-be-cue.

Mambo Italiano!

2006-07-10T00:48:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Italy! I saw a few supporters this evening in O'Hare representing for the Azzurri. I think the Italians should take pride in their defense, as it was clearly the best defense at this year's tournament. I think they should be ashamed that they were dominated by the French in the game and resorted to verbally baiting French players.

Zidane.... What can you say? So much talent but without a control on the temper. Unbelievably stupid thing to do. Still, he is not at fault for France's loss. You could tap Henry or Ribery, who both failed to strike balls well in front of net. You could blame Trezequet, who missed his penalty kick, but considering how ostracized he was from the squad by Domenech, it hardly seems fair.

As for me, it was a difficult final to watch. I was in my aunt's basement. None of my family cares about the beautiful game. Everyone's emotions were high from the funeral. I continue to be a bit numb. I guess the important matter is that I'm home and I will figure it out from here.

Thank Goodness! France Wins!

2006-07-06T10:44:00.000-05:00

For friends who are reading this, I should say that my grandfather passed away yesterday. So I'm sitting in the Wichita airport, waiting for my mother to get done making arrangements for Saturday's funeral. As I'm sure you will appreciate, I managed to arrange the flights so that I can watch all of Sunday's match, assuming it does not go to penalty kicks. :)

France did everything it could to give away the game in the last fifteen minutes of the match yesterday, but Luis Figo choked and sent a bobble by Fabien Bartez over the cross-bar. France won on Zidane's penalty kick, striking the ball hard low past the extended hand of Portugal's Alexandre Ricardo, a penalty saving meistro. I'll take a moment here to laud Alberto Carvalho, the Portugese defender who took down Thierry Henry to set up the penalty. After the game, Carvalho admitted that he fouled Henry, which demonstrates that my hatred of the Portugese team was perhaps a little overzealous.

But before you think I'm just being crazy, I still think Cristiana Ronaldo better leave the Premier League permanently. Here's why: 1) The next time he meets Wayne Rooney, Cristiana is going to suffer a career-threatening injury. Yes, they currently play on the same team (Manchester United), but ManU has already told Ronaldo that they disapprove of his tendency to flop and his pleading for cards. 2) Even after this game, a game in which referee Jorge Larrionda performed measurably better than in his debacle during the US v. Italy match (and I still argue that he should be banned permanently from international matches), Cristiana whined about Larrionda's calls. At least he got one important detail correct: there should have been more yellow cards given in this game. The problem is that Cristiana believes that they should have been given to the French, who played agressive but not dirty defensively. Instead, they should have been given to his squad of simulators. I can think of four yellow cards that should have been issued to Cristiana just off the top of my head, when he wasn't touched but chose to dive in order to try to get the foul called. A couple more would have been issued to Figo, who is also adept at the spectacle of the opera.

The French were not particularly impressive in their victory, but they got the job done. However, barring an amazing performance from Henry and Zidane, I can't imagine that they will hoist the cup. The French defense is strong, no doubt, but not stronger than the Italians, who have not allowed a goal by another team in the tournament. And comparing the French offense to their Italian counterpart is like comparing a musket to a revolver. I suspect that Italy will win by 2 goals, as France pushes forward to get an equalizer. Italy 2 France 0.

As for the third place game, I'm taking the home side, with the assumption that a competent referee will be chosen and will take issue with Portugal's flailing tendencies.

Semi-Final 1: Viva Italiano

2006-07-05T08:45:00.000-05:00

Despite controlling much of the possession in yesterday's semifinal, Germany rarely looked dangerous against an Italian defense that has still not given up a goal to an opposing team. All credit is due to the Italian squad that, although it failed to finish on the many good chances it had, finally put the game away in the final stages of extra time. I would also say that Jens Lehmann deserves a great deal of credit for keeping the German defense solid at the back. He collected every cross and picked up every long ball. In the end, he was beaten by an excellent shot when his defense had worn down.

Perhaps what is even more comment-worthy is the officiating: it was fabulous! Armando Archundia kept the game in check. When it looked like it could turn really nasty, he made his presence known. The only thing I can really fault him for was his unwillingness to penalize diving. On several occasions he let players dive without distributing cards. If you can dive without fear of the card, players will continue to try their luck to get favorable calls.

I can't leave today's posting without one final note: Screw Portugal! Go France!

The Semi-Finals: A European Thing

2006-07-03T08:30:00.000-05:00

Well, I would be lying to you if I told you that this is the most compelling final four that I have ever seen. The centrality of Europe in the footballing world is being reinforced, but at least one of my predictions held true: a European team always wins at European tournaments.

Let's review the quarterfinal games...

Germany 2 Argentina 1

Full props to the German squad, who I thought were out of it when Roberto Ayala scored in the 49th minute. But Michael Ballack, who had an otherwise disappointingly lackluster day, had one well aimed cross that was flicked on by Tim Borowski to Miroslav Klose, who put it in the back of the net. It's sad to see such a game go to penalty kicks, but I'm not going to pretend that I was unhappy about the result. The second-most flopalicious team was put out by Jens Lehmann, who appeared to consult a crib sheet. This violates FIFA rules, but who cares. It's not nearly as bad as simulating or embellishing in my book.

Italy 3 Ukraine 0

Did anybody not expect this? By mid way through the second half I was yawning myself to sleep.

Portugal 1 England 0

In case it wasn't clear, I HATE PORTUGAL! The country may be lovely, their people warm and generous, but their football team is a compendium of whiners, floppers, agitators, and thugs. I am not a huge English football fan, but I wanted England to win this game. If FIFA fails to crack down on Portugal's unsportsmanlike conduct (Christiana would have been out of the game if she had received the yellow cards for simulating), Joe Cole's comment will be spot on: "It's up to the authorities to sort them out or we will have to sink to their level."

France 1 Brazil 0

Two words for you: Zidane and Henry. These two guys worked magic against the Brazilian defense (if you could call it that). And then there is the total smack-down distributed by the French defense. What happened to Brazil's possession? It was nowhere to be seen on Saturday. My hat's off to a French team that I thought looked dead in it's first two matches.

Semi-final Predictions
Jürgen Klinsmann will have certainly looked at two matches to help Germany prepare for this match: Italy vs. USA and Italy vs. Australia. The German side should be physical with the Italians and push the attack. Given the way that Klinsmann's side has gotten this far, it would be a shame to revert to old tactics. The Italians are riding high after their win against Ukraine, but the German side will prove to be more of a challenge. I suspect that the game will go to penalty kicks, but I'd rather see it end in extra time with a goal from Podolski. Germany 2-1.

In the other semi-final, I am reduced to another installment of anybody but the freakin' punk-@ss bitch Portugeuse side. Please, please, please let Zidane play like he did against Brazil. Let Henry terrorize the depleted back line of Portugal. Let Viera crush Christiana and Figo, whose amount of hair oil, as the Jackal said on Saturday, could run an entire Lisbon power plant.

Okay, enough rant. Off to work.

Screw Portugal

2006-06-30T06:49:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know that I am a homer for Dutch football, so much so that I actually had Helen tape the Netherlands v. Portugal game since I thought I might not be able to see it live. It is now five days later, and I still can't believe the game.

Now, to hedge my position, let me say up front that the Dutch squad didn't play particularly well. Van Bommel turned selfish in the second half, Kuijt looked pathetic as a target man, and no one seemed interested in running into space or making accurate passes. I cannot fathom why Marco van Basten would choose to play Jan Vennegoor van Hesselink instead of van Nistelrooy.

That said, no one, not even an Argentine player, can flop like Louis Figo. The fact that he didn't get a red card for his head butt (and yes, that is what should have been given because a head butt is red cardable) is sad. But his blatent attempt to get Khalid Boulahrouz sent off suggests that a once brilliant player has been reduced to a pathetic asshole.

Likewise, Cristiano Ronaldo isn't fit to bear the name Ronaldo. I get that he didn't like the challenge, as he doesn't like anybody playing defense in his vacinity. The tackle was certainly late, but there's no way that is a yellow card. And suggesting that Boulahrouz wanted to put him out of the game is a sure sign of his mental deficiencies.

So, let me announce today that, while I don't usually pull for England, I hope that England kicks Portugal back to the peninsula. I hope that the EPL players who know what physical play really feels like use their skills to show Figo and Cristiano what it actually means to be fouled. Flop this f*&%ers!

Live from Mesa Grande

2006-06-28T09:56:00.000-05:00

Since last Saturday I have been in Southern California, well outside of San Diego, working on a CUWiN installation for Tribal Digital Village. Our hotel is in Temecula (north of San Diego on I-15), but the network is in Black Canyon, on the Mesa Grande Reservation. I would put the picture here, but it just doesn't give you the full effect unless I send you to this link. If you go there, you will see the road that comes down from the north. It is a one-lane, dirt road, lightly sprinkled with gravel, and complete with a drop-off of several hundred feet. That's not to mention the fact that the road takes you from the top of the canyon to the bottom of the canyon. There is a stream to the left of the road, and while it may look like a gentle slope down to the stream, if you go over the edge you don't stop until you hit the boulders that line the stream.

Yesterday I drove that road down to the reservation (I had ridden down the canyon for three days already). I had nightmares the night before about taking everybody in the truck over the edge. And that was before I realized that we didn't have four-wheel drive. It's just an amazing landscape with people who are also amazing for various reasons, which I will not go into here.

I knew that it would be hot. San Diego has beautiful temperatures year-round, but I knew that once you move inland one if facing desert conditions. But, it's dry heat, right. Much better than what I am used to in Illinois. Well, it would be, except that even in this vast semi-arid terain there are record temperatures. It turns out, we have been here while those recorded temperatures are being shattered by 10 degrees. On Monday the thermometer tapped out at 126 degrees. And while 100 isn't too bad if you aren't standing in the sun, 126 is bad no matter where you are.

