bLCkdgRd

2006-09-24T10:49:00.000-04:00

bLCkdgRd has moved

HERE

Archives will remain.

Thanks for reading.

2006-09-17T11:34:00.000-04:00

Sunday reads @ bLCkdgRd

where and why bLCkdgRd is moving

2006-09-16T14:29:00.000-04:00

Weekend music

United News

Local hate at my high school and wars over ferries

@ new site bLCkdgRd

2006-09-14T16:50:00.000-04:00

Today Calls For

2006-09-14T16:30:00.000-04:00

Ningland 1, DCU 1

I couldn't see the game, but I had a dream. United came out sharp and controlled possession, scored a deserved goal midway through the first half and came close but couldn't put in a second even though they dominated play the entire half. Second half, up 0-1, United presses early, but pab Dempsey pabs a sitter sometime around 60-65 minutes, and DCU struggles to maintain composure (and energy) for the remainder of the game against a fired-up Ningland, settling for a 1-1 tie.

How'd I do? Close? Well, it's not like I haven't seen this movie before.

Normally a point on the road against the team I would have predicted would be United's main rival for everything this year wouldn't satisfy, but it wouldn't disappoint. I can't say I'm any more pessimistic today than I was about United's end of season prospects yesterday, but I can say I'm certainly not more optimistic. The goals are not coming, and this whole score one and scramble desperately on defense ain't going to get it done.

I realize I'm the Knez of Hyperbole, but I'm thinking this Saturday in Chicago could be the crux of the season.

where and why bLCkdgRd is moving

2006-09-13T17:08:00.000-04:00

Wednesday Soccer

United plays in Ningland tonight, rescheduled from earlier for (I think) the Madrid game. Here's the Post article, which features a bio of deRoux and, way down at the bottom, the news that Eskandarian didn't make the trip because of injury. United's website says the game is on MLS Live, and it says that it isn't. Doesn't really matter as MLS Live, for whatever reason, makes my home pc puke.

Gomez, Gros, Boswell return, and while I won't call this game critical (though I would if I were a Ningland fan), these will be easier points than this Saturday in Chicago (which I just might call a critical game). I've a decent hunch about this game, and I'm guessing they'll play well. Whether they get points is another matter, but I think the intensity and urgency will be there.

***

Bruce Arena interviewed in the New York Times.

***

In this week's NYT soccer column, a couple of paragraphs on why Barca is the morally superior monster club in the world - they gave a contribution to UNICEF to make UNICEF the first ad on their uniform. Barca v Chelsea? I know who I'm rooting for. Plus other notes.

***
The Guardian on world rankings.

where and why bLCkdgRd is moving

2006-09-12T17:38:00.000-04:00

where and why bLCkdgRd is moving

2006-09-12T17:27:00.000-04:00

DCU Tickets (and Strikers)

A blurb rather than an article in today's Washington Post on DCU raising ticket prices for next season. You won't hear me complain, and not only because I'm locked in at this year's prices (I was given the option of making deposits on our season tickets this year AND next year back when). A $2 increase is more than reasonable, and

Although season ticket prices will go up, club officials said they would allow current plan holders until Oct. 20 to purchase seats at 2006 prices

so there you go.

Mention is also made of DCU's possible signing of

United technical director Dave Kasper said Ugandan forward Robert Ssejjemba is among four players being considered for a late-season roster spot.

Ssejjemba, 26, scored 17 goals in 19 games to help the minor league Richmond Kickers win the United Soccer Leagues' second division title this season. On Sunday, as a guest player for United's reserve squad, he had three goals during a 4-1 victory over Real Salt Lake. Ssejjemba played at Virginia Intermont, an NAIA program in Bristol, and has represented Uganda's national team.

Not quite KABOOM! news, but it does signal that DCU management has concerns with Eskandarian's health and productivity, Moreno's health, Walker's clubfootedness, and an overall need for something, anything, fresh.

where and why bLCkdgRd is moving

2006-09-12T10:37:00.000-04:00

Now's as good a time to announce this as any, what with blogger eating John Steed not only for no apparent reason but with no apparent explanation. I'm moving to typepad, and have begun cross-posting now. I will continue posting on blogger through mid-October, and will maintain an archive of what's been posted here. The new site is still being tweaked, so what it looks like now may not be what it looks like a month from now, but it's close.

I've two primary motives. I've got letters saying some combination of (a) I like the politics but hate the.... (b) I like the music but hate the.... (c) I like the soccer but I hate the.... (d) I like any various combination but..... Typepad allows me to categorize the posts, so those of you who just want music can have just music, soccer soccer, etc etc.

Beyond that, typepad is just a vastly superior product than blogger, easier to use, smarter, faster, neater, more intuitive, more flexible, more generous. It comes down to this: If I ask myself, would you pay, when sitting down to post, a quarter a day to use typepad rather than blogger, would you? Every single day. Happily.

The new site is www.bdr.typepad.com. If you've been kind enough to bookmark this page, I hope you'll bookmark the new one.

2006-09-11T09:09:00.000-04:00

Irony's a Bitch

Dick Cheney, unlatching one side of his face, on Meet the Press:

"They can't beat us in a stand-up fight -- they never have -- but they're absolutely convinced they can break our will, [that] the American people don't have the stomach for the fight," Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Lead article in Sunday's Washington Post (and background here):

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

2006-09-10T09:14:00.000-04:00

DCU 1, RSL 1

I truly feared a disastrous result - not just a loss, but an embarassing result - and if the tie is disappointing, still, DCU did not implode. There were signs that they could (I'll get to the refereeing), but United came out urgent and focused. If the regulars had played and that team had played with the go that last night's played, they'd have won this game easily.

Forced by MLS rules to start an alliterative line-up if three starters are out for disciple, Nowak chose Dyachenko and deRoux and Donnet, and all three played admirably. No doubt many are going to wonder where deRoux has been and why he hasn't been on the field and why now he needs his minutes, and I confess he won my heart by two runs into the box early in the game and actually SHOOTING THE BALL. He was out of gas by halftime, but perhaps he's earned himself some second-half substitution time when his speed on the wings against a tired defense might spring a goal. Dyachenko's going to be good. He still stands too long over the ball, completely forgivable considering his inexperience. Donnet made some beautiful touches, but he's still learning the offense and his teammates. I'd wish DCU had worked the ball over to his side more to give him more touches - he had acres of space on the right - and he was gassed at 60, but I like what I've seen. Moreno and Adu up top, Gros, Gomez, Donnet next line, then Carroll and Olsen? That could work. Better than Eskandarian or Walker up top next to Moreno.

The refereeing: Look, MLS referees suck. Besides the alliteration rule, Real Salt Lake got a special dispensation that allowed them to use their arms to handle the ball last night. It happens. MLS referees have always sucked, but that doesn't mean that DCU needs to amass multiple yellow cards for dissent in every game. Benny, I love you, I wear your shirt, you worked your ass off, but please, I'm begging you, STFU. Brandon, nice to have you back, you played well, and yes, Jeff Cunningham is a diving pab, but STFU. All the barking and whining, it's starting to remind me of the last Stoitchkov year (which didn't end well). MLS refs suck. DEAL with it. If you're thinking about the ref you're not thinking about the opponent. STFU and play. And if refs come in expecting United to bitch, they're going to pull out those yellows earlier and for less bitch. STFU and play.

THIS is the week we find out about United. Wednesday night (NO TELEVISION, NOT EVEN MLS LIVE?!?!?!?) at New England then Sunday at Chicago. It'd have been nice to win last night, but any sweeping evaluation of the team means nothing until NEXT Monday. All could be settled, all could be unsettled.

2006-09-08T09:26:00.000-04:00

Quiet Friday, Ruminative Friday
Circumspect Friday, Gauze Friday

Said the Gramophone, which you need to bookmark, posted a Julie Doiron tune, which pleased me to hear and reminded me to remember her more often. Here's a favorite, Gone, Gone, and here's her website where she's generously posted many mp3.

I know, you can't help think Nick Drake when Alexi Murdoch sings, but don't let that stop you listening to Murdoch's music. And here's NPR's recording of Murdoch in concert.

And Damien Jurado. The wondrous return of Sparklehorse. And Mojave 3.

And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead

Late Lunch Updates:

Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars

Alexi Murdoch

Sparklehorse

Damien Jurado

Mojave 3

And, Happy Birthday, M:

2006-09-07T12:13:00.000-04:00

I Am Not Afraid of You
and I Will Beat Your Ass




Released this coming Tuesday!


Goodness, listen to THIS.


Goodness, listen to THIS.

2006-09-07T09:19:00.000-04:00

Chicago 3, DCU 0

Didn't see it. Couldn't see it.

The Post says Donnet scored a goal that was disallowed for unexplained reasons, while MLSnet says Dyachenko scored a goal that was disallowed for an "apparent" offsides. Nowak was quoted in the Post piece saying

"The officials today won the game for the Fire," Nowak said. "Instead of 1-1, we had 2-0 and the game changed considerably after that."

which is loser talk. And while I can't comment on what I didn't see in terms of this specific game, I think I can safely say that Chicago is the one team that's inside United's head, and with two regular season games left and perhaps an Eastern Conference final at RFK between the two teams, United had better figure out how to attack Chicago's thuggy defense AND how to win - or at least draw - the mental game.

Giving up a goal within seconds of having a goal disallowed, then taking reds and yellows for retaliatory and frustrated fouls? The head coach bitching about the refereeing in a game lost by three goals? These are signs of a team perhaps dangerously close to collapse.

2006-09-06T22:11:00.000-04:00

Karl Rove, Mad Genius

Karl Rove has built his reputation by identifying his opponents' strengths and attacking them. Rather than diddle with perceived weaknesses, spending time and money on what others emphasize for free, Rove focuses relentlessly at undermining just those assets the opponents think give them an edge. Think of John Kerry, whose military service (with medals to verify) should have given him a decided advantage over the callow, shallow frat boy whose privileged upbringing allowed him to drink away his Reserve stint. Rove zeroed in on Kerry's heroism and made Kerry pay for those bullets he took for his country. Brilliant!

Now, in a move of groundbreaking political strategy (necessitated as all great innovations are by desperation), Rove is taking his own candidate and, in a jujitsu of logic, is running that campaign not by attacking the opponents' strengths but by emphasizing his own candidate's screaming weaknesses!

Bush today admits that, nevermind what he said before, there ARE secret CIA prisons. In a speech yesterday, Bush repeatedly evoked the words of Osama bin Laden, reminding Americans that he has failed miserably to catch or kill the man he's sworn to capture or kill AND giving OBL valuable PR-love in the US-hating world. Bush has said that as long as he's president the US is no-way no-how leaving Iraq. Why, I can hardly think of better reasons to vote Democrat come November.

Rove's campaign strategy: Admit we're incompetent, gladly loudly often. Admit, gladly loudly often, that enemy number one is still out there taunting us, scheming against us. Admit we lied about secret prisons and torture, gladly loudly often. Admit we don't have a plan for success in Iraq, and will continue to sacrifice American blood and treasure in a low-grade civil war for the endless future, gladly loudly often. Admit we're further from winning the war on terror than we were on 911, gladly loudly often. Admit that all they got - all they got - is a promise that Bush will be an even bigger incompetent, bigger liar, bigger dullard than he's already been, but more than that, he's going to be a bigger and badder asshole than ever before, really gladly, really loudly, really often.

That's the plan. If Rove pulls this one off, his genius tag will be truly legendary.

2006-09-05T14:08:00.000-04:00

Workday Frippery is Not Belew Me

2006-09-04T08:29:00.000-04:00

Chivas 1, DCU 2

Maybe, if United captures the Supporters Shield and runs deep in the playoffs, maybe winning the MLS Cup, maybe people will look back at the thirty seconds between Chivas' penalty kick and Gomez' brilliant run and goal and say those thirty seconds saved the season.

The last 20 minutes felt like a Chivas goal was coming, what with Moreno and Gomez out with a tweaked knee and severe cramps respectively and a pretty good (!) Chivas team attacking and a referee who couldn't seem to find yellow except to show it to United. I thought DCU would need a third to get the points (which Gomez almost got twice), and a tie would have felt like a loss, chippy as the game was. The defense looked full of holes, even with Gros pulled back, and without anyone confident on the ball United couldn't hold possession. (And Chivas, in the 59th, had a two-on-goalie, breaking the offside trap, and jamilwalkered it.)

But DCU got the three points, particularly crucial since Boswell and Eskandarian and Gros and Gomez have been yellowed and (Gros) redded out of next Saturday's game v RSL. Adu looked hurt, tentative and ineffective, and Donnet (pronounced Daw-NETT by the announcers) looked as lost on the field as you'd expect a newbie to look, so if Moreno's knee is significantly sore, who will run what offense next Saturday? That game suddenly looks more dangerous than I'd ever have imagined.

