Purple Fingers in Kreuzberg

It was something I just had to do and it was even more exhilarating than I had expected. Yes, I am a sucker for symbolism, but this ranks right up there with the best. In a world full of disciples of the SchadenFreudian school and partisan hacks, this was a welcome breath of sanity, fresh air and freedom. It really could be that simple and for me it was.

Luckenwalder Strasse, Kreuzberg, Berlin. For the past three days, in an old post office, hundreds of Iraqis have been voting in the first free parliamentary elections ever. This was one of four polling stations in Germany, and it was in my neighborhood. So off I went on my beloved bicycle.

While lots of folks voted on Tuesday and Wednesday, many had left it till today since they would then be voting on the same day as their compatriots in Iraq proper. Naturally, I was not allowed onto the premises, not that I wanted to gawk too much like the elections geek I really am. I can also report that security was not overdone. Luckenwalderstrasse is a side street, and while it was closed off to car traffic, passersby went about their business, scoping out the scenes around the post office.

But I could no’t contain myself and set upon a man who was just coming through the main gates. I inquired if I might ask a question and he did not object. "Yes, I have voted," he said and thrust his purple left index finger in the air with a big smile on his face. Just next to us were three women who were chatting away, all the while excitedly taking cell phone photos of themselves in front of the polling station.

ORIGINAL CAPTION: A Iraqi poll worker checks the rolls for registered voters at an election center in Baqouba, Iraq, Thursday Dec. 15, 2005. The worker's finger is stained with ink, signifying that he voted. Iraqis voted in a historic parliamentary election Thursday, with strong turnout reported in Sunni Arab areas that had shunned balloting last January, bolstering U.S. hopes of calming the insurgency enough to begin withdrawing its troops.
(AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

What many of us take for granted, and too many of us still do not have at all, universal suffrage, was today embraced by one more people. All power to the Iraqis.

jo

Subjects: iraq elections; iraq; Politics; Current Affairs; elections; Democracy; berlin

World Cup Conspiracy part I

Update: Smokin Joe in the Windy City just provided me with the Quote of the Day/Month/Year. A Serbian newspaper, BLIC, had an article headlined "Heidi Klum Has Sent Us to Hell" Once you read the post it will make sense. More links have also been added.

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I knew it, I just knew it! The World Cup Draw in Leipzig was likely some kind of nefarious conspiracy! Depending on who you ask the draw was clearly anti-Serbian, anti-Dutch, anti-Italian or even antimatter that never really happened. It was all maybe just an illusion conjured by one of the draw's stars meneer Hans Klok , the most bizarre magician since Siegfried and Roy met Vegas.

So it turns out that your trusty Swampmeister’s inability to muster an analysis on Friday night was not only explicable due to the state of aesthetic shock he went into. It was also extremely fortuitous since so much has been revealed since that day that now seems like part of the Dark Ages. There’s nothing that pulls the wooley from my eyes like a yummy conspiracy theory, dastardly embedded in a seemingly innocuous if lethally tasteless gala. For the sanitized version, please click here. But here's what really happened.

Hans 'Goldmember' Klok, second from right, seen here with Goleo, Dominatrix and two unidenitified friends





First thing’s first: the event itself was rightly labeled an extravagant display in weird and bad taste. It was set in an gigantic airplane hangar worthy of a X-Files set and featured the following high and lowlights:
Klok prancing about with his dominatrix assistant; old men slobbering all over Heidi Klum, who chatted away in AngloDeutsch; Goleo the mascot singing a song so hideous that it made me long for Barry Manilow; and an odd portrayal of a Germany without the diversity that actually exists (at least where I live.)

But obviously, these judgements are indeed a matter of taste. One moronic Swedish columnist thought he was being funny when he referred to it as “STASI torture”. I am sure Chancellor Merkel, who was watching all this with a bemused look, would have a thing or two to say to him. She grew up with the Stasi watching her every move while 'journalists' like this guy were making merry without a concern in the world. Angie, foggettaboutit, he ain’t worth it…

Anyway, this excursion into art critique is leading us away from the real story, the conspiracy and the draw that resulted from it.

Even before December 9th, rumors were flying about like confetti in the Saxonian wind. Why were the Dutch not seeded for a World Cup in Germany of all places? In 1974, Holland had a team for the ages, led by the one and only Johan Cruyff, that lost in the final to West Germany. That World Cup took place in…yes, Germany. And along the way, West Germany lost to East Germany is some kind of Brandtian Ostpolitik set-up and then beat a Swedish team that positively lusted to be put out of its misery.

Four years later, the Dutch once again found themselves in the World Cup Final against the hosts, this time against Argentina. Of course they lost in mysterious circumstances and blamed it on the military dictatorship that had staged the whole event as an Argentine version of the 1936 Olympics. (Cruyff also boycotted the event.)

And now in 2006 to make sure they don’t get anywhere close to the final, they have been placed in the same first round group with Ivory Coast, Serbia-Montenegro and…Argentina. From this ‘group of death by a thousand kicks to the shin’ only two teams will emerge.

Speaking of Serbia-Montenegro, scene of such favorite home-bred conspiracies as “The World is Out to Get Us” and “Milosevic Didn’t Do Nothing, He was out buying Kefir,” it was stuck in a draw category all on its lonesome. Not even their best friend could help them (see shocking photo below, but even I realize that he was tricked into that one, he still doesn't know what it mean.)