Ironically, I have managed to avoid sunburn until yesterday, when I didn't put on sun screen because I thought I would be inside most of the day. Even now, it's just a healthy reddish glow, not a beet-red glare.

As a result of being on the reservation, I haven't watched much of the World Cup, which is a little bit depressing, especially as today I could actually watch but thre is not a game until Friday. However, I feel like I need to provide some predictions for the quarterfinals. I did terribly in the round of 16, botching about the same number of games as the referees, apparently.

Germany v. Argentina
A week ago no one would have picked the Argentine side to lose. The Germans have a solid twelfth man advantage and a ton of confidence. The Argentines, despite their bravado and unending arrogance, struggled against Mexico. I expect them to lose to the German side, 2-1.

England v. Portugal
Portugal will be missing Deco and Costinha. England will be missing a striker. I expect Portugal to flop around, but the difference between the way the English play and the Dutch play is this: when you go down against the Dutch, it's because you think you can get away with acting; when you go down against the English, it's because the English player decided just attempted to end your career. Look for the Brits to pick up some cards but to advance 1-0.

Ukraine v. Italy
Expect the Italians to be handed the victory again by the referee, either by a penalty kick or by simply not calling the falls the Italian players commit.

Brazil v. France
The French go lucky to advance, but the Brazilians weathered the storm Ghana put on them with brilliant counters. Look for Brazil to get revenge for the 1998 finals loss to France, 3-0.

Okay, now that I'm awake, I think I'll go find some breakfast and some coffee.

Day 15: France and Swiss Surprise, Ukraine and Spain Remain on the Plain

2006-06-24T08:08:00.000-05:00

France 2 Togo 0
Well, I'll admit my surprise. I thought France was going to be self-defeating again, but it turns out that Patrick Viera and Thierry Henry still have the heart of lions. I only watched the second half, but it was pretty clear to me who looked more threatening.

Switzerland 2 South Korea 0
The second goal was complete shite (because Alexander Frei was clearly offside), but the Swiss looked like they deserved the win (at least, from what I watched of the second half).

Spain 1 Saudi Arabia 0
I didn't see any part of this game, but if Saudi Arabia held even Spain's B team to one goal, they deserve some level of credit for at least trying.

Ukraine 1 Tunisia 0
I was rather distracted during this game, but it seemed like the Ukraine really hasn't gotten their act together. They were fighting amongst themselves and making a right royal mess of their chances. Their play in this game is going to force me to rethink my picks for the round of 16.

Rethinking Round of 16 Picks
I am taking the liberty to reassess the two matches that are changed as a result of two assumptions turning out incorrect. I had assumed that South Korea and Switzerland would hold things even in a classic speed versus height scenario. I had also assumed that Les Bleus were going to push to hard and fail. I was obviously wrong, and it changes the match-ups quite dramatically.

Spain v. France
It's tempting to pick France after an emotional win, but I'm still not convinced that the French team is hungry enough to beat a very talented Spanish side. On the other hand, Spain are perennial underachievers. But I think this Spanish squad, which is actually fairly young, is hungry enough to neutralize Spain's history of self-implosion for this round. Spain moves on 2-1.

Switzerland v. Ukraine
This is a substantially different match than South Korea versus Ukraine. With the injury to Philippe Senderos, the Swiss will be challenged early and often by Schevchenko. That said, Frei has shown remarkable ability to partner with teammates and create dangerous opportunities for the Swiss. Despite being highly dubious of Switzerland coming into the tournament, I am picking them to move on 1-0 and the Ukraine points fingers at each other all the way back to Kiev.

Day 14: Tchuß! and Round 2 Predictions

2006-06-22T16:00:00.000-05:00

Ghana 2 US 1
This was not the US's World Cup. Screwed in two games with poor officiating decisions, the US team could not overcome a 12-man advantage. I only have a couple things to say about this. First, this is a morality tale about why the first game of the World Cup is so important. If the US had done well against the Czechs, they would have received better treatment from the officials and they would have had more confidence when finishing. Second, it is time for the US to say goodbye to reactionary football. The US is most dangerous when it is attacking, winning balls, pushing forward. The marsupial offense is never going to play to the American's strengths.

Both of these point to one thing: the coaching staff. Bruce Arena brought this team a long way from the days of Steve Sampson, but it is time for him to take on something new. So, who next? Eric Wynalda threw around names from MLS. Please help us if US Soccer goes that direction. I have an alternative suggestion: let's look at a coach who has international success. I would love to see the job offered to Guus Hiddink, but his commitment to Russia precludes that. If Germany doesn't retain Jurgen Klinsmann, the US should hire him directly. If none of these are available, let me suggest that while Leo Beenhaker did well with Trinidad and Tobago he would do wonders for the US attack.

Italy 2 Czech Republic 0
What can I say? No surprise on this.

Brazil 4 Japan 1
Can the Ronaldo haters shut up? Does Brazil look good yet? Ghana beware!

Australia 2 Croatia 2
Does anyone not think that Guus Hiddink is a great coach? I admit that I completely underestimated Australia. They are steady in defense and Mark Viduka is an excellent target on offense.

Tomorrow's Predictions
Togo 1 France 0
Swiss 1 South Korea 1
Spain 3 Saudi Arabia 0
Ukraine 2 Tunisia 1

Round of Sixteen Predictions
Because I'm leaving for a week-long stint outside of San Diego, I suspect that I won't be able to watch very many matches, including the ones tomorrow. Perhaps they will make me alter these picks (especially Group G results).

Germany v. Sweden
Germany is playing so well that it is virtually impossible to pick against the home side in this match. In addition, Sweden has been anything but convincing on the offensive side. I think Germany wins this 2-0.

Argentina v. Mexico
Mexico looked good in the last game, despite losing. I acknowledge that Ricardo La Volpe may have a trick up his sleave against his countrymen, but I fully expect Argentina to move past Mexico. Their skill and attack has looked spectacular, and their defense has looked stellar in every game except against the Ivory Coast. Argentina 2-0.

England v. Ecuador
England has yet to look really strong, and Owen is a bigger loss than anyone in the England camp will admit. Without him, Peter (Don't Call Me Crotch) Crouch starts up front and brings height with little skill. Ecuador will come back from being trounced by Germany with an strong performance, knocking England out 2-1.

Portugal v. Netherlands
This is a hard game for me to call. The Dutch side has had particular problems with Portugal, but this is a different squad than the one the Dutch fielded in qualification for the 2002 World Cup. What is particularly interesting in this game is that neither team has played really well after the twentieth minute. And of course my heart is pure orange. So, I'm goin' homer and picking the Dutch to win 2-1, with Arjen Robben scoring a goal in the second half to put the game away.

Italy v. Australia
Italy 2-0. Australia just lacks the quality to stay with the Italian side.

South Korea v. Ukraine
South Korea has demonstrated their technical skill, but can they win against a dangerous offensive side? I'm not sure. Similarly, can the Ukraine defense stop a technical and fast Korean side? My best guess is this: Andriy Schevchenko comes up big and scores the late winner. Ukraine 2-1.

Brazil v. Ghana
Brazil improved their quality in each game of this tournament so far. The Ghanan side is strong and very capable in midfield, but their youth may catch up to them in this match. I look for the Brazilian side to give up goals, but to outscore the Black Stars 3-2. The good news for Ghana? Ghana will be the first African to win the cup in 2010, assuming that there are no career threatening injuries to the squad.

Spain v. Switzerland
The Swiss demonstrated their ability to hold attacking teams in check against France. The Spanish have not played a methodical and tactical squad to date. I expect them to struggle against a fierce defense. In fact, I think the Swiss might just be able to counter attack their way to a 1-0 victory against the traditional underachievers.

Day 13: Mexico Demonstrates Spirit and the Dutch Defend

2006-06-21T20:43:00.000-05:00

Portugal 2 Mexico 1
Portugal looked sharp early but, as per usual, they relaxed after about ten minutes and didn't really look dangerous again. Sure, there were some runs, but nothing worthy of real excitement. Mexico, on the otherhand, did a wonderful job of staying in the game after going down two goals. Unfortunately for Mexico, Omar Bravo missed a penalty kick in the 58th minute, which would have leveled the score at 2-2.

Angola 1 Iran 1
Mexico advances to the second round because of their gutsy performance and because Angola failed to capitalize on the opportunity. From all accounts, Iran controlled the run of play despite Angola taking the lead early in the second half. Iran equalized late. I feel sorry for Angola because, although they clearly have a midfield and defense to put them in contention, their offense lacked a quality player up front. Mr. Akwa, I wouldn't wait on your agent to be calling.

Netherlands 0 Argentina 0
I consider this to be a virtual victory for the Dutch side. I fully expected Argentina to run this game, and while they controlled much of the flow of play and looked more dangerous than the Dutch side, the Dutch defense (which had only one regular starter) maintained the clean sheet. The Dutch rarely looked dangerous, with a possible exception of Ruud van Nistelrooy's early push into the box (in which he was taken out by the Argetine defender in the box without a foul being called).

That said, I'm still very concerned about the Dutch side. I appreciate the work that Phillip Cocu does on defense, but he lacks the offensive power to make him useful as the central midfielder. He selfishly took a couple of balls and did nothing with them, neutralizing at least one good scoring chance. I'm not saying it can't work, but I am suggesting that Cocu needs to stick to his role as a distributor. My friend Jason commented that while van Nistelrooy was in the game he practically disappeared. I chalk this up to the lack of a midfield. I would also suggest that today we saw why Arjen Robben is so important to the Dutch side.