It's especially a shame that Gomez yellows out now, just when it looked like he was ready to claim this as his team. The best performance by a DCU player in I can't remember how long. He was urgent, passionate, inspired. He looked like he took personal responsibility for winning the game. That's why he's the MVP of this team and a top MVP candidate in the league. It doesn't matter that the second goal should have been stopped by Burpo Chivas - Gomez made the run and took the shot. I can't count how many times this year I've shouted, Shoot the effing ball! Gomez took it on himself and shot.

No corners have been turned. Any assumptions that this victory marks a return to form are misguided and wishful thinking. Chivas ran crosses against the defense all day, and Perkins, not the defense (especially Freddy v Garcia in the first half), kept it to one goal. The last twenty minutes were dreadful, offensively; DCU could not string passes together when they desperately needed to maintain possession.

But it was a gutty win against a decent if dirty team at a time DCU needed a gutty win. A tie would have reopened old wounds. A loss would have inflicted new ones. DCU desperately needed an effort like they produced, and that the game was nasty and chippy AND they got the three can only help the refocusing of energy and urgency they need to achieve their goals.

And lastly, a note to Facundo Erpen - if you're going to kick punkassbitch Ante Razov in the head, KICK! him in the head so he doesn't get back up.

No, wait, one more note: it's going to be very very easy to hate Chivas very very soon.

2006-09-02T12:27:00.000-04:00

* * * * * * *

Not Friday

SATURDAY!

The Wrens yes, again.

UPDATE: Reader KKG emailed to tell me that this post had screwed up Blogger's appearance in Internet Explorer, and sure enough. I've known this to be a problem with big images in the past, but I've neglected to doublecheck since I use Firefox for everything and thought I'd been careful. Therefore, the reposting.

Which helps but doesn't totally fix the appearance in IE. I've lots of issues with Blogger, issues I've not resolved but sidestepped by reminding myself what I'm paying for Blogger and that I'm getting what I pay for. A look at the Blogger help board shows that this problem - amongst many - is endemic to Blogger. I'll see what I can do.

And if any you wants to sing the praises of typepad to me, please do via email. I'll listen.

2006-09-01T12:10:00.000-04:00

The Poorman notes that more and more once real Americans have been morally hijacked by the terrorists, who have poisoned American discourse with their relentless anti-Bush agenda.

Not to worry, there are still patriots, patriots like Sean Hannity, who sees the big picture:

This is the moment to say that there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't become the speaker.

Nancy Pelosi, worth dying for. What about other American patriots, patriots like Marsha Blackburn, a congresswoman from Tennessee, who said last night on the News Hour:

There are people who are always going to be against fighting for freedom, always is going to happen.

And just listen to the words of Maximum Leader:

We face an enemy that has an ideology; they believe things. The best way to describe their ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite of the way we think. We treasure the freedom to worship. We value the freedom for people to express themselves in the public square. We honor the right for people to be able to raise their children in a peaceful society so they can realize their dreams. The enemy we face doesn't believe in dissent. They don't believe in the freedom to worship. They got a narrow view of freedom. But this enemy is particularly lethal because they're willing to use whatever tactic is necessary to achieve their objective. You know, right after September the 11th, I knew that one of my challenges would be to remind the American people about the dangers of the world.

Jeebus on steroids, he believes what he's saying and he believes he's profound. He's singing to a shrinking choir. Watching pignut heads explode

from the internal pressure of their relentless stupidity would be satisfyingly entertaining if these morons weren't willing to sacrifice the country rather than admit they're wrong.

2006-08-31T09:48:00.000-04:00

Three Games Next Week, So You....

The Washington Post today runs a Goff article on United's slump. He makes many of the same points that many of us have been making:

Players and coaches have cited several factors in the club's drop in form -- the monotony of a long season, nagging injuries, inspired opponents, several mid-week games and officiating decisions -- but also acknowledged deeper problems reminiscent of last season's weak finish....

"To me, it looked like there was a lot of physical and mental fatigue," Olsen said.

All true, and starting this Saturday DCU plays a league match in Los Angeles vs Chivas, a USOC semifinal in Chicago Wednesday, and league match at home next Saturday v Real Salt Lake.

So in the first truly meaningless game United has played since Getafe in February - and even more meaningless than that since that at least had the impetus of preseason import - against Richmond last night, Nowak starts:

D.C. United: Nick Rimando, Facundo Erpen, Bobby Boswell, Bryan Namoff, Josh Gros; Brian Carroll, Ben Olsen - C, Christian Gomez, Matias Donnet; Freddy Adu, Jamil Walker

I know the game was called after twenty minutes because of lightning so we'll never know what the substitution plan was, and I'd like to imagine that Erpen and Boswell and Namoff and Gros and Carroll and Olsen and Gomez (Gomez started?) would get an early evening, and I understand that United was probably trying to rediscover some cohesion on offense, and I understand there might be some professional agreement between DCU and Richmond for United to play some semblance of regulars for some portion of the game, but with three games in eight days coming up wouldn't it have been better to give at least a few of the starters the whole night off? Mentally as well as physically?

2006-08-29T10:15:00.000-04:00

Work's a Souljacker

Thankfully, there's The Eels.

It's OK if they act like a turd, cause I like.....

2006-08-28T09:38:00.000-04:00

* * * * * * * *

2006-08-27T09:01:00.000-04:00

DCU 2, LA Galaxy 5

Contrary to all expectations about myself, I'm not overly panicked about the implications and ramifications of last night's embarassing DCU undressing by the LA Galaxy. Yes, I said I though the game was crucial, and I stand by that. DCU missed an opportunity to reestablish themselves, going into the final quarter of the season, as the preeminent team in MLS, ordained as points champ and favorites in the playoffs. And now, revealed as creaky and tired and broken in key places, nothing can be considered safe - not the Supporters Shield, not a MLS Cup - DCU will have to fight as desperately and urgently as, oh, the LA Galaxy played last night. This may be a good thing, depending.

Depending on whether the have the wheels. Gomez has to be healthy. Adu has to be healthy. United is Columbus if they have to play with Simms AND Walker AND Eskandarian on the field simultaneously. That's three players with the first touch of a stump. Eskandarian cannot do anyfreakingthing with his right foot. Walker's a decent late substitute to run at an exhausted defense, but he's not quality enough to start. Simms has regressed, gone tentative. Whether or not DCU with Adu and Gomez starting could have matched LA's intensity and energy is questionable (and it's not like LA doesn't have a history of playing well at RFK). But there was no way that DCU could beat that LA team last night with those three on the field at the same time. Beyond issues of fatigue, beyond issues of intensity and urgency and desire, the team DCU started last night looked leagues behind LA in talent. That's what's worrisome.

I don't know why Olsen was subbed out at half, but if he's injured, and Gomez is hobbled, and Adu is gimpy, and Mediate's finished for the year, that's three key players and a valuable reserve either under-strength or kaput. The Post says Donnet might be available for Chivas, and he may be great or he may be good or he may be Guppy Filomeno, who knows? I'm not that concerned that a desperate LA with a point to prove outplayed and outhustled DCU last night, but I am concerned that attrition has caught up to United. They can talk about refocusing all they like, but if the talent's not on the field it won't matter.

Side note: Fuck Santino Quaranta. Punkassbitch. No wonder he fits in well with the LA Galaxy, the flagship franchise of divers, whiners, punkassbitches.

Final note: The wages of Cassandra: Guess who said on June 22, "Watch Donovan come score two for Galaxy v DCU in RFK this August 26." What a smartass.

2006-08-25T12:40:00.000-04:00

* * * * * * * * *

FRIDAY

Boy Omega

Sebadoh

Sam Cooke!

Recently discovered video of Bush and Cheney planning
the run-up to war!

Wolf Parade

I've posted this Film School twice I think, but fucking fine ham abounds
(this one's a live performance at KEXP):

Film School

Ham? I work hard all day, I expect a normal ham,
not voodoo pork!

2006-08-25T09:06:00.000-04:00

My Fellow Mocomofos

For those of us who live in Montgomery County: yesterday Steve Silverman and Ike Leggett, one of whom will replace Doug Duncan as county executive, debated on the Kojo Nnamdi show. You can listen to it here. Please do.

To be honest, I could live with either, and both make their cases well, and I haven't made up my mind, and I need to listen to the debate again. I do support the purple line, and Silverman's stronger on that (and what both Silverman and Leggett mentioned that I knew, but should have known more, is that the biggest pig in the anti-purple is the Columbia Country Club). Leggett seems slightly less whorish for developers. I need to listen to it again.

2006-08-24T09:10:00.000-04:00

DCU 3, RBNY 1

Better, much better. Nowak gave starts to Rimando, Dyachenko, Mediate, Walker and Simms, and all played well, especially Dyachenko (who looks like he just might be mighty useful for United for a good long time) considering the offense was running through him. DCU stuttered in the first half as you'd have to expect with so many different starters, and the strategy was long balls over the top to a racing Walker. Once Olsen and Moreno came on around 60 minutes (and DCU scored within 60 seconds) the game was over and you could see RBNY knew it. It was nice not sweating out the outcome for a change.

Key players rested and a victory and some needed momentum and confidence heading into what I think is a crucial game this Saturday. All in all a very encouraging evening.

2006-08-23T15:19:00.000-04:00

Bitchwhipped

I guess the appeals to their base's crude racism and their base's crude xenophobia and the crude accusations against Liberals of anti-Semitism aren't enough. The Pigs are playing the crudest they got: Cruder than the term itself is the accusation, the hole card in the hand of Pignican memes:

MORGAN: I'm assuming that she is going to make the run, unless she sees polling or evidence otherwise right up at the year from now.

CARLSON: Rich, the truth is there are so few men left in the Democratic Party. There are so many wussies at the helm of that party.

MASTERS: Gee, thanks.

CARLSON: Nobody has the huevos to stand up to Mrs. Clinton and say, you, you can't win, step back, you're not running for president. Nobody is in charge. So she just bulldozes everybody. That's the truth of it. And you know it.

Yep, if Democrats can't keep their bitches in place, how're they're gonna fight the terrorists?

Irony aside, there is much truth revealed in how Carlson - and Conservatives - accuses others of being victim of the very scissors he fears himself.

2006-08-23T09:07:00.000-04:00

Special Game B in Your Ticket Packet

I have to admit I think Saturday's game vs the Donovan Quarantas is more important than tonight's USOC game vs the Demarenas, though I also must admit that my animus against that west coast team of diving pussies and choking wankers colors my opinion.

I also happen to think that Saturday's game - especially if it follows a good performance tonight by United - is an immensely critical game. Yes, the Cobiskankjones would be out of the playoffs if the season ended today, but the Diving Vagenas won the double last year and are one of the league's premier franchises. United desperately needs a convincing league win, a crisp, dominant, thorough win, and a win against one of the league's signature teams. The rest of the league needs reminding of who the best team in the league is. United needs reminding more than the rest of the league.

Winning tonight would both build on last Saturday's second half and build towards Saturday, but if I'm Peter Nowak, with four substitutions in hand (I had forgotten that USOC games allow four until last Germantown) and a huge league game Saturday (before what's traditionally one of the largest and buzzingest crowds of the year) I'm working on giving minutes tonight to Mediate and Dyachenko and Simms and Walker and giving minutes off to Carroll and Olsen and Gros and Moreno. (The Post's pre-game side panel says Gomez will probably be giving the night off to rest the knee he tweaked this past Saturday. It also says Dema will miss game for a red card he got last year for United.) United should be able, if they just play focused and hard, to beat freaking New York AND give some legs an early evening.

2006-08-22T10:02:00.000-04:00

* * * * *

TACTICS

2006-08-21T11:49:00.000-04:00

Mondaystuff

A brutally grim assessment of Iraq in yesterday's Washington Post by Kenneth Pollack and Daniel Byman. Just a fucking shame that Pollack didn't think of this BEFORE he began advocating invading Iraq. The article, without that background, has valid points. The article, with that background, is a template for "Liberal Hawk" self-justifications that will be pestilential in volume in the months ahead.

Smart and commonsensical op-ed by Andrew Bacevich:

Frustrated American hawks and some anxious Israelis now want to up the ante. Believing that big victories require big wars, some advocate attacking Iran. The appeal is clear: At least in its initial stages, a war with Iran would play to the U.S. or Israeli strong suit. It would be a war of "shock and awe" rather than of ambushes and roadside bombs. But even if a war against Iran were winnable militarily — a large assumption indeed — would victory solve our political problems? History says don't count on it.