Instead of being put with in a bowl with other European countries, the world was forced to look at a suspicious fifth bowl with the one ball labeled Serbia and Montenegro. Allegedly this was done to ensure that there weren’t more than two European teams in each group of four, but according to Milosevic speaking from his cell in the Hague: “The world is once again denying the Serbian people their right to dominate, and by the way, did I mention that I was out buying
Kefir for the entire 1990s?”

BTW, the Serbian paper blaming Frau Klum seem to have missed that their pot only had one ball in it. So poor Heidi really had no other choice than sending them straight to hell.

But the conspiracy was finally unraveled – no thanks to Milosevic’s fulminations – by the village idiot of German, if not World, Football, Lothar Matthäus. Now retired, Matthäus is a 'coach', and is currently furthering the traditions of perennial non-qualifiers Hungary. How brilliant is Lothar? Well...Back in 2000, he was sold the Brooklyn Bridge during his ludicrously unsuccessful stint with the Major Soccer League New York-New Jersey MetroStars (he´s barely mentioned on the site.)

Believe It or Not! Lothar Matthäus, at the
time coach of Partizan Belgrade conned into giving the Fascist Chetnik salute.
Not surprising for the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge

The story goes like this: when signing his contract, the owners asked if Lothar wanted anything else. He said they should worship the ground he walked on, and they said “OK.” Upon ascertaining that Lothar believed them they offered to throw in the Brooklyn Bridge.

Our man was thrilled. Now he could close it off to traffic, and walk across alone with his beloved as the sun set over Manhattan. Unfortunately for him, this never happened and instead she left for breaking his promise and the sun set on his Broadway career instead.

So that´s Lothar. For some reason I cannot begin to fathom he was chosen to pick little balls of out of bowls during the draw. Sure, he was captain of the German World Cup Champs in 1990. But that was then and this is now, live television in the presence of Hans and Heidi!


Lord knows, why they took the risk with a well-orchestrated conspiracy at stake. A glitzy show was supposed to hypnotize us into submission, but ‘twas not to be. Perhaps there is a Watergatesque Deep Throat at work. I’ll bet it was Maradona, who was angry about not being invited just because he demanded that Fidel become head of the organizing committee.

But even if the possibility of Maradona whistleblower would not have shed light on this work of the Freemasons of Fussball. It took the slow motion replays of Italian television.Yes, it had to be Italian television for these eagle eyes are always on the lookout for the latest anti-Italian plot.

In the last World Cup, hosts South Korea had gall to knock them out of the tournament And to boot, ‘twas an Italian-based player, Ahn the David Beckham of Seoul, who scored the winner! His club fired him for the effort and the Italian media had the conspiracy they needed to explain their sorry way of playing. I was in Busan, watching that game on the big screen, surrounded by fanatical South Koreans who convinced there was no conspiracy. Guess, we were all wrong.

The television replays clearly show Lothar fumbling with the balls, and then picking Italy in order to secure them a spot in the ‘Group of Death by Defense is the Best Offense.” Italy will never emerged unscathed from their encounters with the Czechs, Ghana and the United States. The Czechs are the soccer equivalent of the Los Angeles Lakers, fast break style. Ghana rock n rolls with the best of them and will surprise the ‘experts’ in their first World Cup appearance. And the U.S. who were extremely unlucky not to beat Germany in the 2002 quarterfinals, are due for revenge match vs. Deutschland, and a pasting of the cocky Italians along the way would be a suit everybody just fine.

The PROOF! The Great Pélé eyes suspicious dealings by a
certain Lothar on December 9, 2005 in Leipzig

OK, that’s that. For other consequences of the Lothar Illuminati’s actions, just look at the eight groups of four. Germany, e.g., got the easiest of groupings, but luckily the battle vs. Poland will NOT take place in Berlin, only some one hour from the border. England is pitted against their coach’s native Sweden, which will crush them and then he’ll be fired for allegedly conspiring with his compatriots. First lesson for second-rate footballing nations: always blame someone else, especially if it’s a foreigner. Croatia, with plenty of Australian Croats will be playing an Australia with plenty of Croat Australians. A ethnic lovefest will surely ensue. But no matter, Japan and Brazil will knock them both out.

Then there’s my Tunisia. We got lucky. We’ll school Spain in Stuttgart, enjoy thrashing the House of Saud in the spectacular Munich arena and sit, back relax while coasting into the second round after playing the great Ukraine here in Berlin. In the second round, Tunisia will be taking on the aforementioned South Korea or Zidane’s France in either party-town Cologne or in Schröder´s (NEIN!) Hanover Pretzel Bakery.

Berlin will host a slew of great games, another beneficial side affect of Lothar´s shenanigans. So we’ll be hosting:

• Brazil-Croatia (my Croat pal Bingo Bob will be here with his Brazilian lady)


• Sweden –Paraguay. Viking Invasion, Zlatan and co will roast ‘em slowly!!!


• Ecuador-Germany. Cake-walk, the hosts will be through by then.


• Ukraine-Tunisia. Schevchenko playing for the newest democrats on the block.


• Quarterfinal, Germany vs. Argentina???


• And the FINAL on July 9th, 2006

One final note, and I have no idea if this is a coincidence or part of the master plan. Out of the 32 teams, not a SINGLE one is going to being stationed in former East Germany (see map.) With only one Eastern city – Berlin doesn’t count and the Olympic Stadium is in West Berlin anyway – hosting games (that’s one out of eleven,) this is causing a ruckus. And so it should.

(to be continued…)

jo

Subjects: soccer; Football; world cup; conspiracy theory; conspiracy