Tomorrow's Picks
I'm about to be very unpopular in the US.
Italy 2 Czech Republic 0
US 1 Ghana 1
Brazil 3 Japan 0
Croatia 1 Australia 1

Here's how I see it: The Czechs are old and will face substantial problems without Jan Koller and Tomas Ujfalusi, their best defender. The Italian side should be able to feed on the Czech defensive weekness. That leaves the opportunity available for the Americans. However, I've heard nothing that convinces me that Bruce Arena understands how to get offensive production out of this squad. Here's the line-up I expect (right to left side):
G Kasey Keller
D: Steve Cherundolo, Jimmie Conrad, Oguchi Onyewu, Eddie Lewis
M: Clint Dempsey, Claudio Reyna, Landon Donovan, John O'Brien, DaMarcus Beasley
F: Brian McBride

Arena has already said that he will put Conrad in for Eddie Pope. He is unlikely to use Carlos Bocanegra at left back because Carlos is really too slow to keep up with the Ghanan attackers. He could use either Beasley or Bobby Convey at left midfield, but Beasley will provide better defensive help. The problem is that once again there is just no fire power in the line-up. Here's my preferred starting eleven:
G Keller
D: Cherundolo, Conrad, Onyewu, Lewis
M: Dempsey, Donovan, O'Brien, Convey
F: McBride, Eddie Johnson

What I like about this arrangement is that O'Brien can fill in for Reyna in terms of distribution, but he can also help cover Convey and Lewis. Most importantly, it allows Reyna and Beasley to come off the bench late to hold the ball, which will be crucial to secure a victory.

Look for the US to lack possession and get a late equalizer when Eddie Johnson is finally in the game, but that isn't enough to push them through to the next round.

Day 12: Germans Delight and the Swedes Advance

2006-06-21T08:22:00.000-05:00

Because of the way ESPN is broadcasting the matches, I don't watch every match. I make a choice before the matches begin, just as you do. So, my apologies to the fans of Paraguay, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Poland. I didn't watch these games and these teams will mostly avoid comment here.

Germany 3 Ecuador 0
Wow was I wrong about this one. Jurgen Klinsmann has his team excited and punishing teams for their mistakes. The first goal was a nice three-part exchange, the second a fabulous pass (with some awful defense) from Michael Ballack, and the third a beautiful cross and finish from Bernd Schneider to Lukas Podolski. Sweden beware!

As for Ecuador, they clearly lacked their top-flight strikers in todays match. No one held the ball for them up top or created nice passing angles. That should change when Agustin Delgado and Carlos Tenorio are back in the line-up against England.

England 2 Sweden 2
There were moments of brilliance in this game. Joe Cole's lofted shot was perfectly placed. His cross to Steven Gerrard was pristine as well. Likewise, the flick-on from Marcus Allback was top notch. Still, this game droned along without much intensity, which is surprising given that England has not beaten Sweden in 38 years.

I do feel sorry for Michael Owen. After a brilliant entry onto the World Cup stage in 1998 (have you forgotten his unbelievable runs against Argentina?), Owen's World Cups are over. In the first minute of the game, he crumpled after his knee clearly gave out on a cut back. After missing 2002 with injuries, this bright star has now faded and is unlikely to be in South Africa due to age and injury.

Today's Predictions
Argentina 2 Netherlands 1
Ivory Coast 2 Serbia and Montenegro 0
Portugal 2 Mexico 0
Angola 1 Iran 0

Other Issues
With the possibility of several groups being decided by drawing lots (it's the tie breaker after goal differntial and goals scored), I have been trying to think of better ways to resolve the tie to determine who advances. As I see it, there are two ways to do this.

Option A: Penalty Kicks
In this option, the teams must meet the following day and choose players who were on the field when the whistle blew in their last match. This puts the onus on the players themselves, not on the luck of the draw or players from other teams. I favor this option.

Option B: Extended Time
This option is complex. If the two teams are facing each other in the third match, they play for an extra thirty minutes to see who advances based on goals scored (no team is actually at home, so away goals are not an issue). If the teams are not playing each other, all teams are held accountable for what happens in the group. Both games are put into extra time in an effort to change the goal differential or the goals scored. I think this is an interesting solution, but it does not definitively solve the problem as Option A clearly does.

What do you think about drawing lots to decide who advances?

Day 11: Switzerland Soars, Ukraine Rocks, and Spain Survives

2006-06-20T06:38:00.000-05:00

Switzerland 2 Togo 0
Yet again, the Swiss team played wonderfully. They were tactical in their play, getting the quick goal and then absorbing the runs from Togo and counter-attacking. That said, the team from Togo should have gotten a penalty kick that probably would have tied the game at 1-1. In the 34th minute, Emmanuel Adabayor was taken down in the box by Patrick Müller. Carlos Amarilla waved play on. There has to be something that can be done to even out the calls between the European/South American giants and the rest of the world! Unfortunately, I don't know what that is.

Ukraine 4 Saudi Arabia 0
Clearly unhappy with their result against Spain, Ukraine came out swinging against Saudi Arabia. The Saudi side clearly struggled with the soggy conditions, especially when goalkeeper Mabrouk Zaid slipped, allowing Serhiy Rebrov to score a goal from 35 meters out. Even Rebrov couldn't believe his luck. Ukraine is now clearly poised to advance, needing only a tie from Tunisia to advance.

Spain 3 Tunisia 1
When Tunisia went ahead 1-0 in the 8th minute, I was stunned. And happy! This is part of why the game of soccer is so great. And then Tunisia turned defensive and tried to absorb the Spanish attack. At that moment, I think we all knew that the game was over. The Spanish side is particularly vulnerable to frustration, which they demonstrated through most of the second half as attack after attack was thwarted by the stout Tunisian back line. Spain pressed everything into their offensive third, holding the ball in that end for most of the second half. And in the 72nd minute, the Tunisian levy broke, letting in a flood of Spanish goals. It was an exciting game, but I continue to be puzzled by teams that score a goal and pack it in. Even the Swiss, who had employed a similar strategy, understood that some possession is required to let the defense regroup and rest. To be honest, I hate the bunker strategy, because it sucks the life out of one's own offense, rendering it completely ineffective for the remainder of the match.

Today's Picks
Germany 1 Ecuador 1
I don't know that either side will be able to keep the other out of the net. Both offenses have looked very potent so far, and neither back line has been stunning. That said, I think Germany is doing themselves a disservice by avoiding England. The English side is weak and meeting them before they regain their confidence seems like a better strategy.

Poland 2 Costa Rica 1

England 1 Sweden 0
I will be curious to see Sweden score a goal again. When trying to score they looked like someone suffering from constupation, celebrating the pebble that provides such a small amount of relief. I'm not convinced that they have taken the laxative that will loosen their play. England won't look great, partly because Crouch will still be more disruptive than the combination of Owen and Rooney would be, but they will advance.

Trinidad and Tobago 1 Paraguay 0
Leo Beenhakker (who as far as I know has the best name of all the coaches in the tournament; it means leg crusher) will have his team up and ready to win this game, but they won't have enough to score two goals. If I'm correct, Sweden and TnT will draw lots to advance. Unfortunately, FIFA doesn't really like the underdog and God doesn't care about football, so Sweden will play on. Oh, and Paraguay will suck, just like it did in its previous two games.

Day 10: A Sleepy Sunday

2006-06-19T08:16:00.000-05:00

Croatia 0 Japan 0
Yawn! The only thing that was interesting in this game was Darijo Srna providing a wimpy penalty kick that Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi saved. I understand putting the ball on the ground for a pk. Wait, no I don't. Keeping it on the ground is something they teach kids so that they don't put it over the goal. However, any penalty taker worth his salt puts the ball in the upper ninety on one of the two sides. They also hesitate just slightly just before striking the ball. Srna did neither.

Also, why is everyone complaining about the heat? Isn't this summer in the northern hemisphere? Hasn't it been a complaint in every world cup I can remember (back to 1994, incidentally). If your team complains about the heat, your team didn't prepare properly.

Brazil 2 Australia 0
Two things I will note about this game. First, I like Markus Merk, but he really screwed with this game. The yellow on Ronaldo was ridiculous, he nullified almost every corner kick for Australia, and Australia couldn't get a single break. He wasn't like that in the first game, which leads me to believe that FIFA got to him. Bastards!

The other note is an open apology to Ronaldo. He looked better this game, no matter what the announcers said. He ran for the ball at critical moments and two really good opportunities (one for Kaka and one for Adriano). Adriano put the second away. I was wrong and everyone should shut up about Ronaldo's fitness.

France 1 South Korea 1
Yawn! The most exciting part of this match was the few minutes when each team scored. Les Bleus finally scored, but they also gave up a stumbling goal to Ji-Sung Park. The build up to that goal was frenzied, but the cross and header back to Park were well taken.

One thing I did want to say is this: I'm glad Zinedine Zidane got a yellow card. He took down the South Korean defender from behind. The announcers were up in arms that he got a yellow card, eliminating him from the game against Togo. They were upset that Zidane might not be seen on the international scene. But here's my take: I don't care if you are the best player in the world, if you take somebody down from behind, especially when the ball is being controlled by the keeper at the time, you are an asshole and deserve at least a yellow card. I hope Zidane enjoys sitting on the bench. It will be too ironic if all the games in group G tie, which would put France out of the tournament. Maybe more stars will realize that they aren't allowed to be prats anymore than any other player.

Tomorrow's Predictions
Togo 1 Switzerland 0
Ukraine 3 Saudi Arabia 0
Spain 2 Tunisia 0

Day 9: Portugal Moves On, Racism in Stripes, and US Gets Screwed

2006-06-17T12:12:00.000-05:00

Portugal 2 Iran 0
Portugal again looked weak. Cristiano Ronaldo acted like a gigantic baby, practically crying when he didn't get a call at the end of the first half. He's very talented, but somebody needs to give him a swift kick to the backside, or perhaps the referee could just give him yellow cards when he whines about calls. It is allowed, after all. Iran played well, looking dangerous until they reached the 18-yard box. They played hard against a talented team.