Gunter Grass' public trial.

Tom Tomorrow on seriously confronting terrorism.

Billmon, smart as always:

I think if Shrub were ever forced to let go of his vision, his one big idea, it would not only crush his fragile ego, it would leave him completely incapable of making any sense at all out of his presidency, out of America's role in the Middle East, out of the universe.

New short story by Richard Ford.

Futureheads

2006-08-21T09:52:00.000-04:00

Ballooning Rumsfeld's Fall

That Joe Lieberman would call for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation as Secretary of Defense comes neither as courageous or unexpected. It really is the least he could do, which means it's exactly what anyone could have predicted. There are no accidents round here.

Transparent cynicism aside in the case of the ickily despicable Joe, turn instead to the transparent cynicism of the Kingdom of Wicked: I'm thinking that Plan X , already plotted, is being ground-memed and balloon-floated, enabled through Holy Joe. If Standard Rove fails - if Americans stubbornly refuse to be fear-stampeded into voting Pignican - The Decider! offs Don in October.

The Decider!s famous loyalty begins and ends with his sorry ass. Hmmm.... Possible takeover of House by Democrats and all the misery that would cause or firing Donald Rumsfeld in mid-October in a last ditch wtf to change the election's dynamic? Loyalty, schmoyalty.

Which would prove that even when the turdtard in charge does something that benefits the country it's for motives that have nothing to do with the good of the country.

UPDATE: Alterman makes this prediction today:

Here’s my prediction: If Lieberman wins the election, he will not switch to the Republicans, as some fear. But he will do the functional equivalent, which is accept Bush’s appointment to replace Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, resign his seat and allow the Republican governor of Connecticut to appoint a Republican in his stead. That is the implicit deal between the Lieberman camp and Rove, Cheney, Bush etc and the reason, that alone, in the entire country, this is the only race where this most partisan of political operations, refuses to support the Republican in the race. Bush, Rove and Cheney do not make political decisions on the basis of what they think is good for the country. They care only about their party and themselves. If Lieberman supporters are genuinely supporting him as a Democrat, is it not enough for him to pledge to vote with the party in the Senate. He must pledge that, under no circumstances, will he accept an appointment from Bush or resign his seat under any circumstances, so long as a Republican occupies the state House.

Sounds plausible to me.

2006-08-20T09:48:00.000-04:00

DCU 1, Colorado 1

I know I wrote yesterday that a tie would be disappointing, and if United had scored in the second half on a badly given PK while playing just as listlessly as in the first half, it would have been, as well as worrisome. I'm hoping that first half is the low point of the season; it better be if United has ambitious goals.

But United came out in the second half with as much intensity and urgency as I've them display in a league game in what seems an eternity. If Gomez' goal itself was odd and soft, it was deserved as United should have had three or four. Around the sixty minute mark Colorado bunkered, and at the final whistle the Rapids clearly were happy with a tie.

Nowak started Stokes for the yellowed Namoff and then subbed out Stokes for Walker at half, dropping Gros back on defense. The move was made for offense, and Walker's speed on the wing helped open up the Colorado defense. If MLS teams are going to clog the middle and jam the midfielders - and Colorado did - than United has to go wide. It made me think about the signing of Donnet. If the description of Donnet's speed and skills on the wing are even half true, I have to assume that an Argentine professional, in academies since an early teen, would exploit the openings Walker had far better than Walker can. Watching Walker yesterday with yards and yards of space and watching Walker just not have the skills to finish, the signing of Donnet - if he is all that - made infinite sense.

Yes, a win would be better, but I'm more encouraged with this tie than I was with the recent past. That second half had a buzzing United playing before a buzzing crowd. Yes, United ran out of gas and yes, Gomez limped off with a hammie-pull (no one knows as yet how bad, or is saying). But I get the feeling that United is sick of this shit. They played the second half with an attitude which makes them the best team in the league. If they play whole games with the urgency they played the first thirty minutes of the second half yesterday, they'll be fine. The issue is, can they?

2006-08-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

Soccer Saturday

I've asserted that DCU's recent dip in form most probably can be attributed to tired legs. In today's pre-Colorado article in the Washington Post United players attribute it to artificial turf in Real Salt Lake and at Giants Stadium. Alright, I'll buy, just a little. In a one touch offense, if a player has to take an extra half-second to concentrate on his touch on a surface he's not used to, that'd make his pass a half-second late. Combine that with teams concertedly determined to press DCU on every ball, to not give DCU time to lift their heads while on the ball, and you get telegraphed passes. As for tired legs - which I still assert - well, Peter Nowak says, "You know me -- I don't tolerate fatigue," he said. "We just need to be better offensively." So there.

Namoff is out on yellows, and Wilson is still out with an injury (yes?), so Goff speculates that Gros will be dropped back on defense, giving Simms a start. If Adu's foot is still bothering him - that was the reason given for his halftime substitution v Metros this past Wednesday - that narrows Nowak's substitution options.

Still, I expect good things. The game is more important for the psyche of United than it is for the three points. A win reestablishes, a tie disappoints, a loss confirms worries. I'm thinking win.

(Let me take just this small parenthetical to say, 4pm in August: fooey. Which means Planet and the Blackdogress are wussying out, so I've a couple of extra tickets. You'd have to get yourself there and home - I've got to bug-out at the final whistle for the salt mine - but if you're interested call or email by 1:00. Before the game I'm going to throw plastic at metal at Calvert, so you can join me for that if you'd like.)

* * * * *

Ives Galarcep - who's my favorite soccer columnist - this week addresses ways to make MLS appeal to American soccer fans that follow European leagues but disdain MLS. Table play, abolishing playoffs, promotion and relegation, Copa Libertadores? All sound good to me. Galarcep explains why they're all (except for Libertadores) not going to happen.

2006-08-18T09:59:00.000-04:00

* * * * * *

friday

My determined but not obsessive campaign
to make you like Juana Molina continues.




Give in.

On the other hand, I'm perfectly capable
and happily willing to obsess over Heather Duby




More here.

2006-08-17T18:13:00.000-04:00

Mwarg:

2006-08-17T14:12:00.001-04:00

Your President's Priorities

I've been thinking a lot about the quote about The Decider's dissatisfaction with the Iraqi response to his invasion of their country. Here it is again:

"[T]he president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd."

Where to start? Froomkin has coverage of the quote in today's column, including this:

"Bush had only one demand: 'It's important to have someone who's willing to stand up and thank the American people for their sacrifice in liberating Iraq.' According to Bremer, he came back to this single point three times in the same meeting. Similarly, Ghazi al-Yawar, an obscure Sunni Arab businessman, became Bush's candidate for president of Iraq's interim government because, as Bremer reports, Bush had 'been favorably impressed with his open thanks to the Coalition.' "

This really is all you need to know about the man who is president. He starts a war under false pretenses for dubious motives (democracy only became a motive, remember, when other rationales failed) and is pissed that the citizenry of the invaded and occupied country, who are dying in a civil war at the rate of 3000 a month, aren't sufficiently paying him tribute.*

We only thought we were fucked. People are dying by the dozens a day in a war we are losing and this fucktard is concerned he's not receiving proper glory.

*(I know that if I were an ambitious con-man of scraping intelligence, the game plan for bilking Bush is the brown-nose supreme. It worked, for a while, for Chalabi, after all - and look what good that relationship did and how well it turned out. Seriously, if you're negotiating with The Decider, how could you NOT think he could be rolled?)

2006-08-17T11:16:00.000-04:00

CLDIB

2006-08-17T09:19:00.000-04:00

New York 0, DCU 0

From what I saw (and I'll spare all of us an anti-MLS/Live rant, deeming it sufficient to say it sucks, at least on my PC), I'm concerned. Nowhere near panic, nowhere near foreboding, nowhere near feeling it necessary to taunt gods with predictions of doom. Concern.

I expected NY to come out aggressive and energized. Throw away the Barca game, this was the NY players first true game audition for their new coach. NY carried play the first half, and I would have been surprised not only if they hadn't tried but if Nowak hadn't assumed a defensive posture in the first half and hope NY's adrenelin burnt out their legs by half. And Nowak probably wanted to play reactively in the first half as he figured out what Arena was trying to proactively do.

Still. One can look at the effort United put out in the first half of the Madrid game and the effort they put out last night and conclude that they only have enough in their legs now to play full-on selectively, or one can look at the respective efforts and conclude that if Madrid had played full-on they'd have buried United. Carroll looks tired, Olsen looks tired, Adu looks tired, Gros looks tired, Gomez looks tired. Dang, that's the whole starting midfield. The passes are slow and late and telegraphed anyway. I don't doubt the effort; I don't believe that Nowak would keep a player on the field who he didn't believe was playing as hard as he could. But the breakdowns in execution are breakdowns caused by exhaustion, both physical and mental.

All other MLS teams are going to view any games v DCU as tests and will bring all the energy they can summon. The question becomes, what energy does United have to summon now, and where do they spend it? How does Nowak find more? Not necessarily for Colorado this Saturday or the Cup game next Wednesday or the LA Quaranta next Saturday, but so everyone is fresher come October and November.

2006-08-16T19:16:00.000-04:00

Explains Much

From an article in today's NYT:

More generally, the participants said, the president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd. “I do think he was frustrated about why 10,000 Shiites would go into the streets and demonstrate against the United States,” said another person who attended.

Beyond further demonstrating the imbecility of the man hastening America's moral collapse, this illustrates perfectly the worldview of a selfish and powerful and insatiable elite. It displays not merely a disregard for the desires and needs and histories and inherent rights of individuals and individual cultures, it shows the depersonalization of those individuals and individual cultures. They were nobody before we chose to conquer them. Their existence started with our exploitative notice. They should be thankful we've deigned to profit by them. They should be grateful we've sacrificed so much to subject them, no matter how much it kills them.

2006-08-16T09:04:00.000-04:00

United v Demarena

It occurs to me that the primary beneficiary of United's offseason decision to not bring back Dema Kovalenko - beyond the salary cap implications - was Freddy Adu. All the minutes Dema played last season? They're Freddy's this season. I'm betting this wasn't lost on Dema when he trotted out for warm-ups for FC Metalurh Zaporizhya in February in the Ukraine. If I'm Freddy, I'm hoping I wake up Thursday morning without a limp.

The Post pre-game article predictably and understandably focuses on Bruce Arena's Red Bull's coaching debut. What is noteworthy is this quote from Arena:

Since then, MLS has gotten itself onto firmer financial ground, but, in Arena's view, the quality of play has stagnated.
"I don't think it has moved along as well as I would've thought," he said. "It doesn't seem like it's that critical at the league level to produce top-quality teams. People want to see good soccer and I don't know if the league has given it to them. We've got to work harder toward that and take an aggressive approach to make it happen."

I agree. I've been hesitant to believe that this year's United is as impressive as their record suggests, and one of the major reasons is how bad some of the teams in MLS look and how poor the quality of some of the soccer I've watched has been. What was so encouraging about that first half of soccer against (an admittedly exhibition-speed) Madrid was the crispness of United's play: if United comes out tonight as motivated and sharp, they should pick up three points easily.

If, however, Arena puts his team's success over improving the aesthetics of MLS play, a least tonight, the Metros will come out and hack and grind and foul and uglify, the same strategy most MLS teams employ against United. Looking at the personnel of the Metros, that's the only reasonable choice he has.

Count how many times Freddy finds himself on the ground and looks up to see Dema walking away.

2006-08-15T09:16:00.000-04:00

This Year's Argentine?

Both the Washington Post and Goal.com are reporting that United will sign Matias Donnet. According to goal.com, Donnet is a

pint-sized, right-footed attacking midfielder, who could be a perfect fit for United, a club without a true right winger. Left-footed Freddy Adu has been performing admirably in that role for the four-time MLS champions. But with the club seeing striker Lucio Filomeno transfer to Nueva Chicago and forward Santino Quaranta traded to Los Angeles, Donnet's presence would allow manager Peter Nowak to utilize Adu as a striker, in the event of injury to Jaime Moreno and Alecko Eskandarian; not to mention Donnet would add his own attacking prowess to the equation.

Of note in Goff's Post article:

United has been pursuing a player since June, when it released Argentine forward Lucio Filomeno . The club actually has two open roster spots, but the deadline to add a domestic player is not until next month.

I didn't know that MLS transfer windows for int'l and domestic players had different deadlines.

In any case, if Donnet is the right-wing player advertised, it seems to me that the two players most possibly affected by the signing would be Eskandarian and Walker, or, to put it into Nowak's sub-strategy of late, the one player Alecko Walker. It certainly would give Nowak various new options, including sneaking a few more minutes off for Moreno on nights when he's laboring. And someone with speed and a motor running the right flank like Josh Gros runs on the left? Sweet.