Ghana 2 Czech Republic 0
I'm calling out Horacio Elizondo. Granted that he called the penalty kick for Ghana in the 66th minute, but as far as I am concerned, his calls in the first clearly demonstrated a tendency. In the 18th minute, Otto Addo (who I remember from when he lead Hannover 96 to promotion from the German third division) was given a yellow card for a perfectly clean tackle. From Elizondo's perspective, I understand that he didn't know it was perfectly clean. In the 20th minute, Karel Poborsky makes a two-footed studs-up tackle on Michael Essien. Studs-up means automatic card, but no card was given to the Czech player. Similarly, when Czech players put their boots high in the air to control balls, and the Ghanan players played the ball, the foul was on the Ghanan player. When Ghanan players put their boots in the air to play the ball, foul on the Ghanan players. While this trend diminished after the second goal, that's no excuse. If FIFA is ever going to get serious about eliminating racism in the beautiful game, it should start with the referees. Shame on Mr. Elizondo.

As for the game itself, Ghana looked really impressive and deserved this win. However, several of the players picked up their second yellow card, which may jeopardize their ability to win the US match.

US 1 Italy 1
Well, I'm ready to concede that Bruce Arena's lineup played much better than I thought. Clearly they were prepared for the Italian squad and really controlled the run of play until the referee blew a gasket. All credit is due to him for getting this team up off the mat.

That said, let's delve into the game a little bit. Clearly, Daniele De Rossi deserved to be sent off by Jorge Larrionda. You can't throw an elbow like that and expect to not be thrown out of the game. So, at this point here's my thought: I would have taken out Eddie Pope (who already had a yellow card), moved Carlos Bocanegra to the center of defense, where his lack of speed is not such a liability, and brought in Eddie Lewis. From the 28th minute to the 45th minute, the US controlled the flanks. Eddie Lewis's crossing ability would have helped cut the defense to pieces. But that didn't happen.

Then Larrionda sent off Pablo Mastroeni in the 45th minute. Larrionda should have given a yellow card. A red card was simply stupid, as was the tackle that allowed it. I admire Mastroeni's hard-nose style of play, especially behind Claudio Reyna and Landon Donovan, but he has to know that this tackle is not important and that risking even a yellow card was silly. That said, Larrionda was clearly a gigantic dumbass and should never be allowed to referee another international match.

At half time I thought, "Okay, the field is now open and speed is the crucial element to open up their defense. Either Eddie Johnson or DeMarcus Beasley will come in to add speed up front." I still would have substituted Pope, just as a precautionary measure. I'm sure that my readers are thinking, "Yeah, sure, that's what you thought. Nice to say in hindsight." But actually, that is really what I thought.

And of course none of my ideas were adopted by Bruce Arena. So Pope gets sent off in the 47th minute. It's a horrible call, because Pope actually got the ball, but I understand why Larrionda sent him off. He wasn't in a position to see Pope make contact with the ball. Again, it is a massively stupid call, but Pope should have known better. Now it's nine on ten and the US will have to put speed up top, because the only person Brian McBride beats in a foot race is me, and I'm a fat bastard. Instead, Bobby Convey leaves the game for Jimmie Conrad. I agree with bringing on Conrad to shore up the defense, but Arena just took off more speed.

Then DeMarcus Beasley replaced Clint Dempsey. I don't fault Arena for bringing on Beasley, who was easily the fastest player on the field, but I have to wonder about taking off Dempsey, who was having a pretty good game. No, this one is clearly on Beasley himself, who did track back for defense, but didn't push forward every time he got the ball. Conserving energy makes sense if you are playing for 60 or 90 minutes, but when you are only going to play for 30 minutes, you better be prepared to run. And when you don't do that, you should expect to ride the pine for the remainder of the tournament. Maybe there is something wrong with Beasley, but in either case he should not play another minute of the tournament.

I applaud the US team's effort to pull out the draw, especially when Arena didn't bother to use his last sub. Marcello Balboa mentioned it, but I thought he mentioned it far too late. Reyna and McBride were gassed. I don't care if he puts in Johnson or John O'Brien, but to not use your third substitute in that game is to strongly tempt fate to give you a swift kick in the rear. The result was that in the last ten minutes, every time Keller, who played very well, got the ball, he had to just give it back to the Italians, who were also gassed. A substitute who could have challenged the banged-up defense could have gotten the US the points it needs.

So, where are we now? Technically, the US can still advance, but it would require a miracle. Namely, the Italians must beat the Czechs, and the US must beat Ghana, who looked very good. The team that has to be very happy at the moment is the Ghanan squad, who are in an excellent position to advance, even if they will miss Sulley Muntari and Asamoah Gyan, their two goal scorers. It will truely be a miracle if the US can advance and only score 1 or 2 goals (they didn't score one today, after all.)

Tomorrow's Picks
Croatia 1 Japan 1
Brazil 2 Australia 0
South Korea 1 France 1

Final Thought
I know that there are some people who would make the argument that if Mastroeni had not been sent off, Pope would not have picked up the red card. I don't buy the teleological argument, but it is tempting to wonder if the US would have scored one or more goals if the Italians were forced to play for 65+ minutes eleven on ten.

Day 8: A Number of Unknowns

2006-06-16T20:33:00.000-05:00

Some people know that I have ties to Serbia and Montenegro (which, if anyone is wondering should be abbreviated as SCG, not SMT) and the Netherlands. Now that I've put my biases out front, let me approach today's games.

Argentina 6 Serbia and Montenegro 0
First, Argentina deserves to be congratulated on the most beautiful play of the tournament to date. The goal scored by Esteban Cambiasso exemplifies the best of the beautiful game. That said, I'm not sure how to understand this Serbia and Montenegro team. The only player I understand is Mateja Kežman, who took a red card in the 65th minute. Kežman's card was stupid, even if was at least attempting to show some sort of fight. I understand that they were downtrodden, that they were probably done, but I don't understand them laying down. And as the game wore on and Argentina continued to press into the offensive third for three more goals, I am shocked that Serbia and Montenegro's players didn't get seriously violent. I am surprised that they didn't take out one of Argentina's forwards, the forwards that kept pushing the ball. Every time they brought the ball forward, I expected another player to be taken down. It's not about playing dirty; it is about a team running up the score and another team retaliating. I want to be clear: I'm not advocating this kind of activity. I'm just surprised that it didn't happen when Argentina clearly ran up the score.

Netherlands 2 Cote d'Ivoire 1
Okay, then there was the Netherlands against Ivory Coast. I like the way Ivory Coast plays, but of course I could only support one team in this match. Frankly the Dutch team played horribly in the second half. They should have probably lost the game to a more inspired Ivory Coast team. I don't understand trying to shut down the match with 45 minutes left to play and only a one goal lead. The opening of the match held lots of promise for the Dutch squad. Van Persie's free kick was stunning, and it appears that Robben found the passing touch. That said, after the 30th minute, the Dutch seemed to just sit back and absorb. I have the feeling that the Netherlands is going to lose rather badly to Argentina. The defense just looks too slow to deal with Argentina's quick playmakers. I should also say that Raphael van der Vaart, who is billed as a maestro for the Dutch, didn't provide the ball control that the Dutch team needs from him. If Mark van Bommel, Joris Mathijsen, and Johnny Heitinga continue to be beaten so consistently, the Dutch will go down before the semi-finals.

Mexico 0 Angola 0
In the Mexico-Angola match, Angola would have won that match if they had had a decent striker, but Fabrice Akwa doesn't have a club because he hasn't shown the world a drop of talent in two games. The Mexican side looked excited early, but they looked lost as the game wore on. Guillermo Franco did a good job early in the match of providing a target up front, but after the first diluge of attacking play, Mexico's short passing game couldn't connect enough to look particularly dangerous. With four points and a final game against Portugal remaining, Mexico is in trouble. If Portugal plays like they did against Angola (and it wasn't fabulous, but it got the job done, Portugal will likely beat Mexico. That leaves Mexico hoping that Angola doesn't suddenly find a lethal attack.

One more rant
Okay, I admit that I am hard on the announcers. I don't represent their demographic, because apparently I know more than their target audience. However, a couple of things really hack me off. First, when Tommy Smythe goes off on Johnny Heitinga (whose name he also can't pronounce, see Day 3 entry), and it turns out that the guilty party is Mathijsen, I expect Smythe to acknowledge that he blew the call. Let me tell you, he never realized that he completely ragged on the wrong guy! Step up, be a man, admit you're a moron, Tommy!

And then there is Rob Stone. This guy drives me nuts. In the past, I have even written to ESPN to request his dismissal. He throws in so much crap that is completely irrelevant, like trying to sell shite that isn't even a sponsor for the World Cup or ESPN broadcasts. Or talking incessantly about the US squad while watching Mexico and Angola. Now, I know I'm not alone because there are several other people who hate Stone (just do a google search), so here's my suggestion. the reason that Stone has a job is because sponsors think that we will put up with him. But if we turn off the sound, there are two benefits. First, we don't have to listen to an excitable jackass. Second, we send a clear message that he can't sell us anything. Of course, this second thing also requires that we publicize these decisions. So, I'm publicizing my decision not to listen to Rob "I understand football at a fourth grade level" Stone. I'm a consumer, here me roar!