United is two for three on recent Argentine signings. If Donnet is more Gomezesque than Filomenoish, three for four will be just fine. Erpendable will do.

2006-08-14T09:50:00.000-04:00

Mondogday

Streets of my town - or the one I grew up in.

Seymour Hersh on Bushco motives in the Israel-Hezbollah war:

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

Hendrik Hertzberg on the begrudging awakening of (a very small percentage) of the talking class:

Even so, in this August of 2006 a palpable, ’68-like shift in sentiment is in the steamy air. Among foreign-policy élites and the broader public alike, it has become the preponderant conviction that George W. Bush’s war of choice in Iraq is a catastrophe.

William Greider states the obvious, but does it well:

An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American politicians, but it is not the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain their cause. His bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America is out to destroy Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of willing young martyrs.

More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The "news" of terror--whether real or fantasized--reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

The danger of dirty hippies:

2006-08-12T10:10:00.000-04:00

Battle Tactics, Honorable

Hillary Clinton responds to Dick Cheney's spews:

"I don't take anything he says seriously anymore. I think that he has been a very counterproductive even destructive force in our country and I am very disheartened by the failure of leadership from the president and vice president."

More about this later, but this is exactly the right direction: Derisive, contemptuous, and succinct dismissal of political statements made by anyone vested in the perpetuation of the current administration and its policies. Connect the preposterousness of their embarassingly grotesque propaganda to the preposterousness of their policies, to the preposterousness of their imcompetent execution, to the monstrous preposterousness that is this administration.

The Decider! plods through another goddamn speech on freedom. Or why troops need to stay in Iraq or why social security needs to be fixed or... or... or... or...

... The common, sane, citizen response to ANYTHING this administration or its supporters say about ANYTHING should be the same derisive and contemptuous and angry dismissal as when Bushco calls your grandmother a terrorist-loving, America-hating Liberal for the thought crime of disagreeing with the President.

2006-08-11T13:14:00.000-04:00

* * * * * * * * *

FRIDAY!

2006-08-11T10:42:00.000-04:00

Real Follow-up

Post has a day-after story about the Madrid game, calling the tie a "big-step." Also, a friend from Seattle sent me a bunch of links to Seattle papers:

Seattle Times, Seattle Times, Seattle PI
Seattle PI, Seattle PI, Seattle PI

When you consider the 4-0 win over Celtic, the DCU-dominated MLS All-Star team's win over Chelsea, and then the 1-1 tie v Madrid, that's an impressive summer run of friendlies for United. I'm hoping it's more than wishful thinking on my part, but I think now that the friendlies are through, and DCU can focus at the domestic goals at hand, we will see much sharper soccer in league from DCU than we have recently. I mean, Real Madrid or Real Salt Lake? Really, which do you think DCU should have considered the more important? (I realize it's not zero-sum, but you get my point.)

Oh, I watched the last five minutes of the first half on re-run last night, looking for the freekick that Adu took that supposedly pissed off Eskandarian. Freddy earned the foul, getting smacked down like a sack of flour after a short run at goal, just outside the box. Took about a minute for the referee to blow the whistle as the wall wouldn't set. Freddy and Alecko over the ball, and then Freddy takes it. Didn't look like any fuss. Alecko hadn't moved. At the pan-out shot at the end of the half, however, Alecko could be seen ripping off his head-band and waving his arms and shouting at some United official. The question being, was Alecko pissed at Freddy for hijacking the kick or pissed at the coaching staff for giving the kick to Freddy?

2006-08-10T09:21:00.000-04:00

DCU 1, Real Madrid 1

That was fun. United came out full of vinegar; I was afraid they would emotionally burn-out early, and when Cassano made his deke around Namoff and shortsided Perkins I thought DCU might flatline then and there, but three minutes later in what I think DCU's sublimest goal of the year they five touched a beautiful sequence that Alecko deftly buried. Good stuff. Game on.

(The Post article makes mention of a spat Alecko threw when during a free kick from a dangerous spot in the late first half, Adu apparently took the kick that Alecko either thought he was to take and was told to take. Freddy stealing a glamour shot against a big European team from a teammate? Nah, can't imagine it.)

The rest of the first half was just excellent wonderful soccer. The second half couldn't and didn't match the first for play or urgency. United did crumble a bit in the second half as Madrid poured in fresh legs and DCU stayed with the starters. Nowak, when asked why he was keeping the starters in the game when he did his obligatory interview at the 60th minute just laughed and said, "We're playing Real Madrid for Christ's sake." And though Madrid carried play in the second half, with one fabulous sequence off a brilliant free kick by Roberto Carlos saved brilliantly by Perkins and scrambled away by the defence, DCU looked dangerous enough that they could easily be imagined to steal a goal. In the end it was a just result.

The first half was as well as United has played in recent memory this year. Jaime played as hard and fabulously as he has in months, and United played with a focus that would have blitzed most MLS teams. Early on in the second it looked like United was playing for the tie and hoping to steal a goal, but fine. I find it reassuring that United played intensely focused soccer - which they haven't for awhile, to be honest. I've been concerned that Nowak's relentless intensity - plus all the minutes the starters are logging - might burn out the team over the course of a long season. Perhaps he does know how to pace and when to push the team better than I suspected. Perhaps he didn't have to say a word to the players. Perhaps - and hopefully - this will have a re-energizing effect on the team for the rest of the MLS season. With a week off now before the Metros, it'll be fascinating to see how they come out next Wednesday.

Anyone who didn't think DCU should take this game against Real Madrid anywhere on Madrid's conditions was wrong. Yes, it would have been wonderful if the game was at RFK, or Camden Yards, but when Real Madrid agrees to play you go and play them when and where they say. That DCU showed strong on a neutral field, before a slightly pro-Madrid crowd (though the fans cheered all good soccer), makes the result all the more impressive. Good, good stuff.

UPDATE: DCenters has a youtube highlight film posted. The porn-movie music track whoever created the youtube used is annoying, but the highlights are sweet.

UPDATE TWO: mention needs to be made of Quaranta scoring game winner last night for LAG v Houston (and how nice to have MLS back on FSC, btw).. Came on as a second half substitute. Collected a pass on right outside box, tried to dribble past a defender; the defender gets foot on ball which pops into the air and serendipitously right onto Quaranta's foot, and he nicely volleys the ball over Houston keeper's head. He crosses himself, bows down to kiss the field, and smiles like a man let out of prison.

Which changes my opinion about the trade exactly none.

2006-08-09T07:33:00.000-04:00

Synchronicity

Two top headlines at 7:15 am Wednesday August 9, 2006 in the Washington Post:

Lieberman Defeated in Democratic Primary

After losing a close race to antiwar challenger, three-term Connecticut senator announces plans to run in general election as an independent.

–Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray

War Crimes Act May Be Altered

Bush administration amendments would eliminate the risk of prosecution for many in detainee cases.

Someone ask Lord Lieberman his opinion on the second TODAY! please.

2006-08-08T21:30:00.000-04:00

Quaranta Gone

Posted now, and in tomorrow's print Post, a report that DCU has traded Santino Quaranta to the Los Angeles Galaxy for some blips and boops towards MLS' mysterious calculations that determine player allotments.

Mention is also made of some deal (I imagine it's Dema) with New York that will add additional blips and boops which, in combination with the Quaranta deal, will allow DCU to sign a biggee. Goff speculates that won't happen until next year. Quaranta makes a lot of money by MLS standards ($145,500), so this will help DCU afford said biggee within the salary cup structure.

Wish I could say I'm disappointed or surprised but nope. Whether it was his body (and he was broke often) or his head (when he was healthy), Quaranta never showed he could consistently work hard enough to see if he could be as good as the hype. I've heard the talk that he was too immature to understand the work he needed to put in, and if he ever did understand the need he wouldn't have the discipline. Which makes him pretty damn likely to get into Nowak's bad graces and stay there. Which makes this probably best for everyone.

2006-08-08T10:50:00.000-04:00

Inaarghuably Good Jam

2006-08-08T09:39:00.000-04:00

Arrgh Interruptus: Soccer

From today's Guardian:

Blackburn are close to signing the PSV Eindhoven and Holland defender Andre Ooijer, 31, although the manager Mark Hughes is struggling to hang on to the New Zealand centre-back Ryan Nelsen. Portsmouth are believed to be ready to pay about £5m for him and to double his weekly wage to about £30,000, but Rovers have made him an improved offer. The Fratton Park manager Harry Redknapp has also registered an interest in Ooijer.
"Portsmouth is still going on and it's with the suits at the moment," the 28-year-old Nelsen said. "There's some interest there but I don't know where things are at. We are just at the talking stage with Blackburn about a new contract. It's nice to think that someone thinks you are all right but you have to put that out of your mind."

Blackburn has top four aspirations. That they wouldn't pay up to keep Nelsen puzzles me.

* * * *

New York Times article on Arena's first day on the practice field with Metros:

Perhaps the best news Arena received concerned the veteran midfielder Youri Djorkaeff, who left the team more than a month ago and went to France to be with his ailing mother. Djorkaeff caused a stir when he was shown on television at one of France’s games during the World Cup. The team issued a news release expressing its displeasure.
“Today he was about the best player in training,” said Arena, who is also the team’s sporting director. “With the time off, he’s not where he needs to be, but he will play himself into form.”
Djorkaeff said that he thought about not returning to the team, but that his mother’s health had improved. “I want to finish well,” said Djorkaeff, who has said that this will be his final season as a player. “I want to be here.”
Arena said the Red Bulls were expected to sign the Ukrainian midfielder Dema Kovalenko by the end of the week. Although the Red Bulls have money available under the league’s salary budget, the transfer period in Europe ends Aug. 15, which could make it difficult for the club to obtain a marquee player.

Unless MLS has changed the schedule, that August 16 game is against DCU, not Houston.

* * * *

I didn't see the MLS-Chelsea game except for the last ten minutes (and Cannon looked very good), and I didn't see the post-game antics, but when I saw this picture on MLSnet:

I thought, Figgety, what's with the hoisting of a trophy? Ives Galarcep gives the good gripe:

When will the league, its players and its fans stop trying so desperately to gain approval from the segment of the soccer-loving population in this country that just doesn't care much for MLS? That is what Saturday's desperate display of "Hey, we really are a good league" was about. It was about players who have heard over and over how inferior MLS is compared with Europe's top leagues and about league officials who know full well there are far more people in the United States who follow European soccer than follow MLS.

This is exactly right: act like you belong and eventually you will or you won't.

* * * *

Kinney, over at DCenters, analyzes the State of the League utterances of Dan Garber and speculates on the ramifications for United. Garber did admit the obvious, the end of the balanced schedule with the addition of Toronto next year. I realize I care about this more than every other human on planet, and I realize the impossibility of a balanced schedule in a league with an odd number of teams, but crap.

2006-08-07T12:09:00.000-04:00

Getting My Aargh Back

Martin Peretz, editor of The New Republic, on the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal:

The Lamont ascendancy, if that is what it is, means nothing other than that the left is trying, and in places succeeding, to take back the Democratic Party. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters have stumped for Mr. Lamont. As I say, we have been here before. Ned Lamont is Karl Rove's dream come true. If he, and others of his stripe, carry the day, the Democratic party will lose the future, and deservedly.

Set aside - well, just for a minute - the significance of the editor of TNR supporting the Lords of the Universe of WSJ's op-ed editors on WSJ's op-ed pages. (After all, yesterday's Wash Post carried Robert Kagan's relentlessly dishonest tear-stained love letter for Joe, calling him the "last honest man" in politics.) And please don't notice what all three of the Democrats named by Peretz have in common: I'm sure that was just an accident. What I find truly illuminating is Peretz' - and other "centrist Democrats'" - grand Fuck You and Everyone Who Thinks Like You flip-off to a whole wing of a whole party. They're liebermanning, committing the very same patronizing shut-up-n-take-it that liebermanned Lieberman.

Note to windpiggers: see if you can find the irony in Peretz' statement that:

Mr. Lieberman's view is that there are actually enemies who, intoxicated by millennial delusions, are not open to rational and reciprocal arbitration. Why should they be? After all, they inhabit a universe of inevitability, rather like Nazis and communists, but with a religious overgloss. Such armed doctrines, in Mr. Lieberman's view, need to be confronted and overwhelmed.

Can't? Jeebus H Dipshit.

And:

Thought experiment for the day:

Should Lieberman WIN tomorrow, imagine the number of cigarettes smoked in the afterglow of the congratulatory mmwah of the punditocracy's orgy of self-congratulation for saving the world from the Stalinist hicks in Leftblogostan.