Tomorrow's Predictions
Portugal 4 Iran 0
Ghana 1 Czech Republic 0
US 2 Italy 1

UPDATE: The US just announced its lineup. Beasley is out. Johnson is out. Lewis is out. Two out of three isn't bad. But how in the hell can Arena expect to win this game without Eddie Johnson. And again, the stupid 4-5-1 formation. Clint Dempsey is a good addition on the right, I can no longer expect the US to get any kind of result from this game. I expect Italy to win 2-1. I also expect Arena's resignation at the end of the tournament. Lots of people will say that this is harsh, and I hope I'm completely wrong, but the Italian counter attack will run the US squad into the ground.

Day 7: Educador Excites, Glen Gets Overexcited, Sweden Surprises

2006-06-15T16:20:00.000-05:00

What can you say about Ecuador? They are through, and if they play their cards right against Germany (yes, play for a tie and counterattack for the win), they may avoid playing England in the round of 16. Costa Rica looked every bit the loser for every minute of this World Cup. We can only hope that the US teams represents CONCACAF a bit better.

If you look at the England vs. Trinidad and Tobago, I would have given TnT the game up until the 73rd minute. It was at that point that Cornell Glen drove through the English defense. Had he been a little more collected, he might have noticed Stern John streaking to his right completely unmarked. There were certainly a few more moments when they looked somewhat dangerous, but that moment was the moment for TnT to seize. It would have been revolutionary, even if England had come back. But Glen failed to notice John's run, his shot was blocked, and the Imperial masters outlasted the TnT defense, with Peter Crouch putting away a header in the 83rd minute.

In the final game of the day, I fell asleep, but I woke up in time to see Sweden throw everything they had at the Paraguayan goal. The Swedes pulled off the winning goal, but now find themselves in a bit of a predicament. The English need a tie to win the group. The Swedes need a tie to advance. But the English should use this match to try to get its offense into gear, which makes it unlikely that they will settle for the tie early. The Swedes will need to hold off the English early to advance. TnT will have to go all out, scoring at least two goals and hoping for a Swedish loss. Can they do it, the Paraguayans have nothing to play for except pride, but you can bet they have enough of that to not roll over.

Tomorrow's Predictions
Argentina 1 Serbia & Montenegro 0
Netherlands 2 Ivory Coast 0
Mexico 2 Angola 0

Other story to watch: Will Ozzie Guillen get a fine for sending a pitcher out to plunk a batter? Ozzie says he didn't do that, but every piece of evidence suggests otherwise.

Day 6: WWCD?

2006-06-14T20:40:00.000-05:00

I knew this would happen eventually. I generally try to refrain from complaining about officiating, but after today's matches any commentary worth its salt must take a position. Here's mine: I have seen too many games refereed by Pierluigi Collina to not know how the game should be officiated. So, when I think about how to rate officiating, I ask myself this simple question: What would Collina do? Announcers are fond of saying stupid things like, "A good referee is a referee you don't see." Unfortunately, when the stakes are this high, a referee you don't see is likely to be officiating rugby. Sometimes, the referee just has to be present.

Let me be upfront: I'm going to piss off German and Spanish fans. I don't care because I'm convinced I'm right about this. I'm going to start with the Germany-Poland match. In the 63rd minute, referee Luis Medina Cantelejo gave Radoslaw Sobolewsky a yellow card because he challenged the German golden boy, Michael Ballack. If you look at the play, both went for the ball. The justification for the card was that Sobolewsky had his studs up. He did, because to control a ball that coming over your shoulder, the studs must be up ever so slightly. Ballack, going for the ball, put his foot below Sobolewsky's. Was it a foul? Yes, without a doubt, because Sobolewsky missed the ball. Was it the letter of the rule? Yes. But WWCD? Called a foul, let it go. That's what he would have done. Ten minutes later, Sobolewsky was ejected from the game for running into Miroslav Klose, who had cut back in front of Sobolewsky. Again, yes it is a foul. No, there's no way in hell that he should be ejected for it. Cantelejo gave Germany the game, despite Poland's awesome effort. I salute them and regret their early departure from the tournament. I want to be clear, I don't hate Germany, but that win was a gift against a Polish squad that matched them eleven for eleven for 73 minutes.

Then there is the Spain-Ukraine match. Here, the referee didn't cost anyone the game, but he may have caused them a space in the second round. Massimo Busacca sent off Vladislav Vashchuk for a non-tackle and gave Spain a penalty kick in the 47th minute. Ukraine, who was already down 2-0, had come out in the second half looking much more aggressive and composed. From there on out, it was pretty much hopeless. So, Busacca biffed it, but here's my beef. Fernando Torres, the Spanish forward, knew that the call was complete horse pucky. I understand why they don't do it, but does any else wish they would kick the ball out bounds? I mean, you can't bring the player back from that crock of shit call, but you can at least recognize that it is uncool to benefit directly from such shiite! That said, Spain looks really dangerous!

As for the Islamic despot bowl, I tip my hat to the overmatched and undertalented Saudi team. No way they should have won, or even tied, but they bucked up in the second half and made the Tunisian players look lazy.

Tomorrow's Picks
Ecuador 2 Costa Rica 2
England 0 Trinidad and Tobago 0
Sweden 1 Paraguay 0

Finally, congratulations to the Edminton Oilers, who staved off defeat in the Stanley Cup playoffs in overtime.

Day 5: Togo Teases, France Toast, and Brazil Gets What It Needs

2006-06-13T21:03:00.000-05:00

Today's heartache was surely Togo's. The unfortunate dismissal of Jean-Paul Abalo in the 53rd minute. I agree that it was a bookable foul, a foul which he actually didn't need to commit. And it cost Togo a point. However, look for Togo to present a significant challenge to Switzerland and France, especially with the cannon legs they have up front.

The Swiss played an inspired match (I should have known it after giving my best friend who is half Swiss a bad time about the team.), but it was the lack of French attach that was truely remarkable. It's no surprise that they haven't scored since the 1998 final with that kind of uninspired play. Again, the Swiss played well and had the better of the opportunities, but the French squad is so talented that it shouldn't have been a question. After all the praise of the Swiss squad, I also am giving Alexander Frei the first D'OH award. In the 90th minute, Ludovic Magnin sent a beautiful free kick screaming toward the left post. Frei thought he had the hand of God, and rightfully received a yellow card. If Frei had let the ball go, Johan Djourou would have put the Swiss up 1-0. The ball was heading right for Djourou's chest; Djourou was already less than a foot from the goal when Frei handed the ball and Djourou ended up in the goal. D'OH!

Croatia looked quite good in their loss to Brazil. Brazil had several chances but failed to convert all but one. As it turned out, one was enough. However, I expect Croatia and Brazil to advance from the group, despite the splendid play of the Australian team. One thing I do have to note is how poorly Ronaldo played. He had one significant touch, which he sent just over the cross bar. Still, can we expect Ronaldo to make compelling runs as he did in the last two world cups? Yes, actually that is exactly what we expect, and it is what Carlos Alberto Parreira should expect. And if he can't do that for at least sixty minutes in the match, he should be used as a sub.

Tomorrow's Predictions
Spain 1 Ukraine 1
Tunisia 1 Saudi Arabia 0
Germany 2 Poland 0

Last note: I rarely take in the Chappelle Show, but tonight he had a brilliant comment. Something to the effect of: "How did Bush know that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? Well, he had the receipt."

Have a brilliant day!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the follow-up on the comments from Robin van Persie about Arjen Robben. Some interesting stuff to report. On Sunday, ESPN correspondents originally said that Ruud van Nistelrooy called Robben a ball hog. On Monday, the comments apparently had come from van Persie and the head coach, Marco van Basten. If this sounds fishy to you, it should. Apparently, the story came out of the German press. According to my source in the Netherlands, everyone has denied making this claim and they refuse to comment on it further. Hmmm. If the original report came from the German press, how much should we really trust the report? This is a press group who have been pissed with the Dutch since a Dutch comedian made light of the resort where the Dutch team is staying. The mayor of Titisee, where the Adler hotel is located, has demanded an official apology. The Dutch reaction is pretty typical: it's called humor. Get over it. Okay, enough with this.

Day 4: Back to Reality

2006-06-12T18:46:00.000-05:00

In their 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic the US national team got a nasty wake up call. Hopefully, they won't just hit the snooze button and roll over. After all, they have already played dead. There were two bright spots for the US today: Eddie Johnson looked like he could be great again, and Claudio Reyna looked like the player we know he can be. Where to begin with the worst...?

We can start with Bruce Arena. 4-5-1 sucks. It's a bad idea and it gives you no attack. If you do attack in that formation, it is by sending players into the box for crosses or counter-attacking. The Czech back line is 6-0, 6-1, 6-3, and 6-0. Relying on crosses to beat that formation is fool's play. When the Czechs came out in a 4-5-1, the counter-attack was all but dead.

Then there is the defense. Kasey Keller made a bad distribution which lead to the first goal, but he's not to blame for the other two. The corner backs were too slow to keep up with the Czechs, Eddie Pope got out maneuvered by Jan Koller, and Oguchi Onyewu looked slow. The midfield produced very little, especially at the wings. Frankly, DeMarcus Beasley doesn't play the right as well as he plays the left. And I don't buy that Bobby Convey is better than Beasley (although Beasley's first touches were as horrible in the three warm-up matches as they were today). Finally, without service from the wings, Brian McBride is useless.

So, what to do now? Play balls to the wall. That's it. There's no other thing to do. While I'm at it, I should give a shout out to Tomas Rosicky, who, along with Pavel Nedved, played wonderfully.

I also want to give a shout out to Guus (Don't call the man Gus) Hiddink. He's a coaching genius who has done well with the Australia squad. All three of the Socceroos' goals were scored by substitutes.

Finally, I confess that I only saw the first thirty minutes of the Ghana-Italy match. The US is going to have its work cut out for it to beat either of these teams. I set the VCR, and it worked wonderfully until the tape ended up being only two hours long. Stupid tape!