It'll make icky look pristine.

2006-08-07T09:57:00.000-04:00

Say Hi To Your Mom

Snowcones and Puppies

Angels and Darlas

Sad, But Endearingly So

The Forest Scares the Hell Out of Me

Laundry

Lots more at their extremely generous website

2006-08-07T09:16:00.000-04:00

Treasonous AND Dumb

Must be two days before an election this candidate is about to lose:

Joe Lieberman yesterday:

"I understand that many Democrats in Connecticut disagree with me and are very angry about the war . . . What I will say is this: I not only respect your right to disagree or question the President, I value it."

There's more:

"What I don't think is right, as I've said over and over again, are many of the Bush administration's decisions regarding the conduct of the war. The fact is I have openly and clearly disagreed with and criticized the president."

Joe Lieberman, 12/6/05:

"It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril."

See, not only are we traitors, we're stupid too.

Let the reign of the communist-bolshevik-stalinist-blogofascists begin. Or, to put it differently than the Cokie Roberts of the world, may the democratic pushback against the heinous reign of imcompetent wannabe hegemonist assholes start.

2006-08-04T10:06:00.000-04:00

Arthur Lee

3/7/45 - 8/3/06

2006-08-03T08:59:00.000-04:00

Strategy Against Dema

2006-08-02T13:03:00.000-04:00

2006-08-02T08:20:00.000-04:00

DCU 2, Columbus 1

At 43:30, Ben Olsen was sent to the ground in the box on a foul neither more nor less PK-worthy than either of the two awarded Salt Lake last Saturday. No matter: one minute later Freddy Adu is sprung on the offside trap. He rounds the Columbus goalkeeper and has a gaping net in front of him from 15 yards. Rather than taking one extra touch to set up a soft shot and rather than kicking the ball hard, on the ground, dead center, he panics, or trys to get fancy, and spins the ball wide right. Christian Gomez and Ben Olsen fall to their knees, holding their heads in their hands. Jaime Moreno's look of disgust seemed cumulative. The crowd mumbling, aghast and frustrated, his teammates turning away, Adu shrugged. What else could he do?

This is not about Freddy. Alecko Eskandarian missed three sitters himself, one admittedly off his right foot, and two in two minutes, in the 62nd and 64th (and was taken out for Walker in the 66th). This is about all the four-on-threes and three-on-twos and five-on-threes and three-on-ones that not only produced no goals, they produced no shots: Lots of dancing, but no shots. DCU outshot Columbus 32-10, DCU outplayed Columbus most of the night, DCU was clearly the more talented, more organized, more determined team, and yet one minute into stoppage in the 2nd overtime period Chris Leitch bangs an open shot off the inside of the right post.

There was plenty to make me encouraged. DCU started its regular line-up (Rimando in for Perkins withstanding), and played hard, purposeful soccer. Columbus employed the long ball strategy to relatively little effect - Boswell, Namoff, and Erpen had a good game. Olsen had a very good game, and he and Moreno had two or three nice give and goes in the box, and Gomez was terrific (except on those three-on-twos). And at some point some of those 32 shots are going to go in.

But it should have been 2-1 at halftime and 3-1 at 60 and 4-1 at 70 and Moreno and Gomez and Olsen icing down on the sideline at 72, and with 30 seconds left in stoppage time a crappy Columbus is banging the tying shot off the post. If this was an isolated instance of DCU not finishing off a lesser opponent I'd no doubt be bitching about something else, but this is a pattern that's going to bite DCU on the ass if they don't work it out and it's going to cost them something important.

HEY: A whole bunch of interesting news in today's New York Times weekly soccer column, including:

Dema IS expected to sign with RBNY (dammit).

Fox Soccer Channel back into broadcasting MLS.

Kansas City Wizards going to Philadelphia?

UPDATE:

Ilse has expressed in the comments a sentiment I've heard other women express, a certain wistful daydreaminess regarding dearly departed but now hideously redbullish Dema. I don't get it.

Dema:

Mr Wint (from Diamonds Are Forever):

Must be a chickthing.

2006-08-01T16:12:00.000-04:00

Insight on the Right
(Or, We Are the Enemy, a Neverending Story)

Digby, in a post about the increasingly bloodthirsty calls for a more rigorous genocidal policy versus anyone against us, quotes at length a Limbaugh screed exhorting the practice of Muslim extermination. Read the whole post, including Limbaugh's tirade.

Digby does what Digby does excellently, so I'll leave it to Digby to expand on the genocidal can of whoop-ass the Right is flagellating itself into a whipped-red state to achieve. What I want to remark on are these lines from Limbaugh's lunacy:

Oh, they're wonderful humanitarians, the Hezbos, why, the social services they provide the general population, why, they're doing such wonderful things, they care about people, they passed out health care and whatever the hell it is. Well, what they're doing is making the general population of these countries dependent on them, and as such, that is how they secure -- it's either through blackmail or genuine support, but it's how they get the support of the general population centers.

Substitute the word "Liberal" for the word "Hezbos" (note to Rush - tee hee!), and this is precisely what Conservatives accuse Liberals of doing in this country.

Without intending to defend Hezbollah: How dare these pernicious bastards provide food, shelter, healthcare, and security to a population that needs food, shelter, healthcare, and security! Does the deviousness of these terrorist masterminds know no limit? Next - NEXT! - they'll be providing basic services like roads and schools and GOD FORBID! a general safety net for the less fortunate in society!

No wonder the Far Right wants to kill them all.

2006-08-01T11:50:00.000-04:00

What To Do?

Z'mazing what a loss can do. The panel of soccer writers that votes ESPN's Soccernet's powerchart has dropped United to second behind Dallas asking, "Is DC United's record inflated by the weak Eastern Conference?" That's a valid point, but it was valid before Salt Lake (and Dallas' thumping of Colorado), and the same panel of experts were asking in previous weeks if United should be conceded the MLS Cup in mid-July.

Many have worried - me, for instance - that United was not yet all that, and watching Chicago template the gameplan for stuffing United and then watching United slunk over, grabbing the bottom of their shorts and gasping for air in Salt Lake, I'm convinced they're not all that yet. The rest of the league must be happily considering the possibility. And Nowak must know it too. After two and a half years of juggling line-ups, in part to fuck with the opposing coach's mind, he's been remarkably consistent with the starting line-up for the greater part of this season, mostly because they're winning, I'm sure. Regardless, if you're playing the same fourteen or fifteen (and the same nine or ten almost all of every game) they're gonna get tanked. Thank goodness they're done with high altitude stadiums, but it was not an accident that RSL lobbed long ball after long ball over the top. Those two PKs were caused by tired legs.

So what to do tonight? A tired team. The lowest of three team goals. A long break interrupted only by a friendly with the Galacticos in a game beamed back to Europe live and certainly on tape delay. Temperature index of 105. Versus fear of what a second loss in a row does not only to DCU's confidence but to the confidence of all the Columbuses and Dallases and Chicagos and Houstons in both the race for Supporters Shield and the MLS Cup playoffs. You're Peter Nowak - what do you do, who do you start, who do you rest, how do you play? How much do you want the game tonight?

OY - In the above linked Post article, mention that Quaranta is back (and may be in uniform tonight), which is good. Prideuax is getting healthy - that's good too. Dema may be back in MLS, possibly signing with the New York Red Bruces. Figgity fuck.

OH - DCU ticket office says no pre-sale of tickets remain. Get there early to buy what grassy knoll tickets are left. I didn't buy mine beforehand, never having had a problem in Germantown before, and I was thinking that between mid-week August vacation time and the heatwave, no worries. Hope I'm right.

If I do get in - and I expect I will - this will be the temperature-inverse of Harbour View.

UPDATE: We're in - call the soccerplex instead of DCU. They'll take credit card for will call.

2006-08-01T09:23:00.000-04:00

Joe Fox

If and when Joe Lieberman loses this primary and/or the general election and is out of a job in January, how soon before he appears as a regular on a Fox panel talk show playing the martryed moderate? What are the odds that Fox hasn't talked to Lieberman's lawyers and agents already? Only slightly longer than the odds Fox isn't thinking about it already.

What if he loses this primary, falls on the sword of his self-congratulatory decency and (sparing himself the possible humiliation of running and losing as an independent), dies imagining himself moderation's fallen hero: he may not be out of a job until January, but he can increase his guest appearances on Fox in the meantime, oinking sanctimonious tsks tsks.

You think Lieberman is insufferable now, wait for Lieberman the avenging Moderate Martyr, brought to you by Fox.

2006-07-31T15:36:00.000-04:00

2006-07-30T09:20:00.000-04:00

RSL 2, DCU 1

Oh well.

United has lost twice this year, both times playing at high altitude (2-1 to Colorado on 5/6). They've played poorly in the past on narrow fields in football stadia (that dumb junior college field in Dallas, that dumb San Jose St field). By the second half they looked gassed and they looked stuffed. And sooner or later one of these 1-0 leads was not going to hold up for a win or even a tie.

RSL may or may not have been gifted the PKs (though when I saw that Abbey Okalaja was the ref I feared something awful), but RSL played well enough (or DCU poor enough) for the points. The PKs: I ask myself to view PKs two ways: what would I think if I could make myself a interested neutral; what would I think if the same call benefited DCU. And in both cases, I just can't summon outrage. Ballouchy dived a bit on the first, but that he was that open at the top of the box in the 90th minute that he had to be tackled is damning enough, and in an angle of a replay from behind Okalaja's back in looked like from Okalaja's view of the play it was a foul. If it'd been a DCU player in the same spot I'd be howling for a PK. (And did you see Clyde Simms level Mehdi Ballouchy after Ballouchy's dive? On orders, or did Simms just seek out and whack on his own?) The second? I don't know. I think I would have taken it, sheepishly, if it'd been given to DCU.

I don't subscribe to the notion that sometimes a loss is good, though I think some losses are worse than others. This ought to piss United off. The stories this week of DCU's possible place in MLS lore and how deep and talented DCU is, reread over a loss to the league's worse team, should give DCU's players and coaches ample time to refocus. It'll be interesting to see who and how they play Tuesday in Germantown - I wonder if some players who might have been given the night off are now back in the plans. And practices ought to be spirited.

But one of the greatest teams in MLS history? Guaranteed the Supporters Shield? (Dallas won 4-1 last night.) DCU's been reminded that they are not all that yet. If they take that out the loss, rather than blaming, in their heart of hearts, the ref and the PKs, some benefit may come from this loss.

2006-07-29T17:57:00.000-04:00

2006-07-29T17:33:00.000-04:00

Another Day in Bananastan

NYT:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

AP:

WASHINGTON, July 28 - U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.

Go back to your play-station, Bananastani. Sit. Diddle.

2006-07-29T09:24:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY’S

MUSIC

SATURDAY

HER SPACE HOLIDAY
and their website
and more songs here

THE JANUARIES
one album and gone

THE FRAMES
an unbelievably generous website from a great band

SPOON

SMOG

AMY RIGBY

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED
DOES THEIR BEST OF 2006 SO FAR
In random order: Yes, Yes, No, I don't get the fuss (not Thom Yorke)
Huh? Blah, No (though I like her other band), Huh? No, YES!

2006-07-28T16:13:00.000-04:00

Image Warfare

Last night on the News Hour a panel session debated the media “prism” of reporting perspectives on the war in

Lebanon

. They made all the panel noises you would imagine, but someone then made the importantly obvious observation that what Arabs see on their television is a different war than the war we don’t see on American television. We are forbidden to see flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers, after all, and as far as the carnage American weaponry inflicts collaterally on the innocent, let’s just pretend we’re too good, morally as a nation, to bother witnessing our oops. As one panelist said, Arab television is full of images of disemboweled children and severed body parts and “pieces of flesh.” Another chimed in, “I agree. You can never overestimate the power of images.”

The Bush Administration doesn’t overestimate the power of images, which is why we don’t see the images the rest of the world sees every day. Maybe the administration believes the American public lacks the heartless fortitude to fight the war with the steely relentlessness that’s needed (should it be shown the physical reality of warfare). Maybe Americans don’t want to see images that would show Americans we’re not the blameless peaceful god-blessed humanitarians bringing democracy and Wal-Marts and apple pie to the world we claim we are. Americans can be spurred to war by stereotypes of the evil-other, but to maintain those stereotypes no humanizing images of the suffering inflicted on the evil-other can be permitted. The gutted corpse of the four year girl who may or may not have grown-up to hate America undermines the will of the sympathetically simpering, who can only enthusiastically support war if they are fully engaged with the propaganda while simultaneously remaining shielded from the carnage their engagement allows. Heaven protect our self-image, and protecting that self-image requires that all images that contradict that self-image be suppressed.

Meanwhile the Arab world sees daily not only images of crippled children and rubbled hospitals and grieving families, it sees the sanitized version of the world on American TV. The New York Time today reports that Hezbollah is winning the war of Arab hearts, and since that was their primary goal, they’re winning the war. The Arab world can turn on the television and see the devastation wrought by all sides – al-Q, Hezbollah, Israel, America – and, understanding the complexity and tortured history of the situation, that there are good and bad people on all sides, they then switch to American TV and see the candied-American version of the war, which bears no resemblance to the war they are living through, and consider.

And they can turn on the TV and see the United States President say:

"It's an interesting period because, instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability. For a while, American foreign policy was just, 'Let's hope everything is calm' -- kind of, managed calm. But beneath the surface brewed a lot of resentment and anger that was manifested on September the 11th. And so we've taken a foreign policy that says: On the one hand, we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short run by being aggressive in chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice.

"And make no mistake: They're still out there, and they would like to harm our respective peoples because of what we stand for. In the long term, to defeat this ideology -- and they're bound by an ideology -- you defeat it with a more hopeful ideology called freedom. And, look, I fully understand some people don't believe it's possible for freedom and democracy to overcome this ideology of hatred. I understand that. I just happen to believe it is possible. And I believe it will happen.

"And so what you're seeing is, you know, a clash of governing styles.

"For example, you know, the notion of democracy beginning to emerge scares the ideologues, the totalitarians, those who want to impose their vision. It just frightens them. And so they respond. They've always been violent.

They watch this fricking moron, and then they switch the channel and see children decapitated by

bombs. You can never overestimate the power of images. No wonder Hezbollah's winning the war for hearts. The only question is how much more anti-American hatred can we generate.

2006-07-28T12:56:00.000-04:00

Hype Before Worthy

I've been waiting for the first real "is this DC United team one of the best in MLS history" stories, and here it is, posted yesterday at MLSnet.

Should United win the Supporters Shield, win the MLS Cup, and maybe throw in a US Cup too (though I'd argue the first two would suffice), no one could argue that this team would belong in the argument. Baring unfortunate injuries to more than one key player and/or an unforeseen dropoff in play, the Supporters Shield seems highly possible: if Dallas were to average two points a game in their remaining season they would finish with 62 points, meaning DCU would need 18 points out of 12 games, which seems very doable. As far as the MLS Cup, well, it's bogus, as DCU sorta proved in 2004 and LA Galaxy definitively proved last year. United will still probably enter the tournament (insert your own anti-playoff screed here) as favorite.

The discussion of this team and its place in MLS history however needs to start with an assessment of the league's overall strength this year as opposed to the overall strength of the league circa 1998 or 2000 or whenever. I don't know if this year's parity (outside of DCU, Dallas, Houston) is a result of a decent level of strength among the teams or a sign of mediocrity. It's hard to watch a Columbus - Kansas City game and argue it's the former. Ningland should be better (and I still think Ningland will be playing in RFK on November 4), Nyorkyersey should be better, Kansas City should be better, but the fact is they're not, and it all can't be ascribed to DCU's superiority. It is a sign of a good team to beat teams they should, but until and unless DCU stomp through the rest of the season, the postseason tournament, and then win at least the first two rounds in CONCACAF Champion's League next winter, can we all hold off on annointing them the best of anything yet?

2006-07-27T15:23:00.000-04:00

On Gutlessness

Here are three paragraphs from an A-3 article in today's Washington Post by Peter Baker. The first is paragraph 3, the second paragraph 6, the third is the third from the end:

In a second term marked by one setback after another, the White House was in the midst of a rebuilding effort aimed at a political comeback before November's critical midterm elections. Now the president faces the challenge of responding to events that seem to be spinning out of control again, all but sidelining his domestic agenda for the moment and complicating his effort to rally the world to stop nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

- - - -

Bush advisers who have been buffeted in the past year by a catastrophic hurricane, rising gasoline prices, a failed Social Security initiative, Republican revolts, criminal investigations and a relentless overseas war said they have grown accustomed to constant crisis. "This is a new normal for our administration in the last couple years," said one senior official. "You begin to expect the unexpected."

- - - -

The White House sees the risk but is banking, in part, on the Democrats' history of not capitalizing on such moments. Bush advisers point to 2004, when the situation in Iraq appeared particularly dire, and yet the president won reelection and Republicans retained both houses of Congress.

Rove's strategy is clear: Screw up the world as badly as humanly imaginable and wait for the Democrats to say nothing! Then accuse them of spinelessness, of having no ideas, no fortitude, no stomach for battle, of not being willing to defend their own ideals (such as they are) and therefore not being willing to defend America in a time of global crisis. Imagine how craven Democrats would be if Bushco only half screwed up the world.

Except for the inconvenience of screwing the world up as humanly imaginable, it's a perfectly reasonable, perfectly successful strategy. If the Democrats cannot make significant gains based solely on the Fvcktard-in-Chief's performance - if they won't muster the guts to say what needs to be said, regardless of the political fallout - then they neither deserve power nor escape culpability for the results of the Fvcktard-in-Chief's performance. They are cowards.

UPDATE:

Tristero at Hullabaloo

Sargent at Prospect

Drum, whose post points to something I'm going to write about: when Hezbollah and Al-Q put aside their wetdreams of killing each other to compete against each other in killing us, that's some mighty wicked shit.

And especially Bowers at MyDD - the point being, move to anger, don't move to whatever position the tools tell you the twister arrow is pointing at.

2006-07-26T11:38:00.000-04:00

Wackyday

An article on a new Eno art project.

New York Times soccer columnist sings DCU's praises.

Santino Quaranta, we hardly knew you.

Michael Franti goes to Baghdad.

Billmon is always indispensible, just some times more than others. Like now.

The Editors have more cat videos. You won't forget Pinky.

I'm harangue-heavy. I'll spare me and you. Have this:

This is Just to Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
your were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

2006-07-26T10:17:00.000-04:00

Moranger

The Minutemen

Beat Happening

Minor Threat*

Husker Du

*930 Club 6/23/83 - See if you can spot me and Elric 7. Were you at this one, Landru?

2006-07-25T15:59:00.000-04:00

FUGAZI

You know what? Enough calm shit. At least today.

2006-07-25T09:46:00.000-04:00

Tuesday's Stuff

The Nation's Adam Shatz on Sheik Sayad Hassan Nasrallah:

By striking at Israel's Army during its most destructive campaign in Palestine since 2002's "Operation Defensive Shield," Nasrallah must have known that he would earn praise throughout the Muslim world for coming to the aid of Palestinians abandoned by the region's authoritarian governments, a number of which have pointedly chastised Nasrallah's "adventurism." And by bloodying Israel's nose, Hezbollah could once again bolster its aura in the wider Arab world as a redoubtable "resistance" force, a model it seeks to promote regionally, especially in Palestine, where Nasrallah is a folk hero, and in Iraq, where Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the radical Shiite Mahdi Army, has proclaimed himself a follower of Hezbollah and has threatened to renew attacks against US forces in solidarity with the Lebanese.

Stanley Hoffmann examines American foriegn policy in the latest New York Review of Books:

The most flagrant and widely deplored contradiction is between America's self-image as a force for democracy and human rights and a reality in which many rights at home are sharply limited, the death penalty continues along with the torture of "enemy combatants," while the US repudiates the international laws of war. Abroad, the US support of dictators and its failure to protect victims of genocide in Rwanda and Darfur have contributed greatly to anti-Americanism. Foreigners can observe for themselves, on the one hand, the weakness of public services throughout the US, the cult of low taxes, and the distrust of any redistributive role for government and, on the other hand, the formidable apparatus of American military and intelligence services throughout the world and in the US itself. The strength of America's destructive power and the lack of American interest in nation-building and development abroad have become all too evident.

Actually, the sentences I find truly illuminating are these:

The rapid collapse of the Soviet Union left the US as the only superpower, or so it seemed. George H.W. Bush talked about a new world order, in which the "real world" of American supremacy and the formal world of the UN Charter would somehow merge. But Bush Senior was soon gone, and Clinton had no large international vision. This may have been a blessing, and relations improved with allies, including France and Germany, which had occasionally been miffed by shrill official statements about the US as the "indispensable nation" endowed with greater foresight than others.
People such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who had long thought it time to proclaim US hegemony, were enraged by Clinton's failure to do so.

Sums it up.

And in the same issue, Peter Galbraith counts the ways Bushco botched Iraq:

Trainor and Gordon present a devastating picture of Rumsfeld as a bully. Convinced of his own brilliance, Rumsfeld freely substituted his often hastily formed opinions for the considered judgments of his military professionals. He placed in the most senior positions compliant yes-men, like Myers, and punished those who questioned his casually formed judgments. He enjoyed belittling his subordinates. The day before the September 11 attacks, Rumsfeld told a Pentagon meeting that the Defense Department bureaucracy "disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk." His aides followed the same approach: Steve Cambone, Rumsfeld's closest aide, "jested that Rumsfeld thought the Army's problems could be solved by lining up fifty of its generals in the Pentagon and gunning them down."

Sums it up.

Have a short story from the great Alice Munro.

Have some music from M. Ward.

Have some more from the Burnside Project.

Have one more from My Morning Jacket.
(Goodness gracious! I love this band.
Play it loud with someone you love,
even if it's only you.)

And finally:

2006-07-23T20:09:00.000-04:00

Escovedo

Alejandro Escovedo, who has been a favorite of mine for a long time, was profiled and interviewed this morning on NPR's Weekend Sunday Edition. I've written about him before, just a couple of months ago, so I'll just urge you to listen to the article, listen to the songs posted on the page, listen to the related articles at the bottom of the page, check out his website, his myspace page, and if you like what you hear, get the music.

2006-07-23T08:52:00.000-04:00

Chicago 1, DCU 1

HAH!

Best point of the year.

What a difference how a 1-1 tie feels when you're the team catching up instead of the team getting caught. And Chicago wanted this one, to christen the stadium with a signature win, to stop United's unbeaten streak, to establish themselves as a serious team. Hah! I say.

I have an abundant heart. I am more than capable of joyously hating Chicago. MLS needs intense rivalries. With two more games between DCU and the lamely named Fire, after all the bad tackles and DCU denying - HAH! - Chicago a game they dearly wanted, maybe I'll get to hate another team this year like I hate Ningland already.

BTW, I have no idea how MLS is going to screw-up what they now have - a perfectly balanced schedule - when they bring in Toronto next year and whatever expansion teams in the future, but I really hope that if they go to multiple divisions they keep DCU, Ningland, NY, and Chicago together (and, I suppose Columbus, too). DCU, Ningland, NY are no-brainers, but I'm guessing they'll go geographic and spin Chicago away, which would be a shame.

2006-07-22T12:24:00.001-04:00

Fine Metaphors Abound

Whether or not the entrenched Democratic establishment truly fears the uprising against Lieberman or is trying to stop a movement they fear they may end up fearing, in the message sent in their hysterical reaction - that the littles need to remain little - they exactly demonstrate what Conservatives say is the Democratic Party’s attitude toward, say, African-Americans. It provides me a personal insight into the meme of the Democratic intellectual bigot who knows better than his constituency what his constituency wants and needs. In exchange for my dependable vote they’ll look after my interests, which, Lordy knows, I don’t know how to do for myself.

I myself thought better of Lieberman longer than most of my friends and the people I read. I actually do - and so do most of my friends and the people I read - think that the Democratic Party needs honorable hawks, far more hawkish than me, hawks that may sometimes support policies I passionately disagree with but whose position I can respect because he respects my disagreement. What I don’t want is a hawk of my own party implying I’m a traitor for voicing my opposition, especially when he’s fully aware that the propagandists on the other side are joyfully employing his implication to state as a state fact that my opposition is treasonous.

The Right’s opinion-spouters are gleefully declaring a revolution on the Left, with inquisitions and kangaroo courts and public executions to come. As of yet, I’ve heard no calls for the breaking of Lieberman on the wheel and have yet to see executioners blocks delivered to town squares. For the opinion-spouters of my party to trot out their Lanny Davises and the ultra-icky Marshall Wittman (The Dog says The Moose is a Tool) to echo rightwing talkingpoints is to amplify, as only the media can, exactly why we are infuriated at the current state of American culture and politics. There is something terribly wrong, terribly disheartening, and potentially crippling if not potentially fatal in domestic and international politics right now. To scream at an entrenched elite, of either party, who either honestly believe that the policies that brought us to this point are worth continuing (to give them the benefit of the doubt) or whose only concern is to maintain whatever power they have no matter what the consequences, does not make us mud-caked sod-farmers screaming to burn a witch.