Tomorrow's Predicitions
Brazil 2 Croatia 0
South Korea 2 Togo 0
France 1 Switzerland 0

Bonus prediction: Arena will leave after the conclusion of this World Cup.

Day 3: Hup!

2006-06-11T21:59:00.000-05:00

Hup Holland! If you didn't know, I'm happy today about Holland's victory, although I'm also critical about their play. Clearly, Arjen Robben is going to pose problems for everyone they play, including Argentina. The US commentators spoke about several Dutch players, including van Nistelrooy, voiced frustration by what they viewed as Robben's selfish play. I didn't find anything about that in de Volkskrant, a trustworthy Dutch daily. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if there was some resentment. Frankly there are bigger problems: the Dutch back line looked slow (which is a MAJOR concern against Cote d'Ivore) and Robin van Persie isn't filling in the right flank. On the other side, Serbia and Montenegro looked good after Ongjen Koroman took the field for Nenad Djordjevic. I'm looking forward to their next match against Argentina and hoping that they come up big!

In other action, Mexico beat Iran. I agree with Iran's coach when he said that his players suffered from a lack of fitness. I would also say that a couple of Mexico's players played very well, and others played well enough to get out of the group. In the last match of the day, Portugal opened up their match against Angola looking very dangerous. While they continued to look dangerous at moments after Pedro Pauleta scored, they were anything but impressive. Angola looked dangerous, although I don't know if they can take Mexico, which they will need to do to advance.

Okay, I've got one more comment. I've listened to three days of ESPN/ABC commentators. Sören, my neighbor and a German who knows what football is all about, and I have commented in each match that the commentators are not particularly good, but we give them some slack because we understand that, unlike in other countries, football commentators in the US are asked to educate in addition to calling the game. But, today I finally lost my cool. It's one thing to offer shoddy commentary, but at least figure out how to pronounce the names of players. Don't get me wrong. I understand that there are names that are extremely difficult to say. And there are sounds that are extremely difficult to make. For example, I don't expect American commentators to be able to distinguish between the Slavic ć and the č. That said, three of the thirty-two teams use the latin "dj" to produce the same sound that English speakers create with the letter "g". So, when a player is named "Djordjević", it is pronounced like "Georgavich". Also, I expect announcers to get the syllables right. For example, Heitinga is pronounced "HI-ting-a", not "hi-TINGA". It doesn't take that much effort to figure out how to pronounce the names. All the other world's commentators figure it out! Okay, rant over.

Tomorrow's Predictions
US 2 Czech Republic 1
Italy 1 Ghana 1
Australia 1 Japan 0

UPDATE: I just saw the starting line-up for the US. I hate to second guess, but I'm going to change my prediction: 1-1 draw. The Czechs will draw first blood.

Day 2: England Escapes, T&T survives, Argentina gets the calls

2006-06-10T16:04:00.000-05:00

Today started out with a mediocre performance from an England squad that should have dominated play. Paraguay suffered an unfortunate injury to the goalkeeper and an unfortunate own goal. While England came out looking great, their aggressive play dwindled as first half closed. They never looked particularly threatening in the second.

Unlike England's uninspired play, Trinidad and Tobago are my team of the day. Despite playing the second half with 10 men (on a bogus second yellow card to Avery John), T&T answered every challenge. Player of the Day award would go to the T&T net minder, Shaka Hislop. He was a last minute substitution and he made a couple of great saves to keep them in the match. Also notable was T&T's Dwight York, who has moved from the striker position he held at Manchester United to play defensive midfield.

And then there is Argentina. I have all the respect in the world for classy players like Hernan Crespo and Juan Riquelme. I hate the Argetine squad! They throw elbows, complaining that the referee didn't call the other player for throwing an elbow, and flop like fish on dry land. Sure, they were clearly the better team at times, but they were also the weaker team at times. Unfortunately, they also escaped with the game when Didier Drogba was taken down in the box without a call. (It was 2-0 a the time, but I believe the game would have been dramatically different.) Yes, I know this isn't completely logical, but the dictatorship of logic is over, just ask Republicans. So, from here on out, I'm supporting anyone in this tournament who takes the field opposite the Argentine squad.

Predictions:
I haven't been doing very well on picking games, but that doesn't mean that I won't keep trying.

Netherlands 2 Serbia and Montenegro 0
Mexico 2 Iran 0
Angola 1 Portugal 1

Day 1: Germany Victorious and Ecuador Rising

2006-06-09T18:58:00.000-05:00

Rather than recap, I'm just going to offer a couple of observations. Let me start with the Germany-Costa Rico game. I was surprised to see Germany come out aggressively. I knew that was Jurgen Klinnsmann's inention, but I admit being surprised that it was so effective. But what was really surprising was the pouressness of the defense. It looked like the German backline could neither keep themselves together nor catch up to the speedy Costa Rican strikers. That's going to be something to watch for the remainder of German matches.

UPDATE: I realized shortly after posting this thta I forgot to mention the two outstanding strikes from Torsten Frings and Philip Lahm. While Marcello Balboa and Dave O'Brien marvelled at the goal from Frings (a brilliant cracker from 30 meters out), I was more astonished by Lahm's perfect line drive from the left corner of the box into the opposite upper ninety degrees of the goal. It's one thing to bend that ball into that corner, which I have done a couple of times in the park, but it's completely different to rocket the ball past everyone into that corner from across the field.

As for the Ecuador-Poland match, Poland looked like a bunch of amateurs. End of story. Ecuador wasn't impressive (although their defense was better than expected in the air), but against a Poland squad that looked like it couldn't control the ball (much less strike a cross of any quality) they didn't need to look anything more than competent.

Today's Matches
England 0 Paraguay 0
Trinidad & Tobago 1 Sweden 2
Argentina 1 Cote d'Ivore 2

Tournament predictions

2006-06-09T10:09:00.000-05:00

Okay, it's a little less than an hour before the games begin and I am writing frantically to provide my predictions before the games start. However, since I'm limited by time, I'll simply make group predictions, tournament champion, and today's matches. Making daily predictions will keep people coming back, I hope.

Tournament Champion: the Netherlands. The popular (and logical) pick is Brazil. I love the way they play, but South American squads almost never win in Europe. The Italians are the other European squad I can see pulling it off. Germany, although bolstered by being the host country, is just too weak to pull it off unless Jens Lehmann can be better than Oliver Khan in 2002. I don't know that this is even possible because Khan was so amazing then. France just hasn't been impressive. Spain, Portugal and England are perennial disappointments. The Czechs are too injured to pull this off.

So, why the Dutch? I'll give you three reasons. One: RUUD. I expect Ruud van Nistelrooy to step up to the world's largest stage. Two: Marco van Basten has done what Frank Rijkhaard could not: he got rid of the egos. The big names (or at least most of them) are gone from the team, which has provided a great deal of collegiality on the team. The veterans that remain (Cocu, van der Saar, van Nistelrooy, van Bronckhorst) are professionals who understand that playing as a team is essential to winning the cup. Three: youth will be served. Look for Arjen Robben and Dirk Kuyt to have good runs and excellent feeds for Ruud to finish. The Dutch team will be fast and will recover quickly from matches. Endurance is essential if a team wants to hoist the cup.

Player of the Tournament: Ruud van Nistelrooy. Okay, I know I'm being a bit of a homer, but if the Dutch win the tournament it will be because Alex Ferguson did the Dutch a favor and rested Ruud. He hasn't gotten playing time at Man U, so he should be hungry and in top form. He is also the kind of player who performs exceptionally on the big stage, as his performance at Euro 2004 demonstrated.

Group Predictions (winner and runner-up)
Group A: Germany and Costa Rica advance
Group B: Sweden and England advance
Group C: Netherlands and Ivory Coast advance
Group D: Portugal and Mexico advance
Group E: Italy and USA advance
Group F: Brazil and Australia advance
Group G: France and South Korea
Group H: Spain and Ukraine

Today's Predictions
Germany 1 Costa Rica 0
Ecuador 2 Poland 1

Fifteen minutes to spare! Gotta do all the necessary prep (restroom, space clearing so as not to destroy anything, and perhaps some sort of food preparation). See you in a few hours!

US v. Latvia

2006-06-01T07:46:00.000-05:00

After being on the road yesterday and trying to tie up loose ends (a completely hopeless process) at work on Tuesday, I've tried to distill my thoughts about the US match versus Latvia.

To my mind, this was really a game of two halves. In the first half, the US looked potent, ready to attack the slower (although sturdier) Latvian back line. John O'Brien, who played at left midfield, had a couple of real moments where he looked like the player the US needs him to be. Eddie Johnson, playing opposite Brian McBride, failed to time his runs correctly, but looked like the player the US needs up front to compliment McBride's aerial game. Beasley took a while to get his bearings on the right side of midfield, but his ability to push the ball from the wing to the middle allowed right back Steve Cherundulo to get down the side for two dangerous crosses, one of which McBride put in the back of the net. Given the dependence of the US attack against Morocco on the left side, seeing Beasley and Cherundulo on the right was great news for a US attack that has been unimpressive thus far.

The second half saw the left side dry up, as O'Brien lost steam. The right side continued to produce, but everyone on the team seemed to lose a step, while the Latvians decided to push their advantage. A couple of key saves by Casey Keller maintained the clean sheet, but if the US fades like that against the Czechs or the Azzurri (the Italian squad), the US will go home early.

So, were any of the questions I asked previously answered? Eddie Lewis seemed relatively solid in defense. I'm not dissing on Jimmie Conrad, but Lewis will be helped by having Oguchi Onyewu starting next to him, as I suspect he will thoughout the tournament.