The irony is that if Joe Lieberman had declared, once the Lamont candidacy began to look to viable, that he would honor the results of the Connecticut primary regardless of the outcome, he’d probably have won relatively easily AND diminished the threat of the growing influence of the grassroots Left and the blogofascists. There are some anti-Joes that became and would remain anti-Joes no matter what, but for some us the final proof of Lieberman’s apostasy was his choice to proclaim, behind some morality of imperiousness and entitlement, that he’d run as an independent if democracy let him down. Nothing could have reminded the activist Left more of how the Democratic Party considers that Left as nothing but nuisances. Donating nuisances, voting nuisances, sometimes useful nuisances, but noisy, embarrassing nuisances nonetheless.

Here is the irony of establishment Washington’s fainting vapors over the anti-Joe revolution: Nothing could have granted the grassroots Left more legitimacy and power. The more the establishment bitches and protests, the more they make it so.

2006-07-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

Soccerday

Um, is United going to pay for my plane ticket to Seattle so I can use my special game B season ticket to see DCU play Real Madrid? Real won't play in Baltimore because Barcelona is playing in New York at the same time? (Well, given a choice, all travel inconveniences being relatively equal, I'd rather see Barca than Real.) While it's still good that DCU might play Real, even in Seattle, all I can say, after anticipating the prospect of seeing the game in person, is, Damn.

A game day article in the Post on Adu. Freddy has made himself an integral part of an excellent team. Though he's only scored once, he's hit the post or crossbar a number of times, and he's been involved in several United goals either directly with assists or in the flow down field towards goal. His defensive skills are still lacking, though that may be unfixable totally because of his size. Last week against Columbus, Marc Burch, the rookie from Maryland, was simply too big and strong for Adu to contain, and Nowak had to sub in McTavish for Adu to help hold the lead.

Freddy's never going to be what he was unreasonably packaged to be, a magical player of legendary status. He's small, and what's more he's slow, way too slow to be truly great at his size. Which is not to say that he can't eventually go to Europe and make a fine career and get into the USMNT pool and play in South Africa in 2010 and (supposedly) Brazil in 2014. And for now, he's a key component on United, and I'm sure that every other team in MLS would love to have him.

No bottom notes in the article itself on tonight's game in Chicago. The pregame box lists the same probable line-up as started last Saturday v Columbus, with Adu up top with Moreno and both Simms and Olsen in midfield. Which means nothing, with Nowak, of course, but of note is that Erpen is listed as starting. Since I have not read or heard anything about whatever injury took him out of the game at half last week, I'm happily assuming that everything's fine.

Chicago desperately needs this game. They need the points, they need to start winning in their new stadium. I expect United to come out with attitude. It ought to be chippy.

2006-07-21T12:32:00.000-04:00

FRIDAYJULY21JULYFRIDAY

I think this,

Evangelicals *So Gone* is my favorite album of 2006 so far. Here's what I hear: Imagine a combination of The Flaming Lips and Animal Collective and The Sea and Cake, a combination where the excesses of The Lips are contained within the discipline of The Sea and Cake and the discipline of The Sea and Cake is liberated by the whimsy of Animal Collective and the joyousness of The Flaming Lips.

(I have no idea whether these guys have ever listened to The Sea and Cake, but man, do I hear Sea and Cake. I am willing to bet they know Animal Collective and, being from OK, The Lips.)

I've posted their songs before. Look, I'm doing it again:

Here Comes Trouble
(though this is less like the rest of the album than)

four songs over on myspace.

Have more:

Amadou and Mariam

Regina Spektor
(click on music: very generous)

Yo La Tengo

Be Your Own Pet

2006-07-20T09:20:00.000-04:00

Emma's 68 Today

Still the crush that still pangs best.

and now, the National Anthem of Egoslavia

2006-07-20T07:54:00.000-04:00

Just Saying

When all the evidence has been presented and nothing’s left to be said that hasn’t been said, what to say? State sponsored hysteria is easier to generate and easier to manage than boring hard work of peace, and besides, peace reveals the problems of governance that hysteria obscures. It is easy to be brave with other people’s children when such bravery, and its defense, demonizes all calls for honest accountability.

Yesterday the Attorney General announces that the President himself quashed an investigation into the suspect legality of the actions of the President. Unlike Nixon’s AG, Eliot Richardson, who resigned in principle rather than fire Archibald Cox, Gonzalez just smirked and moved on to his rehearsed impugning of the patriotism of anyone who questioned the President’s integrity, and no one seems to care. And there's more. You know there's more.

Your wife is pregnant with your first child, and in that child’s genes are odds for Parkinson’s or diabetes or heart disease or cancer or Alzheimers, and because the President is either beholden to the Religious Right and/or actually believes their mythological nonsense, the cure for your child should she be afflicted by any of these diseases is now postponed (if not scrubbed), and as far as your brother with Parkinsons and your aunt with diabetes and your uncle with heart disease and your father with cancer and your mother with Alzheimers, let’s just tell them that Baby Jesus wants them to suffer.

CNN is reporting that 14,000 Iraqi citizens have been killed in the first half of 2006. Since the logicians of Cheneystan deduced a direct connection between Iraq, al-Qaeda, and the attacks of 911, that makes 4.66 innocent Iraqi civilian death for every 1 innocent American citizen death in the twin towers. Just this year. Now there are reports that Turkey is preparing to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, taking advantage of the general shitstorm to mop up their own agenda, and increasing the likelihood of a general civil war in Iraq, which there is already, depending on semantics.

And the Right is pissed at the President. More war is the answer, as predicted, and they’ve little faith that this asshole is asshole enough. The clenched sniffiness that is Charles Krauthammer’s madness demands that Israel attack and destroy anyone and everything in the Middle East that displeases Charles Krauthammer. Max Boot, who probably regimented his bug-torturing as a child (and who was handed a serious smackdown on Tuesday’s Diane Rehm show by Bill Odom), seems unaware that the US military can’t handle what he's dismissed as a low-grade insurrection in Iraq, while damning Syria to obliteration with the clicks of his brave keyboard in Los Angeles.

There are the Armageddonists, hankering for end-time, justifying their racism and bloodlust with scripture. And there are Krauthammers and Boots and severely religiously retarded morons on the other side, wishing right back on America gruesome pain and anguished death infinity, may vultures eat your liver and maggots feast on your eyes.

Just saying. Just because cycles of history suggest that all this will pass, past cycles of history did not have a ubiquitous media competing for immediate and sensational gruesomeness and an ever-present internet and everything surveilled always and a video-gamed public triggeraddicted to graphic synaptic gratification. Something going on. Beyond the solipsism that makes each of us think our time is crucial, something significant is going on. Some of us keep saying this and saying this and saying this, and I hope we're wrong. I'll gladly be proven wrong. Until I am, I'm just saying, over and over.

2006-07-19T12:45:00.002-04:00

Today I Need Beautiful Things

Malevich

Music by John Martyn
and on the same page Lieberson sings Handel
and on the same page John Adams

The Dance
by C.K. Williams

A middle-aged woman, quite plain, to be polite about it, and
somewhat stout, to be more courteous still,
but when she and the rather good-looking, much younger man
she's with get up to dance,
her forearm descends with such delicate lightness, such restrained
but confident ardor athwart his shoulder,
drawing him to her with such a firm, compelling warmth, and
moving him with effortless grace
into the union she's instantly established with the not at all
rhythmically solid music in this second-rate cafe,

that something in the rest of us, some doubt about ourselves, some
sad conjecture, seems to be allayed,
nothing that we'd ever thought of as a real lack, nothing not to be
admired or be repentant for,
but something to which we've never adequately given credence,
which might have consoling implications about how we
misbelieve ourselves, and so the world,
that world beyond us which so often disappoints, but which
sometimes shows us, lovely, what we are.

2006-07-18T10:06:00.000-04:00

Careful What You Wish For

A certain me wrote, this past Sunday:

I wonder if they've rung Bruce Arena yet. While it'd bitch my craw to see him on the Metros sideline, if MLS hasn't at least put out a feeler to Arena's agent they're more grossly incompetent than the current state of what should be one of the flagship franchises of MLS suggests they already are.

Such influence!

Bruce Arena, widely considered as the most successful and decorated U.S. men's national team coach ever, was named as Red Bull New York's new sporting director and head coach on Tuesday morning. Arena will oversee all of the club's soccer operations, including the first team, reserve and academy teams and youth development.

This is a very good thing for MLS. As for DCU, with Arena taking control 8/12, that makes his first game as head coach of Metros on August 16 against, um, DCU. They'll be visiting RFK September 23.

And maybe, now, as the fourth place team in the East for a first round playoff game in October.

2006-07-17T10:42:00.000-04:00

Monday Wants Tranquility,
Settles for Calm

New short story by William Trevor!

Encore posting of my current favorite song by Rogue Wave!

Ives Galarcep on the Arena - USMNT divorce.

More Lists! Guardian's 50 most influential albums of the past 50 years! Velvet Underground and Nico #1.

Freddy Adu OK after wrecking his BMW!

And I know I said calm, but this is THE MOST IMPORTANT ARTICLE YOU WILL READ TODAY!

Now, back to calm:

2006-07-16T08:25:00.000-04:00

DCU 3, Columbus 2

Since when did MLS rules allow other teams to score against DCU?

Now we've seen what happens if one of the back three in DCU's defense gets hurt. Of the three - Boswell, Erpen, Namoff - I would have guessed that an injury to Erpen (and as I type this I don't know how serious he's hurt) would be the least worrisome for DCU to manage, which is a compliment more to Boswell and Namoff than a slam at Erpen.

Facundo's reliable for a one or two dvmbfvcks a game (though someone told him to stop bicycling at any backflipping opportunity), but his strengths outweigh his weaknesses, and now, with him subbed out at half after torqueing what looked like a knee in the first half (Goff in the linked article says minor foot injury), it's apparent that - at least without a week of practice - DCU can't play three back if one of the back is John Wilson. Yes, the two Columbus goals were freaky (especially the first, when Erpen WAS on the field, hobblingly), but Eddie Gaven had two headers, both sitters, late in the second half. Perkins came out and deflected the first, but the second, late, almost in stoppage, Gaven just gakked. Both were on Wilson's watch, and that second came on Wilson's watch after Nowak subbed in McTavish for Adu to help. And that sequence of that last Columbus corner kick, with twenty seconds left in stoppage. Jeez.

Perhaps it's a blip, perhaps Erpen will be OK, perhaps a week of practice as a unit with Wilson getting the minutes will help the defensive organization and cohesion if Erpen can't go. Nowak has shown that he's capable of adjusting his system, so until I see another game with such defensive breakdowns, I'm calling this an injury-related blip.

(An aside: three years ago I thought the future of American soccer would certainly have included Eddie Gaven. I remember a couple of Metroscum games where he made absolutely brilliant runs into the box, along the endline, and clearly was among the most skilled, if not the most skilled, players on the field, and he was, what, seventeen? Eighteen? But he's not even in the USMNT pool now. What the? I'd love to see what Peter Nowak could do with him over the course of a couple of years.)

I'm not sure what I make out of this game. DCU is so much better than Columbus, and dominated all the stats, dominated possession, had two goals taken (rightfully) away, should have scored more, that at 3-1 I thought the game was headed for 5-1. On the other hand, Columbus could have, should have, drawn a point. I believe DCU is too professional to have quit in the 60th minute thinking they had won; on the other hand, I'm shocked that DCU, up 3-1 at 60th minute, ended up sweating this out, injury to Erpen or no.

******

Special Game B in my ticket book, what's it gonna be for, I was wondering. The Post article, way at the end, says negotiations are on for a game v Real Madrid at Camden Yards. Woot!

******

One note from this past week from the NYT's weekly soccer note column:

On NYRB, who this week had a Saturday night home game rescheduled for 2pm Friday afternoon so that Giant Stadium could be readied for a Jon Bon Jovi concert this coming Tuesday:

Midway through the season, the Red Bulls (2-6-8, 14 points) are dangerously close to becoming irrelevant for another season. The team has no director of soccer operations, no permanent replacement for the fired coach, Mo Johnston, and no Youri Djorkaeff, the midfielder who remains in France on extended leave to attend to personal business. The team has no timetable for Djorkaeff’s return.

One can hate the Metroscum and still wish for a vibrant, successful, and annually competitive MLS team in NY. I don't see how MLS reaches a level of comfortable confidence in its survivability - a true and assumed level of comfort, as in "we're here for good" and not have to cross fingers - without anchor franchises, and one of those anchor franchises NEEDS to be in NYC or environs. It's shocking to me that MLS has let this franchise become so neglected and irrelevant.