The right side, in my opinion, is a closed question. Moving Beasley to the right, where he plays for his club team (PSV Eindhoven [Booooo! Hup AZ en Ajax!]), balances the US attack and makes it possible for Cherundulo and Lewis to use their deadly crosses to maximum advantage. This creates a question: who plays left? I think the question depends on what Bruce Arena wants out of the left side. If he wants an anchor who tracks back for defense and can help control the game, O'Brien clearly starts. If he wants a player who will make runs, much like Donovan and Beasley make runs, Bobby Convey has earned himself the nod with an impressive game against Venezuela. My pick would be to start the game with the stability of O'Brien and bring Convey off the bench early. His speed will be magnified against a defense that has already spent half their legs.

Landon Donovan is more effective and lethal in midfield than up front. His slight build and passing ability make him a more natural fit there. As Ives Galarcep has argued on ESPN Soccernet, Eddie Johnson may be the key to this World Cup run. If Johnson can continue to show this kind of improvement, he should start in order to provide a dynamic force up front for the US squad, especially against the Czechs. This, of course, raises a new question: who loses his spot when Claudio Reyna starts? Unfortunately, I think the answer to this question is Pablo Mastroeni. I love the way Pablo fights for balls and brings a physicality that the US midfield otherwise lacks. Unfortunately, Mastroeni hasn't demonstrated an ability to pass the ball and provide any leadership on the offensive side of the ball. At least two teams in Group E will pack their defense with at least nine players. If the US is only going to bring five effective offensively-minded players into the attack, the US will be back to its old trick of playing opossum. Personally, I don't like the Marsupial Offense.

Okay, that's it from the waves of grain.

Phased by the Cup

2006-05-28T14:19:00.000-05:00

It's the middle of a lazy Sunday. Yesterday I managed to do some work, in addition to some laundry. I also spoke to my mother, who is moving at the end of this week. Helen, my wife, is going to help her move.

However, my real passion at the moment is football! I'm so hyped about the World Cup that the only thing I'm thinking about is the warm-up match between the US and Latvia. Let me bring you up-to-date, in case you haven't been following. The US lost to Morocco 0-1 last Tuesday on a last minute goal. The US team played uninspired football and looked like the country that wasn't going to Deutschland. If they play like that in the tournament, it's going to be like the 4-1 loss to Poland in 2002. Friday, the back-ups played Venezuela and looked very good, especially Bobby Convey. I don't understand why US Coach Bruce Arena decided to play the second team, but if it lights a fire under the first team, great. Today's match should be reminiscent of the Morocco match, with Latvia playing a counter-attack without much sustained offense.

[Here's a heads-up: I will be posting World Cup stuff for the next month and a half.]

Here are the issues that I hope to see resolved in today's match:

Can Eddie Lewis secure the left back position? Without him, can we really ask Carlos Bocanegra to play there every game?

Who will play right midfield? Clint Dempsey has looked very good, but perhaps DeMarcus Beasley is a better option, even if it isn't his natural side.

Is the Landon Donovan and Brian McBride combination really the best tandem at forward? I hope that Eddie Johnson gets the opportunity to play with McBride today, because I suspect that they, backed up by Donovan from midfield, will be much more potent.

I should be clear that I trust Bruce Arena's judgement. However, I'm not convinced by some of the talk that is being bandied around. The idea of the US playing a 3-5-2 formation is frightening, no matter how good Oguchi Onyewu is. Additionally, the idea that Steve Cherundulo is going to be able to neutralize someone like Pavel Nedved of the Czech Republic should send shivers down anyone's spine. Finally, I like Josh Wolff in limited action, but if he starts, I'm going to be shocked!

Okay, more after today's game!

Fathers and Sons

2006-05-17T22:38:00.000-05:00

Lest one begin to read this entry with the unfortunate misperception that I am about to launch into a great meandering diatribe about the literary greatness of one Ivan Turgenev, I should dispel that idea from the start. Although I could talk at length about Turgenev's relationship to the intelligentsia, or his place among the great Russian authors like Fyodor Dostoevsky (I'm not sold on Tolstoy.), but I would rather not do that now.

While that rant has been dismissed, it is no accident that I have chosen this title as my own. Today my father entered an assisted living facility. He is 63-years-old. When the County Nurse came to evaluate him, she told my mother that she didn't know how we had managed to keep him out of a care facility for this long. I laughed a little when I read that in my mother's email, but it was a laugh that concealed much more than it revealed.

To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel at this moment. The rationality of it is quite clear, and it is the only way to protect my mother, whose constant care for him has put her own health at risk. Yet, as much as my father's mortality has hung like a thunderstorm on the horizon for the last twelve years, I am constantly battered by the fear of life without him. I may not rely on him for intellectual, spiritual, or emotional support, but I feel as though he is so important to who I am that life without him will crush the structures that I have built in order to cope with life with him.

Okay, I can't really continue this post at this time. More later.

A Must Read for Internet Freedom

2006-05-17T11:48:00.000-05:00

I wanted to take a moment to remind my readers that the future of the Internet is at risk. As I have noted earlier, the COPE Act (also know as the Barton Bill) will turn over the control to companies who will charge higher rates for activity and will destroy the very foundation of the Internet, network neutrality.

However, Sascha Meinrath has just posted an interesting bit of research into the misinformation that the telecommunications companies are producing about the COPE Act on his blog . If you think these major companies who have billions of dollars in potential profit at stake wouldn't stoop to this level, then you aren't paying attention!

Tim Russert and the Oily Hand

2006-04-30T22:13:00.000-05:00

I've never been as disappointed in Tim Russert as I was today. His show focused on the problems of oil production in the US. His guests included Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Red Cavaney, CNBC's Jim Cramer, Senator Dick Durbin, D-IL, and energy analyst Daniel Yergin. Bodman, Cavaney, and Cramer were all on the same page: there's nothing wrong except that the government keeps trying to interfere. Tim didn't even tear into them when they were spewing their horse manure. Senator Durbin tried to hammer the point home: oil companies are posting record profits, which does not make sense if the oil market is tight, which it is. Both consumers and businesses are hurt if the market is functioning properly.

But the market doesn't function because there are only six corporations that control the domestic petroleum industry, and few more in the world that have any influence. And the market partially doesn't function because the petroleum industry receives huge subsidies from the US Government, which they apparently blew on executive pay rather than on investing in ethanol production. But, of course, that's not the entire story. The rest of the story is that the oil industry sat behind the scenes with Vice President Dick Cheney and drafted the nation's energy policy, which increased our dependence on fossil fuel technology and decreased our development of alternative energy technologies.

I realize that I am partially to blame for the crisis. I drive far more often than I should. I would feel better and look better and be better if I would just ride my bike a little more often. But my failure is miniscule compared to a press which toes the corporate line and government officials who understand the logic of dollars without any sense.

Save the Internet

2006-04-30T21:43:00.000-05:00

COPE (Communications Opportunity Enhancement Act of 2006) made it out of the House Commerce Committee this week, but that doesn't mean that it's too late to stop the telecommunications companies from screwing up the Internet. If you haven't been to Save the Internet.com, then you need to go and let your representative know that selling out the Internet is not acceptable public policy. The idiots in Congress have decided that telecomms have more rights than citizens and have written this exceptionally stupid piece of legislation to turn over control of the Internet in the US to these massive companies. They have tried their hardest to get this done under the radar without the public knowing about it, because when the public understands what it contains, the ninnys that support it will lose their seats in Congress.

Haven't heard of COPE? Here's the synopsis: if you want your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to control what you can access on the Internet and what mail you may receive, if you want to receive less bandwidth and pay more money, or if you just like the idea of creating a Ma Bell for the Internet, then you should certainly vote for COPE. If, on the other hand, you believe that you should be free to determine what you access and what you email, you should be furious! If you understand that Telecommunications companies will sell you less service at a higher price if they are unregulated, then you must act to stop COPE!! And if you believe that telephone service was better in 1985 than in 1975 (and I understand that it was), then you need to vote against anyone and everyone who votes for COPE as it is currently written. The choice is yours, but the consequences are yours as well.

Sunday Morning Musing

2006-04-23T07:50:00.000-05:00

Not surprisingly, I woke up early this morning. It's a Sunday, which means that I could have slept. But for many reasons sleeping is not something I'm doing much these days. In fact, I think I slept more when I was a graduate student, which is kind of amazing. Due to an impending deadline, if I'm up, I'm working or waiting to work. As I type this, I'm waiting for software to compile and hoping to all that is holy that after three days of frustrating work I will be able to meet tomorrow's deadline.

As I wait, I decided to turn on the television. Since we choose not to have expanded cable, my choices are fairly limited. I can listen to a few policy wonks on CSPAN, another round of Back to the Future on TBS, ComCast Sports News, News in French on Scola, or I can watch right-wing evangelicals on at least five different stations. My television is off, but I am suddenly struck by the lack of moderate or liberal religious broadcasting. This is not just true for 7 am CST. It is also true for all of Sunday morning. TV is a ritual for me on Sunday morning. It's not so much that I'm glued to it, as that I want to know who Tim Russert, Bob Schieffer, and George Stephanopoulis have as guests. It tips me off on how the main stream is going to spin the topic de jeur. But I'm a channel surfer, so while Tim and Bob are in commercial, I'm seeing what else is available.

Here's my observation: the zealots of Sunday morning evangelism are not actually Christians, nor are their "church services" actually religious ceremonies. They are a business. There are lots of people who would read this and declare my soul damned, and there are still more people (like much of my family) who might read this and think that I'm just off on a commie rant, but let me explain and see if cooler heads can prevail.

First, let's be clear: getting on television is not cheap. For this reason, most of the local congregations would be excluded automatically from these commercial stations. In my experience, most churches are not rolling in cash. This is not because God doesn't love them or because they are wrong, it is because they are actual churches that hold bake sales, pancake breakfasts, and car washes to provide tangible services to their members.