I wonder if they've rung Bruce Arena yet. While it'd bitch my craw to see him on the Metros sideline, if MLS hasn't at least put out a feeler to Arena's agent they're more grossly incompetent than the current state of what should be one of the flagship franchises of MLS suggests they already are. Which wouldn't be good for anybody concerned about the future of soccer in the United States.

2006-07-15T10:16:00.000-04:00

Listen to This!!!!!!

I've posted songs by Juana Molina before. I think she is making some of the most beautifully uncanny and unique music I've listened to in years. Here's an All Things Considered review of her latest CD. After you listen to the review, scroll down for a LIVE PERFORMANCE. (And live performances by Jose Gonzalez and Psapp too! Actually, the link has a bunch of good stuff.)

In the live performance, she dedicates the second song to everyone who "suffers the barking of the neighbor's dog," which means if you're reading this, that song is for you.

2006-07-14T10:43:00.000-04:00

FRDY!FRDY!FRDY!FRDY!FRDY!

!

Marvin Gaye

Beat Happening
Start with "What's Important"

Mylo
Start with "In My Arms"

Shapes and Sizes

Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter

and, just because

2006-07-14T09:23:00.000-04:00

Accused

I realize I'm feeding not only the Pillsbury Doughboy of Trolls but a Pillsbury Doughboy of Troll whose singular credential to authority is a genetic connection to the Phyllis Diller of conservative early-trolls, but Jonah Goldberg says, on the op-ed page of the "Liberal" LA Times:

For good or ill, there are no grand "big ideas" behind the anti-Lieberman cause. It's driven by a riot of passions, chiefly against President Bush and "his" war. Any ideas are mere afterthoughts and rationalizations used to gussy up animus as principle.

Um, opposition to the worst freaking President ever, who has (fill in your own order of outrage, from presidential ineptitude to incompetence to dishonesty to attacks on the constitution to squandering most of America's soft power to making America a pariah state and banana republic to.....) is not a big idea? Reducing President Decider!s power so he can't leave the United States in even worse shape than he already has isn't a big idea?

The country you love is being crippled - morally, economically, spiritually, internationally, militarily - and you oppose the bastard at the helm, you believe nothing can be done to right the country until that bastard and his shrieking harem of pantloads are out of power, and a that's a SMALL idea?

Wait a minute. This administration has two big ideas: bitchslap the world; call me a traitor when I oppose the ruination of MY country caused by their bitchslaphappiness. I'm dismissed for my animus? Excuse me, but expletive-filled tirade.

Jeebus, the Right's strenuous Egads! against our small ideas convinces me they're afraid they're not such small ideas after all.

2006-07-13T09:13:00.000-04:00

Come for the festival, have Ye?

He is still alive, He sees, hears.... We have destroyed ourselves! Please, no more.

Landru, who's odometer clicks up one today, says

2006-07-13T08:56:00.000-04:00

DCU 4, Celtic 0

No green hoops. Celtic came out in all white but for a vertical green and orange stripe down the right side of the front, and instead of Carling, the sponsor was Coors Light. Coors freaking Light. Baby Jeebus in a frosted mug, that's not even beer.

Any prestige, even small prestige, is good for United, and what's good for United is good for MLS. Yes, Celtic was missing starters. Yes, Celtic's play was half-hearted at times (though tell that to Jamil Walker). Yes, DCU wanted the win more. And they won. Convincingly.

Bobby Boswell. I haven't praised him enough. There was one play, midway through the first half, and a Celtic player had been sprung down the right side on a terrific through ball, and Boswell just stoned him. Stood him up, stoned him, took the ball, never looked back. Earlier this year I speculated on which DCU player could they least afford to lose, and I said Brian Carroll. Nothing against Carroll, whose play recently probably gave Nowak good reason to give him the night off, he's been looking tired, but the one indispensible player for United is Boswell. He's that good. And he gets it, soccer-wise, fan-wise.

Shame about the weather, or the threat of weather. I had heard talk of 30, 35K, which would have required a huge walk-up, but DC was gray and thundering from 3:30 in the afternoon on, with storm-warnings issued, and on a Wednesday night, with rush hour traffic, people looked at each other at five o'clock and said, mmm? nya. I don't think they'd have got 35K under any circumstances (that's about what they got for Chelsea, after all), but I bet they lost 3000, 4000 walk-up, which is a shame. It rained until 7:20 and then stopped. The clouds broke. A breeze blew. It was nice. Announced crowd of over 15K.

But the key question of the game: at what minute would the drunken skank in the row in front of us yak on Landru's foot? Landru and I started a pool: I guessed 76th minute, he had 83rd. Not to worry: the drunken chickslapper she was with, sensing that he was in a race between her drooling willingness to put out and her drooling need to vomit, decided to take no chances and hustled her cold-sweat speckled face out at the 72nd. I'm willing to bet (but not to verify) that yak won out, literally, in his lap.

HIGHLIGHTS!
(of the game, not the...)

2006-07-12T13:43:00.000-04:00

Assholesomeness*

How's that working out as the pillar of US foreign policy?

Israeli Forces Enter Lebanon After 2 Soldiers Are Seized

Kidnapping and Bombing Add to Baghdad Turmoil

Violence Mars Rumsfeld Visit

Investigators Seek Clues in Bombay Bombings

U.S. Officials Visit Afghanistan's Turbulent South

There is a fundamental distinction between being tough and being an asshole. The tough guy understands that toughness needs reserving for critical moments of actual import, that, used in such moments precisely and measuredly and finished with fairness, toughness is actually a negotiation tool, not a policy. The asshole makes his assholeness the policy itself.

Would there be peace upon the lands, would centuries of ethnic and religious acrimony cease, would the ambitions of other assholes lessen if our President wasn't a bullying asshole? Of course not. But toughness gives pause where assholeness emboldens. There is nobody as asshole fears less than another asshole. Nobody creates more assholes than another asshole. Nothing drives an asshole to greater assholeness more than another asshole (see Putin Rips Cheney's Verbal 'Hunting Shot').

I guarantee, it'd be a lot less bloody - and the United States would be stronger - if our President (and a significant percentage of American citizens) didn't believe that being an asshole is the same thing as being tough.

AND - I also guarantee that the bloodier, more violent and generally cataclysmic things get b/c of assholeness, the more the asshole, his supporters and enablers, will claim the right, nay, the obligation for the asshole to be a bigger asshole. That's the way assholes reason. Watch.

* Pardon the use of the bad work. I could search for a euphemism, but outside of politeness, why? The word fits

2006-07-12T09:08:00.000-04:00

TONIGHT!

The highlight of last season for me, the one great unforgettable moment, was Boswell's header to give United a lead on Chelsea at FedEx. Celtic isn't Chelsea. Celtic isn't Columbus, either.

In the scheme of small things, this Saturday's Columbus game is the more important game. I want to win both, but in the bigger scheme of things, if only one is to be won, I'd rather tonight than Saturday.

RUMORSWIRL UPDATE: Klinsmann has quit Deutschland for Los Angeles, minutes away from a certain national team's Carson California home base. Hmmm......

2006-07-11T11:07:00.000-04:00

I am of an age and a once-partying bent that made unavoidable the ubiquity of Pink Floyd on any and all occasions more than just me was partying. Syd Barrett, who died a couple of days ago at 60, had long left the band he co-founded for the wonders of his frontal lobes before Floyd's *Dark Side of the Moon* was released, and that album (along with *Pepper* and *Ziggy* and *American Beauty*) was mandatory listening any time two heads congregated and a record player was available.

I'd literally have to leave the room when Floyd came on. Badtriptriggering, Floyd was, except for *The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,* perhaps the most Barrett-centric Floyd album. I've always found it ironic that it wasn't until after Barrett zoomed into his acidworld and left Floyd that Floyd's music grew too acidic for me to take when I was, erm, susceptible. And more ironic too that now, far removed from windowpanes of opportunity, I hear things in Floyd, Barrett and post-Barrett, that I totally missed then.

UPDATE: Surely, it cannot be a coincidence that this is in the paper the same day that Barrett's death is announced. Triptacular!

This calls for

2006-07-11T09:17:00.000-04:00

The Best Argument
for the Separation
of Church and State!

Made by Jack, a cracker, a good but cheating pool player, who constantly expresses opinions of deeply held moronity:

English should be the official language of America
like Arab (sic) is the official language of Islam.

2006-07-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

The best team throughout the tournament won the tournament, though they weren't the better team for much of this game. The Italians suprised me this WC. They were willing to press forward (by traditional Italian standards) throughout the WC while maintaining their defensive excellence: if you think about it, they were scored against twice, once on an own goal, a second on a PK that shouldn't have been awarded and that Zidane clanked awkwardly down and in off the crossbar (and listening to the ABOMINABLE O'Brien, ABCs shit of an announcer, try to sell that crossbar hit as proof of the genius of Zidane, as if he meant to hit the crossbar, well, STFU you pantload). And yes, Zidane had a decent chance on a header in the first overtime, but Italy had scored but been wrongly called offside late in regulation.

The only team to get a result against Italy this WC?

Do you want anyone in the world taking a set piece or corner for you other than Andrea Pirlo?

How good is it to be Fabio Grosso this morning?

And Zidane. WC champ, 17 year vet. Maybe we'll learn what, if anything inflammatory Marco Materazzi said to Zidane, but whatever Materazzi said, image is everything, and Zizou, this is your permanent, non-erasable legacy:

2006-07-09T11:24:00.000-04:00

2006-07-09T10:58:00.000-04:00

Columbus 0, DCU 1

Surprising score, yes? Not as close as some of the other 1-0 games - I thought United was crisper than recently, perhaps a result of Nowak swapping the line-up for the first time in four, five games, starting Olsen instead of Gomez and Eskandarian instead of McTavish.

Eskandarian. A month or so ago the Post had an article on Esky, saying in part that his temper is both a strength and an exploitable weakness. I don't know exactly how much latitude a referee has to interpret intent on fouls, and it could certainly be argued that Esky didn't land his elbow into the kidney of Columbus' Gonzalez and actually rupture said kidney, and it could certainly be argued that Gonzalez' display of utter physical agony was, say, dramatic, but when I saw it I thought red, if for nothing else than for being a punkass stupid thing to do. Your team is tired, you're back from injury, you've scored a brilliant free kick, you're up 0-1 on the road in the last third of the game, and you recklessly, petulantly, impulsively, idiotically throw that elbow right in front of the ref?

2006-07-08T09:21:00.001-04:00

2006-07-07T16:04:00.000-04:00

The NYT Friday has an article on the infiltration (their word) of the

military by white supremacist groups. It also reports that Aryan Nation graffiti is appearing in

Iraq

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

Remember, dominionist christers have had this strategy for years: get the kids into the military academies to create an officer class of christers. This is about the enlisted christers:

An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.
"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."

"Hunted down and 'cleansed.'" If the quotes are accurate, as a white third generation European-American, I will be spared the first round of hunting and cleansing, though I assume that's only if I mind my own business and wait quietly for the second round when they come after Liberals and atheists (who will be defined as anyone who does not believe the very same thing the man with the machine gun believes).

My tax dollars paying to train my potential and willing executioners. Sweet.

2006-07-07T09:19:00.000-04:00

FriXdaYFriXdaYFriXdaYFriXday

It was better before before they voted for whatsisname
This is supposed to be the New World

X on Letterman

X on myspace

Knitters on Letterman

Exene on myspace

2006-07-06T10:04:00.000-04:00

AARGH!

Start with "In a Young Man's Mind"

and

America is celebrating the 61th birthday of the man
who put the banana in 2nd banana
and is the the role model for The Decider!:

And, it's been a while, but Olddog Cultural Allusion Time!

On NPR's ATC yesterday, Daniel Schorr wondered,
Is there a strategy behind North Korea's actions?

Yep:

2006-07-05T17:06:00.000-04:00

Reading
(the activity, not the Home of the Royals)

Billmon

Digby

American Empire?

Seymour Hersh on the military:

In late April, the military leadership, headed by General Pace, achieved a major victory when the White House dropped its insistence that the plan for a bombing campaign include the possible use of a nuclear device to destroy Iran’s uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. The huge complex includes large underground facilities built into seventy-five-foot-deep holes in the ground and designed to hold as many as fifty thousand centrifuges. “Bush and Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “And Pace stood up to them. Then the world came back: ‘O.K., the nuclear option is politically unacceptable.’ ”

Remnick on Bushpress

Bacevich on Liberals and foreign policy

and listen to this:

Cloud Cult