Second, who are these people who have syndicated their television religion? I don't know, and I'm not going to waste my time finding out because I can tell you pretty much who they are based on what they say. I'll break it down into the following characteristics:

They are rich. They have to be. More importantly, what else could they be when they spew Gospel of Wealth crap and urge their audience to support conservative's and their tax cuts. And lest the poor should actually inherit the earth (not capitalized, according to scholarly findings), if they were poor they wouldn't be hung up on welfare mothers.
They are white. I'm not going to make an argument here. Just look at the screen.
They are men. Again, look at the screen.
They don't care about you. Have you ever noticed that they all live in Florida? When they ask you for your check, the address they give is Florida. What's up with that? If these are truly representative of a real constituency, then shouldn't you be sending your check to North Dakota, Kansas, Wyoming, etc.?

The fact is that these rich, white, men have found a way to bilk people out of money with promises of God and redemption. They prey on people who seek God's strength and mercy and they mobilize these people to vote for political leaders who are more interested in lining the pockets of the wealthy than actually implementing the theocratic platform that won them the election. It's not that I'm for theocracy, but wouldn't it be better if there actually was a theocratic party, a big business party, a socially-conscious party, etc? Then at least everyone would have some representation, rather than having two parties that both serve the needs of AT&T, Halliburton, KBR, and other multinational conglomerates. Okay, rant over.

Wilentz's article on the Bush Presidency

2006-04-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

For those who don't subscribe to Rolling Stone, Sean Wilentz's article about the Bush presidency is available here through Truthout.org. I haven't taken the time to digest it, but it is certainly worth ten minutes of your time.

The Bosnians Built the Pyramids

2006-04-20T21:13:00.000-05:00

There is an joke among former Yugoslavs about how the Montenegrins discovered the cell phone. I'm not going to tell the joke because I would assuredly mess it up, even in writing, but the storyline is simple:

A Bosnian, a Serb, and a Montenegrin are sitting around, drinking coffee, and smoking. Each takes turns bragging about how his (always a he) nationality discovered the cell phone, each story being more unlikely than the next, with the Montegrin, who does something completely idiotic, as the punch line.

I mention this because an AP story carried by Salon.com has declared that a new pyramid has been found in Bosnia. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it makes me chuckle to think that somehow the joke about the Montenegro might just get turned on the Bosnians.

Network Neutrality Part II

2006-04-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

Farhad Manjoo has a new article in Salon about the plans made by AT&T, ComCast and other major telecommunication's companies to hijack the common carriage that has made the Internet the economic engine it has become. Last week, while doing some research on the price of Internet access for local consumers, I wondered how AT&T had managed to cut their monthly charges in half. Manjoo explains exactly how they can afford to do this.

Why We Fight

2006-04-12T21:36:00.000-05:00

I spent this evening at Boardman's Art Theatre watching a documentary by Eugene Jarecki. The movie is titled Why We Fight, a consideration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous farewell address to the American public. In it, Eisenhower warned that the creation of a standing army in the wake of World War II created an unprecedented and dangerous "military-industrial complex", an alliance between the military and American industry. Jarecki's film, whose title alludes to the Frank Capra propoganda film series bearing the same title, challenges his audience to think deeply about why America has engaged militarily in so many conflicts over the last half-century through his use of news footage and interviews, often with neo-conservatives like Richard Perle and William Kristol. For more background, check out Andrew O'Hehir's interview with Jarecki in Salon. (Salon offers free day passes if prompted to log in.)

For those interested in a disturbing, if not completely disheartening, look at the military-industrial complex, I strongly encourage you to see this film. At first glance, the film operates as a seemingly incoherent montage of issues. Most of the criticisms I have read focused on this surface-level experience of the text. Some of these criticisms are justified, as certain scenes don't necessarily contribute as strongly as others to the deeper inquiry about why America has maintained a bellicose foreign policy over the last sixty years. As the film unfolds, the montages snap into place like parts of a gun pointed directly at the incestuous relationships between the Pentagon, America's defense contractors, think tanks, and Congress.

Ebert & Roper don't have much praise for the film, but their reviews basically miss the point. Ebert (who usually resonates with me) dismisses the film as a not very well put together version of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Roper thumbs up the film because he thinks that most people still don't know that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Al Quida or the attack on 11 September 2001. Sadly, both miss the point, as the movie is not about exposing the administration's blatent fraud regarding Iraq. Rather it is about the duplicity of politicians from both parties in supporting an arms industry that bankrupts America's social institutions. I would place a couple of links to more conservative reviews, like that of Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal, but I refuse to link to anything that requires special software (I despise RealMediaPlayer.) or for which you have to pay-to-play. However, my quick take on Morgenstern's review is that he must have left the theatre before Richard Perle's final comment in the film.

If Why We Fight is a call to question the nexus of violence, military power and corporate greed, it is also a strong confirmation of the raison d'etre of the anti-war movement. Eisenhower reminds us of the cost of the militarization of the American government: food for the hungry, schools for our children, homes for our families.

Bottling the Internet: Why You Need to Know about Network Neutrality

2006-04-07T06:53:00.000-05:00

Let's just imagine that you have a broadband connection to the internet. I don't mean broadband in its technical sense (Wikipedia--"...data transmission where multiple pieces of data are sent simultaneously to increase the effective rate of transmission."), I mean the "broadband" that telecommunications and cable companies (e.g. Cox, Insight, the New AT&T, etc.) have been offering for exorbitant prices for the last decade. Yes, I said exorbitant. When the Dutch pay 40% less than I do for more bandwidth (i.e. a faster connection), someone is getting ripped off and that someone is me. And that someone is you!

Again, we are imagining that you have actually taken the step to get "broadband" access in the form of a DSL or cable connection to the Internet, and we will imagine that you use Insight Broadband. And let's imagine that one of the reasons you purchased "broadband" is that you like getting music from ITunes. (If you don't know what ITunes is, substitute "looking at pretty pictures".) You download the music for a dollar and you are jammin'! You try out everything from Jimmy "the Yodlin' Cowboy" Rogers to Bootsy Collins. You're cruisin' and the downloads just keep comin' (so long as your pocketbook can afford it). A good alternative for exploration, by the way, is The Pandora Project.

Let's imagine that you have just discovered the wonder that is The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash and you have decided to purchase from ITunes the entire oeuvre. Just as you begin your download, a message appears from Cox Cable that says, "We are sorry, but in order to download this file you must pay Cox Cable an additional $1 per file." Of course, you are mad as hell, because now you will pay twice as much for a song.

You call Insight and demand an answer as to why you must pay this fee in addition to the high monthly cost of connecting to the Internet. They explain that they do not have an agreement with Cox Cable and therefore they have the right to charge for access to their network.

This is why you care about network neutrality and this is why you need to tell your representative in Washington, DC, that network neutrality is not an option, it is a demand of their constituency. If telecomm companies manage to discard network neutrality, this is the world you face, whether you want to view pretty pictures or listen to great music.

Massachusetts Mistake?

2006-04-05T08:55:00.000-05:00

The New York Times and the Washington Post are singing the praises of the Massachusetts legislature and Governor Mitt Romney for passing the first "universal health care" plan for Massachusetts citizens. While the Times and the Post both gush over the proposal as a triumph of the liberal idea of government mandates and the conservative insistance on individual responsibility.

Two things should be cause for caution. First, as Steve LeBlanc notes for Associated Press (reported in Salon.com), "The plan hinges in part on two key sections: the $295-per-employee business assessment and a so-called "individual mandate," requiring every citizen who can afford it to obtain health insurance or face increasing tax penalties." Romney, who has line-item veto power under Massachusetts state law, has already told reporters that he will veto the business assessment (see the Post and Times stories). If he does, the business incentive to provide health insurance will be eliminated and all of the cost of the insurance mandate will fall on individuals.

Proponents of the plan compare the program to auto insurance, where everyone who has a driver's license is required to provide proof of insurance. Of course, not everyone in Massachusetts has a driver's license. Some people opt out of that mandate and choose to rely on public transportation. There is no such choice in the health insurance plan without paying an income tax penalty.

The other thing that should be cause for concern is that there doesn't seem to be any stipulation about what kind of health coverage is required. As my recent experience with Seven Corners insurance offered through the Americorps VISTA program suggests, health coverage varies widely. While the goal of any universal plan should be to ensure that all citizens can afford necessary medical care, insurance plans often determine "necessity" based on an outcomes test. If, for example, your doctor declares that a test is medically necessary but the test turns out negative, the insurance company can and will declare the test unnecessary based on the results. Nothing I have read about the program has any stipulations that change the way insurance companies interfere in health care. (If someone knows of that kind of stipulation in the bill, I welcome the correction.)

Because Governor Mitt Romney has already promised to destroy the balance of responsibility in the bill and because insurers are allowed to continue to interefere in medicine, the "victory" of the legislature is pyrrhic at best.

Back in the Race

2006-04-04T23:00:00.000-05:00

For several years, I have had moments of sunlight surrounded by large periods of fog. Moments of love, triumph, and enlightenment have been like islands of calm in a rolling sea. While friends and family have helped to ground me, I have often felt adrift, unable to communicate my needs or wants even to my wife.

There was no moment when the fog lifted, no time that I can identify as the clearing of the storm. Instead, to further the island metaphor, it is more as though distant islands have been strung together into island chains, archipelagoes of opportunity in which I can remember what it felt like to be powerful and whole. Since I have begun working as an Americorps VISTA, I have felt better about myself, my friends, my family, and the community in which I live. None of that actually has anything to do with Americorps VISTA itself. I could have volunteered my time for Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Networks (CUWiN) independently, after all. I am convinced that my improved mentality is the result of remembering what it felt like to make real contributions to something that was larger than myself.

From that fog I have emerged and have decided to get back into the race. Watch out world.